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How big is the Great Pyramid of Giza?

146.6 meters!

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Great Pyramid of Giza

The Great Pyramid of Giza is the largest of the pyramids at Giza, in Egypt, built for King Khufu about 4,600 years ago. When it was finished, it stood about 147 meters (481 feet) tall, measured straight up from the middle of its base to its peak. Its peak and most of its smooth outer stones are now gone, so it is shorter today.

Size

Because the peak is missing, the pyramid's original height cannot be measured directly. It is worked out instead from the width of the base and the slope of the faces. From 1880 to 1882, the archaeologist Flinders Petrie measured both. He found each side of the base to be about 230.3 meters (756 feet) long, and the faces to slope at about 52 degrees.

From these, Petrie calculated an original height of 5,776 inches, or 146.7 meters. Harvard University's Giza Project gives the same height to the nearest foot, 481 feet (146.6 meters). The sides of the base are very nearly equal: Petrie found that no two differed in length by more than 4.5 centimeters (1.8 inches).

The explorer measures the pyramid's height, but the pyramid is wider than it is tall. Each side of its base is about 1.6 times its original height.

Size comparisons

  • The Washington Monument, 169 meters (555 feet) tall, is about 23 meters (74 feet) taller than the pyramid was when new.
  • A Saturn V rocket, 111 meters (363 feet) tall, would reach about three-quarters of the way to the original peak.
  • About 86 people 1.7 meters (5 feet 7 inches) tall, standing on one another's heads, would reach the original peak.
  • Each side of the base is about as long as two American football fields placed end to end, including their end zones.
  • The base covers about 53,000 square meters (13 acres), the area of about 10 football fields.

Who built it

The Great Pyramid was built for Khufu, also known as Cheops, a king of Egypt's Fourth Dynasty. That was during the Old Kingdom, a period of strong central government. Harvard's Giza Project dates the pyramid to around 2550 BCE, meaning 2550 years before the Common Era.

Khufu's successors built the two other large pyramids at Giza. Archaeologists at Ancient Egypt Research Associates date all three to a span of about 85 years, between 2589 and 2504 BCE. They describe the Great Pyramid as the largest pyramid ever built, and the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World still standing.

What it is made of

The pyramid is estimated to contain about 2.3 million blocks of stone, with a total volume of about 2.6 million cubic meters. The blocks are often said to weigh about 2.5 short tons (2.3 tonnes) each on average, but they vary widely in size and shape. Much of the stone probably came from a quarry close by, on the pyramid's south side, cut as deep as 30 meters (98 feet) into the rock.

When new, the pyramid was covered in a smooth casing of white limestone, about 85,000 square meters (21 acres) of it. Most of the casing was carried away for building stone in the Middle Ages, exposing the rougher blocks underneath. A few casing stones still remain at the base.

Sources

Scale of the Universe > Great Pyramid of Giza
Saturn V
Saturn V is the tallest and heaviest rocket ever! That's pretty cool. It was used from 1968-1972 and was the only vehicle used to launch humans far away from the Earth, to places such as the Moon.
Football Field
American football fields are 120 yards (109.7 m) long, if end zones are included. Anyway, football fields are often used for measuring large objects. For example, "The Titanic is roughly three football fields long!" Football fields are also used for playing football.
ISS
The International Space Station is pretty cool. It floats around in low Earth orbit, and you can even see it from Earth! The ISS has had humans within it continuously since November 2000, which is a record for a spacecraft. (They weren't all the same humans.)
Washington Monument
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Gateway Arch
The Gateway Arch is the tallest structure in St. Louis. There is an observation area at the very top, and from it, you can see the Mississippi River. You should go visit it sometime in the near future!
Hoover Dam
The Hoover Dam, which was built on the Colorado River, holds in the largest reservoir in the United States, Lake Mead. Not only does the Hoover Dam provide water, but its turbines also generate electricity.

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