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The Pyramids

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The Pyramids Marshall High School Marshall High School Mr. Cline Mr. Cline Western Civilization I: Ancient Foundations Western Civilization I: Ancient Foundations Unit Two FD Unit Two FD * The Gift of the Nile • Egyptian Culture • The Pyramids • How were they built? • For centuries, people have theorized how the great pyramids were built. • Some have suggested that they must have been constructed by extraterrestrials, while others believe the Egyptians possessed a technology that has been lost through the ages. • But the process of building pyramids, while complicated, was not as colossal an undertaking as many of us believe, contemporary research suggests. • Estimates suggest that between 20,000 and 30,000 laborers were needed to build the Great Pyramid at Giza in less than 23 years. • By comparison, Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris took almost 200 years to complete. * The Gift of the Nile • Egyptian Culture • The Pyramids • Pharaohs traditionally began building their pyramids as soon as they took the throne. • The pharaoh would first establish a committee composed of an overseer of construction, a chief engineer and an architect. • The pyramids were usually placed on the western side of the Nile because the pharaoh's soul was meant to join with the sun disc during its descent before continuing with the sun in its eternal round. • The two deciding factors when choosing a building site were its orientation to the western horizon where the sun set and the proximity to Memphis, the central city of ancient Egypt. • The cores of the pyramids were often composed of local limestone. * The Gift of the Nile • Egyptian Culture • The Pyramids • Finer quality limestone composed the outer layer of the pyramids, giving them a white sheen that could be seen from miles away. • The capstone was usually made of granite, basalt, or another very hard stone and could be plated with gold, silver or electrum, an alloy of gold and silver, and would also be highly reflective in the bright sun. • Ancient Egyptian quarrying methods -- the processes for cutting and removing stone -- are still being studied. • Scholars have found evidence that copper chisels were using for quarrying sandstone and limestone, for example, but harder stones such as granite and diorite would have required stronger materials. • Dolerite, a hard, black igneous rock, was used in the quarries of Aswan to remove granite. * The Gift of the Nile • Egyptian Culture • The Pyramids • During excavation, massive dolerite "pounders" were used to pulverize the stone around the edge of the granite block that needed to be extracted. • 60 to 70 men would pound out the stone. • At the bottom, they rammed wooden pegs into slots they had cut, and filled the slots with water. • The pegs would expand, splitting the stone, and the block was then slid down onto a waiting boat. • Teams of oxen or manpower were used to drag the stones on a prepared slipway that was lubricated with oil. * The Gift of the Nile • Egyptian Culture • The Pyramids • A scene from a 19th century B.C. tomb in Middle Egypt depicts "an alabaster statue 20 feet high pulled by 173 men on four ropes with a man lubricating the slipway as the pulling went on." • Once the stones were at the construction site, ramps were built to get them into place on the pyramid. There is a lot of speculation that these ramps were constructed within the interior of the pyramids and then torn down after construction was completed. • These ramps were made of mud brick and coated with chips of plaster to harden the surface. "If they consistently raised the ramp course by course as the teams dragged their blocks up, they could have gotten them into place fairly easily.” • At least one such ramp still exists. * The Gift of the Nile • Egyptian Culture • The Pyramids • When answering to skepticism about how such heavy stones could have been moved without machinery, current experiments have devised for the skeptic a picture of 20 workers at an archaeological dig site pulling up a two-and-a-half ton granite block. * The Gift of the Nile • Egyptian Culture • The Pharaoh • The pre dynastic period of rule in Egypt was marked by strife and conflict as local chieftains lost and consolidated power until, for all intents and purposes, there existed two Egyptian kingdoms; the lower and the upper. • With the rise of powerful rulers who sought to unify the two kingdoms, we enter the dynastic phase of Egyptian history. • The numbering system for the pharonic dynasties was developed, or at least enshrined in writing, by a third century B.C. priest named Manetho, and by and large his work has withstood historical and archaeological scrutiny. • However, there were kings who