We booked a tour with a certified Egyptologist named Sherif.
He was great and talked a mile a minute so you had to pay attention to keep up.
Our first stop was the great pyramid of Khufu, the largest and oldest of the
pyramids and the only remaining of the 7 ancient wonders of the world. And it’s
pretty impressive. Most of us have seen pictures, seen them in movies, but to
be there in the flesh is pretty amazing. A few facts:
The pyramid, the temple of purification and the temple of
mummification were all built for one king and never used again for anything
else.
In addition, there are 5 ships built around the pyramid to
symbolize the journey to the sun god, Ra. So far, 4 of those ships have been
excavated, the 5th is out there somewhere.
This first pyramid took 30 years to build and King Khufu died
before it was finished so never got to see the fruits of his labor. The next
one, belonging to his son, took 9 years, probably because he didn’t want to
make the same mistake his father did!
The pyramid stones are sandstone cut to fit together and
stay together. Then the entire pyramid was covered with limestone and polished
smooth. This covering was torn off most of the pyramids by more recent kings
who thought it prestigious to build their home and temples with the stone from
the ancient pyramids. You’ll see the son’s pyramid still has some of the
limestone covering the top third.
There are also queen’s pyramids for the king’s additional
wives (his first would be buried with him in the main pyramid).
Enough trivia, let’s see these bad boys.
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