_____

9
Living^ [History

PYRAMID
F ANCIENT EGYPT
 Mediterranean Sea

Giza
Pyramids of Cheops,
Chephren, and later, Mycerinus

The
/^
Palace of the White Wall
Heliopol

®£ Till?

i
I

LIBYA (later the city of Memphis)

White Wall
Sand-dwellers
Saqqara Nome
attacked Egypt from here
Site of the Step Pyramid
(the first pyramid)

TA-SHEMA
Upper Egypt
Serpe

Abydos
Center of worship of Osiris

DESHRET
The desert

NUBIA
(Sudan)
Warlike tribesr
attacked Egy 1

from here

CUSH
(Ethiopia)
The Egyptiani trade*
PYRAMID,
OF ANCIENT EGYPT
 Living History

OF
ikum
ANCIENT EGYPT
JOHND. CLARE, Editor

Gulliver Books
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers
SAN DIEGO NEW YORK LONDON

it

l l
Copyright © 1992, 1991 by Random Century Publishing Group Director of Photography Tymn Lyntell
Limited Photography Charles Best
Art Director Dalia Hartman
First published in Great Britain in 1991 by The Bodley Head Production Manager Fiona Nicholson
Children's Books, an imprint of The Random Century Group Ltd Visualization/Systems Operator Antony Parks
Typesetting Thompson Type, San Diego, California
First US. edition 1992 Reproduction F. E. Burman Ltd
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Clare, John, 1952-
Pyramids of ancient Egypt/John Clare.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
p. cm. — (Living history)
"Gulliver books." Advisors: The British Museum, Department of Egyptian Antiquities;
Summary: Describes daily life inEgypt during the time of
ancient Dr. Rosalie David. Costumes: Joanna Measure, Val Metheringham.
the Pharaoh Chephren, including clothing, makeup, home life, Jewelry: Angie Woodcock. Makeup: Alex Cawdron, Caroline Kelly,
religious practices, burial rituals, and the construction and role Pat Postle, Hilary Steinberg. Maps: Simon Ray-Hills. Models: Chris
of the pyramids. Lovell, Neville Smith. Props: Caroline Gardner, Helen Pettit. Casting
ISBN 0-15-200509-9 and movement consultant: Mike Loades assisted by Gordon Summers.
1. Egypt — Social life and customs — To 332 B.C. —Juvenile Photographer's assistant: Alex Rhodes. Picture research: Valerie
literature. 2. Pyramids — Egypt — Design and construction — Tongue.
Juvenile literature. [1. Egypt — Social life and customs
To 332 B.C.] Additional photographs: Reproduced by courtesy of the Trustees of the
I. Title. II. Series: Living history (San Diego, Calif.) British Museum, p. 62 bottom left, p. 63 center left; Antony Parks,
DT61.C54 1992 pp. 26-27; Robin Scagell, pp. 30-31; Spectrum Colour Library, pp. 8-9,
932-dc20 91-11735 42-43,48-49; Zefa Picture Library, pp. 1-5, 6-7, 40-41.
Contents

Ancient Egypt 6

The Great Pyramid 8

Egyptian Seasons 10

Farming 12

Egyptian Society 14

Everyday Life 16

Makeup 18

The Feast 21

At School 22

At the Doctor's 25

Hunting 27

Pharaoh's Decision 28

Finding True North 30

Leveling the Base 33

At the Quarry 35

The First Layer 36

Roofing the Burial Chamber 38

Halfway There 40

Accident! 42

Royal Statues 44

Casing and Finishing 47

The Last Journey 49

Mummification 50

Into the Coffin 53

Opening of the Mouth 54

The Pharaoh at Rest 57

Offerings to the Dead 59

The Boat Pits 60

How Do We Know? 62

Index 64
Ancient Egypt from Ptah, a local god of the capital that
was founded on the border between Upper
and Lower Egypt around 3100 B.C. by King
Around 4,500 years ago, when people in Menes when he united the two.
northern Europe were still living in
Stone Age huts and eating berries, a com- RELIGION AND BELIEFS
plex civilization flourished in Egypt. The
enormous tombs called pyramids that were The ancient Egyptians had many gods.
built for the pharaohs, Egypt's kings, are a Some controlled the natural world; others
influenced everyday life. The sun god Re
(Ra), who took the sun across the sky in a
boat each day, became the most important
during the fourth dynasty. Re was the son
of Nut, the sky goddess who stretched over
the earth, and Geb, the earth god. Re's own
children were Shu, the air god, and Tefnut,
the goddess of moisture. Among the minor
gods were Khnum, the creator of man;
Thoth, the inventor of writing; Ptah, the
god of craftsmen; Anubis, the undertaker
god; and Sebek, the crocodile god.
fascinatingremnant of that time. Those at Osiris, the god of the dead, was wor-
Giza were built 1 ,200 years before the reign shiped and honored throughout Egypt.
of Tutankhamen and 2,500 years before The pharaoh's power was associated with
Cleopatra. They were more ancient to Osiris. According to Egyptian legend,

Cleopatra than she is to us. Osiris was killed and torn into many pieces
Egypt has been called the gift of the Nile. by his evil brother, Seth. Isis, Osiris's sister
Ancient Egyptians were drawn to the water
and fertile soil of the long, narrow river val-
ley and the broad delta region. The southern
part, between Aswan and Giza, was known
: ?
as Ta-shema (Upper Egypt). Here the val-
ley was only 12 miles (20 kilometers) wide
at its broadest point, and the weather was

hot and dry. On either side of the valley

there was a desert called Deshret (the Red
Land). Five hundred miles (800 kilometers)
downriver from Aswan, just north of Giza,
the river divided before flowing into the
Mediterranean Sea. This delta area, called
Ta-meh (Lower Egypt), had grassland,
marshes, and creeks. Cool breezes and
moisture made the climate milder than that
of Upper Egypt.
The ancient Greeks were the first people
to use the name Egypt. The name is derived
and wife, collected the pieces and restored
him to life long enough for him to father
Horus, the protector of Egypt. The Egyp-
tians believed that the pharaoh was the god
Horus. While Osiris ruled the dead, the
pharaoh, as Horus, ruled the living. Fol-
lowing the example of Osiris, many pha-
raohs married their own sisters.
Egyptian priests taught that beyond the
western horizon lay the Kingdom of Osiris,
the subterranean spirit world of the dead.
All ordinary Egyptians hoped to dwell
with Osiris when they died. Above the
skies lay heaven, the land of the gods, ruled
over by Re. Only god him-
the pharaoh, a
self,was pure and powerful enough to join
the other gods there.
The Egyptians also believed that the
spirit remained connected to the body after
death. To prepare the dead for the afterlife the fourth pharaoh of the fourth dynasty,

either in the Kingdom of Osiris or with Re was the head of the government and the
in the sky, they preserved their corpses by chief priest. His commands could not be

mummifying them. Even ordinary Egyp- questioned and his word was law. Chephren
tians were mummified, but particular care was the first ruler to call himself the "great
was taken to preserve the pharaoh s body. god" and the "son of Re." Like his father,
In the fourth dynasty the Egyptians pre- Cheops, who built the Great Pyramid at
pared for their pharaoh's afterlife by build- Giza, Chephren ordered a pyramid to be
ing the pyramids. built during his reign.
Chephren wore two crowns: the red
crown of Lower Egypt and the white of
THE PHARAOHS
Upper Egypt. When he was crowned, Che-
After Menes united Egypt and built the phren walked around the palace of the
palace of theWhite Wall, the ruler of Up- White Wall, to the south then to the north.
per and Lower Egypt was called the pha- The two crowns showed his lordship over
raoh, from the word per-aa meaning Great both Upper and Lower Egypt, and by
House. The pharaohs who rose to power walking around the White Wall, he demon-
during the period known as the Old King- strated the unity of both.
dom (2686-2181 B.C.) were among the Every two years Chephren traveled
most powerful in Egyptian history. Sene- through Egypt on a tour known as the "fol-
feru (Snefru) and his descendants— the lowing of Horus." Sailing along the Nile on
pharaohs of the fourth dynasty — built the the royal barge, he visited each nome, or
pyramids at Giza, which were the first true district, inspecting the accounts of each of-
pyramids. As he traveled, the nobles raised their
ficial.

