Giza- Egyptian LocationLocation · Landmark"Horizon of Khufu"

Rostau: Mouth of the Passages

Giza stands on the western edge of the Nile floodplain opposite Memphis. The western horizon was where Ra descended into the Duat each evening, and all Egyptian cemeteries were built on the west bank to align the dead with the sun's journey. The necropolis was Rostau in religious texts, "mouth of the passages," the entrance to the underworld. The Coffin Texts and the Book of the Dead name it as the zone where the world of the living met the realm of Osiris.

The Great Pyramids

The three Great Pyramids were built during the Fourth Dynasty by Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure. Khufu's Great Pyramid, originally 146 meters tall, was the tallest structure in the world for nearly four millennia. Each pyramid was the center of a funerary complex with mortuary temples and causeways connecting the plateau to the Nile valley below. They were cosmic machines designed to transform the pharaoh into an akh, a glorified spirit who would join Ra in his solar barque and traverse the sky. Workers' villages discovered by archaeologists reveal that construction was carried out by organized labor forces, and that the builders themselves received burial nearby.

The Great Sphinx

Khafre's complex incorporated the Great Sphinx, carved from a natural limestone outcrop into a recumbent lion with a human head. By the New Kingdom, the Sphinx was identified with Horemakhet, "Horus in the Horizon," and received its own cult. Thutmose IV erected a stela between its paws recording that the buried Sphinx appeared to him in a dream and promised him the throne if he cleared the sand from its body.