Most photographs of the Giza pyramid complex are artfully arranged with the desert as background. But shoot from the other side of the pyramids and you’ll have the third-largest city in Egypt as the backdrop: Giza, home to millions of people. The pyramids are burial places of Fourth Kingdom pharaohs dating as far back as 2600 BC. They were built in the ancient capital of Memphis, on the banks of the Nile; the highway of ancient Egypt. Memphis has since been swallowed up by Giza.

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