In the suburbs of Cairo, where the Nile Valley smoothly turns into the Libyan Desert, the Great Pyramids of Egypt stand on the Giza Plateau. They are like a mirage, they appear from the hot sands of the desert. In ancient times, these amazing structures were. Centuries have passed, but they are impressive in their size, and their secrets still excite the minds of scientists and researchers.

Pyramids of Giza in Egypt

The Egyptian pyramids are the most famous and tallest in the world. This is the only surviving ancient wonder of the world. They aroused the admiration of great men and mere mortals. The pyramid complex at Giza, guarded by the Great Sphinx, is part of the huge necropolis of this city.

They were built during the time of the Egyptian pharaohs of the IV dynasty, which ruled the ancient state in 2639-2506 BC. Next to the huge structures there are small temples and pyramids in which the wives of the pharaohs, their officials and priests are buried. Scientists are still studying these burials.

Until now, researchers continue to argue about the purpose of these structures. There is a traditional version that says that the huge mounds that rise above the mortal world are the tombs of the pharaohs. Their ashes in such burials were closer to the sky and the sun. Some scientists believe that the Egyptian pyramids are temples where ministers of the cult of the Sun performed religious ceremonies. Other researchers suggest that these were scientific laboratories created for astronomical observations. German archaeologists have put forward another interesting hypothesis. They believe that the pyramids are natural generators of earth energy. Thanks to her, the pharaohs were “charged” and rejuvenated. Pharaohs visited the pyramids as regularly as a modern person goes to a psychologist or massage therapist. Most scientists believe that they were on Earth before the biblical flood. Therefore, all their secrets will have to be unraveled for more than one generation.

Egyptian pyramids: interesting facts

The great ones were erected at different times under several pharaohs, who created tombs and monuments for themselves for centuries. The oldest of them is the Pyramid of Djoser. Its construction dates back to 2670. It is located in the city of Saqqara. Its height is 62 meters. The name of the author of this pyramid is known - he was the ancient Egyptian architect Imhotep. He was highly revered in Ancient Egypt, and later, even in myths, he became the main patron of crafts and arts - the son of the god Ptah.

The second largest ancient Egyptian pyramid was built by the son of Cheops, Pharaoh Khafre. It is lower than the nearby tomb of Cheops, its height is 136.4 meters, but since it is located on a higher point of the plateau, it competes with the Great Pyramid. At its top, a white basalt lining still remains, which is very reminiscent of a glacier. The internal structure of the pyramid is quite simple - two chambers, two entrances, located on the north side. One of them is located at a height of fifteen meters, and the second is directly below it, at the base of the building.

The Pyramid of Mikerin was built in 2504 BC. It is much smaller than the two great pyramids. Height - 66 meters. Scientists believe that the small size is due to the fact that Mikerin was not the legal heir to the throne. However, when he finally gained power, the structure began to have a more monumental appearance. Unlike the pyramids of Cheops and Khafre, its cladding was made of huge blocks of pink granite, which were brought to Giza from Aswan along the Nile. And downstream it was built. According to the surviving records of contemporaries, despite its more modest size, this structure was considered the most beautiful in Egypt.

Pyramid of Cheops in Egypt

Much later, similar structures were built in other areas of the country, which Egypt is proud of today. Giza, whose pyramids are known all over the world, gained great fame thanks to one of them - Cheops. It has become a real wonder of the world, which can still be seen in our time. The three tallest structures are rightfully considered the great Egyptian pyramids - the pyramids of Cheops, Mikerin and Khafre. But do not forget, in this ancient city there are many small buildings that keep no less secrets than the more monumental ones.

The Pyramid of Cheops in Giza was built a long time ago. It is still unknown exactly how long it took to build it. This great pyramid of Giza is believed to have stood since the time when the country was ruled by Cheops, the pharaoh of the 4th dynasty. The enormous interest in the history of its construction continues today. Myths about the pyramid There are many theories about the origin of this grandiose structure. Some of them are based on information received from Egyptologists, others have a somewhat exotic, fairy-tale touch. There is even a version that this structure was erected by aliens or some vanished civilization that lived in these places even before the appearance of the pharaohs. And they built it using unknown technical capabilities. According to such theories, the age of this pyramid at Giza is significantly higher than that indicated by modern scientists.

