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Giza or Gizah is the
third largest city in Egypt. It is located on the west bank of the Nile
river, around 20 km southwest of central Cairo.
Giza is most famous as the location of the Giza Plateau: the site of
some of the most impressive ancient monuments in the world, including a
complex of ancient Egyptian royal mortuary and sacred structures,
including the Great Sphinx, the Great Pyramid of Giza, and a number of
other large pyramids and temples.
The Great Pyramids
Located some 10 miles southwest of downtown Cairo, on the edge of a
desert plateau, the three Great Pyramids of Giza rise up majestically.
Shrouded in an aura of mystery, there are many myths surrounding them.
The Great Pyramids were built by pharaohs of
the Fourth Dynasty (Cheops, Chephren and Mycerinus). The precise
construction techniques used by the ancient builders of the pyramids are
still much debated, and there are no documents to shed any light. One
current theory is that they were built with overlapping ramps that were
extended and raised as the pyramid rose higher. A recent research
suggests that the enormous limestone blocks of the body of the pyramid
were quarried locally on the Giza plateau itself, and then dragged to
the construction site by teams of laborers using huge wooden sledges.
The blocks were subsequently covered with a casing (long since lost) of
harder limestone slabs, mostly taken from the quarry at Tura, on the
opposite bank of the Nile.
The Great Pyramid of Cheops is the only one
of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World to have survived to the
present day. It ranked as the tallest structure on earth for over 43
centuries. This pyramid, the most colossal ever built, is 460 feet in
height and was built from 7.7 million tons of stone; its base covers an
area of 12 acres.
The Sun Boat
Not far from Cheops' Pyramid lies the mysterious Sun Boat, a
cedar-wood craft built to take the pharaoh through the underworld. It is
believed to have carried the body of Cheops on his last journey on Earth
before he was buried inside the pyramid.
The Great Sphinx
Giza is also home to the mighty Sphinx, guardian of the necropolis
of this city. The Sphinx wears the characteristic royal and divine
headdress, known as the Ames.It is a huge atatue with the body of a lion
and the face of a man. Carved from natural limestone, the Sphinx
dimensions are 187 ft in length and approximately 65 ft in height.
Scholars believe that the face of the Sphinx closely resembles that of
King Chefren. Part of the nose, the uraeus (the sacred Cobra) which
adorned its forehead, and the ritual beard – a fragment of which is in
the British Museum – are now missing. The Sphinx, like the gods and the
pharaohs, fulfilled a protective function. The Sphinx was a masculine
entity, a manifestation of the god and the depiction of the deified
pharaoh. The Sphinx was known as “Horus on the Horizon” from the 18th
century onwards. The Sphinx is as mysterious as the Great Pyramids; its
gaze stretches far into space and time.
Sound & Light Show
This is a spectacular presentation that relies on lights, narration,
sound effects and music from operas to produce an inspiring romantic
atmosphere that takes one back to the events of ancient history . It
begins with the story of the Sphinx, and depicts the saga of building
the Pyramids and the glory of the legendary Pharaohs such as Nefertiti,
Thutmosis 4th , Akhnaton, and Tut-Ankh-Amun. Such memorable
experience is a perfect prelude to your visit to the land of Pharaos.
The Step Pyramid
To the south of Giza lies the immense necropolis of Saqqara, the
largest of all the cemeteries linked to Memphis. Saqqara is dominated by
the great step pyramid of Zoser, dating from the beginning of the 3rd
Dynasty, and is the first known example of a pyramid in Egypt, preceding
the Great Pyramid of Giza. Built around 2650 B.C., it was designed by
the great architect Amenhotep, who was later deified as a magician and
healer, and identified by the Greeks to be equal with their god of
medicine, Asclepius. In the creation of this structure, Amenhotep first
built a large mastaba, which he then raised by adding five superimposed
levels, decreasing in size, until a pyramid of six steps was formed. In
philosophical and religious terms, the step pyramid may have represented
a stairway for the pharaoh to ascend to heaven.
Memphis
The first capital of Egypt, was founded by Narmer in the region
known as Mekhattawi (that which binds the Two Lands), which at the time
marked the boundary between Upper and Lower Egypt, right at the tip of
the Nile Delta. The city became the great capital of Egypt during the
Early Dynastic and Old Kingdom periods. In antiquity, Memphis was called
Ineb-hedj (White Walls), referring - according to Herodotus – to the
construction of a dam designed to protect the town from the Nile floods.
It later took the name of Ankh-tawi (the Life of Two Lands). One of the
temples of Memphis, dedicated to Hut-Ka-Ptah, may have been the origin
of the word Aigyptos , which the Greeks used when referring to the
country as a whole – Egypt |
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