Egypt Secrets of an Ancient World

I found this article about the pyramids in Africa on the National Geographic page. The article was first published in 1996 and has been polished up into 2009. I read about the largest pyramid on Earth, the Great Pyramid. It was built by Pharaoh Khufu in 2550 B.C. at Giza. The Great Pyramid is 481 feet tall or 147 meters.
Khufu was the son of Snefru and the second ruler of the 4th dynasty. The Great Pyramid is the largest pyramid ever build. It is made up of about 2.3 million stone blocks, each weighing around 15 tons. According to the article, the workers would have had to set a block every 2 and a half minutes. The pyramid has three burial chambers. The first is located underground and is carved into bedrock. The second, which is above ground, was called the queen's chamber. Now we know it was not a queen's chamber, but maybe a chamber to hold a sacred statue of Khufu himself. The third, is the king's chamber, located almost exactly at the center of the pyramid. You can access the king's chamber through the 26-foot high Grand Gallery, which was blocked off from thieves with sliding granite blocking systems.
An interesting fact about this pyramid is that there are many mystery shafts that fan out from the queen's and king's chambers. They weren't air shafts or hallways. Maybe it was for Khufu to travel to the stars in his afterlife.
I found this article very interesting because I've always been intrigued by the pyramids and it amazes me how Egyptians build these magnificent structures. I've seen videos of how they moved the stone building blocks and constructed the pyramids and it puts me in awe. I can't imagine what it would be like to live during this time period in Giza. I loved reading this article and I plan on researching the pyramids more!

Picture courtesy of National Geographic