Egyptian pyramids: history, construction, and cultural significance

Egyptian Pyramids

The pyramids are the most representative symbol of Egypt, not only as a country but as an entire civilization, era and sensibility. The symbol of an epoch and the tradition of a country and empire that left them as legacy for future generations to study their vast domain and personality. They represent their religion, politics and art.

In spite of all the progress made by Egyptology, especially in the last century, a lot is still ignored about the way the pyramids were constructed.

The pyramid was conceived as a grave for the ruler, destined to safeguard his eternal slumber, his body, preserved by embalming and his funerary trousseau. This was the only way to permit the residence of his soul within his body and the survival in the next world. In order to protect the body and trousseau from grave robbers a series of traps to difficult the access to the royal chamber, putting tons of stone, fake doors, dead-end halls, double chambers, and other traps.

In spite of all that effort the pyramids were violated and robbed and turned into what they are today: only the empty construction and the memory of their original greatness.

The pyramid as we know it today, the classical figure of square base and ramp walls in diagonal ascension towards the peak, was derivate from the step pyramid, that was the first model used and then evolved into the more even construction.

The stone for the exterior of the pyramid was obtained from the quarry of Tura, on the east bank of the Nile, near Mugattan hills (Miroslav, 2002). The tools used for this task were copper tools; among them saw capable of cutting any kind of limestone. More complicated is the fact that they could extract hard stones as granite. Some say that the use of granite appeared later and in the beginning, Egyptians settled for the lose bricks of the surface.

Herodotus states that, for the Pyramid of Giza, a hundred thousand men worked without rest in shifts of three months during twenty years (Miroslav, 2002). When the bricks emerged from the quarry they had to be transported to the site of building. Even if some reached the two hundred tons, the fluvial transportation would not be a major problem.

They would take advantage of the flooding season to use rafts to drag the materials to the nearest bank at the construction site. Afterwards they would transport it on land using sledges and fixating the stone on it with ropes. The sledges would slide over runways that would help them advance placing rolls as the sledge moved.

The pyramid was the representation of the communion between the Pharaoh and the gods. Besides using them as tombs, the kings build small pyramids all over the country as a token of their power and the representation of their function in the creation of the world. The structure is based on rows of huge bricks of limestone that were coated with white limestone or granite.

The Pharaoh was considered to be the son of the Gods and therefore he was seen and treated as a god himself. He was, more than a ruler, a divine figure and people were willing to sacrifice their entire lives to serve him and assure the proper rest he deserved. The mummification had the target of preserving the body to assure eternal life.

The funerary texts were carved in the gallery and in the funerary chamber with the function of helping the Pharaoh in his transit towards the next world. Those were hieroglyphs written on the walls of the funerary chambers of the Pharaohs. In the texts they carved the phrases that the Pharaoh must pronounce in order to enter the next world and to guarantee his purification and resurrection, perpetuate his status and ascend to the heavens to join the sun cycle.

Religion constituted a fundamental element in the life of ancient Egypt and its signification prolonged even after death. For this reason they had a special and feverous cult to their dead. The people believed firmly that after death the soul of a man would only live happy if the body received a very special treatment to preserve it from corruption.

For this reason they perfectioned the process of embalming, that transformed the corpses into mummies that were placed in sarcophagus, protected from the exterior elements, such as heat, air and humidity, that might decompose the body. The sarcophagus was decorated according to the social status of the deceased.

In the tomb were stored various objects that they believed he might need in the next life. Animals were also embalmed to serve as companions during the journey to the next world. There was also a papyrus were there were written all the good qualities and deeds of the person, so he could be fairly judged by Osiris, the god of the nether world, in the court of the dead.

During their early history Egyptian religion traveled from polytheism to a sort of monotheism with philosophical shades. The main gods of the polytheist religion were Osiris, Amon-Ra, Horus, and Isis. Divinities were often represented in animal figures to symbolize the diversity of their attributes.

As for their vision over human beings, they believed that each man had a 'double', invisible and immaterial, that lived after the body was deceased. but, to assure the survival of the soul, the body needed to be preserved and the soul given a 'house' to inhabit in: the tomb.

For the Egyptians the tomb was more important than their houses, which they believed to be a merely transitory shelter, while the grave was the permanent residence they would inhabit in for eternity.

The shape stairway of the pyramid was perhaps a staircase towards heaven, which the soul of the person had to climb to reach the gods or the universe, where they presumably lived, and join Ra, the Sun god. Later pyramids took the straight wall shape, perhaps to help the ascension be faster and easier for the spirit.

Not only had the isolation from the air, sun and humidity helped preserve the mummies. The shape of the pyramid itself has the capacity of preserving concentrating the energy in the centre of the building in a way that helps preserve organic tissues. The magnetic energies are concentrated from the peak towards the base in equal gradation and keep the energy inside creating an optimum atmosphere for conservation, besides isolating them in a cold and constant environment.