Original subtitles

[narrator] in ancient egypt a legendary pharaoh

Is running out of time to complete his pyramid.

What we're seeing is just the core.

[narrator] now egyptologists have made a discovery

That exposes how he finished it.

It tells us the untold stories.

[narrator] and the incredible life of one worker.

[woman] this was an elite job.

This is something that they were proud of.

[narrator] what happens when a king dies?

What secrets does a mysterious mummy hide?

At the heart of the great pyramid

We have to go up at a crawl.

[narrator] is an ambitious pharaoh

Who will transform egypt.

[uplifting music]

The story of the pyramids is one of innovation.

It was a resurrection machine.

[narrator] mysterious rituals.

[salima ikram] these are things that help the deceased

Re-energize and live for eternity.

[narrator] back breaking work and palace intrigue.

Unlock the deepest secrets of the pharaohs.

[franck ruhli] every mummy is different,

You never know exactly what to expect!

[narrator] explore the lives of ancient workers

And uncover the remarkable story of egypt's old kingdom.

Not only did ancient egypt make the pyramids,

The pyramids made ancient egypt.

[suspenseful music]

[narrator] in ancient egypt

Builders are hard at work

Constructing the largest pyramid on the planet

For their pharaoh khufu,

The great pyramid.

To achieve his dream, khufu has formed

A professional workforce

Bolstered by conscripted citizens

And built a vast city to support them.

But the pharaoh's ambition could be his downfall.

The pyramid is a giant tomb

Designed to transport him to the afterlife.

If the immense project is not completed when he dies,

He can't guarantee that his successor

Will finish it for him,

And his dreams of immortality could be dashed.

So how will khufu complete his pyramid,

And what will happen when he dies?

[suspenseful music]

Archeologist mark lehner has spend decades

Hunting for clues about khufu's intentions for his monument.

[lehner] khufu's builders would never have imagined

That we would see the pyramid the way we see it today,

Because what we're seeing is just the core.

It looks fairly regular from a distance.

But when you come up close, the stones are not well cut.

They don't join well together.

It's just the mass.

[suspenseful music]

[narrator] the great pyramid,

As we see it today, is incomplete.

To build the monument as fast as possible,

Khufu uses some 2.3 million

Blocks of roughly cut limestone for the core.

But at the base of the pyramid

Mark has spotted evidence that the pharaoh's master plan

Was much more ambitious.

Clues that expose the craftsmanship of the builders.

[lehner] here we have an idea of what khufu's pyramid

Must have looked like when it was brand new.

It was covered with polished white limestone casing.

And here's where khufu's masons

Did their stonework with finesse to perfection.

Not only are they making casing with 17-ton blocks,

But they're putting the blocks together

Like here in the pavement slab

With joints so fine

That you can't get a razor blade in between.

And they've made that fine join

All the way back as long as a meter, a meter 20.

It's just astounding what they accomplished here.

[narrator] khufu wanted his pyramid to have a seamless,

White outer casing for a very special reason.

To understand, we need to see the finished great pyramid

As the egyptians did, by traveling four

And a half thousand years back in time.

[melinda hartwig] when the pyramid was completed,

You have to imagine that it was gleaming white.

This fine, fine white limestone that made up the casing,

That made it smooth.

It would have gleamed under the sun.

It would have sparkled for miles.

[narrator] the glittering white pyramid

Reflected the light of the sun god ra,

Acting as a beacon between the earthly world

And the afterlife.

[lehner] it was a dazzling place at that time,

A very magical spiritual place,

Almost merging with the with the other world,

The celestial world of the sun and the stars.

[narrator] khufu needed his pyramid to be perfect

In every way,

Linking him directly to the gods he wished to join.

[flora anthony] a pyramid, essentially,

Is a regeneration machine for the king.

The king goes in as a mummy, as a dead body.

And through the pyramidal structure,

He is then reborn into the afterlife.

Khufu believes after he dies

That he would resurrect and join the gods forever.

[narrator] so for khufu, the gleaming outer casing

Of the pyramid, hiding the rough inner core

Was a crucial part of his machine.

[suspenseful music]

Today, the blocks of white limestone,

Polished by the builders, have all but vanished.

Just a small section remains.

[lehner] the robbing started in the pharaonic period,

But especially in the middle ages,

We know the stones were destroyed

For the manufacture of lime mortar.

