Great Pyramid of Giza – 60 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: 1-10

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.

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.

Interesting Great Pyramid of Giza Facts: 11-20

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.

20. It is because of the brilliant reflections of the casing stones that the Great Pyramid was named by the Egyptians as ‘Ikhet‘ which in English means ‘Glorious Light‘.

Interesting Great Pyramid of Giza Facts: 21-30

21. It is said that ball and socket design of construction was used for the cornerstone foundations of the pyramid to help it deal with earthquakes and earth’s heat expansion.

22. Scientists have been baffled by the mortar that was used for the construction of the pyramid. The mortar is way stronger than the rocks that were used and though scientists have actually analyzed the chemical composition of the mortar, they have not been able to reproduce it.

23. The Great Pyramid is the only pyramid in world to have slight concave faces on all four sides.

24. Yet another baffling fact is that though we say that the Great Pyramid has four sides, it actually has eight sides. One each of the four sides, there is an indentation of laser precision that that divides each face into two pieces.

25. From ground, viewers will not see the indentations and hence, they can only see four faces. In order to see the indentations and all 8 faces of the pyramid, one needs to go aerial and that too when the lighting conditions are perfect to make the 8 faces visible.

26. The 8 faces of the Great Pyramid are visible only during autumn equinox and spring equinox during dawn as well as during sunset. Those are the times with the sun casts a shadow on the pyramid, making the indentations properly visible from air.

27. Inside the pyramid, the temperature is maintained at 20 degrees Celsius or 68 degrees Fahrenheit. This temperature never changes and is actually equal to earth’s average temperature.

28. The Great Pyramid is the last of the three pyramids that were built by Egyptians with a swivel door. However, that swivel door no longer exists in the pyramid. The other two pyramids with swivel door were of Sneferu – Khufu’s father and Huni – Khufu’s grandfather.

29. According to several reports, the Great Pyramid’s swivel door once weighed 20 tons before the pyramid was broken into for the first time. According to those reports, the door was not just a massive swiveling door but was incredibly well-balanced with a so perfect a fit that once it was closed, there was extremely difficult to know that there was a door in place by looking at it from the outside. This happened because there weren’t any significant crevices or cracks that would easily give about that 20-ton rock slab as a door.

30. Though the door was incredibly heavy and extremely difficult to detect from out, it was incredibly easy to open from the inside with very little force. It could be easily opened simply by pushing the door from inside using bare hands.

Interesting Great Pyramid of Giza Facts: 31-40

31. According to experts, the granite coffer which is located inside the King’s Chamber is so big that it would have been literally impossible to carry it inside from any of the passages of the pyramid after the construction of the pyramid was finished. Hence, experts opine that the coffer was actually placed there while the pyramid was being constructed.

32. Further analysis of the coffer revealed something very interesting. The entire thing was made out of a single granite block. In order to achieve this those ancient Egyptians would have required about 8 feet to 9 feet long saws made of bronze. Not just that, the teeth of the saw should have had sapphires fitted to cut through the granite.

33. Even more perplexing is the fact that they would have needed tubular drill made of bronze and fitted with sapphire bits in order to hollow out the interior of the granite block. Also, these drills should have been used vertically, exerting at least 2 tons of drilling force.

34. Experts have put the coffer under microscope to figure out that the tubular drills needed to be fixed point drills otherwise, making the coffer out of a single graphite block was literally not possible.

35. The Great Pyramid of Giza has some incredible mathematical, geological and astronomical science in it. For example, if the total mass of the pyramid is multiplied by 10 raised to the power of 8 (10⁸), what we really get is the mass slightly greater than the mass of earth.

36. All measurements of the Great Pyramid of Khufu are in Pyramid Inch. Even the granite coffer present in the King’s chamber uses the same unit of measurement. The base of the coffer has a perimeter of 135.22689251 pyramid inches. Doubling this value and multiplying it by 10⁸ gives us the radius of the sun, which is 427,316 miles.

37. The Great Pyramid sits right on top of center of earth’s land mass or Earth’s geographical center. The east-west axis of the pyramid corresponds to earth’s longest land parallel. This parallel passes right through Asia, Africa and America. On the other and, earth’s longest land meridian that is known to pass through Antarctica, Europa, Africa and Asia also runs directly through the pyramid. So, the Great Pyramid of Giza is actually the place where the parallel and meridian intersects each other.