It is quite difficult to accurately measure the parameters of the Cheops pyramid in our time, since it has suffered greatly over its long history. Today, for example, the stone that crowned the structure is no longer there; the facing slabs have been destroyed. According to data obtained using modern measuring instruments, initially great pyramid of giza had a height of 146.5 meters. The length of one side is 232.5 meters. The sides have a slope of 51 degrees 50 minutes. Weight - 6,400,000 tons. The internal structure of the famous one is quite interesting.

Anyone who enters this majestic structure can visit four spacious rooms. These are the chambers of the king and queen, a large gallery and an underground chamber. Researchers discovered four shafts inside the pyramid. At first there was an assumption that they were necessary for ventilation of rooms, but later a bolder version arose, according to which the mines are channels to the stars.

Two of them are aimed at the North Star, the third - at the star Sirius, the fourth - at Orion. Since ancient times, people have sought to climb to the top of the Cheops pyramid, where there is a small area measuring ten square meters. There was a belief that there you could come into contact with eternity. Many famous Russians have visited this mysterious place. Among them is Emperor Nicholas II. And today many tourists come to Giza who want to see this miracle with their own eyes. Those who are interested in the history of Egypt can read about.

Sphinx - guardian of the pyramids of Giza

The Pyramids of Giza are guarded by the Great Sphinx, the oldest sculpture that has survived to this day. This is a lion with the head of a man. The history of the creation of this figure is no less mysterious than the history of the pyramids. There are many versions of the appearance of the Sphinx, but the most common of them says that the sculpture was built by Khafre in memory of his father, Pharaoh Cheops.

It is believed that the Sphinx was created much earlier, and under the pharaoh it was dug out of the sand during the construction of the great pyramid. Some discrepancy with the first version is that the face of the Sphinx has Negroid features, while all images of Cheops that have survived to this day do not have such features.

Many legends are associated with the Sphinx's lack of a nose. The most common theory is that this mythical animal lost its nose to Napoleon's cannons during the battle between the Turks and the French in 1798. But this is fiction, because there are images from 1737 in which the Sphinx no longer had a nose. Therefore, this sculpture is a big mystery for scientists around the world who study the civilization of Ancient Egypt. Many of the finds are stored in.
Nowadays, the pyramids in Giza are one of the world's main attractions, which are fraught with a great many secrets and mysteries. It is not at all surprising that the Egyptian pyramids are under the protection of UNESCO. Every year millions of tourists come to Egypt to see them and feel the extraordinary spirit of ancient times.

Address: Egypt, Giza plateau in the suburbs of Cairo
Date of construction: XXVI-XXIII centuries BC e.
Coordinates: 29°58"41.3"N 31°07"52.1"E

Where the green Nile Valley gives way to the Libyan Desert, in the suburbs of Cairo, on the Giza Plateau, the Great Pyramids stand unshakably. To the eyes of a tourist arriving in Giza, the pyramids open unexpectedly: like a mirage, they “grow” from the hot sands of the desert.

Great Pyramids of Giza from above

In the Ancient World, the pyramids were considered one of the “7 Wonders of the World,” but even today they impress with their immense size, and their secrets will excite the imagination of mankind for a long time. The pyramids were admired by the “powers of this world” - Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and others.

Great Pyramids of Giza. From left to right: pyramids of queens, pyramid of Mikerin, pyramid of Khafre, pyramid of Cheops

Wanting to inspire the French army before the famous battle with the Mamluks, Napoleon, standing at the pyramids, exclaimed: “Soldiers, 40 centuries are looking at you from these peaks!” And then Bonaparte calculated: if the Cheops pyramid was dismantled, then from 2.5 million stone blocks it would be possible to build a 3-meter wall around France.

The three Great Pyramids, guarded by the Great Sphinx, are part of the huge necropolis of Giza. These pyramids were built under the pharaohs of the IV dynasty, who ruled the Old Kingdom in 2639-2506. BC e. They are surrounded by small pyramids and temples where the wives of the pharaohs, priests and officials are buried.

The Pyramid of Cheops

Pyramid of Cheops (Khufu)

The largest of the pyramids, the Pyramid of Cheops, is the only one of the “7 Wonders of the World” that has survived to this day. For more than 3,000 years, before the construction of Lincoln Cathedral in England (1311), the Cheops Pyramid was the tallest structure on Earth. Its original height - 146.6 meters - corresponded to a 50-story skyscraper, but after an earthquake in the 13th century, the Cheops pyramid decreased by 8 meters - it lost its cladding and the gilded pyramidon stone that crowned the top.

