But before we get into figures and statistics, the Great Pyramid is generally believed to be constructed as a mortuary monument for Khufu or Cheops in Greek , who was the second Pharaoh from the Fourth Dynasty. As for the associated with the Great Pyramid itself, the structure rises to a height of around 455 ft — the tad reduced scale being due to soil erosion and the loss of the pyramidion, which was the uppermost capstone of the structure. In spite of the slight reduction in dimensions, the monumental giant has a base area of around 570,000 sq ft equivalent to almost 10 American football fields and a gargantuan volume of 88 million cubic ft or 2. This massive scope was achieved by the use of a whopping 2. Few of these stones especially, the ones used in the inner chambers weigh more than 50 tons, and yet they were transported to the site from Aswan, which over 500 miles away. Well, in that case, that someone will be wrong! In terms of construction, the Great Pyramid of Giza was built on an artificially flattened site that deviates from a perfectly horizontal plane by just a minute 2 cm. Even the aforementioned base edges of the structures account for an almost perfect square, thus making the corners nigh impeccably right-angled to each other. And, perhaps the most impressive feat of all — the four sides of the pyramid are almost immaculately oriented with the four cardinal directions of North, South, East, and West. Interestingly enough, the base of this ancient structure is not an exact square. The figure we are talking about equates to only 5. So when compared to the entire measured dimension of the western side, which is somewhere between 755. Simply put, the margin of error is only about 0. Source: There are a few conjectures when it comes to the enigmatic construction process of the Great Pyramid of Giza. One of the oft-mentioned ones pertains to the ramp theory, which simply puts forth the scenario that the massive structure was built by raising ramps or mounds all around it. Essentially, according to this hypothesis, once the foundation was laid, makeshift ramps were constructed around the core structure to haul and position the stone blocks on top of it. As the structure gradually rose in height, the ramps were raised higher to accommodate the building blocks. The steeper the angle of an incline, the more effort necessary to move an object up that incline. So, in order for a relatively small number of men, say ten or so, to drag a two-ton load up a ramp, its angle could not be more than about eight percent. Geometry tells us that to reach a height of 480 feet, an inclined plane rising at eight percent would have to start almost one mile from its finish. It has been calculated that building a mile-long ramp that rose as high as the Great Pyramid would require as much material as that needed for the pyramid itself — workers would have had to build the equivalent of two pyramids in the twenty-year time frame. There is also an put forth by Jean-Pierre Houdin, a French architect — and it basically describes how the top two-thirds of the Great Pyramid of Giza was built by using an internal mound, while an external ramp was used for setting up the lower parts. This brings us to the hydraulic power theory which
