Pyramids of Giza
The Giza pyramid complex includes:
1. The Pyramid of Cheops (Khufu), also known as “the Horizon of Cheops” in antiquity.
Its base side is 230m and its height is ca. 147m. The size and the dense network of shafts, chambers and passages make the Pyramid of Cheops stand out among other Egyptian pyramids.
2. The Pyramid of Chephren (Khafre), also known as “Great is Chephren”, is 137m high. One unique feature of the Pyramid of Chephren is the monumental Sphinx sculpture located next to it, near the lower mortuary temple. It was carved from a huge block of rock; it is 57m long and 20m high.
3. The Pyramid of Mykerinos (Menkaure), also known as “Divine is Mykerinos”, is only 65m high.
Who built it?
When?
Why?
Regardless of the widely known theory accepted by the Egyptologists, let us focus on the newest discoveries and facts.
The Pyramid of Cheops, or the Great Pyramid.
Built from six and a half million tons of rock and 146.5m high, it is one of the largest structures ever erected on Earth.
It is a unique structure; not only because of its size, but also the incredible precision of its construction – such precision would nowadays require the use of a laser theodolite, a map reproducing the terrain with 10m accuracy and a team of engineers, astronomers and masters of masonry:
- the pyramid base is nearly a perfect square with sides exceeding 230m
- the difference between the longest and the shortest side is only 25cm
- the angles are 90 degrees with a 1-degree accuracy.
This engineering masterpiece was created without pulley blocks and advanced construction tools available today.
Architect Gregory Pyros said: “I doubt whether the ancient Egyptians possessed geological knowledge at contemporary level, and without this knowledge it seems unlikely that they could erect such constructions and that these construction did not collapse due to inadequate foundations. Basically, it should have gradually sunk into the ground. Construction engineering estimates that office buildings may subside by 13.5cm every 100 years. The U.S. Capitol has subsided by 12cm over the last 200 years. The 7 bln ton pyramid has sunk by less than a centimeter over the last five thousand years.”
Dr. Ron Charles said: “If the designers of contemporary buildings were able to attain an inclination of less than 13cm for a 70m high wall, it would be a wonderful achievement. Meanwhile, the inclination of the Great Pyramid (149m) is only a quarter of an inch. The replication of such result is utterly impossible for contemporary construction.”
Taking the above into consideration, how did the Egyptians achieve this, if it would be a problem today? It is one of the great mysteries of history.
Inside the Pyramid of Cheops
One of the corridors inside the pyramid leads downwards to the incomplete tomb chamber, while another leads upwards to the King’s Chamber located in the center of the monument. This passage is connected to the corridor that leads to another incomplete room called the Queen’s Chamber.
Air shafts leading from the Queen’s Chamber outside the pyramid were discovered in the 19th century.
In 1984 research inside the pyramid was conducted by the French. They noticed that some stone blocks in the corridor leading to the Queen’s Chamber did not match in shape and size to the others.
The simple methods applied during this research did not provide any results.
Two years later, the French used the microgravimetric equipment and discovered an empty room behind the corridor wall with a size of 5.5m by 3m. After obtaining a permission, the researchers drilled a hole in the wall and crystal-clear sand poured out of it. Once more measurements were taken, it was established that there could be more such rooms; however, no entrances were found.
In 1987 the Japanese began their research. A team led by professor Sakuji Yoshimura of the Waseda University in Tokyo used electromagnetic waves and located an entire labyrinth of undiscovered rooms and empty spaces: behind the wall of the Queen’s Chamber, under the corridor leading to that chamber, and near the location where the French had conducted their research. They also found a 40m long tunnel leading under the pyramid. Unfortunately, the Japanese were not permitted to finish their research.
In March 1993, German engineer Rudolf Gantenbrink built a remote-controlled robot called Upuaut 2, equipped with a video camera. He directed the robot inside the air shaft leading to the Queen’s Chamber, a room located deep inside the Pyramid of Cheops. It was believed the shaft is short but to everyone’s amazement the robot covered 65m to finally come across the door (a stone stopper with copper handles that blocked the path). Gantenbrink was almost immediately excluded from the research.
Another robot entered the shaft in September 2002.
This time it was accompanied by cameras to broadcast the event worldwide. After two hours of climbing, the robot came across the door, drilled a hole and pushed a mini-camera through the hole in the door.
The door led to an empty room with another door. More doors were discovered the following day in the second shaft.
The research was led by Zahi Hawass, leading Egyptian archeologist in charge of the famous Giza pyramid complex. Hawass announced that a new robot was about to arrive at these gates of mystery.
During the research inside the pyramid no hieroglyphs explaining its purpose were found. The tomb was not found either. We do not know when and who built it.
Thanks to modern technology it is possible to determine that the empty spaces inside the pyramid constitute 3-15% of its capacity.
People have so far penetrated ca. 1% of this capacity.
These empty spaces are surely the key to unlocking the mystery of the Great Pyramid’s creation and purpose.
Orientation of the Pyramid of Cheops
The sides of the Pyramid of Cheops are perfectly directed to the North, the South, the East and the West – the margin of error is only 0.015 %.
Graham Hancock and his fellow writer Robert Bauval claim that in order to understand the true function of the pyramids, one first has to look into the sky.
