Four and a half thousand years ago, the largest of the wonders of the ancient world was built. The Great Pyramid at Giza has fascinated and intrigued scholars ever since and it the only one of the wonders listed by the Greeks to have survived intact to this day. By the time Tutenkhamen ruled Egypt it was already 1500 years old; to Cleopatra it was an antiquity. But how was it built? Why and by whom? despotic scale, has fascinated travellers and archaeologists since the 19th-century revival of interest in antiquities. And with it a fascination with the pharaoh who built it: Cheops. look at the man behind the monument - the life and times of Cheops, the greatest pyramid builder of them all.

In Rosalie David's hands, the Egyptian builders of the pyramids are revealed as simple people, leading ordinary lives while they are engaged on building the great tomb for a Pharoah. This is an engrossing detective story, bringing to the general reader a fascinating picture of a special community that lived in Egypt and built one of the pyramids, some four thousand years ago.

Going beyond even the expertise of archaeologists and historians, world-class engineer Craig B. Smith explores the planning and engineering behind the incredible Great Pyramid of Giza. How would the ancient Egyptians have developed their building plans, devised work schedules, managed laborers, solved specific design and engineering problems, or even improvised on the job? The answers are here, along with dazzling, one-of-a-kind color photographs and beautiful hand-drawn illustrations of tools, materials, and building techniques the ancient masters used. In his foreword to the book, Egypt's Undersecretary of State for the Giza Monuments Zahi Hawass explains the importance of understanding the Great Pyramid as a straightforward construction project.

Describes the construction of an Egyptian pharaoh's tomb, the life and various jobs of the workers, and the burial of the pharaoh.

Is it a mere coincidence that pyramids are found throughout our globe? Did cultures ranging across vast spaces in geography and time, such as the ancient Egyptians; early Bud-dhists; the Maya, Inca, Toltec, and Aztec civilizations of the Americas; the Celts of the British Isles; and even the Mississippi Indians of pre-Columbus Illinois, simply dream the same dreams and envision the same structures? Robert M. Schoch-one of the world's preeminent geologists in recasting the date of the building of the Great Sphinx-believes otherwise. In this dramatic and meticulously reasoned book, Schoch, like anthropologist Thor Heyerdahl in his classic Kon-Tiki, argues that ancient cultures traveled great distances by sea. Indeed, he believes that primeval sailors traveled from the Eastern continent, primarily Southeast Asia, and spread the idea of pyramids across the globe, particularly to the New World of the Americas where they abounded until the days of the Conquistadors.

What do the pyramids of Egypt really represent? What could have driven so many to so great, and often so dangerous, an effort? Was the motivation religious or practical? Illustrated with more than 300 photographs and drawings, this book presents an original approach to the subject of pyramid building. It reveals the connection between devices that served both a practical need for survival and a spiritual belief in gods and goddesses. It examines Egyptian technologies and techniques from the origins of pyramid development to the step-by-step details of how the ground was leveled, how the site was oriented, and how the stone was raised and placed to meet at a distant point in the sky. Here the author also asks and answers questions virtually ignored for the last century. He discloses, for example, the ancient use of shadows, now denigrated to the ornamental back-yard sundial, but once an important tool for telling the height of an object, geographical directions, the seasons of the year, and the time of day. He also reinterprets the ancient "stretching of the cord" ceremony, which once was thought to have only religious significance but here is shown as the means of establishing the sides of a pyramid.

This book examines the architectural achievements of the Egyptian pyramid builders and how they may have accomplished those deeds. Many of their building techniques we today cannot explain. The baffling puzzle of how the stones were raised is one of these. The big puzzle aside, many minor mysteries are for the first time explained. Egyptologists agree that those performing the heavy labor were conscripted citizens, not slaves. The builders were inventive, motivated, daring, and superbly organized. They made mistakes, the price of innovation. Still, they persevered, and created some of the most impressive monuments in history. This book should help the reader understand the problems the builders faced, and instill admiration of their work.