Great Pyramid of Giza in the context of "Wonders of the Middle Ages"

The Giza pyramid complex (also called the Giza necropolis) in Egypt is home to the Great Pyramid, the pyramid of Khafre, and the pyramid of Menkaure, along with their associated pyramid complexes and the Great Sphinx. All were built during the Fourth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom of ancient Egypt, between c. 2600 – c. 2500 BC. The site also includes several temples, cemeteries, and the remains of a workers' village.

The site is at the edge of the Western Desert, approximately 9 km (5.6 mi) west of the Nile River in the city of Giza, and about 13 km (8.1 mi) southwest of the city centre of Cairo. It forms the northernmost part of the 16,000 ha (160 km; 62 sq mi) Pyramid Fields of the Memphis and its Necropolis UNESCO World Heritage Site, inscribed in 1979. The pyramid fields include the Abusir, Saqqara, and Dahshur pyramid complexes, which were all built in the vicinity of Egypt's ancient capital of Memphis. Further Old Kingdom pyramid fields were located at the sites Abu Rawash, Zawyet El Aryan, and Meidum. Most of the limestone used to build the pyramids originates from the underlying Mokattam Formation.

The Lighthouse of Alexandria, sometimes called the Pharos of Alexandria, was a lighthouse built by the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Ancient Egypt, during the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (280–247 BC). It has been estimated to have been at least 100 metres (330 ft) in overall height. One of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, for many centuries it was one of the tallest man-made structures in the world.

The lighthouse was severely damaged by three earthquakes between 956 and 1303 AD and became an abandoned ruin. It was the third-longest surviving ancient wonder, after the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus and the extant Great Pyramid of Giza, surviving in part until 1480, when the last of its remnant stones were used to build the Citadel of Qaitbay on the site.

The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, also known as the Seven Wonders of the World or simply the Seven Wonders, is a list of seven notable structures present during classical antiquity, first established in the 1572 publication Octo Mundi Miracula using a combination of historical sources.

The seven traditional wonders established by the Octo Mundi Miracula are the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Colossus of Rhodes, the Lighthouse of Alexandria, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the Temple of Artemis, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Using modern-day countries, two of the wonders were located in Greece, two in Turkey, two in Egypt, and one in Iraq. Of the seven wonders, only the Pyramid of Giza, which is also by far the oldest of the wonders, remains standing, while the others have been destroyed over the centuries. Remains exist from the Lighthouse, Temple of Artemis and the Mausoleum – either in situ or in museums. There is scholarly debate over the exact nature of the Hanging Gardens, and there is doubt as to whether they existed at all.

Giza (/ˈɡiːzə/; sometimes spelled Gizah, Gizeh, Geeza, Jiza; Arabic: الجيزة, romanized: al-Jīzah, pronounced [ald͡ʒiːzah], Egyptian Arabic: الجيزة el-Gīza [elˈgiːzæ]) is the third-largest city in Egypt by area after Cairo and Alexandria; and sixteenth-largest city in Africa by population. It is the capital of Giza Governorate with a total population of 4,458,135 as of 2023. It is located on the west bank of the Nile opposite central Cairo, and is a part of the Greater Cairo metropolis. Giza lies less than 30 kilometres (20 miles) north of Memphis (Men-nefer, today the village of Mit Rahina), which was the capital city of the unified Egyptian state during the reign of pharaoh Narmer, roughly 3100 BC.

Giza is most famous as the location of the Giza Plateau, the site of some of the most impressive ancient monuments in the world, including a complex of ancient Egyptian royal mortuary and sacred structures, among which are the Great Sphinx, the Great Pyramid of Giza, and a number of other large pyramids and temples and the Grand Egyptian Museum. Giza has always been a focal point in Egypt's history due to its location close to Memphis, the ancient pharaonic capital of the Old Kingdom.

The Egyptian pyramids are ancient masonry structures located in Egypt. Most were built as tombs for the pharaohs and their consorts during the Old and Middle Kingdom periods. At least 138 identified pyramids have been discovered in Egypt. Approximately 80 pyramids were built within the Kingdom of Kush, now located in the modern country of Sudan.

The earliest known Egyptian pyramids are at Saqqara, west of Memphis. Step-pyramid-like structures, like Mastaba 3808 attributed to pharaoh Anedjib, may predate the Pyramid of Djoser built c. 2630–2610 BCE during the Third Dynasty. This pyramid and its surrounding complex are generally considered to be the world's oldest monumental structures constructed of dressed masonry.

Khufu or Cheops was the second pharaoh of the Fourth Dynasty of Egypt, reigning during the 26th century BC in the early Old Kingdom period. Khufu succeeded his father Sneferu as king. He is generally accepted as having commissioned the Great Pyramid of Giza, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, but many other aspects of his reign are poorly documented. Khufu is also the main character noted in the Westcar Papyrus from the 13th dynasty.

The only completely preserved portrait of the king is a small ivory figurine found in a temple ruin of a later period at Abydos in 1903. All other reliefs and statues were found in fragments, and many buildings of Khufu are lost. Khufu's has a conflicting legacy: while the king enjoyed a long-lasting cultural heritage preservation during the period of the Old Kingdom and the New Kingdom, the ancient historians Manetho, Diodorus and Herodotus hand down a very negative depiction of Khufu's character. As a result, an obscure and critical picture of Khufu's personality persists.

