Pyramids of Egypt - one grand plan?

Discovery Channel News (Rossella Lorenzi)

Two of the pyramids of Giza, the last surviving wonder of the ancient world, were conceived as a single project--a sort of grandiose stage show to represent the final and most important part of a pharaoh's journey to the afterlife, an Italian study has concluded.

It is widely believed that the pharaohs Khufu, his son Khafre and grandson Menkaure built their pyramids on the edge of a desert plateau at Giza between 2600 and 2450 BC.

But according to Giulio Magli of the mathematics department at Milan's Polytechnic University, astronomical alignments and the landscape indicate that the two main pyramids, those identified with the tombs of Khufu and Khafre, were not built in different stages. On the contrary, they were planned as a single, grand project.

See the above page for the full story, which is accompanied by an entertaining "pyramidology" slide show. The photos in the slideshow are good, and are accompanied by explanatory captions which take the reader on a whistle-stop tour of pyramid studies.