Old Kingdom Egypt · About 2650-2500 BC

The pyramids of Giza

In about a hundred years Egyptians went from the first stone step pyramid to the Great Pyramid of Giza. Students follow the stone from the quarries to the building site, meet the workers who built it, and ask what it says about the power of a pharaoh.

Teach it live New Open on the map
Length
50 minutes
Ages
10–13
On the map
3 steps, 2650 BC to 2560 BC
Live lesson
7 rounds, 3 on the map
Worksheet
Two A4 pages, with Classroom
You need
A projector; phones for live

Live lesson · new in Classroom

Teach it live. The class answers on their phones.

Put the board on the projector. Students join with a six-digit code, no account needed, and tap the map: where was the frontier, where did the grain come from. Their pins drop in together when you reveal, and the closest student takes the round.

€19 per month: every lesson live, every worksheet, cancel anytime. Rome at its height runs live for free.

A live lesson on the projector: the class's pins on the map around Alexandria, the closest students listed beside it A student's phone: the question and a map to tap
7 rounds
3 places to find on the map, quiz questions, a class vote and a one-line answer.
About 15 minutes
Run it as the map step, or to open the discussion. You move on with the space bar.
A report
Every answer, per student and per round, to read back or print after the lesson.
1

Introduction

5 min

Read aloud

In about a hundred years Egyptians went from the first stone step pyramid to the Great Pyramid of Giza. Students follow the stone from the quarries to the building site, meet the workers who built it, and ask what it says about the power of a pharaoh.

By the end of the lesson, students can

  • Describe how pyramid building developed from Djoser to Khufu.
  • Explain who built the pyramids and how they were organized and fed.
  • Locate Saqqara, Giza and the Aswan quarries and explain how stone was moved.
2

Explore the map

15 min

Project the map, or let students follow on their own devices. Each step opens the map at the right year and place.

a

2650 BC

Steps to the sky

Open the map in 2650 BC and zoom in on Saqqara, on the desert edge west of the Nile near Memphis. Here Imhotep built the Step Pyramid for King Djoser. Why build on the desert edge, not in the green valley?

Open this view on the map
b

2560 BC

The Great Pyramid

Jump to 2560 BC and move north to Giza. Turn on Historical Events and open the marker for the Great Pyramid. What makes it special among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World?

Open this view on the map
c

2560 BC

Granite from the south

Travel south along the Nile to Aswan, more than 800 km upstream. Granite for the king's burial chamber came from here. How would you move a granite beam weighing tens of tons that far?

Open this view on the map
3

Class discussion

15 min

Pick two or three. They run from what happened to why it mattered.

  1. Djoser's Step Pyramid is one of the first large buildings made entirely of cut stone. Why was that such a big step?
  2. Archaeologists found the builders' town, bakeries and graves near the pyramids. What does that tell us about who built them?
  3. A papyrus logbook of an official named Merer tells how his crew shipped limestone to Giza by boat. What can one man's logbook teach us?
  4. The Great Pyramid stayed the tallest building in the world for about 3,800 years. Why did no one build higher for so long?
  5. A pyramid needed food, boats, stone and thousands of workers. What does that tell us about the power of the pharaoh?
4

Game round

10 min

Play one round of Rule History as Ramesses II, who also built on a giant scale, more than 1,200 years after Khufu. Discuss: why did pharaohs spend so much on monuments, and who paid the price?

Open Rule History
5

Worksheet

5 min

This worksheet comes with Classroom

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