38. What are the odds of the Pyramid being accidentally built at earth’s geographical center? Well that’s 1 out 3 billion (1 divided by 3 billion is the probability) because there are actually billion sites on planet earth that could have housed the Great Pyramid.

39. The only way the earth’s surface can endure the massive weight of the Great Pyramid is if there is a solid mountain made solely of rock lies right beneath the pyramid underneath the surface. Well, that’s actually what it is! A solid flat mountain of granite lies right beneath the surface of the earth where the Great Pyramid stands.

40. When compared to the Empire Estate building, the Great Pyramid is 30 times bigger than the building. Put in other words, the total material used for building the Great Pyramid can be used for building 30 Empire Estate Buildings.

Interesting Great Pyramid of Giza Facts: 41-50

41. Returning back to the casing stones that we spoke of earlier, each of these stones were cut out at nearly perfect right angles on all 6 sides. On top of that, each of these casing stones were placed with a gap of 0.02 inches between them.

42. This gap was not accidental. It was rather intentional. The space or gap between two casing stones was meant for the glue that held the casing stones together. Interesting, the technology of the 21st century is incapable of achieve greater accuracy with 20-ton stones than what was already achieved with the casing stones of the Great Pyramid.

43. Okay, here is some more surprise. The average land height above sea level is 5,449 inches. This measurement has been given by modern day computers and satellites. Interestingly, the exact height of the pyramid happens to be 5,449 inches (not in pyramid inches).

44. As we mentioned earlier, each of the four sides of the pyramid are concave and this indentation is visible only from air. We however did not mention that the curvature of the concave faces of the pyramid is exactly the same as earth’s curvature.

45. If that’s not surprising enough, here is something more. If on each side of the pyramid, we measure the base from corner to corner as a straight line, we get 9,131 pyramid inches. For all four side, this will measure 36,524 pyramid inches (which is actually the circumference of the pyramid). Well, if we move the decimal point to two places to left, what we get is 365.24 pyramid cubits, which is the exact length of solar year as of modern calculations.

46. We know that π (Pi) is the universal relationship between the diameter and circumference of a circle. Now, if the pyramid’s circumference is divided by twice the apex height of the pyramid, we get the value 3.14159. This is π. Just in case you are wondering, the actual height of the Great Pyramid of Giza (including the apex that is now missing) was 5812.98 pyramid inches.

47. It is not that the π is present only in height and circumference relationship of the pyramid. The same has been used in numerous places in the whole pyramid. Not just the Pi, the Golden Ratio or the Phi, which equals 1.618 is also present in the fundamental proportions of the Great Pyramid.

48. Interestingly enough, the fractal value of light’s speed in vacuum is also encoded in the pyramid’s structure. This is way to scientific to explain in this article and hence, we will skip the explanation.

49. The Great Pyramid is aligned to Earth’s true North (not the magnetic North) and this alignment is extremely accurate with an error of only 3/60th of one degree. It is a known fact that the North Pole’s position shifts over time and hence, it can be concluded that when the pyramid was constructed, there was no error whatsoever.

50. Given the angle of pyramid’s sides versus it latitude, the Great Pyramid casts no shadow at all during the noon of spring equinox.

Interesting Great Pyramid of Giza Facts: 51-60

51. According to alternative Egyptology, the three pyramids in the Giza Pyramid Complex (see #3 and #4) are aligned or positioned relative to the position of the three stars that form the belt of the Orion constellation.

52. Robert Bauval who first put forward the Orion Correlation Theory states that just like the three stars of the Orion Belt, the three pyramids, including the Great Pyramid of Giza have a southwesterly slant.

53. According to Bauval, if the orientation of the three pyramids in relation to the Nile river actually recreates the orientation of the three stars of the Orion Belt to our Milky Way galaxy.

54. Bauval states that the positioning of the three Pyramids as well as their sizes are not a result of the geographical problems or egos of the three pharaohs but is rather a deliberate and elaborate design plan of recreating the Orion Belt on Earth.

55. The so called Descending Passage (that goes down from the original entrance of the pyramid that is placed vertically above the ground level) is pointed towards the Alpha Draconis, which used to be the Pole Star or the North Star during c. 2170-2144 BCE. Ever since then no other star has been in perfect alignment with the Descending Passage.

56. The King’s Chamber’s southern shaft pointed directly to Zeta Orionis or Al Nitak – a star in the Orion Belt in around 2450 BCE.