In 2558 B.C. Chephren (Khafre), the hands in worship and cried, "Adoration to
grandson of Seneferu, inherited the throne you, O
god. Your people can see how beau-
from his father, Cheops (Khufu). Chephren, tiful vou are."
The Great Pyramid stone and granite that weigh between 2 and
70 tons apiece. This is enough stone to
build a low wall around the earth. Its 13-

The Egyptian pyramid was

first by
built acre base is the same size as seven blocks in
Pharaoh Zoser (Djoser) the third
in New York City, and it is as high as a 40-
century B.C. During the next ten centuries, story building. The Great Pyramid is so
Egypt's rulers built approximately 90 pyra- well constructed that in the nineteenth cen-
mids. The largest and most famous were tury when archaeologists explored the in-
Giza by Cheops, Chephren, and
built at side by blasting tunnels with gunpowder, the
Chephren's son, Mycerinus (Menkure). 4,000-year-old pyramid did not collapse.
Even in the time of the pharaohs, rich Each pyramid was part of a larger com-
Egyptians traveled to Giza to see the Great plex, including two temples and in some
Pyramid of Cheops. complexes smaller pyramids, possibly for
The Great Pyramid is the largest stone the queens. Near the Great Pyramid were
building in the world. It is built from al- the smaller mastabas (traditional brick
most two and a half million blocks of lime- tombs) of important nobility.
 :.^

• * ::

Building a pyramid required the labor religious monument. The sloping sides rep-
of thousands of people over a period of 20 resented the rays of the sun god. Egyptians
or 30 years and drained much of Egypt's believed that the dead pharaoh could climb
wealth. But for the ancient Egyptians, a these rays to heaven.
pyramid was far more than a tomb. It was a
Pharaoh Chephren's pyramid is still under construction,
but the Great Pyramid, known to the Egyptians as "the
Horizon of Cheops," is finished, and the body of Pharaoh
Cheops is buried there. The pyramid stands 481 feet (146
meters) high. Each side measures 756 feet (230 meters).
The entrance to the burial chamber, high above ground
on the north side, is hidden by casing stones. The pyra-
mid has been built with great precision. The difference
between the longest and the shortest sides is less than 8
inches (20 centimeters). The corners are almost perfect
right angles (0.09 percent error), and the base is almost
perfectly flat (0.004 percent error). The casing stones on
the outside of the pyramid are so accurately positioned
that it is impossible to push even a hair into the joints.
Egyptian Seasons

All of Egypt depended on the Nile for

water, food, and transportation. Be-
cause very little rain fell in either Upper or
Lower Egypt and when it did rain the water
poured down in destructive torrents, the
Egyptians took water for farming and
drinking from the Nile.
The Egyptian year was divided into three
seasons based on the ebb and flow of the
river. From June to September was the time

of the flood, called akhet. After that came

peret, when the river receded, and finally
shemu, the time of drought. that the river provided were some of the
Beginning with the unification of Egypt, reasons that Egypt was the first country in
priests using instruments called nilometers the world to have a national government.
measured the flood and recorded their mea- Egyptians used astronomy to predict the
surements. These records were used to cal- seasons and developed mathematics to mea-
culate the amount of harvest tax the people sure the flood and rebuild field boundaries.
would pay. In a good year the Nile rose The peasants built their villages on
27 feet (8 meters) at the palace of the mounds constructed above the flood. For
White Wall. most of them akhet was a time of rest.
During akbet, the Nile washed rich soil
across the land. The Egyptians channeled It is the time of akhet, the flood. Melting snow has
washed
the flood waters onto the fields and down from ofCush (Ethiopia) into Egypt,
the mountains
bringing black mud, which fertilizes the soil for next
dammed them to deposit the mud. The
year's harvest. The Egyptians believe that the Nile is a
need to maintain dikes and irrigation chan- god, and that Khnum, the creator-god, causes the river to
nels as well as the convenient transportation swell.

11
 Farming

From October to February was peret

(coming forth), the time of planting.
The Keeper of the Storeroom distributed
seeds that farmers sowed by hand, then cov-
ered by plowing the soil. Egyptian farmers
grew emmer (a type of wheat), barley, fruit,

and vegetables. They also grew flax for linen

and papyrus reeds for paper. Because they
had no sugar, they collected honey.
During the time of the Old Kingdom,
Egyptians kept gazelles, cranes, cattle,

sheep, goats, and pigs. They did not domes-

ticate horses or camels until much later.
From February to June was shemu
(drought), the time of harvest. Laborers
worked in "hands" of five men under a
kherp (the holder of the rod of discipline).
Back in the village, oxen trod out grain on a
threshing floor. Dirt and dung mingled

>5

with grain and straw. The grain was used to

make both beer and bread.

The peasants reap to the music of a flute. They pray to Isis

as they work, because the cutting of the barley reminds
her of how her husband was cut into pieces. They cut the
barley just below the ear (above) and let it fall to the
ground, where it is gathered and loaded onto donkeys.
v^
Egyptian Society the gods or in the mortuary temples.
On a lower rung of society, the hemu-
tiu— craftsmen such as weavers, sculptors,
barbers, and laundry men — provided for the
[* hephren's highest officials, called needs of the wealthy. Lower were thestill
^^ imakhu (friends of the pharaoh), were menu popu-
(peasants), the majority of the
usually members of the royal family They lation who were assigned laboring jobs by
led trade missions, commanded the army,
the House of the Granary. During the Old
and acted as nomarchs (rulers of the
Kingdom there were no slaves in Egypt, but
nomes). The chief minister, or tjaty, was in
the mertu (on whose labor the whole soci-
charge of the Treasury and the House of the
ety depended) had no personal freedom.
Granary (the Department of Agriculture) as
They had few possessions and could be
well as being the chief judge. Sometimes the
beaten by those they worked for. When the
pharaoh allowed a favored imakhu to build
pharaoh gave land to a noble, the gift in-
a tomb by the pyramids, where he would
cluded the mertu who lived there.
receive food offerings for the afterlife.
All government officials were scribes
Chepbren, wearing a ceremonial gala skirt and a false
(educated men). Below the imakhu were beard, carries a crookand flail, the tools of a cowherd
the secretaries, the sandal bearers, the super- carried by the god Osiris. These symbolize the pharaoh 's

visors of the royal meals, and the over- duty to rule and tend Egypt. Behind him (right to left)

stand his son Mycerinus, a member of the royal family, a

seerson the pyramids. Many other scribes
scribe (with his stick of authority), an overseer, a crafts-
were priests in the hundreds of temples to man (hemutiu), and a peasant (mertu).

14
% the towns, the homes of the laborers
In
and craftsmen were built close together in
a maze of alleyways. The houses were made
of sun-dried mud bricks, and the walls
weren't very strong. Sometimes the houses
were no more than low huts, but they usu-
ally had two or three rooms and a small
yard. Stairs led to a flat roof where the fam-
ily slept in hot weather. During the day, the

roof could be used to dry fruit, such as figs

and dates, in the sun.
Children worked alongside their parents,
but also went to school, had toys, and
played games. Boys played piggyback
games, tug-of-war, and leapfrog. Girls
danced, played with dolls, and adorned
themselves with jewelry and makeup. When
Egyptians kissed, they rubbed noses in-
stead of touching lips.
People died younger than they do today
and married younger, too. Couples married
when were about 12 and the boys
the girls
about Although husband and wife called
15.
each other "brother" and "sister," marriage
between siblings did not occur in ordinary
families as it did in the royal family.

