Sphinx-Pyramids

The pyramids and the sphinx in Egypt are probably the greatest tourist attraction in the entire world, from seniors to small children; they all know that the pyramids and the sphinx are one of the greatest achievements of man.

Located close to the Nile River in the city of Giza, the Pyramids are extremely old, dating back to 4650 BC.  That time was the fourth Egyptian dynasty.  The pyramids in ancient Egypt were built as tombs for the kings and queens who rules Egypt at the time.  As you can imagine they wielded great power.  I’m mean you would have to be pretty powerful to convince your people that you needed a massive structure to make your transition to the spirit world a pleasant one.

I guess people were on board because by the time Egypt had fell out of power a total of 93 pyramids had been constructed and there were also a bunch of other temples and stuff that couldn’t have been easy to make either.

But of those 93 the Great Pyramid is by far the one that people are most impressed with (probably how it got its name). Popular thinking is that the great pyramid took close to 30 years to build and that close to 100,000 people worked on the project.  The original belief was that these laborers were slaves, but recently new evidence has emerged that the work was probably done willingly by the people, who needed extra cash wile the Nile flooded and they could not farm.

It would have taken over 2,300,000 blocks of stone with an average weight of 2.5 tons each. The total weight would have been 6,000,000 tons and a height of 482 feet (140m). It is the largest and the oldest of the Pyramids of Giza. It supposedly took 100,000 people working over a twenty year period to construct. Though orginally thought to be a tomb - no sarcophagi have ever been found - nor an inscriptions other than those added in recent centuries - not by the pyramid builders.

The pyramids were build by the Pharaoh Khufu, also known as Cheops. Not much is known about Cheops (Khufu). The tomb had been robbed long before archeologists came upon it. Any information about him was taken with the objects inside the tomb. He is thought to have been the ruler of a highly structured society and he must have been very wealthy. He was buried alone in this massive tomb. His wives may have been buried nearby in smaller mastabas.