Seked (or seqed) is an ancient Egyptian term describing the inclination of the triangular faces of a right pyramid. The system was based on the Egyptians' length measure known as the royal cubit. It was subdivided into seven palms, each of which was sub-divided into four digits.

The inclination of measured slopes was therefore expressed as the number of horizontal palms and digits relative to each royal cubit rise.

The Red Pyramid, also called the North Pyramid, is the largest of the pyramids located at the Dahshur necropolis in Cairo, Egypt. It is the third largest Egyptian pyramid, after those of Khufu and Khafre at Giza. It is believed to be Egypt's first successful attempt at constructing a "true" smooth-sided pyramid.

The pyramid is named for the rusty reddish hue of its limestone, but it was not originally red – it was clad in white Tura limestone. During the Middle Ages, much of the cladding was taken for buildings in Cairo, exposing the red limestone. Only a few white blocks remain, at the pyramid's base.

The 3rd millennium BC spanned the years 3000 to 2001 BC. This period of time corresponds to the Early to Middle Bronze Age, characterized by the early empires in the Ancient Near East. In Ancient Egypt, the Early Dynastic Period is followed by the Old Kingdom. In Mesopotamia, the Early Dynastic Period is followed by the Akkadian Empire. In what is now Northwest India and Pakistan, the Indus Valley Civilization developed a state society.

World population growth relaxed after the burst due to the Neolithic Revolution.World population was largely stable, at roughly 60 million, with a slow overall growth rate at roughly 0.03% p.a.

Charles Piazzi Smyth FRSE FRS FRAS FRSSA (3 January 1819 – 21 February 1900) was a British astronomer who was Astronomer Royal for Scotland from 1846 to 1888; he is known for many innovations in astronomy and, along with his wife Jessica Duncan Piazzi Smyth, his pyramidological and metrological studies of the Great Pyramid of Giza.

This list of tallest church buildings ranks church buildings by height. From the Middle Ages until the advent of the skyscraper, Christian church buildings were often the world's tallest buildings. From 1311, when the spire of Lincoln Cathedral surpassed the height of the Great Pyramid of Giza, until the Washington Monument was completed in 1884, a succession of church buildings held this title.

• The tallest church building in the world is the Sagrada Família in Barcelona, which surpassed Ulm Minster (161.53 m) on 30 October 2025 when its central tower reached 162.91 m. The tower is intended to reach 172 m when completed, expected in 2026.
• The tallest church building in the world until 2025 was the Ulm Minster (161.53 m), the main Lutheran congregation in Ulm, Germany.
• The tallest domed church building, and the tallest Catholic church until surpassed by Sagrada Família, is the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace (158 m) in Yamoussoukro, Ivory Coast.
• The tallest cathedral as well as the tallest church building with two steeples is Cologne Cathedral (157.22 m) in Cologne, Germany.
• The tallest domed cathedral as well as the tallest Eastern Orthodox is People's Salvation Cathedral (132 m) in Bucharest, Romania.
• The tallest brickwork church building is St Martin's Church (130.6 m) in Landshut, Germany.
• The tallest brickwork church building with two steeples is St Mary's Church (125 m) in Lübeck, Germany.
• The tallest wooden church building is Săpânța-Peri Monastery church (78 m) in Săpânța, Romania.
• The tallest church building in the Americas is the Cathedral of Maringá (124 m) in Maringá, Brazil.

The cities with the most churches surpassing 99 metres (325 feet) are Hamburg (5 of the 29 tallest churches, with 5 towers overall), Lübeck (4 of the 56 tallest churches, two of which with twin towers → 6 towers overall), Vienna (2), Tallinn (2), St. Petersburg (2), New York City (2), Dortmund (2) and Stralsund (2).

The Battle of the Pyramids (French: Bataille des Pyramides), also known as the Battle of Embabeh (bataille d'Embabech), was fought on 21 July 1798 during the French invasion of Egypt, near the village of Imbaba, across the Nile from Cairo and was named by Napoleon Bonaparte after the distant Great Pyramid of Giza.

After capturing Alexandria and advancing toward Cairo, Napoleon’s army confronted Murad Bey’s Mamluk-led forces. The French deployed into large divisional squares that withstood repeated cavalry charges before storming the fortified village of Embabeh. French losses were reported at about 300, while estimates for Mamluk–Ottoman casualties vary widely, from several thousand to as many as 10,000. The defeat shattered Murad’s field army, forcing him to retreat to Upper Egypt.

The Khufu Statuette or the Ivory figurine of Khufu is an ancient Egyptian statue. Historically and archaeologically significant, it was found in 1903 by Sir William Petrie during excavation of Kom el-Sultan in Abydos, Egypt. It depicts Khufu, a King of the Fourth dynasty (Old Kingdom, c. 2613 to 2494 BC), and the builder of the Great Pyramid of Giza, though it may have been carved much later, in the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty, 664 BC–525 BC.

This small seated figure is the only known three dimensional depiction of Khufu which survives largely intact, though there are also several statue fragments. Most Egyptologists consider the statue contemporary with Khufu very likely from his reign. However, because of the unusual provenance, its dating has been repeatedly questioned. The Egyptologist Zahi Hawass doubts that the statuette dates to the Old Kingdom at all. His argument that the statuette belongs to the 26th Dynasty has not received much credence, but has not yet been refuted. The ritual purpose of the statuette is also unclear. If it was contemporary with Khufu, it was either part of the traditional statue cult or mortuary cult. If the figurine is from a later period, it probably served (as claimed by Hawass) as a votive offering. The statuette's artist is unknown.