Guided Day Tour See What's Inside The Menkaure's Pyramid

Starts with pickup from your hotel in either Cairo or Giza By Tour guide and transfer to Giza Pyramids to Start your half day tour visiting Giza Pyramids Where you Visit the Great Pyramids - Cheops, Chephren & Mykerinos The Giza pyramid complex consists of the Great Pyramid (also known as the Pyramid of Cheops or Khufu and constructed c. 2580 – c. 2560 BC), the somewhat smaller Pyramid of Khafre (or Chephren) a few hundred metres to the south-west, and the relatively modest-sized Pyramid of Menkaure (or Mykerinos) a few hundred metres farther south-west.

Khufu's pyramid complex consists of a valley temple, now buried beneath the village of Nazlet el-Samman; diabase paving and nummulitic limestone walls have been found but the site has not been excavated. The valley temple was connected to a causeway which was largely destroyed when the village was constructed.

Khafre's pyramid complex consists of a valley temple, the Sphinx temple, a causeway, a mortuary temple and the king's pyramid. The valley temple yielded several statues of Khafre. Several were found in a well in the floor of the temple by Mariette in 1860.

Menkaure (Mykerinos to the ancient Greeks; c.2532–2503 BC) is the builder of the third of the three large Giza Pyramids. He was most likely the son of Khafre (Khefren), and grandson of Khufu (Cheops). With a base area that is less than a quarter of their pyramids’, and with an original height of 65 meters, Menkaure’s is by far the smallest of the three. This reduction in size is due to several factors, including the limited amount of space left on the Giza Plateau. The material used for the outer casing of Menkaure’s pyramid is another. Whereas his predecessors had used limestone for this purpose, Menkaure employed granite, which was quarried in Aswan, over 800 km away. In addition to the logistics involved in transportation of the granite blocks, the material itself is much harder than limestone. However, only the bottom quarter of the casing stones are made of granite however, the rest being limestone.

Colossal statues are one of the hallmarks of ancient Egyptian civilization, and the Great Sphinx of Giza is the most famous. It was carved directly out of the bedrock during the 4th Dynasty (c.2613–2494 BC), which also makes it the oldest. Ancient Egyptian sphinxes represented the king with the body of a lion, in a clear demonstration of his power.

The evidence points to the Great Sphinx having been carved during the reign of Khafre (Khefren to the ancient Greeks; c.2558–2532 BC), the builder of the second of the Giza pyramids. The Great Sphinx and the temple in front of it, called the Sphinx Temple, lie directly next to Khafre’s valley temple and the lower portion of the causeway leading up to his mortuary temple and pyramid. Careful archaeological analysis has revealed that the valley temple was finished before work was begun on the Great Sphinx and its temple.

After the tour is finished you will be transferred back to your Hotel.