The volume of the Cheops pyramid. Pyramid of Cheops - the largest pyramid in Egypt

Pyramid of Cheops (Egypt) - description, history, location. Exact address, phone number, website. Reviews of tourists, photos and videos.

• Tours for May Worldwide
• Last Minute Tours Worldwide

Previous photo Next photo

Probably, there is no person who would not know the main Egyptian landmark - the pyramid of Cheops. And tourists who have visited Egypt and have not visited the only surviving Seven Wonders of the World can be counted on one hand.

Despite numerous studies, the Cheops pyramid keeps many secrets. The pharaoh's sarcophagus has not yet been found.

The height of the largest pyramid in Egypt today is 140 meters, and the total area is more than 5 hectares. The Pyramid of Cheops is folded - attention - from 2.5 million stone blocks! To deliver these blocks to the construction site, the ancient Egyptians had to cover distances of hundreds of kilometers! It took 20 years to build the Cheops pyramid.

Millennia have passed, but the pyramid is still highly revered in Egypt. Every year in August, the Egyptians celebrate the day of the beginning of its construction.

True, historians have not found reliable information confirming this fact.

Climbing

The entrance to the pyramid of Cheops, like all ancient Egyptian tombs, is located on the north side at a height of about 17 m. Inside the pyramid there are three burial chambers and a whole network of descending and ascending corridors leading to these rooms. For the convenience of tourists, the many-meter walkways are equipped with wooden steps and railings. Lighting in the pyramid is provided, but it is better to take a flashlight with you.

Despite numerous studies and excavations, the Cheops pyramid keeps many secrets. So, for example, until now it has not been possible to find a corridor leading to the chamber with the pharaoh's sarcophagus.

In the burial room of the ruler's wife, scientists have discovered secret doors, which supposedly symbolize the road to the afterlife. But the archaeologists could not open the last door ...

Several disassembled boats were found near the Cheops pyramid. Now the assembled vessels (by the way, it took the researchers almost 14 years for this business) can be admired by everyone.

Practical information

How to get there: by bus or taxi from Tahrir Square in Cairo (about 20 minutes on the way), from Hurghada (5-6 hours), from Sharm El Sheikh (7-8 hours).

Working hours: daily from 8:00 to 17:00, in winter - until 16:30.

Entrance: to the territory - 80 EGP (for adults), 40 EGP (for children); into the pyramid - 200 EGP (for adults), 100 EGP (for children).

Sarcophagus, inner corridors, unloading chambers, solar boat, companion pyramids, queen's treasures.

The diagonal of one of the faces of the Cheops pyramid is directed along the meridian exactly to the North Pole, and with an error less than that of the Paris Observatory. In addition, the pyramids "reflect" the location of the constellation Orion, and the top Great pyramid looks exactly at the North Star.

The Great Pyramid has three chambers, which correspond to the three stages of its construction. Pharaoh wanted to have a ready-made tomb at any moment.

The first chamber is carved into the rock at a depth of about 30 m below the base, it is not located exactly in its center.

The area of ​​the cell is 8 x 14 m, the height is 3.5 m. This cell, like the second one, remained unfinished.

The second chamber is located in the core of the pyramid, exactly under its apex, at a height of about 20 m above the base of the structure. Its area is 5.7 x 5.2 m. The vaulted ceiling reaches a height of 6.7 m. Earlier it was called the tomb of the queen.

The third chamber was the tomb of the pharaoh. She is the only one of all three that is complete. It was in this room that the sarcophagus was found. This chamber was erected 42.2 m above the base, slightly south of the axis of the pyramid. The length of this room from east to west is 10.4 m, from north to south - 5.2 m. The height of the ceilings reaches 5.8 m.

Pharaoh's tomb

This room was superbly tiled with immaculately fitted granite slabs. The ceiling is formed by nine monoliths, the weight of which is 400 tons. There are 5 unloading chambers above the ceiling, the total height of which is 17m. The uppermost one ends with a gable roof, built of huge blocks that bear the weight of about 1,000,000 tons of stone mass and are designed so that it does not press directly on the burial chamber.

According to one theory, the pyramids are the most powerful energy center of the Earth. They say that the meridian, on which the top of the Cheops pyramid is located, divides the land and sea surfaces equally. The parallel passing through the center of the pyramid also divides the planet into two equal parts according to the amount of water and land.

All three chambers have so-called hallways, connected by corridors or shafts. Some of the shafts in the lower chambers end in dead ends. They are carved into the stonework at a later time. Two such shafts are laid from the royal tomb to the surface of the pyramid and go out almost in the middle of the northern and southern walls. We do not know their original purpose, but undoubtedly, among other things, they were supposed to provide ventilation.

In the first time after construction, the entrance to the pyramid was located on the north side at a height of 25 m above the base. Nowadays, the pyramid can be entered from another entrance, located approximately 15 m below the original, almost in the very middle of the northern side. On a narrow and low horizontal corridor 40 m long, you have to bend down, since it was not cut for the convenience of numerous tourists and is the result of long labors of ancient robbers.