The Egyptian women of the Old Kingdom work at home.

While their children play, they perform the household
jobs, which include making beer and mashing vegetables.
Their main task, however, is to make fresh bread each
day. They grind grain to make flour, add water, and mix
in some of yesterday's uncooked bread to make the dough
rise. Then they form it into different-shaped loaves,

which are slapped onto the walls of their clay ovens or

dropped into the hot ashes.
The flour is full of dirt and dung, so people often suffer
from stomach pains. The grit in the bread wears down
their teeth, so they also have toothaches.
Makeup

Among the upper classes, the highlight

of the day was the evening feast.

Egyptians, especially the men, took great

care in dressing. Often they began to pre-
pare themselves in the afternoon. They
rubbed oil and perfumes onto their skin
and shaved their bodies with bronze razors.
On some days, for health reasons, they
purged themselves, taking a laxative of
senna and fruit to empty their bowels.
Many Egyptians wore wigs as a symbol
of their importance, but they also took care
of their own hair, rubbing it with such sub- smell as nice at the end of the evening as
stances as gazelle dung and hippopotamus they did at the beginning.
fat to make it grow and the blood of a black
bull to preventit from turning white. Fashionable Egyptians wear eye makeup, wigs, jewelry,

It was important to smell nice, because and incense cones. Around their eyes they use kohl, a
black eyeliner made from crushed lead ore (inset, left),
body odor was a sign of sinfulness. Women and blue or green eye shadow. Green is made from pow-
chewed honey pills to make their breath dered copper ore.
sweet. Men and women sprinkled their The ladies of Chephren's court wear red lip salve and
clothes with aperfume made from myrrh, also paint their toenails and fingernails red. Necklaces,
bracelets, and anklets complete their outfits.
frankincense, and fragrant plants. Finally, a Makeup, made from precious ointments and colorings,
servant, called the chief anointer, placed a is mixed on a palette with a duck-shaped handle and ap-
cone on top of each person's head. It was plied with a stick (inset, left).

soaked with sweet-smelling ointment that

slowly melted over their wig during the
warm night. This way, they were sure to
 %

»>
 and also "enjoy." At a feast perfumes, flow-
ers, food, and spices scented the air.
Toward the end of the evening, singers,
the Old Kingdom, court officials and acrobats, and magicians would entertain the
In
their families lived with the pharaoh in guests. Young women performed slow, ele-
the palace of the White Wall. Some richer gant dances. Nobody knows exactly what
officials also owned summer houses, where ancient Egyptian music sounded like, but
they could go to relax. pictures show musicians playing harps,
Official feasts were held to celebrate all lutes, zithers, and the sistrum (a metal
the main holy days, but often a wealthy rattle).

man would order his servants to prepare a Special texts, written on papyrus, told
huge meal simply to entertain his friends. Egyptians how to behave at feasts. They
At such a feast his ka (spirit of generosity) advised guests to look at their food, so that
would make him "stretch out his arms in no one would think they were being stared
hospitality." Servants offered the guests at. A polite guest, they taught, spoke only

beef, goat, antelope, goose, and duck, all when spoken to and laughed when others
cooked with imported herbs and spices. laughed. "This is how it is in Egypt," ex-
The meal was accompanied by wine and plained one manual of good behavior, "and
four kinds of beer. only a fool would complain about it."

Guests ate with their fingers. They also

crushed lotus flowers between their fingers At a noble's feast, men and women sit apart. The guests
was important to
to savor the scent. Smell will stay seated all night and will not join in the dancing
or singing. They believe that mealtimes are precious to
the Egyptians; the drawing of a nose in
the gods and require good manners.
Egyptian writing meant "smell," "taste,"
At School

The Egyptians developed writing before

3000 B.C. They used picture symbols,
now called hieroglyphs from the Greek
word for sacred carvings. They wrote on
papyrus, a paper made from reeds, and
worked from right to left across the page.
Writing in hieroglyphs took a long time
because each document was really a very
complicated painting. For speed, Egyp-
tians sometimes used a faster, "hieratic"
script, with simpler symbols.
The people who used the new writ-
ing held important jobs and were called
scribes. The hieroglyph for "scribe" was a priesthood, or architecture. Teachers en-
drawing of a paint palette with red and couraged their students to work hard. The
black paint, a water pot, and a brush. life of a scribe is better than most, one old
All Egyptian children went to school document says. The scribe is his own boss,
when they were four years old. At 12 most whereas "the metalsmith works in the heat
left school. The boys began to learn their of the furnace. He stinks like rotten fish
fathers' trades, while the girls helped their eggs."
mothers in the house. The sons of officials
who were to become scribes went on The scholars learn proverbs and stories by heart and copy
studying for several years. Some girls also texts onto specially prepared pieces ofpottery and lime-
stone slates.
stayed on and became scribes, but in the
They learn reading, writing, and arithmetic, and older
Old Kingdom people often mocked the pupils study geography and history. Teachers emphasize
writings of women. memorization. Questioning and lack of respect are pun-
ished, sometimes by beating.
Many careers were open to the scribes.
Sometimes the pupils whisper and daydream and long
They might work for the Army or the for noon,when their mothers will bring them a meal of
Treasury. They could go into medicine, the bread and barley wine.
X
 the ointment for blindness contained a pig's
At the Doctors
eye because the doctors believed it had the
strength of sight. They also prescribed
spells and charms of stinking herbs and fish
the Old Kingdom, medicine was a
Incombination of magic and science. as protection against the spirits.
Patients might ask a doctor to advise
Doctors had papyrus texts describing
them on how to get rid of fleas or even how
how to examine the patient and diagnose
to make clothes smell sweet. Doctors were
disease; they looked for symptoms such as
thought to be wise and to know all the
"blood like fried pig's blood." They were
answers.
experts at bandaging and first aid. Some of
their medicines contained healing sub-
"You are going blind" the doctor tells this noble, "but this
stances that are still used today. is a disease I can treat." He takes a pig 's eye, some red
Often, however, doctors were ochre, and honey and grinds them together. He pours the

powerless to relieve pain or ointment into the patient's ear then recites a spell twice:
"I have applied this ointment to the trouble spot; you
prevent death. In such
will see again."
cases they tried magical
cures. For example,

i f

1
'•:,
^

''

iff .

'
'

6
 Hunting

Both rich and poor hunted in ancient

Egypt. The poor trapped birds and
fishwith different kinds of nets. Nobles
hunted marsh birds with throw sticks
(somewhat like boomerangs) and fished
with harpoons. Using these ancient
weapons required great skill. The rich also
ventured courageously out in small papy-
rus boats to hunt fierce, strong hippo-
potami with harpoons and ropes.
Nobles also went hunting in the desert.
They chased leopards, lions, and gazelles
with hunting dogs and hoped to kill one
of the mythical beasts of the desert: the
sphinx, with the head of a man and the
body of a lion; or a sag, half lion, half
hawk. The minister in charge of the desert
nome held the title Master of the Hunt.
Some animals were killed for food, some
were killed for sacrifice to the gods, but
others were kept alive. Lions were sacri-
ficed to the Nile god so he would make the
flood rise again, but when the nobles las-

soed ibex and antelope, they reared them as

domestic animals. Captured monkeys be-
came ladies' pets, and baboons were used as
guard animals in the markets.
Hunting was more than sport. In the leg-
end of Horus, Seth the evil god had hidden
in the body of a hippopotamus. Seth was
also thought to live in the animals of the des-
ert. By killing these animals, the Egyptians
reenacted the victory of Horus over Seth, or
the triumph of civilization over disorder.

As the hunters return home through the village with a

catch of wildfowl, a young nobleman aims a throwstick
at a bird. In the background, two peasants carry a sack of
grain they'll use to pay their taxes.

