Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Great Pyramid of Giza

Episode Date: September 23, 2021

The Great Pyramid of Giza, also known as the Great Pyramid of Khufu, is a structure in which superlatives don’t really do justice. It isn’t just old, it’s really old. It isn’t just big, it��s really big. It has served as a sentinel to some of the most important people and events in history, and it has also been the focal point of speculation about the past. Learn more about the Great Pyramid of Giza, one of the seven ancient wonders of the world, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Great Pyramid of Giza, also known as the Great Pyramid of Kufu, is a structure in which superlatives don't really do it justice. It isn't just old, it's really old, and it isn't just big, it's really big. It has served as a sentinel to some of the most important people in events in history, and it's also been the focal point of speculation about the past. Learn more about the Great Pyramid of Giza, one of the seven ancient wonders of the world, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Do you ever climb into bed, ready to sleep, only to have you to have you? your mind start racing the moment your head hits the pillow? Thoughts bouncing around, replaying the day or jumping ahead to tomorrow? That is exactly why Catherine Nicolai created Nothing Much Happens. Each episode is a gentle, cozy bedtime story where, well, nothing much happens. No drama, no tension,

nothing you need to follow closely. Just soft narration, calming repetition, and soothing sensory details designed to help your mind slow down and your body relax. It's not about entertainment, it's about rest. And millions of listeners around the world, world use it every night to quiet their thoughts and finally fall asleep. If you've ever struggled to shut your brain off at night, this might be exactly what you've been missing. You can listen to Nothing Much Happens wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes are every Monday and Thursday. This episode is sponsored by CuriosityStream.

If you're a fan of ancient Egypt, then CuriosityStream has tons of programming for you. They have a plethora of shows like Scribes of Ancient Egypt, tombs and monuments of Egypt, had Shephseh's temple, Egypt's Lost City, scanning the pyramids, pyramid builders, Nefertiti's tomb, and many, many more. You can get an entire year of CuriosityStream for less than $20. I'm sure there are any number of things you spend that much money on every month that wouldn't give as much value as a subscription to CuriosityStream. If you're even remotely curious about the world you live in,

go to everything-dash everywhere.com slash curiosity stream to start your subscription. Once again, that's Everything- Everywhere.com slash curiosity stream. If you only know of the great pyramid through photos, you've probably seen images of it

against a backdrop of the desert, maybe with some camels walking in the foreground. If you've actually visited the pyramid, you know that is only half true. Part of the pyramid does in fact face the desert. However, the pyramid is also very clearly visible from modern Cairo. If you look at a satellite image,

you'll see that the Great Pyramid is only about 120 meters from a block of modern buildings. In fact, there's a Pizza Hut which is within easy walking distance from the Great Pyramid. The location of the pyramid is called the Giza Plateau. It's literally a rocky outcrop that overlooks the modern city of Cairo. The fertile region of the Nile River basically stops at this point because of the rocks. Again, if you look at a satellite image, you'll see a very green area and then a very light tan area where the desert begins. That boundary of the Green Nile and the emptiness of the desert is exactly where the pyramids are located. There are three major pyramids at the Giza complex, the aforementioned Great Pyramid of Kufu, the Pyramid of Khaffre, and the Pyramid of Menkare.

The Great Pyramid is the oldest and largest of the three. There were several other pyramids constructed before the Great Pyramid in other parts of Egypt. You could almost consider them to be alpha and beta versions of the Great Pyramid. South of Giza is a location called Dashur, which has a pyramid known as the Bent Pyramid. They literally changed the slope of the pyramid halfway through, and it looks odd. The Great Pyramid was believed to have been built around 2,600 BC, in what was known as the Fourth Dynasty of Egypt. Dating the pyramid was very tricky at first because you couldn't get an accurate age for stone. There's no marking on the exterior of the pyramid, which would indicate who it was built for or when it was built.

Much of the information about the pharaohs of ancient Egypt has been lost, and we really don't have much more than a list of who many of them were. The Greek historian Herodotus attributed the pyramid to the pharaoh Chiaops, which is just the Greek name for Kufu. He wrote this around 450 BC, which is over 2,000 years after the pyramid was built. Just to put that into perspective, we live closer in time to the construction of the Coliseum in Rome than Herodotus did to the construction of the Great Pyramid. During the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries,

there was a great deal of ambiguity in dating the pyramid because no one was quite sure when Kufu reigned. Dating the pyramid improved in the 20th century as dating techniques improved. While you can't date stone, you can date organic matter via carbon-14 dating. And here I'll refer you back to my episode on radiometric dating. There were two major sources of organic matter in the pyramids. one was the mortar used during construction. One of the ingredients was ash from fire, and this was able to be dated back to 2871 to 2604 BC.