At the end of this corridor there is a wooden staircase, climbing which the visitor will find himself in a low granite room, which looks like a hallway. Entering it, a person enters the very heart of the pyramid.

The Great Gallery is a unique structure, even on the scale of a grandiose building, which can be considered the Great Pyramid. Its length seems endless, as the polished walls reflect the light of the electric lamps installed in recent times and illuminate the room like ancient metal plates. This effect makes the entrance rectangle completely out of sight.

The gallery is 47 m long and 8.5 m high. The ascent angle is 26 °. Limestone cladding slabs are stacked on top of each other in 8 layers, each subsequent layer is 5-6 cm beyond the previous one.

Even with modern technology, pyramids would be very difficult to build. Japanese enthusiasts tried to work with ancient technologies, but this turned out to be an overwhelming task. The embankments for lifting the blocks were supposed to be huge, like the pyramid itself, but they collapsed under their own weight.

The sarcophagus is wider than the entrance to the burial chamber. It was hewn from a single piece of brown-gray granite, the date and inscription on it are missing, and the whole of it is quite badly damaged. The sarcophagus stands right on the floor in the west corner of the cell. Most likely, no one ever moved him. It looks like it is cast from metal. Naturally, not a trace of the person, for whose eternal comfort he was intended, has remained for a long time.

Construction around the pyramid of Cheops

The Great Pyramid is surrounded by equally labor-intensive and expensive structures. The ancient Greek historian Herodotus, describing the 18 m road leading from the upper (funeral) to the lower temple and lined with polished slabs, said that the work on its construction was almost as huge as the construction of the pyramid itself.

Currently, only a few meters of this road have survived. Lepsius and some other Egyptologists were lucky enough to find its remains with fragments of decorative reliefs. The road was razed to the ground at the end of the 19th century during the construction of the village of Nazlat es-Simman, which, like Giza, is now part of Greater Cairo.

The lower temple once stood on the territory of this village. He was different extraordinary beauty, towering 30 m above the ground. Most likely people destroyed it in antiquity, seduced by an excellent building material.

Of the numerous buildings that once surrounded the pyramid of Cheops, only the ruins of the upper (funeral) temple, as well as three companion pyramids, have survived. The traces of the upper temple were discovered by the Egyptian explorer Abu Seif in 1939. After World War II, Lauer completed the excavation.

Traditionally, the temple was located east of the pyramid. The length of its pediment was 100 Egyptian cubits (about 52 m). It was built from the Tours limestone. In the courtyard of the temple there were 38 square granite pillars. In the vestibule in front of the small sanctuary, there were 12 more of the same pillars.

On both sides of the sanctuary, at a distance of about 10 m, archaeologists discovered two so-called docks, carved into the limestone plateau, in which solar boats were apparently kept. A third such dock was found to the left of the road leading to the lower temple.

Unfortunately, all three docks that were discovered were empty. However, in 1954, fate brought an unexpected gift to archaeologists in the form of two more similar docks. One of them turned out to be the room for a perfectly preserved boat, which today is the oldest ship in the world. Its length reached 44 m, and it was made of cedar.

After retrieval, the boat was preserved and placed in a specially built pavilion located near the pyramid.

Pyramids - companions

The companion pyramids, like the temple, are located east of the Great Pyramid. It should be noted that they were usually built south of the main burial vault. Most likely, religious traditions were violated due to the difficulties associated with the terrain. The pyramids are in growth from north to south. The side of the square base of the first pyramid is 49.5 m, the second - 49, the third - 46.9 m.

Each of the companion pyramids had a stone fence, a memorial prayer house and a burial chamber with a room that served as a hallway, into which a steep shaft led. According to the most widespread hypothesis, these pyramids were intended for the wives of Cheops. The first of them, the so-called main, according to ancient tradition, was obviously his sister.

All three companion pyramids are well preserved, having lost only the outer facing. The underground structures and the surrounding area have been scrupulously examined.

According to some reports, a larger one was supposed to be built to the east of the first pyramid, but its construction was stopped even before the completion of work in the burial chamber. Reisner put forward the theory that it was supposed to serve as a tomb for Cheops's mother, Hetepheres (wife of Sneferu), since the tomb in which she was originally buried was plundered shortly after the death of the queen.

Treasures of the tomb of the queen

T. Fisanovich
Secrets of the ancient pyramids

Great Pyramids of Giza. Pyramids of Egypt.

