The Pyramids of Giza (The Wonders of the World, #1)

The Pyramids of Giza have been beguiling humanity for more than 4500 years. Who built them? How? And why? And just why have so many people been prompted to believe so many weird things about them? Join in one of the greatest intellectual adventures in history alongside the people who first reintroduced the pyramids to Europe in the Middle Ages, then plumbed their depths and learned at least some of their secrets over the centuries that followed. You'll meet discoverers and explorers along the way, such as the tireless English measurer who became the first Westerner to chart the interior of the Pyramid of Khufu, the Italian sea captain who unburied the Giza Sphinx, the Italian Indiana Jones who opened the Pyramid of Khafre, and the British Army colonel who blasted his way into the Pyramid of Menkaure using gunpowder. And you'll also meet scholars and scientists, misguided and otherwise, such as the team of savants who accompanied Napoleon's invasion of Egypt, the linguist who advanced a hundred wrong theories about Egyptian writing until he stumbled upon the right one, the respected astronomer who founded the modern cult of pyramidal pseudo-archaeology, and the naïve young believer who came to the pyramids as a devoted member of said cult and left them having founded the field of scientific archaeology as we know it today. Finally, you'll journey back to the very beginning of recorded history to meet the extraordinary people who built the pyramids in the first place. You'll learn why they did so, and the most likely possibilities for how. Many fictions have been told about the Pyramids of Giza -- but the truth is the most amazing tale of them all. (This book is the first volume in a series of them called simply The Wonders of the World, whose aim is to accessibly chronicle some of the most remarkable achievements in human history. The series is premised on the idea that its subjects are indeed wondrous, and there's no reason why books about them should be one whit less exciting and inspiring than a good novel. My plan and my hope is to bring these wonders to life for you, using all of the skills I've collected during half a lifetime of researching and writing, without stinting on my commitment to rigorous historical accuracy.)