Due to a phenomenon called precession, which is the rotation of the Earth’s axis around a certain constant axis, the position of stars relative to our planet changes during a cycle of ca. 25,980 years.
By analyzing the computer-reconstructed position of the stars over the pyramids in the year 2500 BC (the date of pyramid creation assumed by the Egyptologists), Bauval and Hancock found that one of the south shafts of the Pyramid of Cheops pointed directly to the star called Sirius (related to the Egyptians goddess Isis).
Another south shaft pointed to the lowest of the three stars in the Orion’s Belt, a constellation where Osiris – one of the key deities of ancient Egypt, believed to be the father of the Nile Valley civilization – came from. Bauval and Hancock claim that the arrangement was not accidental: the architects of the Pyramid of Cheops positioned its internal passages on purpose, so that they corresponded to the position of stars in the firmament.
Bauval noted that the third and smallest pyramid is not collinear with the other two. Comparing the arrangement of pyramids with the stars in the Orion’s Belt, he found that the position of three stars of the belt relative to each other is similar.
Thus, he proposed a hypothesis that the Giza pyramids are a symbolic representation of these stars. However, the angle of site did not fully match the arrangement of pyramids.
Once back at their computer, Bauval and Hancock determined that both arrangements matched perfectly in 10500 BC.
The researchers believe the construction of pyramids ended around 2500 BC, but the plans for the entire complex were developed 8000 years earlier, when probably the first steps of the construction were built.
The Sphinx
The Great Sphinx of Giza, directed to the East where the sun rises, is the largest stone monument in the world.
In the 20th century the view that the Sphinx was built by Chephren, ruler of Egypt between 2520 and 2494 BC, became a popular belief. The only argument is the resemblance between the Sphinx’s face and the Chephren’s statue in a museum in Cairo.
The latest results of geological research conducted in 1991 show the monument was erected before the year 6000 BC – some three thousand years before the dawn of Egyptian civilization.
One of the contributors was amateur Egyptologist J. A. West:
1.
West used the experience of lieutenant Frank Domingo – a forensic expert from the New York Police Department specializing in facial reconstruction, particularly in the cases where most details are lost or deformed.
Domingo compared the Sphinx’s face with the pharaoh’s face from the museum and on the basis of detailed sketches stated that these faces represent two different persons.
2.
West also proposed a theory confirming the previous theory that the monument eroded because of rainwater, not desert winds and sand. Meanwhile, the last abundant rainfall in Egypt took place during ice age that began around the year 12000 BC. West reached a scientist – Dr Robert Schoch, a mathematician and geologist of the Boston University. Schoch’s research confirmed that the Sphinx and the sides of the hollow in which it is located manifest typical effects of water erosion.
It also turned out the monument and the nearby complex of temples were built from the same rock. Moreover, Schoch stressed that the erosion of the Sphinx and the surrounding walls was so extensive that there are crevices with a depth of nearly one meter, while a layer of identical rock in the vicinity has been left almost intact.
The conclusion was that the Sphinx was sculpted in stages and its first parts were subject to water erosion, while the last parts to wind erosion.
Schoch believes the Sphinx was almost complete in Chephren’s times. The pharaoh renovated the monument and the nearby temples, covering calcareous rock with granite slabs. The geologist also believes there had to be numerous renovations of the Sphinx over these thousands of years. In addition, the fact that the head is relatively small when compared to the trunk indicates the Sphinx’s face could be different at the time of being discovered by the Egyptians, who later modified it according to their own ideas.
3.
In order to determine the exact time the carving of the Sphinx began (this would enable the actual age of the monument to be estimated), West brought Thomas Dobecki – a seismography specialist from Houston, USA – to Egypt.
By analyzing the water erosion marks of the rocks in the substratum around the Sphinx, Dobecki was able to estimate the time of their carving. The deeper the grooves, the longer the rock surface was exposed to rain. That is why, the depth of crevices was the basis for determining the monument’s age.
Dobecki’s experiments and Schoch’s observations confirmed the Sphinx was built in stages and that the heavily eroded front of the monument is about 3000 years older than the back.
Seismographic tests also showed that there is a rectangular chamber under the Sphinx’s paws, as well as several corridors leading from it towards the pyramids.
West was not given permission to continue his research.
In April 1996, such permission was granted to Dr Joseph Schor, American millionaire connected with the Association for Research and Enlightenment – an influential organization popularizing the teachings of Cayce.*
Dr Schor and Dr Hawass issued a statement that the mysterious tunnels were to be open in the near future and there was to be a live TV coverage of the event.
However, no TV station has had the chance to cover the “archaeological discovery of the century” yet.
“The works continue” – says Schor enigmatically.
* What is interesting is that the discovery of the chamber and corridors under the Sphinx’s paws match the prophecies of American clairvoyant Edgar Cayce from 60 years earlier. On October 29, 1935, Cayce fell into a trance and saw scenes from the history of ancient Egypt. He claimed that people who survived the Atlantis disaster came to Egypt around the year 10500 BC. They built the Sphinx and the pyramids within 100 years from their arrival.
In addition, Cayce predicted that by the end of the 20th century “a hall of records will be discovered where the shadow and light fall between the paws of the Sphinx.” The clairvoyant believed there is a library of wisdom from the lost civilization of Atlantis inside.
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