When talking about Egypt, the picture of pyramids appears in the imagination at once. There are no other ancient sights in Egypt that are similarly outstanding and legendary. This country is predominantly famous for its remarkable Pyramids at Giza. A lot of tourists come to Egypt just to visit these famous places of interest. It is their main destination. There are about 100 pyramids in Egypt, many of them are comparatively unfamiliar to people who are not ancient Egypt aficionados. Some of them are tiny and just demonstrative. There are 17 grand pyramids that are famous for their structure, size and composition. A lot of the great pyramids were built near Cairo, the capital of Egypt. There is also one royal pyramid in the southern Egypt built by Ahmose. It is considered to be the last grand pyramid here.
When the Old Kingdom was economically prosperous, the Pharaohs held an exclusive position in the society. People believed that their Kings were chosen by different gods. The pharaohs were peculiar servants of the gods and acted as mediators between them and inhabitants of the Earth. That was the reason why Egyptians tried to keep the pharaoh’s magnificence and prayed him even after his death. Moreover, they believed that the part of the pharaoh’s spirit was left with the body; therefore, the pyramids were built with the purpose of caring for that spirit. People buried everything that was essential and indispensable to life with the pharaoh’s corpus.
The Step Pyramid located at Sakkara (Saqqara) was the first one to be built. It was constructed by Imhotep for the king Djoser. The pyramid was built nearly 2630 B.C. It was the highest building of those times. It was surrounded by a complex of courts, sanctuaries and temples. Egyptians believed that Djoser needs to enjoy his afterlife. After the Step Pyramid, they built the Red Pyramid at Dahshur. It was named the Red because of the color of the stones. The most famous pyramids are situated on the bank of the Nile River in Cairo. They are called the Great Pyramids of Giza. The oldest one among them is the Great Pyramid of Giza. Nowadays, it is one of the Seven Wonders of the World. The pyramid was built for Khufu King. It is high to a considerable degree. Moreover, it is considered to be the largest pyramid in the whole world. There are three small pyramids, which are situated near the Great Pyramid. As usual, these pyramids are surrounded by various rows and temples. Small pyramids were built for pharaoh’s queens. The middle sized Giza pyramid was built for the Khufu’s son, Khafre. There is a unique feature about the pyramid, which is the Great Sphinx, the stone monument with the human’s body and lion’s head that is considered to be one of the largest statues of the ancient world. The third Giza pyramid was built for Khafre’s son, but this pyramid is small.
There a lot of mysterious things about the Great Pyramid. For example, approximately 2, 3 million stone blocks were transported and pulled together to build the 5,750,000-ton structure. It is a stunning success of technological skills and engineering facility. A lot of historians and researchers state that it took nearly twenty years to build such a great structure. Moreover, 100,000 men were working for its construction. According to the history, mostly slaves were building the pyramids. As stated by Josephus, the Jewish historian, the Egyptian kings set their Israelite slaves to construct pyramids. It is hard to imagine this enormously difficult work.
At this period of time, the building of the pyramids continued during several dynasties. With declining of the pharaoh’s power, the pyramid became poorer. That is why in the later Egypt, during the reign of King Unas, builders began to inscribe different events of the pharaoh’s life on the pyramid walls. These texts are the first sacred works found in the ancient Egypt. The last great pyramid built in the Old Kingdom was the pyramid of Pepy the Second. It was smaller than others. After the pharaoh’s death, the strong kingdom collapsed. The pyramid building was resumed by the pharaohs of the 12th dynasty. To tell the truth, these structures were not as great as the previous ones.
Nowadays, pyramids are excessively famous among the tourists. However, tomb raiders robbed the pharaohs’ pyramids as there were a lot of treasures. Furthermore, they removed the bodies of the pharaohs. Therefore, the pyramids are rather distinct from their initial appearance. The Great Pyramids do not reach their heights. Despite this, millions of people are coming to Egypt just to enjoy learning about its glorious past.
