Travel: A trip to the pyramids

Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (Michael Keating)

A short but well written article about visiting the pyramids at Giza, which offers information about the pyramids as well as advice about the best way to visit them.

Everyone has seen the photographs, the lithographs, the drawings. For many, the Pyramids strongly conjure images of elementary school history classes, and for that reason those structures seem both safe and familiar.

In person, however, the Pyramids are neither safe nor familiar. They are massive—massive beyond belief. The Great Pyramid of Khufu is made of an estimated 2.3 million blocks, each weighing more than two tons, for a total weight of 5.9 million tons. For four millennia, it was the world’s tallest building. Its area, it’s said, could contain St. Peter’s in Rome, the cathedrals of Florence and Milan, and Westminster and St. Paul’s in London. But despite its scale, it was built with an optician’s precision.

The Pyramids pictured in schoolbooks were smooth and precise—not the jumble presented to the visitor. Originally, in fact, the Great Pyramid was surfaced with dazzling casing stones of highly polished white limestone. A massive earthquake in the 14th century shook loose many of the stones, which were dragged to Cairo and incorporated into other architectural projects. That recycling continued to such an extent that now only a few casing stones remain at the bottom of the Great Pyramid.