The Great Pyramid

The great pyramid was built during the reign of Khufu, 2nd king of the fourth dynasty (2,720-2,560 BC). It stands on the Giza plateau nearby Cairo and is the biggest pyramid in the world. It measures 230 m (756 ft) on each side of its base and originally measured 147 m (482 ft) high. Beginning in the 10th century AD the entire Giza complex served as a source of building materials for the construction of Cairo; as a result, …

…about 1 cubic meter. On the Khufu pyramid, all the casing elements were removed in the 14th century. The few casing stones which do remain in the Great Pyramid all lie in the 1.5 meter thick bottom course and cannot be representative of the stones which would have been used in the higher parts of the construction. The only examples of face work such as this which remain are those on the pyramids at Meidum, Dashur andGiza.