When we hear the word pyramid generally a brown colored , triangular shaped huge structure comes to our minds first , which are located in Egypt!
There are mostly 118 or above identified Egyptian pyramids! They were mainly built as tombs for pharaohs and their consorts during the old and middle kingdom periods.
Among all the pyramids located Egypt, The Great Pyramid of Giza is the most famous one.
The Great Pyramid of Giza is located on the Giza plateau in Greater Cairo , Egypt.
It was built by Snefru's son Khufu and that's why it's also known as the 'Pyramid of Khufu' or the 'Pyramid of Cheops'!
The Egyptians say that it was built as a tomb for the Fourth Dynasty Egyptian pharaoh Khufu. It's estimated that this pyramid was built in 26th century (BC). It took 27 years to be built completely.
The great Pyramid of Giza is mainly made of limestone, morter and some granite. Initially when it was built it had a height of 146.5 meters or 481 feet. The Great Pyramid of Giza was the tallest manmade structure for more than 3800 years! Throughout the history the smooth casing of the limestones decayed and got removed which lowered the height of the Pyramid to 138.5 meters or 454.4 feet which is the present height now.
The blocks which were used in the great Pyramid weighs 6 million tonnes in total. A total of 2.3 million blocks were required to build it and most of the stones aren't uniform in size and shape.
The outside layer of the pyramid was done by mortar. White limestones from Tura was used for the casing of the Pyramid and granite blocks from Aswan , which weighed upto 80 tons were used for the King's chamber structure!
Primarily limestones from the Giza plateau was used. The other blocks such as limestones from Tura , granite blocks from Aswan were imported by boats/ships down the Nile River!
The so called King's and Queen's chamber which contains granite sarcophagus are the higher up in the pyramid structure!
The lowest chamber , which was cut into the bedrock upon which the pyramid is built, remained unfinished. {The insides of the pyramids only contains 3 parts}
It is said that, the architect of The Great Pyramid is Hemiunu(also known as Hemon). He was Khufu's vizier.
Two mortuary temples connected by a causeway, tombs for the immediate family, court of Khufu , three smaller pyramids for Khufu's wives , a "satellite pyramid" , five buried solar barges consists the funerary complex around The Great Pyramid which is known as Giza Pyramid Complex! 'Giza Pyramid complex' is also called Giza Necropolis.
On the southeast of the pyramids , facing directly from west to east ,'The Great Sphinx' resembling the face of Pharaoh Khafre, stands on the Giza Plateau , on the west bank of the Nile River. According to the Egyptologists , it was built in between 2600 to 2500 BC.