S
Pharaohs Decision The pharaoh controlled all trade. Each
day he examined the accounts and reports,
dictated letters to his scribes, and issued
/*^ hephren ruled Egypt as Re ruled the commands. He sent traders to Cush (Ethio-
^^ gods. His power was divinely sanc- pia), Punt (Somalia), and Byblos (Leba-
tioned and unquestioned. A chief minister non); miners to Sinai; and armies to Nubia
who was permitted to nose (kiss) the pha- (Sudan) and Libya.
raoh's feet had been granted the highest honor. Chephren's life was shaped by religious
Touching the pharaoh's crown or scepter, rituals. He woke at dawn and was washed

even accidentally, carried the death penalty. by the women of his harem (the court of his
wives). Each day he attended long religious ficials speak for him. These court officials
services and offered food to his ancestors. were called the Mouth, the Tongue, and the
Before his own meals, he washed again, Repeater. Perhaps in such a way, one day in
rinsed his mouth, and changed clothes. He about 2555 B.C., Pharaoh Chephren an-
even ate according to ritual and ceremony nounced his decision to build a pyramid.
because his meal was considered an offering
to a god. The pharaoh's chief duty was to Mahnud Hotep, imakhu, architect, and High Priest of

build and maintain temples to the gods. the god Ptah (the god of craftsmen), is summoned before
Chephren. He is formally appointed Great Chief of
Sometimes when Chephren gave com-
Works in charge of building the pyramid that will be
mands he did not speak himself, but let of- called "Great is Chephren."

-_.
Finding True North

Mahnud Hotep's first task as the Great

Chief of Works was to draw up
the

plans for Chephren's pyramid. An ancient

story taught that when the pharaoh died
his

soul would become a bird that would fly off

with a lamp in its beak and become a star in
the northern sky. To help the soul find its
way, the pyramid had to be aligned with
the Pole Star so that it would face north.
Because the heavens were the home of the
gods, Egyptian priests studied the stars
carefully. They used astrology to calculate
the lucky and unlucky days of the month
and to determine when the gods' festivals
should occur. These priests had an accurate
calendar by 4000 B.C., a thousand years be-
Abraham. (The official
fore the birth of
Egyptian calendar was less successful.
Lacking leap years, it was correct only once
every 1,460 years!)
When the priests had worked out the cor-
rect alignment of thepyramid, Chephren
and Mahnud Hotep visited Giza on a lucky
day. Following the ceremonies laid down in
The Book of Temple Building (which they
believed was written by Imhotep, the archi-
tect of the first pyramid), they marked out
the four corners of the site and put tools and
charms underneath a foundation stone.

The priest, who is called "the watcher of time" carries a

bay (palm He takes a sighting on the Pole Star, lin-
stick).

ing up the star and the bay held by his servant. The line
between them is true north. His measurements are so pre-
cise that the least accurate side of the pyramid is off by
only one twelfth of one degree.
/ / /.J

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Leveling the Base they obtained a horizontal measurement

that permitted them to level the entire area.

Meanwhile other workers cut a short,

After the ceremony of measuring and sloping tunnel underneath the site. When
staking the team of workers
site, a they were 16 feet (5 meters) underground,
cleared the sand and began to level the rock they cut a small chamber into its east wall.
beneath it. The base of Chephren's pyramid A large granite stone was wedged into the
covered 11 acres, and it was built on a slope. tunnel ceiling so that later it could be
Knowing that water finds its own level, the dropped down to seal the passage.
workers dug system of trenches and filled
a The masons then dug a second, larger
them with water. By marking the waterline, chamber in the center of the base. This be-
came Chephren's burial chamber. Its walls
>r 1 ^P'1!!^' were smoothed with polishing stones and
.
^ '~^f * 1
'•''
- i

chisels. From this chamber, the workers du^

a tunnel out toward the edge of the pyra-
mid's base.
jG' Nobody knows why the workers built
two underground chambers. Perhaps their
K plans changed during construction, or the
first tunnel was meant to confuse grave
V^k
WFk ¥ m
W'
ifc
\sflflF
i

robbers.

\w Workers level the rock to make a flat base for the pyra-
mid. They have no machines or power tools, only hand
tools made either of copper or a hard rock called dolerite.
Because the copper tools are quickly worn down, a team
of metalworkers is kept busy sharpening old tools and
making new ones.

i mm mm intmm i
H| ¥.\ '"M m M$pmnm&miWmmmit*mtM nmmwnm*W
j
 «r ma

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34
 J

At the Quarry Other gangs brought the casing stones for

the outside of the pyramid from the quar-
ries at Tura, on the opposite bank of the

Nile. In the Tura quarries, the highest qual-

Most of the stone blocks for the pyra- deep in the hillside, so the men
ity stone lay
mid came from limestone quarries
had to work in underground tunnels. Cut
near Giza. Up to 1,000 men, divided into
blocks were stored until the time of akhet,
gangs, worked in the quarries. Each gang
when workers put them on barges and
had a name. One of the stones in the Great
rowed across the flooded river to the Giza
Pyramid still has the tally mark of one of
pyramids.
the gangs: "Craftsmen Gang. How strong Egyptians used granite, which is stronger
is the Crown of Cheops!"
and harder than limestone, for pillars and
In the quarries, the men cut the sides of
roofing blocks in the pyramids. Workers
a block, using copper chisels. Then they
quarried the heavy granite blocks (some
chipped holes at the base and hammered in
weighed 50 tons) 500 miles (800 kilome-
wedges of dry wood. When it was moist-
ters) upriver from Giza, at Aswan. There
ened, the wood expanded. This forced the
the neighboring Nubians frequently at-
block upward, cracking the limestone
tacked the Egyptian workers, so Chephren
across bottom.
its
had to send soldiers to protect them. No
The gangs squared the blocks crudely
one went to Aswan by choice; they had to
with dolerite pounders. Large blocks were
be conscripted (ordered).
cut in half with a copper saw. When sawing,
workers poured wet sand into the groove to
Gangs of workmen haul blocks of stone toward the River
act as an abrasive and make the cutting easier. Each block weighs nearly three tons.
Nile.

35

***
 ;

JU'
^^^^

The First Layer

Most of the workers lived beside the

pyramid in the barracks, a huge
building made of rough limestone, with
mud floors. They worked six hours a day,
resting at midday when it was too hot to
work, and returned to the barracks at night.
The barracks had 91 rooms, each measuring
88 x 10 feet (27 x 3 meters). Up to 4,000
men could sleep there.
To the south of the pyramid was a small
village. Here, with their families, lived the
hundreds of craftsmen — the stonemasons,
sculptors, artists, and surveyors — who
worked on the pyramid. The village had no
wells; water was carried from the river and
poured into a cistern. In later times the cis-
tern had to be guarded to stop people from
stealing the water.

\
Sanitation was a problem at the site. The
smell of sewage, refuse, and the nearby
mortuary was appalling. When the wind
came from a certain direction, the stench
would even waft upstream to the palace of
the White Wall.

The foreman of the gang carries a stick. His gang drags the
block up the ramp by sheer force, since the Egyptians do
not have cranes or pulleys. Although the block weighs
over two tons, the weight is divided among the men, and
the sledge runners are oiled, which makes moving the
block easier. For each man about the same as pulling
it is

a child along on a sled.

