I lost my volume of Peter Thompkins’Secrets of the Great Pyramids but I seem to recall that passageways leading to the so-called Kings Chamber and Queens Chamber were blocked with granite and that they had been blocked during construction. In other words, once the Great Pyramid at Giza was built, it was not capable of being entered, and it was not ever used as a tomb. Can anyone confirm this? If so, why is it that everyone is still taught that it was a tomb, especially in light of the fact that royalty was buried in the Valley of the Kings?
Dunno, but I don’t think that a mummy’s ever been found in a tomb, or that there’s ever been strong evidence that they were used to hold relics of the pharohs.
actually, pharaohs were buried in the valley of the kings several centuries after the pyramids were built.
Tutankhamon’s mummy was found in his tomb. It was one of very few that hadn’t been looted when found by archaeologists.
Were the mummies themselves really that valuable to grave robbers? I know the stories of the Victorian “unwrapping parties,” but I had the impression that mummies were somewhat common in Egypt.
This guy here posits that they were housing for “gargantuan hydraulic ram(s)”.
I subscribe to the view that they are a naturally occurring phenomena.
Ahem.
I believe what you are talking about are the huge stone blocks that were considered some part of the security system of the pyramids. During construction a huge solid block would be left in the roof of the entry tunnels unsupported by the structure. Until the tomb/relic-chamber/whatever was finished they were propped up by wooden supports. When the area was ready to be sealed, they just removed the supports and tada! A huge block of stone dropped down and sealed the entrance, its sheer size preventing removal short of tearing the front of the pyramid off or going through a couple of meters of solid rock.
The rock didn’t turn out to be a problem it seems…
CaptQ has it right. Pyramids were used as tombs before they started using the valley. It is generally agreed upon that they started using the valley to hide the tombs from looters who were stealing from the tombs back then (as well as all through history). The early pyramids were definately used as tombs (the step pyramid, the mud-brick one, and several other smaller ones).
There are intricate networks of tunnels and shafts in the big 3 pyramids, though nobody is exactly sure why. The three best theories I’ve heard are they are to A) allow for the dead Pharoah’s soul to travel to the heavens , B) used to allow light into some chambers so the workers could work (well placed mirrors would bounce the light around corners) or C) used for ventilation.
The door blocking the shaft in question was a total surprise when it was discovered, and recently they sent a mini-cam thru the wall to see what was on the other side. They found…another door a few feet ahead.
There is one theory gaining a bit of steam that the pyramids (the 3 biggies anyway) were constructed as a tomb but never used. This is often discounted because it is thought that no mummies were found (and no treasures) because they were looted. However, the part that looks odd is the fact that there are no hieroglyphs any where to be found, no treasures, and no remains. Remains and treasures would be stolen for sure, but why no Hieroglyphs? These are thought to be very important to the Egyptian burial process. In fact, all tombs have a ‘story’ of the life of the pharoah for whom it was built (called a ‘cartouche’). Tye great pyramid doesn’t have one. There are a few markings at various places in the tomb, but they are generally thought to be fake or even simple graffitti by workers who wanted to leave their mark.
Personally, I think it wouldn’t be too surprised if the great Pyramids were built as a big diversion to draw attention away from real tombs (perhaps they started in the valley long before we think).
Here are some good general info sites:
http://library.thinkquest.org/CR0210200/ancient_egypt/pyramids.htm
http://www.hansrey.com/egypt-mystery.htm
http://www.guardians.net/hawass/millennium1.htm (Scroll down to “The so-called secret door”)
http://jcolavito.tripod.com/lostcivilizations/id10.html
There are lots of secrets they pyramids haven’t given up to us yet. Like how were they built with such geographic precision (in relation to the poles, and the stars), how did they use mathematical calculations that weren’t discovered until thousands of years later, and how did so many other cultures adopt they pyramid around the globe long before anybody could travel these distances. Pyramids are used in similar fashions in China, Japan, The Canary Islands, Greece, Sudan, Peru, Brazil, Mongolia, Russia, Mexico, and even in the USA (Missippi and Illinois!).
Actually, I think “cartouche” refers only to the rounded rectangular or oval design that was drawn around the names of the deceased.
From www.dictionary.com :
Geographic precision? Anyone can line up a bead on the pole star (still visible on the horizon at that latitude with no trees), plant two sticks in line “pointing” at it, then build right-angled lines off that.
What mathematical calculations do you suppose they used that were supposed to have been not discovered/developed until much later?
