Pyramids of Giza, Egypt

The Pyramids of Al Jizah (Giza) are the largest tombstones ever constructed. Each is made up of six million large stones piled into a solid geometric mountain, enough to build a 10 meter high wall around France.

Each pyramid is the centerpiece of a complex designed to hold the body of a Pharaoh, or King, of Egypt, his family and favorite ministers, and provide for them in the afterlife. The Egyptians believed that the soul of a dead person would return to its body if it was well preserved. The complex would also be the deceased's home and thus would need to be equipped with everything needed in the next life from tools, to food, to games.  The Pyramid complexes are located at the edge of the desert, but near the western bank of the sacred River Nile.

Nearly all of the Pharaohs of the Old Kingdom (2640-2160 BCE) and some of the Middle Kingdom (2940-1650 BCE) built pyramids, but the Pyramids of Giza are the most famous because they are the largest and also the closest to modern Egypt's capital city of Cairo. The Giza pyramids are the tombs of a father, son, and grandson who in turn ruled Egypt's Old Kingdom from 2576-2465 BCE.

However, midway through the Middle Kingdom period, the Pharaohs abandoned the expensive and difficult process of pyramid building, because they failed in the most important task of keeping safe the buried wealth from looters.  Instead the pharaoh's turned to secret underground tombs, which proved no more successful except in one case.

In the middle of the funeral complex of the Pharaoh Chephren is the Sphinx, an ancient sculpture of a man-headed lion 50m long and 22m high.  The sphinx is another source of the mystery which surrounds the pyramids.  It might have been carved when the pyramids were constructed 4500 years ago with Chephren's face, but others contend the head is far older than the body and it might be 7000 years old!

The Pyramids of Giza are located at the western edge of Giza, a large suburb across the Nile River from the incredible hive of people that is Cairo. Cairo, the largest city in Africa, is home to 12 million people crowded together. Not even in the evenings, do the streets of Cairo become empty. There are so many people, that many of the poorer residents have taken to living in tombs.

Cairo (Al Qahira, "the Glorious") became the capital of Egypt with the revolt of the Fatimids from the Sunni Caliphate in Damascus, around 969 AD.  After the collapse of the Abbasid Empire in 1258, Cairo became the center of Muslim culture and education, a position it arguably still maintains.  El Azhar University is still one of the premier Islamic learning centers.

Paradoxically, because of Egypt's relatively close ties to the west, it is probably the most westernized and liberal city in the Arab world.  Many wealthy Arabs leave behind the strict conservative ways to celebrate in Cairo's casinos and night clubs, a fact not appreciated by the large religious population.
 

See Also:

Grand Central Station
	Egypt