The Great Pyramid is one of the most significant and mysterious. According to Grey, the Great Pyramid was initially 481 feet five inches tall and 755 feet wide. The construction was built approximately from 2, 5 million tons of blocks. According to the Arab tradition, males were buried with a flat cover, and females were buried in the special rooms with a gable cover; kings were buried in the chambers with a flat cover, while queens — with a gabled one. To tell the truth, no one believes that people were buried in the stone chambers as they were enormously big. After having conducted different researches, Egyptologists presuppose that nobody has ever been in those rooms. There are no evidences that the Chamber belonged to Khufu King. Moreover, no text or other indications show that. People are wrong, when they attribute building Giza Pyramids to fourth Dynasty kings As there were no names left on these constructions during that period.
The biggest mystery about this pyramid is its weight, and how people could transport granite and limestone blocks. Nowadays, the problem remains unsolved. The Great Pyramids have differently cut and shaped granite blocks. Ancient Egyptians had no special tools to do that. Moreover, even nowadays society is forceless in front of such great mineral hardness. Furthermore, in the Old Kingdom, the known tools would only hardly scratch through sandstone and would be ineffectual in terms of granite. Some researchers proposed that granite and limestone were cut somehow with the usage of vinegar or citric acid. It is substantially slow and ineffective process. Another mystery about this Pyramid is the transportation of heavy stone blocks. Each block had a weight of nearly 10 tones. As Egyptians had no proper engineering devices to remove the blocks, researchers suppose that 300, 000 laborers could remove them. Nonetheless, it sounds quite unbelievable. Moreover, a lot of different strategies were proposed by engineers, but the mystery remains unsolved. The placement of the extremely sophisticated granite stones, which roofed the whole pyramid, is another mystery. Furthermore, the Great Pyramid has nearly 115, 000 of the stone blocks. Thus, there are no satisfactory solutions proposed by researchers or engineers that could offer proper answers to these questions.
In addition, in a burial place at Saqquara, in Egypt, researchers have found the artifact. It was an antique copy of the aircraft, namely a wooden sculpture with wings, tail and fuselage. The model looked like the modern airplane. Moreover, engineers believe that the artifact was able to fly.
There are a lot of conflicts about the stolen treasures in Egypt. Among the stolen treasures are the Rosetta Stone, numerous mummies and the Sphinx’s beard. All of them are placed in the British Museum. According to Bierbrier (1999), the Rosetta Stone artifact was discovered by the French expedition and surrendered to British troops in 1801. After this event, the Stone was sent to the British Museum, where it remains until today. The treasure contributed vastly towards the explanation of the meaning of ancient hieroglyphics. The text on the Stone is written in 3 various languages: Greek, hieroglyphics and Egyptian. The Stone is the main heated discussion between Egypt and the UK. In spite of this, Egyptians consider the Rosetta Stone as their national treasure.
The Sphinx is a huge sculpture with human’s body and lion’s head.. Everybody knows that Sphinx is the emblem of Ancient Egypt. Unfortunately, the Sphinx’s beard dropped off approximately in the 14th century. Later, it was discovered by the Italian archeologist and sold to the British Museum. The beard is the main support for the neck of the Ancient Sphinx. As Egyptians wanted to save the ancient look of the Sphinx, they had to take away the beard. Egyptians accomplished 10 years of the sculpture’s refurbishment, and the beard was the last step to finish it. Regrettably, there is a conflict even today between the Englishmen and Egyptians.
In this quarrel between the United Kingdom and Egypt , there are a lot of different arguments in favor of returning the Rosetta Stone and the Sphinx’s beard. These artifacts are the cultural property and heritage. They have to be returned to the motherland.
Egypt is the motherland of the great ancient culture. It has thousands of years of recorded history, which is known mostly to every human being on the planet. It is impossible to stay apathetic, while talking about the Egypt culture.