This is a pretty wide range, however, and it's believed to stem from what is known as the old wood problem. That means the wood might have been older than the construction, or that the wood was taken from the interior of a tree, which would show a different age than the exterior of the tree. The other source was a piece of timber that came from one of the air shafts discovered in 1872. This wood was dated to 3341 to 3094 BC, almost 500 years older than the material found in the mortar. The best explanation researchers have to explain this is that the wood might have been older and reused or taken from the core of a very old tree. While there were no references to any pharaoh found on the exterior of the pyramid, relieving chambers above the King's chamber were discovered in 1837. They found graffiti by the workers which identified Kufu by name. The dimensions of the Great Pyramid are impressive. It is approximately

755 feet or 230 meters on each side. The difference in the length of the sides is only 58 millimeters or 2.3 inches. The corners are very close to alignment with the point of the compass. They're off by only one-fifteenth of one degree, which is pretty good for 4,500-year-old architecture. The height of the pyramid was originally 481.4 feet or 147 meters tall. If you remember back to my episode on the tallest structures ever built, the Great Pyramid held the record for over 3,000 years. The slope of the sides of the pyramid is approximately 51 degrees. It's believed that the slope was chosen because the ratio,

of the perimeter of the pyramid to the height is very close to the value 2 pi. The Great Pyramid has an estimated 2.3 million stone blocks, and each weighs anywhere is from 2.5 to 15 tons. The Great Pyramid is built out of an estimated 5.5 million tons of limestone, 8,000 tons of granite, and a half a million tons of mortar. The limestone blocks were mostly mined from a nearby quarry. The few granite stones came all the way from Aswan near the southern border of Egypt. The Great Pyramid didn't originally look like it does today. It was originally covered with a smooth white limestone. One of the reasons why the exterior of the pyramid looks so rough today

is that it was never supposed to be the exterior. There are a few of the original white cladding stones near the base of the Great Pyramid today. Most of the cladding stones were removed by local people who wanted to use them for their own construction. One of the biggest and longest-standing debates among Egyptologists is how the pyramid was built. If we were to believe the data we have, it must have been totally constructed within about 27 years. There have been many tests run to see how people could both cut and move two and a half ton blocks. Given the results of these experiments, it's believed that it was possible, given the technology at the time, to cut 250 blocks per day, which is what they would have needed to do over the course of 27 years.

It's estimated that there would have required an average workforce of 13,200 people with a peak workforce of 40,000 people. Contrary to popular belief, slave labor was probably not used to build the pyramids. It was thought that it was mostly probably seasonal workers who came when they had time when it wasn't the growing season. The myth of slave labor came from the Greeks who engaged in slavery themselves and probably just assumed that the Egyptians had to have done it too. One of the biggest mysteries was how they got the stone up that high.

The current best theory is that they built a spiral ramp around the pyramid. If they had built a ramp straight up one side, it would have required almost as much material as the pyramid itself, and there is no evidence of that much material anywhere. The Great Pyramid isn't just a pile of stone. There are chambers and shafts and access tunnels inside the pyramid. It's believed that these were for the sarcophagus of the pharaoh, however, no mummy was ever found inside.

There are still new discoveries to be had in the Great Pyramid. In 2017, a Japanese team did a study where they used cosmic rays to scan the interior of the Great Pyramid. Their research shows that there is a large void somewhere above the section known as the Grand Gallery. They're planning another scan soon using more advanced equipment. The Great Pyramid has been around for so long that they have become witness to many historical figures which have visited. Herodotus, who I previously mentioned, listed the Great Pyramid as one of the seven wonders of the world, and it's the only one that's still standing.

Alexander the Great visited the pyramids, when they were already 2300 years old. Julius Caesar visited the pyramid when he took a trip down the Nile with Cleopatra. Augustus probably visited them as well when he was in Egypt. Napoleon famously fought the Battle of the Pyramids within eyesight of the Great Pyramid. In 1979, the pyramid complex at Giza was named one of the the first UNESCO World Heritage sites. And in 2001, when a global contest was conducted to name the New Seven Wonders of the World, the Great Pyramid was named an honorary one in advance

because it was already on the ancient list. The Great Pyramid has been around for four and a half thousand years. Unlike almost every other ancient structure, there is little possibility that it will ever be destroyed by an earthquake or even deliberate vandalism. It's simply too big and too massive. It is entirely possible that in the distant future, even further away from us today than we are from the construction of the pyramids, they will someday be able to celebrate the 10,000th anniversary of the Great Pyramid. The associate producers of Everything Everywhere Daily are Peter Bennett and Thor Thompson. If you'd like to support the show, please join the list of patrons over at patreon.com. And also remember, if you leave a review or send me a question, you two can have it

read on the show. Thank you.