Where is the Pyramid of Cheops located? What city, what country?

When we talk about the power of a state, we compare it primarily with Ancient Rome. It is understandable. After all, Byzantium, the eastern part of the great empire, disappeared from the world map only in the 15th century. Yesterday, by historical standards. Legislation, culture and traditions of a huge state became the basis of modern European civilization. With Ancient Egypt, everything is much more complicated. Its history is similar to a layer cake and began many centuries before the beginning of our era. But it was there that the last of the seven wonders of the world, the famous pyramid of Cheops, was preserved. Where is it located (location, geographical coordinates), history, interesting facts - read about all this in the article.

The same people thousands of years later

Where is the Pyramid of Cheops located? In which country? Everyone knows about this. The area of ​​modern Egypt is more than 1 million square meters. km. It occupies the northeastern part of Africa and part of Asia, the Sinai Peninsula. For all the time of its existence, it survived about forty invasions, was under the rule of the Greeks, Romans, and was part of Byzantium. The Nitrian desert has become a refuge for many Christian saints. Anthony the Great, Macarius of Egypt and many others labored there. Even after the conquest by the Arabs, the country was still Christian for a long time. Despite all this, the majority of modern Egyptians are the ethnic descendants of those who once rivaled the power of the Babylonians. The fact is that they did not participate in such a phenomenon as the migration of peoples. By the way, the word "Copts", and this is 7-8% of the population, in translation simply means "Egyptians". So Egypt is in many ways a unique country.

Country in the desert

This country is located, in fact, in the desert. They occupy 96% of its territory. And only the rest is the fertile lands of the valley and delta of the Nile, the longest river in the world. From source to mouth - 6671 kilometers. The Nile is formed in Sudan, near the city of Khartoum. The modern capital of Egypt, Cairo is cut into two parts by the river. But there were several capitals in the multi-thousand-year history of the country.

First capital

The origins of a unique civilization are lost in the Neolithic era. This is the 6th millennium BC. One can only guess what happened then in northeast Africa. Historians divide the history of Egypt into eras that are called dynastic. The formation of the first, Early Kingdom is attributed to 3100 BC. It should be borne in mind that all dates in such a long history of the state are approximate. After all, then there was no fixed point from which the calendar began. In Egypt, years were counted from the coronation of the next pharaoh, although they divided the year into 12 months, each of which had 30 days. It was in the era of the Early Kingdom that the pharaohs received unlimited power. One of them, Menes, settled in Memphis. So this city became the first capital of a united Egypt. This is the north of the country, 30 kilometers south of Cairo.

"Houses of Eternity"

Where the pyramid of Cheops is located, in Egypt, the cult of the afterlife is very strongly developed. This has become the reason that we know nothing about residential buildings, even about the palaces of the pharaohs. A temporary shelter for a person was built from unbaked brick, dried in the sun. It is clear that such structures have not been preserved. But temples and tombs, "Houses of Eternity", were built of stone. But this is later, already in the era of the Old Kingdom, the period of the reign of the 3rd-6th dynasty. It is quite possible that the original burials of the rulers were just mounds. And later, fearing robbers, the tombs began to be cut down in the rocks, carefully masking them. So almost all known pyramids were built in 2686-2181 BC. It doesn't have to be rocks. There are also very small tombs. Moreover, not all of them have been found. Only at the beginning of 2000, archaeologists from France found a heavily destroyed pyramid near Cairo. The mother of the last pharaoh of the era of the first rise of Egypt, Pepi II, was buried there.

Who built the pyramids?

But when the most majestic funerary structures were built, the weakening of Egypt was still far away. Here it is necessary to say about what is known about the state structure of the country of that time. Until recently, it was believed that the work of slaves, of which there were a huge number in Egypt, was of great importance there. This is a clear exaggeration. The main population of the state were the royal hemuu. They were, of course, bonded people who were at the complete disposal of the pharaohs, temples or nobles. But calling them slaves would be wrong. More like fortresses. They could not change their profession, own tools, but nevertheless they were citizens. There were few slaves in the classical sense of the word, they were mostly prisoners and were called "baku". This is important because for a long time historians were convinced that the construction of huge pyramids was possible only with the use of slave labor. But that was also a mistake.