[narrator] but these white stones

Have an important story to tell

About the final step in khufu's ambitious project.

Its special rock called tura limestone.

Because it comes from quarries at a place called tura

On the other side of the nile.

Khufu's father used stone from the tura quarries

To encase his bent pyramid.

The bent pyramid still has almost 70% of its outer casing

Making it the best example of what the covering of

Khufu's great pyramid once looked like.

But khufu's pyramid is far bigger.

It was the largest construction site ever

At that time for a building.

[upbeat music]

[narrator] to finish the monument,

Builders will need to haul some 70,000 casing blocks

Weighing an average of 2.5 tons each

From 10 miles away.

So how did the egyptians transport

These precious limestone blocks to finish off the pyramid?

[suspenseful music]

Now, archeologists have unearthed

Astonishing evidence that may answer that question.

The discovery was made 150 miles from the pyramid

At wadi el jarf on the red sea coast.

In 2013, egyptologist pierre tallet

And his team found 31 caverns dug into the hillside.

Hieroglyphs on the walls

Show that they date to the time of pyramid building.

Three years of research later,

They made the discovery of the century.

[interpreter] it was in a pit,

At the entrance of one of the caverns,

That we discovered more than a thousand papyrus fragments.

[narrator] pierre had uncovered the oldest

Papyrus manuscript ever found in egypt,

Protected from the elements for four and a half

Thousand years underneath a large stone block.

[interpreter] a discovery like that,

I think you only make once in your lifetime.

It was magnificent,

We could never have dreamed of finding such

A complete document.

[narrator] now pierre has deciphered the hieroglyphs

And discovered something remarkable,

It was written by someone working directly

On khufu's pyramid.

The discovery was absolutely earth shattering

Because for the first time, we have a ledger,

A record from the reign of khufu that talks about

The resources and the moving of resources

For the great pyramid.

[narrator] this discovery is about to re-write history.

[gentle music]

In egypt archeologists have unearthed

An incredible ancient document.

[megahed] this discovery changes our understanding

Of the great pyramid and how it was built,

Because it's an official document

And it tells us the untold stories

About how the pyramid was built.

[narrator] the papyrus was written some 4,500 years ago

During the reign of the pharaoh khufu.

[suspenseful music]

Its author is a man called merer.

He leads a team known as a phyle

Loading limestone blocks at the port of the tura quarries.

These are the high-quality white blocks

That will encase the great pyramid.

They are the crucial final part of the monuments

Construction that will complete khufu's tomb.

[suspenseful music]

[hartwig] the merer papyrus is great

Because it unpacks what this phyle,

What men under merer's supervision would do.

[anthony] it's one of those moments where you get a glimpse

Into history by somebody

Who is actually participating

In one of the largest building projects

Ever from the ancient world.

[narrator] merer keeps a meticulous logbook

Of his daily work

As his crew load the blocks and ship them across the nile.

But where exactly are they taking them?

[suspenseful music]

Today the great pyramid sits high and dry,

Five miles from the nile.

[lehner] what has long been debated

Is whether the nile was actually on the west

In the old kingdom.

What seems clear to me

Is that at least one branch of the nile was very close,

Maybe as close as for three or 400 meters.

[narrator] the theory about the nile once being closer

Is supported by drilling samples.

The river provided the perfect route for merer

To get near giza with his precious load.

Even so, the job must have required

Tremendous organization

[pierre speaking in foreign language]

[interpreter] merer is a low-ranking civil servant

Who leads a team of about 40 men.

[suspenseful music]

His team make regular boat trips

To transport loads of limestone blocks

From the tura quarries where they are extracted,

To the construction site of khufu's pyramid.

[pierre speaking in foreign language]

[narrator] according to merer's logbook,

He spends an average of two days loading

The 75 tons of stones that his boat can carry.

[upbeat music]

Every 10 days, he makes at least two rotations

Between the quarries and the pyramid site.

In total, 170,000 tons of limestone

Needed to be transported to cover the tomb of khufu,

Requiring many teams like merer's.

[interpreter] the gigantic size of these monuments

Is not due to the gigantic size of the workforce,

But to the repetition and tenacity of the workers.

Their jobs are carried out according to plans

That are perfectly executed.

Day after day, merer reports what he did during the day

And where he sleeps at night.

So it's actually a very detailed record

Of information using almost military precision.