Lots of societies use pyramids because they are the simplest way to build enormous edifices. Prior to the development of steel, it was pretty hard to put up a 20 story skyscraper. It was similarly difficult to build a 20 story cube of stone. On the other hand, any kid in a sand box can tell you that putting down a wide base allows you to put a slightly smaller level on top of that and to continue going up in a self-supporting structure. I would be surprised if any society used something different than a pyramid for its earliest monumental structures.
Firx, I thought there was traditionally a large cartouche in the burial chamber that was like a ‘highlight reel’ of the Pharoah’s life. The ‘story’ is told in a large cartouche I thought, but I may be using the wrong terminology. IANAEgyptologist…just an interested party.
tomndeb, since you didn’t read my links (where all the answers to your questions are) I will C&P for you:
1 & 2) "These pyramids are masterpieces of architecture, which contain endless mathematical and astronomical formulas and measures. Even with our modern technology we could not rebuild a structure like this today (I’m not sure about that statement, though -NoGoodNamesLeft). There are over 2.3 million blocks of stone and granite; some of them weight over 40 tons.
The pyramids are exactly aligned on the North / South axis of the compass.
They are located on the exact center of the land mass of the earth.
The distance to the center of the earth and to the North Pole is the same.
Mathematical formulas and numbers like the constant Pi (3,14) were used to construct the Pyramids, Pythagoras who supposedly invented this formula lived much later.
The three pyramids in Giza form a Pythagorean triangle whose sides have the proportions 3:4:5
- There are quite a few more parallels to Egyptian Pyramids and Pyramids of other cultures through History other than their shape. I watched a documentary not too long ago that showed evidence found in remote cultres of Egyptian influence. I can’t put my hands on the actual name of the show, I wish I could; it was very good.
I am not saying they were made by ‘space monsters’ or anything, just that the Egyptians werer far smarter than we give them credit for.
OK, I’ll buy this, but why is that so hard? Like tomndebb said, anyone can do it, although I believe that at that time there wasn’t as good of a pole star as we have today, but still you could line up on the point in the sky that didn’t move.
I’m trying to fugure out a way to ascribe any meaning to this statement.
The pyramids were built where they are because that’s where the people lived. Unless this guy is saying that the area was settled because it was equidistant, then it has to be a coincidence that the area is around 30 degrees latitude, making the center-pyramid-pole triangle equilateral.
This is a pretty vague statement. How was pi used for the pyramids? There’s not a circle on it. I don’t even see how you’d need the pythagorean theorem to build it.
I think this particular page you quote from is full of it.
I did not miss your links. I ignored those, thinking that you might have better information than the silly claims made in those links:
I already demonstrated how one can align any structure with due north.
They are not located on “exact center of the land mass of the earth.” (Take a look: Asia to the East and Eurasia and North America to the North each make their position in terms of “center of land mass” extremely lopsided.)
How does one know that Pi was used on a building that has no circles? (Beyond which, the easily arrived at ratio of 22:7 is actually slightly more accurate than 3.14–especially for a culture that has already begun using the wheel–as Egypt had.)
There is nothing magical about a standard 3:4:5 right triangle (and the extreme scalene triangle of the Giza group is certainly not one. Not to mention that a 3:4:5 triangle would blow the other wild hypothesis about Orion’s Belt.)
Not to be difficult, but can anyone shed some light on my original query? So far, only one reply, from NoGood, supra, has addressed that query. And that is kind of my point. Folks know a lot of mundane facts about the pyramid, but is there any evidence, as opposed to specualtion, that the pyramid was ever used as a tomb? Or that ingress and egress were capable once the tomb was contructed?
NoGoodNamesLeft, the article you quote is written by a man famous for doing tricks on his bicycle. He is not exactly an authority in this area.
I have seen a theory that there remains an undiscovered chamber somewhere within the Great Pyramid and that the chambers we have found are “decoys” to keep theives away from the real one. I think it was put forth by Rudolf Gatenbrink, the engineer who designed the original Upuaut probe (the robot that climbed up the air shafts). He based it on the way one of the shafts is bent (as if it was avoiding something) and on the way some of the stones had settled (as if there was an opening below them).
Unfortunately, I can’t find the cite right now; I thought it was on his web site (www.cheops.org) but didn’t find anything on a quick look-thru. I’ll see if I can find where I got it from.
Ha ha! I didn’t know that, that’s funny! Seriously, I’m not a student of Egyptology, I just thought there were some oddities about the construction of the pyramids that haven’t been understood. I guess there’s not as much as I thought.
The page ends by referring us to a book by Erich von Däniken so please feel free to draw your own conclusions. 
The best theory (Herbie Brenan) is that the Great pyramid was actually an enormous power plant that distributed electricity through the Earths crust using a combination of harmonics and gas combustion. 
How they actually harnessed this energy was not explained…