panoramio egypt keops pyramid

The Great Pyramid of Khufu (or Cheops or Keops) is the most famous Pyramid in the world, standing a staggering 137 meters tall (although upon completion it was 9 meters taller), the Great Pyramid is the only surviving Wonder of the Ancient World, until the completion of the Eiffel Tower in 1889, it was the tallest standing man made structure in the world for almost 4500 years. Each of the four sides of the pyramid measures aprox 230 meters and covers an area of 13 acres. The Pyramid took 20 years to build and was completed in 2560 BC, each of the stone blocks used to build this pyramid weigh aprox 2 tons each, with an estimated workforce of 20,000 strong. The original outer casing of limestone was plundered in antiquity to build the Medieval City of Cairo.

Entry into the Great Pyramid is located at the north face of the Pyramid, a second entrance can be seen slightly lower down, which was a man made attempt to force entry into the Pyramid, dating from the 9th Century, by treasure hunters, sadly their quest was in vain, the Pyramid having been already plundered in Antiquity.
Inside the Pyramid, be prepared to bend for a lot of the duration in the corridors, which can feel stuffy and are not advisable for anyone suffering claustrophobia. The most impressive part of the interior by my reckoning is the Great Gallery, which leads to the 3rd Chamber, the burial chamber of the Pharaoh Khufu.
The Great Gallery is a tall inclining corridor built from huge slabs of stone which leave you amazed at how such large pieces of masonry could be pieced together to build this massive corridor.
Within the burial chamber, is the stone sarcophagus, which was carved out of one solid block of granite. (A word of warning, the chamber was a bit wiffy, there was a slight smell of stale urine when we visited, we think that people caught short, were having a pee behind the sarcophagus).
The burial chamber itself was amazing, it is rectangular in form, has a flat roof, and is built out of solid slabs of granite that was brought by barge on the Nile from the quarry at Aswan, which is located 1000Km (625 miles) away. The roof is made of 9 slabs of granite, each estimated to weigh 50 tons.

We found it a truly amazing visit, the only down side, was the thought on leaving, having to make our way out via the low corridors again!

The Great Pyramid of Khufu (Cheops) is one of the largest structures built by man even today, 4,500 years later. It is estimate that 2.3 million blocks averaging 2.5 tons a piece were used in the building the pyramid. Weight of the block ranged from 2 to 15 tons. The pyramid sits on 13.5 acres of land and is a height of 480 feet. The length of its sides are 756 feet. It is estimated to have taken 100,000 men over 25 years to build the pyramid.