Let's meet Ken Woo, a cameraman extraordinaire and special friend to all of us at Forest Knolls Elementary School in Silver Spring, MD. We were very excited when Mr. Woo was given the opportunity to work with Fox Television professionals and a variety of scientists who are exploring ancient Egyptian structures and discovering artifacts.
Mr. Woo is staying in a hotel in Cairo, Egypt, a few miles from the Giza Plateau. Imagine waking up every day to see majestic Egyptian pyramids just beyond the horizon.
Here is a map that shows where Mr. Woo is.
Here's another map that shows the Giza Plateau.
Doug and Jonathan: Junior Press Corps./KNN
This is the pyramid of Khufu, the largest of three main pyramids. It was built for King Khufu, a major pharaoh and king of his time. The pyramid is 481 feet tall and completely man-made. To imagine just how big that is, Mr. Woo told us that it is so large that Madison Square Garden would fit inside it.
This is the entry to the great pyramid of Khufu. The cooridor that leads to the treasure chamber is long and narrow. The height is about three feet high. There are many chambers throughout the pyramids that contained treasures and goods for the king to carry with him in his passage into the underworld.
This is the sarcophaegus that scientists discovered in the pyramid of Khufu. A sarcophaegus is a large coffin made of stone. Inside this coffin, there usually was a wooden coffin that held a mummy. A mummy is someone who died and whose body has been preserved.
Bryan and Nathan: Junior Press Corps./KNN
Daniel: KNN
Here is the Khafre Pyramid. Khafre was the son of Khufu. It was made of stone that was quarried nearby in ancient times. All of these stones were carried to the site by hand, and some of them were as heavy as 20 tons!
Mr.
Woo told us that one of the biggest mysteries of the pyramids was how
the ancient Egyptians transported the stones to the pyramid and put
them in place. Another question that the archaeologists can't figure
out is how the sides of the pyramids fit together so perfectly. The
stones are placed so close together that the gap is less than one
hundreth of an inch! That's thinner than a piece of paper!
The Egyptians put on a limestone covering to make the pyramids smooth. This covering had a white appearance, and when the sun shone on it, the pyramid could be seen for miles because it glistened.
There are several passageways to the tomb of Khafre. Here's Mr. Woo getting ready to go explore one of the passageways!
Here are other passageways that lead to the tomb.
Yvonne and Jordy: Junior Press Corps./KNN
Egypt Project Web Facilitator: Eric Jacobs
