They have passageways and chambers within them. Did they build the Pyramids as solid structures and then “dig” the tunnels and rooms out of them or were the Pyramids constructed with the open parts “in place?”
The pyramids are made of fitted blocks of stone. They built the passages and chambers in as they went.
With the important exception that in some cases, including in the Great Pyramid, some passageways and chambers were below ground and so were cut into the bedrock before the masonry layers were started.
The Well Shaft in the Great Pyramid is an example of a passage that may have been constructed by tunnelling through completed layers, but that’s certainly not the way they usually did things.
According to a LiveScience article out in the past week, evidences suggests many of the stones were cast on site.
There’s got to be some exaggeration of scope in that article, hasn’t there? I mean, the notion that the blocks were quarried and dressed stone isn’t just a foundless assumption. There’s been much study of quarry marks, there are wall paintings of big stone blocks being dragged about, etc.
I don’t believe the article says all the blocks are reconstituted limestone castings. At the same time, the analysis does show rock structures that are not natural but are consistent with being castings.
Dunno - the article is all over the place really - it has a general tone of “accepted theories on how they built the pyramids are wrong” - the writing around the details is blowing the facts out of proportion.
I’ve crawled around inside Cheops. It looks like really big blocks of quarried stone that were built to form passageways and inner chambers.
It’s usually hot, and it smells odd.
I’m surprised at the hot part, I would have thought it would be cool, as in a cave. I’ve always wondered about the odors too, are the smells unpleasant?
The article is talking ONLY about the (previously presumed) limestone facings. The bulk of the pyrmids were built of granite blocks. Most of the outer limestone facing is missing. What there is of it is exquisitly fitted…Casting would solve the mystery of how that was accomplished.
And when the King came to inspect the finished work, he walked through the passageways and said, “Very nice. Very well not built.”
I spent some time crawling around in the Great Pyramid and I can attest that the interior is boiling hot and smells to high heaven. I think, however, that these conditions are brought on by the volume of human traffic in cramped conditions. We also visited the Red Pyramid which is 20km south of Cairo. This pyramid sees far less traffic but it is used as a bathroom and it reeks like a 300-year old outhouse. Perhaps it is… Still awesome, though.
The desert can get quite hot (120F in the summer) and those pyramids are just sitting there like big ovens, so it isn’t too surprising that it can get stuffy inside.
Like Shamozzle suggests, the smell is eau de humanity in enclosed conditions.