Lesson 4 - Pyramids of Giza

Warm up - introduce the text

Class activity

Brainstorm as a class several significant words:

• Each student contributes with a word to describe the cartoon
• The teacher tried to elicit other words from the students
• Te teacher write the significant words down on the blackboard (i.e. pyramid, slave, worker)

Pair work  - Describe the cartoon

 

While-reading activity

Identifying the topic

Choose the right title for each paragraph in the text below

• Menkaura - Long reign short tomb
• Khufu - Wonder of the world
• The Pyramids of Giza
• The end of immortality
• Sneferu - Stepping towards a true pyramid
• Khafre- A great complex

Select the information

• Answer the questions on a sheet of paper - Find the answers in the text

Which kind of workers was employed for the construction of the pyramids?

Why Pharaoh Sneferu is considered a prolific builder?

Which different materials were used to build the pyramids?

When was the Sphinx deteriorated?

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, 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. 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.

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 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.

• Pairwork - correct the answers  

In pairs, students ask and answer each other's the above questions

Then they check the answers in open-class

The teacher write the correct answers on the board and if necessary, show the students where the correct answers are in the text