Year of construction of the Cheops pyramid. Message about the pyramid of Cheops. Current state of affairs and appearance after the disappearance of the cladding

- Oh Osiris, I don’t want to die!

-Who wants it? - Osiris shrugged.

“But I... I’m still a pharaoh!.. Listen,” Cheops whispered, “I will sacrifice one hundred thousand slaves to you.”

1. Just allow me to immortalize my life alone!
- One hundred thousand? And are you sure that they will all die during construction?
- Rest assured. Such a pyramid as I conceived... - Well, if so... Perpetuate it, I don’t mind.
The Pyramid of Cheops
Nobody remembers Cheops alive. Everyone only remembers him when he is dead. He was dead a hundred, a thousand, and three thousand years ago and always, always will be dead - the pyramid immortalized his death.
What is called the first wonder of the world?
The smaller pyramids further south were probably intended for the wives of rulers and were left unfinished.

2. How was the Cheops pyramid built?

Its height is 146.6 m, which approximately corresponds to a fifty-story skyscraper. The base area is 230x230 m. In such a space, five of the largest cathedrals in the world could easily fit simultaneously: St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome, St. Paul's Cathedral and Westminster Abbey in London, as well as the Florence and Milan cathedrals. From the building stone used for the construction of the Cheops pyramid, it would be possible to build all the churches in Germany created in our millennium. The young pharaoh Cheops gave the order to build the pyramid immediately after the death of his father Snofru. Like all previous pharaohs since the time of Djoser (approximately 2609 -2590 BC), Cheops wanted to be buried after his death in a pyramid.
The ivory statue of Pharaoh Cheops is the only surviving image of the pharaoh. On the head of Cheops is the crown of the Ancient Egyptian kingdom, in his hand is a ceremonial fan.
Like his predecessors, he believed that his pyramid should surpass all other pyramids in size, splendor and luxury. But before the first of the more than two million blocks that made up the pyramid was cut from a quarry at east coast Nila, complex preparatory work was carried out. First, it was necessary to find a suitable site for the construction of the pyramid. The weight of the huge structure is 6,400,000 tons, so the soil had to be strong enough so that the pyramid would not sink into the ground under its own weight. The construction site was chosen south of the modern Egyptian capital Cairo, on a ledge of a plateau in the desert seven kilometers west of the village of Giza. This strong rocky platform was able to support the weight of the pyramid.
First, the surface of the site was leveled. To do this, a waterproof rampart of sand and stones was built around it. In the resulting square, a dense network of small channels intersecting at right angles was cut out, so that the site looked like a huge chessboard. The channels were filled with water, the height of the water level was marked on the side walls, and then the water was drained. The stonemasons cut down everything that protruded above the surface of the water, and the channels were again filled with stone. The base of the pyramid was ready.
Over 4,000 people - artists, architects, stonemasons and other artisans - carried out these preparatory work for about ten years. Only after this could the construction of the pyramid itself begin. According to the Greek historian Herodotus (490 - 425 BC), construction continued for another twenty years, about 100,000 people worked on the construction of the huge tomb of Cheops. Only on radishes, onions and garlic, which were added to the food of construction workers, 1600 talents were spent, i.e. approximately $20 million. Data on the number of workers are questioned by many modern researchers. In their opinion, there would simply not be enough space on the construction site for so many people: more than 8,000 people would not be able to work productively without interfering with each other.
Herodotus, who visited Egypt in 425 BC, wrote: “The method used was to build in steps, or as some call it, in rows or terraces. When the foundation was completed, the blocks for the next row above the foundation were raised from the main level with devices made from short wooden levers; on this first row there was another one that raised the blocks one level higher, so step by step the blocks were raised more and more. Higher and higher. Each row or level had its own set of mechanisms of the same type, which easily moved loads from level to level. The completion of the pyramid began at the top with the highest level, continued down, and ended with the lowest levels closest to the ground."
During the construction of the pyramid, Egypt was rich country. Every year from the end of June to November, the Nile overflowed its banks and flooded the adjacent fields with its waters, leaving on them a thick layer of silt that turned the dry desert sand into fertile soil. Therefore, in favorable years it was possible to harvest up to three harvests a year - grain, fruits and vegetables. So, from June to November, the peasants could not work in their fields. And they were glad when every year in mid-June the pharaoh’s scribe appeared in their village, compiling lists of those willing to work on the construction of the pyramid.

3. Who worked on the construction of the pyramid?
Almost everyone wanted this work, which means it was not forced labor, but voluntary labor. This was explained by two reasons: each construction participant received housing, clothing, food and a modest salary during work. Four months later, when the waters of the Nile receded from the fields, the peasants returned to their villages.

