Pyramid Primping

The Great Pyramid, the largest of the three ancient pyramids at Giza near Cairo, Egypt, will be reopened Thursday after workers spent nearly a year but only $29,500 to clean up graffiti, mend cracks and install new lighting and ventilation systems. In an effort to try to preserve the pyramid, only 300 visitors, such as the tourist above, will be allowed to climb the stairs of the narrow corridor inside the 452-foot-high structure each day down from the former droves of 5,000 daily. Humidity, the result of the breathing of thousands of visitors, had built up inside the pyramid and crystallized into a thick layer of salt that caused cracks to spread. The Great Pyramid was built as a tomb for King Cheops about 4,500 years ago.