Cheope's Pyramid
Owed to the architecture Hemiunu, Cheope’s pyramid originally had
the side of the base 230,50m long and it reached, with an inclination of
50° 50’ of its facades, 146,60m; today the peak is at 137,18m and the
pyramid covers an area of 53.000 mq, while the volume of the inner space
goes over 2.600.000mc. Its four facades are almost perfectly toward the
four cardinal points. It was built in the XXVI century BC. for the
homonymous pharaoh’s will. It seems that the work lasted about twenty
years and the labor used was about 100.000 people. Considering that almost
7 million tons of stone were necessary (about two and a half million stone
blocks that weighed more than two tons each, made on the place, besides
the covering slabs transported from the quarries in Tura, then lifted and
put together), the work necessary for these buildings will appear gigantic
once again. The pyramid was built in three successive projects that each
time caused variations. In the first one, the sepulchral chamber (8x14m)
is underground, about 31m deep in the rock, reached by a corridor with
26,5° angle; this project was abandoned, as it’s proved by the fact that
this room for the sarcophagus is incomplete. The second project included
the building of the structure of the pyramid itself, at about twenty
meters from the ground, the building of the king’s sepulchral chamber,
called “the Queen’s room” also incomplete, connected by a corridor 80m
long, rising for a while and then horizontal and wider, to the entrance.
To the third one go the 2Great Tunnel”, the sepulchral chamber and the
drain one Normally the tourist can visit the rooms and the corridors of
the second and the third project, as it’s difficult to reach the
underground chamber and he can, accompanied by a guide, go up the monument
on the north-east angle of the pyramid. In a quarter of an hour the
platform (10x10m) of the peak is reached, where the effort of the climb is
rewarded by the unforgettable view offered, on the great royal funeral
complexes, on the numerous mastaba of princes, royal functionaries and
dignitaries and, further away, at the north of the Nile and at the southern part of the Delta, at north-east and at east, on the prosper
cultivated areas, on the palm trees and on Giza and Dakki, then beyond the
Nile, on the great groups of houses in Cairo, on the Cittadel and Muqattam,
at south on the various palm groves of Menfi and further, in the desert on
the complexes in Abusir, Saqqara, Dashur and Meydum, and at the west,
finally on the great area of the Libyan desert. The inside of the pyramid
is entered through the entrance on the northern side (the first one opened
in the IX century, was then closed again with stone blocks) and you go up
a low corridor to the beginning of the “Great Tunnel” where an horizontal
corridor leads to the sepulchral chamber of the second project
(5,20x5,70m). Continuing the visit from the beginning of the “Great
Gallery” (8,50m high), remarkable for its conception and the preciseness
of its making, you pass its 47m, to continue in the short horizontal
corridor (from this point the covering is in granite) to the king’s
sepulchral chamber (5,20x10,40m, 5,85m high) in granite from Assuan with
an empty and uncovered sarcophagus. The ceiling of the room is made of
nine blocks of granite that weighed about 400t and it’s protected by an
apparatus made of five compartments one over the other (drain rooms) and
separated by flat granite blocks, the last one covered in limestone blocks
arranged “in contrast” to divide the force of the mass pressure. The
ventilation of this room is provided by two air intakes. Among the main
discoveries of Cheope’s pyramid there is the finding (the first years of
the Fifties) of two wooden boats, put in two hollows shaped in the stone
along the southern side of the pyramid, one of the boats, rebuilt, is kept
in a museum which is in the place where it was found. This “solar boat”,
maybe used with the other ones for the transport of the king’s mummy and
the funeral procession, maybe destined to the pharaoh to accompany the sun
in its journey to the other world, was built in cedar imported from
Lebanon and in local sycamore: 43,40m long and 5,90m high, it had a
tonnage of 40t. Another important find was the one of the queen
Hetepheres’s tomb, maybe secondary, (Snefru’s wife and Cheope’s mother),
the only royal tomb of the Ancient Reign found intact, in 1925, at 100m
from the eastern side of the pyramid: it had a rich trousseau, now in the
Museum in Cairo.
For learn more, read the book
|
