Page:General History of Europe 1921.djvu/36

 1 6 General History of Europe 22. The Great Pyramids. About the year 3000 B.C. tombs began to be built in the form of a pyramid, and about 2900 B.C. the king's architect was able to construct the amazing Great Pyramid of Gizeh, near the ancient Egyptian capital of Memphis. The royal city, with its villas and gardens and the offices of gov- ernment, has quite vanished, for the structures made of sun- baked brick and wood have long ago crumbled to dust, but EARLIEST REPRESENTATION OF A SEAGOING SHIP (TWENTY-EIGHTH CENTURY B.C.) the Great Pyramid and a long line of lesser ones built by later kings still bear witness to the surprising skill of the Nile-dwellers five thousand years ago. Already they had advanced in their civilization far beyond that of the lake-dwellers of the Late Stone Age whom we left behind in Europe. 23. Vast Size of the Great Pyramid. The Great Pyramid covers thirteen acres. It is a solid mass of masonry containing two million three hundred thousand blocks of limestone, each weighing on an average two and a half tons ; that is, each block is as heavy as a large wagonload of coal. The sides of the pyra- mid at the base are seven hundred and fifty-five feet long, and the building was originally nearly five hundred feet high. An ancient story tells us that a hundred thousand men were working on this royal tomb for twenty years. We perceive at once that it must have required a very skillful ruler and a great body of officials to manage and to feed a hundred thousand workmen around the Great Pyramid. The king who