The Pyramids at Giza

Necropolis

A cemetery intended to be a city for the dead, especially a large one belonging to an ancient city.

Shaft grave

A deep, narrow pit, often cut into natural rock, used for burial. You dig a shaft down into an underground room where the sarcophagus can go, marking it with a mastaba.

Pharaoh

A king of ancient Egypt, considered a god as well as a political and military leader.

Step Pyramid

A pyramid with sides that rise in a series of steps. It looks like a ziggurat, but it solo standing instead. They rarely have any interior spaces and were part of necropolises. They were not used by the living (no rooms inside) but did have shaft graves beneath them.

Diorite

A stone associated with funerary statues that is incredibly hard to carve, meaning that the statues take years to carve. Because of this, they're essentially indestructible. Funerary statues were made from this so they could last forever. A funerary statue of Khafre is 4500 years old and is looking better than ever.

west east

Almost every funerary site was located on the ___ side of the Nile. The living resided on the ___ side. This goes along with the idea of birth and death, the sun rises in the east and dies in the west. So, the Pharaoh's crossing from the east to the west was very symbolic.

Mastaba

An ancient Egyptian mudbrick tomb with a rectangular base and sloping sides and flat roof. It is a low stone building placed above a shaft grave, with one room inside meant for offerings. Essentially a grave marker.

isolated consistent

Ancient Egypt was a geographically ___ location, with a sea on two sides, a desert one one, and a mountain range on the other. Because of this, they had an incredibly ___ style due to a lack of influence from other cultures.

Barque (Bark)

Ancient Egyptian boats that were massive, used by the Pharaohs for any transpiration, even post-mortum.

nile northern southern new

Ancient Egyptian people lived along the ___ River, which travels from south to north. Fertile land lined the river, and so it became the lifeline of the country. Lower Egypt is the ___ part of the country, where the Nile empties out into the Mediterranean Sea. Upper Egypt is the ___ part, where the Nile begins. Two separate cultural entities existed during the ___ kingdom (upper and lower) but the new kingdom united the two into one politically sound country.

forever

Ancient Egyptian tombs provide us with most of our ancient art. These things were meant to survive ___, unlike the cities.

Boat pits

Barks/Barques that were buried in the pyramids/mortuary temples that were used by the Pharaohs when they were ceremonially transported across the Nile to the pyramid. When the king was buried, the boats were buried.

village paid hospital

Building the pyramid of Khufu in 20 years would have meant installing around 800 tons of stone every day. 20,000-30,000 workers were drafted from the Egyptian sub-population to live in the workers' ___, a series of dormitories, bunk houses, bakeries, breweries, and kitchens near the pyramid site. Discovering these villages reshaped our idea of how these pyramids were built (slaves). These workers were even ___, and only worked several months out of the year (tax records). They were treated well, being fed meat, bread, fish, and beef. They even had a ___ and cemetery, for there were injuries on the job.

life painted ka

Djoser's cult statue is the oldest known ___-size statue from Egypt. He is seated with his typical headdress and beard, a statue once ___. This specific statue inside the mortuary temple was not meant for viewers, but rather Djoser's ___, his life force (his spirit).

Saqqara necropolis cult

Djoser's step pyramid in ___ was designed by Imhotep (his advisor). There is a large courtyard for ceremonies but only one entrance for the living. The other false entrances are for the dead. It was a ___ built for the enjoyment of the dead Pharaoh's spirit. Hired priests would take care of his spirit and memory, paid by the money left behind from the Pharaoh. Against the pyramid there is a funerary/mortuary temple where elites could come praise him and give offerings to his ___ statue.

sun light ramp star creation ben ben

Each pyramid has a perfect geometrical shape. The Egyptians used the pyramid shape because it falls right into their beliefs. It is thought that the triangle shape was the physical embodiment of the ___'s rays, symbolic of ___. Or, the pyramid acted as a ladder or ___ for the Ka to ascend into the sky to become a ___. The likely theory is the Egyptian ___ myth, that the pyramid reflects the shape of the ___ ___ stone (the pyramid shape represents creation).

stars Osiris

Egyptians liked to orient their buildings and monuments to the ___ or other cardinal directions. There is a theory that the pyramids were aligned to Orion's Belt (___ in Egyptian mythology, the god of the afterlife and rebirth), however it is not taken too seriously today.

Megalithic blocks

Huge stone blocks that were highly prized and were very fancy decorations. The bigger and more colorful the stone, the wealthier the person.

permanently

In addition to the 20-30,000 workers that lived at the pyramid for several months a year in the agricultural off season, there were about 500-1000 people who ___ lived there, such as the artisans and overseers.

Ka

In ancient Egypt, the immortal human life force. It can occupy the Pharaoh's cult statue, the mummy, etc.

Ben Ben stone

Known as the primeval mound, this is what rose from the ocean when the creator god Amun created the initial mound of earth that was Egypt. Is is the top stone of an Egyptian pyramid, the shape of a pyramid itself. It is very sacred and often covered in gold. It is also related to the obelisk.

Relieving blocks

Stones placed at an angle above the king's chamber to direct the weight of 250 lbs of solid stone around the chamber. They're also above the queen's chamber in the great pyramid of Khufu.

Archeoastronomy

Studying the ways in which archeological sites, buildings, and city planning relate to the patterns in the stars.

Canonical style

Style of sculpture where the figure is very still, stern, stiff, formal, and symmetrical. It was developed for the depiction of gods and pharaohs.

