Geometry inside pyramids

 Egypt and its pyramids

Since we are children we have heard about this famous civilization, however, not always we have understood the meaning of their creations nor their mathematical aspects of them. For this reason, today I want to share with you some peculiar characteristics about them. Let's start!

Who were the Egyptians? 

The Egyptians were a civilization that was born 5000 years ago in the valley of the Nilo. When a huge number of people started to establish around these surroundings because of the great agricultural resources it gives, we can say that Egyptian society begin. Most of the things they cultivated were wheat, barley, fruits and vegetables. In addition, Egypt was one of the safest countries because it was surrounded by three different deserts. It allowed them to develop with more calm and freedom their own arts, literature and music.

 

But many of us will recognise this civilization because of their great monuments, can you figure out which geometric figures am I talking about? 

Absolutely their famous Pyramids, but which was their purpose?

In old Egypt, the pyramids were used as graves for the pharaoh and the royalty. These people were mummified and surrounded by food and treasures. The most famous one was the Tutankamón pyramid ( 1570-1070), it is located in the Lords Valley near the city of Tebas. 

Have a look at these fabulous pyramids!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWaReNkjTLk

Now let’s see the geometry definition of a pyramid.

A pyramid is a polyhedron limited by a polygonal base and two lateral faces that are isosceles triangles that coincide in a point denominated tip. 

The tip or peak is the principal vertex of the pyramid, although a pyramid has more than one vertex, as much as the number of polygons that limit it. 

As we can see, the Egyptians have taken into account geometric figures in order to create one of the most famous constructions of all times. However, they have modified this pyramid and created new versions, let’s see some of them. 

Types of Egyptian pyramids

Stepped pyramid 

These are one of the oldest ones, they are made by the superposition of different declining steps. Deyser pyramid was created by the architect Imhotep, it is the only one that has been finished and its principal axis is oriented to the north.

 

Perfect

This pyramid represents the evolution of the stepped pyramid. Its principal axis is oriented to the east. Moreover, it was created for the pharaoh Snofru of the IV dynasty. 

Rhomboid

It is similar to the previous one, but with a change in the inclination of double high. It is A rhomboid is a polygon of four sides and four angles. The parallel sides are opposed. 

REMEMBER! The rhomboids are parallelograms that are not squares, rectangles and neither rhombus.

In this video, you can watch how to create a pyramid with the base of a rhombus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aq7wwL2u6bw

Later on, we talked about many different pyramids, however, we haven’t talked about the pyramid of Cheops. This pyramid is quite famous for many different aspects, but did you know that this pyramid was constructed on the basis Of the number PI π? 

It is quite difficult to find this number, however, the Egyptians get very close to the actual value of PI, they reach 3,16.

The base of this pyramid is square and the measurement of their side are the following:

Northside: 230,364m

Southside: 230,365m

Eastside: 230, 319m

Westside: 230,342m

High: 146,61 m

So if we sum the perimeter of the base which is the sum of the four sides and divided in two by the high, the result gets very close to the number PI 

 

As you can see, many years ago geometry and numbers had a relevant impact on those societies, therefore, you can never underestimate the value of mathematics!