For years Egyptologists and "New Age" Egyptologists have debated back and forth about the construction of the Great Pyramid on the Giza plateau. Both sides seem to have valid arguments, and make sense when they lay out their evidence. It gets very confusing and the debates rage on and on. The only thing we know for sure is that we know nothing. There are no records of how construction took place in ancient Egypt. Why? Some debate that masonic rites and construction methods were trade secrets that was of great importance to the people of the era, and they methodically destroyed all plans once a structure was complete. The New Age theorists would say that no plans exist because the Egyptians did not construct the Great pyramid...at least not on their own, without help from a more advanced civilization.
There are over 100 pyramids constructed throughout Egypt, and they are of many different shapes and sizes and varying states of completion. Some of the earlier pyramids can easily be credited to crude construction techniques because they are much less than perfect in design and build. But, the structures on the Giza plateau are a far different beast. The new age approach for the explanation of the crude pyramids would be to say that they were man's attempt at re-creating the one great pyramid. Attempts at which they failed miserably.
Lets look at some of the details of the Great Pyramid. Firstly, it was a major structure in the world because it was the tallest structure on the face of the planet for thousands of years (until the eiffel tower was constructed, in fact). It was originally (before erosion) 485 feet tall.Each side of the square base is 755.5 feet in length. The base itself covers a little more than 13 acres. This is one HUGE structure.Now the Great Pyramid is built on perfectly level ground. Its level is so exact that it varies less that 1/2 inches over the 13 acres says Max Thoth. This is an amazing feat for the ancient surveyors and would have been difficult, if not almost impossible to match, even today with our advanced technology. The construction contains 2.5 million blocks ranging in weight from 2.5 tons (The limestone rocks) to over 60 tons (The granite rocks).The rocks on top of the structure are said to be quarried from the same site and during the same time period as the rocks on the bottom of the structure. Originally the pyramid reflected brilliant light beams because it was covered in highly polished limestone rock. Theives, vandals, and nature have removed this outer coating over time.
There are many remarkable points found in the dimensions of the pyramid. One of the first items discovered about the pyramid is that it is aligned with the four points of the compass. This means that its four sides point toward true East, West, North, and South. There is a slight variance in the point that is towards due North, but only a slight one (about 1/2 of a degree).Keep in mind that the compass was not invented until about 1500 years after the birth of Christ, so they could not have used this device in the making of the pyramid.The pyramid is one of the heaviest structures on the planet (at the time it was by far the heaviest) and could not have been built on just any foundation. The site had to be picked very methodically and scientifically in order for the base to be strong enough to support the massive weight of this building. How this site was picked no one knows. It shows great geological knowledge and planning. The biggest mystery about it's location is in the fact that the Great pyramid sits in the EXACT center of all land masses on the planet. The capability for determining this has only been developed within the past 100 years of human history. How did the Egyptians know?
Here are some more interesting facts about it's construction:
The base unit of measurement in the Pyramid's is 25.052 inches. The Pryamid's inch is 1.0025 of our regular inch. Each side of its base is 365.2422 cubits, which is the exact number of days in a solar year. Now 365.24 cubits occur five or six times somewhere within the pyramid that shows it was not a coincidence.
The Pyramid's perimeter, the distance around the four sides of the base, correlates with the circumference of the earth.
According to Professor Piazzi Smyth, multiplying the height of the Pyramid's 35th layer by 10 derives the distance of the earth from the sun.
The base unit of measurement used by the Pyramid designer is ten-millionth of the earth's polar radius, according Peter Lemeisuier. Simply put it is one ten millionth the distance from the North Pole to equator.
The base unit of measurement used by the Pyramid designer is ten-millionth of the earth's polar radius, according Peter Lemeisuier. Simply put it is one ten millionth the distance from the North Pole to equator.
The number Pi is the mathematical constant 3.1415, with the ratio of the diameter to the distance around the circle, called the circumference. In the pyramid it is the ratio of the height to twice the length of the base.
