The Land of Pharaohs

Cheops is one of the most powerful and most famous kings of the old dynasty. He assumed power in Egypt after the death of king Snephro the last king of the third dynasty. It was thought that Cheops assumed power in Egypt after the death of Snephro. However, later he came to be his son and his legitimate heir. When he assumed power, he established the fourth dynasty.

The great pyramid in El-Giza area, Cairo, manifests greatly, the power and greatness of Cheops. Still many of the antiquities of that great king are unknown. It was said that he continued mining in Sinai and perhaps he was the first to cut stones from Hatnob quarries, besides building a temple for Hathoor in the city of Danbarah and building the pyramid. After Cheops, Dedef Raa, whose history and kinship to Cheops are unknown, assumed power.

Brief account on the pyramid of Cheops:

The pyramid of Cheops is one of the world’s old and modern seven wonders and one of the riddles which have puzzled scientists for centuries. The existence of the pyramid since a long time ago is the best evidence of the greatness of its building and the genius of its builders.

Scientists have had different opinions about the benefit of the building of this great edifice. Some alleged that the pyramid was just a cemetery to satisfy Cheops’s pride. This allegation has spread in ancient times until researchers discovered many of the pyramid’s characteristics which will be mentioned later and which are impossible to be found in a king’s cemetery so as to be a symbol for him in the hereafter. Hence, we can conclude that the pyramid of Cheops differs from the other pyramidal cemeteries. This discovery has made them believe that the pyramid has been built for keeping the advanced sciences of the priests so that the coming generations benefit by them. Others believed that it was an observatory for the study of stars because it is known that the ancient Egyptians were fond of the study of astronomy and global phenomena. After reading too much in this field, we have not settled on any of these various opinions. We will try to solve some of the mysteries of this great edifice.

We will review the past opinions in more details and try to reach the right opinion. All these opinions may be wrong, so we display all of them so as to take part with us in revealing the mystery of this edifice. We hope you send us your opinion regarding the pyramid’s ambiguity on the message board.

The word “PYRAMID” may refer to the Greek word “PYRAMIS” whose plural is “PYRAMIDES.” When we tried to know the origin of this word in the hieroglyphic language, we had two suppositions, first either it is derived from the word “PEREM-US” which means in the hieroglyphic language the vertical height of a pyramid in math and it seems the Greeks have changed it till it became Pyramid, or (and this is the second supposition) this word may be of Greek origin and does not have an origin in the hieroglyphic language. As you see this subject doesn’t have any importance at all, but it should have been mentioned.

The pharaohs’ cemeteries were divided into two parts, the upper part, and the lower part. If we look at the lower part, we’ll find it has slightly developed. It was just one room where the corpse lies. Then it became various rooms, some of which contained food and drink .The others contained things such as beds and clothes, this was in the cemeteries of the well-to-do. Most of the development was in the upper part of the cemetery which witnessed various development stages. At the beginning, it was just a heap of sand or stones to keep away jackals, hyenas, and any wild animals away from the corpses.

It was also a vivid mark for the relatives of the dead who came, from time to time, to visit him. This developed into an oblong of sun-baked bricks, and then it became a stone building. Finally, in king Zoser’s era, of the third dynasty, the system of the five steps was innovated and it was the beginning of the step pyramid.

One of the stages the pyramid has gone through until it became a complete pyramid, was the stage of filling vacuum among steps by stones illustrated by an angle.

At the outset of these trials, engineers were afraid lest the pyramid should collapse due to this amendment (because it made the pyramid’s angle sloping). Therefore, engineers devoted themselves to changing the angle for the safety and security of the building. Therefore, at the end, the pyramid sides appeared as non-sloping, as the case in the sides of the pyramids at Giza. Afterwards, engineers reached the last stages of developing the pyramid’s shape where they got to the sloping-side pyramidal shape that appeared in the pyramids of Cheops, Khafra, and Men Kaura.