The Pyramids
The introduction
Have you ever been to Egypt? If so, did you enjoy every part of your tour? Egypt is Muslim Arab country, it has over 50 million people. It has one of the seven wonders of the ancient world remains the pyramids of Egypt. It would be difficult to make a pyramid like the great pyramid at Giza even today. How did they do it 5000 years ago?
The body
Khufu pyramidIt is the biggest of them. It is 146 meters high, it was made of about 2300000 blocks of stones, all exactly the same shape. The weight of each block is about 2.5 tons. The inside blocks were cut out of rock near the place of the pyramid. The blocks of fine stone for the outside came from Tura on the other side of the River Nile.
How did they build the pyramids? The ancient Egyptians had nothing like our modern machines to lift heavy things. The power was supplied by hundreds or thousands of men. They used sledges, levers and rollers. They were very clever with these things. To move a big block of stone to a position 100 meters up, they first built up a long slope from the ground to that position. Then they used levers and rollers to put the block on a sledge and many men pulled the sledge up the slope. We know all this from pictures in Egyptian tombs. We can read their writing – the hieroglyphics in which they kept their records.
When, where and who built the pyramids? The pyramids were built on high ground, above the highest point that the Nile flood water ever reached. The pyramid builders first build a slope from the Nile bank to the place for the great pyramid. Making this road and preparing the ground took ten years. After that, building the great pyramid itself took twenty years more. And this was possible only because the Pharaohn of Egypt used a very large number of people for the work. Some of them were prisoners of war and others captured people. But many of them were the Pharaohn's own people the farmers of Egypt. When the Nile flood began in September and their fields were under water, the Pharaohn's servants ordered them to go to work at the pyramids.
Why did the Pharaohn build the pyramids?
It was a time for change in their religion. At the beginning of the period, the Pharaohn expected to live in his tomb after death. He thought that his life there would be like his life before death. So he needed a tomb with plenty of rooms for everything, his beds. His chairs, his gold dishes, food, drinks and all his treasure. But at the same time Pharaohns began to call themselves the sons of the sun god, Ra. They expected to join Ra in his journeys across the sky. So they needed a place to start from. The pyramid pointed to the sky and showed the east-west direction of the sun's journey. It was big in order to hide and guard the Pharaohn's tomb- because that was still full of treasure. In fact thieves later found their way into all the pyramids and into most of the Pharaohns tombs.
The conclusion
I still wondered how they built these huge pyramids before 5000 years ago, just by the power of thousands of men.
I would like to travel to Egypt and visit these great pyramids. I'm sure that the trip to Egypt is going to be so exciting and I will be amused when I see the pyramids. I really hope that I could go there next summer.
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العرض الشجري
