The Pyramids of Egypt are among the largest constructions ever built and constitute one of the most potent and enduring symbols of Ancient Egyptian civilization. Most were built during the Old and Middle Kingdom periods.

The number of pyramid structures in Egypt today is reported by most sources as being between 81 and 112, with a majority favouring the higher number. In 1842 Karl Richard Lepsius made a list of pyramids, in which he counted 67, but more have been identified and discovered since his time. The imprecise nature of the count is related to the fact that as many smaller pyramids are in a poor state of preservation and appear as little more than mounds of rubble, they are only now being properly identified and studied by archaeologists. Most are grouped in a number of pyramid fields, the most important of which are listed geographically, from north to south, below.

Abu Rawash is the site of Egypt's most northerly pyramid other than the ruins of Lepsius pyramid number one - the son and successor of Khufu. Originally it was thought that this pyramid had never been completed, but the current archaeological consensus is that not only was it completed, but that it was originally about the same size as the Pyramid of Menkaure, the sixth largest pyramid in Egypt.

Its location adjacent to a major crossroads made it an easy source of stone. Quarrying - which began in Roman times - has left little apart from a few courses of stone superimposed upon the natural hillock that formed part of the pyramid's core. A small adjacent satellite pyramid is in a better state of preservation.

The number of pyramid structures in Egypt today is reported by most sources as being between 81 and 112, with a majority favouring the higher number. In 1842 Karl Richard Lepsius made a list of pyramids, in which he counted 67, but more have been identified and discovered since his time. The imprecise nature of the count is related to the fact that as many smaller pyramids are in a poor state of preservation and appear as little more than mounds of rubble, they are only now being properly identified and studied by archaeologists. Most are grouped in a number of pyramid fields, the most important of which are listed geographically, from north to south, below.

Giza is the location of the Pyramid of Khufu (also known as the "Great Pyramid" and the "Pyramid of Cheops"), the somewhat smaller Pyramid of Khafre (or Kephren), and the relatively modest-sized Pyramid of Menkaure (or Mykerinus), along with a number of smaller satellite edifices, known as light bulb pyramids, and the Great Sphinx.

Of the three, only Khafre's pyramid retains part of its original polished limestone casing, towards its apex. This pyramid appears larger than the adjacent Khufu pyramid by virtue of its more elevated location, and the steeper angle of inclination of its construction - it is, in fact, smaller in both height and volume.

The Giza Necropolis has been a popular tourist destination since antiquity, and was popularised in Hellenistic times when the Great Pyramid was listed by Antipater of Sidon as one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Today it is the only one of the ancient Wonders still in existence.

This site is the location for two unfinished Old Kingdom pyramids. The northern structure's owner is believed to be the Pharaoh Nebka, whilst the southern structure is attributed to the Third Dynasty Pharaoh Khaba, (also known as Hudjefa), successor to Sekhemkhet. Khaba's four-year tenure as pharaoh more than likely explains the similar premature truncation of his step pyramid. Today it is approximately twenty meters in height; had it been completed, it would probably have more than doubled in size.

Description

This Ancient Egyptian necropolis consists of the Pyramid of Khufu (known as the Great Pyramid and the Pyramid of Cheops), the somewhat smaller Pyramid of Khafre (or Chephren) a few hundred metres to the south-west, and the relatively modest-size Pyramid of Menkaure (or Mykerinus) a few hundred metres further south-west, along with a number of smaller satellite edifices, known as "queens" pyramids, causeways and valley pyramids. The Great Sphinx lies on the east side of the complex, facing east. Current consensus among Egyptologists is that the head of the Great Sphinx is that of Khafre. Associated with these royal monuments are the tombs of high officials and much later burials and monuments (from the New Kingdom onwards), signifying the reverence to those buried in the necropolis.

Of the three, only Menkaure's Pyramid is seen today without any of its original polished limestone casing, with Khafre's Pyramid retaining a prominent display of casing stones at its apex, while Khufu's Pyramid maintains a more limited collection at its base. It is interesting to note that this pyramid appears larger than the adjacent Khufu Pyramid by virtue of its more elevated location, and the steeper angle of inclination of its construction - it is, in fact, smaller in both height and volume. The most active phase of construction here was in the 25th century BC. The ancient remains of the Giza necropolis have attracted visitors and tourists since classical antiquity, when these Old Kingdom monuments were already over 2,000 years old. It was popularised in Hellenistic times when the Great Pyramid was listed by Antipater of Sidon as one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Today it is the only one of the ancient Wonders still in existence.

