Giza pyramid complex

Where it sits. The Giza plateau is a limestone shelf on the west bank of the Nile, inside the built-up area of Greater Cairo — a fact that surprises first-time visitors, who often expect isolation and instead find the suburb of Nazlet el-Semman pressing against the fence on the eastern side. The desert edge is real enough on the west and south, where the sand runs out toward Saqqara and Dahshur. The plateau sits about 60 metres above the floodplain, and the ancient builders chose it precisely because it offered a hard, level bedrock foundation and a nearby quarry.

What is actually there. Three main pyramids, built for three kings of the Fourth Dynasty across roughly seventy years in the twenty-sixth century BC. The Great Pyramid of Khufu was completed at about 146.6 metres and stands around 138.5 metres today, with a base of about 230 metres per side; its sides are aligned to the cardinal points to within a fraction of a degree. Khafre's pyramid looks taller because it sits on higher bedrock, and it retains its original polished Tura limestone casing at the apex — the only place the finished surface of a Giza pyramid can still be seen. Menkaure's is smaller at around 65 metres, with a granite lower casing left unsmoothed. Around them lie queens' pyramids, mastaba cemeteries laid out in streets for officials, causeways, valley temples, and a workers' settlement excavated since the 1990s that produced bakeries, breweries and a cemetery — evidence that the labour force was organised, fed and buried with honour rather than enslaved. The Great Sphinx, about 73 metres long and 20 high, was carved from a single limestone knoll left by quarrying, and the Dream Stele between its paws records Thutmose IV clearing sand from it more than a thousand years after it was made.

On screen — and the productions that never came. Giza has genuine credits and a great many false ones, and telling them apart is the useful service:

• The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) filmed on location, with Bond at the son et lumière show below the Sphinx and a fight in the ruins; the production also shot at Karnak and Abu Simbel.
• Death on the Nile (1978) shot in Egypt for real — Giza, Karnak, Abu Simbel and a paddle steamer on the river. Kenneth Branagh's 2022 remake, by contrast, was made almost entirely at Longcross Studios in Surrey with a digital Egypt, which is why its landscapes look weightless.
• Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009) put its first unit on the ground for three days at Giza and Luxor and four more in Jordan, filming at Petra, Wadi Rum and Salt with Royal Jordanian Air Force support — then invented the geography that has annoyed travellers ever since, treating Petra as a short hop from the pyramids when it is roughly a thousand kilometres away across an international border.
• Land of the Pharaohs (1955), directed by Howard Hawks with a script Wilkie Collins would have envied and William Faulkner actually wrote on, was shot in Egypt with enormous crowds of extras.

Against those, the misattributions: Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) shot its Cairo and Tanis sequences in Kairouan in Tunisia and at La Rochelle in France, never in Egypt. The Mummy (1999) built Hamunaptra in Morocco, around Erfoud and Marrakech. Gods of Egypt (2016) was made in Australia. Egypt on film is very often somewhere else.

Visiting. Two gates serve the plateau: the main entrance near the Mena House at the end of Pyramids Road, and the Sphinx entrance in Nazlet el-Semman. A general ticket covers the plateau; separate tickets cover interior entry to each pyramid and the Solar Boat area. Going inside Khufu means a stooped climb up the Grand Gallery on wooden slats to a bare granite chamber with an empty sarcophagus — hot, airless and claustrophobic, and not for everyone; Khafre's interior is quieter and cheaper. The panorama point on the southwest ridge is the standard shot with all three pyramids in line, reached on foot in about twenty minutes or by the electric shuttle bus introduced with the site's recent overhaul. Khufu's dismantled cedar boat, excavated in 1954, has been moved to the Grand Egyptian Museum a couple of kilometres away, which now anchors any serious visit.

Getting there and timing. From central Cairo, allow 45 to 90 minutes by taxi depending on traffic; the metro plus a taxi from Giza station is often faster. Arrive at opening. Persistent unsolicited camel, horse and guide offers were the plateau's worst feature for decades, and while the recent management contract has reduced them, firm and repeated refusal is still needed. Wide graded tracks make much of the plateau navigable by wheelchair with assistance, but the pyramid interiors and the Sphinx enclosure involve steps and steep ramps.