Testing showed that the stones (of which the pyramid is made) are 8000 years old. And Cheops did not live earlier than 4000 years ago. 80 centuries ago, people still learned to melt bronze. Who Built the Pyramids in the Desert? And there are the same on Mars. (Http://svetorussie.narod.ru/MARS/Piramidy_i_lico_na_Marse.htm)
30.05.09 Crazy god

pomoimu has long been clear that the pyramids were built long before the Egyptians by a more highly developed civilization. they could only use it as a grave)))
28.03.09 ali-balala

It looks like another rehash of the interpretation of "what Herodotus meant". And his text says, if you look not at translations and translations from translations, not "mechanisms", but "devices made of short pieces of wood." By all parameters, the simplest "sleepers" by E. Diomedi are suitable for what the builders Sneferu and Khufu used in reality.
Moreover, it is fundamentally impossible to apply any individual numerous "mechanisms" in their conditions: they are inadequately slow and on the masonry ledges (their width is at best 80 - 70 cm) it is unacceptable for them and work with them. And any attempts to expand them lead to stone-earth and transport works on a larger scale than for the Pyramid itself.
06.12.08 Rustem

If anyone is interested in exact numbers (and they are more impressive than volumes of general doxologies): F. Pitrie revealed such a royal cubit (no need to find fault with the fourth and further digits after the decimal point, this is the arithmetic mean of measurements on the ground): 524.0524 plus or minus 0 , 1016 mm. Multiply by 280 and 440 - and you get the DESIGN (i.e. theoretically desired by their creators) overall dimensions of the Cheops pyramid. But what lengths of the base they got in reality: 230 358 mm, 230 251 mm, 230 391 mm and 230 583 mm. The angles between them: 89 degrees 59 minutes 58 seconds, 90 g 03 m 02 s, 89 g 56 m 27 s, 90 g 00 m 33 s.
15.12.06 Rustem

They write ideally located on the north-south line ... How to understand - the diagonal of the base is located in the north-south or middle line grounds? :(
22.05.06 , [email protected], Vlas

How to make a mini-pyramid at home? :) how many centimeters do you need to make? =)
22.05.06 , [email protected], Vlas

How to position the pyramid in relation to the Milky Way? Can you help?
23.04.06 , [email protected], Dmitriy

well idiots ...
05.04.06 , burn

there is a useful little book by Peter Tomkins "The Mysteries of the Great Pyramid", and "The Secret Doctrine", of course
27.01.06 , [email protected], yuri

Eternal PYRAMIDS !!! The eternal theme is to solve their riddle ... It would be nice to get information even closer to the truth, otherwise wherever you read about the PYRAMIDS, there are different numbers. It is, of course, 240 meters or 220, there is almost no difference, but even if they cannot measure it accurately, then how to talk about everything else. By the way about the SPHINX. In some fairly respectable articles, its length is determined by 73 meters, and the height is 15 mats, and in other articles, respectively, 50 meters and 20 meters. Sorry, this is not a trifle anymore. Where is the TRUTH?
19.01.06 , Alex

Look what, to build a new one :) Well this is a lope of concrete! Who will pay?
14.01.06 , Alexander

The pyramid of Cheops is the most fascinating and most terrible thing that can happen to a person ... Its CRAZY size has an indelible impression on the subconscious of a person who will spend more than it should be in it ... I am drawn to her ... to her riddles ... I want to see her .....
19.11.05 , Kelly

Not bad, take more pictures / photos and more mesmerizing designs ...
19.11.05 , Kelly

I have been deciphering the proportions of the Cheops pyramid for 15 years - I called it the "Divine Scheme", the subordination of which have many ancient monuments
31.10.05 , [email protected], plescom

The pyramid is a tool for entering a communication channel through which information about the future and the past can be obtained. The dimensions, proportions of the Cheops pyramid correspond to the Fibonacci numbers (L-233, H-147 (db. 144, mass ~ 57,000,000 tons, db. 56,470,871 tons). Zero fractal or golden ratio. All living and non-living things are subordinated this or other number series. In nature there are no sizes and proportions. The structure of objects are in a completely strict number series. The parameters of the pyramid affect biological processes in the human body, affect the organs of perception. The pyramid interacts with the gravitational, spatial and temporal parameters of the earth, the nearest and deep space. A person who found himself inside the pyramid for several hours (up to 24 hours) comprehends knowledge about the past and the present. Napoleon Bonaparte was one of the three people of Europe who spent a day in the pyramid. Their impressions and new knowledge, like people who came into contact with the fact that a person does not have the right to know, defy the explanation from the standpoint of modern science.All three Europeans experienced what people who visited Tibet experienced. the opinion that the Tibetan mountains and the pyramids of Egypt are interconnected, that some mountains in Tibet are of artificial origin and in fact are pyramids, but only of a much larger size. The colossal mass of the pyramid, the absence of vibration, sound inside the pyramid (chambers of the pyramid) should strongly influence the human psyche and change its functioning.
26.09.05 , [email protected], Valry

write me on the soap, please, who was the first to enter the pyramid of Cheops
07.05.05 , [email protected], Sancho

What a pyramid !!! The Egyptians were engaged in the construction of the pyramids. And there is no need to flatter anyone else there. These are not just beautiful figures - this is their life.
13.03.05 , Nati

A big request to all who like this topic, send me links on this topic to the address. Zealous [email protected]
21.12.04 , [email protected], Alyona

Why not build a super pyramid now, so that archaeologists will have something to do in the future?
06.12.04 , LI

And I want a pyramid !!!
29.10.04 , Vika

And how to build a pyramid for yourself, alive, because somewhere descriptions came across ... Or is it all nonsense? Maybe a scale is needed? And important ...
29.03.04 , [email protected], Aleksandr

The pyramid of Pharaoh Khufu (in the Greek version of Cheops), or the Great Pyramid is the greatest of Egyptian pyramids, the oldest of the seven wonders of the world of antiquity and the only one that has survived to our time. For over four thousand years, the pyramid was the largest building in the world.