Due largely to 19th-century images, the pyramids of Giza are generally thought of by foreigners as lying in a remote, desert location, even though they are located in what is now part of the most populated city in Africa. Consequently, urban development reaches right up to the perimeter of the antiquities site, to the extent that in the 1990s, Pizza Hut and KFC restaurants opened across the road. The ancient sites in the Memphis area, including those at Giza, together with those at Saqqara, Dahshur, Abu Ruwaysh, and Abusir, were collectively declared a World Heritage Site in 1979.

Construction of the Great Pyramid

There have been a number of theories developed throughout the years on how these magnificent structures were built including external ramp and crane theories and an extraterrestrial theory. But there is one theory that is being prepared to be put into motion: the internal ramp theory. This idea was developed by Jean-Pierre Houdin, a French architect, who has also created detailed computer models of the Great Pyramid. Houdin suggests that the ramp spirals upward and evidence lies in the notched corners of the pyramid. Not only was the spiraling internal ramp used, but an external ramp was probably used in order to move the more massive blocks that are found toward the lower half of the pyramid and simple cranes to lift them. Houdin and Rainer Stadlemann, former director of the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo plans to perform a survey to determine their theory of the Great Pyramid construction. It should be noted that the size of the building blocks become progressivly smaller as the height increases. The blocks on the lowest level are roughly twenty feet square, while the highest level is roughly three square.

Abusir is the name given to an Egyptian archaeological locality - specifically, an extensive necropolis of the Old Kingdom period, together with later additions - in the vicinity of the modern capital Cairo. The name is also that of a neighbouring village in the Nile Valley, from whence the site takes its name. Abusir is located several kilometres north of Saqqara and, like it, served as one of the main elite cemeteries for the ancient Egyptian capital city of Memphis. Several other villages in northern and southern Egypt are named Abusir or Busiri.

Just one, relatively small segment of the extensive "pyramid field" that extends from north of Giza to below Saqqara, the locality of Abusir took its turn as the focus of the prestigious western burial rites operating out of the then-capital of Memphis during the Old Kingdom 5th Dynasty. As an elite cemetery, neighbouring Giza had by then "filled up" with the massive pyramids and other monuments of the 4th Dynasty, leading the 5th Dynasty pharaohs to seek sites elsewhere for their own funerary monuments.

Abusir was the origin of the largest find of Old Kingdom papyri to date - the Abusir Papyri. In the late nineteenth century, a number of Western museums acquired collections of fragmentary papyri from the administrative (temple) records of one Abusir funerary cult, that of king Neferirkare Kakai. This discovery was supplemented in the late twentieth century when excavations by a Czech expedition to the site revealed papyri from two other cult complexes, that of the pharaoh Neferefre (also read Raneferef) and for the king's mother Khentkaus II.

There are considerable catacombs near the ancient town of Busiris (Pliny xxxvi. 12. s. 16). To the south of Busiris one great cemetery appears to have stretched over the plain. The Heptanomite Busiris was in fact a hamlet standing at one extremity of the necropolis of Memphis.

Necropolis

There are a total of seven pyramids at this site, which served as the main royal necropolis during the Fifth Dynasty. The quality of construction of the Abusir pyramids is inferior to those of the Fourth Dynasty - perhaps signalling a decrease in royal power or a less vibrant economy. They are smaller than their predecessors, and are built of low quality local limestone.

The three major pyramids are those of Nyuserre Ini (which is also the most intact), Neferirkare and Sahure. The site is also home to the incomplete Pyramid of Neferefre. All of the major pyramids at Abusir were built as step pyramids, although the largest of them - the Pyramid of Neferirkare - is believed to have originally been built as a step pyramid some seventy metres in height and then later transformed into a "true" pyramid by having its steps filled in with loose masonry.

Saqqara or Sakkara, Saqqarah is a vast, ancient burial ground in Egypt, featuring the world's oldest standing step pyramid (29.871264^o N 31.216381^o E). It is located some 30 km south of modern-day Cairo and covers an area of around 7 km by 1.5 km.

While Memphis was the capital of Ancient Egypt, Saqqara served as its necropolis. Although it was eclipsed as the burial ground of royalty by Giza and later by the Valley of the Kings in Thebes, it remained an important complex for minor burials and cult ceremonies for more than 3,000 years, well into Ptolemaic and Roman times. The step pyramid at Saqqara was designed by Imhotep for King Djoser (c.2667-2648 BC). It is the oldest complete hewn-stone building complex known in history. It is also the location of the newly opened (in 2006) Imhotep Museum.

The English name "Egypt" came via the Latin word Aegyptus derived from the ancient Greek word Aigyptos. The term was adopted into Coptic as gyptios, and from there into Arabic as qubt (whence again English Copt). It has been suggested that the word is a corruption of the ancient Egyptian phrase meaning "home of the Ka (Soul) of Ptah", the name of a temple of the god Ptah at Memphis. According to Strabo, Aigyptos, in ancient Greek meant "below the Aegean".

