Pyramids

First the site was surveyed and levelled to provide a foundation for the Pyramid.

As the slaves cut the first stones for the pyramid from nearby quarries, thousands more began building the causeway, erecting storehouses and digging a canal to link the foot of the plateau to the Nile. Meanwhile scribes, the Pharaoh's project managers, dispatched orders for more supplies and labour both skilled and unskilled.

At any one time as many as 20,000 workers may have been involved on this massive project. Some of them were free men doing particular tasks such as masons, tool makers, carpenters, scribes and overseers. Many of course were unskilled slave labourers. A town was built for the free workers where they were provided with houses, food, clothing and even medical care. Less comfortable accommodation in the form of barracks was provided for the slaves.

Through the Pharaoh's reign, the construction site teemed with workers of all kinds hard pressed to complete the monument before the king's death. Khufu and his architects did not make it easy for them. The royal planners decided to enlarge the structure several times and relocate the burial chamber from beneath the structure to its inner reaches. The quarries are places of great activity creating clouds of dust. Through this dust the naked bodies of quarry slaves stand out dark against the yellow stone. Slaves are boring holes using primitive drill bits and sand which acted as an abrasive. After they had drilled cores deep enough to define a block on one side, they packed the holes with pieces of porous wood and then pour water into the holes. The wood expands so fast that the block splits out with a bang (or at least a crack). After the stone blocks are extracted from the quarry face they are lowered onto sledges. A mark is made on the stone by a scribe. This aided them to place the blocks in the pyramid just as they came out of the quarry ensuring a good fit without further finishing.

From dawn to dusk, gangs of naked slaves drag the sledges loaded with stones each weighing about 2.5 tons to a staging area at the base of the pyramid. Most of the stone blocks proceed up the ramp without future handling. Only a fraction of the stone blocks needed to be cut to precise dimensions by the masons. The slaves begin hauling the loaded sledges slowly up the clay and rubble ramp that spiralled around the emerging structure. The noise here was one of chanting slaves, the rumble of heavy sledges and the swish of the overseer's lash.

Boats made from reeds deliver brilliant white limestone from Tura just across the river. This stone will be used for the outer case of the pyramid. Once put in place and polished the effect will be awe inspiring. Giant barges brought granite from Aswan over 400 miles upriver. Some of the granite stones from Aswan weigh to 70 tons.

At the working level teams of slaves called setters shifted the blocks from the sledges into their designated positions. Once the stones had been delivered the hauling gang would make their way down the ramp carrying their sledge, in order to make the same back breaking journey up as they would several times a day. Their only substantial respite from this round of toil in the hot sun was when they stopped for a meal of bread and onions.

Toiling below were the support workers and guards under the watchful eyes of the Pharaoh's project managers, the scribes.

Other slaves are employed in maintaining and extending the ramps as the pyramid grew. These ramps are made of rubble, bound together with desert tafla (a type of clay) and laid with planks to ease the passage of the ramps. Rows of slave labourers are seen breaking up waste material from the quarries, mixing them with the desert tafla clay and loading the finished mixture into baskets. Individual baskets are loaded onto the shoulders of slaves for delivery to the ramp builders on the pyramid.

Pyramids were build so big because each Pharaoh wanted to show they were the best. In ancient Egypt the bigger the pyramid the wealthier you were, and each Pharaoh wanted to be bigger and better than the one before him.

they were also built so big to hold the wife too

Pyramids were built with the primary function of being a tomb.

The Pharaoh would have ordered his overseer of works to draw up plans, organise the workforce and materials. The work force was made up of artisans, workmen, and craftsmen. It is estimated that 20,000 to 30,000 workers would have been needed for the task.

They built it to bury or rather mummify a very important person the Pharaoh Khufu.

It is suggested that thousands of slaves were forced under daily hard labour to work until the task was completed. It was considered that only by the unpaid labour provided by these slaves was it possible to build this great monolith.

In a Ancient Egyptian tomb there are about 6 rooms. The annexe chamber (storage space) the antechamber (full of things he might need in life) the treasure room , the burial chamber , the corridor and the enterance (you know what they are).

