The Pyramids of Giza Explained

The Great Pyramids of Giza rank among the oldest monuments of Egyptian architecture, and they're even among the oldest buildings still preserved today. They were built within the necropolis of the ancient capital city of Memphis, where the fourth dynasty pharaohs ruled about 4,500 years ago. When you go and see the pyramids, overwhelms you the amount of material and the massiveness of each stone, the amount of labor that these constructions must have required. If you traveled back to 2,500 BC, the time the pyramids were built, you would see these huge white masses shining in the middle of the desert, for they had a very different finish from the one we see today. Pharaohs built the pyramids in their lifetime as their future tombs, to secure immortality by the preservation of their mummy, until the time when, according to their belief, the soul would once more return to the body. Egyptian pyramids are square in plan, and their faces are generally equilateral triangles. The sides face directly north, south, east, and west, aligning with the cycle of Ra, god of the sun. Most pyramids have their entrance on their northern side, which gives access to a passage sloping downwards to a chamber below the ground. However, each pyramid varies slightly on its design and internal distribution. The Great Pyramids of Giza are three, Cheops, Khefren, and Miserinus, each named after the pharaoh who commissioned its construction. The Pyramid of Cheops, the oldest of the three, is the largest mass of stone ever erected by man. It was originally 146 meters high, with each of its faces measuring 230 meters long. Its faces make an angle of 51 degrees with the ground. Today it is somewhat smaller than its original dimensions, as the white outer casing has disappeared. This pyramid has three internal chambers, the subterranean chamber, the queen's chamber, and the king's chamber. Due to changes of plan during the construction, the subterranean chamber was a discarded project, abandoned in favor of placing the burial chamber higher up inside the pyramid. As a result, this underground chamber appears irregular and even unfinished. Its rough walls reflect the fact that it was cut directly into the bedrock beneath the pyramid. The queen's chamber, whose name was given in modern times, probably contained a large statue of Cheops, serving as his spirit chamber, called Serdab. The king's chamber was built to contain the granite sarcophagus of the pharaoh, which you can still see inside. You can notice the change in material that was used for this chamber, indicating the importance of this room. It's all made of red granite, same as the great beam set above the chamber. Granite is a much harder stone, so it helped to transfer the tremendous weight of the pyramid around the chamber. If you look closely, you'll find two small openings inside the chamber, which are thought to be ventilation shafts that lead to the exterior of the building, although their precise function and symbolic meaning remain unclear. The passage leading to this chamber, known as the Grand Gallery, is itself a marvel of construction. A corbel vault rises 8.5 meters vertically, creating an impressive corridor that contrasts with the 1 meter high corridor you have to go through before reaching the Grand Gallery. It can be challenging to go through this corridor, but upon reaching the Grand Gallery, you feel the cool air flowing inside the pyramid. When entering the Grand Pyramid, you access not through the original entrance made by the Egyptians, but through a tunnel that was excavated in the Middle Ages by a caliph called Al-Mamun. His men didn't know where the original entrance was located because it was sealed, and much of the pyramid's surface was still covered with its original white casing, but they knew where to look. The new pyramids have their entrances on the north side, and they opened the tunnel in the center, at a height they assumed would intersect the internal system. The tunnel was carved using simple tools available during the medieval period, which is why you can distinguish the rough, hasty, and uneven tunnel from the neat, smooth, original passageways of the pyramid. By chance, their tunnel intersected the descending passage, which leads to the internal chambers. When they entered, they found the chambers empty. No treasure and no mummy. Since the main entrance was still sealed, it is likely that the pyramid was robbed in antiquity, shortly after the pyramid was finished, as people still knew the internal layout, the location of the hidden mechanisms, and how sealing systems worked. So the robbers were most probably ancient Egyptians. The second largest pyramid is that of Khifran, easily recognizable by its upper section, which still preserves its original casing, giving you an idea of the powerful appearance that these pyramids once had. The pyramid of Khifran rose to a height of 143 meters, and each side measures 215 meters at the base. Though smaller in its base, the height is very close to that of Cheops's pyramid because of its steeper slope of 53 degrees. If you visit the site, you might get the impression that this is the tallest of the three pyramids, but that's because it's built on a higher ground than that of Cheops. For some reason, this pyramid has two northern entrances, one leading through a subterranean passageway and the other through the stonework, both leading to a single underground tomb chamber. This pyramid was first opened in 1818 by Italian explorer Giovanni Battista Belzoni, who found the original entrance. In the 19th century, the pyramids were much more stripped from their original casing, and Belzoni, who knew the entrance was somewhere in the northern face, noticed a horizontal gap in the masonry of the base with a slightly different stone dressing. This anomaly marked the entrance corridor. Belzoni excavated directly into the blockage instead of excavating blindly like the medieval caliph in the other pyramid. He entered and found the chamber empty, so this pyramid was likely also robbed very early during the Old Kingdom of Egypt. Belzoni inscribed in the wall Scoperta da Giovanni Belzoni, 2 marzo 1818, which is Italian for Discovered by Giovanni Belzoni, March 2nd, 1818. Belzoni found an empty granite sarcophagus at the end of the chamber, which has a gabled roof made with massive limestone beams. The Pyramid of Mycerinus is considerably smaller than the other two, and it also conserves part of its original casing, which, as you can see, is different from the other two. This one had a granite casing on the bottom half and limestone on the top. Like the other two, this pyramid was robbed in antiquity, and the first documented entry by European explorers in the 1830s found the chambers empty. As in the others, the entrance is on the north side, and here you enter through the granite casing and walk down through a narrow corridor that's about 30 meters