The main question most people have is How were the rocks mined and then moved to the site and placed into position? This is a very interesting question and the cause for most of the debate about the pyramid's construction. Most scholars believe that 10,000 workers (Not slaves as some have said in the past, these workers were free men and skilled craftsmen that were paid for their work) were employed in the construction of the pyramid which is said to have taken place in around 20 years. The thought that this amount of man power could have moved 2.5 million blocks into position in this amount of time with the crude tools of the day (copper was the only metal tool that they had at their disposal) seems to boggle the mind. So much that it seems impossible, even by todays standards of construction.
Newer theories about the mining of the stone used in the construction say that it's easy to explain where the rocks came from and how they got there. Some modern egyptologists say that the pyramid actually sits ON the quarry site and that some of the stones were actually mined right where the structure sits. This, of course, only applies to the limestone and not the granite stones. The granite stones are MUCH heavier than the limestone ones and came from a greater distance away. I personally believe that no matter where these stones came from the thought of man-power moving them into place is still quite dumb-founding. This more than anything else is the part that is hard for me to believe.
For years it has been proposed that an external, slightly angled ramp was used to haul the blocks into position on the pyramid. This theory has lost a lot of steam lately and most Egyptologists (even the ones that still teach this method for lack of a better one) seem to think that it was impossible to have done it this way. A ramp of such scale would have been over a mile long. Also, no remains of any such a ramp has ever been uncovered and this in itself is an amazing fact. If such a ramp was constructed it would have been LARGER in mass than the pyramid itself. How could the materials used in this have been hidden once the job was done. Further more this adds even more time to the mining and moving of the blocks making the 20 year completion time seem even more far fetched. This theory might work for some, but it does not add up in my opinion.
The French architect Houdin devoted 8 years of his life to solving this problem. He worked on this and developed a series of advanced 3-D renderings on his lap top computer that seemed to show a perfect way that this could have been accomplished. After years of work he came to a realization.....a ramp WAS used in the construction, but it was not an external ramp at all. He propsed that an external ramp was used to get the base blocks into place (The larger ones that support the structure of the pyramid) but then the designers switched to an internal ramp that actually became part of the structure as the pyramid was built. If you can imagine a parking garage in a modern day city, this is the basic premise of his theory. The ramp you drive your car on twists and rises until you get to the top, all the while being part of the internal structure of the parking garage. The hallways and passages inside the pyramid are actually the remains of the ramp that was used to build it, according to Houdin. No one knows for sure if this method was possible or plausible, but it seems to make more sense than the external ramp theory previously used by scholars.
The New Age theorists still contend that even with this new wrinkle to the plans it still would have been impossible to make all the elements of the pyramid come together as perfectly as they did. And, it's hard to argue with them on this point. Even under the best conditions this job would have been nearly impossible to pull off. These new Age theorists still claim that the ancient Egyptians had to have help from a greater society that was far more advanced than their own. Some claim that it was the ancient Atlantians who disappeared from the Earth mysteriously. These Atlantians were supposed to have far advanced architectural skills, mathematical skills, as well as advanced technology. If this race actually existed this theory would make perfect sense, but we aren't sure that such a colony ever existed in the first place. The other school of thought is that the pyramids were built with the help of an E.T. race (or more than one). This theory has gained much ground and support in the past couple of decades particuarly since the writings of Erich Von Daniken in his works such as "Chariots of the Gods". And, lets face it, evidence of advanced cultures aiding in every day life are scattered all across the history of Egypt. If you open your minds even just slightly it's not that far fetched to believe that an outside influence helped the advancement of Egypt.
No matter what side of the debate you fall on it's easy to agree that the structure at Giza is amazing in many ways and truly one of the wonders of the world and one of the great mysteries of the Universe. We may never know the real answer to how it was constructed, and if I am totally honest I don't know if I want to know. One of the great things about mysteries is that they are just that...mysteries. If we knew all the answers we wouldn't be challened to think about things like this and I for one love exploring the ideas of the unknown and forming my own opinions. I am not an expert on Egyptology, nor am I a great writer. This essay is very basic and probably has many errors. For those of you more schooled in these areas I apologize for my butchering of your studies.
