Pyramids of Giza

In the Old Kingdom, the king was believed to become a god when he died, and his tomb was the machine that made that journey possible. The pyramid shape probably echoed the rays of the sun and the primeval mound from which the Egyptians believed the world had risen.

Khufu's Great Pyramid, finished around 2560 BC, was the tallest human-made structure on Earth for roughly 3,800 years. His son Khafre built the second pyramid — it looks taller because it stands on higher ground and still has some of its original smooth casing stones at the top. Menkaure's much smaller pyramid completes the trio.

Not slaves. Excavations south of the plateau uncovered a town of workers with bakeries, breweries, dormitories and cemeteries. The workers were organised in named gangs, fed on bread, beer and cattle, and buried with honour near the kings they served.

The core blocks were quarried on the plateau itself. The fine white casing limestone came by boat from Tura across the Nile, and granite for the burial chamber came from Aswan, almost 900 km upriver. A papyrus logbook found at Wadi al-Jarf records a team shipping Tura limestone for Khufu's pyramid.

Each pyramid was the centre of a complex: a mortuary temple against its east face, a causeway down to a valley temple at the edge of the floodplain, smaller pyramids for queens, and rows of mastaba tombs for officials. Pits beside the Great Pyramid held full-size wooden boats; one, reassembled from more than 1,200 pieces, is now displayed at the Grand Egyptian Museum.

No written account of the building survives from the Old Kingdom, but the evidence on the ground tells much of the story. Blocks averaging around two and a half tonnes were cut with copper chisels and stone pounders, dragged on wooden sledges and raised on ramps of mud brick and rubble — archaeologists still debate whether these ran straight, zig-zagged up a face or wound around the pyramid. A tomb painting from Deir el-Bersha shows a colossal statue being hauled on a sledge while a man pours water in front of it, which makes wet sand far easier to pull across.

The precision is astonishing: the Great Pyramid's sides are aligned to the cardinal points to within a small fraction of a degree. The Greek historian Herodotus, writing some 2,000 years later, was told it took twenty years to build.

A narrow passage climbs from the entrance to the Grand Gallery, a soaring corbelled corridor about 8.6 metres high and 47 metres long, which leads to the King's Chamber. Built entirely of granite, it still holds Khufu's empty stone sarcophagus. Above it, five low 'relieving chambers' spread the weight of the stone; on their walls the work gangs painted their names, including Khufu's own.

The pyramid still keeps secrets. In 2017 the ScanPyramids project, using cosmic-ray particles called muons, detected a large void above the Grand Gallery, and in 2023 a camera pushed through a gap in the stones showed a sealed corridor above the original entrance.