Cheops - son of Snefru

The pharaohs of the first two dynasties found eternal rest in quadrangular buildings made of unbaked bricks. They had a flat roof, and inside they were divided into several rooms. "Mastaba", as they were called. The first of the surviving huge buildings was erected for himself by Pharaoh Djoser. He ruled in the 27th century BC. Even the name of the one who brought to life the idea of ​​his master is known. His name was Imhotep. He acted simply, placing six mastabas, decreasing upwards, one on top of the other. The result was a step pyramid, reminiscent of a Babylonian ziggurat. The pyramids for the next two pharaohs were, for some reason, just begun. The next completed one, located in Meidum, was also conceived as a stepped one. Pharaoh Huni died without waiting for the end of construction. It was completed already under Snefru, who ordered to give the pyramid the correct shape. But they did it still primitively, simply by filling the empty space between the steps with sand and rubble. Nevertheless, it is Snefru who is the greatest builder of the pyramids. Under him, a tomb for Huni was completed, and two more were built, in Dahshur. But his son, Cheops, entered history.

Fifty-story tomb

This was the second pharaoh of the 4th dynasty of the Old Kingdom, who lived in 2589-2566 BC. He, like all rulers, began to prepare a place for his own burial as soon as he ascended the throne. The square base of his pyramid is over 52,900 square meters, each side is 230 meters. The height after completion of construction was 147 meters. During the earthquake, the upper stones crumbled. The structure that we see now is 9 meters lower. The white limestone with which it was lined has not been preserved. But one can imagine how majestic the pyramid looked when the rays of the sun reflected from the shiny surface. The pyramid is still amazing. It is understandable why the opinion about the hundreds of thousands of slaves who built it was established. Herodotus also played a role here, believing the priests of Egypt in the Greek era. One hundred thousand workers for 20 years. So he wrote, referring to them. But so many people at the same time simply would not fit on the construction site. Now, thanks to experiments, they found out that 20 thousand people were quite enough. Crews of builders changed from time to time. And these were not slaves at all, but those very “royal hemuu”, a kind of serfs.

Volunteer for hard labor

These people were not necessarily driven to the construction site by force. Despite the fact that up to three crops a year could be harvested in the Nile Valley, from about June to November, farmers remained without work. Therefore, when a priest's scribe appeared in the village, who compiled lists of those wishing to work for the pharaoh, there were most likely a lot of the latter. After all, there they received a salary, housing, clothing and food. There was another, perhaps more important reason. Everyone hoped that they would gain at least a particle of the immortality of a god-like ruler. And these people were cutting down 340 stone blocks a day near Memphis. Others delivered them with the help of simple, but for their time advanced technology to the place, and there those who laid the blocks in the indicated place were waiting for them. In just 23 years, 2,300,000 pieces were laid.

City of dead

Where is the pyramid of Cheops, in which city?

Giza is located on the outskirts of Cairo. The Pyramid of Cheops does not stand alone on a plateau. The second largest belongs to his son, Khafre. It is lower, 136 meters. And, finally, the third - Pharaoh Mykerin, only 66 meters high. From a height, looking west, another group of pyramids is visible. This is another Giza necropolis, Abusir. But the pyramids located there are not so majestic, and much lower. The tallest, Pharaoh Neferirkare, is 72 meters high. In general, the city where the pyramid of Cheops is located is a real city of the dead. 17 kilometers to the south is the necropolis of Saqqara. It's almost opposite where Memphis was. And 10 kilometers to the south - Dahshur. The power of the Old Kingdom was undermined by internal strife in the country. But even now, all over the world they know where the pyramid of Cheops is located (geographic coordinates 29.9792747 north latitude and 31.1342163 east longitude). And ancient Egypt had a great future ahead of it.