Herodotus among others has said that Egypt is the gift of the Nile. And the pyramids are the gifts of early Egyptian civilization (constructed by the pharaohs of the 3rd, 4th, and fifth dynasties) to the world. The ancient Egyptians, who built these royal tombs, were accurate astronomers. The Pyramids of Giza, for example, were built so as to be aligned with true north. Lacking modern instruments, their builders apparently used two stars, Thuban and Draconis, in the Big Dipper, for their alignment, with a point equidistant from them to mark their approximation of true north. Only centuries later was the North Star identified as such. The pyramids and Sphinx were built with Egyptian labor and without more than rudimentary machinery. They underline the engineering expertise of this ancient people.

The Pyramid of Khephren at Giza is almost of the same dimensions as that of the Great Pyramid, that of Cheops–father of Khephren. All in all, there are about 80 pyramids on the banks of the Nile, on the edge of the desert. These are the tombs of the families who made up the Egyptian governing classes at various times in Egyptian history. Pyramid building went through various stages of development, from a step structure at Saqqara to a type of rounded pinnacle at Dahshur, until it reached its zenith in the Pyramids of Giza.

That peace would come so the wonders of Egypt could once again beexplored in safety.