The story of Great Pyramid of Giza

For more than 3,700 years, nothing built by human hands stood taller than this. The Great Pyramid, tomb of Pharaoh Khufu of the Fourth Dynasty, was raised around 2600 BC over a period of about 26 years. It originally reached 146.6 metres, but most of its smooth white limestone casing was later removed, and what you see today is the core, now 138.5 metres high.

Its builders quarried an estimated 2.3 million blocks, weighing 6 million tonnes in all. Most of the stone came from the Giza Plateau itself, while white limestone from Tura and granite blocks from Aswan, some weighing up to 80 tonnes, came by boat on the Nile. Inside are three known chambers: an unfinished one cut into the bedrock, the so-called Queen's Chamber, and the King's Chamber, which still holds Khufu's granite sarcophagus.

The walls carry no decoration, apart from graffiti left by work gangs that include Khufu's names. It is the oldest of the Seven Wonders, and the only one largely intact.