The pyramid of Cheops is located in the distant suburb of Cairo, Giza. Nearby are two more pyramids of the pharaohs Khafre and Menkaur (Khafren and Mikerin), according to ancient historians, the sons and successors of Khufu. These are the three largest pyramids in Egypt.

Following ancient authors, most modern historians consider pyramids to be burial structures of ancient Egyptian monarchs. Some scientists believe that these were astronomical observatories. There is no direct evidence that the pharaohs were buried in the pyramids, but other versions of their purpose are less convincing.

When the pyramid of Cheops was built

On the basis of ancient "royal lists" it is established that Cheops ruled around 2585-2566. BC. The construction of the "Sacred Height" lasted 20 years and ended after the death of Khufu, around 2560 BC.

Other versions of the construction time, based on astronomical methods, give dates from 2720 to 2577. BC. The radiocarbon method shows a spread of 170 years, from 2850 to 2680. BC.

There are also exotic opinions expressed by supporters of the theories of aliens visiting the Earth, the existence of ancient civilizations, or adherents of occult movements. They determine the age of the Cheops pyramid from 6-7 to tens of thousands of years.

How the pyramid was built

The Pyramid of Cheops is to this day the largest stone building on the planet. Its height is 137 m., The length of the side of the base is 230.38 m., The angle of inclination of the face is 51 ° 50 ", the total volume is about 2.5 million cubic meters. However, over the past centuries, almost the entire facing of the pyramid has been dismantled.Natural factors have also done their job - temperature drops and winds from the desert carrying clouds of sand.

Ancient Greek historians reported that the labor of millions of slaves was used in the construction. Modern researchers believe that with the correct organization of work and engineering, the Egyptians would have had several tens of thousands of workers for the construction. For the supply of materials, temporary workers were involved, the number of whom, according to Herodotus, reached 100 thousand. Modern scientists fully agree with this, as well as with the reality of the 20-year construction period.

The construction of the pyramid was supervised by the head of the royal works, Khemiun. The tomb of Hemiun is located next to his creation, in which a statue of the architect was discovered.

The main material for the construction was gray limestone, which was cut in the nearest quarries or brought from the other side of the Nile. The pyramid was faced with light sandstone, which made it literally shine in the sunlight. For interior decoration, granite was used, which was delivered over a thousand kilometers from the area of ​​present-day Aswan. The structure was crowned with a hewn gilded granite block - a pyramidion.

In total, the construction of the pyramid took about 2.3 million blocks of limestone and 115 thousand facing slabs. The total mass of the building, according to modern estimates, is almost 6 million tons.

The block sizes differ among themselves. The largest ones are laid in the base, their height is one and a half meters. The higher the blocks are, the smaller they are. The height of the block at the top is 55 cm. The length of the facing slabs ranged from 1.5 to 0.75 m.

The work of the builders of the pyramid was extremely hard. It took a lot of time and effort to extract the stone, trim the blocks and fit them to the desired size. In those days, neither iron nor bronze was known in Egypt. The tools were made of relatively soft copper, so they were quickly grinded and at the same time very expensive. Flint tools were widely used - saws, drills, hammers. Many of them were found during excavations.

The delivery of materials was carried out by the river, and the stone was brought to the construction site on a wooden sled or roller. It was a hell of a job, because the average weight of one block is 2.5 tons, and some of them weighed up to 50 tons.

A variety of devices were used to lift and install the monoliths, and inclined embankments were erected to drag up the most massive elements that make up the lower rows. Images of construction work have been found in a number of Egyptian temples and tombs.

Recently, an original theory has emerged regarding the building methods of the Egyptians. Scientists who studied the microstructure of the blocks in order to establish their origin found foreign inclusions. According to experts, these are the remains of animal hair and human hair, from which the scientists concluded that limestone was crushed at the mining sites and delivered to the construction site in crushed form. Directly at the place of laying, blocks were made of limestone mass, which thereby were a semblance of modern concrete structures, and the traces of tools on the blocks are in fact imprints of the formwork.

Be that as it may, the construction was completed, and the grandiose size of the pyramid fully justifies the supporters of the theories of Atlanteans and aliens, who do not believe in the possibility of human genius.

