Stuff on Egypt, I really love Egypt.

Ancient Egypt, the land of the pharaohs, is probably most famous for it’s pyramids, sphinxes and for its Mummies. The pyramids are the tombs for the pharaohs and are a popular tourist destination. The giant sphinx in the city of Giza is also highly visited. Mummies are one of the ancient Egypt’s most well known religious practices. All of Egypt is interesting but I will only be focusing on the main topics.

Egypt is located in Africa on it’s north-eastern tip. Egypt is mostly consists of desert and has one major water source The River Nile, which floods annually. The ancient Egyptians built their spectacular empire around this rich source of water. The temples of the Egyptians are littered all the way down the Nile, from the ancient city of Alexandria to the temple of Abu Simbel, where four great sculptures are carved into the cliff face. The only other place where the Egyptians built temples was near oasis, in the desert.

The Sphinx is a lion’s body with the head of a human. Sphinxies would often have the head of a pharaoh; the lion was a symbol of supreme power and by associating himself with the lion would bring the pharaoh a good after life. The biggest Sphinx is the Great Sphinx which is in Giza near the pyramids. It measures 73 metres long, 14 metres wide and 20 metres high. It was carved around some 4000 years ago and is made from a knoll of limestone. The great sphinx was buried in sand for a good half of its life, this has prevented wind erosion, but now uncovered the UNESCO has carried out restorations which finished in 1998. The sphinx is also found is Greek mythology, as a creature giving riddles to travelers. Another type of sphinx is a Criosphinx which has a ram’s head and a lion’s body; they were believed to keep away the evil forces.

As well as the great sphinx, the pyramid of Khufu is also found at Giza. Khufu’s pyramid is the largest, standing at 480 metres tall and oldest of the three large pyramids. The other two are the pyramid of Khafra, who is Khufu’s son, and the pyramid of Menkaura, who was the son of Khafra. Khufu’s pyramid took 20 odd years to construct and around 2,300,000 limestone blocks were used each weighting 2.5 tonnes. At the top of this pyramid are the remains of some polished white limestone. It would have been a beautiful site to see, all of the three pyramids glowing in the sunlight. The pyramid of Khafra sometimes looks bigger than it actually is because it’s sides are steeper than the others. On it’s north and west sides you can see where the ground has been cut away to level the surface. This pyramid and the great sphinx are partly connected by the granite valley temple, which is the temple that runs from the bottom of the pyramid and beside the sphinx. Menkaura’s pyramid is the smallest of the three and at it’s base, to the south, are three small queens’ pyramids. The pyramids were used as tombs which all held mummies of pharaohs.

Mummies are the preserved remains of people or animals. The first mummies came from the desert, and the person would be buried in the sand and the sun would evaporate all the water, preserving the persons remains, this is known as natural mummification. When they made the switch to using wooden coffins it actually made the body decay faster and the Egyptian saw this and developed a good knowledge of the mummification process, used stone coffins. This allowed some of their mummies to last 4000 to 5000 years. When a pharaoh died his body would be taken to an embalming house where Priests would start to prepare the body. Egyptians believe that the brain had no value and was removed through the nose by placing a hook up the nose and breaking the skull and pulling the brain out, it was then discarded. Then the priests would cut a slit in the side of the body and remove everything but the heart. The lungs, intestines, liver and stomach were all placed in canopic jars. The canopic jars were placed in the tomb along with the body. The body was then sewed up and left in the sun for 70 days. After this time the body was dried flesh and bone, it was then cleaned and rubbed with aromatic oils and the priests would chant while bandaging the body. The pharaoh’s body would then be buried in his tomb.

Many tombs of pharaoh and queen have been discovered all over Egypt. This has greatly helped scientists to discover how these people lived. We are always learning new things about how the ancient Egyptians lived and what there beliefs were. This is why I love this topic. Thank you.