What is the Pyramid?
The pyramid is the tomb of the pharaoh - and the pharaoh is the king. The famous pyramids that you all know about are the Pyramids of Giza. They are only monument still standing from the ancient seven wonders of the world.
Why did the ancient Egyptian people build the Pyramids?
Pyramids of Giza
Just for one reason, for the religious belief of the after life.
They believed when they died they are going to return back and live the after life which was going to be forever with no end.
Where are they going to live this afterlife?? In the tomb.
They believed that the normal life, what we are living now, is just a short interval of time to prepare themselves for the after life.
That’s why we have never found any houses or palaces left by the ancient Egyptian people.
In the tomb they will live forever. That's why the tomb has to be built by a way that will resist the time because that’s where they will be living forever.
Other Pyramids
The ancient Egyptian people didn’t wake up in the morning and say lets build pyramids. It developed step by step. From a normal grave to the Pyramids of Giza. The normal grave was a hole in the ground covered by sand with a stone at the top so they don’t walk over their bodies. For the Pharaoh they did the same exactly but they dug a tunnel leading to the burial chamber. And instead of the stone on the top they used to build a rectangular shape (about 10 meters high built by mud brick) which was called Mastaba.
In the time of Zoser (who was a great pharaoh 4600 years ago) he had Emhotep who the first and the greatest architect in the history. Zoser told Emhotep that he wanted his Mastaba different and greater than any other Mastaba.
So Emhotep designed and built a Mastaba out of stone - which by the way, the first time for humans to use stone for building.
The Step Pyramid of Zoser
Emhotep originally made it rectangular in shape but Zoser wanted something different. So he changed it to make it square in shape and added 2 smaller steps on the top. Which made a square 3 step Mastaba. Then they found that if they keep going and added 3 more steps it is going to be taking the pyramid shape.
And this was the beginning.
In the next 180 years after Zoser there were 3 other attempts as follows, the Broken Pyramid in Meidum, the Bent Pyramid (Huni) and Red Pyramid of Dashur.
Broken Pyramid
Bent Pyramid (Huni)
Red Pyramid of Dashur
How did the ancient Egyptians choose the location for building the Pyramids?
The secret of them standing till now is the location.
I wanted to speak about this point especially after all of these documentaries speaking about how the pyramids are lying with constellations in the sky - like Orion belt and pointing at Venus and all of these stories.
To make the pyramids stay they had to avoid all means of erosions that can be affecting them. There are 3 very important points in choosing the locations.
1. It had to be put on a high place to avoid the flood of the Nile because if the water reached there tomb it would be destroyed.
2. It had to be built on a solid rocky ground. If they built it on a deep sand area it wasn’t going to carry the heavy weight of the stones and it would collapse.
3. The third and most important point is that it had to be in a very dry place. If they built it near the Mediterranean or Red sea the humidity would erode the lime stone.
We have found these 3 points in all sites of tombs and pyramids.