What's inside the pyramid

The entrance to the pyramid was made at a height of almost 16 meters in the form of an arch made of granite slabs. It was later sealed with a granite plug and covered with cladding. The current entrance, 10 meters lower, was pierced in 831 by order of the Caliph Al-Mamun, who hoped to find gold here, but did not find anything of value.

The main premises are the pharaoh's chamber, the queen's chamber, the Great Gallery and the underground chamber. The passage made by Al-Mamun leads into a 105-meter inclined corridor, ending in a chamber carved into the thickness of the rock below the base of the pyramid. Its dimensions are 14x8 m, the height is 3.5 m. For unknown reasons, the work here was not completed.

At 18 meters from the entrance, the descending corridor is separated by an ascending one with a length of 40 meters, ending in the Great Gallery. The Gallery itself is a high (8.5 m) tunnel 46.6 m long, leading to the pharaoh's chamber. The corridor to the queen's chamber branches off from the Gallery at its very beginning. In the floor of the Gallery, a rectangular ditch in cross section, 60 cm deep and 1 m wide, has been pierced, its purpose is unknown.

The pharaoh's chamber is 10.5 m long, 5.4 m wide, 5.84 m high. It is faced with black granite slabs. There is an empty granite sarcophagus here. The queen's chamber is more modest - 5.76 x 5.23 x 6.26 m.

Channels 20-25 cm wide lead from burial chambers to the surface of the pyramid. The channels of the queen's chamber begin 13 cm from the wall and do not reach 12 m to the surface, and both ends of the channels are closed by stone doors with handles. It is assumed that the ducts were made to ventilate the premises during the work. Another version, associated with the beliefs of the Egyptians, claims that this is the path to the afterlife, which the souls of the deceased had to pass.

No less mysterious is another small room, the Grotto, to which an almost vertical passage leads from the beginning of the Great Gallery. The grotto is located at the junction of the base of the pyramid and the hill on which it stands. The walls of the grotto are fortified with rather rough-cut stone. It is assumed that this is part of some structure older than the pyramid.

It is necessary to mention one discovery related to the pyramid. In 1954, at the southern edge, two pits faced with stone were discovered, in which there were Pharaoh's boats made of Lebanese cedar. One of the boats has been restored and is now in a special pavilion next to the pyramid. Its length is 43.5 m, width is 5.6 m.

The study of the Cheops pyramid continues. Research using the latest methods used in the exploration of the earth's interior shows with a high degree of probability the existence of unknown caverns within the pyramid. So it is quite possible that scientists are expecting new and most interesting discoveries and discoveries.

In the meantime, the Great Pyramid keeps its secrets, proudly towering in the middle of the desert, as thousands of years ago. After all, as the ancient Arab proverb says, everything in the world is afraid of time, but time is afraid of the pyramids.

The first wonder of the world of all time, one of the main structures of our planet, a place full of secrets and mysteries, a point of constant pilgrimage for tourists - the Egyptian pyramids and in particular the pyramid of Cheops.

Building giant pyramids, of course, was not an easy task. Huge efforts of a large number of people were made in order to deliver stone blocks to the Giza or Saqqara plateau, and later to the Valley of the Kings, which became the new necropolis of the pharaohs.

At the moment, there are about a hundred pyramids found in Egypt, but the finds continue, and their number is constantly increasing. At different times, one of the 7 wonders of the world meant different pyramids. Someone meant all the pyramids of Egypt as a whole, someone the pyramids near Memphis, someone the three large pyramids of Giza, and most critics recognized only the largest pyramid of Cheops.

Afterlife of Ancient Egypt

One of the central moments in the life of the ancient Egyptians was religion, which shaped the entire culture as a whole. Particular attention was paid to the afterlife, perceived as a clear continuation of earthly life. That is why preparation for life after death began long before her, was posed as one of the main tasks of life.

According to the ancient Egyptian belief, a person had several souls. The soul of Ka played the role of the Egyptian's double, with whom he was to meet in the afterlife. Ba's soul connected with the person himself, and left his body after death.

Religious life of the Egyptians and the god Anubis

At first it was believed that only the pharaoh had the right to life after death, but he could grant this "immortality" to his entourage, who were usually buried next to the tomb of the ruler. Ordinary people were not destined to get into the world of the dead, the only exceptions were slaves and servants, whom the pharaoh "took" with him, and who were depicted on the walls of the great tomb.

But for a comfortable life after the death of the deceased, it was necessary to provide everything necessary: ​​food, household utensils, servants, slaves and much more needed for the average pharaoh. They also tried to preserve the human body so that the Ba soul could later reconnect with him. Therefore, in matters of body preservation, embalming and the creation of complex pyramid tombs were born.

The first pyramid in Egypt. Djoser's pyramid

Talking about building pyramids in Ancient egypt in general, the beginning of their story is worth mentioning. The very first pyramid in Egypt was built about five thousand years ago at the initiative of Pharaoh Djoser. It is in these 5 millennia that the age of the pyramids in Egypt is estimated. The construction of the pyramid of Djoser was led by the famous and legendary Imhotep, who was even deified in the later centuries.

