Great Pyramid of Giza – 19 Interesting Facts to Blow Your Mind!

Just like the Seven Wonders of our modern-age world, there were Seven Wonders of the ancient world. The only one out of those 7 ancient wonders to be standing largely intact today is the Great Pyramid of Giza that screams technological and architectural finesse of the ancient Egyptians that remained unrivaled for millennia. In fact only modern man with all his fancy tools and technology is capable of replicating the Giza pyramid. The extreme scientific accuracy of the pyramid often gave birth to a question – “Was the Great Pyramid of Giza built by Egyptians or was it the work of some extraterrestrial life form, far more intelligent that the ancient people?” Well, since we don’t have any evidence of aliens at work, we are pretty much happy to accept that the ancient Egyptians made it.

In this article we will be looking at 60 interesting Great Pyramid of Giza facts and in process look into the amazing mathematical precisions achieved. However, there are a few questions that we cannot answer – questions that were once asked by the famous Erich Von Daniken. We will go through the question at the end of this article but until then, let us learn about this ancient wonder.

Interesting Great Pyramid of Giza Facts: 1-19

1. According to Egyptologists, the Great Pyramid of Giza was a tomb, designed and built for Pharaoh Khufu of 4th Dynasty Egypt.

2. Since it was built for Khufu, the pyramid is also known as the Pyramid of Khufu.

3. This Great Pyramid is one of 3 pyramids that were built in Giza and was the largest of all. For 3,800 years straight, this pyramid remained world’s tallest structure that was made by man.

4. The two other large pyramids (not as large as this one) were built for Pharaoh Menkaure and Pharaoh Khafre.

5. As far as the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza is concerned, its original height was 481 feet or 146.5 meters. However, because of 3,800 years of erosion caused by natural elements like rain and wind, the pyramid lost some of its height from the very top and today it stands 455 feet tall, which is 138.8 meters.

6. Experts say that it took about 23 years to complete this massive structure and the overall weight of the structure is estimated to be around 5.9 million tonnes.

7. The Great Pyramid’s base is a perfect square and each side of the square measuring 756 feet. The base spans over 13 acres of land and is big enough to accommodate nearly 10 football fields.

8. Each side of the pyramid covers an area of 5.5 acres. So for four sides, the total surface area is 22 acres Trivia Thursday 4: 15 Funny Fart Videos

9. As of today, in order to reach the very top or summit of the pyramid, you need to climb 203 steps.

10. The construction work for this pyramid started in c. 2580 BCE and was finished in c. 2557 BCE.

11. Experts estimate that nearly 2.3 million stone blocks had been used to build this massive structure with the average weight of each stone block being 7 tons. Some of the stone blocks were as heavy as 30 tons and some weighed well over 50 tons.

12. The total area covered by the pyramid’s base is 592,000 ft2 or 55,000 m2.

13. When the pyramid was built, the entire structure was covered with what is known as casing stones. Casing stones were actually limestones that were extremely well polished.

14. According to experts, some 144,000 casing stones were used. Each of these casing stones had a thickness of nearly 100 inches.

15. These casing stones were also extremely flat. So flat that in mathematical terms, the accuracy of the stones’ flatness stood at 1/100th or 0.01 inch of perfect straight. The average weight of each casing stone stood at 20 tons.

16. The casing stones were so shiny that they reflected sunlight in such a way that the whole structure looked like a massive white jewel sparkling in daylight.

17. Only a few of these casing stones remain today near the base of the pyramid. The remaining were removed after a massive earthquake that took place in 14th century shook the pyramid and loosened the casing stones.

18. The Arabs then ripped off the casing stones and used them for building mosques.

19. As far as the beauty of the Great Pyramid was concerned in its full glory, it is being said that the highly polished casing stones served the purpose of gigantic mirrors, which led to so powerful and brilliant light reflections that those reflections could easily be seen from moon. Well, there is absolutely no way of verifying this.