History

From pharaonic construction to Arab conquest to modern wonder (the most precisely GizaEgypt single Old Kingdom 4th Dynasty Sneferu father Khufu Khafre Menkaure 3 generation Dahshur Meidum Bent Red Pyramid Sneferu pyramid development Khufu Cheops Greek 2560 2540 BCE Great Pyramid Hemiunu royal architect vizier overseer construction workers city 20000 30000 craftsmen paid rations housing beer bread grain labor organization Khafre Chephren 2532 2503 BCE Pyramid Sphinx mortuary temple valley temple causeway Menkaure Mycerinus 2510 2490 BCE smallest best quality granite casing base 3 tiers New Kingdom 1400 BCE Ramesses II Son of Ra cartouche inscribed Sphinx Thutmose IV Dream Stele 1401 BCE Sphinx buried sand dream promise pharaoh clear sand become king Greek Herodotus 460 BCE description 100000 men 20 years slaves incorrect modern scholarship Arab 642 CE conquest al-Mamun 820 CE tunnel attempt steal treasury find inside Napoleon 1798 CE scientific survey Muhammad Ali 19th century Suez Canal construction quarry stones Medieval Arab builders stripped casing limestone Cairo mosques 12th 13th century CE UNESCO 1979 heritage: the casing stones (the Great Pyramid was originally encased in highly polished white Tura limestone (a finer quality limestone from quarries across the Nile; distinct from the Giza plateau limestone used for the core)); the casing is almost entirely gone (the medieval builders of Cairo stripped the white limestone casing from all three main pyramids to build mosques and fortifications in medieval Cairo (particularly after the 1303 CE earthquake which loosened many casing stones)); only the Pyramid of Khafre retains its original white limestone casing at the very top (the section that could not be stripped safely from below; the color difference between the grey limestone core and the remaining white casing top is visible in photographs)); the Sphinx (the 73m-long, 20m-high statue carved from a single limestone outcrop in the quarry used for the Khafre pyramid; the most debated monument in Egyptology: was it built by Khafre (the dominant view: the face of the Sphinx resembles Khafre; the Dream Stele of Thutmose IV (1401 BCE) mentions Khafre) or earlier?; geologist Robert Schoch’s alternative chronology (1991 CE): the weathering pattern on the Sphinx enclosure walls is consistent with water erosion, not wind-sand erosion — suggesting the Sphinx was built during a wetter period of Egypt (before 3000 BCE)? The mainstream Egyptological consensus rejects this)) — the most precisely GizaEgypt single Old Kingdom 4th Dynasty Sneferu Khufu 2560 2540 BCE Hemiunu architect workers city 20000 30000 rations beer bread Khafre 2532 2503 CE Sphinx single bedrock 73m long 20m high Thutmose IV Dream Stele 1401 BCE Menkaure 2510 2490 BCE granite base Herodotus 460 BCE 100000 men 20 years incorrect Arab 642 CE al-Mamun 820 CE medieval Arab stripped white limestone casing Cairo mosques 12th 13th century Khafre top casing only remaining ScanPyramids 2017 Big Void UNESCO 1979 heritage in any UNESCO world heritage site)).