Term Paper on Ancient Egyptians

 

 

Ancient Egypt is one of the world’s first and most successful civilizations. Ancient Egypt civilization began along the Nile River in around 3300 BC when the Egyptians had more than enough symbols and codes in their writing to record their entire history. Ancient Egyptians have made various significant contributions for the growth of mankind. They created one of the world’s first national government system, basic rules and forms of arithmetic, and a yearly calendar. They also invented a form of picture writing, known as hieroglyphics. They built the pyramids, sphinx and tomb for Kings. Many People are still interested and are keen to learn and understand this great culture.

 

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The pyramids of ancient Egypt are the only remaining structures of ancient word considered as one of the seven wonders. There are many different views of experts about who built them and what was the purpose of these pyramids. To build these pyramids many groups of workers were sent in the same way other men were sent to the army. Each group had about twenty men in it and there were thousands of groups working on the single pyramid.

Kings of ancient Egypt were known as pharaohs. In hieroglyphics, pharaoh means ‘great palace’ or ‘great house’. The word pharaoh was normally used to describe the king himself. The people of ancient Egypt use to treat their pharaoh as a god. In reality the pharaohs were the head of the government system, leaders of the army and the head of the judicial system. They also used to set all taxes and were considered as high priests of all the temples. All this was in theory and appointed officials used to complete most of the tasks, in their name.

When pharaohs died they were buried in tombs especially designed to protect their bodies forever. These tombs were called pyramids. The main concept behind these tombs was that if the body of a pharaoh was destroyed, his soul would also perish.
Ancient Egyptians used to believe that soul of pharaoh would unit with the sun after death. So pyramids were made to protect soul of a pharaoh, because if his soul died, he would not be able to be unit with the sun. This in turn would cause the gods to become angry and they will no longer protect the land and the people of the pharaoh. Many experts agree to this reason for building pyramids. Pyramids soon became not only a final resting place, but also a symbol of power and strength.

The pyramids of ancient Egypt were constructed so that the sides would perfectly face North, South, East and West. Each layer of limestone had to be lined up accurately to achieve the correct pyramid shape, four triangles meeting at single point. The pyramids of ancient Egypt were covered with outstanding white polished limestone. The pyramids were meant to look like the rays of the Sun. The burial passages and chambers and were usually dug out after the pyramids were built.
The first pyramid was built for the King Djoser. This pyramid and a few that were built after were known as Step Pyramids. These pyramids were built to form steps from the tip of the pyramid to its base. This was supposed to represent a huge stairway for the pharaoh to climb to meet the god in the sky.

 

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It was during King Sneferu’s era of power that the well-known pyramids, with smooth, inclined sides were built. These pyramids were built with secret chambers, winding passageways, trap doors, and walls of granite. Most of the pyramid was built with solid limestone. The real entranceway to the burial tomb was falsely designed to represent the outer surface of the pyramid. But these all security precautions were not enough and by around 1000 BC grave robbers had ransacked most of the pyramids. The most famous and the largest pyramid is the Great Pyramid. It is located in the Giza plateau, near Cairo. This pyramid was especially built for the King Khufu. To construct this extra ordinary pyramid, more than two million blocks of limestone alone were used, and it took almost twenty years to complete the construction of the pyramid.
The base of the Great Pyramid is almost equal to the ten fields of football. Even with their simple and ancient tools, the Egyptians cut the base so perfectly they were almost precisely proportional.

“Measurements throughout the pyramid show that its constructors knew of the proportions of pi (3.14...), phi or the Golden Mean (1.618), and the "Pythagorean" triangles thousands of years before Pythagoras, the so-called father of geometry, lived.” (The great pyramid)
 

They also cut the inner and outer blocks of pyramid so precisely that even a knife blade would not fit in the gap between the stones. The Great Pyramid was built so that it faces exactly the four fundamental directions. The four sides of the Great Pyramid of Khufu are exactly according to the cardinal points of the compass. Sides of base are 230 meters long, apparently with a difference of only a few centimeters between them. Originally height of the pyramid was 146 meters. The Great Pyramid of Giza is considered as the most massive and huge building ever erected in the world. The size of the Egyptian pyramids increased along with the authority and the power of the pharaohs. There is a mystery about the Great Pyramid: the tomb chamber of the pyramid contains an empty coffin and no one really knows if King Khufu was actually buried there, or if the Great Pyramid was used for different purposes. There are two more pyramids located in the same region, but both are smaller as compared to the Great Pyramid. These three pyramids together are called the Giza Pyramids. The Giza pyramids were also the first of the seven wonders of the Ancient Egypt history. The three Pyramids of Giza were the greatest achievements of the ancient Egyptian rulers.

Three pyramids of the Giza are the most famous structures of the ancient Egypt. These extremely huge stone structures were built around four thousand years ago on an unsteady and rough desert plateau. They are part of the burial structures of the ancient Egyptian Kings Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure. But these great Egyptian pyramids were more than just graves and tombs. The mysteries surrounding their representation, purpose and design have inspired a passionate debate. Many experts believe that humans will not be able solve many of these mysteries. During the fifth family of the ancient Egypt, bureaucracy was increased in Egypt and the pharaohs started to loose some of their complete power over the Kingdom. So as the result of this, pyramids became smaller because decline of influence of pharaohs and their resources also became scarcer. The pyramids also became a perfect target for robbers. In an effort to foil tomb robbers, tombs of pharaohs of new Kingdom were constructed deep into the rock of a remote valley near Thebes, called “The Valley of the Kings.”

 

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The accurate age of the pyramids of the ancient Egypt has long been debated because, right now, there are very few solid evidence to prove when thee pyramids were actually built. Most historical books normally point to 3200 BC as the approximate date when the Great Pyramid of Khufu was under construction. A main problem faced by the builders of the ancient Egyptian Pyramids, was delivering the extremely large limestone blocks to the height they required. The ramps were constructed on smooth inclined planes of rubble and mud brick. The worker then used to drag the blocks on sledges to the required height. As the pyramid grew taller, the length of ramp was extended and bas was widened, else it would collapse. For the construction of each pyramid, probably many ramps were used.

The internal construction of most ancient Egyptian pyramids consists of a sequence of buttress walls surrounding a middle core. The height of walls is less as compared to walls at the center of pyramid. In simple words, the core of the real pyramid is actually a step pyramid. This internal arrangement of walls added a great stability to the overall structure of the pyramid. Additional packing blocks filled the ‘steps’ that were formed by the faces of the casting blocks and outermost walls, thus it completed the real structure of the pyramid. For the twelfth and thirteenth dynasties, builders and architects used different methods and techniques for construction of the pyramids, mainly due to economy.

Most of the stones that were used for the Giza pyramids were taken from the Giza plateau itself. Some of the limestone casing was especially brought from Tura, across the Nile River, and a couple of the rooms were built with granite brought from Aswan. Many marks of the pyramid workers are found on several stone blocks indicating names of the work groups such as "craftsman-gang". Part-time groups of laborers also supplemented the fulltime masons and other workers.
Still there many answered questions about the pyramids. There is a difference between views of different expert regarding construction of pyramids. The pyramids of Egypt are the only remaining structures of ancient history considered as one of the seven wonders.

 

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