Djoser's pyramid

The entire complex of the erected building occupied an area of ​​545 by 278 meters. Along the perimeter, it was surrounded by a 10-meter wall with 14 gates, only one of which was real. In the center of the complex was the Djoser pyramid with sides 118 x 140 meters. The height of the Djoser pyramid is 60 meters. A burial chamber was located almost at a depth of 30 meters, to which corridors with many branches led. Utensils and sacrifices were kept in the branch rooms. Here archaeologists have found three bas-reliefs of Pharaoh Djoser himself. Near the eastern wall of the Djoser pyramid, 11 small burial chambers were discovered, intended for the royal family.

Unlike the famous great pyramids of Giza, the pyramid of Djoser had a stepped shape, as if intended for the ascent of the pharaoh to heaven. Of course, this pyramid is inferior in popularity and size to the Cheops pyramid, but still the contribution of the very first stone pyramid to the culture of Egypt is difficult to overestimate.

The Pyramid of Cheops. History and short description

But nevertheless, the most famous for the ordinary population of our planet are the adjacent three pyramids of Egypt - Khafren, Mekerin and the largest and highest pyramid in Egypt - Cheops (Khufu)

Pyramids of Giza

The pyramid of Pharaoh Cheops was built near the city of Giza, which is currently a suburb of Cairo. When the pyramid of Cheops was built, at the present time it is impossible to say for sure, and research gives a wide spread. In Egypt, for example, the date of the beginning of the construction of this pyramid is officially celebrated - August 23, 2480 BC.

Pyramid of Cheops and Sphinx

About 100,000 people were simultaneously involved in the construction of the wonder of the world, the Cheops pyramid. During the first ten years of work, a road was built, along which huge stone blocks were delivered to the river and the underground structures of the pyramid. Work on the construction of the monument itself continued for about 20 more years.

The dimensions of the Cheops pyramid at Giza are striking. The height of the Cheops pyramid initially reached 147 meters. Over time, due to being covered with sand and the loss of cladding, it decreased to 137 meters. But even this figure allowed it to remain the tallest human structure in the world for a long time. The pyramid has a square base with a side of 147 meters. The construction of this giant is estimated to require 2,300,000 limestone blocks weighing an average of 2.5 tons.

How were the pyramids built in Egypt?

The technology of building pyramids is controversial in our time. Versions range from the invention of concrete in Ancient Egypt to the construction of pyramids by aliens. But it is still believed that the pyramids were built by man exclusively by his own strength. So for the extraction of stone blocks, first a shape was outlined in the rock, grooves were hollowed out and a dry tree was inserted into them. Later, the tree was doused with water, it expanded, a crack formed in the rock, and the block was separated. Then it was processed to the desired shape with tools and sent down the river to a construction site.

During the construction of the most grandiose monument of antiquity, the pyramid of Cheops, more than one year was spent and a huge number of slaves were involved, many of whom died at the construction site. This was stated by the ancient Greeks, among them - Herodotus, one of the first historians who described this grandiose structure in detail.

But modern scientists do not agree with this opinion and argue: many free Egyptians wanted to work on a construction site - when agricultural work was over, it was a great opportunity to earn extra money (they provided food, clothing and housing here).

For any Egyptian, participating in the erection of a tomb for their ruler was a duty and a matter of honor, since each of them hoped that a piece of Pharaoh's immortality would also touch him: it was believed that the Egyptian ruler had the right not only to life after death, but could also take with him their loved ones (they were usually buried in tombs adjacent to the pyramid).

Ordinary people, however, were not destined to get into the afterlife - the only exceptions were the slaves and servants, who were buried together with the ruler. But everyone had the right to hope - and therefore, when the chores were over, for many years the Egyptians rushed to Cairo, to the rocky plateau.

The pyramid of Cheops (or as it was also called, Khufu) is located near Cairo, on the Giza plateau, on the left side of the Nile, and is the largest of the tombs located there. This tomb is the highest pyramid of our planet, was built for more than one year, has a non-standard layout. Quite an interesting fact is that during the autopsy, the body of the ruler was not found in it.

For many years now, it has been exciting the minds of researchers and fans of Egyptian culture, who ask themselves the question: were ancient people able to erect such a structure and was not the pyramid the work of representatives of extraterrestrial civilizations, who erected it with only one clear goal for them?

The fact that this stunning tomb almost immediately entered the list of the ancient seven wonders of the world does not surprise anyone: the dimensions of the Cheops pyramid are amazing, and this, despite the fact that over the past millennia it has become smaller, and scientists cannot determine the exact proportions of the Cheops pyramid in condition, since its edges and surfaces were dismantled for their needs by more than one generation of Egyptians:

• The height of the pyramid is about 138 m (it is interesting that in the year when it was built, it was eleven meters higher);
• The foundation is square, each side is about 230 meters long;
• The area of ​​the foundation is about 5.4 hectares (thus, the five largest cathedrals of our planet will fit on it);
• The length of the foundation along the perimeter is 922 m.

