If we paid so much attention to the pyramid of Khufu, it is explained by the fact that it was she, in addition to everything else, that became the cause of two very serious diseases at once, which even received their names - this is pyramidomania and pyramidoidiocy. The first seems to flow smoothly into the second. And the essence of the first, easier phase, and the second is that, firstly, people see the secrets written in the Cheops pyramid, and secondly, they see the pyramids everywhere. Small and large, and even on the tables of such people, whole deposits of different pyramids rise. This disease, alas, cannot be cured. It is not clear, however, why all the information and secrets of the world are recorded only on one pyramid - the pyramid of Cheops. Probably, first of all, because you don't want to go to others in the heat. But they are also very, very interesting to study.
The pyramid of Khafr and behind it is the pyramid of his father, Khufu.
Here are just the Khafre pyramid, or Khafre, tourists staying in Giza usually inspect from afar, although Khufu's pyramid is just a stone's throw away. But why … she is only the second! But in terms of age and size, it is almost as good as this pyramid. When they finished building it, somewhere in the middle of the XXVI century BC. e., its height was 143.5 meters, that is, only 3.2 meters lower than the neighboring Khufu pyramid. Now its height is 136.5 meters - less than a meter is not enough to reach its height. The length of the sides of the base was 215.3 meters, now it is 210.5 meters. But it has a steeper slope of the walls (52 ° 20 '), so the Khafre pyramid looks even higher than the Khufu pyramid, and it also stands at the highest point of the acropolis. Climbing it is more difficult. The fact is that, closer to the top, a part of the facing has been preserved and hangs like a ledge over the stonework. That is why it is strictly forbidden to climb it! There is no granite "pyramidion", or benbenet at the top either - someone needed to throw it off sometime!
Here it is, this ledge, because of which the ascent to the top of the Khafre pyramid becomes an extremely dangerous business.
Inside, Khafre's pyramid is very simple. There are only two chambers and they have two entrances: both on the north side, one above the other. The burial chamber is located practically on the axis of the pyramid, the ceiling height is 6, 8 meters. Moreover, unlike the Khufu pyramid, the chamber in the Khafre pyramid was hewn right into the rock, and only its vaulted ceiling rises into the stonework of the pyramid itself. The sarcophagus in it was found by the archaeologist Belzoni back in 1818; it is made of finely polished granite, but broken. There is nothing else in the pyramid - this is the most compact stone building in the world. The void in it occupies only 0.01% of the total volume.
Bird's eye view of the Khafre pyramid.
The pyramid was called "Khafra the Great", that is, he was proud of it. Moreover, the structures surrounding it are larger in size than all other buildings known to us around the pyramids, which date back to the era of the Old Kingdom. For example, the funeral temple to the east of the pyramid on a granite terrace was located behind the wall of the fence and had an area of 145 X X45 meters. It housed five chapels at once along with hallways and a large courtyard, where 12 statues of Khafre were adorned.
Pharaoh Khafre statue. Cairo Museum of Egyptology.
A stone road five meters wide led from this upper temple to a temple located at the very river and which was located southeast of the Great Sphinx. Nearby there is a companion pyramid. Little is left of it, but inside there is a chamber where they found a couple of pearls that the robbers had lost and a cork from a jug named Khafre.
This is how the galleries inside the Khafre pyramid look like.
The surroundings of the pyramid have been quite well surveyed, and the most interesting thing, besides the statues, is the find of the dwellings of the ancient craftsmen who worked on this building. Here, moreover, back in 1810, when people did not even think of any forgeries of this size, they found a statue of Khafr, made of dark green diorite; she depicts him on a throne with a traditional ornate veil on his head, a Uraeus snake on his forehead and an image of the falcon-like god Horus behind the king's head. Today it is one of the most precious exhibits in the Cairo Egyptian Museum.
Burial chamber with a sarcophagus at the back wall.
And then the pyramid was taken up by the professor of the University of California, Louis W. Alvarez, who received the Nobel Prize in physics in 1968. A year later, he placed cosmic particle counters inside the chamber of Khafre's pyramid in order to take a shadow photo of the pyramid, to find unknown rooms where both the mummy of the pharaoh and his treasures could be hidden. As a result, he proved that there are no secret tombs and treasures in the pyramid!
Sarcophagus with the lid up!
The third pyramid - "Divine Menkaura" stands in the southwestern corner of the Gizekh plateau, and quite far from the tombs of Khufu and Khafr, so no one goes to it. However, she has nothing to be ashamed of, although she is the smallest of these three: she, too, is already more than 4500 years old, the length of the sides is 108.4 X 108.4 meters, and the height is 62 meters. Previously, it was four meters higher, but it retained part of the cladding, previously covered with sand. So we now know that this facing was made of red Aswan granite and covered the pyramid by almost a third of its height, then white slabs of Tours limestone followed, but its top was probably also red, from the same granite. It was seen in two colors back in the 16th century, until the Mamluks tried to plunder it. It is believed that it was the most beautiful of all the Gizekh pyramids.
Pyramid of Pharaoh Menkaur and three companion pyramids.
