The Great Pyramid: Ancient Egypt Revisited

John Romer. 2007. The Great Pyramid: Ancient Egypt Revisited. ISBN 9780521871662. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

John Romer's The Great Pyramid is subtitled "Ancient Egypt Revisited"--and for an excellent reason. The focus of the book is on Khufu's pyramid on the Giza Plateau, built 4500 years ago for the 4th dynasty Old Kingdom pharaoh Khufu over an astonishingly brief 14 year period. But Romer's decades of study have led him to identify not simply the patterns of construction or the amount of labor involved in such a process, but a thorough examination of the pyramid-making tradition of Old Kingdom Egypt, including the lives of the people who made the pyramids, who inspired their construction, and who spent their lives studying them.

The Great Pyramid has six parts. The first is dedicated to the antiquarians and archaeologists who have studied the pyramids in detail, such as Richard Lepsius, who cataloged the pyramid texts, and William Flinders-Petrie, whose meticulous survey of the interior and exterior of Khufu's Pyramid is still the most complete available. Part 1 also opens a recurring theme in the book: much of what we think we 'know' about pyramids and ancient Egyptian society was a creation of 19th century western archaeology.

Part 2 covers what has been learned from Egyptian history and archaeology of the rulers who inspired the first pyramids of Egypt, and a few other high-ranking individuals such as Imhotep and Hemiunu, both often credited as pyramid architects--an oversimplification by Romer's lights. Also examined are the workers who constructed the Giza Plateau pyramids, based on the excavations of their cemetery and town. Part 3 details the physical location of the Giza Plateau and the various raw materials of the pyramids, the Aswan granite, the Tura limestone and the copper required for chisels and other stone working tools. Part 4 describes the pyramid making successes and failures of the Old Kingdom architects prior to Khufu.

In Part 5, Romer describes the planning required for the construction of the Great Pyramid, and in Part 6, he provides an outline of the 14-year-long process, from leveling the ground to placing the body of Khufu within it and letting the granite blocks slide into place.

The Great Pyramid is awe-inspiring: the book expresses Romer's awe for the pyramid, and instills it deep within the reader. Romer realizes for the reader the complexities of inventing the ideal pyramid, such as evidence for the plans of the pyramid, drawn at a one-to-one scale on the ground surface at the Giza plateau. The amazing success of the intricate granite cobweb of passageways within the Great Pyramid are highlighted with the great previous failures. The ancient Egyptian concepts of death and the importance of keeping one's dead rulers in view are contemplated. Throughout, Romer's writing is impassioned:

When Khufu ascended to the throne of Egypt in about 2491 BC, his kingdom had been building pyramids for about the same length of time as skyscrapers have been erected in our modern cities. All previous pyramids had been innovative both in the construction and in their architectural design, and certainly there was not an established model of design. At Giza, the Great Pyramid's design would be decisive; by comparison, all earlier arrangements seem tentative or elementary. The Great Pyramid was conceived on such a scale and built with such passionate intensity that it is as if their previous adventures had led the royal masons to a vision of the perfect pyramid. (Romer 2007: 297)

The Great Pyramid is a book I plan on revisiting many times in the future. The many many photographs, the depth of information and the writing style make this a perfect companion for people, like me, distant admirers of the Egyptian pyramids, seen floating in a desert mirage in our imaginations.