Pyramid building

If earlier scientists believed that the construction of the pyramid of Cheops took about twenty years for the Egyptians, in our time, Egyptologists, having studied the records of the priests in more detail, and, taking into account the parameters of the pyramid, as well as the fact that Cheops ruled for about fifty years, refuted this fact and came to the conclusion that it was built for at least thirty, and maybe as much as forty years.

Despite the fact that the exact date of the construction of this grandiose tomb is unknown, it is believed that it was built by order of the Pharaoh Cheops, who presumably ruled from 2589 to 2566 BC. BC, and his nephew and vizier Hemion was responsible for the construction work, who used the latest technologies of his time, over the solution of which many scientists have been struggling for centuries. He approached the matter with all care and meticulousness.

Preparation for construction

More than 4 thousand workers were involved in the preliminary work, which took about ten years. It was necessary to find a site for construction, the soil of which would be strong enough to withstand a structure of this scale - so it was decided to stop on a rocky site near Cairo.

To level the site, the Egyptians, using stones and sand, erected a square-shaped waterproof shaft. In the shaft, they cut down channels that intersect at right angles, and the construction site began to resemble a large chessboard.

After that, water was launched into the trenches, with the help of which the builders determined the height of the water level and made the necessary notches on the side walls of the canals, after which the water was drained. All the stones that were above the water level were cut down by the workers, after which the trenches were laid with stones, thus obtaining the foundation of the tomb.

Working with stone

The building material for the tomb was obtained from a quarry located on the other side of the Nile. To get a block of the required size, the stone was cut from the rock and hewed to the required size - from 0.8 to 1.5 m.Although on average one stone block weighed about 2.5 tons, the Egyptians also made heavier specimens, for example, the heaviest the block, which was installed above the entrance to the "Pharaoh's Room", weighed 35 tons.

With the help of thick ropes and levers, the builders fixed the block on wooden runners and dragged it along the log deck to the Nile, loaded it onto a boat and transported it across the river. And then again they were dragged along the logs to the construction site, after which the most difficult stage began: a huge block had to be pulled to the uppermost platform of the tomb. How exactly this was done and what technologies were used is one of the mysteries of the Cheops pyramid.

One of the versions proposed by scientists implies the following option. Along a 20 m wide brick rise located at an angle, the block lying on the runners was pulled upward with the help of ropes and levers, where it was laid in a clearly designated place. The higher the Cheops pyramid became, the longer and steeper the rise turned out to be, and the upper platform decreased - therefore it was more and more difficult and dangerous to lift the blocks.

The workers had the hardest part when it was necessary to install the "pyramidon" - the topmost block 9 meters high (it has not survived to this day). Since it was necessary to lift a huge block almost vertically, the work turned out to be deadly, and at this stage of the work many people died. As a result, after the completion of construction, the pyramid of Cheops consisted of more than 200 steps leading upward and looked like a huge stepped mountain.

In total, it took the ancient Egyptians at least twenty years to build the body of the pyramid. The work on the "box" had not been completed yet - it was still necessary to lay them with stones and make the outer parts of the boulders more or less smooth. And at the final stage, the Egyptians completely veneered the pyramid from the outside with polished slabs of white limestone - and it sparkled in the sun like a huge shiny crystal.

The plates on the pyramid have not survived to this day: the inhabitants of Cairo, after the Arabs sacked their capital (1168), used them to build new houses and temples (some of them can be seen on mosques today).

Drawings on the pyramid

An interesting fact: the body of the pyramid from the outside is covered with curved grooves of different sizes. If you look at them from a certain angle, you can see an image of a man 150 m high (possibly a portrait of one of the ancient gods). This drawing is not alone: ​​on the northern wall of the tomb, you can also distinguish a man and a woman with their heads bowed to each other.

Scientists claim that these Egyptians made the grooves several years before they finished building the pyramid's body and installed the top stone. True, the question remains open: why did they do this, because the slabs with which the pyramid was subsequently decorated hid these portraits.

What the Great Pyramid looked like from the inside

A detailed study of the Cheops pyramid showed that, contrary to popular belief, there are practically no inscriptions or any other decorations inside the tomb, except for a small portrait in the corridor leading to the Queen's Room.

The entrance to the tomb is located on the north side at a height exceeding fifteen meters. After burial, it was closed with a granite plug, so tourists get inside through a gap ten meters lower - he was knocked out by the Caliph of Baghdad Abdullah al-Mamun (820 AD) - the man who first entered the tomb in order to rob it. The attempt failed, since he found nothing here except a thick layer of dust.

The Pyramid of Cheops is the only pyramid where there are corridors leading both down and up. The main corridor first goes down, then forks into two tunnels - one leads down to the unfinished burial chamber, the second up, first to the Great Gallery, from which you can get to the Queen's Room and the main tomb.

