For more than 4,000 years the Great Pyramid has drawn people to Giza. The largest pyramid currently standing anywhere in the world has borne numerous names across the millennia and inspired countless stories. For two Arab authors, writing after the 3rd or 4th century AD, it was a monumental repository raised by the legendary King Surid to safeguard the wealth and wisdom of Egypt from flood and fire. A few hundred years earlier, Greek and Roman tourists celebrated it as a wonder of the ancient world, while the historian Herodotus offered a damning verdict on the antics of its builder, whom he called Cheops. Perhaps the most prosaic writings concerning the pyramid are also the earliest. These take the form of funerary inscriptions, graffiti, and even a journal penned by those toiling to construct it in the 3rd millennium BC, during the reign of Pharaoh Khufu. It is the name for the pyramid coined by its creators that has also proven most prophetic: the Akhet Khufu or ‘Horizon of Khufu’.
Today, the horizon at Giza is one of the most recognisable in the world, thanks to the three close-set, pharaonic pyramids silhouetted like serrated teeth against the skyline. Of these monuments, the middle one – with its pinnacle still clad in fine limestone casing – often appears the largest, but this is no more than a trick of perspective. This edifice overlies the tomb of Khufu’s second son, Khafre, while the smallest of the ‘big three’ Giza pyramids was commissioned by Pharaoh Menkaure. He is believed to be Khafre’s son, and Khufu’s grandson, but time ran out on Menkaure before his resting place was complete. His demise resulted in the lower part of the pyramid bearing lumpy, unfinished, granite casing stones, producing a somewhat rustic finish. Despite such concessions to speed, these grandiose funerary monuments, probably raised over the course of about 70 years during what Egyptologists call the 4th Dynasty, have overshadowed Giza, both literally and figuratively, ever since.
Despite the impressive scale of the pyramids, there has always been more to Giza than these immodest monuments. Traces of the first activity on the plateau have been all but wiped away by quarrying and later burials. Even so, both earlier pottery found in the vicinity of the Great Pyramid and three grandiose tombs just south of the Giza plateau, pre-dating Khufu’s dynasty, suggest the escarpment was no blank canvas for the pharaoh’s grand design. Even during the heyday of pharaonic pyramid-building at the site, these monuments were only the most ostentatious element of an intricate suite of funerary structures. Each Pharaonic pyramid was served by an upper and lower temple, which were connected to the pyramid via a ceremonial causeway. Smaller satellite pyramids for queens could be arranged around the pharaoh’s resting place, while pits containing boats emphasise their role as ports on a voyage to the afterlife. Giza was not restricted to royalty, though, and there are also elite tombs, which were laid out like the orderly city blocks of a modern new town and contained the elite of ancient Egyptian society.
