Great Pyramids Research Paper

The construction of the Great Pyramids of Giza is one of the greatest mysteries in history. They are the largest and most elaborate structures built in the ancient world, which is what considers them to be one of the Seven Wonders of the World. The Great Pyramids of Giza are made up of three separate pyramids for three different pharaohs: Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure who were all pharaohs during the Fourth Dynasty (2,575-2,450 BCE), also known as the Old Kingdom. Khufu’s pyramid was built first and is known as the Great Pyramid. It took over 20 years to build his pyramid with the help of hundreds of thousands of peasants. Khafre, Khufu’s son, built his own pyramid a few years later and this pyramid appears to be larger than Khufu’s, however,
First, we must examine where the stones came from since there’s evidence that some of the stones were brought from hundreds of miles away. In order to move stones hundreds of miles, they used their greatest resource: the very large and powerful Nile River. In a book titled The Pyramids by Miroslav Verner, there’s a chapter titled The Construction of the Pyramids where the author discusses methods that were used to build the Great Pyramids of Giza. According to Verner, the Nile was the quickest and least difficult way to transport stones of these sizes down the river for hundreds of miles (Verner 65). He states that there is written and pictorial evidence that supports the idea that the Nile was used quite often to transport these massive stones (Verner 65). However, the Nile wasn’t the only way stones were brought to the site of Giza. There is evidence that most of the stones used to build the Great Pyramids came from nearby quarries, which is why limestone was chosen as the primary medium for the pyramids (Verner 67). Since limestone was the closest and most abundant medium, it seems plausible why it was primarily used. In order to get the stones up the sides of the pyramids to heights around 400 or more feet, a lot of manpower needed to be used. One of the greatest mysteries behind the construction of the pyramids is how many people worked on the pyramids. We know that in order to
According the Verner, the best evidence of the ancient Egyptians mathematical knowledge is found in the construction of their pyramids (Verner 70). For example, the Great Pyramid itself, which was built by Khufu, is not a typical four-sided pyramid like most pyramids built during the fourth century. In a book titled The Egyptian Pyramids, the author, J.P. Lepre states that the Great Pyramid is an eight-sided figure which is made possible with the concavity of it’s core (Lepre 65). The indentations that make this figure eight-sided, however, can only be seen from the air and are basically invisible from any position on the ground. This unique pyramid design and the ability of the ancient Egyptians to create an eight-sided figure that looks four-sided unless seen from the air, shows just how vast their mathematical skills and knowledge were thousands of years ago. In an article titled The Mysterious Secrets of the Great Pyramid, the author, William F. Dankenbring, discusses the ideas of another author named Peter Tompkins who says “Whoever built the Great Pyramid…knew the circumference of the planet, and the length of the year to several decimals – data which were not rediscovered till the seventeenth century” (Dankenbring 21). The fact that the ancient Egyptians had knowledge of such complex ideas before the common