Egypt’s pyramid Essay Example for Free

Egypt’s pyramid Essay Egypt one of the earliest civilization is a nation embellish with rich culture and tradition, the pyramids being is a witness to their grandeur. Egypt’s pyramid is one of their pride; it depicts the power and glory of those ancient rulers and their influence. The pyramids’ brilliance is known to every individual but little of us knew how the pyramids were erected, what form of tools where used, how did they conduct the calculations considering that every angle of the triangle is perpendicular with each other, and what does the earliest pyramids look like. The Egyptian pyramid certainly has origin, how did they polish such wondrous creation and why pyramids vary in sizes. What is the underlying principle in building such tomb. Several studies were conducted in unleashing this pyramids enigma, yet some still was a mystery. The Pyramids of Egypt is distinct from among the wonders of the world. It has its certain characteristics, incomparable in magnitude, not only that it is the oldest man made creation from among the wonders of the world it conceals numerous historical records, the pyramid being is the door to unlock the secrets of Egypt’s antiquity. We have already uncovered some few material things on Egypt’s long forgotten past, but that is only a part of the larger feature of Egypt. The pyramids have in it some several encryptions which convey us about their tradition and belief in magical spells and hymns written in hieroglyphics form. It depicts the journey of the pharaohs in the afterlife. This compilation of hieroglyphics is called the Pyramid Texts. Aside from the ancient texts carved within the walls of the pyramids, pyramids also vary from each other on the physical aspect, such as its structure, its height and designs. The Pyramid of Cheops and Cephren is one significant example. We have witnessed in the records of history how ancient people revere much the final resting place of their loved ones. Similarly, in Egypt the pyramids are one of the most important objects conveying their belief in the afterlife. The pyramids that we used to have now only belongs to the greatest ruler of Egypt hence the Great Pyramids of Egypt, none of the pyramids ever survived that belong to other least rulers during the ancient time. Not only that the pyramids gain attraction on its concealed past, through the pyramids, some scientists dig the scientific engineering used at the time when the pyramid was built. It is genuine worked made by a brilliant mind. These are among the content of this paper. Based from previous researches, we will have to draw a general conclusion that will help address this problem. Body The Pyramids. Unlike many other temples that served as a house for the living, the pyramid serves as the eternal resting place of Egyptian kings and queens’ body and also a place for religious activity. According to ancient Egyptian belief, the pyramid where the mummy was placed provides for the monarch to pass the afterlife. The ruler’s body was carefully treated and wrapped to preserve it as a mummy. To pray for the soul of the dead ruler, the priests in nearby temples performed religious rituals in order to nourish the spirit, it is believed that the when the ruler died, the spirit remains to the body right after death. The Pyramid Texts were written in the walls of the pyramid to safeguard the soul during its journey. In the Egyptian Old Kingdom, most kings and queens draft for a design of their tomb usually with complicated structure made up of large stone and blocks. Yet probably because the materials were too costly, the size and quality of built pyramids decreased. In the Middle Kingdom, the Egyptians build pyramids out of mud brick. In the tradition, all pyramids were aligned to the cardinal directions which refer to the north-south and east-west location. Most pyramids were found in the desert plateaus on the west bank of the Nile River where the sun sets. According to belief, the dead monarch’s spirit will left the body and shall travel through the sky with the sun each day. When the sun will set in the west, the spirit will now settle into their tomb to renew their selves. Step Pyramid at Saqqara. Before the pyramids, the pharaohs were buried in tombs called the mastabas. It is a big, roofed, square building with walls that sloped gently inward. In the center of the building, a deep shaft was cut to which the burial chamber is located. There they stored the pharaohs’ significant possessions. In building the mastabas (â€Å"bench), the pharaoh needed much worker to work for his project. When there is dearth of workers, he sent out word to all his governors from different provinces. The governors in turn will send the word to every town and village and farmers from all over Egypt in order to come and work for the pharaoh’s project. The earliest known pyramid is the pyramid of King Djoser (Zoser) of the third dynasty. It was build with a giant steps like six mastabas stacked one on the top of the other looking like a rectangular wedding cake with six layers. Other pharaoh’s after him design their own pyramids trying to furnish a better pyramid than that of Djoser. Djoser Step Pyramid architecture was Imhotep. He commissioned a court official to design and build him a unique burial tomb. Accordingly, the building of the pyramid