Lesson 2 - Read the text

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?

Discovering Ancient Egypt - Pyramids of Giza
Test adapted from: http://discoveringegypt.com/pyramids-temples-of-egypt/pyramids-of-giza/(shortened and simplified version)

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