Ancient Egyptian Pyramids

1. Ancient Egyptian pyramids were tombs built by the Ancient Egyptians for their pharaohs and queens.

2. Ancient Egyptian pyramids showed the power and the strength of the Pharaoh.

3. Ancient Egyptian pyramids were filled with objects that would be needed in the Afterlife.

4. The earliest Ancient Egyptian tombs were housed in mastabas.

5. Mastabas were long, oblong, stone buildings constructed over underground tombs.

6. Mastabas had outer chambers, decorated with paintings, for offerings and inner chambers containing a statue of the dead person.

7. A shaft led down to the tomb inside the mastaba.

8. The very first pyramid was the Step Pyramid at Saqqara, this had a rectangular base because it was built over a mastaba.

9. The Step Pyramid was over sixty metres high, with large steps, seen as a ‘stairway to heaven’.

10. In later Egyptian pyramids, the stepped sides were made smooth by covering them with white limestone.

11. The first stage in building a pyramid was to mark out the base and make careful measurements for the corners, angles and height.

12. Large blocks of stone were dragged across the desert on sledges, from quarries, to build the pyramids.

13. Workers were often farmers who worked on the Egyptian pyramids during the flood season -houses and workshops were built for them.

14. The largest pyramid is the Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza, which was one hundred and fifty metres high.

15. Over two million stone blocks were used to build Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza.

16. Capstones, or pyramidions, were put at the top of pyramids, covered in gold, to reflect the rays of the sun.

17. Because people knew pyramids were filled with treasure and they were so easy to see, they became targets for tomb robbers.

18. To guard against tomb robbers, Egyptian pharaohs stopped building pyramids and started cutting their tombs into the rocks.

19. The inside of all the tombs were spectacular, with paintings of pictures and inscriptions of the gods and the Afterlife.

20. A great deal can be learned about the Ancient Egyptians and their lives from the paintings.

21. Building the Egyptian pyramids took a huge amount of time and labour and later pyramids were built of rubble or bricks and collapsed.