held sway, and were influential rulers, prior to the time that Manetho records, and we call these group of kings the zero dynasty. • Amongst them is one shadowy king, in that we do not know much about him apart from some brief written references, who ruled Upper Egypt * The Gift of the Nile • Egyptian Culture • The Pharaoh • He is known as “The Scorpion King” from a mace head that details in pictures his assertion of authority over most of Egypt. * The Gift of the Nile • Egyptian Culture • The Pharaoh • Another King, Narmer, appears to have ruled over both Upper and Lower Egypt, and may be identical with the legendary king Menes, or Min, whom later Egyptians credited with this feat. • The record we have of him comes from one of the oldest Egyptian artifacts ever found, a palette, most likely used to grind cosmetics for the gods in a temple * The Gift of the Nile • Egyptian Culture • The Pharaoh • On one side of the Narmer palette it depicts King Narmer wearing the white crown of Upper Egypt, known as the Hedjet. • On the other side, he is depicted as wearing the red crown of Lower Egypt, the Deshret. • The beasts depicted in the second panel below represent the beasts of Upper and Lower Egypt, and their intertwining necks represent the unification of the two kingdoms under Narmer • Based on the proximity of the Scorpion King mace head to the palette in their archaeological finds, some speculate that Narmer is the son of the Scorpion King • It was from this time that Pharaohs began using both crowns as the ceremonial headwear symbolizing the state. * The Gift of the Nile • Egyptian Culture • The Pharaoh • The origin of these pre dynastic unifying kings was most likely Abydos in lower Egypt, where they were also buried. • However, their administrative capital would have been in Memphis, the capital of Lower Egypt, and an important center of trade for the Sinai peninsula and the Near East. • Following the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt, the basic features of pharonic rule took shape along lines that would persist for the next 3,000 years. • From a very early date, the pharaoh was identified closely with divinity. • By the first and second dynasties, he was already regarded as the earthly manifestation of the falcon god, Horus. • These early Egyptian rulers were different than the Sumerian and Babylonian kings that claimed favor with their gods only. The pharaoh WAS a god! * The Gift of the Nile • Egyptian Culture • The Pharaoh • How these early rulers established a connection to divinity is a mystery • We do know, however, that making their rule over all of Egypt legitimate was a difficult task • Local civic and religious loyalties remained strong, and for centuries Lower Egyptians would continue to see themselves as distinct in some respects from their cousins to the south. • Efforts to create a unified Egyptian identity began very early, however, as one can see from the Narmer palette. • It seems probable that the Pharaoh’s claim to divinity was one approach to solving the puzzle of political unity. • However it occurred though, it was a big success! * The Gift of the Nile • Egyptian Culture • The Pharaoh • By the end of the Second Dynasty, the pharaoh was not just the ruler of Egypt, in a sense he was Egypt, a personification of the land, the people, and their connection to the divine. • Egyptian Religion • Egyptian religion centered on the cycles of life and death in much the same manner that Egyptian life centered on the cycles of the Nile • As a matter of fact, a central tenet of their religion was a river that ran through all of creation which stabilized life, and represented truth, justice and order. It was called the ma’at. • The Pharaoh of the gods, Ra, sailed his sun boat across the ma’at every day, guiding the course of the sun • Of more importance, however, was the cycle of life and death depicted in the myth of Osiris * The Gift of the Nile • Egyptian Culture • Egyptian Religion • Osiris and his sister, who was also his wife, Isis, were fighting their brother Set for the throne of Divine Egypt after the death of Ra at Isis’ hands • Set tricked Osiris into meeting him, where he killed Osiris and sealed him in a golden coffin. • With the help of the funeral god Anubis, a jackal headed god, Isis found her husband, and brought him back to life, in order to produce an heir. Thus was born the Falcon headed god, Horus, also known as the Avenger. • As a young man, Isis and Horus had to flee constantly from Set, but once Horus was grown, he took his vengeance and killed his uncle. • Meanwhile Osiris re descended into the underworld and became the god of the dead, and judge of the souls of the dead. • For the everyday Egyptian, this myth was symbolized in the mummification of their own dead.
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