[Music]
so here is one of my favorite pictures
of Giza that I happen to take when it
was a very cloudy and dramatic stormy
day and yet the Sun was piercing through
the clouds and illuminating the second
pyramid of khafre there's a lot of drama
at this site and I'd like to introduce
you to some of it so what better way to
get comfortable with Giza and to take a
quick walking tour around the place now
you know the layout of the Nile and the
sights of Egypt and Giza of course is
towards the north it's just to the west
of modern Cairo and a large suburb
actually known as Giza and I love these
then and now comparison photographs you
see three of them here at the top the
excavations are just beginning in the
early 1900s we're on the west side of
Khufu's Great Pyramid and you can see
the sand is covering just about
everything in the middle shot we've made
tremendous progress and look at all of
the individual tombs of Egypt's elite of
the Old Kingdom that are turning up and
then down below the last one in color
shows the present-day appearance and
again you can see how much has been
cleared there is an amazing amount of
Earth that has been removed at Giza
between 1900 and the present so this
overview shot gives you some white lines
that will show you the path that we'll
be following and we'll just make some
brief stops along the way and I'll try
to point out some of the highlights in
additional modules we'll go into much
more detail about the Royal pyramid
complexes themselves about the mastaba
tomb fields of the elites these are the
governing classes of Egypt's Old Kingdom
think about 2500 BC or so and we'll look
at the Sphinx and we'll wander
and eventually end up almost back where
we started now along the way you have to
remember that the pyramids as you see
them today do not look the way they did
in antiquity there were beautiful fine
white limestone casing blocks on the
exteriors of these monuments giving them
a flat smooth gleaming appearance that
would have been visible for miles these
were the first billboards of the world
and they really would have sent a
message
loud and clear for everyone to see this
is a computer model reconstruction of
the Great Pyramid complex as it probably
looked upon completion so we've walked
up the hill past the Great Pyramid and
now we're looking southwards at the
Eastern Cemetery on the east side of the
Great Pyramid
you can see these large twin mastaba
tombs those are the rectangular super
structures and they were originally much
smaller but they were joined together to
form twin or great master buss they're
much longer than the tombs on the other
side of the Great Pyramid and towards
the left-hand side of the photo you'll
see a gigantic one that Dwarfs all the
others that belongs to uncle a very
famous person who will meet in later
modules the three rather stumpy small
pyramids that are in the right side of
the photograph our Queen's pyramids
meant for Khufu's Queens down in the
lower right that very dark patch that
you see is the basalt flooring that's a
hard dark stone that was the floor just
about all that's left of Khufu's pyramid
temple abutting the east side of his
pyramid and then in two perpendicular
arrangements you see two of the five
boat pits that also accompany the
pyramid complex often the distance at
the top of the photograph is a nice
profile view of the Sphinx let's head
down that way next so here is the Sphinx
built by Khafre most likely although the
debate rages on and some people feel it
belongs to Khufu others even Jeddah Frey
who doesn't even have a Pyramid at Giza
but Khafre makes the most sense for
archaeological art historical and
technical reasons in front of the Sphinx
is the synchs temple never completely
finished and then just off to the left
in the distance is the larger and better
preserved Khafre valley temple with
magnificent huge stone pillars made of
granite that had to be hauled from the
quarries at Aswan hundreds of miles
south of Giza and towed on barges up to
the site a little bit off and out of the
picture will visit later are additional
buildings that come from much later
periods such as the New Kingdom so there
were pharaohs that were visiting this
site long after the Sphinx and the
pyramids were antiquities that adds to
the richness of the story and we'll meet
some of those characters later
now we're behind the Sphinx and we're
looking westwards so just a little
corner of cough raised second pyramid is
at the right and in the center in the
distance is the third and smallest
pyramid of menkaure along with three
queens pyramids but what you see in the
foreground is really quite fascinating
this is the quarry zone this is where
the interior core blocks for Khufu's
Great Pyramid were quarried and the
reason I've drawn all those red lines on
the tops of the buildings is to show you
that that was the original surface level
so for a minute imagine none of the
buildings in this scene and imagine this
quarry area with all of the core blocks
being cut and hauled away and then after
the pyramid was completed and this
ceased being a quarry it became another
Giza Cemetery
we call it the central field today so
those red lines indicates the tops of
the original surface and many of the
tombs were then built up as mastaba
structures others were cut into the rock
surfaces and still others were converted
from the outcrops of limestone that were
left over after the quarrying process
was complete as you can imagine it's a
tremendous amount of stone that was
quarried to build that pyramid this
photograph is a rare nighttime view
taken from the top of the Great Pyramid
and we're looking westwards off in the
distance you can see the lights of Cairo
and Giza and looking off to the west we
see the second pyramid of khafre with
its recognizable white limestone casing
blocks still preserved at the top giving
it a sort of white hat that makes it
clearly distinguishable from the Great
Pyramid itself and then to the right are
the orderly rows of mastaba tombs of the
so-called western cemetery here's
another view in daylight and now you can
see just how magnificent Khufu's
original plan was he laid out these
buildings in orderly fashion
the original oldest ones were all the
same size they were set in these orderly
streets and rows and that was going to
be the final layout of Giza
later on after Khufu's reign many other
Egyptians added their tombs to the area
and the pattern got a little bit
confused and you have lower-class
elites also adding shafts and structures
in the streets in between
the major tombs that Khufu originally
laid out and so things get quite
confusing
all of these cemeteries have their own
numbering systems given to them largely
by the Harvard University Boston Museum
of Fine Arts expedition and we still use
those numbers today finally we come to
the third and smallest pyramid of
kingman Caray here we see it from the
air with the area in shadow at the lower
right that's the North Face and that's
where the entrance is the entrance is
always on the north side for these
pyramids and then we have a good aerial
view of the men Caray pyramid temple
abutting the east side this was
excavated in 1906 and 1907 and produced
a colossal statue in travertine
alabaster or calcite of menkaure himself
found in several different pieces in
different parts of the temple at the top
of the photograph are three Queen's
pyramids some of them unfinished and
then running down to the left you can
see the beginnings of the causeway that
runs eastwards and connects to
menkaure's valley temple
you