There is a legend, told by Herodotus, that there was a drunkard who was afraid to die, he spent all his time at feasts in order to stretch out the time allotted to him by fate. However, it is known that he reigned for 63 years. Nevertheless, studying the pyramid, scientists concluded that the builders were in a hurry to complete it, as if their ruler really had a presentiment of his imminent demise. At first, the base of the pyramid was about 60 X 60 meters and only then it was almost doubled. For the construction of the pyramid, large stone blocks were used, and much more (!) Than were used in the construction of the pyramids of Khufu or Khafr. But since he wanted to speed up the work, the workers were not forced to carefully process the stone, therefore the masonry of this pyramid is the roughest. Those who write that you can't put a knife blade between the masonry stones should go to the Menkaur pyramid. And, apparently, until the end of the construction of Menkaura still did not live. Most likely, death overtook him when the pyramid was built to the level of the red granite cladding. His successor, apparently, ordered its completion, but then he was greedy and ordered to revet it with cheap limestone. The funeral temple of Menkaur, too, at first began to be built of stone, but then switched to … brick. Why did it happen? Yes, simply because the dead king is a bad payer! But in its ruins they found an inscription that so ordered "Shepsescaph, king of Upper and Lower Egypt, for his father, king of Upper and Lower Egypt, Osiris Menkaur." That is, Menkaur had a good son - a devout one, and he honored his father, but … nevertheless, he decided to save a little money on the pyramid of the priest!
This eerie breach in the pyramid even has its own name - Osman's Breach. And it so happened that at the end of the 12th century, someone named Al-Malek al-Aziz Osman ben Yusuf, the son of Salah ad-Din, and the first sultan of Egypt and Syria, decided that the Great Pyramids should be demolished. Well, I started with the Menkaur pyramid. He worked for a long time and still left his "mark".
Interestingly, the Menkaur pyramid was built not on a rocky base, but on an artificially created terrace made of massive limestone blocks. The burial chamber is very small - only 6.5 X 2.3 meters and 3.5 meters high. Its ceiling is made of two stone blocks, carved in the form of a semi-arch, so if you don't look closely, it seems that it is a vault. The granite slabs of the walls and corridors leading to the royal tomb and to the rooms for the burial utensils were carefully polished.
Burial chamber and its vault. And the sarcophagus rests at the bottom of the sea …
Now the area around the pyramid is a continuous load of sand and the ruins of ancient funeral temples. Traditionally, there are two of them and both are connected by a road made of polished limestone slabs. The road has a twenty-meter difference in height, and its tracks are still visible today.
The entrance made by the robbers is barred today.
Much better than the temples surrounding the pyramid, its companion pyramids have been preserved next to it, which are located, as usual, on its southern side outside the fence. There are three pyramids in total, two of which are incomplete. The largest is the eastern one, has a base of 44.3 X 44.3 meters and a height of 28.3 meters. Even the granite cladding is preserved on it. The other two are stepped for some reason, and this is very strange. Maybe they were built like that only in order to then give the form of the "true". In 1837, the archaeologist Weiss discovered a large granite sarcophagus in the eastern pyramid, unfinished in the middle one, fragments of a wooden coffin and human bones, and in the western one only an unfinished and empty burial chamber. Each had a memorial church, that is, there was a whole complex of buildings. It is believed that the completed pyramid was the tomb for Menkaur's first wife. But who should be buried in the other two is anyone's guess.
The interior of the pyramid. Burial utensils and canopic canopies - vessels with the entrails of the deceased pharaoh could have been kept here.
You can climb the Menkaur pyramid, but for this you need to obtain a special permit. And there is a problem: due to the fact that the blocks are large, you have to pull yourself up, which requires good physical shape. But the view from the top is simply amazing. Opposite it rises the pyramid of Khafre under the remains of a grayish-white lining, and further - the pyramid of Khufu, which is why a double image of one of them appears before our eyes.
The remains of the cladding are very even and dense, but they are not everywhere the same as in this place.
There is nothing interesting inside the Menkaur pyramid. There was a beautiful sarcophagus discovered in 1837 by Weiss. It was decorated with a relief depicting the royal palace, but … the British drowned it at Cape Trafalgar along with the ship carrying it. Well, not yourself, of course. A storm just flew in and the ship sank. The loss of Menkaur's sarcophagus was compensated by a rich collection of sculptures found in one of the funeral temples.
Pharaoh Menkaur statue. Boston Museum
Note that the Menkaur pyramid was very unlucky in the sense that many tried to destroy it and lay their own "exploration" corridors in it. This is how it looks today in section: 1- entrance, 2- descending corridor, 3- lobby, 4- granite portcullis, 5- upper chamber, 6- western passage to the granite blocks of the roof of the lower chamber, 7- descent in the center of the upper chamber, 8- room with niches, 9- burial chamber with a granite sarcophagus, 10- original entrance and corridor, 11- excavations outside the corridors, 12- blocks removed in the XII century by Al-Malek al-Aziz Osman ben Yusuf, 13- breach tunnel Colonel Howard Weiss in the 1830s.
So, perhaps, one way to combat pyramidomania and pyramidoidiotism could be visiting not only the Khufu pyramid, but also the Khafre and Menkaur pyramids, but, as already noted, it is far to go to them, and a tourist bus will not wait for you …
