< home # store # services # articles # game # app #contact >

After the neolithic period, from around 2700 to 1640 BC. Ancient pyramids were designed, and built, according to three forms: Step pyramid, bent pyramid, and straight sided pyramid (the most common)

Limestone for the pyramids was quarried on the east bank of the Nile. It was then transported on boats, and dragged from the river to the building site. Using wooden sleds with runners. No one knows exactly how the pyramids were built, but the heavy blocks were probably dragged up a straight, or a spiral ramp. That would have grown as the pyramid rose in height. The exterior surfaces were covered with better quality stone. Where copper chisels could be used to smooth the surface. The summits of the pyramid were often covered in gold.

It had spiritual significance
Egyptians believed that after death, pharaohs became gods and their souls travelled to the sun or sky. With their stepped or triangular sides, pyramids acted as staircases for this spiritual journey. They Egyptians also believed that the preservation of the body was essential to the immortality of the soul. They thought, that if people needed the protection of buildings while alive, they also needed them after death. The pyramids protected the kings body, and the goods were taken to the next world. Some experts claim that the pyramids represented the rays of the sun that linked the reigning pharaoh the sun god Ra.

The pyramids were built on the west bank of the Nile by Egyptian labourers. That were only too happy to work for the king, who fed, clothed them, and promised to care for them, in the afterlife. Some of the labourers were also given a funeral plot on the grounds of the pyramid that further guaranteed their afterlife.

Each pyramid was a part of the larger funerary complex. Arranged in a line that led to the banks of the Nile river. Along the riverfront was a temple (probably used to mummify the king), connected by a covered causeway to another temple (used for sacred rights), at the foot of the pyramid. Rectangular tombs for the kings family and courtiers, called mastabas, were built around the pharaoh’s pyramid. They queens had smaller pyramids of their own.

Check it out.