Pyramids of Giza: new discoveries
The SPbU Representative Office in Spain invites you to the online lecture "Pyramids of Giza: new discoveries". The lecture will be given by Arkady Demidchik, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor at the SPbU Department of Ancient Oriental Studies, Honorary Worker of Higher Professional Education of the Russian Federation.
Built four and a half millennia ago, the Great Pyramid of Giza was considered in the XIX century to be the highest monumental building in the world. Who created this ancient wonder, the only one left standing?
The stone blocks of the Great Pyramid of Giza would be enough to build a wall one and a half metres high around the whole of France. To build this "City of the Dead" between 2589 and 2566 BC, workers had to quarry, transport, cut and stack a huge block of stone every three to five minutes — incredible labour productivity even by today’s standards!
It’s no wonder that these grandiose structures have been the subject of much speculation and theorising, including the involvement of aliens in their construction. Who is the author of this ancient monument on the outskirts of Cairo?
Our lecture will present and comment on the latest discoveries about the builders and the building process of the Pyramids of Giza. We will take a look at how work was organised on the largest building site in the ancient world, and how large quantities of copper and wood were supplied to make tools and equipment.
We will visit one of the most densely populated cities of the III millennium BC — the city of the pyramid builders, built by the state for this purpose; we will learn how the problem of food supply was solved. We’ll discuss why the pharaohs of the VI dynasty needed such majestic tombs in the first place, and whether the pyramids are cursed.
Lecturer
Arkady Demidchik is the author of more than a hundred Egyptological publications in countries such as Australia, Austria, England, Belgium, Germany, Holland, France and the United States, as well as sections on the history and culture of ancient Egypt in the Russian Historical Encyclopaedia. The author has given public lectures at the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia), Emory University (Atlanta) and the Pushkin Museum (Moscow). Anthologies of ancient Egyptian literature published at Yale, London and Oxford include Demidchik’s English-language publications in «Selected Bibliographies».
The lecture will be held as part of the events to mark the 300th anniversary of St Petersburg University, the oldest university in Russia.
The meeting will be held online in Russian with simultaneous interpreting into Spanish.