History

Early Dynastic

Although the earliest burials of nobles at Saqqara can be traced back to the First Dynasty, it was not until the Second Dynasty that the first kings were buried there, including Hotepsekhemwy and Nynetjer.

Old Kingdom

The most striking feature of the necropolis, however, dates from the Third Dynasty. Still visible today, is the Step Pyramid of the Pharaoh Djoser. In addition to Djoser's, there are another 16 pyramids on the site, in various states of preservation or dilapidation. That of the fifth-dynasty Pharaoh Unas, located just to the south of the step pyramid and on top of Hotepsekhemwi's tomb, houses the earliest known example of the Pyramid Texts - inscriptions with instructions for the afterlife used to decorate the interior of tombs, the precursor of the New Kingdom Book of the Dead. Saqqara is also home to an impressive number of mastaba tombs. Because the necropolis was lost beneath the sands for much of the past two millennia - even the sizable mortuary complex surrounding Djoser's pyramid was not uncovered until 1924 - many of these have been superbly preserved, with both their structures and lavish internal decorations intact.

Major Old Kingdom structures

• Gisr el-mudir this massive enclosure may date from the Early Dynastic period.
• Sekhemkhet's Step Pyramid (the Buried Pyramid)
• Step Pyramid of Netjerikhet Djoser
• Shepseskaf's Mastabat Fara'un
• Userkaf's pyramid, now looking like a conical hill.
• Djedkare Isesi pyramid complex, known as Haram el-Shawaf.
• Unas pyramid complex, now mainly collapsed.
• Teti's pyramid complex, looking more like a small hill, rather than a man-made construction.
• Pepi I complex, with its associated queens pyramids.
• Merenre's complex
• Pepi II, last great pyramid built in the Old Kingdom.
• Ibi, built in the Eighth dynasty, it is now almost totally destroyed.

New Kingdom Necropolis

While most of the mastabas date from the Old Kingdom, one major figure from the New Kingdom is also represented: Horemheb, the last pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty, who had a tomb built here for himself before he assumed the throne in his own right, while still serving as one of Tutankhamun's generals. However, it should be noted that Pharaoh Horemheb was never buried here. After his death he was interred, as were many other 18th Dynasty kings, in the Valley of the Kings in Ancient Thebes.

Later Burials and Monuments

Another major monument at Saqqara is the Serapeum: a gallery of tombs, cut from the rock, which served as the eternal resting place of the mummified bodies of the Apis bulls worshipped in Memphis as embodiments of the god Ptah. Rediscovered by Auguste Mariette in 1851, the tombs had been opened and plundered in antiquity - with the exception of one that lay undisturbed for some 3,700 years. The mummified bull it contained can now be seen in Cairo's agricultural museum.

On the approach to the Serapeum stands the slightly incongruous arrangement of statues known the Philosophers' Circle: a Ptolemaic recognition of the greatest poets and thinkers of their Greek ancestors, originally situated in a nearby temple. Represented here are Hesiod, Homer, Pindar, Plato, and others.

Dahshur (in English often called Dashur), is a royal necropolis located in the desert on the west bank of the Nile approximately 40 kilometres south of Cairo. It is known chiefly for several pyramids, two of which are among the oldest, largest and best preserved in Egypt.

The Bent Pyramid and the Red Pyramid were constructed during the reign of Pharaoh Sneferu, father of Khufu of the Old Kingdom. The unusual shape of the Bent Pyramid is unique, and represents a transitional pyramid form believed to have been the result of an engineering crisis encountered during its construction. The Red Pyramid is the world's first true smooth-sided pyramid.

The pyramid of the 12th Dynasty king Amenemhat II is now badly damaged. Next to it were found several undisturbed tombs of royal women still containing a large amount of jewellery. The pyramid of Sesostris III was part of a huge complex with several smaller pyramids of royal women along with another pyramid to the south. In a gallery tomb next to this pyramid were found two treasures of the king's daughters.

The Black Pyramid dates from the later reign of Amenemhat III and although badly eroded it remains the most imposing monument at the site after the two Sneferu pyramids. The polished granite pyramidion or capstone of the Black Pyramid is on display in the main hall of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Next to the pyramid was found the partly disturbed tomb of 13th Dynasty king Hor and the undisturbed burial place of Nubhetepti-khered, possibly his daughter.

There are several other pyramids of the 13th Dynasty at Dahshur. Only the one of Ameny Qemau has been excavated so far. Ahmad Fakhri was an archaeologist who worked at this site.