In addition, every Egyptian considered it his natural duty and a matter of honor to participate in the construction of the pyramid for the pharaoh. After all, everyone who contributed to the accomplishment of this grandiose task hoped that a piece of the immortality of the god-like pharaoh would touch him too. Therefore, at the end of June, endless streams of peasants flocked to Giza. There they were housed in temporary barracks and grouped into groups of eight. Work could begin. Having sailed on boats to the other side of the Nile, the men headed to the quarry. There they cut down block of stone, they trimmed it using sledgehammers, wedges, saws and drills and obtained a block of the required size - with sides from 80 cm to 1.45 m. Using ropes and levers, each group installed its block on wooden runners and dragged it along the log flooring. to the banks of the Nile. The sailboat transported workers and a block weighing up to 7.5 tons to the other side.

4. What job was the most dangerous?
The stone was dragged along roads lined with logs to the construction site. Here came the hardest work, since cranes and other lifting devices had not yet been invented. Along an inclined entrance 20 m wide, built of bricks from Nile silt, runners with a stone block were pulled with the help of ropes and levers to the upper platform of the pyramid under construction. There, workers laid the block in the place indicated by the architect with millimeter precision. The higher the pyramid rose, the longer and steeper the entrance became and the more and more the upper working platform became smaller. Therefore, the work became more and more difficult.
Then came the turn of the most dangerous work: laying the “pyramidon” - an upper block nine meters high, dragged upward along an inclined entrance. We don’t know how many people died doing just this work. So, twenty years later, the construction of the pyramid body was completed, which consists of 128 layers of stone and is four meters higher than Strasbourg Cathedral. By this time, the pyramid looked much the same as it looks now: it was a stepped mountain. However, the work did not end there: the steps were filled with stones, so that the surface of the pyramid became, although not completely smooth, but without protrusions. To complete the work, the four triangular outer faces of the pyramid were lined with slabs of dazzling white limestone. The edges of the slabs were fitted so precisely that it was impossible to insert even a knife blade between them. Even from a distance of several meters, the pyramid gave the impression of a giant monolith. The outer slabs were polished to a mirror finish using the hardest grinding stones. According to eyewitnesses, in the sun or moonlight the tomb of Cheops sparkled mysteriously, like a huge crystal glowing from within.

5. What's inside the Cheops pyramid?
The Cheops pyramid does not consist entirely of stone. Inside it there is an extensive system of passages, which through a large passage 47 m long, the so-called large gallery, leads to the pharaoh's chamber - a room 10.5 m long, 5.3 m wide and 5.8 m high. It is entirely lined with granite, but not decorated with any ornament. There is a large empty granite sarcophagus without a lid. The sarcophagus was brought here during construction, since it does not go into any of the passages of the pyramid. There are such chambers of the pharaohs in almost all Egyptian pyramids, they served last refuge pharaoh.
There are no inscriptions or decorations inside the Cheops pyramid, with the exception of a small portrait in the passage leading to the Queen's chamber. This image resembles a photograph on a stone. On the outer walls of the pyramid there are numerous curvilinear grooves of large and small sizes, in which, at a certain lighting angle, one can discern an image 150 meters high - a portrait of a man, apparently one of the deities of Ancient Egypt. This image is surrounded by other images (the trident of the Atlanteans and Scythians, a bird-plane, plans of stone buildings, pyramid rooms), texts, individual letters, large signs resembling a flower bud, etc. On the north side of the pyramid there is a portrait of a man and a woman with their heads bowed towards each other. These enormous images were painted just a few years before the main pyramid was completed and installed in 2630 BC. top stone.
Inside the Cheops pyramid there are three burial chambers, located one above the other. The construction of the first chamber was not completed. It is carved into the bedrock. To get into it, you need to overcome 120 m of a narrow descending corridor. The first burial chamber is connected to the second by a horizontal corridor 35 m long and 1.75 m high. The second chamber is called the “queen’s chamber,” although according to the ritual the wives of the pharaohs were buried in separate small pyramids.
The queen's chamber is surrounded by legends. A legend is associated with it, according to which the pyramid was the main temple of a certain Supreme Deity, a place where ancient secret religious rites were held. Somewhere in the depths of the pyramid lives an unknown creature with the face of a lion, who holds in his hands the seven keys of Eternity. No one can see it except those who have undergone special rites of preparation and purification. Only to them did the Great Priest reveal the secret Divine Name. A person who owns the secret of a name becomes equal in his magical power the pyramid itself. The main sacrament of initiation took place in the royal chamber. There, the candidate, tied to a special cross, was placed in a huge sarcophagus. The person accepting initiation was, as it were, in the gap between the material world and the divine world, inaccessible to human consciousness.
From the beginning of the horizontal corridor, another one goes up, about 50 m long and more than 8 m high. At the end of it there is a horizontal passage leading to the pharaoh’s burial chamber, trimmed with granite, in which the sarcophagus is placed. In addition to the burial chambers, voids and ventilation shafts were discovered in the pyramid. However, the purpose of many rooms and various void channels is not fully understood. One of these rooms is a room where on a table there is an open book about the history and achievements of the country during the period of completion of the pyramid.
The purpose of the underground structures at the foot of the Cheops pyramid is also unclear. Some of them were opened in different time. In one of the underground structures in 1954, archaeologists found the oldest ship on Earth - a wooden boat called solar, 43.6 m long, disassembled into 1224 parts. It was built of cedar without a single nail and, as evidenced by the traces of silt preserved on it, before the death of Cheops it was still floating on the Nile.