[narrator] while deciphering the papyrus,

Pierre discovers that this information

Is intended for merer's superiors.

Merer needs to account for his time.

[pierre speaking in foreign language]

[interpreter] these logbooks expose the control

By the monarchy over the working time of these teams.

They are at the service of the king 24 hours a day

And for the whole year.

[hartwig] it just gives us a window into

The incredible bureaucracy that was used

To create the pyramids.

In fact, merer was accounting for his time in half days,

Which is quite interesting.

I mean, they really literally down to the minute.

[colleen darnell] more than anything,

The merer papyrus shows us

How carefully the ancient egyptians kept accounts

Of everything they did.

And that tells us a lot about why egypt was so successful.

They kept records. They kept track of everything.

And if you're keeping track of everything,

Then it's a little harder for a corrupt official

To skim off the top.

[upbeat music]

[narrator] it's a precise system.

Merer can't afford any delays,

Otherwise work on the pyramid could grind to a halt.

Thanks to efficient organization

And rigorous control of thousands of workers,

Khufu sets up an unprecedented production line

To try to complete his immense tomb before his death.

But the pharaoh also knows he must reward his men

To ensure their motivation.

[pierre speaking in foreign language]

[interpreter] we found a very beautiful accounting papyrus

Where we have records of grains; flour,

Barley, dates, which are used to pay the workers.

[narrator] merer records the payments

In red and black ink.

In a red column merer lists the payment that is delayed!

[pierre speaking in foreign language]

[interpreter] it's clear that the royal administration

Never provides everything that's owed to the workers.

There are salary delays.

[narrator] merer doesn't record how he, or his team,

Feel about the delays in their pay.

But thanks to his newly unearthed logbooks,

Archeologists are closer than ever

To understanding the day to day life of pyramid workers.

They've even found jars near the papyrus

Tagged with what could be merer's team name,

Khufu's escorts.

It gives us this interesting snapshot

From late in the reign of khufu.

Merer dates to about year 26 or 27 of khufu.

So merer is probably

Seeing the final

Work on the great pyramid.

[narrator] merer and his fellow escorts

Know the pyramid is almost complete.

But they also know that khufu is getting older.

And there are some things they can't control.

Moving large blocks of stone

Would not have been possible over long distances

Were it not for the nile.

That said, the nile is not perfect.

During the high flood or the low nile,

It would have been difficult for large ships

To sail up and down the river.

[narrator] for khufu, any delay could be fatal.

[suspenseful music]

Ancient boatman merer is shipping in high-quality

Limestone blocks to complete the great pyramid.

To keep work on schedule

He needs to drop them off close to the building site.

But the nile's level fluctuates during the year

Making it impossible to get close enough during some months.

So typically, khufu engineers a solution

One that will transform this landscape.

[lehner] when khufu came to build his pyramid up on the plateau,

The only place for him and his workforce

To bring stone in and up to the plateau

Was in this area.

And so we think

That khufu created a loading bay.

[upbeat music]

[narrator] first, they build a dam next to the river

And then dig a canal to divert water

From the river to a gigantic artificial basin.

Then they open the sluices to allow boats

Like merer's to dock a few hundred feet

From the construction site.

[hartwig] the egyptians were brilliant

At being able to work with canals and dikes,

And create an area where they knew

That always they would have a certain level of water

During a particular period of time.

[megahed] those projects were very important

Because through them they could transport

All the necessary materials

For building the pyramid.

[uplifting music]

[narrator] thanks to the work of archeologists,

We can now visualize khufu's pyramid harbor.

[suspense music]

The artificial dock where merer delivers his cargo

Of limestone blocks

Sits next to a vast city that khufu built

To house his workforce.

Two vital pieces of infrastructure,

Which are key to pyramid building.

[colleen darnell] the papyri of merer

Really prove that you could go from the tura quarries,

To the building site of the pyramid itself

Without having to leave the water.

Because that is going to cost less money,

Fewer men, fewer resources, and enable the egyptians

To build the pyramid much more quickly.

[suspense music]

[narrator] merer's logbooks remain

The greatest discovery of the 21st century

For understanding the lives of individual pyramid builders.

[hartwig] it's really clear that by working with these boats

That this was an elite job.

This is something that they were proud of.

This is not just common labor.

This is something that probably some of these men aspire to.

