Pyramid Pavement - Egypt

There's always something surprising about any where you visit that you thought you understood in advance. At the Giza pyramids for me it was this limestone "pavement" area in front of the pyramids. While many obelisks in Egypt may have been made from stone quarried and transported many miles down the Nile, the pyramids were made with local stone - very local stone in fact. This area is where the rock was quarried to make the blocks for the pyramids, and it's immediately in front of them. Great Pyramid of Cheops at Giza to the right, you can see the first blocks.

Apparently, there was a stratum of softer limestone above the harder layer that was used to make the pyramids that had to be cleared out of the way first.

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