The oldest and only survivor of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, thr Great Pyramid at Giza has become the symbol of ancient Egypt. The pyramid stands on the west bank of the Nile in the necropolis of Giza. The Pyramid represents the high point of pyramid building in Egypt. It is believed that it was built around 2650 B.C. as a tomb for the Egyptian pharaoh Khufu(Cheops).

The Great Pyramid is the oldest and largest of the three pyramid on the Giza Necropolis. It measures 449.5 feet in height and 750 square feet, though when it was originally constructed its height was 478 geet. It was the tallest building on Earth until the 13th century, then the 524 foot tall spire of Lincoln Cathedral in Eingland was completed. Missing from the original pyramid structure is the fine white linestone casing and its gold plated pyramidion or capstone, which topped the monument. More than 2 million blocks of stone were used in the construction of the monument, each weighing more then 2 tons!

Now I thought it would be nice to put up a shorp ancient Egyptian tale. It's called The Girl with the Rose-red Slippers, and is the earliest version of the Cinderella story.

In the last days of Ancient Egypt, not many years before the country was cunquered by the Persians, she was ruled by a Pharaoh called Amasis. So as to strengthen his country againts the threat of invasion by Cyrus of Persia, who was conquering  all the known world, he welcomed as many Greeks as wished to trade with or settle in Egypt, and gave them a city called Naucratis to be entirely their own.

In Naucratis, not far from the mouth of the Nile that flows into the sea at Canopus, there lived a wealthy Greek merchant called Charaxos. His true home was in the island of Lesbos, and the famous poetess Sappho was his sister; but he had spent most of his life trading with Egypt, and in his old age he settled at Naucratis.

One day when he was walking in the marketplace he saw a great crowd gathered round the place where the slaves were sold. Out of curiosity he pushed his way into their midst, and found that everyone was looking at a beautiful girl who had just beed set up on the stone rostrum to be sold. She was obviously a Greek with white skin and cheeks like blushing roses, and Charaxos caught his breath - for her had never seen anyone so lovely.

Consequenty, when the bidding began, Charaxos determind to buy her and, being one of the wealthiest merchants in all Naucratis, he did so without much difficulty. 

When he had bought the girl, he discovered that her name was Rhodopis and that she had beed carried away by pirates from her home in the north of Greece when she was a child. Thay had sold her to a rich man who employed many slaves on the island of Samos, and she had grown up there, one of her fellow slaves bring an ugly little man called Aesop who was always kind to her and told her the most entrancing stories and fables about animals and birds and human beings. But when she was grown up, her master wished to make some money out of so beautiful a girl and hed sent to rich Naucratis to be sold.

Charaxos listened to her tale and pitied her deeply, Indeed very soon he became quite besotted about her. He gave  he a lovely house to live in, with a garden in the middle of is and slave girls to attend on her. He heaped her with presents of jewels and beautiful clothes, and spoiled her as if she had been his own dauther.

One day a strange thing happened as Rhodopis was bathing in the marble-edged pool in her secret garden, The slave-girls were holding her clothes and quarding her jewelled girdle and her rose-red slippers of which she was particularly proud, while she lazed in the cool water - for a summer's day even in the north of Egypt grows very hot about noon.

Suddenly when all seemed quiet and peaceful, an eagle came swooping down out of the clear blue sky - down, straight down as if to attack the little group by the pool. The slave-girls dropped everything theywere holding and fled shrieking to hide among the trees and flowers of the garden; and Rhodopis rose from the water and stood with her back against the marble fountain at one end of it, gazing with wide, startled eyes.

But the eagle paid no attention to any of them. Instead, it swooped right down and picked up one of her rose-red slippers in its talons. Then it soared up into the air again on its great wings and, still carrying the slipper, flew away to the south over the valley of the Nile.

Rhodopis wept at the loos of her rose-red slipper. feeling sure the she would never see it again, and sorry also to have lost anything that Charaxos had given to her.

Bur the eagle seemed to have been sent by the the gods - perhaps by Horus himself whose sacred bird he was. For he flew straight up the Nile to Memphis and the swooped down towards the plalac.

At that hour Pharaoh Amasis sat in the great courtyard doing justice to his people and hearing any complaints that they wish to bring.

Down over the courtyard swooped the eagle and dropped the rose-red slipper Rhodopis into Pharoah's lap.

The people cried in surprise when they saw thism abd Amasis too was much taken aback. But, as he took up the little rose-red slipper and asmire the delicate workmanship and the tiny size of it, he felt that the girl whose foot it was must indeed be one of the loveliest in the world.

Indeed Amasis the Pharoah was so moved by what had happened that he issued a decree.  "Let my messengers go forth through all the citied of the Delta and, if need be, into Upper Egypt to the very borders of my kingdom. Let them take with them the rose-red slipper which the divine bird of Horus has brought me, and let them declare that her from whose foot this slipper came shall be the bride of the Pharoah!"

Then the messengers prostrated themselves crying, "Life, health, strength be to Pharoah! Pharoah has spoken and his command shal be obeyed!"

So they set forth from Memphis and went by way of Heliopolis and Tanis and Canopus until they came to Naucratis. Here they heard of the rich merchant Charaxos and of how he had bought the beautiful Greek girl in the slave market, and how he was lavishing all his wealth upon her as if she had been a princess put in his care by the Gods.

So they went to the great house beside the Nile and found Rhodopis in the quiet garden beside the pool. When they showed her the rose-red slipper she cried out in surprise that it was hers. She held out her foot so that they could see how well it fitted her; and she bade one of the slave girls to fetch the pair to it which she had kept carefully in memory of her strange adventure with the eagle.

Then the messengers knew that this was the girl whom Pharoah had sent them to find, and they knelt before her and said, "The good gos Pharoah Amasis - life, health, strength be to him! - bids you come with all speed to his palace at Memphis. There you shall be treates with all hunour and given a high place in his Royal House of Women: for her believes that Horus the son of Isis and Osiris sent that eagle to bring the rose-red slipper and cause him to search for you."

Such a command could not be disobeyed. Rhodopis bade farewell to Charaxos, who was torn between joy at her good fortune and sorrow at his loss, and set out for Memphis.

And when Amasis saw her beauty, he was sure that the gods had sent sent her to him. He did not merely take her into his Royal House of Women, he made her his Queen and the Royal Lady of Egypt. And they lived happily together for the rest of their lives and died a year before the coming of Cambyses the Persian.

The End

I hope you all enjoyed that story.

Alysia Ariana

Facts taken from Brian Haughton's Hidden History: Lost civilizations, secret knowledge' and ancient mysteries.

Story taked from Roger Lancelyn Green's Tales of Ancient Egypt.