Welcome to Egypt, this is Cheops here,
the biggest pyramid in the world, and it's about 4500 years old, so,
like Napoleon (Bonaparte) would say: "From the heights of these Pyramids,
forty five centuries look down on us." Here they are, the great three pyramids of Giza. The Cheops pyramid, the Chephren
pyramid, and the Mycerinos pyramid. This is 4th dynasty Egypt, and this is just
on the outskirts of Cairo, about 15km away from the center, around a 25 minute ride.
And right away we see how enormous these things really are, Cheops, the biggest one
is about 139m tall, which is insane, that's like a 45 story building, it's huge, and it's
incredible to think that these were made about 4500 years ago, they're some of the oldest
buildings on Earth that are still standing. Today we know that the great pyramid of Egypt was built by Pharaoh Cheops for his
burial around the year 2570 BC. If we look at the pyramids from the above, we
can see how they are surrounded by a lot of interesting ancillary buildings, The pyramids
of Giza were not alone, they were surrounded by a huge necropolis, there are some smaller
pyramids where the queens and other royalty members were buried, there is also a huge number
of mastabas, which are these constructions with the shape of a truncated pyramid. The nobles
liked to be buried in these pharaonic complexes, because the idea was that if anybody was
going to have a soothe voyage to the afterlife it was going to be the pharaoh, who was buried
in the great pyramids, and if you could be buried near him, he'll probably bring you along
because you're a good advisor, or a good cook, or a good architect, etc. So we have
all these mastabas that are noble tombs, they're normally connected to an underground
chamber where the body was placed. So the pyramids simply stood out from an
authentic sea of Egyptian tombs that stretched for kilometers. The vast majority of these
mastabas were built in more perishable materials so many have disappeared and we only
look at the great pyramids of Giza, but the landscape that the ancient Egyptians
contemplated looked more like what we see here and not the smooth and flat plateau that
we see today surrounding the pyramids. but here we also see remnants of something quite
important, this is the valley temple, and the valley temple is where the body was mummified,
where the corpse is prepared and then it's taken processionally through the causeway right into
the pyramid and it's subsequently entombed. So although we think about the Egyptian
pyramids as these great haptic objects, that is, these huge solids
rather than a habitable space, these artificial mountains in the landscape
in the middle of the desert, if we look at the whole Giza complex we see something
more spacial, something more processional. Each pyramid had its own causeway
and its own valley temple. Some channels of the Nile reached as far as the
valley temples, and thanks to that, the Egyptians were able to transport a lot of the materials
that weren't found in the site, like granite, brought all the way from Aswan in southern Egypt.
The pyramid of Chephren is the only one that preserves its entire complex: pyramid,
high temple, causeway, low temple, but it also preserves another one of the
most famous constructions of ancient Egypt: The Sphinx of Giza.
We also see the Sphinx, which is a lion with a man's head, and it
represented a guardian that guarded the temples. It is believed that it was carved in the times of Pharaoh Chephren because it was
at the entrance to his complex. Each pyramid was part of a complex that
contained a causeway and a valley temple. Normally, the cities of the ancient Egyptian
civilization were located on the eastern bank of the Nile, while the necropolis, the
place where they buried all the dead, was located on the western bank of the Nile,
that is why the first pyramids were built West of the capital city of the Ancient Kingdom,
Memphis, but Pharaoh Cheops decided to build his pyramid in a different place, kilometers
to the North of Saqqara, on the Giza plateau. The reason behind this decision is that
the entire plateau was a huge quarry of prime quality limestone, and all the pyramids were
built with material that was mined from this site. This solved the great problem of transporting
huge blocks of stone through the desert. By building his pyramid on top of the quarry, Cheops
ensured the cost of construction to be very low, and he managed to complete the construction
of his pyramid in less than thirty years. So, they carved the stone blocks from the quarry
and dragging them only a few tens of meters they transported them to the construction
site of the great pyramids of Giza. And it’s a good thing they did so, because the
great pyramid which originally measured almost 150 meters high is made up of more than two million
stone blocks that weigh 2 and a half tons each, although there are some blocks that weigh up to
6 tons. Moving all that material from a greater distance would have been almost impossible.