required two things which had never been done before: â€Å"the first was provided by a pacified and united country while for the second a unique human genius was required,† (Mendelssohn, 1979). Imhotep has advantage to this. Although he is not of royal blood, his official title as a purely self-made man was â€Å"Chancellor of the King of Lower Egypt, First after the King of Upper Egypt, Administrator of the Great Palace, Hereditary Nobleman, High Priest of the Heliopolis, Builder, Sculptor and Maker of Vases in Chief†, and he was an engineer before the word ever existed (Thomas, 2005). Imhotep brilliancy was praised by many intelligent minds during his time. He developed and controlled the logistics and persuades a group of thousands of men into a well-organized workforce capable of producing suppose to be the world’s tallest pyramid by a factor of twenty. Imhotep has long solved the problems such as the balance of the lateral forces in the gigantic pyramidal weight while pressing down on a square base. To address the problem, his masons slanted the inner stones of Zoser’s pyramid towards the apex to help balance it out. This designed is considered as grossly overlooked with the introduction of Meidum pyramid. (Ibid. ). Nevertheless, Imhotep’s step pyramid was the first stone structure in the history and is the oldest surviving pyramid today. Several nature factors affect the pyramids’ brilliance, but none of it had overcome the clarity of mind of Imhotep. The fact that his structure stand today is a clear indication that he had overcome nature’s changing environment. Yet Imhotep brilliancy is almost trivial, we had little information on his intelligence and none of the records ever survived in justification of his eminence. Meidum Pyramid. The Meidum pyramid was introduced in the year 2600 BC. It is in the shape of tetrahedron. It started as a step pyramid with inward leaning walls and eight levels. The pyramid construction at Meidum became unsuccessful because there is probably lacking in the design of the pyramid. The interior support of the pyramid partially was collapsed and massive rubble mounds were found beneath the base of the pyramid. Bent Pyramid. After the failure of the Meidum Pyramid, King Sneferu, the father of Khufu started designing his pyramid. He actually started with the Meidum pyramid but for unknown reasons he moved his burial chamber north to Dashur, at the Giza Plateau with a different design. The foundation of the pyramid was a big flat area of limestone bedrock. Also as an advantage, in the nearby area there was a limestone quarry, a place where they could cut two to three ton limestone block to be used in building the pyramid. His pyramid was made of stone blocks leaning inward. In constructing the base of the pyramid, the stone cutters leveled the foundation of the pyramid providing indications as to where the pyramid would be located. The sun and the stars serve as their guiding point to align the pyramid facing exactly towards the four cardinals, the north, south, east and west. They aimed at leveling the sides of the pyramid equal to all angles. Each of the side using modern measurements is 755 feet and 8 inches long; the length is less than two inches of the four sides. However, during the construction of the pyramid, the weight of the upper portion started to inflate causing the pyramid to be not in proportion. It had slowly sink; the weight and angle of the stones where much heavier than in its base. To address the problem, the builders put up an outer supporting wall cutting off the 60 degrees angle to 55 degrees. The upper portion is only 43 degrees. This is where the pyramid got his name, the Bent Pyramid. During the construction, the architects tried to polish their work by applying what they have learned in building the bent pyramid. They must have laid down horizontal layers of larger stone and blocks. In order to vindicate their erroneous design, they construct again another giant pyramid for Sneferu called the North Pyramid. Sneferu returned to Meidum and refined the Meidum pyramid by adding outer level using new approach in constructing it. Sneferu’s new technique somehow became successful. His new technique became the foundation of the 4th dynasty pyramids and the Great Pyramid at Giza. Indeed, something did. Imhotep’s buttresses, while always at the base step pyramid of other true pyramids, were not extended to include the buttressing of the structurally significant outer casing. Pyramids built later than Meidum demonstrate this slanting of the outer casing. (Thomas, 2005) Khufu’s Pyramid. The proliferation of pyramid gradually decline in the 5th dynasty when irregularities seem to pervade in the whole kingdom of Egypt. Perhaps, one significant attribute of the so called chaotic period in Egypt called the First Intermediate Period is crossing the alley of yore to the Middle Period where new techniques and materials were applied. Parallel to it, when the building of pyramid was once restored, the pyramids’ beauty was converted into gross physical appearance to lucidity. Khufu, son of King Sneferu becomes pharaoh. To build a legacy on the surface of the Earth, he set out to design the largest pyramid. Sneferu’s three pyramids laid new important techniques in maintaining Khufu’s pyramid throughout the time. That is to build a pyramid with a solid