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At completion, the Great Pyramid was surfaced by white " casing stones " – slant-faced, but flat-topped, blocks of highly polished white limestone.
These were carefully cut to what is approximately a face slope with a seked of 5½ palms to give the required dimensions.
Visibly, all that remains is the underlying stepped core structure seen today.
In AD 1300, a massive earthquake loosened many of the outer casing stones, which were then carted away by Bahri Sultan An-Nasir Nasir-ad-Din al-Hasan in 1356 to build mosques and fortresses in nearby Cairo.
The stones can still be seen as parts of these structures.
Later explorers reported massive piles of rubble at the base of the pyramids left over from the continuing collapse of the casing stones, which were subsequently cleared away during continuing excavations of the site.
Nevertheless, a few of the casing stones from the lowest course can be seen to this day in situ around the base of the Great Pyramid, and display the same workmanship and precision as has been reported for centuries.
Petrie also found a different orientation in the core and in the casing measuring 193 centimetres ± 25 centimetres.
He suggested a redetermination of north was made after the construction of the core, but a mistake was made, and the casing was built with a different orientation.
Petrie related the precision of the casing stones as to being " equal to opticians ' work of the present day, but on a scale of acres " and " to place such stones in exact contact would be careful work ; but to do so with cement in the joints seems almost impossible ".
It has been suggested it was the mortar ( Petrie's " cement ") that made this seemingly impossible task possible, providing a level bed which enabled the masons to set the stones exactly.

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