But by raising the building on top of the quarry the enormity of the pyramid of Cheops
and the rest of the pyramids became possible. In addition to the two million stone blocks
that made up the structure of the pyramid, we know that up until medieval times, even
almost until modern times, the pyramids were covered with extremely polished white limestone
blocks that made the pyramids stand out from the golden sands of the desert like a huge white arrow
flashing in the sun. It was so reflective that on sunny days it could dazzle anyone who dared
to look directly at this fantastic buildings. The Arabs called the pyramids "the lights" because
they were blinded when they looked at them. Unfortunately those shiny
blocks of white limestone today can hardly be distinguished only in the
upper part of the pyramid of Chephren, stained by the passage of millennia
and by the pollution in Cairo. The city of Cairo a few kilometers
away has been devouring the necropolis, and much of the stone that was in this
place has been used as a construction material for more modern buildings.
So most of those limestone blocks that faced the pyramids are today scattered
throughout the palaces and mosques of Cairo. It is believed that each pyramid had
a capstone covered with electrum, which is an alloy of gold and silver. As I mentioned earlier, the purpose of these
buildings was to serve as a tomb for the pharaoh, The pyramid of Cheops consists of three
rooms, the so-called underground chamber, the so-called queen's chamber, and the so-called
king's chamber. Although this has been called the queen's chamber for centuries, today we know
that inside the pyramid the only remains that were placed were those of Cheops himself. In the
king's chamber, the one right in the center of the pyramid, was the sarcophagus with the remains of
the pharaoh. The other two chambers, however, it is not known with certainty what their use was, it
is likely that they used to hold sacred statues, but when they built the great tombs in Giza,
they were already making fake entryways, because these tombs were getting robbed
all the time, because the Pharaohs were buried with a lot precious objects, many of
them made out of gold and precious stones, and so the builders had to figure out
ways to mislead the thieves, nevertheless, all of the great old kingdom tombs that we have
discovered so far have been robbed various times. With all that said, let’s take a look at the
interior of the pyramid starting at the entrance. If you get close to the pyramid of Cheops you
will see two openings on the northern face of the pyramid. This one, which goes into the tunnels
that lead to the underground chamber and the rest of the interior, is the original entrance to
the pyramid, the one that was made thousands of years ago, at the time the pyramid was built.
And this other opening was made in the 9th century A.D. by a Muslim caliph who wanted
to discover what was inside the pyramid. At that time there was no visible entrance, since
the original entrance was completely sealed, and so this caliph ordered the excavation
of a new tunnel to get inside the building. Although today both entrances are uncovered,
to enter the pyramid we don’t use the original entrance but the entrance of the Caliph Al
Mamun, which was opened in the 9th century, this tunnel is much rougher because it
was made by much more precarious means. Once you’re inside, you must walk about
thirty meters through the Caliph's tunnel until you reach a small staircase that takes you
to the original tunnel, where you can take two different paths. You can go down through
this tunnel to the underground chamber, or you can go through this one that
takes you to the so-called Grand Gallery. So we're here in the tunnel, inside
of the Cheops' Pyramid... You have to walk like this all the time... but it's fantastic. The tunnels are very compact, measuring
approximately one meter high by one meter wide, but after walking about forty meters
you finally get to the Grand Gallery. The Grand Gallery is a spectacular tunnel
of immense size that leads the adventurous visitor directly to the very core of
the building, to the king's chamber. In the lower part of the Grand Gallery, you can
divert and take a straight path that leads to the queen's chamber, which is a small empty room
that has a niche in the shape of a corbelled arch. This place probably held the
sacred statue of the Pharaoh. Or you can continue ascending
through the Grand Gallery. This large passageway was built with a
technique where the rock courses offset, this does not form an actual vault but simply
brings the stones of the wall closer together, it was a construction technique widely
used in the Bronze Age, you can find it even in Mayan architecture in Mexico.
