Most Egyptians were buried in shallow graves out in the desert. The rich, though, were buried above ground in special buildings.

From Mastabas to Pyramids

The earliest of these buildings were low and had flat roofs. They were called mastabas. Then a man named Imhotep (a royal architect) had a great idea: why not stack several mastabas on top of each other and create a more impressive structure? Imhotep made each level smaller than the one below it. This was called a step pyramid, as it looked like a series of upward steps. Imhotep later improved his design by making the sides smooth and straight and ending in a peak. The true, triangular-shaped pyramid we all recognize was born.

Below you can see all of the pyramids at Giza in one shot. Notice the mastabas in the foreground. Notice the people and horses in the bottom left corner for scale. To see a larger version of this image, right click > open in new tab. 

A view of the pyramids at Giza from the plateau to the south of the complex. From left to right, the three largest are: the Pyramid of Menkaure, the Pyramid of Khafre and the Great Pyramid of Khufu. The three smaller pyramids in the foreground are subsidiary structures associated with Menkaure's pyramid. - from Wikimedia 

The most spectacular pyramids are located in Giza, in northern Egypt. The first, and largest of these pyramids was built for the Pharaoh Khufu. Known as the Great Pyramid, it is over 140 metres high and covers about 5.5 hectares. Tens of thousands of slaves and peasants worked for 20 years to build Khufu's pyramid. This structure contains 2 300 000 blocks of stone. Some blocks weighed over 13 000 kilograms. The stones were cut so perfectly that you couldn't fit a piece of paper between them after they were put in place.

The Great Pyramid of Khufu was the tallest building in the world until the Eiffel Tower was constructed in the late 1800's.

The Sphinx

Standing guard in front of the Great Pyramids is a limestone monument called the Sphinx. The Sphinx has the body of a lion and the head of a pharaoh (reportedly Khafre, Khufu's son).

Taken by the uploader, w:es:Usuario:Barcex, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4483211

Rumor has it the Sphinx's nose was shot off by soldiers taking target practice. There is no proof of this, though. It is more likely that the nose simply eroded over time.