The Pyramid ain't no tomb

Factual Questions
21

It has been several years since i read up on this, but my memory was that the Valley of the Kings (with their hidden tombs) was a later reaction to the fact that the original tombs were being looted. The earliest pyramids were tombs and the burial vaults for nearly all of them heve been discovered–looted. Certainly Imhotep’s first all-stone mastaba for Djoser was a tomb.

It is possible that the Great Pyramid and its two companions were used for another purpose (such as decoys) or that they were, in fact, tombs, but that the vaults were much more carefully disguised or hidden.

I suspect that they are still referred to as tombs based on the assumption that, since earlier (and some later) pyramids clearly were tombs, the easiest explanation for the Giza trio is that they, too, were tombs.

22

Hey, psiclone, I lost my copy of Tompkins’ book as well! Maybe aliens are snatching them to suppress the true secrets of the pyramids.:wink:

In all honesty it was a while ago that I last read Peter Tompkins book. IIRC the “Grand Gallery”, the long corbelled passageway leading up to the Queen’s Chamber, was never blocked. The passages that were blocked were near the entrance only. That entrance had been obscured by the damage incurred during removal of the dressed limestone covering of the pyramid. Those nice dressed limestone blocks were carted off over the ages for construction of other buildings, mostly in Cairo.

And if memory serves, during 19th century archaeological digs, evidence of tunneling around those large blocking monoliths was found, tipping off how ancient looters got into the structure itself. FWIW…

23

Pi is easy to get. Make a circular disk one cubit (or whatever) in diameter, mark one point on it, then roll it one revolution to get Pi cubits.

24

To answer the actual OP, the antechamber to the King’s Chamber was very obviously designed so that the portcullises could be lowered into place after construction work had been completed. The engineering principles involved were not especially complicated. This page has some pictures which show that the antechamber is tall but with only low entrances, so there was plenty of space to store the portcullises above.

http://www.guardians.net/egypt/gp2.htm

The other blocking plugs elsewhere in the Great Pyramid can also be accounted for. It is therefore simply incorrect to argue that the Pyramid could only have been sealed during construction.

The following page, which is derived from Ian Lawton and Chris Ogilvie-Herald’s excellent book, Giza: The Truth, discusses the portcullises and plugging blocks in some detail. As Lawton points out, they tend to confirm that the Great Pyramid was indeed built as a tomb.

http://www.ianlawton.com/pgp3.htm

25

Some legends surround the Great Pyramid at Giza:

(from “A Search in Secret Egypt” by Paul Brunton)

Very few, if any, Egyptian necropoli have been found above ground. This leads to speculation that the pyramid may have served some other purpose. The “king’s burial chamber” is at an elevation many meters above ground level.

One of the “light shafts” or “ventilating shafts” somehow, miraculously, captures the image of the pole star, Polaris. The inclusion of these very small shafts (~9-12" square) is a major mystery. To align them properly during construction is viewed as being equally difficult as boring them afterwards.

The main entrance was plugged by a thirteen ton (30 ton?) conical plug of red granite. This was some of the hardest stone available in all Egypt. The main passage had a recess built into it and the plug was placed on jacks in that hollow. Once the pyramid was finished, the plug was dislodged from its cribs and allowed to slide down into a cone shaped portico built into the passageway. This plug was so hard that it was easier to burrow around it through the surrounding limestone, than to drill straight through it.

Above the “king’s chamber” are other smaller rooms that do not permit a person to stand upright in them. Across the ceiling of the main chamber (and the ones above) are large roof beams of monolithic stone that weigh something like 70 tons. It is still open to speculation as to how these were put in place. A sand ramp may not have been able to support these beams and the pyramid could not have been built up underneath them. Here is a link to some information.

You can see from the drawing just how massive these beams are. It begs the other question of how they were transported to the site as well. Recent work has shown that the Egyptians were able to build gigantic barges that might have been able to transport some of these huge beams. Others continue to speculate that priests used psycho-kinetic abilities to “float” the stones to the construction site. The “relieving” rooms above the main chamber serve a crucial purpose (despite the linked site’s statements to the contrary) as they permitted some “flexing” of the main chamber’s roof structure during seismic activity. This redistributed the downward force of the apex’s load away from the main chamber during such events.

According to legend, the Giza pyramid was cased in polished white limestone. Supposedly this casing was cannibalized to build some of the mosques in Cairo. Legend also has it that the white limestone casing was covered with 100,000 pages of characters that were not hieroglyphic in nature. Some say this was the “operating manual” for the pyramid. No matter what, the polished white limestone casing would have made the pyramid visible for many, many miles. Quite possibly, it may have even been visible from outer space. An excerpt from this site:

“The Great Pyramid was constructed with an original outer layer of white Tura limestone casing stones that gave it a smooth and almost seamless outer surface. In the 14th century, the local inhabitants stripped the casing stones from the pyramid to rebuild after an earthquake.”

The Giza pyramid is supposed to be orthogonally aligned with earth’s longitude and latitude to a stunning degree. Some speculate this could only have been done by viewing the construction site from above or from outer space. This contributes to the notion that pyramids were sites for training and accomplishment of astral projection. Others use this in attempts to posit that the Egyptians had some sort of flight capability. Witness the huge furor over the “monoplane” styled bird figure that received so much notice.

“The accuracy of the Great Pyramid’s construction is most remarkable. The base is an almost perfect square. The difference between the longest and shortest sides is only 20 centimeters, and the four 90-degree corner angles are accurate to better than 3.5 arc minutes. Furthermore, the base is almost perfectly aligned to the compass points, with the largest alignment error measuring only 5.5 arc minutes.”

