The Pharaoh Project by Elise Ph.D. Kristen

Author:Elise Ph.D., Kristen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-04-12T00:00:00+00:00

The dense high-rises of Cairo, and then those of Giza, have masked the Giza Pyramid Complex, blocking it from sight as we approached. And now, almost as soon as it has come into view, the Great Pyramid of Khufu is towering over me. “Holy God,” I whisper.

Alyssa pulls her rental car into a parking space near a tour bus and shuts off the engine. “That’s what Khufu said.” She chuckles.

I step out of the car and walk toward the monument, drawn toward it as if not of my own free will.

Hordes of tourists pile on and off buses, and touts with horses and camels are waiting to pounce on them. Tour guides dash in to broker rides and photo ops to those tourists who want them. Alyssa skims past the chaos and speaks to the attendee of the admission kiosk in Arabic. And she and I are quickly admitted.

We are the only unaccompanied pair of women I can see.

Moments later, I am standing at the base of Khufu’s monument.

The last remaining wonder of the ancient world.

I have seen this image a thousand times in my life, but I have never understood the true wonder of it until just this very moment.

The pyramid seems to stretch upward indefinitely, like Jack’s beanstalk reaching up into the heavens. And from where I now stand, the base, too, is infinite, as the line from the sky slopes down to meet the horizon, giving the illusion that the edge of the pyramid has simply fallen off the planet.

The pyramid is comprised of cubical building blocks. Standing next to one of them, I see that some of these blocks are as tall as a man. It is only from a considerable distance, I now appreciate for the first time, that these monstrously large stone cubical blocks blend together in the eye of the viewer to create a pyramidal shape. Although I cannot see it from where I stand, I imagine that the tip of the pyramid in the sky may be comprised of just one, single cube.

“How… on… earth… could the ancient Egyptians have done this?” I ask.

Alyssa shrugs and shakes her head. “The truth is, we still don’t even know for sure. Over the centuries, there have been multiple theories for how they built them. But most of the theories are completely far-fetched and lack any evidence whatsoever to support them.”

Tourists are milling about the Khufu pyramid, climbing its lowest stones, snapping photos. Alyssa reaches into her bag and withdraws one of the small Ziplock bags from her hotel room. She kneels to the ground and runs her hand through the loose stone at her feet. She gathers a few fragments, dropping the pieces she collects into the plastic bag she has pulled from her pack. Then she pulls out a Sharpie and labels the bag Giza grounds.

“What we do know,” she says matter-of-factly as she works, “is that the pyramids at Giza were constructed during the Fourth Dynasty, sometime around 2590 to 2530 B.C.E. Each was built during the reign of the pharaoh that the pyramid was intended for.

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