6. How was the pharaoh buried?
After death, the carefully embalmed body of the ruler was placed in the burial chamber of the pyramid. The internal organs of the deceased were placed in special hermetic vessels, the so-called canopies, which were placed next to the sarcophagus in the burial chamber. So, the mortal remains of the pharaoh found their last earthly refuge in the pyramid, and the “ka” of the deceased left the tomb. “Ka,” according to Egyptian ideas, was considered something like a person’s double, his “second self,” which left the body at the moment of death and could move freely between the earthly and the afterlife. Having left the burial chamber, the “ka” rushed to the top of the pyramid along its outer lining, which was so smooth that no mortal could move on it. The father of the pharaohs, the sun god Ra, was already there in his solar boat, in which the deceased pharaoh began his journey to immortality.
Recently, some scientists have expressed doubt that the Great Pyramid was really the tomb of Pharaoh Cheops. They put forward three arguments in favor of this assumption:
The burial chamber, contrary to the customs of that time, does not have any decorations.
The sarcophagus in which the body of the deceased pharaoh was supposed to rest was only roughly hewn, i.e. not completely ready; the cover is missing.
And finally, two narrow passages through which air from outside penetrates into the burial chamber through small holes in the body of the pyramid. But the dead do not need air - here is another weighty argument in favor of the fact that the Cheops pyramid was not a burial place.
7. Who was the first to penetrate the Cheops pyramid?
The entrance to the Cheops pyramid was originally located on the north side, at the level of the 13th row of granite slabs. It is now closed. You can get inside the pyramid through a hole left by ancient robbers.
For more than 3,500 years, the interior of the Great Pyramid was not disturbed by anyone: all the entrances to it were carefully walled up, and the tomb itself, according to the Egyptians, was guarded by spirits ready to kill anyone who tried to penetrate it.
That is why the robbers appeared here much later. The first person to penetrate inside the Cheops pyramid was Caliph Abdallah al-Mamun (813-833 AD), son of Harun al-Rashid. He dug a tunnel to the burial chamber in the hope of finding treasure there, as in other tombs of the pharaohs. But he found nothing except the droppings of the bats that lived there, the layer of which on the floor and walls reached 28 cm. After this, the interest of robbers and treasure hunters in the Cheops pyramid disappeared. But they were replaced by other robbers. In 1168 after R. Chr. part of Cairo was burned and completely destroyed by the Arabs, who did not want it to fall into the hands of the crusaders. When the Egyptians later began rebuilding their city, they removed the shiny white slabs that covered the outside of the pyramid and used them to build new houses. Even now these slabs can be seen in many mosques in the old part of the city. All that remains of the former pyramid is the stepped building - this is how it now appears before the admiring eyes of tourists. Along with the cladding, the pyramid also lost its top, the pyramidon, and the upper layers of masonry. Therefore, now its height is no longer 144.6 m, but 137.2 m. Today, the top of the pyramid is a square with sides of approximately 10 m. This site in 1842 became the venue for unusual festivities. The Prussian king Frederick William IV, known for his love of art, sent an expedition to the Nile Valley led by archaeologist Richard Lepsius to acquire ancient Egyptian art objects and other exhibits for the Egyptian Museum being created in Berlin (it was opened in 1855).

Powerful, surrounded by mystery... - this is the pyramid of Cheops that stood for 4500 years

The Pyramid of Cheops short message will tell you a lot useful information about the only wonder of the world that has survived to this day.

Message about the Cheops pyramid

How old is the Cheops pyramid?

The largest pyramid of the Egyptian complex, Giza is a true embodiment of royal ambitions. Its author was the vizier and nephew of the pharaoh Hemion, who was also an architect. The structure was built in 2540 BC. And construction began much earlier, around 2560 BC.

To build in Giza Great Pyramid it was necessary to deliver more than 2 million huge stones. The weight of the blocks reached tens of tons. Granite blocks were delivered from a quarry located 1000 km from the construction site. The construction site was also not chosen in vain. So that Cheops, weighing 6.4 million tons, would not sink under its own weight, it was decided to build it on rocky, solid soil in Giza. Scientists from all over the world still cannot understand how the stones were transported and how the Cheops pyramid was built.