Extensive cemeteries of officials of the Old and Middle Kingdom have been found around Dahshur's pyramids. Dahshur was Egypt's royal necropolis during the reign of the 12th Dynasty king Amenemhat II.

Located to the south of Dahshur, this area was used in the First Intermediate Period by several kings who constructed their pyramids out of mud brick. Today these structures are obscure and unimpressive.

Two major pyramids are known to have been built at Lisht - those of Amenemhat I and his son, Senusret I. The latter is surrounded by the ruins of ten smaller subsidiary pyramids. One of these subsidiary pyramids is known to be that of Amenemhat's cousin, Khaba II. The site which is in the vicinity of the oasis of Fayyum, midway between Dahshur and Meidum, and about 100 kilometres south of Cairo, is believed to be in the vicinity of the ancient city of Itjtawy (the precise location of which remains unknown), which served as the capital of Egypt during the 12th Dynasty.

Sneferu's Pyramid at Meidum; the central core structure remains, surrounded by a mountain of rubble from the collapsed outer casing.

The pyramid at Meidum is one of three constructed during the reign of Sneferu, and is believed by some to have been commenced by that pharaoh's father and predecessor, Huni. However, this is not very likely, as his name does not appear on the site. Some archaeologists also suggest that the Meidum pyramid may have been the first unsuccessful attempt at the construction of a "true" or smooth-sided pyramid.

The pyramid suffered a catastrophic collapse in antiquity, and today only the central parts of its stepped inner core remain standing, giving it an odd tower-like appearance that is unique among Egyptian pyramids. The hill that the pyramid sits atop is not a natural landscape feature - it is the small mountain of debris created when the lower courses and outer casing of the pyramid gave way.

Hawara is an archaeological site of Ancient Egypt, south of the site of Crocodilopolis (Arsinoe) at the entrance to the depression of the Fayyum oasis. The first excavations at the site were made by Karl Lepsius, in 1843. William Flinders Petrie excavated at Hawara, in 1888, finding papyri of the first and second centuries, and, north of the pyramid, a vast necropolis where he found 146 portraits on coffins dating to the Roman period, famous as being among the very few surviving examples of painted portraits from Classical Antiquity, the "Fayoum portraits" illustrated in Roman history textbooks.

Amenemhet III was the last powerful ruler of the 12th Dynasty, and the pyramid he built at Hawara (illustration, right) is believed to post-date the so-called "Black Pyramid" built by the same ruler at Dahshur. It is this that is believed to have been Amenemhet's final resting place. At Hawara there was also the intact (pyramid) tomb of Neferu-Ptah, daughter of Amenemhet III. This tomb was found about 2km South of the king's pyramid.

In common with the Middle Kingdom pyramids constructed after Amenemhet II, it was built of mudbrick round a core of limestone paassags and burial chambers, and faced with limestone. Most of the facing stone was later pillaged for use in other buildings - a fate common to almost all of Egypt's pyramids - and today the pyramid is little more than an eroded, vaguely pyramidal mountain of mud brick, and of the once magnificent mortuary temple precinct formerly enclosed by a wall there is little left beyond the foundation bed of compacted sand and chips and shards of limestone.

The entrance to the pyramid is today flooded to a depth of 6 meters as a result of the waters from a canal built nearby.

The huge mortuary temple that originally stood adjacent to this pyramid is believed to have formed the basis of the complex of buildings with galleries and courtyards called a "labyrinth" by Herodotus, and mentioned by Strabo and Diodorus Siculus. The demolition of the "labyrinth" may date in part to the reign of Ptolemy II, under whom the Pharaonic city of Shedyt (Greek Crocodilopolis, the modern Medinet el-Fayum) was renamed to honour his sister-wife Arsinoë; a massive Ptolemaic building program at Arsinoe has been suggested as the ultimate destination of Middle Kingdom limestone columns and blocks removed from Hawara, and now lost.

Located in the Faiyum, Kahun is the workers village of the pyramid of Senusret II. It is located in the modern village of el-Lahun, and is often referred to by that name.

The workers here both constructed, and were then part of, the funerary cult of the king to sustain the king in the afterlife.

It is located about 800m from the pyramid, on the edge of cultivation. Not much of the structure remains, as it was constructed of mud-brick, and is now covered by drifting sand. Some buildings were removed when a railway was built through the area.

It was excavated by Petrie (in 1888-90 and again in 1914). His excavations found many household objects (and tools), and these are thought to be a good indication of daily life in C12 BCE. Also found in the town are the Kahun papyri, made up of about 1000 fragments, covering legal and medical matters.

The site was occupied into the late Thirteenth Dynasty, then again in the New Kingdom, where there were large land reclamation schemes in the area.