Tomb or Temple?
Original Egyptian tombs were no more than mounds with sloping edges and flat tops called mastabas. King Djoser’s architect layered six sequentially smaller mounds one upon the other, forming the first ‘Step-Pyramid’. Later, at Medum, King Snefru ordered the building of a step pyramid, filled in
with stone, and finally covered with a limestone casing. The first of
these smooth-walled buildings tapered toward the top and others though
evenly inclined, were rather squat in appearance.
The pyramids, built in the lifetime of a single king (pharaoh), served to aid in the movement from this life to the afterlife1, to help him achieve immortality. Mostly constructed during the fourth Dynasty (2680-2560 BC) of the Old Kingdom, the pyramids consisted of elaborately decorated passageways leading to underground rooms or rooms deep inside the pyramid, where the pharaoh’s embalmed and mummified body -together with gifts and necessities for the afterlife, gold, oils, etc.- was laid to rest. The scenes were highly colored and drawn from vignettes from the book of the dead and related subjects.
As in earlier mastaba tombs, the Step Pyramid’s burial chambers are underground, hidden in a maze of tunnels, probably to discourage grave robbers. Intended to hold his mummified body, Pharaoh Djoser’s Step Pyramid at Saqqara began as a traditional, flat-roofed mastaba. By the end of his 19-year reign, in 2611 B.C., it had risen to its six-stepped layers, and stood 62 meters high. It was the largest building of its time.
Extensive use of stone—here and there carved—made the tomb more durable than that of its mud-brick predecessor. Such pioneering techniques led ancient historians to credit the chief designer, Imhotep, with the inventing of stone architecture. The Step Pyramid complex, enclosed by a 10-meter wall, included courtyards, temples, and chapels, covering nearly 40 acres—the size of seven modern city blocks. They covered the tip of the pyramid in a dark-coloured stone, and polished the limestone to make it shine brightly in the sun and reflect moonlight. Excavations at Giza discovered remnants of funerary boats – the king’s body presumably brought by boat up the Nile to the pyramid site and mummified in the Valley Temple prior to placing in the pyramid for burial.
Snefru’s son, Khufu (Cheops), finally built the Great Pyramid of Giza. He constructed a 481 foot-high pyramid (higher than the Statue of Liberty) whose sides rose at an angle of 52 degrees; compared to about 41 degrees inprevious tombs2. A large square base equivalent to 52 suburban Sydney ‘Quarter-Acre Blocks’ (13 acres), achieves this with great structural stability. Each side of the pyramid is 230m long, and no more than 20cm difference in length to any other side, with the whole structure perfectly oriented to the points of the compass. Consistent with the geometric principles of the ‘Golden Ratio’ and ‘Squaring the Circle’, The Great Pyramid of Cheops’ geometry sacredly represents divine order. Built on the west bank of the Nile, the southern wall’s descending-passage also points directly to the Star of Orion, revered by Ancient Egyptians. This 4,500-year-old religious building is the only one of the famous Seven Wonders of the Ancient World that still stands.
Estimated at over two tons weight each, the largest of the 2,300,000 blocks of stone weighs as much as fifteen tons. Sledges, slid over ground first made slippery by liquid, moved the larger pieces. Ramps brought the blocks up to their position in the pyramid, and the outer layer of casing stones was finished from the top down and the ramps dismantled as the work was completed. Khufu’s son, King Khafre (Chephren), and a successor, Menkaure (Mycerinus) had two other major pyramids built at Giza, respectively.
Egyptians had copper tools. Such chisels, drills, and saws would cut the relatively soft stone. However, the burial chamber walls and exterior casing of the later pyramids were made of hard granite. Sand, used with these tools, could have provided the requisite abrasive properties for this latter more difficult task. The pyramids were orientated to the cardinal points and leveled with water-filled trenches.
Heroditus’ fifth century B.C. writing reports of 100,000 men employed for three months a year, for twenty years, building the Great Pyramid; modern estimates tend to be much smaller. When Heroditus visited the site, the great pyramid was already 20 centuries old, and its truth shrouded in the veil of history3. The Egyptians quarried the stone on the Giza plateau itself, and the blocks kept in the quarry until the flood season. The limestone and granite for casing and for specific chambers came from Tura and Aswan, respectively. Egyptian farm labourers -not Jewish slaves- built the pyramids, as part of their tax payment3. They worked the 3-4 months of each year when the Nile-plain was in flood, their now underwater fields’ precluding farming. The floodwaters assisted the transport of the blocks via barges. Ultimately, removal of almost all the cover of the pyramids sourced the limestone for later mosques in Cairo.
