[SCIENCE CORNER] DESIGN SCIENCE WORKSHOP

In Ancient Egypt and other early societies, people believed in the omnipotence of Gods, with many aspects of daily life carried out with respect to the idea of the divine or supernatural and the way it was manifest in the mortal cycles of generations, years, seasons, days and nights. Harvests for example were seen as the benevolence of fertility deities. Thus, the founding and ordering of the city and her most important buildings (the palace or temple) were often executed by priests or even the ruler himself and the construction was accompanied by rituals intended to enter human activity into continued divine benediction.

Arguably the most famous form of late Prehistoric art, the pyramids of Ancient Egypt are the world's largest funerary edifices or tombs. Developed from the mastaba tomb, they are one of the most enduring symbols of Egyptian art in general and Egyptian architecture in particular. Ancient Egyptians believed in an eternal afterlife, and the purpose of the pyramids was to safeguard the Pharaoh's body and all the belongings he would need after death, in order to facilitate his passage into the after-life. Thus each pyramid routinely contained a wide variety of Egyptian sculpture, mural painting, jewellery and other types of ancient art necessary to sustain the deceased in his after-death existence. So far, about 140 pyramids have been discovered in Egypt, most of which were built as burial tombs for the country's Pharaohs and their consorts, during the Old and Middle Kingdom periods (2650-1650). The oldest known Egyptian pyramids are located at Saqqara, near Memphis, just south of the Nile delta. The earliest among these is the Pyramid of Djoser (constructed about 2630 at Saqqara) which was designed during the third dynasty by the famous architect Imhotep (active c.2600-2610 BCE). The tallest one was The Great Pyramid of Giza (c.2565), which was designated one of the Seven Wonders of the World by Antipater of Sidon, and is now the sole surviving member. Exactly how many paid labourers were required to cut, transport and erect the stone megaliths from which each pyramid was constructed, is unknown, although estimates vary from 30,000 to 300,000. However, the huge resources needed to create such colossal works of ancient architecture, shows how rich and well organized Egyptian society was in the Third Millennium BCE.