Giza Pyramid Complex

The Giza plateau holds the pyramids of Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure, built across roughly eighty years in the Fourth Dynasty. Khufu's is the largest stone building ever raised — 2.3 million blocks, originally 146.6 metres, still 138 metres after the loss of its casing. Khafre's looks taller because it sits on higher bedrock and keeps a cap of the original polished Tura limestone. Menkaure's is a third of the size, granite-clad at the base and never finished.

Around them lie the queens' pyramids, the mastaba cemeteries of the officials, the boat pits that held Khufu's dismantled cedar barques, and the causeways connecting each pyramid to its valley temple on the edge of the floodplain.

Built between roughly 2600 and 2500 BC. The workforce was not enslaved — excavations of the workers' village south of the plateau found bakeries, breweries, medical care and burials with grave goods, indicating a paid, rotating labour force of about 20,000 organised into named gangs. Herodotus visited around 450 BC and was already 2,000 years too late to get an accurate account.