How was the Cheops pyramid built?

Nowadays, the technology of building pyramids is controversial. To obtain a stone block, the future shape was first outlined in the rock. Then they hollowed out small ditches and inserted dry wood into them. The tree was doused with water until it expanded and formed a crack in the rock. This was the only way to separate the block. Then it was processed with tools to the desired shape and sent along the river to the construction site.

To raise the block upward, the ancient Egyptians used gentle embankments. The megalith was dragged along them by wooden sleighs to the required height. After the construction of the pyramid, they worked on the interior decoration: painting the walls, filling the royal tomb, and so on. It is noteworthy that initially the Cheops pyramid was completely covered with smooth white facing material, which was delivered from the other bank of the Nile.

Description of the Cheops pyramid

The Pyramid of Cheops has the shape of a regular quadrangular pyramid. The base of the building occupies an area of 53 thousand m2. The length of the base is 230 m, the length of the side edge is 230 m, the side surface area is 85.5 thousand m 2. The original height of the Cheops pyramid was 147 m (like a 50-story building), and today it is 138 m. Over thousands of years, earthquakes have brought down the stone top of the structure. The smooth facing stone of the outer walls was crumbling.

The entrance to the pyramid is located on the north side. Initially, it was located at a height of 16 m, sealed with a granite plug. Modern tourists enter the interior through a huge gap 10 m below, which was left by the Arabs in 1820 (Caliph Abdullah al-Mamun tried to find treasures).

Inside Cheops there are 3 tombs, one above the other. At the base of the rock is the lowest, underground chamber. Above it were the burial chambers of the queen and pharaoh. The Grand Gallery leads up to them. The pyramid is equipped with a complex system of shafts and corridors, the plan of which has not yet been fully studied. It has many secret doors and other design features.

It is believed that the Great Pyramid served as an astronomical observatory for the ancient Egyptians. Its ventilation ducts and corridors accurately point to stars such as Thuban, Sirius and Alnitak.
In Egypt, the date of the start of construction of the Cheops pyramid is officially celebrated on August 23, 2480 BC. e.
The top of the pyramid was previously crowned with a gilded pyramid-shaped stone.
Near the pyramid, archaeologists found pits with ancient Egyptian cedar boats, made without the use of fasteners and nails. It was disassembled into 1224 parts for better transportation. Restorer Ahmed Yussuf Mustafa spent 14 years putting it back together.

We hope that the Cheops Pyramid report helped you learn a lot of useful information about this ancient Egyptian structure. You can add a short story about the Cheops pyramid using the comment form below.

Therefore, this article will present only the main general facts and figures relating to the Great Pyramid as a whole.

Date of construction and geometric dimensions

According to generally accepted opinion, the Great Pyramid was built in the 2560-2580s BC as a tomb for the reigning pharaoh of the IV dynasty, Cheops (Khufu). Despite some difficulties in explaining the possibility of its construction in the required time frame using the technology available at that time, this version is nevertheless considered the main one and has quite numerous confirmations in the form of inscriptions discovered inside the Pyramid and the Pit of the Solar Boat with it.

The Pyramid of Cheops is the largest of the Egyptian pyramids.

Height (today): ≈ 138.75 m
Height (original): ≈ 146.5 m
Angle: 51° 50"
Side length (original): 230.33 m (calculated) or about 440 Royal cubits
Side length (currently): about 225 m
The length of the sides of the base of the pyramid: south - 230.454 m; north - 230.253 m; west - 230.357 m; east - 230.394 m.
Foundation area (initially): ≈ 53,000 m² (5.3 ha)
Area of the pyramid: (initially) ≈ 85,500 m²
Perimeter: 922 m.
Total volume of the pyramid without deducting the cavities inside the pyramid (initially): ≈ 2.58 million m³
Total volume of the pyramid, after subtracting all known cavities (initially): 2.50 million m³
The average size of the observed stone blocks of rough masonry: 1.27 m in width and depth, 71 cm in height (according to Petrie)
Average weight of rough masonry stone blocks: 2.5 t
The heaviest stone block of rough masonry: 15 t
Heaviest stone block (known; granite; above the entrance to the King's Chamber): 90 t
Number of blocks: about 2.5 million (provided that the pyramid is not a backfill type)
Estimated total weight of the pyramid: about 6.25 million tons (possibly about 6 million tons according to microgravimetry)
The base of the pyramid rests on a natural rocky elevation in the center (in the Grotto area) more than 9 m high.
Materials used in construction (from known ones): limestone from the Giza Plateau - rough masonry, Tour white limestone - interior walls, ventilation shafts and external cladding, Aswan granite - Antechamber, King's Chamber, unloading chambers (partially), plugs; Sinai - sarcophagus. Quartz sand was also found inside.
The pyramidion of the pyramid was not found, nor were its fastening stones.
The True Entrance is located traditionally, i.e., on the north side. He is the only one known.