long. The pyramids weren't made for modern tourists to go up and down all the time, so it is difficult to navigate. At the end of the initial descending passage, you reach a first small chamber that has a few patterned carvings on the walls. These imitate the vernacular architecture of an Egyptian house, as this is probably a room where the statue of the pharaoh was located. As in Cheops's pyramid, this one has a system of granite blocks that would fall on this room to seal the entrance. After the second small corridor, you reach a larger chamber with an access to the underground main chamber. You descend another small passage and enter the chamber, which has a granite curved vault covered in graffiti. Graffiti inside pyramids was very common in the 19th century. Early explorers and travelers often left their initials on walls. Mycenae's sarcophagus is said to have been beautifully crafted from black basalt with rich detail, but unfortunately was taken by the British and lost in a shipwreck on its way to Britain. The pyramids were laid out on the bedrock, which is a solid layer of limestone that lies underneath the sand of the desert. This bedrock was leveled to provide a stable foundation to receive the weight of the massive structures. For the most part, local limestone was used for the construction of the pyramids, except for the casing, for which a finer limestone was brought from the opposite side of the river, and for the granite used primarily for the linings of some of the chambers and passages as it is a much harder stone. The granite was transported down the Nile from Aswan in the south of Egypt. So each pyramid had a limestone core faced with a finer limestone that was polished for a smooth white finish, that reflected the rays of the sun. The apex stone, called pyramidion, was probably gilded with an alloy of gold and silver, although there is not enough evidence to confirm this. These capstones were made of finer materials because the pyramids were associated with Ra, the sun, and they were meant to reflect the sunlight connecting Earth and Heaven. The pyramids were not isolated structures, but rather they were the main part of a funerary complex. Composed by the tomb proper, which is the pyramid itself, a mortuary temple located on the east of the pyramid at its foot, which served for veneration and offerings to the dead, a long causeway, and a valley temple, where the corpse was received for purification and mummification. A canal was built connecting the river Nile with a valley temple, by which the funeral procession arrived. Egyptian architecture is all about the procession. Procession is the protagonist in Egyptian architecture, and you can clearly see this notion of movement governed by the axes in the way the pyramid complex is laid out. The causeways are not parallel, and the causeway repeats the direction of the pyramid itself only in the Mycenaean complex. Surrounding the pyramids, a city of mastabas is disposed. A mastaba was a type of Egyptian tomb structure, characterized by its rectangular shape with a flat roof and sloping sides. Mastabas typically have a shaft and an underground chamber for burial, and a small room for offerings on the ground level. They are often decorated with inscriptions and reliefs inside, and a false door carved in the wall that represents the passageway into the afterlife for the deceased. The smaller pyramids were built for the burial of royal family members, and the mastabas were for nobles, priests, and court officials. They were buried near the pharaoh because they believed that proximity to him would ensure a more favorable journey to the afterlife. Situated in front of the Great Pyramids, at the entrance of the complex, is the Great Sphinx of Giza. Its site used to be a stone quarry from where much of the limestone used for the pyramids' construction was extracted, and it was carved from a natural spur of rock to resemble a sphinx, with rough masonry added in parts. An Egyptian sphinx had the head of a king or a ram on the body of a lion. They were often placed at the entrance of temples, and their role was to protect sacred places. The Sphinx of Giza bears the face of Khephren, the pharaoh who built the Second Pyramid, wearing the royal headdress, the false beard, and cobra-brow ornament, symbols of divinity and kingship. Between the posts, there is a large granite stele that records the restoration made to the sphinx by Thutmose IV in the 1400s BC. The sphinx is about 70 meters long and 20 meters high in its highest point. Its face is 4 meters wide and its mouth is over 2 meters long. Although greatly mutilated, especially in the nose, it is still a marvel as it has been throughout the ages. It is thought that it was carved to guard the complex of Khephren, but much about its construction and date is still a mystery and probably ever will be. If you compare other ancient Egyptian funerary complexes, you may notice that there is a lack of articulation and decoration in the whole Giza complex. Take a look at Saqqara, for example, possibly the oldest pyramid complex in Egypt. Here, you have columns articulating surfaces, most of them decorated with papyrus and lotus capitals. Some of them have fluting, imitating a bundle of reeds from the river. And you have statues, reliefs and hieroglyphic inscriptions on the walls of buildings. These articulating details and decorations have been abolished in the Giza complex. You see square monolithic pillars and lintels in the valley temples. There is no relief decoration nor hieroglyphic inscriptions, even inside the pyramids. Not even the sarcophagus has a single inscription. All to strengthen the effect of the smooth surfaces and pure geometric shapes. The spaces appear as if they were excavated within large masses of stone. The Giza complex represents extreme simplicity and abstraction. No ornament, smooth surface, pure geometric shapes and clear orthogonal space, strengthening the mass, the clarity of form and the feeling of permanence and eternity. Even though interior spaces exist, they feel like they are cut out from solid stone. The building feels more like a single mass rather than a collection of rooms. The pyramid is the expression of massive building. It's the peak of Egyptian concern with durability and eternity. The impression given to the mind of the spectator is that these buildings were erected for eternity. The remains have a character of immense solidity. The pyramids are the most extravagant of all ancient buildings in many ways. Thanks for watching, I hope you enjoyed and learned. Please like this video, subscribe to my channel and if you like these videos, you can watch longer versions of them if you join as a channel member. There I explain a lot more details, more about the construction of the pyramids and more mysterious things about the Giza complex and other places. Thank you for watching and I'll see you very soon in another episode. Goodbye!