The men call themselves the Scorpion Gang. Off duty
they carve graffiti onto the blocks, boasting that they are
the hardest-working group. \
WMMHB m ^i
 workers maneuvered it into a hole that they
Roofing the Burial Chamber
had cut for it in the floor of the burial
chamber.
When this was done, workers again filled
Laying the 30,000 blocks in the bottom
the room with sand in order to position the
layer of the pyramid took at least a
roof slabs. Using wooden rollers, they
month. The workers then prepared to posi-
dragged the slabs across the first layer of
tion roofing slabs over the burial chamber.
the pyramid, then levered them onto the
Before they could do this, however, they
sand. One unfortunate gang then had to
had to lower the pharaoh's sarcophagus
carry the 1,000 tons of sand out of the
(stone coffin) into the chamber, because it
chamber through the entrance passage.
was too large to be taken down the entrance
tunnel. They filled the chamber with 1,000
tons of sand and dragged the sarcophagus When it is finished, the weight of the entire pyramid will
down onto the roof slabs of the burial chamber, so
press
onto the top. Then they scooped out the
they must be positioned perfectly. They are placed in a
sand. As they lowered the sand level, the shallow, upside-down V, so that the weight of the pyra-
coffin descended into the chamber. Finally, mid presses outward onto the walls of the burial chamber.
 '
.

\
Halfway There one other's way. Nor were the workers un-
willing slaves. Although they were made to
work hard and the overseers were strict,

Two thousand years after the time of

Chephren, a Greek writer named He-
they believed that the pharaoh was a god
who protected the land, and that his eternal
rodotus claimed that Chephren and Cheops safety was everybody's concern. Also, they
were tyrants who enslaved the Egyptians were paid in food at a time when the
and forced them to work on the pyramids. flooded fields could not produce crops.
He claimed that "100,000 men labored con- Chephren's pyramid was 708 feet (216
stantly, relieved every month by a fresh lot." meters) square at its base and contained
Scholars now think that, at most, only over two million blocks of stone. It is diffi-

8,000 people could have worked on the cult to imagine the organization needed to
pyramid site at any one time. If more had build so large a structure.
been involved, they would have gotten in Although thousands of workers were
 conscripted to do the unskilled laboring done, Chephren had ordered the construc-
jobs, most of them were only available dur- pyramid south of his own.
tion of a smaller
ing the four months oiakhet. To build such Now almost totally destroyed, it was 65 feet

a pyramid in 20 years, a thousand blocks a (20 meters) square and 42 feet (13 meters)
day had to be put in place — three every high. Although it is sometimes called a
minute. As the pyramid grew, workers had "queen's pyramid," the entrance is so small
to haul the blocks up long ramps before that an adult can hardly get into it. It was
they could position them. Because of its probably built for religious reasons.
shape, only 4 percent of the blocks re-
mained to be dragged into position when The overseer works late into the evening planning the

the pyramid reached two-thirds of its final next day's schedule. The pyramid is a marvel of Egyptian
organization: over 100 gangs work together, but there is
height. But that meant the laborers still had
no confusion.
to pull up about 80,000 more blocks.
Adding to the amount of work to be

p^..
mmmmfm £S"
 All
tresses only every 16 feet (5 meters) and it
Accident!
collapsed, perhaps after a rainstorm. The
roof of a chamber inside the Bent Pyramid
cracked during building, forcing the build-
A pyramid may look simple to build, but
ers tochange the angle of the sides halfway
il. the immense weight of the stone can
up to reduce the pyramid's final height. The
make it very unstable. Imhotep, who de-
casing stones fell off the nearby Red Pyra-
signed the pyramid, discovered how to
first
mid. These incidents make the successful
spread the weight and make the pyramid
construction of Chephren's pyramid all the
more stableby constructing dozens of but-
more remarkable.
tresses (vertical columns of blocks) inside
the pyramid, 8 feet (2.5 meters) apart.
Even so, not all pyramids were success- A moment's inattention and a pyramid becomes a dan-
gerous place. Every day, site doctors treat a succession of
fully completed. Chephren's grandfather,
cut fingers, crushed toes, and broken limbs. Only a lucky
Seneferu, seems to have built three pyra- gang can boast that not one of its men has died during the
mids. The pyramid at Meidum had but- building of the pyramid.
ya

\
 Royal Statues knee was always drawn in the sixth square,
the shoulders in the thirteenth. Such rules,
laid down
in The Book of the Artist, explain

Before sculptors began work on a statue why Egyptian statues do not look realistic.
for the pyramid site, various religious The sculptors chipped back the profiles
ceremonies had to be performed. Next, a from each side until they met in the middle.
draftsman drew a grid of squares on the Apprentices did the unskilled work at the
surface of the stone. Then on each side of beginning, and the Director of Sculptors
the block he drew an outline of the pha- added the finishing touches. Reserve heads
raoh, from the front, sides, and back. The were also made and placed in the pyramid

%£
in case Chephren's corpse was damaged.
Sculptors in the royal workshops carve the diorite statues
Finally, sculptors inscribed the hiero-
ofthepharaoh that will be placed in the Valley Temple of
glyphs of the names of Chephren on the the pyramid, on the banks of the Nile. Some of the statues

base of the statue. When this was done, the are finished and await only the ceremony of the Opening
of the Mouth to bring them to life.
Egyptians believed, the statue became Che-
The statues do not represent Chephren as he is — an old
phren. In later times wealthy Egyptians, man about to die— but show the idealized face and body
rather than paying for their own statues, of a young man. The statues in the background have fal-
sometimes just chipped out the first name cons carved on their shoulders, because the falcon repre-
sents the god Horus.
and added their own. They believed it then
became a statue of them.

*»
43
i
m
m
Casing and Finishing a giant sphinx, a lion with a human head.
Although its head has since been damaged,
the face appears to have Chephren's features.
Over the years most of the casing blocks
j^ hephren's pyramid had 124 layers of
^^- stone. On top the builders placed a have been stolen for building stone; many
were used to build the great mosque in
large granite capstone. With the capstone in
Cairo in the sixteenth century. Only a few
place, the pyramid stood 471 feet (144 me-
near the top of the pyramid remain in place.
ters) high.
Working from the top of the pyramid to
the bottom, workers then positioned Masons smooth and square the edges of one of the lime-
stone casing blocks. It must be correctly positioned within
hundreds of casing blocks. Most of the
a fraction of an inch.
^ blocks were white limestone brought
When the masons have finished, priests, using plumb
^^ from the quarries at Tura, but some, lines, will check that the angle of the slope is precisely

^^ used at the base of the pyramid, correct (52.3 degrees). Laborers will then rub the casing
blocks with polishing stones until they shine in the sun,
^^ were red granite from Aswan.
and sculptors will inscribe them with hundreds of hiero-
^^ Nearby, sculptors carved glyphs describing Chephren's entry into heaven to rule

^^ a rocky outcrop into with the gods.

47
The Egyptians believed that the dead
went to the Kingdom of the West, a
land ruled by the god Osiris. Many of the
funeral ceremonies were derived from the
story of Osiris.
According to the myth, Osiris was
chopped into pieces by his brother Seth,
who scattered his body all over Egypt. Isis,

the wife of Osiris, searched for the body

and gathered the pieces together. They were
then mummified, and each part was buried
in a different place. Using magic, Isis made
J&fc each part turn into a whole
Her son Horus touched
body.
mouth of each body, so that
the
it came to life. Horus then killed

Seth. Although Horus was blinded

in one eye during the battle, his sight
was restored, and he was made pha-
raoh of Egypt.
The death of the pharaoh was trau-
matic for the Egyptians, because they
believed the pharaoh was the god Ho-
rus, who protected Egypt. When the
pharaoh died, they felt as alone as a child lost

in the desert. Inside the palace men sat with

their heads on their knees. Women let their
dresses hang down off their shoulders. They
wailed and sprinkled dirt on their heads.
Professionalmourners sang funeral songs.
The were strictly
religious ceremonies
observed. Without them the Egyptians be-
lieved Chephren could not be reborn, and
the new pharaoh could not begin to reign.

