Egyptian pyramids
— — four and a half thousand years, still here.
Not only on a wall.
“Three great pyramids stand on the limestone plateau at Giza, set down by the kings of the Fourth Dynasty more than four thousand five hundred years ago. The largest, raised for Khufu, held the title of tallest structure on earth for nearly four millennia. The Sphinx keeps the eastern flank. Beyond the wall of the necropolis the city of Giza has reached the edge of the plateau, and the desert begins on the other side. from the studio
Egyptian pyramids, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The Giza pyramid complex stands on a limestone plateau on the west bank of the Nile, about 13 kilometres southwest of central Cairo. Three principal pyramids belong to the Fourth Dynasty pharaohs Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure, built roughly between 2580 and 2510 BCE. The Great Pyramid of Khufu rises 138.5 metres in its weathered state today, from an original height of 146.6 metres, and held the record as the tallest human-made structure on earth for about 3,800 years. UNESCO inscribed the wider Memphis and its necropolis on the World Heritage list in 1979.
The pyramids are built of locally quarried limestone, with an outer casing originally of finer white Tura limestone from across the Nile. The Great Pyramid contains an estimated 2.3 million blocks averaging more than 2 tonnes each. The granite that lines the king's chamber and the relieving chambers above it was brought from Aswan, 800 kilometres up the river, with the largest single beams weighing as much as 80 tonnes. The polished casing was largely stripped during the medieval rebuilding of Cairo; a cap of original facing still survives near the apex of Khafre's pyramid.
Sunrise on the plateau is the hour the stone gives the most. The east faces of all three pyramids and the Sphinx catch the first light, and the long shadow of Khufu reaches west across the sand toward the Western Cemetery. The site opens at around 7 a.m. and entry tickets to the interior of the Great Pyramid are limited each day. The Grand Egyptian Museum, on the eastern edge of the plateau, completed its phased opening in 2025 and now houses the full Tutankhamun collection within direct sight of the pyramids.