Episode 8 The Great Pyramid of Giza

The History of Ancient Egypt

Professor Robert Brier

Film Review

Khufu (known as Cheops in Greek), the son of Snefaru, built the Great Pyramid at Giza (a suburb of modern day Cairo) in 2550 BC. Four hundred eighty feet high, it was the largest building on Earth prior to the building of the Eiffel tower in 1889. The Great Pyramid spans 13.5 acres and is made up of 2.5 million 2 1/2 ton blocks of stone.

Archeologists estimate it took 20 years with (90,000 men working three-month a year) to build. Brier asserts it was built by conscripted work gangs (not slaves), most likely farmers during the the three months their fields were flooded, and they were paid for their labor.

Although Egyptians never made a written record of how they built any of the pyramids, Brier disputes that any higher math was required. Two thousand years later the fifth century Greek historian Herodotus, asserted the Egyptians used “machines” (lever/fulcrum devices) in its construction. The corners of the Great Pyramid align with the four points of the compass.

All the pyramids on the Giza plateau originally had a limestone facing, removed during the Middle Ages to build mosques in Cairo. Limestone also covered the pyramid entrance to protect the interior from grave robbers.

Unlike earlier pyramids, the Egyptians cleared the sand down to the bedrock for the Giza pyramids before leveling the bedrock.* They obtained the 2 1/2 ton blocks from a nearby quarry and the limestone (for the facing) from a quarry west  of the Nile.

The grand gallery inside the great pyramid is 28 feet high and leads up to the burial chamber with an empty stone sarcophagus. The body of Khufu is buried elsewhere. In fact, evidence suggests the burial chamber was built around the empty sarcophagus and sealed.

In 1954 a dismantled boat was found hidden in the bedrock beneath the Great Pyramid. One hundred feet long, it’s made of cedar planks tied together with ropes (the wood swelled and the ropes shrank when wet, making it water tight). Although it had no mast (for sails), modern engineers have ascertained it was too big to be propelled by oarsmen. Brier speculates it was originally intended for Khufu’s journey to the next world.

There are  two possible theories explaining how the 2 1/2 ton blocks were lifted in place: the ramp theory (the ramp would have been over 1/4 mile long and the switchback theory. The stone blocks were chiseled to fit together without mortar.

*They dug channels in the bedrock, filled them with water and assumed the bedrock was level once the water became stationary.

**Ancient Egyptians used shadufs (a type of lever) to lift water from the Nile to irrigate their fields.

Film can be viewed free with a library card on Kanopy.

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/1492791/1492810