I magine a pure white pyramid, capped with gold, 450-feet high and shimmering like a mirage in the Egyptian desert. This is how the only surviving one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the Great Pyramid of Giza, once looked.

Yes! A sparkling white pyramid and you must be wondering why you have never seen photographs of such an extraordinary sight — let me explain. Dating back to approximately 2560 BCE, this marvel was the tallest building in the world up until 1311AD and then again from 1647 – 1874. This magnificent pyramid was the burial place of the Pharaoh Khufu, more often referred to as Pharaoh Cheops as called by the Ancient Greeks and by the Greek historian Herodotus of Halicanassus who travelled all over the ancient world writing about his experiences as he went.

Constructed from 2,300,000 meticulously carved and shaped blocks of stone, each one weighing in at two and a half tonnes, the pyramid was finished off with a final layer of highly polished white limestone, rubbed down until it was gleaming and smooth enough to reflect daylight, sunlight and moonlight with, on the very top, what is known as a ‘capstone’ of gold, not solid gold, but of stone covered with some sort of gold casing which, like the white covering, has long since disappeared.

No one knows what happened to the golden capstone but the fate of the gleaming white limestone is something that will be explained shortly.

Each side of the Great Pyramid of Giza measures around 756 feet in length and despite its monumental size and the long years of its construction, no one side is more than a mere eight inches different in length than any of the others and the entire pyramid is perfectly orientated to the points of the compass — a truly awesome feat of engineering in those ancient times.

Herodotus reported, centuries later in 450BCE, that it took 20 years and 100,000 slaves to build the pyramid but more recent archaeological research indicates that it was likely to have been built in just less than 10 years and with a workforce, records show that this workforce was actually paid labour not slave labour, varying from 14,000 up to 40,000 men, depending on what was being done at the time. But, however one looks at it, the construction of such a huge pyramid was an amazing feat indeed.

This pyramid, like other ancient Egyptian pyramids, was built as a tomb, in this case for pharaoh Khufu/Cheops, as previously mentioned and, as with the construction of other pyramids, no one is exactly certain how the work was done other than that some extremely complicated ‘machinery’ must have been used. Also, as in the case of most other pyramids, the Great Pyramid of Giza did not stand alone but was central to four smaller pyramids, three of which are still there.

Pyramids were specifically and individually designed to house a varying number of interior chambers on levels both above and below the actual royal burial chamber itself. Each chamber had a specific use: some were filled with offerings of food and wine, others with clothes and furniture, yet others with chariots and horses, weapons, amour and some with slaves and general household servants, who would, it was believed, serve the dead pharaoh in the after world which was also inhabited by numerous gods and goddesses.

The dead pharaoh would, naturally, also require much wealth to maintain a comfortable lifestyle in the afterworld of the ancient Egyptians and spent much of his living life accumulating precious objects, jewellery, precious stones and gold to take with him on his journey into the afterlife. Tales of this fabulous, unimaginable wealth attract thieves like sugar attracts ants.

The architectural brains behind pyramid construction knew, all too well, that treasure hunters would move in as soon as possible after a royal personage was interred inside the pyramid and, in efforts to prevent them from stealing the hidden treasure, they constructed a wide assortment of confusing dead end passageways and secret chambers which did not, unfortunately, deter those determined to steal the treasure for themselves and the treasure buried along with Pharaoh Khufu/Cheops was legendary indeed.

Such were the incredible stories of this particular treasure that, in 820AD, the Arab Caliph Abdullah Al Manum, decided that check it out and put his men to work. They tunnelled into the pyramid from the side and were soon lost in the maze of interior passageways and chambers but were not deterred in the slightest. Digging and tunnelling away for weeks, possibly months on the end, they eventually found, to their jubilation, the Pharaoh’s burial chamber and the sarcophagus that he had been buried in but their celebration soon changed to shock as the huge, granite sarcophagus was minus its lid and the chamber itself was completely empty!

Absolutely furious that someone, no one knows who, had beaten him to the treasure and taken every single piece of it away, Caliph Abdullah Al Manum, ordered that the beautiful pyramid be completely stripped of its outer covering of polished white limestone and this gorgeous material be transported to Cairo to be used in construction work. He even ordered his men to knock down the Great Pyramid of Giza itself but had to concede defeat after removing just 30 feet from the top of this awesome building.

To this day, no one knows what happened to the fabled treasure of Pharaoh Khufu/Cheops but his pyramid, so rightly included in the list of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, still stands and, even without its awesome white covering and gold capstone, is a spectacular sight indeed!