Difference in thickness of pyramid masonry layers

Despite the fact that the pyramid is built in layers, the thickness of the layers is different and varies from 60 cm to one and a half meters.

The reasons for this are not exactly known, there are several hypotheses, the simplest one says that large blocks were laid in eras when there was an excess amount of labor for laying layers of rough masonry. Which may be connected, for example, with its release after the completion of a certain labor-intensive stage in the construction of some complex internal infrastructure or a season for the procurement of blocks, etc. The scheme requires careful analysis.

Current state of affairs and appearance after the disappearance of the cladding

The Great Pyramid now has edges concave inward. This often gives rise to various theories and speculations, but it should be remembered that the structure has lost several meters of cladding on each side, and the nature of its looting for stone does not give reason to believe that the original faces were not flat.

Perhaps the observed picture is simply a consequence of the most profitable extraction of stone.

Question about using the pyramid for its intended purpose

Since ancient times, the question has been acutely raised: was the Cheops pyramid used for its intended purpose? There is still no clear answer to this question. On the one hand, there is almost complete confidence that the pyramid was completely completed by the builders. On the other hand, what we see inside it, for example, a sarcophagus in the King’s Chamber that is clearly not of the best quality, an unfinished floor in the Queen’s Chamber, or a picture of complete incompleteness in the Underground Chamber - everything suggests that the pharaoh in these famous premises could hardly have been buried at all. Herodotus also claimed that Cheops was buried in another place, on an island surrounded on all sides by water. On the third hand, traces of obvious hacking of the plugs and dampers of the Antechamber indicate that for some reason the pyramid was carefully sealed. The official point of view of science on this matter suggests that the burglars visited the pyramid no later than the first 500-600 years from the moment of its construction. But what they found, who they were and whether they found anything at all is completely unknown. In the volume of the Great Pyramid, the volume of all known and explored rooms is less than 1 percent, and it is already known that in addition to the explored ones, there are several unknown sealed rooms in it.

Blocks and Quarries

Egyptologists believe that the Pyramids of Giza were built from natural stone, which was quarried from three quarries. The actual construction of the pyramids is made of nummulitic limestone of the Mokattam formation. The quarries were located in close proximity to the pyramids. The lower parts of the pyramids of Khafre and Mikerin were lined with granite from the Aswan quarry, which is located in Southern Egypt at a distance of 934 kilometers along the Nile (700 kilometers in a straight line). Several rows of granite cladding have been preserved at the pyramid of Mikerin. Middle and upper parts of two great pyramids were lined with limestone from the Tours quarry, which is located on the eastern bank of the Nile south of Cairo at a distance of 13-17 kilometers from the pyramids. The number of pyramid facing blocks (granite and limestone) that have reached us is relatively small. Therefore, we can simply agree that stone from the Tours and Aswan quarries was used in the construction of the pyramids. The opinion that the pyramids were built from nummulitic limestone does not fully correspond to reality. The lower rows of the pyramids are made of hard limestone from the Moqattam formation. Higher up, blocks of soft limestone, which do not contain nummulites, predominate. It is fundamentally. That is, when describing the blocks of pyramids in specialized literature, it seems to remain “behind the scenes” that most of them are carved out of soft limestone.

The bottom rows of the pyramids (approximately 1-7/10 rows) are made of blocks cut from solid limestone. The first row of the Cheops pyramid (thickness 1.5 m) is carved from a layer of strong limestone, which has the greatest thickness - 1.5 m. The upper rows of the pyramids are dominated by blocks cut from soft limestone (or cast blocks indistinguishable from them - this statement requires evidence, Supervisor 03:05, 22 May 2011 (UTC)). When developing the quarry, it was necessary to fulfill one condition: the time that elapsed from the opening of soft limestones to the cutting of building blocks from them should be minimal. That is, soft limestones had to be cut into blocks before they hardened from contact with air. In addition, after cutting the soft limestone blocks, it took some time for them to harden and not crumble during transportation. The cyclical nature of quarry development meets these requirements. Its site was being developed, the area of which was approximately 1.5 times larger than the area of the row of blocks where the construction of the pyramid was stopped. The blocks were cut from layers of hard and soft limestone and stored “layer by layer,” that is, according to their vertical dimensions. After all the limestone had been removed from the area, its laying into the body of the pyramid began. The order of laying blocks of different thicknesses (and, accordingly, different weights) was determined by the ratio of labor costs for lifting them. This ensured that the rows of blocks were ranked according to their thickness.

