You’ve only got one option today if you’re keen to see the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Fortunately, the Great Pyramid of Giza (not to mention its 2 companion pyramids and the Sphinx) is still pretty damn impressive over 4 millennia after completion.
Viraj and I made a beeline for the interior of the Great Pyramid, also known as Khufu. Photos aren’t allowed inside, so we dutifully left our cameras with our guide and climbed up the large stone blocks to reach the entrance. Once inside, we walked through a short corridor with rough stone walls before arriving at a series of steep ascents. Originally, people would have entered the pyramid from nearer the ground level and faced a descent so dramatic that it surely would have been the world’s most fatal slip and slide had the ancient Egyptians been into water parks. The narrow ascending passage arrives at a chamber before continuing onto another ascending passage, this one noticeably wider, ultimately depositing the visitor into the king’s chamber. It’s a large granite room, probably the size of a generous Manhattan studio apartment, empty save for Pharaoh Khufu’s sarcophagus. There really isn’t much to see inside, but it’s incredibly fun in my book to imagine what it must have been like when this room was filled with the pharaoh’s necessities for the afterlife or to think about how the grave robbers managed to break in undetected and loot the place. Getting there is probably half the fun and I actually enjoyed squatting down to crab walk my way up and down the painfully steep slopes.
We headed to the medium pyramid next, the pyramid of Khafre, which may appear deceptively large as it sits on a higher platform than the Great Pyramid and its walls form a steeper angle. Like the Great Pyramid, most of the casing stones which would have given the pyramid a smooth effect were stolen at some point in the last several centuries, possibly to build an ever expanding Cairo, though the upper portion still retains some of its casing stones.
And to highlight just how big the “medium” pyramid is, you’ll get a better sense of scale in the photo below where I give Khafre an official 2 thumbs up.
We spent so long walking the perimeter of the pyramid of Khafre that we had to skip visiting the smallest of the 3, the pyramid of Menkaure (below, left), if we were to see the Sphinx!
In fact, there are additional satellite pyramids in the vicinity but none are as imposing, well preserved, or as densely located as the 3 main pyramids. Turning away from the 3 pyramids towards the satellite pyramids reveals just how closely the city of Giza encroaches on these ancient treasures.
There are actually several ancient sphinxes in Egypt, though the one in Giza dwarfs them all. It really is an amazing sight with the pyramids in the background.
Walking alongside the Sphinx, I was surprised to find the seams of the stones and the slight color variations gave it something of a Lego-like appearance. I also couldn’t stop hearing Billy Crystal’s voice in my head from the scene in When Harry Met Sally where he confesses his “theory that hieroglyphics are just an ancient comic strip about a character named Sphinxy.” (Dear reader, it is safe to assume this was running through my head, along with “Walk like an Egyptian” and Steve Martin’s 1978 song “King Tut,” throughout the duration of my time in Egypt.)
Like many Egyptian artifacts, the name “Sphinx” comes from the Greek. It is still not completely clear when exactly the Sphinx was built or by whom, though many historians and archaeologists suspect it dates back to Khafre’s reign and that it bares his face.
The Sphinx with the 3 pyramids of Giza.
It was a fantastic but long day. Viraj succumbed to jet lag and napped as we sat dead still in traffic while I caught one last look at the pyramids from the highway.
