The animation below shows the first photograph taken from the summit of the Great Pyramid, a stereoview photo taken by E.L. Wilson in 1882. This photo also provides the first photographic record of the site where the Lost City of the Pyramids settlement (Heit el-Ghurab) lay buried under 2-6 meters of sand, not to be discovered until Mark Lehner and the AERA team began excavations in 1988.

E.L. Wilson, wearing a vest fashioned from the American flag, flanked by two Egyptians. George L. Mutter and Bernard P. Fishman, the creators of Photoarchive3D, a vast digital archive of original 19th and 20th century stereoviews, kindly provided us with the image and wrote an article for AERAgram 14.1 with background information about it and more photographs from E.L. Wilson.

Download a copy of AERAgram 14.1 for more information and become a member today to receive future AERAgrams and help support our work in Egypt.