By Beth Alice Leese

i think they did that to show you that they are strong like body of an lion and to show you that there country are strong i think so?

Today, there millions of Maya living in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. Many of them still speak a modern-day version of the Mayan language and even more of them still practice the Mayan religion (See Popol Vuh for the text of their "bible"). They are more than just the indigenous peoples of Mexico but, the Federal government there does not treat them well, in my opinion. Their heritage should allow them to be treated as more than the way they're treated as second class citizens. Of course, there were a lot more Maya when they ruled the area; the society as a whole is thought to have diminished when the food supply dwindled and the majority left the major population centers.

One theory says they were slaves, another claims they were peasant farmers recruited during the annual flooding of the Nile when no farm work was possible. There was also a permanent staff of skilled workers and scribes who stayed on site all year round.

King Djoser built the Step Pyramid at Saqquara because tradition said he must work on his tomb till death. So he added consecutivley smaller mastabas on top of his first one ( and each other) and the resulting shape was a pyramid. This tomb sparked the epic age of pyramid building.

Ramses II (or Ramesses II) was the third Egyptian pharaoh (ruler or king) of the Nineteenth dynasty. He died about 1213 BC. His name in Greek was Ozymandias, and he is also known as Ramses the Great. His reign included several wars, as well as extensive building of temples and monuments.

The Great Pyramid has 2,300,000 limestone blocks each one weighing about 2.5 long tons, 2.8 short tons or 2545 kilograms.

The total weight of limestone in the Great Pyramid alone is estimated at 5.5 million tons (5 million tonnes). The other pyramids are smaller, containing from a tenth to a half as much stone. The pyramids have been stripped of their outer casing stones, which originally formed a smooth surface on the entire exterior.

Says the person who spelled write wrong. Giza is right.

The Great Pyramids are at Giza, just outside Cairo in modern Egypt.

it is estimated to take 9-24 months with the technology and slaves that they had back then.

The Great Pyramid of Giza is estimated to have been built over a 20 year period.

Pharaohs

Tombs of early Egyptian kings were bench-shaped mounds called mastabas. Around 2780 B.C., King Djoser's architect, Imhotep, built the first pyramid by placing six mastabas, each smaller than the one beneath, in a stack to form a pyramid rising in steps. This Step Pyramid stands on the west bank of the Nile River at Sakkara near Memphis. Like later pyramids, it contains various rooms and passages, including the burial chamber of the king. The transition from the Step Pyramid to a true, smooth-sided pyramid took placed during the reign of King Snefru, founder of the Fourth Dynasty (2680-2560 B.C.). At Medum, a step pyramid was built, then filled in with stone, and covered with a limestone casing. Nearby at Bahshur, construction was begun on a pyramid apparently planned to have smooth sides. About halfway up, however, the angle of incline decreases from over 51 degrees to about 43 degrees, and the sides rise less steeply, causing it to be known as the Bent Pyramid. The change in angle was probably made during construction to give the building more stability. Another great pyramid was built at Dahshur with its sides rising at an angle of somewhat over 43 degrees, resulting in a true, but squat looking pyramid. The largest and most famous of all the pyramids, the Great Pyramid at Giza, was built by Snefru's son, Khufu, known also as Cheops, the later Greek form of his name. The pyramid's base covered over 13 acres and its sides rose at an angle of 51 degrees 52 minutes and were over 755 feet long. It originally stood over 481 feet high; today it is 450 feet high. Scientists estimate that its stone blocks average over two tons apiece, with the largest weighing as much as fifteen tons each. Two other major pyramids were built at Giza, for Khufu's son, King Khafre (Chephren), and a successor of Khafre, Menkaure (Mycerinus). Also located at Giza is the famous Sphinx, a massive statue of a lion with a human head, carved during the time of Khafre. Pyramids did not stand alone but were part of a group of buildings which included temples, chapels, other tombs, and massive walls. Remnants of funerary boats have also been excavated; the best preserved is at Giza. On the walls of Fifth and Sixth Dynasty pyramids are inscriptions known as the Pyramid Texts, an important source of information about Egyptian religion. The scarcity of ancient records, however, makes it difficult to be sure of the uses of all the buildings in the pyramid complex or the exact burial procedures. It is thought that the king's body was brought by boat up the Nile to the pyramid site and probably mummified in the Valley Temple before being placed in the pyramid for burial. There has been speculation about pyramid construction. Egyptians had copper tools such as chisels, drills, and saws that may have been used to cut the relatively soft stone. The hard granite, used for burial chamber walls and some of the exterior casing, would have posed a more difficult problem. Workmen may have used an abrasive powder, such as sand, with the drills and saws. Knowledge of astronomy was necessary to orient the pyramids to the cardinal points, and water-filled trenches probably were used to level the perimeter. A tomb painting of a colossal statue being moved shows how huge stone blocks were moved on sledges over ground first made slippery by liquid. The blocks were then brought up ramps to their positions in the pyramid. Finally, the outer layer of casing stones was finished from the top down and the ramps dismantled as the work was completed. Most of the stone for the Giza pyramids was quarried on the Giza plateau itself. Some of the limestone casing was brought from Tura, across the Nile, and a few of the rooms were cased with granite from Aswan. Marks of the quarry workers are found on several of the stone blocks giving names of the work gangs such as "craftman-gang". Part-time crews of laborers probably supplemented the year-round masons and other skilled workers. The Greek historian Heroditus reported in the fifth century B.C. that his Egyptian guides told him 100,000 men were employed for three months a year for twenty years to build the Great Pyramid; modern estimates of the number of laborers tend to be much smaller. Pyramid building was at its height from the Fourth through the Sixth Dynasties. Smaller pyramids continued to be built for more than one thousand years. Scores of them have been discovered, but the remains of others are probably still buried under the sand. As it became clear that the pyramids did not provide protection for the mummified bodies of the kings but were obvious targets for grave robbers, later kings were buried in hidden tombs cut into rock cliffs. Although the magnificent pyramids did not protect the bodies of the Egyptian kings who built them, the pyramids have served to keep the names and stories of those kings alive to this day.