Pharaoh Chephren has died. Priests perform the cere-

mony of "searching" for the body, in the same way that
Isis searched for Osiris. Then the dead pharaoh is carried
from the palace of the White Wall to the royal barge. The
procession is led by the Lector Priest. He reads: "The stars
weep and the dead tremble, because pharaoh has risen to
the horizon."
The crown prince walks behind the priest. In the back-
ground, servants carry Chephren's possessions, which
they believe he will need in the afterlife.
Mummification the dead. The body was taken down the
Nile to Giza. The Egyptians believed that
this short voyage represented the journey
"\ X Wealthy Egyptians were mummified that the pharaoh would soon take across the
VV after death, because they believed marshes to heaven.
they would need their bodies in the At Giza, the body was mummified.
afterlife. Mummification took about 70 days and was
Although poor people could not afford to carried out by special priests who belonged
be mummified, they were buried naked in to the Guild of Embalmers. The ceremonies
the desert sand on their left sides, facing were based on the myth of Osiris. The man
west. The sand dried out their bodies and who cut open the abdomen to remove the
preserved them just as effectively as the internal organs — the ripper — was stoned
processes of mummification. Their families and driven away, perhaps because he re-
buried tools, jewelry, and bowls of food minded the onlookers of Seth, who
with them, showing that they hoped to go chopped up the body of Osiris.
to the Kingdom of Osiris. Priests washed the body, preserved it in
When Chephren died, body was laid
his natron (a type of salt), and bandaged it, just

on a funeral boat, under a canopy. A lamp as Isis had preserved the body of Osiris. The
burned in the bow. At either end stood two stoppers of the four canopic jars (in which
female mourners, representing the god- theliver, lungs, stomach, and intestines

desses Isis and Nephthys, the protector of were placed) were carved into animal heads

50

I .
representing the four gods who the Egyp-
tians believed protected the internal organs.

Priestswash the corpse in the ibu (purifying place), sym-

bolizing its rebirth from the dead (above, far left). Then

they rub the body with natron to dry and preserve the
skin (above left).

The body is taken to the wabt (mummifying tent),

where priests protect the face by coating it with resin.
They remove the internal organs, which will rot
quickly (above). These are dried out with natron
crystals, wrapped in cloth soaked in liquid natron,
and put into four canopic jars to be buried near
the pharaoh.
Next, priests rub the corpse with perfumes and
oils.They push bandages, resins, natron, and saw-
dust into the stomach to fill it out (above right).
After this, they bandage each part of the body in-
dividually, as Isis bandaged Osiris. Sometimes the
linen bandages are cut to look like clothing or even a
false beard. Sweet- smelling resins glue and stiffen
them.
The priests take great care to avoid damaging the head.
They try to make the face look as lifelike as possible, al-
though the bandages covering it are painted green — the
traditional color of Osiris's face (right).
Into the Coffin

After mummification, corpses were laid

full-length in wooden coffins. Wood
was scarce in Egypt, so the coffins were not
made of straight panels. Instead, irregularly
shaped sections of wood were pieced to-
gether and fastened into place using wooden
pegs. Sometimes the coffins were painted.
When the pharaoh's corpse had been
placed in his coffin, priests conducted a
special religious ceremony, called the sakh
(becoming a spirit). They thought that this
brought the pharaoh's ka (his spirit of gen-
erosity) back to live in his mummified
body. With his spirit again in his body, the
pharaoh would be able to journey to the
kingdom of Re and begin another life.
A ceremony called the Opening of the
Mouth was performed on the mummy, the
coffin, and the statues of the pharaoh, so
that the pharaoh could once again use his
mouth to eat and drink in the afterlife.
The possessions that the pharaoh would
need in this afterlife, such as furniture and
flint tools, were put in a storeroom in the

pyramid. He would probably also be sup-

plied with clothes, jewelry, and scented
cones. Often food was put in the tomb, al-
though sometimes stone models were used
instead. The Egyptians believed that,
just as the pharaoh's mummy
came to by magic, by
life

magic he would also be able

to take in the goodness of
the food.

Priests lower the mummy into its

wooden coffin. The body will be
placed on its left side.

Inscribed on the coffin are the

names and titles of Pharaoh Chephren.
Inside, thereis a list of the food the pha-

raoh expects the priests to continue to

leave for him in the mortuary temple
beside the pyramid.
Opening of the Mouth

The doorways of the valley temple were

inscribed with Chephren's name and
titles. Sunlight reflected off the white ala-
baster floor. Twenty-three statues of Che-
phren stood in the temple. Before the
pharaoh was entombed, the statues were
"brought to life" by the Opening of the
Mouth ceremony. The Egyptians believed
that this gave the ka of the dead pharaoh 23
resting places in addition to the mummified
body.
After this ceremony, Chephren's coffin
was taken up a covered ramp to the mortu-
ary temple beside the pyramid. The ramp
was a quarter of a mile (400 meters) long, lit

by slits in the roof. In the temple a bull was

killed and prayers were said. The priests be-
would
lieved that the strength of the bull
help Chephren from the dead.
rise

Finally, Chephren's coffin was carried

along the tunnel to the burial chamber in-
side the pyramid and lowered into the stone
sarcophagus. The lid of the sarcophagus
was sealed in place. Only then could the
crown prince take the throne and assume
the title of pharaoh.

The Opening of the Mouth ceremony gives life to the

many statues of Pharaoh Chephren, just as Horus and Isis
gave life to the many pieces ofOsiris's body.
The ceremony is performed by priests, including the
crown prince (right), the son of the dead pharaoh.
The priests sprinkle the statue with water, wave in-
cense over it, and offer sacrifice. They touch its mouth
with a chisel and a tool called an adz. They then rub milk
on its lips and dress it in royal clothes.

^rr .
v.
.
; ;
:«v

\
The Pharaoh at Rest his son would rule in Egypt. Chephren, as
the father of the new pharaoh Horus, be-
came Osiris.
As Osiris, Chephren would use his di-
The Egyptians had several different ideas
about what would happen to Che-
vine power to defend Egypt and the new
pharaoh. This explains why Chephren's
phren when his mummified body was
pyramid was so massive. It was a fortress
placed in the pyramid.
designed to keep his mummified body safe,
According to the priests of Re, the pha-
so that he could continue to protect Egypt.
raoh would go to heaven, to rule with Re in
The pyramid failed in its task. When an
the kingdom of the gods. Ancient texts de-
Italian, Giovanni Belzoni, rediscovered the
scribe his arrival: "The bolts of the doors
entrance in 1818, he found the storeroom
fly open. He eats the gods for his meals." In
empty and the tomb open. The polished gran-
heaven he would become one of the imakhu
ite lid of the sarcophagus lay broken on the
of Re and would help Re take the sun across
floor. Chephren's body had been removed.
the sky.
According to the priests of Osiris, the
pharaoh would go to rule the Kingdom of The crown prince and the priests leave the burial cham-
ber and seal the tunnel leading to
it. They have even
Osiris in the west. There he would become
brushed their footsteps off the floor. Above, thousands of
Osiris. As the pharaoh, Chephren had been tons of masonry protect Chephren's body. In the royal
the god Horus. After his death, however, chamber of Chephren's pyramid all is quiet.
Offerings to the Dead lives. A pharaoh building a pyramid was
the biggest customer of the country's build-
ing, quarrying, and shipping industries.
He was also the greatest patron of painters
To ensure Chephren's eternal
priests regularly
safety,
performed religious
and sculptors and the most important em-
ployer of astronomers, architects, and
ceremonies at the mortuary temple, even
mathematicians.
after his burial. Their most important task
was to provide food for his ka; Chephren
The vast scale of all this activity strained
the Egyptian economy. Every pharaoh and
did not want to be like the neglected dead,
who it was believed went hungry and were noble who built a tomb added to the prob-
lem. Ministering to the dead used up a great
forced to eat their own dung. Before he
amount of wealth, land, and food and left
died, he set up farms to support his priests
less for the living.
and to provide the food offerings. The ka
priests were forbidden to do any other
work. To become pure, a priest washes three times, puts on

The most flourishing business in the Old clean, white linen clothes, and shaves his body. He brings
offerings offood for Chephren, placing them before a false
Kingdom was the business of death. Most
door carved in the stone wall of the mortuary temple.
Egyptian men worked on a pyramid at Chephren's ka, he believes, will come out to eat the
some time. Some worked there all their offering.