Pyramid of Cheops and Museum of the Solar Boat

The Egyptians stole the polished white limestone slabs and used them to build Cairo's houses and mosques. The Pyramid of Cheops amazes with its grandeur and the titanic work of people who raised stone blocks weighing 2.5 tons to the sky using primitive devices - ropes and levers. And in the “Tsar’s Chamber” granite blocks weigh up to 80 tons. The Arab historian Abdel Latif (12th century) notes that the individual blocks are so tightly fitted to each other that it is impossible to insert the tip of a knife between them.

Solar boat

Solar boat

Inside the Cheops pyramid there are burial chambers, and outside, at its foot, there is the Museum of the Solar Boat.. On this ship, built of cedar without a single nail, the pharaoh was supposed to go to the afterlife.

Pyramid of Khafre

Pyramid of Khafre (Khafre)

The second largest ancient Egyptian pyramid was built 40 years later than the first by Pharaoh Khafre, the son of Cheops. Although the pyramid of Khafre is inferior in height (136.4 m) to the tomb of his father, due to its location on a higher point of the plateau it was a worthy competitor to the Great Pyramid.

At the top of the Pyramid of Khafre, a white basalt cladding is partially preserved, reminiscent of a glacier on the mountain.

Pyramid of Mikerin

Pyramid of Mikerin (Menkaure)

The ensemble of the Great Pyramids is completed by the relatively modest-sized tomb of Mikerin, built for the grandson of Cheops. Contrary to the loud nickname “Heru” (high), it reaches only 62 meters in height, but it emphasizes the greatness of the pyramids of Cheops and Khafre.

Great Sphinx

Great Sphinx

At the foot of the Giza plateau stands a monumental sculpture 73 meters long and 20 meters high. It is carved from a monolithic limestone rock in the shape of a sphinx - a mythical creature with the head of a man, the paws and body of a lion. According to scientists, The facial features of the Great Sphinx are similar to the appearance of Pharaoh Khafre. The Sphinx's gaze is directed to the east, towards the rising sun. According to the beliefs of the Egyptians, the lion was a symbol of the solar deity, and the pharaoh was the deputy of the Sun god Ra on earth and after death merged with the shining luminary.

Great Sphinx from the rear

Lions stood at the gates of the underworld, which is why the Sphinx is considered to be the guardian of the necropolis. The statue's face is badly damaged. Most often you can hear that the Sphinx's nose was beaten off by Napoleonic grenadiers. According to another version of the legend, the damage to the sculpture was caused by one Shah, a religious fanatic. The reason for the vandalism is simple: Islam prohibits making images of people and animals.

The Great Sphinx against the background of the Pyramid of Khafre

Secrets of ancient times: why were the pyramids built?

Disputes about the purpose of the pyramids are still ongoing. The traditional version says that the mounds towering above the mortal world could be the tombs of the pharaohs, from where their ashes rose closer to the sky and the sun. Some scientists consider the pyramids to be temples where sun worshipers performed religious rites; others are scientific laboratories created for astronomical observations. German archaeologists have put forward another hypothesis: pyramids are natural generators of earthly energy.

The pyramids are rightfully considered the “calling card” of Egypt. There are about a hundred of them in total - large and small, stepped and smooth. They are located along the western bank of the Nile in small groups, not far from the place where the capital of the country, Memphis, was located during the era of the Old Kingdom. The most famous of the pyramids are located on the outskirts of Cairo, on the edge of the desert Giza plateau, hanging over the green Nile Valley. These are the Great Pyramids of Giza - Cheops, Khafre and Mikerin. The three Great Pyramids, guarded by the Great Sphinx, are just part of the vast necropolis of Giza. The Great Pyramids of Giza were recognized in 2007 as an honorary candidate for the title of one of the New Seven Wonders of the World.

Pyramid of Cheops (Khufu)

Cross section of the Cheops pyramid:

The Great Pyramid of Cheops (circa 2590-2568 BC), the last remaining wonder of the ancient list of the Seven Wonders of the World, is a fantastic masterpiece of engineering. For more than three thousand years, until 1311 (then Lincoln Cathedral was built in England), the Cheops Pyramid remained the tallest structure on Earth. Its original height is 146.6 meters. Some archaeologists believe that it may have taken 14,000 people 20 years to build the great pyramid. It was created from more than 2 million stone blocks, each of which weighed at least 2.5 tons. Workers pulled them into place using ramps, pulleys and levers, and then pushed them together without mortar. In the 13th century, an earthquake loosened some of the shell stones and the Arabs began to use the cladding to build and restore Cairo palaces and mosques, including the Sultan Hassan Mosque) and as a result, today the Cheops Pyramid consists of 203 courses of masonry and has a height of 138 m.

