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mysteries |
The Great Pyramid |
Other Information |
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Rising over the Giza Plateau, the Great Pyramid is the last of the seven wonders of the world. It is built out of six and a half million tonnes of rock and shaped to rise more than 146.5 metres into the sky, the Great Pyramid contains more masonry than all the churches, cathedrals and chapels in England combined. And for more than 4,500 years it has remained one of the largest buildings to be constructed in the world. Egyptologists say that the Great Pyramid was built by the Ancient Egyptians in 2,500 BC, by the pharaoh Cheops, roughly at the same time as the sphinx and the other two pyramids of the Giza complex, during the fourth dynasty. The entrance to this pyramid is, as with all pyramids, on the north side, and is about 43 feet above the ground. The main passage down from the entrance is 320 feet long, 3 and a 1/4 feet high, and 4 feet wide; a quarter of the way down this is a granite door, round which the path upwards has been made. This passage is 125 feet long, and the large hall further along this passage is 155 feet long and 28 feet high. The start of this passage leads to the pointed-roofed Queens Chamber, which measures 17 x 19 x 20 feet, and runs parallel to the ground. At the end of the large hall is another passage 22 feet long, this was closed at the far end by four granite doors, the remains of which are still visible, behind these doors is the Kings Chamber, which is lined with granite and measures 35 x 17 x 19 feet. There are five hollow chambers above the Kings Chamber to lift the weight of the space. From the Kings chamber there are two air shafts which measure 234 feet x 8 inches x 6 inches. The floor of the Kings Chamber is about 140 feet high from the base of the pyramid. It is inside this chamber that the broken sarcophagus of the Pharaoh Cheops was found. The only thing that is under dispute now is, why was it built? In March 1993, a German engineer, Rudolph Gantenbrink set out to find the answer. He is the inventor of the Upuaut 2, (meaning - the opener of the way) - a $250,000 remote-controlled robot mounted with a camera. He sent the camera up an air shaft that extends from the Queen’s Chamber travelled 6 metres before its path was blocked by a limestone ‘door’. He was amazed to see on the monitor a door that had two copper handles with a gap in the bottom between it and the floor. Rudolph believes that the door was purpose built and was not just a piece of fallen masonry, for several reasons: The five metres of shaft that is before the door is smooth highly polished limestone, this is found no-where else in the pyramid. There are stress relieving construction techniques, the blocks are laid horizontally and not vertically, around the door. The door appears to be free of mortar, and the handles are in a position to indicate an upward sliding motion, a bit like a portcullis. The Great Pyramid is a marvelous piece of engineering, it faces true North, South, East and West. With only a 0.015 % margin of error. If we were to get this kind of accuracy today we would have to use a laser theodolite, a map accurate to within 10 metres, a master stone mason, engineers and astronomers. The base forms a perfect square, each side is 230 metres in length, with the difference between the longest and shortest side about 25 centimetres. So, why did the builders insist on such a high level of accuracy? Egyptologists believe that it was built for only one reason, as the burial place of the Pharaohs. The attribution to the pyramid being built by Cheops is attributed to the Greek historian Herodotus, who had been told that it was built by Cheops about 2000 years after it was built. Many tried to find evidence to support this story told to Herodotus, but they had to wait until 1837, when a British explorer Colonel Howard Vyse, searched the inside of the pyramid, until anything of importance was found. He blasted his way through the ceiling of the Kings Chamber, and in doing so found four sealed chambers. On the highest of these chambers he discovered red painted graffiti which included the name of Cheops. This gave the Egyptologists the vital clue that they were searching for. They took it that Cheops had built the pyramid, and the empty sarcophagus proved that it was meant as a tomb. They stated that the pyramid was ransacked shortly after it was sealed and all of the contents were pilfered, which is why the pyramid is empty. Doubts have been cast of these hieroglyphics, however in the form of Graham Hancock, who stated: ‘At the end of a costly and fruitless digging season, Vyse... stumbled upon the first incontrovertible proof that Cheops was the builder of the pyramid, guaranteeing that his efforts would be well rewarded.’ According to Hancock, the hieroglyphics raise a number of problems, these are: The hieroglyphic graffiti was the only sign of Cheops’ name to be found anywhere in the pyramid. They were located in an obscure and hidden part of the pyramid. They were found in a chamber to which only Vyse had access to. Several of the hieroglyphs were painted upside down, some were unrecognisable and others were misspelt, or written in bad grammar. This may point to the possibility that Vyse forged the Hieroglyphs to justify the costs of his expedition, though Egyptologists hotly dispute this of course. Graham Hancock and Robert Bauval believe that the true purpose of the pyramids can be found in the stars. Because of a phenomenon called precession which is caused by the Earths wobble, the constellations change their position in a cycle that takes about 25,980 years to complete. Using computer reconstructions of the stars above the pyramids in the year 2,500 BC, they saw that the southern shaft of the pyramid pointed to the star Sirius, which was associated with the goddess Isis. The other southern shaft that is lower down pointed to the lower of the three stars located on the belt of Orion, which was associated with the god Osiris. They believe that these alignments were made intentionally. The link between the pyramids and the Orion was further cemented, when Robert Bauval noticed that the smallest of the three pyramids was out of line with the other two. When he looked at the stars of Orion’s belt he noticed also that they were off-set in exactly the same way, he thought that the Giza pyramids could be earthly representations of these stars. There was a problem with this theory though, but it was quickly solved when Robert and Graham went back to the computer model and looked at when the stars lined up the pyramids properly, they found that the stars lined up perfectly at around10,500 BC. They went on to suggest that although the pyramids were completed in around 2,500 BC the planning of the site had been started around 8,000 years earlier, and they had probably been in the form of low platforms. The plans were handed down from generation to generation and the Ancient Egyptians finally built them when they could. Interestingly as a side note, a number of the visitors to the pyramid have reported strange going-on inside. The first report came from Napoleon who had a disturbing experience there. And in 1903 the occultist Aleister Crowley, spent a night in the Kings Chamber, during this time he read an incantation and reported that he had spent the night being bathed in a lilac coloured light.
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Sources: The X Factor, The Mummy. By: Ernest A. Wallis Budge. |