Magnificent Icons of Egypt
Greater Cairo, Egypt
The Pyramids are the only Wonder of the Ancient World still to remain intact and rarely if ever disappoint visitors who come to gaze, mouth agape at them. Their sheer size overwhelms, whilst their location on the Giza Plateau and on the very edge of the Western Desert only adds to their magnificent presence. The Sphinx lies a short distance away, increasingly eroded by the desert-blown sand and pollution it nevertheless remains, with the Pyramids, an instantly recognised icon of the country.
Background
Over the centuries volumes have been written about the Pyramids proposing how and why they were constructed. Today we know that the Pyramids are vast funerary complexes built some 4,600 years ago by Pharaohs using paid labour during times when the Nile flood made farming of the riverbanks impossible.
What can’t be agreed on is exactly is how they were built or why they and certain aspects of their construction are aligned with particular stars. Visitors today are as the Greeks and Romans were, awestruck by them, craning their necks to see their summits or sitting on blocks of stone first edged into place 2,600 years before Christ was born.