Talk:Great Pyramid of Giza

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Great Pyramid of Giza article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5: 3 months

This article is written in British English with Oxford spelling (colour, realize, organization, analyse; note that -ize is used instead of -ise) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

This page is not a forum for general discussion about your personal opinions about the Great Pyramid of Giza. Any such comments may be removed or refactored. Please limit discussion to improvement of this article. You may wish to ask factual questions about your personal opinions about the Great Pyramid of Giza at the Reference desk.

Great Pyramid of Giza was one of the History good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
April 10, 2006	Good article nominee	Listed
September 8, 2008	Good article reassessment	Delisted

Current status: Delisted good article

Archaeology Top‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Archaeology, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Archaeology on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ArchaeologyWikipedia:WikiProject ArchaeologyTemplate:WikiProject ArchaeologyArchaeology
Top	This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.

Ancient Egypt Top‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Ancient Egypt, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Egyptological subjects on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Ancient EgyptWikipedia:WikiProject Ancient EgyptTemplate:WikiProject Ancient EgyptAncient Egypt

Top

This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.

WikiProject Ancient Egypt to-do list:

Needed articles.

We should have an article on every pyramid and every nome in Ancient Egypt. I'm sure the rest of us can think of other articles we should have.

Cleanup.

To start with, most of the general history articles badly need attention. And I'm told that at least some of the dynasty articles need work. Any other candidates?

Standardize the Chronology.

A boring task, but the benefit of doing it is that you can set the dates !(e.g., why say Khufu lived 2589-2566? As long as you keep the length of his reign correct, or cite a respected source, you can date it 2590-2567 or 2585-2563)

Stub sorting

Anyone? I consider this probably the most unimportant of tasks on Wikipedia, but if you believe it needs to be done . . .

Data sorting.

This is a project I'd like to take on some day, & could be applied to more of Wikipedia than just Ancient Egypt. Take one of the standard authorities of history or culture -- Herotodus, the Elder Pliny, the writings of Breasted or Kenneth Kitchen, & see if you can't smoothly merge quotations or information into relevant articles. Probably a good exercise for someone who owns one of those impressive texts, yet can't get access to a research library.

Architecture Top‑importance

	Architecture portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Architecture, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Architecture on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ArchitectureWikipedia:WikiProject ArchitectureTemplate:WikiProject ArchitectureArchitecture
Top	This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.

Egypt Top‑importance

	Egypt portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Egypt, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Egypt on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.EgyptWikipedia:WikiProject EgyptTemplate:WikiProject EgyptEgypt
Top	This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.

Death Top‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Death, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Death on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.DeathWikipedia:WikiProject DeathTemplate:WikiProject DeathDeath
Top	This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.

Archives

This page has archives. Sections older than 90 days may be automatically archived by when more than 5 sections are present.

When was the record height surpassed?

When did the Great Pyramid of Giza cease to be the tallest building in the world? According to the infobox on this page, it was surpassed by Lincoln Cathedral in 1311. But where does this idea come from? On the Lincoln Cathedral page, any existing sources are weak, typically either coming from news articles (leading me to fears of WP:CITOGENESIS) or crappy trade books. I previously raised this issue in a talk page thread back in November 2020, to no resolution. I added a dubious tag in December 2020 that Maruf Hossain removed the following April, though that editor offered no source or resolution. I have since added it back. Tkbrett (✉) 02:24, 18 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There is nothing dubious about this statement regarding Lincoln Cathedral holding the title of the worlds tallest building. It is well recorded in texts of the period and subsequently. Lincoln cathedral was completed in 1311 with a spire on the central tower that gave it a total height of 525 feet. It is unknown if the builders knew they had surpassed the height of the great pyramid of Giza, but we were later able to show this was the case. The cathedral surpassed the height of the great pyramid of Giza by 44 feet from its original height of 481 feet. The spire was destroyed in a storm in 1548 and not rebuilt. This Lincoln cathedral held the title of the world’s tallest building for 237 years. The title was then reclaimed by the great pyramid of Giza, which held it until the completion of the Eiffel Tower in 1884. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.179.9.148 (talk) 09:57, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"It is well recorded in texts of the period and subsequently." Then I'm sure you'll have no problem finding good sources to post here. Tkbrett (✉) 19:26, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

(“Thus”?)

The Great Pyramid of Giza never regained the top spot. By the time Lincoln’s spire collapsed, other European cathedrals were already taller than the Great Pyramid. Lincoln remained tallest structure “of all time” until 1884, and tallest building of all time till 1890. The Old Font (talk) 07:23, 11 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Being a historian myself, I had a quick look in contemporary 14th and 15th century sources, but could not find any evidence for the 525 feet claim for Lincoln Cathedral. First of all there are many contradictions in dating the spires and also on when the central tower spire was destroyed. (1541, 1547, 1548). I would rate the 525 claim "very unlikely" at best. But let's start from the very accurate work by A.F. Kendrick in 1898 titled 'The Cathedral Church of Lincoln' [1]: "The tall spire of timber, covered with lead, which originally crowned this tower reached an altitude, it is said, of 525 feet; but this is doubtful."