1
 •

2- —
±±>r
\ikj~*'
The Boat Pits Beside the mortuary temple, laborers dug
six large boat pits. Modern archaeologists
have found similar pits near a number of
Egyptian graves. One was discovered in
Even after Chephren had been buried, 1954 near the Great Pyramid of Cheops.
work at the pyramid site did not stop. It
was the duty of Chephren's son, Mycerinus,
When they opened the pit, the archaeolo-
gists could smell incense, 4,500 years old.
to complete the buildings around his father's
In the pit was the pharaoh 's royal boat. It
pyramid while he started to build his own.
had been dismantled into 1,224 pieces, but
A pyramid complex was usually too large
it was preserved well enough to be rebuilt.
an undertaking to be completed during the
reign of one pharaoh.
Shipwrights dismantle the funeral boat which carried
It is probable that neither the valley
Chephren's body to Giza. The boat is made of cedar wood
temple nor the mortuary temple were fin- from By bios (Lebanon). The planks are tied together with
ished when Chephren died. Craftsmen had rope. Each is marked with a sign to show where it be-

yet to decorate the covered way longed—port, starboard, fore, or aft. The oars are left in
that led be-
place, and the ship faces west, ready to carry the pharaoh
tween them. According to Herodotus, who
to the Kingdom of Osiris.
visited Giza in about 450 B.C., the walls The pieces of the boat are laid in one of the six boat
were covered with painted reliefs. Perhaps pits. This pit has been given a coating of plaster to make
it airtight. Soon, stonemasons will drag large stone blocks
they showed the glories of Chephren's
into position to seal it.
reign, or scenes from everyday life.

60
 HIEROGLYPHS AND
How Do We Know? ARCHAEOLOGY
For reliable information about the ancient
Egyptians, we must turn to the writings
THE END OF THE and monuments of the Egyptians them-
ANCIENT EGYPTIANS selves.
In 1799 one of Napoleon's soldiers found
The ancient Egyptian civilization lasted for
the Rosetta Stone. had the same inscrip-
It
2,000 years after the end of the Old King- tion written three times: in Greek, in hiero-
dom. Then, in 332 B.C., Egypt was con- glyphs, and in demotic (another form of
quered by the Greeks. Slowly, the ancient
Egyptian writing). The name Ptolmis oc-
Egyptian culture and writing began to dis- curred a number of times in the text, and
appear. After A.D. 391 when the Romans scholars realized that the hieroglyphs that
took over from the Greeks and closed most
made up the name were always outlined
of the Egyptian temples, people lost the
by an oval cartouche. In 1822, by compar-
ability to read hieroglyphs altogether.
ing the letters with those in the cartouche
of Queen Kliopadrat (Cleopatra), Jean-
Francois Champollion unlocked the mean-
ing of the hieroglyphs. He was the first per-
AND
JEWISH, GREEK,
ROMAN SOURCES
For a long time the writings of the Israel-
ites,Greeks, and Romans provided our
only knowledge about the ancient
Egyptians.
Descriptions of Egyptian life in the Old
Testament stories of Joseph and Moses are
similar to stories that Egyptians told, but
they are biased against the Egyptians, par-
ticularly their religious practices. Despite
this, Solomon's Proverbs resemble Egyptian
maxims.
The Greeks, and later the Romans, made
fun of the Egyptians, who worshiped eels

instead of eating them and went to war be-

cause of a quarrel over a holy crocodile.
Their books, however, tell us a lot about
the Egyptians. Manetho, an Egyptian who
lived in Roman times, wrote a list of the
pharaohs in 31 dynasties, which is still used son to understand them since A.D. 400.
today. Herodotus wrote an important ac- Soon scholars realized that the Coptic
count of Egypt in about 450 B.C., although language (which was still spoken in some

historians recognize that he was writing Egyptian monasteries) was similar to the
2,000 years after Chephren and that he language spoken by the ancient Egyptians,
spiced his books with tidbits of scandal. 5,000 years before. Today, historians can

62
read texts written by scribes who lived dur- over a mile long and a bigger building job
ing Chephren's reign.They can read, for than the pyramid itself!

example, how an imakhu became the tjaty; We also don't know precisely what the
what was brought back from an expedition men working on the pyramids looked like.
to Nubia (Sudan); and what medicines were Wall paintings and sculptures from the Old
prescribed by Egyptian doctors. Hundreds Kingdom offer some clues, suggesting that
of spells carved on the walls of certain pyra- the Egyptian workers looked similar to
mids — the pyramid texts — show what peoples from neighboring countries to the
north. But Egyptian art followed strict
rules; it tended to make everyone look the
same, so wall paintings and statues don't
tell us much about differences in features
or skin color. Historians disagree about
whether the peoples of Egypt were gener-
ally descended from black Africans who
lived to the south, or from the Semitic peo-
ples of the Middle East. At the time this
book takes place, during the Old Kingdom,
many different groups were moving into the
Nile valley, including Nubians from the
Egyptians believed would happen to the South, Libyans, and even occasional Pyg-
pharaoh in the afterlife. mies from central Africa. But many histori-
Meanwhile, archaeologists had begun to
ans believe that the population of northern
study the tombs, temples, and other re-
Egypt — those most likely to have worked
mains of the ancient Egyptians. in the crews at Giza — was still predomi-
nantly light-skinned during the Old
Kingdom.
Ancient texts and archaeological remains
CONTROVERSIES AND
and clues about the past, but his-
offer facts
INTERPRETATION
torians are aware that these must be inter-
For many years, was known about the
little preted carefully to learn who the Egyptians
pyramids. People believed that they were were and what their lives were like. Perhaps
observatories or granaries built by Joseph one day, if you keep learning about ancient
for the pharaoh or that they were used to Egypt, you, too, may help
measure the earth. With new information, unravel more of its secrets.
we have a clearer understanding of their
purpose. Yet some mysteries remain. Al-
though we now know more about mummi-
fication, we still don't know where it took
place during the Old Kingdom. Similarly,
while we know why the pyramids were
built, we don't know precisely how stones
were gotten to the top. This book depicts a
spiral of ramps around the pyramid. An-
other theory is that builders used one huge
ramp. However, that ramp would have been

63
 1 1 6

Egypt, ancient, 6-7 Index power of, 28-29 ceremonies, 44, 49, 53,
AB knowledge of, 62-63
names of, origin of, 6
pyramids and,
Pyramids
see
in
54,59
Pharaohs life, 28-29
Accidents, 42 Embalmers, Guild of, 50 see also individual Romans, 62
Ka (spirit of generosity),
Afterlife, 7, 9, 30, 47, 50, Entertainment, 16, 21 Pharaohs Rosetta Stone, 62
53,54,59
53,54,57 Pole Star, 30
Khnum, 6, 11
Animals, 12, 62 Farming, 10-12 Priests, 7, 14,30,49-59
as guards, 27
Feasts, 18,21 Ptah, 6, 29
hunting of, 27 Libya, 28,63 Punt (Somalia), 28
in medicine, 25
Floods, 10, 11,27
Food, 10, 18,21,40
Life expectancy, 16 Pygmies, 63 ST
pets, 27 growing and harvest- Pvramid of Chephren,
sacrificing, 27
ing, 1C-12 8-9, 28-60 Sakh (becoming a spirit),
Anubis, 6
Art, 44-45,47, 59, 60,
63
hunting, 27
making bread, 16
placed at pyramids, 50,
MN boat pits, 60
burial chamber, 33, 38,
54, 57
53
Sanitary conditions,
36'
16,