Egyptians built somewhat smaller pyramids for more than one thousand years after the height of the Fourth through to the Sixth Dynasties, for example in the Deir el-Medina necropolis, by private individuals. The Late Period Nubians who ruled Egypt also built relatively small pyramids with much steeper sides, though constructed in Nubia itself.
Today, the pyramids number over one hundred. Some undiscovered pyramids must lie buried beneath the sands. All but a very few are grouped around and near the City of Cairo, just south of the Nile Delta.
Otherwise, we are aware of only one other royal pyramid, in southern Egypt (at Abydos) built by Ahmose, founder of the 18th Dynasty and Egypt’s New Kingdom4. This may be the last royal pyramid built in Egypt.
Grave robbers discovered the tombs and their wealth. Egyptian architects became adept at designing passageways that plugged with impassable granite blocks, creating secret hidden rooms and decoy chambers. Thieves seemed to be smarter and with almost no exception plundered each of the great tombs of the Egyptian Kings. Egyptians later buried their kings in hidden tombs cut into rock cliffs in the hills of the West Bank of Thebes (Valley of the Kings in modern Luxor), for further protection.
Other pyramids in the world certainly exist, but their purpose, for the most part, was different to those of ancient Egypt. The most famous are those located in Mexico and to the south of Mexico4. These appear to be temples, not tombs. In Egypt, all but a select few of the pyramids were built as tombs, sometimes to hold the physical body of a pharaoh (as well as other individuals), or to hold the soul of the deceased (as in the case of the small cult pyramids built next to the larger ones). Otherwise, the purpose of only a few small, regional stepped pyramids remains elusive.
The pyramids are precise geometric, engineering, astronomical and religious architectural constructs, built by ancient Egyptians with the greatest care, and with the highest regard for their divine kings and their journey to and through the other world, following the ritualistic and expansive embalming and burial process. Built in the lifetime of a king, the pyramids where built for the lifetime of a king – and beyond. Purely and simply, they where designed to stand (and protect) the divine pharaoh forever.
References available on request
The pyramids, built in the lifetime of a single king (pharaoh), served to aid in the movement from this life to the afterlife1, to help him achieve immortality. Mostly constructed during the fourth Dynasty (2680-2560 BC) of the Old Kingdom, the pyramids consisted of elaborately decorated passageways leading to underground rooms or rooms deep inside the pyramid, where the pharaoh’s embalmed and mummified body -together with gifts and necessities for the afterlife, gold, oils, etc.- was laid to rest. The scenes were highly colored and drawn from vignettes from the book of the dead and related subjects.
As in earlier mastaba tombs, the Step Pyramid’s burial chambers are underground, hidden in a maze of tunnels, probably to discourage grave robbers. Intended to hold his mummified body, Pharaoh Djoser’s Step Pyramid at Saqqara began as a traditional, flat-roofed mastaba. By the end of his 19-year reign, in 2611 B.C., it had risen to its six-stepped layers, and stood 62 meters high. It was the largest building of its time.
Extensive use of stone—here and there carved—made the tomb more durable than that of its mud-brick predecessor. Such pioneering techniques led ancient historians to credit the chief designer, Imhotep, with the inventing of stone architecture. The Step Pyramid complex, enclosed by a 10-meter wall, included courtyards, temples, and chapels, covering nearly 40 acres—the size of seven modern city blocks. They covered the tip of the pyramid in a dark-coloured stone, and polished the limestone to make it shine brightly in the sun and reflect moonlight. Excavations at Giza discovered remnants of funerary boats – the king’s body presumably brought by boat up the Nile to the pyramid site and mummified in the Valley Temple prior to placing in the pyramid for burial.
