Ancient Egyptian Pyramids

The actual task of constructing the pyramids would have required extensive planning and organization. The giant stone blocks used to build them weighed several tons and were transported over great distances to the building site using riverboats and specially constructed ramps. Labor was likely seasonal, as many working on the pyramids had to tend to their crops during the spring and summer. “Pyramids of Giza”

The pyramids are also evidence that ancient Egyptian society had some knowledge of mathematics. Construction would have required careful planning and calculations to ensure that everything went smoothly and that the structures were perfectly proportioned and aligned. The pyramids of Giza have a square base and four triangular sides. It

Emery at Saqqara north during his excavations there between 1935 -1956 (Edwards 21). While Emery initially believed these early mastabas belonged to the kings of the First Dynasty, more recent work at the site has resulted in their reattribution to high officials. Regardless of their ownership, the mastaba previously believed to belong to King Hor-Aha serves as an excellent example of the evolutionary progress made between more recent predynastic burial pits and the early pyramids. Excepting the brick superstructure which housed 27 cells for storage of funerary goods (Edwards 21), the tomb is simply an enlarged version of the later predynastic burial pits.

Dating ca. 2680 B.C.E (Aldred 1998 46), the pyramid is thought to have originally been planned as a mastaba which underwent six different stages in planning that would itself lead to a transition from mastaba to pyramid. The first stage was composed of a square mastaba-like structure of local stone dressed in fine Tura limestone from a quarry on the eastern side of the Nile, near Memphis (Edwards 35). In approximate association with the cardinal directions, a feature which later became prominent in royal Egyptian funerary architecture, it measured roughly eight meters in height with each side measuring 63 meters in length (Edwards 35). Stage two saw an extension on all four sides by four meters and a second dressing of Tura limestone was added (Edwards 36). The height of the second stage was lowered by 0.7 meters, thus forming a step-mastaba. Imhotep's third stage involved the elongation of the east side only, by 8.6 meters, forming a longer axis east to west (Edwards 36). This newly enlarged mastaba, which makes up stage four, then became the lowest step in what was planned as a four stepped pyramid. The construction of a mortuary temple on the north face of the pyramid was initiated but before either the fourth stage or mortuary temple was completed, it was decided to extend the pyramid to the north and west