stone foundation. In onset of the pyramid’s construction, Khufu ordered his governors to seek workers out of forty-two towns of Egypt. He require ten working men or boys each town to accomplish his ambitious pyramid. During Khufu’s reign, there are some speculations that massive slave workers were forced to work in building the pyramid. However in Herodotus account, the workers were not compelled to work for the pyramid. In contrary to his statement, he said however that there is dearth of workers, thus some forcible action is impliedly conducted. There was no account yet being surfaced to warrant the situation. Accordingly, most of the men were proud to work for Khufu; there is so much honor in building the eternal home of the god-king. Men formed into 20-30 teams and also have given their teams a name such as â€Å"Khufu is Bright†. Evidences lie in the hidden parts of the pyramids where modern archaeologists have found them. The construction of the pyramid began. The base forms a nearly perfect square having 19-cm. This huge square is almost exactly leveled out. In the core of the pyramid, it probably has a hill of unexcavated rubble making it difficult to determine the exact number of blocks. According to research, the Great Pyramid’s blocks are estimated to 2. 3 millions of blocks having an average weight of 2. 5 metric tons. Hundreds of men worked for quarrying, moving, setting and sculpting the huge amount of stone used to build the Great Pyramid. A total of 25, 000 men and women worked in the construction site for a couple of years. According to one account, there were no slaves who worked in finishing the project. Most probably were farmers, architects, masons, metal workers and carpenters. The architects of Khufu selected a site in Giza on surface of bedrock not sand which will provide a steady foundation. The workers lower the stones in a horizontal level, on one top of the other. The stone used in the interior area was out of quarried blocks in the south of the construction site. The exterior part which is finely finished was out of white limestone quarried across the Nile River. To transport the materials, the workers have to cut the limestone and transported by a river barge to Giza. The rest of the materials were used in building edifices in Cairo. Dating from the earlier failure of the architects, they had failed to recognize the symmetry of the stones placed on top of the other. Khufu’s pyramid however applied the rule on symmetry. Workers have marked all the blocks indicating the angle of the pyramid wall and trimmed the surfaces so that all blocks will fit together. On the sides of the pyramid, workers built large ramps to help drag their materials to the sides of the structure. Those ramps being used were probably of desert clay mixed with water tighten by limestone debris leftover from the construction work. The final exterior phase f the pyramid is the installation of the pyramidion or the cap stone of the pyramid. In order to reveal the full majestic view of the pyramid, workers must dismantle the ramps on the surface of the pyramid. Thereafter, the pyramid had displayed its real beauty. For the interior part of the pyramid, it is compose of complex chambers where a series of passages will lead to master chamber where the body of the King shall be placed. The pyramid’s entrance is about 17 m intended to be used during Khufu’s funeral. The entrance of the pyramid will likely lead you to the Descending Passage and shall reach the Subterranean Chamber. The Descending Chamber is intersected with the Ascending Passage. The Ascending Passage is the conduit to Queen’s Chamber as so called by the Arabs. But according to some archaeologists, this is where the king statue is located representing his ka, his spirit. The Ascending Passage intersects with the Grand Gallery which housed some large stones used to plug passages after the king’s funeral. At the upper end of the Grand Gallery intersects to the King’s Chamber, a simple rectangular room covered entirely with red granite. Now, what remains is the granite sarcophagus of King Khufu buried near the western wall. Some portion of pyramids’ myriad passage was still mysterious. There are some pyramids that have satellite pyramids and queens’ pyramid. The satellite pyramid’s function is still unknown. Some argued that it must have contained the ka of the king. The queens’ pyramid was smaller version of the kings pyramid intended to be a burial site for the king’s principal wives. The two Great Pyramids beside Khufu’s pyramid belongs to Khafre and Menkaure, Khufu’s son and grandson. Other Great Pyramids. Other pyramids built with the same technique to that of the Khufu’s pyramid is the pyramids of Khafre and Menkaure. In the later years, the building of great pyramids began to decline when Egypt’s resources began to deplete. Several smaller pyramids were design by later rulers however in different location. There are also some smaller pyramids that serve as a burial site for queens and secondary wives of the kings. Later pyramids constructed were the pyramid of Djedefre at Abu Rawash, the pyramid of Sahure at Abu Sir, the pyramid of Neferirkare Kakai at Abu Sir, the pyramid of Nyuserre Ini ate Abu Sir, the pyramid of Amenemhet I at Lisht, the pyramid of Senusret I and Senusret II at Lisht and the pyramid of Amenemhet III ate Hawara.