Snefru’s son, Khufu (Cheops), finally built the Great Pyramid of Giza. He constructed a 481 foot-high pyramid (higher than the Statue of Liberty) whose sides rose at an angle of 52 degrees; compared to about 41 degrees inprevious tombs2. A large square base equivalent to 52 suburban Sydney ‘Quarter-Acre Blocks’ (13 acres), achieves this with great structural stability. Each side of the pyramid is 230m long, and no more than 20cm difference in length to any other side, with the whole structure perfectly oriented to the points of the compass. Consistent with the geometric principles of the ‘Golden Ratio’ and ‘Squaring the Circle’, The Great Pyramid of Cheops’ geometry sacredly represents divine order. Built on the west bank of the Nile, the southern wall’s descending-passage also points directly to the Star of Orion, revered by Ancient Egyptians. This 4,500-year-old religious building is the only one of the famous Seven Wonders of the Ancient World that still stands.
Estimated at over two tons weight each, the largest of the 2,300,000 blocks of stone weighs as much as fifteen tons. Sledges, slid over ground first made slippery by liquid, moved the larger pieces. Ramps brought the blocks up to their position in the pyramid, and the outer layer of casing stones was finished from the top down and the ramps dismantled as the work was completed. Khufu’s son, King Khafre (Chephren), and a successor, Menkaure (Mycerinus) had two other major pyramids built at Giza, respectively.
Egyptians had copper tools. Such chisels, drills, and saws would cut the relatively soft stone. However, the burial chamber walls and exterior casing of the later pyramids were made of hard granite. Sand, used with these tools, could have provided the requisite abrasive properties for this latter more difficult task. The pyramids were orientated to the cardinal points and leveled with water-filled trenches.
Heroditus’ fifth century B.C. writing reports of 100,000 men employed for three months a year, for twenty years, building the Great Pyramid; modern estimates tend to be much smaller. When Heroditus visited the site, the great pyramid was already 20 centuries old, and its truth shrouded in the veil of history3. The Egyptians quarried the stone on the Giza plateau itself, and the blocks kept in the quarry until the flood season. The limestone and granite for casing and for specific chambers came from Tura and Aswan, respectively. Egyptian farm labourers -not Jewish slaves- built the pyramids, as part of their tax payment3. They worked the 3-4 months of each year when the Nile-plain was in flood, their now underwater fields’ precluding farming. The floodwaters assisted the transport of the blocks via barges. Ultimately, removal of almost all the cover of the pyramids sourced the limestone for later mosques in Cairo.
Egyptians built somewhat smaller pyramids for more than one thousand years after the height of the Fourth through to the Sixth Dynasties, for example in the Deir el-Medina necropolis, by private individuals. The Late Period Nubians who ruled Egypt also built relatively small pyramids with much steeper sides, though constructed in Nubia itself.
Today, the pyramids number over one hundred. Some undiscovered pyramids must lie buried beneath the sands. All but a very few are grouped around and near the City of Cairo, just south of the Nile Delta.
Otherwise, we are aware of only one other royal pyramid, in southern Egypt (at Abydos) built by Ahmose, founder of the 18th Dynasty and Egypt’s New Kingdom4. This may be the last royal pyramid built in Egypt.
Grave robbers discovered the tombs and their wealth. Egyptian architects became adept at designing passageways that plugged with impassable granite blocks, creating secret hidden rooms and decoy chambers. Thieves seemed to be smarter and with almost no exception plundered each of the great tombs of the Egyptian Kings. Egyptians later buried their kings in hidden tombs cut into rock cliffs in the hills of the West Bank of Thebes (Valley of the Kings in modern Luxor), for further protection.
Other pyramids in the world certainly exist, but their purpose, for the most part, was different to those of ancient Egypt. The most famous are those located in Mexico and to the south of Mexico4. These appear to be temples, not tombs. In Egypt, all but a select few of the pyramids were built as tombs, sometimes to hold the physical body of a pharaoh (as well as other individuals), or to hold the soul of the deceased (as in the case of the small cult pyramids built next to the larger ones). Otherwise, the purpose of only a few small, regional stepped pyramids remains elusive.
The pyramids are precise geometric, engineering, astronomical and religious architectural constructs, built by ancient Egyptians with the greatest care, and with the highest regard for their divine kings and their journey to and through the other world, following the ritualistic and expansive embalming and burial process. Built in the lifetime of a king, the pyramids where built for the lifetime of a king – and beyond. Purely and simply, they where designed to stand (and protect) the divine pharaoh forever.
References available on request
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