Humanities 101.01 Ancient & Medieval Worlds

Upon our class visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art on March 11, 2001 we started with the Egyptian exhibit. We were initially taken in one of the monument, which was completely enclosed and had carvings and paintings on its interior walls of figures in motion. The walls of the monument were approximately 15 feet high and were constructed of sandstone. The visitor's area to view this monument was very limited. We proceeded to thoroughly view the Egyptian exhibit. The exhibit primarily consisted of beautifully created sarcophaguses. The sarcophaguses included physical features of the persons who were buried in them. They had features of the persons face, torsos, and feet. They were decorated from head to toe with painted figures, colors, headdresses, precious gems and writings. At the end of the exhibit we journeyed into a very large room that housed only one item for exhibit. It was the Temple of Dendur. I was very interested and impressed with its construction. I!

began to wonder, how does one construct this type of structure. Construction in general interests me because I work with ma

One of the most interesting features I discovered about the Pyramid was that is was covered in casing stones, 144,000 in all. They were so brilliant that they could literally be seen from the monument of Israel hundreds of miles away. On bright mornings and later afternoons, sunlight reflected by the vast mirrored surface of the 5 acres could be seen from the moon (Egypt World 1998). The people of the area had viewed the Pyramid and its polished stones in awe for centuries until a 13th century earthquake loosened some of the casing stones and the Arabs stole the stones and used them to finish off their palaces and mosques.

"Aufstand gegen den Tod". 26p. in: Der Spiegel 52/1995, 1/1996, 2/1996.

Albert Siliotti: Pyramiden - Pharaonengraber des Alten und Mittleren Reiches. 173p. Erlangen, 1998

Watterson, Barabra. The Egyptians. Cambridge: Blackwell, 1997.

The pyramid is the most comprehensively surveyed in the world, but even then estimates of its size and weight vary (Stierlin, H. 1995). It is generally believed that the pyramid contains 2,500,000 limestone blocks, quarried from around the base of the pyramid. The foundations of the pyramid are ball and socket technique capable of dealing with heat expansion and earthquakes, much like our bridges of today. The average weight of each block is about 2.6 tons, giving a total mass of an estimated 6,300,000 tons. The base of the pyramid covers 13.6 acres. Each side is greater than 5 acres. The outer mantle was composed of 140,000 casing stones. All of the casing stones were highly polished and flat to an accuracy of 1/100th of an inch, about 100 inches thick and weighing about 15 tons each with nearly perfect right angles for all six sides. These casing stones, weighing as much as 20 tons, were placed with an accuracy of 5/1000ths of an inch, and an intentional gap of about!

Kemp, Barry J. Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of A Civilization. New York: Routledge, 1989.

Robert Bauval: Das Geheimnis des Orion. 384p. Munich, 1996

th line that is just 3 minutes from being perfect. Our modern best effort, the Paris Observatory, is six minutes of a degree of true north (Egypt World 1998). Each year the North Star shines further down the descending passage at the entrance to the pyramids interior. It will illuminate that entrance to the "Well Shaft". The pyramid inch equals 1.001081 American Inches. The Kings chamber is (NS) 10.46m by (EW) 5.23m, and is 5.81m high. The walls are lined with smooth black granite that was quarried from Aswan 500 miles south of Giza. Each of these blocks weighs about 30 tons, and

Some common words found in the essay are:
Egypt World, Inches Kings, Temple Dendur, Art March, Giza Plateau, Pyramid Giza, North Star, Center World, Sandermann Das, Tubinger Einfuhrung, casing stones, egypt world 1998, pyramid giza, egypt world, world 1998, stierlin 1995, tompkins 1971, egyptians construction, chemical composition, egyptian exhibit, pyramid shape,
Approximate Word count = 1744
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)