On the desert plateau at the edge of Cairo stands the most famous archaeological site on Earth. The three great pyramids raised for Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure during Egypt's Old Kingdom dominate a landscape that also includes the Sphinx, mortuary and valley temples, causeways, subsidiary pyramids and the cemeteries of officials and workers. Inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, Giza is the only one of the ancient wonders still standing. The episode approaches it as engineering and as belief: the quarrying, transport and setting of millions of blocks; the astronomical alignment of the structures; the internal chambers and passages; and the funerary theology that made such an effort intelligible. Filmed in 4K at different hours, from the plateau, the desert edge and the city that now presses against it, the programme is a catalogue cornerstone for any archaeology strand.
