Finally...The Pyramids

11-2-10

Cairo.  Today, was sort of like Spring Break for us – we got lots of sun and sand.  Only for us, there were no wet bikini contests or funnel parties.  The only other similarity was our sitting in never-ending traffic at the end of the day.  Well, it wasn’t really cruising, but work with me.

Today, we visited the famous pyramids of Giza.  This included one of the seven wonders of the world  -- the Great Pyramid  of King Keops.  We also saw the “Solar Boat” – the boat that was excavated from beside the pyramid and reconstructed.  And, the famous step pyramid – the first one.  You can learn more about the pyramids and how they were constructed (theories, etc.) on the internet (and with correctly spelled names) than I could possibly regurgitate at the end of a long day (don’t blame my lack of detail on our guide, who is excellent by the way).  So far as the pyramids are concerned, like you, I’ve seen the National Geographic specials, the “How’d They Do That” episode, and what could only be described as an ironic stretch for “Modern Marvels”.  However, I learned something very interesting today – why they were built.

Perhaps you already know this.  Me?  I must have been asleep that day in school or making popcorn during those segments of the television shows.  It all has to do with practicality, immortality or resurrection, and, of course, egos. Here’s the quick and dirty.

 The ancient ancient Egyptians merely buried their dead in the ground in a shallow oval grave, in the fetal position, facing the sun.  You see, they worshiped Ra the sun god.  He rose in the East.  So, he must know something about immortality because he never dies and is resurrected each morning.  Problem was the jackals would dig up the bodies and destroy them.  Not good when you’re planning on being resurrected – you needed the body.   So, they began putting sun-baked (you know, healthy) bricks over the grave – to keep the jackals out.  Problem with the bricks was that they didn’t last forever.  Since no one had actually ever seen someone resurrected, they didn’t know how long it would be before it happened.  So, one of the kings (Zoser) wanted his grave to be better protected.  He asked his chief architect/designer/adviser to come up with something.  He did.  Stones.  There is a huge deposit of limestone in the area.  First they used one rectangular one.  Then three – one stacked in the middle on the joint between two laid side by side.  That was the first pyramidal shape (which represents the sun’s rays when they come down through the clouds, remember the sun god Ra?). 

When the king’s family members started dying, he had them buried under stones arranged in this manner.  The graves were fairly close together.  After there were about 6 there, well it didn’t look so cool anymore.  So, they built some more stones on top of those there and filled in between them.  This was the first couple of layers of the step pyramid shown below.  The top was too flat, so they added some more layers.  This resulted in the first pyramid (see photo below, and no, the scaffolding hasn’t survived for 4,000 years).

The famous pyramids of Giza are simply the grandest surviving burial pyramids (so far, 111 pyramids have been discovered in Egypt).  They believe that only 30% of the ancient structures have been uncovered.  The kings were always trying to out-do their predecessors.  I’m not really sure what they thought would happen if they all came back at the same time.  I guess there would have been a tremendous power struggle.

But, the most fascinating thing about the whole idea of the pyramids and their accompanying buildings and other funerary (stuff they were buried with and things that were built around them) was the people’s anticipation of resurrection and thus immortality.  They believed in an after-life but believed it to be here.  They believed heaven was where the gods lived.  The kings (and their peeps) believed that the king would become a god when he died.  They also believed that resurrection and immortality was not limited to the king, but that everyone would/could be resurrected – depending on their conduct in the present life.  The pyramids were not built by slaves, but by highly skilled, highly regarded craftsmen, who were treated like professional athletes.  They were well compensated, well fed and very good at what they did.  And they did it because they thought it would increase their chances of a successful resurrection (as opposed to an unsuccessful one?).  Fascinating.  Too bad we don’t spend so much time and energy focused on our afterlife.

See... i really am here. :)  Wish you were too.