The complex is home to three main pyramids – the Great Pyramid, the Pyramid of Khafre, and the Pyramid of Menkaure – along with smaller “queens’ ” pyramids and the Great Sphinx. It is definitely to no one’s surprise that the ancient Greeks considered the largest of these to be one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The Great Pyramid is now the only surviving artifact of the seven wonders after the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus sadly turned to ruins only 500 years ago.
The Great Pyramid of Giza was built as a tomb for the Fourth Dynasty Egyptian Pharaoh Khufu. The construction took 20 years, finishing in 2560 BCE, and utilized 2.3 million stone blocks weighing an average of 2.5 tons apiece.
Khufu chose to have the pyramid built on the plateau of Giza so that it would be visible far and wide. He called it “Akhet-Khufu” which means the “Horizon of Khufu.” The pyramid is estimated to weigh 5.9 million metric tons and has a volume of 2.5 million cubic meters (88 million cubic feet). According to French architect Jean-Pierre Houdin, if modern techniques were to be used to build the pyramid, it would cost an estimated $5 billion and require a workforce of 1,500 to 2,000.
Unlike what the Greeks thought, evidence suggests that the pyramid was built using paid laborers who would work three- to four-month shifts in lieu of taxes. They also received ten loaves of bread and a jug of beer each day for their work. The precise number of workers who worked on the pyramid is not known. While mathematician Kurt Mendelssohn suggested 50,000 men, Ludwig Borchardt and Louis Croon believed the number to be 36,000. However, it is estimated that around 4,000 workers quarried, hauled, and set the stone.
Originally, the pyramid was white and covered in highly polished limestone casing stones. After a massive earthquake loosened them in 1303 CE, the stones were used to build mosques and fortresses in Cairo by the Bahri Sultan.
In 2013, a collection of papyrus logbooks known as “The Diary of Merer” was discovered in a cave by a French mission led by Pierre Tallet of Paris-Sorbonne University. The text disclosed the limestone transportation work during several months from Tora to Giza, with two or three trips every ten days by around 40 boatmen who worked under Merer. Tora was an ancient mining town with the finest and whitest limestone throughout ancient Egypt.
An estimated 5.5 million metric tons of limestone was used for the Great Pyramid, and each stone had a slanted face. After the earthquake, many of the stones were used by Bahri Sultan An-Nasir Nasir-ad-Din al-Hasan to build mosques and fortresses. Later, in the 19th century, the Ottoman governor of Egypt, Muhammad Ali Pasha, had more casing stones removed to construct the Alabaster Mosque in Cairo. A few of the casing stones can still be seen on the pyramid to this day.
The inside of the pyramid houses the King’s Chamber, the Queen’s Chamber, the Grand Gallery, and the “Big Void.” A tunnel known as the “Robber’s Tunnel” created around 820 CE leads into the pyramid.
The King’s Chamber is made of granite and contains only the sarcophagus. Its roof is formed by nine stone slabs weighing a total of 400 tons. Above the roof are five compartments known as the Relieving Chambers that are believed to protect the King’s Chamber from collapsing.