Base of the pyramid

The rocky base of the Cheops pyramid, according to modern calculations, occupies 23% of the volume of the pyramid, or about 600,000 cubic meters. The minimum figures were obtained by determining the height of the rock in terms of an average level of 12.5 meters. But the authors of the study do not exclude the possibility of using an average height of 20 meters. In any case new geological exploration work is required to clarify these data. A revision of most old works with calculations of the stone used during construction is also required. In addition, there are estimates of 10-12% of the volume of the pyramid, which is occupied by the mortar holding the blocks together.

The directions to the north of the side faces were kept so precisely that due to the sphericity of the Earth and the colossal size of the Pyramid, its northern side turned out to be 20 cm shorter than the southern one. (the exact dimensions of the pyramid are known from the preserved pits of the supporting corner stones)

Sources

[http://supernovum.ru/public/index.php?doc=171 | Mining and geological aspect of the technology of construction of the pyramids of Giza]

[http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/31/95/86/PDF/PyramidsSR.pdf Geological and Geomorphological study of the original hill at the base of Fourth Dynasty Egyptian monuments.]

History of the construction of the Cheops pyramid

The construction of the pyramid began around 2560 BC. The architect was Hemion, the nephew of Pharaoh Cheops, who managed all the construction projects of the Old Kingdom at that time. The construction of the Cheops pyramid took at least 20 years, and, according to various estimates, more than one hundred thousand people were involved. The project required a herculean effort: workers extracted blocks for construction elsewhere, in the rocks, delivered them along the river and lifted them along an inclined plane to the top of the pyramid on wooden sleds. To build the Cheops pyramid, more than 2.5 million granite and limestone blocks were needed, and at the very top a gilded stone was installed, which gave the entire cladding the color of the sun's rays. But in the 2nd century, when the Arabs destroyed Cairo, local residents dismantled the entire cladding of the pyramid to build their houses.

For almost three millennia, the Cheops pyramid occupied the first place on Earth in height, giving the palm only in 1300 to Lincoln Cathedral. Now the height of the pyramid is 138 m, it has decreased by 8 m compared to the original one, and the base area is more than 5 hectares.

The Pyramid of Cheops is revered local residents as a shrine, and every year on August 23, Egyptians celebrate the day its construction began. No one knows why August was chosen, because there are no historical facts No evidence has been found to confirm this.

The structure of the Cheops pyramid

Inside the Cheops pyramid, the three burial chambers, which are located one above the other along a strict vertical, are of greatest interest. The lowest one remained unfinished, the second belongs to the pharaoh’s wife, and the third belongs to Cheops himself.

To travel along the corridors, for the convenience of tourists, paths with steps were laid, railings were made and lighting was installed.

Cross section of the Cheops pyramid

1. Main entrance
2. The entrance made by al-Mamun
3. Crossroads, “traffic jam” and the al-Mamun tunnel made “bypass”
4. Descending corridor
5. Unfinished underground chamber
6. Rising corridor

7. “Queen’s chamber” with outgoing “air ducts”
8. Horizontal tunnel

10. Pharaoh's chamber with “air ducts”
11. Prechamber
12. Grotto

Entrance to the pyramid

The entrance to the Cheops pyramid is an arch formed from stone slabs, and is located on the north side, at a height of 15 m 63 cm. Previously, it was filled with a granite plug, but it has not survived to this day. In 820, Caliph Abdullah al-Mamun decided to find treasure in the pyramid and made a seventeen-meter gap 10 meters below the historical entrance. The Baghdad ruler found nothing, but today tourists enter the pyramid through this tunnel.

When al-Mamun made his passage, a fallen block of limestone blocked the entrance to another corridor - an ascending one, and behind the limestone there were three more granite plugs. Since a vertical tunnel was discovered at the junction of two corridors, descending and ascending, it was assumed that granite plugs were lowered down through it in order to seal the tomb after the funeral of the Egyptian king.

Funeral "pit"

The descending corridor, which is 105 meters long, descends underground at an inclination of 26° 26’46 and abuts another corridor 8.9 m long, leading to chamber 5 and located horizontally. There is an unfinished chamber measuring 14 x 8.1 m, running east to west in shape. For a long time it was believed that there were no other rooms in the pyramid except this corridor and chamber, but it turned out differently. The height of the chamber reaches 3.5 m. At the southern wall of the chamber there is a well about 3 m deep, from which a narrow manhole (0.7 × 0.7 m in cross-section) stretches southward for 16 m, ending in a dead end.