Astrology, 30 53, 59 Makeup, 16, 18-19 capstone, 47 School, 16, 23

Astronomy, 1 Manetho, 62 casing, 47 Scribes, 14, 22-23
Manners, 21 coffin, 38, 53, 54 Sculptors, 44-45, 47
Belzoni, Giovanni, 57 Marriage, 7, 16 completion of complex Seasons, 10-12
Bent Pyramid, 42
Boat pits, 60
Book of the
GH Masons, 47
Mathematics, 11
at, 60

dimensions of, 40, 47

leveling the base, 33
Sebek,
Seneferu (Snefru),
Seth, 6, 27, 49, 50
7, 42
Artist, The, Medicine, 25
44
Games, 16 lowering the pharaoh 's Shu, 6
Menes, King, 6, 7
Geb,6 Society, levels of, 14
Book of Temple Building, Menu (peasants), 14, 27 sarcophagus, 38, 54
Giza, 50-51 moving the blocks, 38 Statues, 44-45. 53. 54, 63
The, 30 Mummifying of corpses,
Bread, making
pyramids at, 6, 7, 8-9, organization needed to
of, 16 7,50-51,63
28-60 build, 40-41
Burial in the desert, 50 Music, 21 Taxes, 10, 27
Burial chamber, 9, 33, 38,
Gods, 6-7, 29, 51 plans 30
Mycerinus (Menkure), 8, for. Tefnut, 6
54,57
sacrifices to, 27 quarry materials, 35,
14,60 ' Thoth, 6
see also Religion; 47
Byblos (Lebanon), 28 Tjaty (chief minister), 14
individual gods siting the, 30, 47
Nephthys, 50 Tools, 33, 35, 50, 53
Government officials, 7,
smaller pyramid south
Nile River, 6. 7, 10-11, Transportation. 10. 11
14,21,29
CD Great Pyramid of
Cheops, 7, 8-9, 60
50
Nubia (Sudan), 28, 35, 63
of, 4
statues, 44-45, 54
Treasury, 14
Tura quarries, 35, 47
time needed to build,
Calendar, 30 Creeks, ancient, 6, 40, 62 Nut, 6
41
Champollion, Jean- Valley Temple, 45
Francois, 62
Cheops (Khufu),
Great Pyramid
7, 8

of, 7,
Hair, 18-19
Harvest time, 12
Health, 16, 18 O
workers on, life of, 36
Pyramids, 6
buttresses, 42
wz
8-9,60 medicine, 25 of Chephren, see Pyra- Water, 10-11,36
Chephren, (Khafre), 7, 8, Hemutiu (craftsmen), 14 Opening the Mouth cere- mid of Chephren Weapons, 27
14,41-60 Herodotus, 40, 60, 62 mony, 45, 53, 54 the first, 8,42 Wigs, 18, 19
daily 28-29
life of,
Hieroglyphics, 22-23, Osiris, 6-7, 14,49, Giza, 6, 8-9,
at 7, Women:
power of, 28-29 47,62 50,51, 54 28-60 education of, 23
pyramid of, see Pyra- Horus, 7, 27, 45, 49, 54, Osiris, Kingdom of, 7, Great Pvramid of everyday life of, 23
mid of Chephren 57 49,60 Cheops, 7, 8-9,60 at feasts, 21
Children, 16, 23 Hotep, Mahnud, 29, 30 mysteries about, 63 harem. 2S--29
Clothing, 14, 53 House of the Granary, 14 number built, 8 jewelry, 16, 19
Coffins, 38, 53, 54 Housing, 16, 21, 36 possessions placed in. makeup, 16, 18-19
Craftsmen (hemutiu), 14
Cush (Ethiopia), 11,28
Hunting, 27 P 49,53 mourning the pharaoh,
49,30
Palace of the White Wall, as scribes, 23
Desert, 27
7,21,36,49 Work. 16
burial in the, 50 IJKL Papyrus, 22 farming, 10-12
Dikes, 10-11
Doctors, 25 Imakhu (friends of the
pharaoh), 14
Peasants (menu), 14, 27
Perfume, 18, 19,21,51
OR
WAV
hunting, 27
masons, 47
Pets, 27 on the pyramids, 9,
Imhotep, 30, 42
Pharaohs, 6, 7 Quarries, 35, 47 33-47,59,63
Irrigation, 10-11
death of, 49 for scribes,22-23
EF Isis,6, 12,49, 5C, 31, 54
the first, 7 Re(Ra), 6, 7, 54 sculptors, 44-45. -t"
as god Horus, 7, 49, 54 Red Pvramid, 42 Writing, 22-23, 47, 62
Eating, see Food Jewelry, 16, 19, 50, 53 mummifying of, 7, Religion, 6-7, 9, 62
Education, 16, 23 Jobs, see Work 50-51,63 animal sacrifices, 27 Zoser(Djoser), 8

64
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2686-2181
THE OLD
KINGDOM
255S-253J
PHARAOH CHEPHREN
2589-2566 Pharaoh Cheops •• 2533-2505 Pharaoh Mycerinus
builds the Great Pyramid builds a pyramid at Giza

2613-2589 Pharaoh Seneferu «

builds three pyramids

2650 Pharaoh Zoser #

builds the Step Pyramid

c. 3000 Invention of writing

in hieroglyphs

3100 Menes conquers Ta-meh

and unifies Egypt 2294-2200]%
reigns f I
c. 3400 Egyptians start

to use copper

c. 4000 Egyptian priests ; 836-18 I

devise an accurate calendar

MEGALITHIC ERA in Northern Europe — stone circles, standing stones

Q
aQC

Writing invented in
Mesopotamia

t
 .*'c iC
V&
<p' 0° *>'
\9

3-1786 1567-644
MIDDLE THE NEW
GDOM KINGDOM

c. 1458 Battle of

Megiddo: Pharaoh Tutmosis III

ioh Pepi II establishes an Egyptian empire

years
1333-1323 Reign of Pharaoh Tutankhamun 332 Alexander the Great
(tomb of "King Tut" conquers Egypt
discovered in A. D. 1922)
ign of Pharaoh Sesotris III, 450 Herodotus
c.
5 1-30 Cleopatra,
3 conquers Nubia visits Egypt Queen of Egypt

DDd° D -

IE in India
DD Do
BABYLON AND ASSYRIA - powerful empires in the Middle East

-aO ROMAN EMPIRE

1
•
father of the Moses leads the Israelites Rome founded by Julius Caesar conquers
i people from Egypt Romulus and Remus Gaul and Britain

Stonehenge stone circle King Solomon builds the Buddha, spiritual leader Jesus Christ, spiritual leader
erected in Britain temple at Jerusalem of Buddhism of Christianity

First Olympic Games in

Great Wall of China built
Greece
 OF ANCIENT EGYPT

\^y ver four thousand years ago, halfway around the world,
thousands of people worked to build their king a tomb the size
of seven city blocks.

Have you wondered what it was like to live on

ever
the banks of the Nile with a pyramid rising in the distance?
To hear Pharaoh Chephren announce his intention to build
a pyramid or to watch a priest measure out the pyramid site?
Have you imagined yourself cutting the huge blocks of lime-
stone and granite for the pyramid's monumental walls
or hauling them up a ramp on a sled?

With striking photographs and a fact-filled text,

Living History will take you back excitement of
to share in the

life in Egypt at the time of Pharaoh Chephren.

Other titles in the series

Knights in Armor
The Vikings
The Voyages of Christopher Columbus
Printed in Hong Kong
ISBN 0-15-200509-9

(HIGHER IN CANADA)

HHH
Gulliver Books
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers
1
250 Sixth Avenue, San Diego, CA 92101 • /// Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10003