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Although the Step Pyramid was the first pyramid, the Great Pyramid is the best known. The Great Pyramid was built for King Cheop. It is the largest pyramid of the three at Giza. The three pyramids built for King Cheops, King Chephrun, and King Mycerinos stand on the west bank of the Nile outside Cairo. They are the largest and best preserved of all Egyptian pyramids. They were built between 2600 B.C. and 2500 B.C. However, it is hard today to imagine the manpower involved in building the Great Pyramid (especially in our world of computers, machinery, and advanced technology. The ancient Egyptians had no machinery or iron tools to help in the building of the pyramids. The large limestone blocks used to build the pyramids were cut with copper chisels and saws. Most of these stones came from nearby quarries. An interesting fact to note is that camels were not brought into use until twenty centuries after the pyramids were built. Human strength was used to drag the stones from the quarries or from the boats (Casson 76). The stones were then dragged and pushed into place for the first layer of the Great Pyramid, which was placed on flat level ground. Next, long ramps were built of earth and brick moving the blocks up the ramps to form the next layer. After the top layer was finished the workers covered the pyramid with an outer coating of white casing stone, which gave the Great Pyramid a brilliant shrine during the day when the sun shone down on it. The outer coating of white casing stone were laid so perfectly that from a distance the pyramid appeared to have been made from a single white stone. .
The main difference of the Great Pyramid compared to other pyramids, besides the fact of its size, is the difference of the location of the burial chamber. The Great Pyramid's burial chamber was in the uppermost part of the pyramid. This was something new, burial chambers in other pyramids were located beneath the pyramid.
