On which face of the Great Pyramid is the main entrance located?

The main entrance to the Great Pyramid of Giza is located on its north face.

The original entrance was built high above the pyramid’s base, on the northern side and slightly east of the central axis. From there, a descending passage runs into the pyramid and the bedrock beneath it. The entrance’s placement was part of the monument’s carefully planned internal design, which also included the Ascending Passage, Grand Gallery, Queen’s Chamber, King’s Chamber, and unfinished subterranean chambers.

Visitors today often enter through a different opening. The so-called Robbers’ Tunnel was cut through the masonry and is associated by tradition with workmen operating for the Abbasid caliph al-Ma’mun around the ninth century CE. It does not represent the pyramid’s original entrance, even though modern tourist routes use it.

The northern entrance was once framed by the pyramid’s polished outer casing stones, most of which were removed in later centuries. In 2016, researchers detected an additional void behind the northern chevrons; a 9-metre corridor there was explored with an endoscopic camera in 2023.