Camel ride touts and the Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza. Three kings of the Fourth Dynasty (2570-2450 BC) built pyramids here - about 10 kilometers west of Cairo. Khufu is perhaps the most colossal single building ever erected on the planet. Its sides are accurately oriented to the four cardinal points of the compass. Originally, it was 481 feet tall. The pyramid is built from 2,300,000 stone blocks, weighing between 2.5 and 15 tons. The internal walls as well as those few outer-casing stones that still remain in place show finer joints than any other masonry constructed in ancient Egypt. Herodotus said it took 20 years to build the pyramid itself. Originally, the pyramid was covered with a fine, white, polished limestone coating. The Great Pyramid's core is made of yellowish limestone blocks, the outer casing (now almost completely gone) and the inner passages are of finer light-coloured limestone, and the interior burial chamber is built of huge blocks of granite.

© Monica & Mark Hughes 2000-02