The Egyptians believed that their kings were gods. Even after they had died, the rulers continued to affect daily life through their supernatural powers. In his new life in the underworld, the king would need everything he needed while alive--and he needed his home to last for eternity.

But eternity lasts a whole lot longer than life. So the tombs of the kings needed to be durable and well-supplied. The tombs also needed to protect the body and its supplies and gifts from thieves.

The first large-scale stone building ever built on earth was the first Egyptian pyramid. Zoser, first ruler of the Third Dynasty, hired an architect named Imhotep to build it on the Sakkara ridge above Memphis. It is a step pyramid, made of six squares on top of each other that shrink as you go up. A century later, Snofru, founder of the Fourth Dynasty, built two pyramids at Dahshur, one with smooth sides. About 2600 B.C., the Great Pyramid of Giza was built by Cheops, Snofru’s son. Later, Mycerinus’s pyramid and the pyramid of Chephren were built beside it.

Herodotus, a Greek who wrote about the building of the pyramids long after they had been built, claimed that the Great Pyramid took 100,000 men and thirty years to make. But even if those figures are not accurate, the construction of the pyramids was an amazing feat. The Egyptians had not learned to use the wheel or the pulley and so lifted all of the stones using ramps, lubricated by only milk or water.

All of the tombs were not able to escape the fate of being robbed, except the tomb of Tutankhamun. Only mummies of those of Amenhotep II and Tutankhamun were found in their own tombs.