The Pyramids at Giza Looked Very Different When they Were First Built
In February, a large block of the Great Pyramid of Giza’s original casing will go on display at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, for the first time since it was brought from Egypt in 1872 by the Astronomer Royal of Scotland, Charles Piazzi Smyth.
This block is the only casing stone from the Great Pyramid, built by King Khufu in around 2550 BC, to be displayed to the public outside of Egypt (earlier this month it was reported that the Egyptian government is contesting the Scottish museum’s
Apollo Magazine
January 30, 2019
© Garry J Shaw
rights to the stone – the museum asserts that it has the appropriate permissions and documents).
It’s important to remember that when you visit the Great Pyramid today, you aren’t seeing the monument as it originally appeared; the pyramid may look unchanged by time, but it was once even more striking. When it was first built, its ascending layers of huge limestone blocks – which today give it a somewhat jagged appearance – were hidden by a smooth layer of fine white limestone. This layer concealed the pyramid’s core and gave its surface a perfect, sloping smooth finish, gleaming white in the sunlight: a rampway to heaven, rather than a stairway.
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