The Great Pyramid of Egypt

‎Though accounted in olden times as one of the seven wonders of the world this pyramid belongs to a large family of architectural structures, seventy in number, and of different sizes. The word pyramid, it is said, means “lofty.” The first Egyptian monuments which bear the names of their founder date back to three thousand and ninety-one and three thousand and sixty-seven B. C. Pyramids were built down to the time of the twelfth dynasty, B. C., two thousand and three hundred. The architecture of Egypt contains in obelisks and tombs the pyramidal lines. Strabo says, “If you go forty stadia from the city (Memphis) you come to a hill on which stand many pyramids, the burial places of kings.” Pliny speaks slightingly of the pyramids as “an idle and foolish display by the kings of their wealth,” and Masudi, an Arabian historian says that “they were built three hundred years before the flood in consequence of the interpretation of a dream which preceded the deluge.” According to this historian an ancient king built them to preserve his records from destruction. Small models of pyramids with devotional inscriptions have been found in Egyptian tombs. On the eastern side of each of the three great pyramids, and of some of less importance are temples. They have been variously accounted for by students who have come under the spell of their mystery; to some, they are temples, to others granaries; some make them observatories for astronomical uses, but Egyptologists generally believe that they are simply tombs.