It’s probable that no structures ever built by humans command more wonder than the pyramids of Giza. Everything about these funeral monuments beggars description. Their size is monumental. The pyramids of Giza also stand out from the landscape around them in a way that few other structures do. They give the appearance of awesome power personified.

Today, I’ll describe some things about the pyramids of Giza. Some things are well-known, while others might surprise you. This post is also the first of a series on the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Look for the others as I post them.

Who Built the Pyramids of Giza?

One thing most people remember about the pyramids (there are three at Giza) is that they are burial monuments for Egyptian pharaohs. Specifically, pharaohs of the Fourth Dynasty. The rulers entombed within were Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure. The oldest pyramid, that of Khufu, was finished circa 2560 BCE. This makes it more than forty-five centuries old.

Of course, Khufu played no role in building the pyramid itself. Exactly who did seems to be an open question. For years, people assumed that slaves had done the work. Now, experts lean toward the belief that the workers were paid laborers. Some workers were buried in places of honor near the structures they helped erect.

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How Were They Built?

The techniques of construction likewise are open to question. After all, how did the workers get stone blocks weighing 2.5 tons each that high in the air? The prevailing view is that engineers constructed ramps, and that the blocks (there are 2.3 million stone blocks in Khufu’s pyramid!) were levered and rollered up the ramps until put into place.

The astounding size of the constructions have caused people to wonder how the Egyptian pharaohs could’ve commanded enough labor to finish such a project in anyone’s lifetime. Again, researchers have called old assumptions about this into question. For years, the prevailing thought was that about 100,000 people worked seasonally on construction. When the Nile River was in flood, that left plenty of people available to build pyramids. But now, beliefs tend toward the idea that the workforce was smaller but permanent—say 20,000 regular workers. That’s still a huge number.

This makes sense from the efficiency standpoint. Permanent workers are more skilled and work more quickly than occasional ones.

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Fun Facts About the Pyramids of Giza

The engineering skill was incredible. Khufu’s pyramid was 481 feet tall. Each side is exactly 755.75 feet in length at its base. Each side orients perfectly to one of the four cardinal directions. The pyramid’s base is perfectly level—less than 1.5 inches of deviation from its highest to lowest point.

The structures we see today are less impressive than when built. Each had a limestone facing, smoothing the appearance of the sides and giving them a sheen in sunlight. Egyptologists speculate the top of Khufu’s pyramid was gilded, although this is uncertain.

For my mathematically inclined readers, here are some more facts you’ll appreciate. The perimeter of the base of Khufu’s pyramid, divided by twice its height, is pi. But that’s not all.

One can inscribe a right triangle into the pyramid, with the shortest side of the triangle being the distance from the pyramid’s center to its side at its base. If this distance is one unit, the hypotenuse of this triangle will be phi, the Golden Ratio (1.618). This is true of Khufu’s pyramid to three decimal places.

Clearly the World’s Greatest Wonder?

Well, maybe. It depends on your standards. And I’m not referring to size. The Mayans and other peoples of Mesoamerica built some really big pyramids, too. But think of the labor and resources used to create these structures. Khufu’s pyramid required stone blocks weighing 5,000 pounds apiece. Workers had to quarry these stones and transport them to Giza by ship on the Nile River. Workers offloaded these blocks, moved them to the construction site, moved them up ramps by rollers and levers, and finally put them into place. This had to happen 2.3 million times. Put another way, that’s 315 times per day for 20 years.

All of this begs the question—couldn’t these resources (human and material) have been used to better purpose than celebrating a dead person?

That’s my point about the word great. The pyramids are a great achievement, artistically and technologically. But they are a great waste in all other ways.

Too Much Greatness?

Likewise with rulers labeled “the Great.” All that means, typically, is that they excelled at killing people and conquering territory. Is that really greatness?

It was, maybe, to people from the past who categorized them. But we don’t live in that past any longer. And I’ll argue it’s crucial the world jettison this view of greatness. To give one example why, consider Russia’s baseless invasion of the Ukraine. Why do so? Part of the reason is that Moscow wants to recover some of its influence from the Cold War era. National greatness, in other words.

I think the same applies to “heroes” from the history of industrialization. People like Rockefeller and Carnegie grew rich from grinding the bones of their workers into powder. Literally, in the case of the Ludlow Massacre approved and supported by John Rockefeller Jr. in 1914. Sure, people like Cornelius Vanderbilt built libraries and founded universities later. Would anyone have needed their philanthropy, though, if they’d been paid decent money to begin with?

You get the point. I love people who reach for greatness. Trying to excel at what you do is a great purpose to have in life. But I loathe those whose success comes at the expense of others. So, let’s keep greatness. But let’s keep a greatness in creativity, honest effort, and compassion rather than a greatness based on dominance and accumulation at the expense of others.

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