The only survivor of the seven wonders of the ancient world, on the edge of a city of twenty million, and about 4,500 years old.
What they are
Three pyramids and a sphinx on a limestone plateau, built over about eighty years in the 26th century BC as tombs for three pharaohs of the Fourth Dynasty.
The Great Pyramid of Khufu was 146.6 metres tall and remained the tallest structure on earth for around 3,800 years — a record no other building has come close to. It contains roughly 2.3 million blocks averaging 2.5 tonnes. The base is level to within about two centimetres across 230 metres, and it is aligned to true north to within a fraction of a degree, with tools that did not include a compass.
Khafre’s pyramid looks taller because it stands on higher ground and keeps its original limestone casing at the top. Menkaure’s is the smallest of the three.
The Sphinx is carved from a single limestone outcrop, 73 metres long, and was probably built for Khafre. Its nose was not shot off by Napoleon’s troops; it was deliberately broken centuries earlier.
They were not built by slaves. Excavated workers’ villages show a paid, fed, housed workforce of skilled labourers and seasonal farm workers, with bakeries, breweries and medical care.
Visiting
Tickets are layered: a general plateau ticket, then separate tickets to go inside each pyramid, and another for the Solar Boat museum.
Going inside the Great Pyramid means a hot, steep, crouching climb up a narrow shaft to a bare granite chamber with nothing in it. There is no decoration and no treasure. Some people find it profound; many find it an expensive twenty minutes of backache. If you have any claustrophobia, skip it — there is no turning round in the shaft when it is busy.
The panorama point to the south-west gives the classic three-pyramids-in-a-line view and is where the camel and horse handlers wait.
The hassle, and how to handle it
This is the single most common complaint about Giza and it is real. Persistent offers of camel rides, horse carts, “guides”, and photographs, with prices agreed and then disputed.
What works: a firm, friendly la shukran and no eye contact; agreeing every price explicitly in advance including whether it covers getting off the camel; entering by the main gate rather than a side entrance where someone has attached himself to you; and booking a guide in advance so you are visibly already accompanied.
Animal welfare on the plateau has been a long-running problem. Walking is entirely feasible — the site is about two kilometres end to end.
The Grand Egyptian Museum
A short distance from the plateau and the reason to give Giza a full day rather than a morning. It holds the complete Tutankhamun collection — over 5,000 objects together for the first time — along with a great deal that was in storage for decades. It is one of the largest archaeological museums in the world and it is genuinely superb.
Allow at least three hours, and go on a different half-day from the pyramids rather than trying to do both in one push.
Beyond Giza
Saqqara, 30km south, has the Step Pyramid of Djoser, which is older than Giza and was the first monumental stone building anywhere. Dahshur has the Bent Pyramid and the Red Pyramid, both walk-in and both nearly empty of visitors. A half-day covering both is the best-value archaeology in Egypt.
More Ancient Wonders
Machu Picchu
An Inca estate on a ridge between two peaks, abandoned within a century of being built and never found by the Spanish. Now ticketed by circuit, by hour, and capped.
Petra
A Nabataean trading capital carved into rose sandstone, entered through a kilometre-long crack in a cliff. Far larger than the one facade everyone photographs.
Angkor
The capital of the Khmer Empire, a thousand square kilometres of temples and hydraulic engineering in the jungle, of which Angkor Wat is one building.