Word: giza
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...exactly 2:40 a.m. last Tuesday, under the orange glow of a crescent moon, a small group of scientists gathered expectantly at an archaeological site south of the Great Pyramid of Cheops at Giza, just outside Cairo. They did not carry hand picks or shovels. Instead, they watched a TV monitor as a miniature camera was lowered into a narrow hole in the ground. When the video image flickered to life, the group gasped. There before them, inside a chamber that had been sealed 4,600 years ago, lay the dismantled timbers of a wooden ship. The archaeologists immediately recognized...
Tourists at the luxurious Holiday Pyramids Hotel, which lies in the shadows of the Great Pyramids at Giza, were relaxing after a day of sightseeing. Without warning, a throng of armed men dressed in black uniforms burst through the front door. As staff and guests scrambled for cover, the intruders ran through the lobby, smashing windows and shooting at hotel security guards who tried to turn them away. Before the men left, they started a fire that burned for 36 hours, doing millions of dollars of damage...
...designers tried transparent cubes, domes and pyramids; they finally settled on the pyramid form because it would be distinctive and yet would not clash with the classic lines of the old building. The proportions of the pyramid (modeled after the famous Egyptian pyramid at Giza) would make it two-thirds the height of the Louvre's façade. Computer-generated graphics commissioned by Pei indicated that the glass structure would be barely visible to visitors approaching the Louvre from the Champs Elysée and quite unobtrusive even from the Louvre's Tuileries Gardens...
...most of its 4,500 years, the Great Sphinx stood guard over the pyramids of Giza from behind a 14-ft. limestone beard. Now, centuries after unknown forces gave the enigmatic monument a shave, some Egyptian authorities want to restore the Sphinx to its former hirsute splendor. Their interest is more than cosmetic. Because the neck of the 66-ft-high statue has been badly eroded by centuries of exposure to the elements, even a moderate earth tremor could send the entire 965-ton head rolling off. Says Culture Minister Mohammed Radwan: "The only acceptable way to avoid further deterioration...
Muslim fanatics knocked its nose off, Greeks scrawled graffiti on its paws and Mamluk soldiers used its face as a rifle target. But the saddest indignity suffered over the centuries by Egypt's Great Sphinx of Giza has stemmed from erosion, seemingly caused by a single enemy-the relentless desert wind. At the present rate of decay, experts say, the 64-foot-high figure could be reduced to a mound of dust in five to ten centuries...