Modern writers could learn much and the ancient peoples knew as much about our earth as we do.

Here is one fact~ The great pyramid was placed exactly six degrees above the Ecliptic equator meaning noon on the 21st June - summer solstice. To mean that the solstice sun would be overhead six degrees due south and the subliminal 'sun' would therefore pass through the great pyramid and hence (subliminally) through the centre of the King's Chamber.

It must be logic to assume that if the ancients knew the distance to the overhead sun and then multiply the distance times 60 they would know the circumference of the earth and then, subsequently, its width!

Humans for the most part, although supplies were occasionally delivered by other animals such as donkeys and oxen.

The stones were placed on wooden sledges and dragged along plank roads by gangs of slaves using ropes made from papyrus or palm fronds. Water or oil was poured on the runners to overcome friction.

They used basalt in ancient Egypt to make walls for protection!

Frontline trenches were usually about seven feet deep and six feet wide. The front of the trench was known as the parapet. The top two or three feet of the parapet and the parados (the rear side of the trench) would consist of a thick line of sandbags to absorb any bullets or shell fragments.

In a trench of this depth it was impossible to see over the top, so a two or three-foot ledge known as a fire-step, was added. Trenches were not dug in straight lines. Otherwise, if the enemy had a successive offensive, and got into your trenches, they could shoot straight along the line. Each trench was dug with alternate fire-bays and traverses.

Duck-boards were also placed at the bottom of the trenches to protect soldiers from problems such as trench foot. Soldiers also made dugouts and funk holes in the side of the trenches to give them some protection from the weather and enemy fire.

The front-line trenches were also protected by barbed-wire entanglements and machine-gun posts. Short trenches called saps were dug from the front-trench into No-Man's Land. The sap-head, usually about 30 yards forward of the front-line, were then used as listening posts.

Behind the front-line trenches were support and reserve trenches. The three rows of trenches covered between 200 and 500 yards of ground. Communication trenches, were dug at an angle to the frontline trench and was used to transport men, equipment and food supplies.

Most were made out of Stone, though some were made out of mud bricks or mud bricks and stone.

yes, they are thousands of years old if you mean us us

but no if you are talking about the human race