Of a 137 m height (in the beginning: 146 m), with sides of approximately 230 m broad, it use a stone mass evaluated at more than 2,5 million m3.
The average weight of the blocks is 2,5 tons (some reach 15 tons). Herodotus, the Greek historian, tells that 100 000 submissive workers to the duty took turns during 10 years to exploit the quarries of Tourah and to bring the blocks of limestone, then took 20 years to raise the pyramid.
The colossus of Ramesses II, on the site of Memphis, is cut in a limestone block. It measures 10,30 metres height since it lost the bottom of its legs. It bears its name engraved on the right shoulder, the pectoral one and the loop of its belt.
Pyramids of Chephren (on the right) and Mycerinus (on the left). In the center, one of the three satellite pyramids rises, probably intended for members of the family of Cheops.
Mycerinus (2500 before Christ) is the least large of the pyramids: 108 m on side and 66 m height. It preserved on its eastern face basis of the funerary temple where should celebrate the worship of the Pharaoh.
The step pyramid of Saqqara was built around 2800 before Christ. The pyramid with degrees is the tomb of king Djeser and the oldest cut stone construction.
It is the work of the first known architect of the history, Imhotep, which will be deified at the Greco-Roman time and will be compared to Asclepios (Esculape), the patron of medicine.
The Sphinx is in fact the representation of Chephren, illustrated like a lion with human head, charged to taking care on its capped necropolis with a nemes with the uraeus of the forehead, it is cut in the rock, living eternally and forever the face turned towards the East. Firing practices with the cannon carried out at the Mameluke time, combined with the effect of wind erosion would be at the origin of the destruction of the nose of the Sphinx.