[narrator] but merer and his team

Are just one cog in a much larger pyramid building machine.

[colleen darnell] you have the people who have to move the stones.

You have the people who have to quarry the stones.

And then you have to have the massive agricultural base

To feed and clothe

And house

All of the people engaged in these activities.

[narrator] khufu was operating a huge industrial network.

From the nile delta he sources food for his builders.

From aswan, he brings granite for his burial chamber.

From the sinai shipments of copper.

Cedar wood is imported from what is now lebanon.

These networks, as well as

The internal colonization of egypt,

Whole new farms and ranches and plantations

For feeding the workforce that was here

In the lost city of the pyramids.

All of these networks,

All of this national infrastructure

Became more important than the reason for which

It was created.

Building these gigantic pyramids.

[narrator] some 25 years after laying the foundations

And thanks to the mobilization of all his people,

Khufu can finally admire his life's work,

The largest egyptian pyramid that will ever exist.

It would have been amazing to see the sun shine down

And for that light to be reflecting back to the viewer.

You have to understand that the pyramid

Was a resurrection machine.

And to the pharaoh, it symbolized the mound of creation

From which the sun rose.

And this particular form was equated

With the sun god ra.

And so therefore, the symbolic form

Came to mean the transcendence of the king's body,

As well as the eternal celebration of the king's cult.

[narrator] but the finished pyramid

Is just one part of the resurrection process.

If the king is to be successfully transported

To the afterlife, he'll need to undergo

A series of important rituals when he dies.

[suspenseful music]

Around 2,483 bc

The great pyramid of giza is complete

And the time has come to put it to use.

Khufu, the most ambitious pharaoh of egypt dies,

Aged in his 50s or 60s.

He is about to find out if the resurrection machine

He's built really works.

Two of his 14 children are at his side.

Djedefre the next in line to the throne,

But also khafre who will eventually reign over egypt too.

The pharaoh's remains will rest for two days,

Before a process known by the egyptians

Since the dawn of time, mummification.

The idea of mummification began in egypt long time ago

Before the pyramids were built.

[gentle music]

[peter der manuelian] he would be buried far from the nile,

Far from the flood plain.

Out in the desert, everything is dry, natural desiccation.

[suspenseful music]

[narrator] inspired by the natural preservation

Of bodies in the desert,

The egyptians developed mummification.

The ritual lasts 70 days.

To accompany the ceremony,

Embalmers recite prayers and instructions

That guide the process.

A series of rites that must be carried out to perfection

Because if the body is not well preserved,

Khufu will not be able to resurrect.

The egyptians have something called the ba,

Which is your soul.

It can be envisaged as a ba bird with a human head.

It's the soul that can cross the boundary

Of this world and the next.

And there's something called a ka.

It's a type of double of the person.

[narrator] ra will escort the pharaoh's ba soul

Towards the setting sun.

There, it will join the other world

And start a journey that will lead khufu to eternal life.

To prevent the body from decomposing from the inside,

All organs except the heart must be removed.

Using a long bronze hook,

The master embalmer begins to remove the brain.

[john darnell] the brain could be removed in a number of ways.

One popular way is to break the nasal septum,

Put a little hooked metal thing in there

And sort of turn the brains into scrambled eggs

And let them come out the nose in little gooey chunks.

[narrator] he pulls the brain through the nose

And throws it away.

For ancient egyptians,

The brain was not important at all

Because the place of knowledge, feeling,

Wisdom was the heart.

[suspenseful music]

[narrator] the embalmer makes an incision

To remove the organs; the lungs, stomach,

Intestines and liver.

The operation is carried out with extreme care,

If the heart is accidentally cut free

It is sometimes stitched back into place.

The heart was all the time remaining inside the body.

[anthony] when the internal organs are removed,

They're placed into these four jars

Called canopic jars,

And their heads are different animals.

[suspenseful music]

[narrator] when khufu comes back to life,

He will be able to retrieve his vital organs.

The embalmers then dehydrate the pharaoh's remains

Using natron, a salt that will dry the body for 40 days.

In the last step of the mummification ritual,

They cover the king's body with strips of linen

Dipped in a mixture of resins, oils and honey.

[john darnell] and part of the wrapping process would also include,

As we know from later mummies,

The inclusion of a number of amulets in the wrapping.

So, the wrapping of the mummy is a ritual of its own.

