1857–58Giza

The Pyramids of El-Geezeh, from the south-west

Francis Frith

Street photograph

What this plate shows

The Giza plateau photographed from the desert: two large pyramids, a smaller one, sand, a figure for scale. A camera on the ground in 1857–58. Present status: surviving. Do not treat the photograph as an engraving of Egypt, and do not treat Frith’s expedition date as the construction date.

Image type: Street photograph
Structure: Pyramids of Giza
Region: North Africa
Documented completion: Fourth Dynasty (c. 26th century BCE).
Architect: Not named on this plate. Traditional attribution is to the reigns of Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure.
Present status: Surviving — The pyramids still stand. This plate is a mid-nineteenth-century camera record, not a drawing and not a later reconstruction.
Source: Albumen print from Frith’s Egypt expedition, 1857–58. Wikimedia Commons scan of a published Frith plate.
License: Public domain (Frith died 1898; published 1850s).

Collections where this plate appears

05Monumental architecturePeriod photographs of named structures. Documented identification first. Present status is a later fact recorded beside the plate — surviving, altered, burned, demolished, reconstructed, replaced — not a verdict the image is asked to prove.