Jody Victor : The Great Pyramid of Giza is the oldest and largest of the three pyramids in the Giza Necropolis bordering what is now Cairo, Egypt in Africa, and is the only remaining member of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It is believed to have been built as a tomb for Fourth dynasty Egyptian pharaoh Khufu and constructed over a 20 year period concluding around 2560 BC. The tallest man-made structure in the world for over 3,800 years, it is sometimes called Khufu's Pyramid or the Pyramid of Khufu.
The Great Pyramid of Giza is the main part of a complex setting of buildings that included two mortuary temples in honor of Khufu (one close to the pyramid and one near the Nile), three smaller pyramids for Khufu's wives, and even smaller "satelite" pyramid, a raised causeway connecting the two temples, and small mastaba tombs surrounding the pyramid for nobles. One of the small pyramids contains the tomb of queen Hetepheres (discoverd in 1925), sister and wife of Sneferu and the mother of Khufu. There was a town for the workers of Giza, including a cemetery, bakeries, a beer factory and a copper smelting complex. More buildings and complexes are being discovered by The Giza Mapping Project.
The pyramid was constructed of cut and dressed blocks of limestone, basalt or granite. The core was made mainly of rough blocks of low quality limestone taken from a quarry at the south of Khufu's Great Pyramid. These blocks weighed from two to four tons on average, with the heaviest used at the base of the pyramid. An estimated 2.4 million blocks were used in the construction. High quality limestone was used for the outer casing, with some of the blocks weighing up to 15 tons. This limestone came from Tura, about 14 km away on the other side of the Nile. Granite quarried nearly 800 km away in Aswan with blocks weighing as much as 60-80 tons, was used for the King's Chamber and relieving chambers.
At completion, the Great Pyramid was surfaced by white 'casing stones' - slant-faced, but flat-topped, blocks of highly polished white limestone. These caused the monument to shine brightly in the sun, making it visible from a considerable distance. Visibly all that remains is the underlying step-pyramid core structure seen today, but several of the casing stones can still be found around the base. The casing stones of the Great Pyramid and Khafre's Pyramid (constructed directly beside it) were cut to such optical precision as to be off true plane over their entire surface area by only 0.5 mm. They were fitted together so perfectly that the tip of a knife cannot be inserted between the joints even to this day.