If we go through the great gallery we will finally reach the Sancta Sanctorum,
the Holy of the Holies, the king's chamber. Here the sarcophagus of the pharaoh with
his mummified body had to be preserved, and it was undoubtedly the most important place
in the entire pyramid, which is reflected by the fact that the king's chamber was built with a
different material from the rest of the pyramid. While the rest of the pyramids were made with
the limestone extracted from the Giza plateau, in this room the floor, the walls, and these
relieving chambers that had to guarantee that the entire pyramid would not collapse on
top of the void formed by the king's chamber were carved from gigantic blocks of
Egyptian granite. The hardest stone known to the Egyptians to ensure the safety of
the pharaoh's body kept in the king's chamber. The king's chamber had extraordinary,
almost impenetrable security measures. All of this is granite, which is very difficult
to carve or drill, it can only be entered through the original entrance to the chamber. So, when you
go from the great gallery to the king's chamber, you first have to go through a small
tunnel that is just over a meter high, so you have to enter on your knees, you have
to go through this antechamber that had three granite slabs held at the top, you have to
duck again and go through another small tunnel, and finally you enter the king's chamber.
Once the servants completed all the rituals related to the funeral of Cheops and the king was
locked in the chamber enjoying his eternal rest, they returned on their knees through the
tunnel, and by means of an unknown system, they made the large granite slabs held on top
fall in such a way that this entire area was sealed by several granite slabs that completely
blocked the access to the king's chamber. Now, this is what you find when
you enter the chamber of Cheops: A room with granite walls and floor, and
with a lonely sarcophagus in the background. Despite all the precautions
taken by the pyramid builders, the treasures of Cheops were robbed thousands
of years ago, because when the Muslim caliph entered the pyramid in the 9th century we know
that he also found absolutely nothing inside. When they built the Pyramid of Chephren, they
knew how complicated it had been to make the Pyramid of Cheops, which is why it only has
two small chambers: a central one where the pharaoh was buried, and another one that was
underground. The pyramid is 136 meters high. In 1818 an Italian called Giovanni Belzoni tried
to enter this pyramid, which until then was still completely sealed, without any visible entrance.
Hoping to find the tomb completely intact, he found the tomb completely empty, except for
the bones of an animal inside the sarcophagus. Mycerinos' pyramid is much shorter than
the other two, it’s only 65 meters high, it was made by Mycerinos, the son of Chephren, it
has beautiful proportions, it is a tremendously beautiful building and that is why it was
known in antiquity as “The Divine Pyramid”. This one had a very curious casing, the first
sixteen courses of stones were made of red granite brought from Aswan and the rest was covered with
the same white limestone that dazzled in the sun, but today there is only a little bit of the first courses of granite and the rest of
the limestone coating has been lost. The pyramid of Mycerino is about 80
meters shorter than the other two, in addition the funerary complex of this tomb is
the only one where the temple of the lower valley was built with adobe and not with stone, a cheap
and precarious material that quickly disappeared. And that’s how the period the construction of
the pyramids of Egypt ended, a period that lasted about two centuries, because after Mycerino,
the Egyptians were never again able to build a perfect pyramid that would last to this day.
For nearly four thousand years, humankind wasn’t able to build anything as tall as the Great
Pyramid of Cheops. The first building to achieve this was Lincoln Cathedral in England, which was
completed at the beginning of the 14th century, but even so the spiers of this cathedral were
made out of wood, while the pyramid is completely made out of stone. The first stone building
that managed to exceed the height of Cheops was the Nikolai Cathedral that was built in
Hamburg in the middle of the 19th century, only 150 years ago did we manage to raise a
stone building as large as the Pyramid of Cheops, and only at the end of the 19th century when we
started to build with steel we could definitely leave behind the great pyramid of Cheops
only 120 years ago, with the Eiffel Tower. Even today, after forty five centuries the
Pyramid Complex is a mind-blowing view to behold, and it can teach a lot about
this fascinating culture, and it can show us the wonders that
humankind is capable of creating. Thank you all for watching, this video was
very fun to make. I hope you enjoyed it, I hope you learned something. Please leave
a like because it helps me a lot, and consider subscribing, and comment below, what kind
of videos would you like to see in this channel? Thanks again, and I'll see you next time, goodbye!