At the beginning of the 19th century, engineers John Shae Perring and Richard William Howard Vyse dismantled the floor of the chamber and dug a well 11.6 m deep, in which they hoped to discover a hidden burial chamber. They were based on the testimony of Herodotus, who claimed that the body of Cheops was located on an island surrounded by a canal in a hidden underground chamber. Their excavations came to nothing. Later studies showed that the chamber was abandoned unfinished, and it was decided to build the burial chambers in the center of the pyramid itself.

Interior of the burial pit, photo from 1910

Ascending Corridor and Queen's Chambers

From the first third of the descending passage (18 m from the main entrance), an ascending passage (6) about 40 m long, ending at the bottom of the Great Gallery (9), goes up at the same angle of 26.5° to the south.

At its beginning, the ascending passage contains 3 large cubic granite “plugs”, which from the outside, from the descending passage, were masked by a block of limestone that fell out during the work of al-Mamun. It turned out that for almost 3 thousand years scientists were sure that there were no other rooms in the Great Pyramid other than the descending passage and the underground chamber. Al-Ma'mun was unable to break through these plugs and simply carved out a bypass to the right of them in the softer limestone.

In the middle of the ascending passage, the design of the walls has a peculiarity: in three places the so-called “frame stones” are installed - that is, the passage, square along its entire length, pierces through three monoliths. The purpose of these stones is unknown.

A horizontal corridor 35 m long and 1.75 m high leads to the second burial chamber from the lower part of the Great Gallery in a southerly direction. It is traditionally called the “Queen’s Chamber,” although according to the ritual, the wives of the pharaohs were buried in separate small pyramids. The Queen's Chamber, lined with limestone, measures 5.74 meters from east to west and 5.23 meters from north to south; its maximum height is 6.22 meters. There is a high niche in the eastern wall of the chamber.

Grotto, Grand Gallery and Pharaoh's Chambers

Another branch from the lower part of the Great Gallery is a narrow, almost vertical shaft about 60 m high, leading to the lower part of the descending passage. There is an assumption that it was intended to evacuate workers or priests who were completing the “sealing” of the main passage to the “King’s Chamber.” Approximately in the middle of it there is a small, most likely natural expansion - a “Grotto” of irregular shape, in which several people could fit at most. The grotto (12) is located at the “junction” of the masonry of the pyramid and a small, about 9 meters high, hill on the limestone plateau lying at the base of the Great Pyramid. The walls of the Grotto are partially reinforced by ancient masonry, and since some of its stones are too large, there is an assumption that the Grotto existed on the Giza plateau as an independent structure long before the construction of the pyramids, and the evacuation shaft itself was built taking into account the location of the Grotto. However, taking into account the fact that the shaft was hollowed out in the already laid masonry, and not laid out, as evidenced by its irregular circular cross-section, the question arises of how the builders managed to accurately reach the Grotto.

The large gallery continues the ascending passage. Its height is 8.53 m, it is rectangular in cross-section, with walls slightly tapering upward (“false vault”), a high inclined tunnel 46.6 m long. In the middle of the Great Gallery, along almost the entire length, there is a square recess with a regular cross-section, 1 meter wide and 60 cm deep, and on both side protrusions there are 27 pairs of recesses of unknown purpose. The recess ends with the “Big Step” - a high horizontal ledge, a platform of 1x2 meters, at the end of the Great Gallery, immediately before the hole into the “hallway” - the Antechamber. The platform has a pair of ramp recesses similar to those in the corners near the wall. Through the “hallway” a hole leads into the funeral “Tsar’s Chamber” lined with black granite, where an empty granite sarcophagus is located.

Above the “Tsar’s Chamber” are discovered in the 19th century. five unloading cavities with a total height of 17 m, between which lie monolithic slabs about 2 m thick, and above there is a gable ceiling. Their purpose is to distribute the weight of the overlying layers of the pyramid (about a million tons) in order to protect the “King’s Chamber” from pressure. In these voids, graffiti was found, probably left by workers.

A network of ventilation ducts leads from the cells to the north and south. The channels from the Queen's Chamber do not reach the surface of the pyramid by 12 meters, and the channels from the Pharaoh's Chamber reach the surface. Such branches have not been found in any other pyramid. Scientists have not reached a unanimous opinion whether they were built for ventilation or have anything to do with Egyptian ideas about the afterlife. At the upper ends of the channels there are doors, most likely symbolizing the entrance to another world. In addition, the channels point to the stars: Sirius, Tuban, Alnitak, which makes it possible to assume that the Cheops pyramid also had an astronomical purpose.

Surroundings of the Cheops Pyramid

At the eastern edge of the Cheops pyramid there are 3 small pyramids his wives and family members. They are located from north to south, according to size: the base side of each building is 0.5 meters smaller than the previous one. They are well preserved inside; time has partially destroyed only the outer cladding. Nearby you can see the foundation of the mortuary temple of Khufu, inside of which were found drawings depicting a ritual performed by the pharaoh, it was called the Unification of the Two Lands.