Khufu

The Great Pyramid of ___ stands 481 feet tall, as high as a 45 story building. It was the tallest manmade building on earth until 1300 CE, for 3800 years. It was constructed in 15-20 years. Inside there is the grand gallery, the king's chamber, the queen's chamber, the false tomb chamber, and looters' tunnels.

afterlife above

The Pyramids of Giza took a crazy amount of resources from the empire, a testament to Egypt's social stratification and importance placed in the ___. They also show just how much the Pharaohs were exalted ___ everyone else.

grand gallery entrance died

The ___ ___ inside the great pyramid of Khufu is a large tunnel that leads from the ___ of the pyramid directly to the king's chamber. The king's chamber is one of three chambers: the king's chamber, the queen's chamber below that, and the false tomb chamber below that. The extra chambers reasons for existence are unknown, however the theory is that they were built into the pyramid as each section was built in case the king ___ during construction.

khafre statues ka megalithic

The best preserved temple from this site is the valley temple of ___, a large stone building with a central court inside. Its main function was to hold cult ___ of Khafre for his ___ to embody and for priests and elites to make offerings and care for his spirit. It is built out of red ___ blocks, each a singular piece of stone weighing 100 tons, meaning this place took a LOT of labor! It is incredibly refined and fancy, meant for an elite. Several Ka statues (20ish) surround the place, all identical version of Khafre, built so that if one got destroyed, he still could occupy another one.

inside mortuary valley

The function of the pyramids was to serve as a funerary monument, with the body of the king entombed ___. There are several cemeteries that surround the pyramid for the queens and other nobility, as well as the builder's village. There are also two temples for each pyramid, the ___ temple and the ___ temple, located in the river valley.

granite megalithic

The king's chamber is the largest room inside the entire pyramid of Khufu. Today is is largely empty, cleaned from any ancient graffiti (1800s) from the days when people could just climb all over it. The massive sarcophagus made of ___ (from 500 miles away) is wider than the doorway, meaning that it was placed there during construction. The chamber is surrounded by ___ blocks weighing 50-80 tons.

nile mastabas

The modern suburbs of Cairo come right up against the pyramids. They were initially built along the ___, but the river has since receded. They are arranged in a perfect line, surrounded by the ___ of other elite members of society.

Casing stones

The outermost layer of stones on a pyramid; they are usually highly polished limestone blocks that are very precisely cut and meticulously fitted together. The pyramids of Giza have lost all these over time.

Horus protection papyrus lotus

The statues of Khafre are covered in symbols. There is an image of the god ___ as a falcon with his wings spread, signaling ___. Khafre is wearing a Nemes headdress and false beard, traditional garb of the ruler. Intertwined images of ___ and ___ plants are symbolic of the unification of upper and lower Egypt. The papyrus represent the nile delta of lower Egypt and the lotus represents upper Egypt.

limbs form strength

The statues of Khafre are designed for longevity. There are no protruding ___, a position called cubic form. Each statue was carved from the same block of stone, meaning the sculpture is contained within its original ___. This increases the stability of the figure. The pose, too, is very powerful. One hand is down while the other forms a fist, in front of a heroic chest - symbolic of physical power and ___.

2520 2494 type diorite

The statues of Khafre are from the mortuary temple of Khafre, which sits next to Khafre's pyramid in Giza. They were constructed around ___-___ BCE. They are portrait ___ statues, recognized by all as Khafre but likely not anything near what he actually looked like. They are made of ___ and are nearly indestructible.

valley sphinx base boat

The statues of Khafre were housed in his ___ temple, located right next to the giant ___ (the one with Khafre's face on it). Both are very far from the pyramid. His funerary/mortuary temple was located at the ___ of his pyramid, another ritual building with even more statues and very few rooms, all dark with only small slits for light. The boat pits are also here.

old 2551 2472 Khufu khafre

There are 3 pyramids at Giza, each one meant for a specific ___ Kingdom Pharaoh who came in a sequence from ___-___. They vary in sizes, the largest being the pyramid of ___, the middle the pyramid of ___, and the smallest the pyramid of Menkaure. Each pyramid has its own complex district.

limestone wedge

There was a ___ quarry very close to the pyramids. These were the basic building blocks of the pyramids - the fancier stones came from much further away. The interior blocks weighed nearly 1.5 tons. Workers would chisel a crack into the stone and ___ the rock out.

Upper and Lower Egypt

These were once two separate kingdoms, in what would become known as Egypt, until they were united under one pharaoh. The pharaoh Narmer is usually accredited with the unification of Egypt but it could have been done by a pharaoh know as the "Scorpion King". Upper Egypt was located in the southern part of the country, and lower Egypt was located in the northern part of the country.

scaffolding ramp internal density

To lift and place the stones, theories exist suggesting that the workers used ___ (but they did not have that much wood in Egypt) or created an earthen ___ outside of the pyramid to drag the stones up (but there is no evidence of this). The prevailing theory is the ___ ramp theory, where one continuous ramp was built inside the pyramid and added to as the structure grew taller. ___ imaging revealed less dense areas of the pyramid in the shape of a ramp snaking around the edge of the pyramid.

wet sand dragged

To move the stones, theories exist that the workers used rollers or wheels. The prevailing theory, however, is the ___ ___ theory, that the stones were loaded onto wooden sleds that were then ___ across roads of wet sand by huge chains of people.

saqqara 100

___, Egypt, is home to one of the oldest funerary districts in Egypt. Near Saqqara sit the Pyramids at Giza, built about ___ years after the step pyramids at Saqqara.