[narrator] the amulets are magical

And will help the king overcome challenges

On his journey to the afterlife.

This process will last 15 days

And may require up to 4,000 square feet of linen.

Over centuries, the knowledge of egyptian embalmers grew,

And mummification techniques evolved.

[suspenseful music]

The institute of evolutionary medicine in zurich

Is one of the world's most advanced research centers

For the study of mummification.

At this facility franck ruhli

Analyzes egyptian mummies

To discover how ancient embalmers

Tried to make the deceased immortal.

[ruhli] we are looking for the way it was mummified,

We are looking for individual data,

Which help us to write the biography of the person

Like sex, age, but also the diseases,

The degree of preservation.

It's very nicely wrapped.

It's the typical kind of wrapping,

Like with the head and the feet being so prominent.

So, it's probably about roughly 2,000 years old.

[narrator] the researchers will perform a series

Of scans and examinations.

Their objective is to understand

The specific technique used by the embalmers.

The first mystery to solve,

Is who is hiding under all these layers of linen?

[ruhli] every mummy is different, it's like every time

Opening a christmas gift, you don't know what to expect.

It looks like a rather a young individual.

A young adult.

[ruhli] a young adult and probably female based on the pelvis.

Here we have the hands in front of the pelvis.

And this is a very dense material.

So, it's probably a ring.

So, it's most likely a jewelry, a ring.

[narrator] as the practice of mummification progressed,

More people could afford the process.

[ruhli] in the old kingdom, the time of the pyramid builders,

It was more of an elite way of treating bodies,

Whereas later it was more for democratization.

So more and more people actually were able

To be at least partially mummified.

[narrator] as mummification became more widespread

It drove the emergence of more sophisticated techniques.

Notably in the products used for preservation.

[suspenseful music]

They often use bitumen and they have resins,

Conifer resins for example,

Beeswax and they have multiple components,

Up to several thousand components

That changed over time

And that probably changed also between different tissue types.

More in the later periods like the new kingdom,

End of the new kingdom, they actually put the material

Under the skin to give it

A bit more of a lifelike appearance.

[narrator] this woman was mummified some 2,500 years

After the pharaoh khufu.

It's proof of just how important

The ancient egyptians believed mummification to be.

After 70 days, khufu's mummification ritual is complete

And he is placed in a cedar wood sarcophagus.

He will soon be taken to his gigantic tomb

To be reborn in the afterlife.

[man speaking in foreign language]

[narrator] but first, the priest calls the ka of the pharaoh,

The part of the soul that stays in his mummy to prayer.

A final blessing, which the egyptians call

The opening of the mouth ceremony.

[man speaking in foreign language]

[narrator] the priest touches the eyes, mouth, nose,

And ears of khufu painted onto the coffin.

[anthony] and this causes the senses of the mummy

To return in the afterlife so that they're able to see

And eat and drink and hear.

[narrator] once this ritual is over,

Khufu can be brought to his final resting place.

[john darnell] khufu's body wouldn't just be dried

And then stuck into the pyramid and locked up.

But the entire process is this long

Event over several weeks,

A ritual process where the pyramid is really functioning.

It's the machine that's being started

To propel the ruler into the afterlife.

[suspenseful music]

[narrator] according to ancient beliefs,

The body of the pharaoh must remain intact

In order to resurrect.

So khufu will need to protect his body from looters.

Clues to how he did this lie inside

The last secrets of the great pyramid.

[suspenseful music]

At egypt's great pyramid,

Egyptologists mark lehner is investigating

How khufu's mummified body

Was hauled into position and protected.

He gets access through a tunnel carved by robbers.

The story is that the tunnel

Was forced by

People who wanted to get into the pyramid

In 800 and something a.D.,

And that they turned here maybe hearing something

That led them to think the passage system was here.

[narrator] when khufu was buried here,

Priests had to first haul his sarcophagus down

An 80-foot tunnel

To reach what we now call the ascending corridor.

[lehner] the ascending passage goes up into the pyramid

At about 26 degrees for 38 meters,

Only 1.2 meters high

And 1.05 meters wide.

So, we have to go up at a crawl.

Can you imagine the king's funeral coming up

Such a narrow tube like this.

[narrator] after hoisting the sarcophagus 125 feet,

They arrive in the grand gallery.