On the height of the spires, it was noted: The height of these timber spires was 89 feet from the base to the ball, and another 12 feet to the top of the vane.. The central tower is claimed to be 271 feet, but this is from the top of the corner pinnacles. So the actual base from which the spire was built is more like 225 feet. This means the claim here is that spire of the central tower, built around 1311, was 300 feet in height (525ft=225ft+300ft). That is simply a preposterous claim, knowing the western tower spires (who survived 200 more years were 89 feet from base to the ball). 2001:1C02:1C04:CD00:6DF8:19F5:D35F:435C (talk) 11:33, 29 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

List_of_tallest_structures_built_before_the_20th_century gives an overview over the tallest buildings in history with their sizes and completion dates. -- Syzygy (talk) 13:18, 3 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

All of which is unsourced. Tkbrett (✉) 15:36, 3 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pretty sure I remember hearing the Eiffel Tower was the first to surpass it. I have no source, though. ISometimesEatBananas (talk) 12:40, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No, for example the St. Nicholas Church, Hamburg was definitely taller than the Pyramid and earlier than the Eiffel Tower. Fram (talk) 13:29, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Blowtorch visit inside the great Pyramid in 1698

For those interested in the history of the Pyramids I might recommend this book which was published in 1698. It was written by Dutch traveller Cornelis de Bruyn which visited the Pyramids and wrote a whole chapter about them, describing them in detail. He even takes a guided tour inside the great pyramid carrying a blowtorch and described its central hallway and more.

I also read contrasting information regarding the casting, as at one point he writes:

I will only speak of the greatest, as well as the most remarkable, because the other two – although the boldest of the two does not have to yield much to the one considered the greatest (which indeed she is, although some seem to doubt it) – are enclosed and cannot be climbed upon, so there is not much to say about them.

Which would make one think the casting was largely intact. However in his sketch he draws 2 pyramids which both appear worn and their casting not intact:

— Preceding unsigned comment added by BoschA (talk • contribs) 08:35, 22 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Do you mean caseing (where you write casting)? GregorDS (talk) 15:47, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Far too much POV in article

Many of the theories are presented as fact. An example is that the pyramid was a tomb, when no such firm evidence exists. This needs rewriting to emphasize they are only theories (more like POV), not theories presented as fact. 143.58.173.57 (talk) 10:17, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Most pyramids were tombs, weren't they? Martinevans123 (talk) 10:29, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A robbed sarcophagus, typical burial of friends, relatives etc around the pyramid, etc. That's sufficient. Doug Weller talk 12:13, 18 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not to mention it's situated inside a necropolis. 57.135.233.22 (talk) 07:45, 4 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

The summary states that the Great Pyramid of Giza is "the only wonder that has remained largely intact". The thing is, none of the others are even slightly intact as they've all been destroyed. Maybe this could be reworded as "the only wonder that is still standing", the way its described in the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World article. Mravava (talk) 18:18, 11 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Article quality

I've followed this article for a good while and watched it grow. There's a lot of good stuff now, but it's all over the place structurally and there's a lot of repetition. I think it has the potential to be a really good article. Would there be any appetite among the current editors for some peer review? Would anyone mind if I started to take a hack at it myself? John (talk) 20:57, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Go for it. Hypnôs (talk) 21:41, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 13 December 2024

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Under section "Pyramidion and missing tip" please remove ", and the survey mast is still in place" and add the following:

The survey mast was still in place as of May 1 2019, when a man climbed the pyramid and removed part of the wooden mast. According to Mostafa Waziri, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, "[...] the wooden mast is a modern object that the authority places and changes every few years as it is subject to erosion and sunlight" and that "Spoiling it (the mast) is not considered a crime according to the law of antiquities or the law of protecting the antiquities".^[1] Soon after, the damaged mast was removed entirely and has not been replaced since. PixelBotanist (talk) 10:04, 13 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@PixelBotanist: The problem with this is that your cited source says nothing about it being removed entirely and not replaced since. Do you have a source for that? DrOrinScrivello (talk) 21:45, 13 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@DrOrinScrivello That's the crux of the matter: I didn't find any English sources going into more detail. A news clip (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtmMG7fB58w) shows that the man actually toppled the mast and Arabic news articles state that he uprooted it. What happened to the mast afterwards isn't reported but it's safe to assume that the authorities removed whatever was left because it's gone.

I also can't really provide a citable source that the mast has not been put back in its place (I guess newspapers don't report something that didn't happen) but there are dozens of pictures uploaded online since 2019 which show that the mast is gone, e.g. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e2/The_Great_Pyramid_of_Giza_%2853242503167%29.jpg (2023), https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2021/07/drone-view-of-giza/ (2021), https://www.flickr.com/photos/loraineltai/54183039761/ (2024) etc.

However, pictures don't make for a cite-able source so I don't really know how to proceed with this. PixelBotanist (talk) 23:38, 13 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Partly done: I've included a sentence about the damage to the mast, and if a reliable source ever reports about it not being replaced we can then add that info. DrOrinScrivello (talk) 16:00, 14 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That's fine with me, thanks! PixelBotanist (talk) 16:39, 14 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ "Police fail to prevent Egyptian man from climbing Great Pyramid". Retrieved 2024-12-12.

[1] "Police fail to prevent Egyptian man from climbing Great Pyramid". Retrieved 2024-12-12.

[1]