57. Though it is said that the Great Pyramid of Giza was supposed to be the tomb of Khufu, there are absolutely no indications that the pharaoh’s body along with his riches were put inside the pyramid. The granite coffer or the sarcophagus inside the King’s chamber has no signs to tell that it was actually occupied in some point in time.

58. On top of that, there are no hieroglyphics founds inside the Great Pyramid except for some in red paint, which as of date are known to be not authentic. It is said that Colonel Howard Vyse, who was on his last trip to Egypt was too inclined on having his name etched as an Eyptologist but when he found that the pyramid had absolutely nothing that could be called a monumental discovery, he went into the spirit stones or the air shafts above the King’s Chamber and used the red paint to make some hieroglyphics. Interestingly, the symbol for Ra – the famed Egyptian god was actually painted wrong. No Egyptian would be so stupid to get the symbol of Ra incorrect.

59. There are absolutely no records found about the Great Pyramid. No artifacts, no inventory, no drawing or picture – just nothing. Egyptians were known for putting down pictorial history of everything like agriculture to birth to death to prayers to sacrifices to weaving to embalming… they left 3000 years of history for us to decipher. How come, they did not leave any record of the Great Pyramid and the other two pyramids of Giza complex. This is kind of weird!

60. The Great Pyramid of Giza is so big that if all the stones of the pyramid are taken and used for building a wall, a wall of 3 feet height and 1 foot thickness can be built all around France.

Did Egyptians Really Build the Great Pyramid of Giza?

That’s something monumental we are talking about! But the question that many ask even today is that ‘Did Egyptians really build the Great Pyramid of Giza?’ Well, there are a few problems we need to face if we were to believe that yes, the Egyptians made it some 4000 years ago. What are the problems? Let us take a look at some interesting points that Erich Von Daniken and several other people have asked and they actually make sense.

First Problem: It took 23 years to complete the pyramid (some say it took 30 years and some others say it took 20 years). There is a small problem here. 2.5 Million blocks of stone each weighing anywhere between 7 and 50 tons and they had laser precision cut. It would literally take 1 such stone block to be fit every 2.5 minutes for 7 days in a week and 365 days a year continuously for 23 years. Not to mention, there were some serious issues of cutting the stones with extreme precision and transporting them over a significant distance and then stacking them up on top of one another (serious issues of maneuvering the stone blocks that massive). How many men needed to work? Perhaps millions of people. Unfortunately, the total population of entire planet back in those days was somewhere between 3 and 7 million. How did the Egyptians manage to get so many people to work at once? So, did Egyptians really build the Great Pyramid of Giza. We seriously doubt that.

Second Problem: The next problem is the Pi and the Phi. Really did the ancient Egyptians know about those values? Even if they did, implementing the same in a structure so massive with such accuracy is really something unacceptable.

Third Problem: The next problem is why did the Egyptians leave no records, no artifacts, no hieroglyphics in the Great Pyramid. They were a proud nation and loved to show off and record everything. The Great Pyramid definitely fit the bill but how come they did not leave any record?

Fourth Problem: How did the ancient Egyptians know the true North, the geographic center of the earth (as we mentioned earlier that the possibility of building the Great Pyramid at that location is 1 out of 3 billion) and how did they possess the knowledge of ball and socket construction to deal with heat expansion and earthquakes? Finding the true North means knowing that earth is round. The concept of earth being round is actually a concept that’s only a few hundred years old. Even worse, there are many people who still believe and argue that the earth is flat (the flat earth theory).

Fifth Problem: The pyramid encodes the fractal speed of light, the precise measurements of earth’s curvature and radius, the sun‘s radius, average continent height, average temperature of earth and other geological, mathematical and astronomical information. A culture so ancient knew about all these information and actually put them together in a single structure is something that is difficult to digest even with the most effective digestive pills ever created by science.

So, did Egyptians really build the Great Pyramid of Giza or was there some other ancient and highly advanced culture that was somehow wiped out from the face of earth behind this mega structure? Or, was it the work of a some supernatural force or perhaps extraterrestrial intelligence? Whoever built the Great Pyramid of Giza definitely had highly advanced knowledge. So advanced that even with modern 21st century technology, human race has not managed to replicate the Great Pyramid of Khufu with such precision. There are way too many mysteries about the pyramid and we will possibly never solve them. Or, will we some day decode the mysteries? What do you think?

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12