Giza

Giza lies on the west bank of the Nile opposite Cairo. Beyond the cultivated river plain rise the pyramids of Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure, built as royal tombs for three pharaohs of Egypt's Fourth Dynasty in the Old Kingdom. The Great Sphinx stands near them, carved from the limestone of the plateau. Together these monuments have looked out over the Nile Valley for thousands of years.

Long after the pharaohs, the pyramids continued to draw travellers and inspire accounts of their immense and remarkable scale. The Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta passed them on his journey through Egypt in 1326 and described their towering stone construction. Giza's fields and riverbank lay beside one of the world's most enduring reminders of ancient Egyptian kingship.