West Face, Great Pyramid of Khufu 2589 BC - 2566 BC Giza, Egypt

Khufu's Great Pyramid is the first and largest of the three major pyramids at Giza. Khufu is also known by the Greek name "Cheops." Khufu is the son of Snefru, who built the Bent Pyramid and the Red Pyramid (the first true pyramid) at Dashur. The architect of the Great Pyramid was Hemienu, a brother or half-brother of Khufu himself; Hemienu's tomb is sited on the Giza plateau, and a colossal statue of him is displayed in Hildesheim, Germany.

The pyramids were not built by armies of slaves. They were more like public works projects, with - for example - a force of perhaps 25,000 paid workers who were housed nearby for the two decades it took to build the Great Pyramid. During this time they had to quarry, transport, and assemble two million limestone blocks, averaging two and a half tons each, to build pharoah's "house of eternity." For more information, and the latest (as of 2009) theories about how all this might have been accomplished, see for example Bob Brier and Jean-Pierre Houdin, The Secret Of The Great Pyramid, Harper-Collins Publishers, 2008.

The largest pyramids were tombs for kings. Their purpose was to ensure the king's continuing life in the hereafter - the pyramid was a kind of "resurrection machine." In form, it was said to resemble the primordial mound of creation from which all life arose. Members of the royal family, and other nobles, might be favored with smaller pyramid tombs. A few kings built more than one large pyramid. Additional, small, subsidiary pyramids might be built for ritual purposes but were not intended to hold an actual burial.

The pyramids are not skyscrapers - the modern visitor may need a moment to adjust his frame of reference - but their size is, nevertheless, extremely impressive. For example, the great pyramid of Khufu covers an area of thirteen acres - much greater than the combined ground area of St. Peter's in Rome and St. Paul's in London, both of which it also exceeds in height. But such comparisons are, in a way, pointless. In the ancient world, there was nothing else to which the great pyramids could be compared. On a human scale, they are simply overwhelming.

The pyramid form consists of four triangular sides, erected upon a square base, and meeting in a pyramidion (capstone) at the apex. The pyramid's core was constructed of granite blocks (Old Kingdom) or mud brick (Middle Kingdom), and faced with smooth white limestone. The pyramidion was covered in thin gold or electrum (an alloy of gold and silver). The whole construction would shine blindingly in the brilliant Egyptian daylight, in imitation of the rays of the sun itself, shining down from heaven. In this way, the pyramid provided a magical staircase by which the spirit of Pharaoh could ascend to the sky and join his father Re (the sun) in his daily journey across the heavens.

Although fundamentally solar in symbolism, the smooth-sided pyramid also retained, from its earlier, step pyramid, form, a connection to the night sky. The step pyramid was conceived as a "staircase to heaven", allowing Pharaoh to ascend the night sky and join his fellow gods as the stars which journeyed in orbit around the north pole, never setting below the horizon. For this reason the pyramid entrance was always set in its north face.

A mortuary temple was associated with each pyramid, in which rites were celebrated - sometimes for hundreds of years, or as long as the endowment lasted - to ensure the king's continued existence in the afterlife. The mortuary temple of step pyramids faced north, towards the circumpolar stars, but in solar pyramids the mortuary temple faces east, towards the rising sun.