Cairo Day 3 – The Giza Plateau –

Before getting on the Metro, we snapped some pics at Tehrir Square...

On the Giza...

Finally, 30 some years after learning about the pyramids in school, reading books about them, reading mysteries and theories as to how they were erected-we finally got to see them on site. Heidi and I woke up around 0645 to meet up with our friend Justin, a fellow American traveling here. The three of us decided to embark on this journey together. Once we arrived all three of us were in awe of the superstructures. The immense size is so deceiving, any distance from them will distort the actual size, similar to looking at the Grand Canyon in AZ. It’s impossible to realize the size until you are standing at the foundations.  There are many pictures and I think we will post most of them below. We started at the Sphinx and then headed for Khufu, the largest pyramid.  We’ve been told that there is evidence of more chambers under the Sphinx but excavation wasn’t going to be allowed…hmm.

 You can faintly see the pyramids in the distance, pic taken from the freeway.

 At the entrance

The Great Sphinx of Giza - It is the largest monolith statue in the world, standing 241 ft long, 20 ft wide, and 66.34 ft high. Carved from a single block of stone, said to be built in 2500BC. There is possible evidence it was already buried in the sand at this time, carved much earlier.

 I didn't know it had a tail.

After drooling over the Sphinx, it was time to move on to the pyramids.  

The Great Pyramid of Giza also called the Pyramid of Khufu and the Pyramid of Cheops is the oldest and largest of the three pyramids in the Giza Necropolis. It is the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the only one to remain mostly intact. "They" believe that the pyramid was built as a tomb for fourth dynasty Egyptian Pharaoh Khufu over an approximately 20 year period ending around 2560 BC. The dimensions are 480.6 ft in height, each base side was 755.9 ft long. The base covers 13 acres. The mass of the pyramid is estimated at 5.9 million tons. The volume, including an internal hillock, is roughly 90,000,000 cubic feet. Based on these estimates, building this in 20 years would involve installing approximately 800 tons of stone every day. Since it consists of an estimated 2.3 million blocks, completing the building in 20 years would involve moving an average of more than 12 of the blocks into place each hour, day and night. Each block weighing in at anywhere from 2 to 70 tons. The largest granite stones in the pyramid, found in the "King's" chamber, weigh 25 to 80 tons and were transported from Aswan, more than 500 miles away. It is estimated that 8,000 tons of granite was imported from Aswan. It is estimated that 500,000 tons of mortar were used in the construction of the Great Pyramid.  hmmm....methinks...


 Originally, the Great Pyramid was covered by casing stones that formed a smooth outer surface; what is seen today is core structure. Some of the casing stones that once covered the structure can still be seen around the base. 


The casing stones can be seen here at the top of the other pyramid, and at the base of the Great Pyramid

  I knew I was going to go inside the biggest one and I had in my mind I would spend any amount of money to accomplish this. As it turns out the ticket was LE100 to enter the pyramid of Khufu (Cheope’s). I figured any amount was worth spending to see something of this magnitude. Most people believe these are burial tombs; however we have seen the tombs at the Valley of the Kings. All the tombs have writings on the walls and the kings would often have possessions buried with them. The tombs in the valley were also clearly designed as such. If this was a tomb why aren’t there hieroglyphs or some evidence of one king’s life written on the walls? I know we couldn’t see every passage and room, but I saw the biggest chamber. While I was inside there were at least 2 passages that where blocked off from entry. "They" say there are three known chambers inside the Great Pyramid. This is the only pyramid in Egypt known to contain both ascending and descending passages. While inside, I saw one that was level, but blocked from any access...hmmm. I was able to enter the ascending passage. I could see pretty far down the paths that where blocked, too bad I couldn’t have gone in. Photos were not allowed of course, but I did catch some video.  I probably shouldn’t have, but why not. All should be able to see this and study it, aren’t we in the information age?

Video's will be posted later...

 I believe there is a main entrance as pictured below, where you see the huge stones positioned like a chevron.  The place I entered was below and to the right.

I’ve read a series of books suggesting this pyramid is actually much older than 2,500BC, perhaps as old as 10,000BC, in this series of books they suggest the pyramids were never built for the purpose of burial. Perhaps a beacon in the desert for something else, one could contemplate this forever. And if not for burial, why the chambers deep inside, why the alignment they have on the plain, why why why!… Guess I’ll keep studying.

After spending hours at Giza contemplating this vast undertaking, it was time to go. The three of us hopped on a bus and headed back to downtown Cairo.  A detour was in order, after standing at the edge of the Sahara all day, it was Miller Time! Well not Miller, but Sakara. Before getting to our hostel we stopped at Odeon hotel again and each downed two cold brews, ahhhh.  Now we could go back to the hotel, get some food and take a nap. Another one of the great mysteries of our planet checked off the list of things to be seen in person.  

 Oh, on the way back we snapped some photo's of the property owned by Mr. Mubarak, the former president of Egypt, ... they don't mess around here.

Nite...