From the central entrance through a tunnel leading downwards (its length is 105 meters), one can get into a burial pit located below ground level, the height of which is 14 m, width - 8.1 m, height - 3.5 m. On the southern wall, Egyptologists discovered a well, the depth of which is about three meters (a narrow tunnel extends from it to the south, leading to a dead end).

Researchers believe that this room was originally intended for the crypt of Cheops, but then the pharaoh changed his mind and decided to build a tomb for himself above, so this room remained unfinished.

You can also get to the unfinished funeral room from the Great Gallery - at its very entrance begins a narrow, almost vertical shaft 60 meters high. It is interesting that in the middle of this tunnel there is a small grotto (most likely of natural origin, since it is located at the point where the pyramid masonry meets a small hump of a lime plate), in which several people could fit.

According to one hypothesis, the architects took this grotto into account when designing the pyramid and originally intended it to evacuate builders or priests who were finishing the ceremony of “sealing” the central passage leading to the tomb of the pharaoh.

The Pyramid of Cheops has another mysterious room with an incomprehensible purpose - the "Queen's Chamber" (like the lowest room, this room is not completed, as evidenced by the floor, on which they began to lay out the tiles, but did not complete the work).

You can get to this room by first going down the corridor 18 meters from the main entrance, and then going up a long tunnel (40 m). This room is the smallest of all, located in the very center of the pyramid, has an almost square shape (5.73 x 5.23 m, height - 6.22 m), and a niche is built into one of its walls.

Despite the fact that the second burial pit is called “the queen's room,” the name is erroneous, since the wives of Egyptian rulers were always buried in separate small pyramids (there are three such tombs near the pharaoh's tomb).

Previously, it was not easy to get into the "Queen's Chamber", because at the very beginning of the corridor that led to the Great Gallery, three granite blocks were installed, disguised with limestone - therefore, it was previously believed that this room did not exist. Al-Mamunu guessed about its presence and, being unable to remove the boulders, dug out a passage in the softer limestone (this passage is still being exploited).

At what stage of construction the plugs were installed is not known exactly, and therefore there are several hypotheses. According to one of them, they were installed even before the funeral, during construction work. Another argues that earlier on this place they were not at all, and they appeared here after the earthquake, rolling down from the Great Gallery, where they were installed after the funeral of the ruler.

Another mystery of the Cheops pyramid is that exactly where the plugs are located, there are not two, as in other pyramids, but three tunnels - the third is a vertical hole (though no one knows where it leads, since the granite blocks with no one has moved the place yet).

The pharaoh's tomb can be accessed through the Great Gallery, which is almost 50 meters long. It is a continuation of the upward corridor from the main entrance. Its height is 8.5 meters, while the walls at the top taper slightly. In front of the tomb of the Egyptian ruler there is a "hallway" - the so-called Ancestor Chamber.

From the Antechamber, a manhole leads to the "Pharaoh's Chamber", built of monolithic polished granite blocks, in which there is an empty sarcophagus made of a red piece of Aswan granite. (An interesting fact: scientists have not yet found any traces and evidence that it was here that the burial was located).

Apparently, the sarcophagus was brought here even before the start of construction, since its size did not allow it to be placed here after the end of construction work. The tomb is 10.5 m long, 5.4 m wide, and 5.8 m high.

The biggest mystery of the Cheops pyramid (as well as its feature) is its 20 cm wide shafts, which scientists call ventilation ducts. They start inside the two upper rooms, run horizontally at first, and then slope outward.

While these channels in the Pharaoh's room are through, in the “Queen's Quarters” they start only at a distance of 13 cm from the wall and do not reach the surface at the same distance (while at the top they are closed by stones with copper handles, the so-called “Gunterbrink doors”) ...

Despite the fact that some researchers suggest that these were ventilation ducts (for example, they were designed to prevent workers from suffocating during work due to the lack of oxygen), most Egyptologists are still inclined to think that these narrow ducts had religious significance and were able to prove that they were built, given the location of astronomical bodies. The presence of channels may well be associated with the belief of the Egyptians about the gods and souls of the dead who live in the starry sky.

At the foot of the Great Pyramid there are several underground structures - in one of them archaeologists (1954) found the oldest ship on our planet: a wooden cedar boat disassembled into 1224 parts, the total length of which in the assembled state was 43.6 meters (apparently , it was on it that Pharaoh was supposed to go to the Kingdom of the Dead).

Is this tomb of Cheops

In the past few years, Egyptologists have increasingly questioned the fact that this pyramid was actually intended for Cheops. This is evidenced by the fact that there are absolutely no decorations in the burial chamber.

The mummy of the pharaoh was not found in the tomb, and the sarcophagus itself, in which it was supposed to be, was not completed by the builders: it was hewn rather roughly, and the lid was completely absent. These Interesting Facts enable fans of theories of the extraterrestrial origin of this grandiose structure to assert that the pyramid was built by representatives of extraterrestrial civilizations, using technologies unknown to science and with a purpose incomprehensible to us.