The base of the pyramid is an almost perfect square (northern - 230.25, western 230.35, eastern - 230.38, southern - 230.4). The sides are perfectly oriented to the cardinal points. The error is negligible - 0.015 percent! The ratio of the length of the base of the pyramid to its height, divided in half, gives the famous number "pi" accurate to the sixth digit! There are other encrypted mathematical numbers. Is it a coincidence or did the ancient builders really try to preserve secret knowledge? Only they know about this.

In ancient times, the pyramid of Cheops was surrounded by a wall. To the south of this wall are two docks for sacred boats, discovered in 1954. The boats were dismantled and covered with large limestone blocks weighing about 16 tons. One boat has been restored and is on display in a special glass pavilion next to the Pyramid (Solar Barke Museum.) The boat has a length of 43.6 m and a width of 9. Constructed from Lebanese cedar and some local woods, it ends with a cabin covered with mats. The graffiti on it contains the name of Khufu's son, Djedefre. It took 16 years to extract and assemble hundreds of perfectly preserved fragments of the boat.

On the eastern side of the Great Pyramid of Cheops are the pyramids of his consorts and the tombs of his family members. Here, on the eastern slope of the pyramid, are the foundations of the mortuary temple of Khufu. The processional road (825 m) goes north from it and disappears under the village of Nazlet el-Samman. At the beginning of this road there once stood the valley temple of Khufu.

There are no inscriptions or decorations inside the Cheops pyramid. There are three burial chambers there. The pharaoh's burial chamber is a room about 11 meters long, five meters wide and almost six meters high. The walls of the tomb are decorated with granite slabs. The red granite sarcophagus is empty. Neither the pharaoh's mummy nor the funeral utensils were found. It is believed that the pyramid was plundered in ancient times.

One of the seven wonders of the world that has been able to perfectly preserve itself to this day is the Pyramid of Cheops in Giza. It is believed that the pyramid was built as a tomb for the fourth dynasty pharaoh Cheops, after whom it was named. This wonder of the world took 20 years to build, and was completely ready by 2560 BC.

The gigantic structure, which served as a tomb for the Egyptian nobility, was the largest structure in the world for four thousand years - this is an absolute record that will be very difficult to break. The height of this pyramid is only 146.5 meters, which with modern technologies will not be difficult to surpass, but it is unlikely to hold out as a leader for 4 millennia.

Today there are many scientific theories and rumors about the methods of constructing the Cheops pyramid: from the intervention of alien creatures, to generally accepted ones, based on the fact that huge blocks of stone were moved from quarries with special structures.

The interior space of the Cheops pyramid consists of three tombs. The lower chamber is located at the base of the rock on which the pyramid itself is located, but for some reason it has not been completely rebuilt. Directly above it are the chambers of the Queen and Pharaoh. The greatest pyramid is the only one in Egypt that has ascending and descending corridor passages. This structure is the central key of the complex at Giza, it is surrounded by other pyramids, tombs and temples, but of a smaller size.

According to the latest estimates, the Cheops pyramid consists of approximately 2,300,000 stone bricks. The largest stones among them are slabs weighing 25-80 tons each, which were found in the tomb of the pharaoh. These blocks of the heaviest granite had to be delivered from a quarry located a thousand kilometers from the site. Thus, the construction of the Cheops pyramid required 8,000 tons of granite and 5,500,000 tons of limestone.

There is an opinion that the ancient Egyptians understood geometry perfectly; the builders of that time were well aware of both the “Golden Ratio” and the complex “Pi” number, which reflected the proportions of the Cheops pyramid and the angle of inclination. A similar angle of inclination is also visible at the pyramid in Meidum, but this may be a simple accident, since such an inclination has not been repeated anywhere else.

Astronomers claim that the Great Pyramid is nothing more than an astronomical observatory of ancient Egypt, because the ventilation ducts and corridors precisely point to the path to the stars Thuban, Alnitak and Sirius.

Today, the Pyramid of Cheops is a wonder of the world and the most visited Egyptian attraction, which tourists want to see again and again.