Fancy a trip halfway around the world to visit the Pyramids of Giza? For those who don't have the time or the money to fly to Egypt and view the last of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World in person, Google presents the next best thing - a virtual tour of the pyramids along with five other historical wonders on Google Maps Street View.
Google's Street View team flew to Egypt, carrying with them their Trekker backpacks with a camera strapped on top of them, to take pictures of the most iconic sites in Egypt. Originally, the Street View team used a car to take pictures of streets in 59 countries all over the world, but this posed challenges for places where cars are not allowed or where there simply are no roads for them, such as Angkor Wat or the Great Barrier Reef, which are also featured on Street View.
With the help of the local Egyptian government, the team chose the Pyramids and the neighboring Great Sphinx, which have both been around for 4,000 years, as well as four other historic sites to include in Street View.
"On a global scale, there are few places that really capture people's imagination," says Street View program manager Deanna Yick. "For us, this is extremely exciting because it's one of those few places that we think that everyone is curious about."
After two weeks of taking images around Egypt, the Street View team has come up with a panoramic, 360-degree virtual tour of the Giza Necropolis, where the 456-foot-tall Great Pyramid built as a tomb for the Pharoah Khufu stands, along with the smaller pyramids of Khufu's son and grandson, Khafre and Menkaure, which users can also take a virtual tour of.
Further to the East of the pyramids is the Great Sphinx, which measures 238 feet tall and 65 feet wide. The Great Sphinx is the largest sculpture of its kind, which experts believe was built as a monument to Khafre, who was pharaoh when the structure was constructed.
Virtual tourists can also check out the Pyramid of Djoser, which stands in the vast ancient burial ground of Saqqara and was the first pyramid to be designed by Imhotep, Egypt's first architect and physician. Google also provides a virtual tour of Abu Mena, the oldest Christian site in Egypt, which houses a church, a baptistery basilicas and monasteries, and the Hanging Church, one of the oldest Coptic Churches in the world. Also caught on camera are the 15th-century Citadel of Qaitbay sitting atop the Mediterranean coast and the Cairo Citadel, a medieval Islamic fortress.