Pharaoh's boats

The Pyramid of Cheops is the central figure of a complex of buildings, the location of which had ritual significance. The procession with the late pharaoh was transported along the Nile to the west bank on numerous boats. IN lower temple, to which the boats sailed, the first part of the funeral ceremony began. Next, the procession headed to the upper temple, where the prayer house and altar were located. To the west of the upper temple was the pyramid itself.

On each side of the pyramid, boats were walled up in rocky recesses, on which the pharaoh was supposed to travel through the afterlife.

In 1954, archaeologist Zaki Noor discovered the first boat, called the Solar Boat. It was made of Lebanese cedar, consisted of 1224 parts, and had no traces of fastening or joining. Its dimensions are: length 43 m and width 5.5 m. It took 16 years to restore the boat.

On the southern side of the Cheops pyramid there is a museum of this boat.

The second boat was found in a mine located east of where the first boat was found. A camera was lowered into the shaft, which showed traces of insects on the boat, so it was decided not to raise it and to seal the shaft. This decision was made by scientist Yoshimuro from Waseda University.

In total, seven pits were discovered with real ancient Egyptian boats, dismantled into parts.

Video: 5 Unsolved Mysteries of the Pyramids of Egypt

How to get there

If you want to see the Great Pyramid of Cheops, you need to come to Cairo. But there are practically no direct flights from Russia and you will have to make a transfer in Europe. Without a transfer, you can fly to Sharm el-Sheikh, and from there travel 500 kilometers to Cairo. You can get to your destination by comfortable bus, the travel time is approximately 6 hours, or you can continue the journey by plane, they fly to Cairo every half hour. In Egypt they are very loyal to Russian tourists; you can get a visa right at the airport after landing. It will cost $25 and is issued for a month.

Where to stay

If your goal is ancient treasures and you come to the pyramids, then you can choose a hotel in Giza or in the center of Cairo. There are almost two hundred comfortable hotels with all the benefits of civilization. In addition, Cairo has many attractions; it is a city of contrasts: modern skyscrapers and ancient minarets, noisy colorful bazaars and nightclubs, neon nights and quiet palm gardens.

Reminder for tourists

Don't forget that Egypt is a Muslim state. Men should simply ignore Egyptian women, because even an innocent touch can be considered harassment. Women must follow dress codes. Modesty and once again modesty, a minimum of bare areas of the body.

On organized excursions Tickets to the pyramids can be purchased at any hotel.

The pyramid area is open to the public in summer from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., in winter it is open half an hour less; the entrance ticket costs approximately 8 euros.

Museums are paid separately: you can view the Solar Boats for 5 euros.

To enter the Pyramid of Cheops you will be charged 13 euros; visiting the Pyramid of Chefre will cost less - 2.6 euros. There is a very low passage here and be prepared for the fact that you will have to walk 100 meters in a half-bent position.

Other pyramids, for example, the wife and mother of Khafre, can be viewed for free by presenting admission ticket to the zone.

The best time to view them is in the morning, immediately after opening. It is strictly forbidden to climb the pyramids, break off a piece as a souvenir and write “I was here...”. You can pay a fine for this that will exceed the cost of your trip.

If you want to take a photo of yourself against the backdrop of the pyramids or just the surrounding area, prepare 1 euro for the right to take photographs; photography is prohibited inside the pyramids. If you are offered to take a photo of you, do not agree and do not give the camera to anyone, otherwise you will have to buy it back.

Tickets to visit the pyramids are limited: 150 tickets are sold at 8 a.m. and the same number at 1 p.m. There are two ticket offices: one at the main entrance, the second at the Sphinx.

Each of the pyramids is closed once a year for restoration work, so you are unlikely to see everything at once.

If you don't want to walk throughout the entire Giza area, you can rent a camel. Its cost will depend on your bargaining ability. But keep in mind that they won’t tell you all the prices right away, and when you ride around, it turns out that you have to pay to get off the camel.

Tricky tip: The toilet is located in the Solar Boat Museum.

On the territory of the pyramid zone there are cafeterias where you can have a good lunch.

Every evening there is a light and sound show lasting one hour. It is held in different languages: Arabic, English, Japanese, Spanish, French. On Sundays the show is performed in Russian. It is recommended to separate your visit to the pyramids and the show over two days, otherwise you will not be able to fit in as many impressions.

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Coordinates: 48°51′39″ N. w. 2°20′09″ E. d. / 48.860833° n. w. 2.335833° E. d. ... Wikipedia

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Books

, Alan Alford. The Cheops Pyramid has been the subject of endless debate for hundreds of years on three main questions: who built it, how and why. A book by the famous English writer Alan Alford...

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