While-reading activities
task 1- Identifying the topic
Choose the right title
for each paragraph in the text below
Sneferu - Stepping towards a true pyramid
The Pyramids of Giza
Khufu - Wonder of the world
Khafre- A great complex
Menkaura - Long reign short tomb
The end of immortality
task 2 - Read the text and answer
the questions
Which kind of workers was
employed for the construction of the
pyramids?
Why pharaoh Sneferu is considered a
prolific builders?
Which different materials were
used to build the pyramids?
Was the Sphinx deteriorated along
the centuries?
When were the pyramids of Egypt
built?
The
fourth-dynasty king, Sneferu 2686 – 2667 BC, was the first to create the
pyramid shape that we all associate with Egyptian
architecture. He built three pyramids in all but the first two were
glorious failures. His first, the pyramid at Medum, began as a step
pyramid and was then modified to form the first true pyramid. But it was
unstable and the limestone blocks began to slip. Soon, work on it was
abandoned. King Sneferu then moved to Dahshur and built a second pyramid,
which we now know as the “Bent Pyramid”; it was
originally planned as a true pyramid, but the corners were built on
unstable ground and the walls of the burial chambers inside began to crack
and shift inward. The bent pyramid was never used. Instead, Sneferu
began a third pyramid about a mile way. This one is called the red pyramid
because of the red limestone blocks used in its construction. It became
the world’s first successful true pyramid.
With the red
pyramid, Sneferu set the standard for all true pyramids to come. This was the model followed by his son,
Khufu, who built the first and largest pyramid at Giza. The Giza
pyramids were erected on a rocky plateau on the west bank of the Nile
in northern Egypt and were connected, by covered causeways, to
mortuary temples in the valley below the plateau. In ancient times
they were included among the Seven Wonders of the World.
The
largest of the three pyramids at Giza, known as the Great Pyramid, is truly an astonishing
work of engineering. It was built over a twenty year period. Some believe
that it was built by slaves, but this is not true. One hundred thousand
people worked on the great structure for three months of each year, during
the Nile’s annual flood when it was impossible to farm the land and most
of the population was unemployed. The pharaoh provided good food and
clothing for his workers, and was kindly remembered in folk tales for many
centuries. It was constructed using around 2,300,000
limestone blocks, each weighing an average of 2.5 tons. Some blocks weigh
as much as 16 tons. For centuries, the Great Pyramid was encased in smooth
limestone, but this was plundered in our era to build Cairo.
Khufu’s son,
Khafre is also known as Chephren. His pyramid, on a nearby site at Giza,
appears taller than his father’s, but this is an illusion; it is built on
higher ground and was in fact shorter than the Great Pyramid. Khafre’s
pyramid retains some of its original limestone casing at the apex, and so
it is possible to imagine how the pyramids might have appeared in
antiquity. Khafre also built the Great Sphinx, which is 66 feet high (20 m) and 240 feet long (73 m) and is part
of Khafre’s pyramid complex. It represents Ra-Harakhte, the sun god, but the face of the Sphinx is a portrait of
Khafre himself, and is contemporary with his pyramid. Unfortunately, the
great sphinx has deteriorated over the millennia and was extensively
renovated in ancient times. More recently it was mutilated by the Sultan
Mohammed an-Nasir in AD 1300 and lost its nose in 1798, when Napoleon’s
soldiers used it for target practice.
Khafre’s son,
Menkaura built the third pyramid at the Giza necropolis . With
an original height of about 65 m., it is less
than half of the pyramid built by his grandfather, Khufu. The
lower layers consist of red granite from Aswan and the upper courses were
originally made of gleaming white limestone.
Although
pyramid-building in stone continued until the end of the Old Kingdom, the
pyramids of Giza were never surpassed in their size and the technical
excellence of their construction. There are over 100 recorded pyramids in
Egypt most of which belong to minor royalty or have no known owners. The
last royal pyramid was built by the first king of the 18th dynasty Ahmose
1550-1525 BC but, after that, the Egyptians ceased building these majestic
burial structures for all time.
Task 3 - Pair work: ask the questions each others and write down shared answers