[lehner] you are in the grand gallery

One of the real marvels

Of the ancient engineering architectural world.

It's not only 24 feet high,

But it's angled up at 26 degrees.

Still, the same slope as the ascending passage.

Some egyptologists think that

Khufu's engineers stored granite plugging blocks

In this channel.

And then when they wanted to close

The pyramid from above,

Men released break logs

That held the plugging blocks back,

And the plug blocks slid down the channel

Right into the ascending passage.

There's only one problem,

If khufu's workers plugged the ascending passage

From inside, from up in the grand gallery,

How did they get out?

[suspenseful music]

Well, there is their escape route.

There's a shaft that goes down to what's called

The grotto at ground level.

And then another shaft that goes down

To the descending passage

And then on out to the outside of the pyramid.

[narrator] to reach the king's final resting place

Workers need to haul the sarcophagus

Another 150 feet up the grand gallery

Towards an ante chamber

Where there is another defense system.

They put in place portcullis slabs,

They're slabs that slid down these grooves,

Grooves that were created by leaving bars of raised granite.

So, the slabs slid down these grooves one,

Two,

Three,

Probably with a great boom

And sealing up the chamber that lies just beyond here.

[narrator] behind this last corridor is the kings chamber.

[lehner] I've been coming here for 46 years

And yet every time I come into this room

I still have a feeling, a feeling of a very special place.

[narrator] this is where the king

Should have rested for eternity.

But today all that remains is an empty sarcophagus.

Despite all the pharaoh's protection,

The burial chamber was looted,

Robbers chiseled their way through the defenses.

[lehner] somebody knew just where to come,

In that case it would have been an inside job.

Somebody very close to the time when the pyramid was finished.

[narrator] the construction of the burial chamber

Is more evidence of khufu's ambition.

The entire room, from floor to ceiling,

Is made from red granite.

[uplifting music]

These immense blocks come from the aswan quarries

More than 500 miles away.

To support more than 300 feet of stone

Above the chamber, the builders had to innovate.

Khufu's architects built chambers

To relieve the pressure

Topped by angled slabs called a chevron vault.

[suspenseful music]

Ancient builders made other decisions

For spiritual rather than engineering reasons.

They made two tiny passages

About six inches wide,

Stretching over 200 feet

From the king's burial chamber to the sky.

With a high probability they are not channels

To conduct air in here.

They are channels for the king's soul

To come out of his sarcophagus

Through the northern channel,

Up to the northern sky

And to join the circumpolar stars.

Everything about the pyramid suggests in one sense,

It was a primitive spiritual machine.

It was a resurrection machine.

Because if you can get the king to be reborn again

And to join the other gods and stars,

The entire court, his whole household,

Which was all of egypt,

Would survive the afterlife with him.

[narrator] today, khufu's pyramid may be empty

But egyptologists have no doubt

He intended it as his final resting place.

It should not surprise us that after 4,500 years,

No mummies have actually been found

In old kingdom pyramids.

However, we have abundant evidence

That pyramids were tombs.

We have hieroglyphic texts that say

In no uncertain terms

That the mummy of the king was buried in the pyramid.

[suspenseful music]

[narrator] after years of hard work and sacrifice,

The builders, and the king's high dignitaries,

Pay a last tribute to khufu,

The most ambitious pharaoh of egypt.

Khufu was thought to have reigned for about 27 years.

Most of them spent building what will remain

The tallest monument on the planet for almost 4,000 years.

[hartwig] khufu rebranded egyptian kingship.

He erected the largest pyramid in egypt,

Which showed the power of the pharaoh.

It also symbolized the organization

That was required to build something like that.

The expert workforce, the resources that were needed.

[john darnell] he inherits an incredibly well functioning

Country from his father

And leaves it, if anything, functioning even better.

The bureaucracy is growing even larger.

And he has created the single largest manmade

Structure of antiquity on the giza plateau.

Creating the pyramids, building the pyramids,

Quarrying the stone, brought together egypt,

Unified the country and gave

The nation a project

That defined in some ways

What it was to be an egyptian,

To contribute to your king's

Final resting place.

[narrator] khufu had created a city for his workforce,

Diverted the nile and developed an immense

Industrial and commercial network.

Never again in history will a pharaoh be able

To match the scale of the great pyramid.

But the era of the pyramid builders is not over.

The giza plateau will see yet more monumental constructions.