The pyramids of Old Kingdom Egypt

Ahlan wa sahlan dear readers! We just returned from visiting friends living in Cairo. Thanks to excellent local advice and organization, we hit Egypt pretty hard. Egypt has, well, an overwhelmingly long and famous history, so let's attack this roughly chronologically, starting with the Old Kingdom!

The Old Kingdom was preposterously old: ~2686–2181 BCE. The Old Kingdom was a golden age of prosperity and stability for Egypt. The Nile's annual flooding allowed intensive agriculture, and the Old Kingdom Pharaohs held absolute power over a united Upper and Lower Egypt.

The Old Kingdom is famous for it's pyramids. Whenever a new Pharaoh came to power, they would immediately begin tomb planning, and the tomb of choice in the Old Kingdom was a pyramid. South of Cairo, the complexes of Dahshur, Saqqara, and Abusir are packed full of enough tombs and pyramids for an army of Egyptologists. Pyramids evolved from the mastaba, a flat rectangle of mud-bricks. The first pyramid built was the Step Pyramid of Djoser (~2650 BCE). Djoser's architect Imhotep started with a traditional mastaba, but kept adding layers to create a "stairway to heaven" effect.

Next up was Sneferu (~2600 BCE) , founder of the Fourth Dynasty, who built THREE pyramids. His first pyramid collapsed during construction. His second, the Bent Pyramid, was the first attempt at a smooth-sided pyramid (it's also the only major pyramid which still has most of it's limestone casing), but halfway through they had to change the angle to keep it from collapsing too. Thus, Bent.

Sneferu never gave up (well, he lived a long time, and his workers never gave up), and he finally got it right with the Red Pyramid, Egypt's third largest pyramid. We went inside it: it's dark, hot, undecorated, empty, and definitely not designed for tall people.

These pyramids are great to visit: there's hardly any people, especially in Dahshur, so you can have them almost all to yourself. We even went horseback riding at Abusir!

Finally, we have the Pyramids of Giza! The only surviving members of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Here are some quick pyramid facts:

• The pyramids were constructed for a father-son-grandson lineup of Fourth Dynasty pharaohs Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure between ~2590-2500 BCE. Wow that's old!
• The Great Pyramid (Khufu's) was the tallest structure in the world for nearly 4,000 years.
• Khafre's pyramid is slightly smaller than the Great Pyramid, but it still has some limestone casing stones at the top.
• Khafre also built the Sphinx. Well, he had it built, it's not like he did it all himself. It has his face, but now it's staring at a Pizza Hut.
• There are also several small satellite pyramids for queens/the pharoah's ka.

Although the saying is that "Man fears time, but time fears the pyramids," the pyramids probably fear humans at least a little. Humans have looted the tombs, stripped the limestone casing for building supplies, and even tried to disassemble the pyramid of Menkaure (after several years they'd only succeeded in making a notch, so they gave up).

The pyramids are impressively huge and old, but they're difficult to enjoy unless you can escape the hoards of tourists, touts, and camel men. We rode camels, it was kind of a scam, but hey, camels and pyramids, right?

To put in perspective how crowded it was, the pyramids receive ~15 million visitors a year, which averages to ~40,000 a day, considerably more than the estimated 10,000-30,000 workers who actually built them. And yes, the pyramids were constructed by skilled Egyptian laborers, not slaves or aliens, despite what the movies may have you believe.

Next up, we'll skip the Middle Kingdom (their pyramids were smaller and mostly mud-brick so they didn't age well, and their temple complexes replaced/overhauled by later ages) and head to Luxor to talk about the New Kingdom! Don't worry, it's still pretty old too.

-Peter