“The Great Pyramid rests on a stone platform 55 centimeters tall. This platform is level to some 2.5 centimeters across a diagonal base length of some 325 meters. Interestingly, the Great Pyramid rests at latitude 29d 58’ 51” N, which is only 01’ 09" (2125 meters) south of exactly 30 degrees north latitude. Did the builders intend to build the Great Pyramid at 30 degrees north latitude, or is this curious fact merely a coincidence?"
[sub]EMPHASIS ADDED[/sub]

Supposedly, at the quarries in upper Egypt, there are cavities that rather precisely fit the blocks extracted from them. There is no explanation for how workers could possibly have “pulled” out these blocks without removing more significant portions of the surrounding stone.

Anyhoo, these are some of the topics I recall from the book. As a scientist, I have a difficult time giving them too much credence. However, the physical proportions and degree of advanced engineering skill required to create this phenomenal structure remains, in some ways, a continuing mystery.

I would enjoy it immensely if anyone more versed upon the subject could address the several legends and conundrums mentioned above. It would be interesting to see what has been recently discovered that refutes or supports such odd speculation and fact.

26

One last item;

Supposedly, the Cheops pyramid had a large solid gold “capstone” to channel the “pyramid power” generated by the immense structure.

27

This page has another description of the “well-shaft” and its possible significance in closing the pyramid.

True in general, but the royal ones still seem to have been a target for robbery, presumably because of the jewelry incorporated in the bandaging. The main evidence for this is that at some point while the Valley of the Kings was in use for burials, a decision was taken that it wasn’t safe enough and that the bodies (but not any other grave goods) would have to be moved to a more secure location. A natural cave was chosen and enlarged with a tunnel, then the mummies transfered in great secrecy, using a funeral of a high priest as cover. (Tutankhamen was missed, presumably because the location of his tomb had been lost; the Valley regularly floods, changing the terrain.) Later burials involved a decoy tomb and ceremony, with the coffin actually being taken to the secret location.
The trick appears to have worked, since the “Royal Cache” wasn’t discovered until the 19th century. All the mummies are now in the Cairo Museum.

28

OK- Royal Mummies had quite a bit of highly valuable jewlery used in their wrappings Thus, yes, they were valuable.

Next- there is nothing occult or outside what we know about the ancient Egyptians in the Pyramid construction. They were all built quite well, true, and we don’t understand why some things were done the way there were done- but nothing requires any supernatural explanation. Built close to true North? Hell, give me a clear night and a straight stick, and I’ll get even closer to True North. Some alignments with stars? They couldn’t see the stars? They don’t have sticks? Built to close tolerances? All you need is a straightedge. a level, and a angle. Oh- and nearly unlimited manpower, sure.

If I remember right, the other two Pyramids (one of which appears even taller than Ceops, as it is on higher ground) were both burial sites- although also looted. Cheop’s did have an empty stone coffin. It is not impossible that his was intended more as a monument, and the body was hidden elsewhere. I think they found it in that cache Bonxer mentioned? (Although I don’t think the royal mummies in that cache started there, they were moved there by the Preist of Anubis after the original tombs were broken into).

Speaking of the other 2 Pyramids- one still has quite a few of the original outer casing stones at the top. Nothing mysterious about them- some do have markings- the standard ones we’d expect. However, I will agree that fully encased, in the desert sun- they must have been magnificent. Even today, they are pretty darn amazing.

Why do we assume that the ancient egytians were some sort of “primitives” and thus some other explanation must be made for the Pyramids & such? Although their technology was behind ours, they were fully as intelligent as we are today.

Yes, pyramid like structures are common. Some are 4 sided, however. But if you figure this was the best way of stacking stone so that it stayed up for a long time- it is not surprising.

29

While it’s true that the Great Pyramid’s stone coffin may have been empty (APB’s link goes through some of the arguments on this point in some detail) and burial elsewhere may be an explanation, he wasn’t in the Royal Cache. All the coffins found there had nameplates and so the bodies can be securely assigned to individual pharoahs and high officials. Khufu/Cheops isn’t one of them. And since the creation of the Cache was related to security in the Valley of the Kings, that he’s not is no great surprise.
To re-clarify, most of the mummies in the Cache were originally in tombs in the Valley and then moved as a single operation. A handful of mummies were added later and the presumption in these cases is that they were placed directly in the Cache immediately after mummification, though still with a decoy body-less funeral and tomb in the Valley.

30

Of course, the reason we don’t understand some things about the construction of pyramids is because we haven’t tried to build one identical in every way to ones the Egyptians built. Were we to undertake such an endeavour, we’d probably be able to get pretty close to the techniques that the Egyptians used.

31

That’s true Tucker.
I’ll go a step further…
Weren’t the pyramids actually built over a rather long period of time, from the first ‘real’ one to the last ‘big’ one? A matter of lifetimes wasn’t it? Like, a couple hundred years?
Maybe only the last ones remain… maybe they learned as they went. The first few didn’t last. They learned new ways. Eventually they got it ‘just right’.
Look at what americans have done in just a few hundred years with construction technology. Those superhighways aren’t going anywhere any time soon. q;}

32

Archaeologists are beginning to identify odd stone piles which represent pyramid constructions with such steep facing angles that they collapsed upon themselves.

33

I thought France was in the center of the continents. I saw this in a geography book once. You can fit nearly all the land mass of the earth into one hemisphere. Not much would be left outside it except Australia, New Guinea, and Indonesia in the other hemisphere. You can see this for yourself if you go to the map page in Microsoft Encarta. You can drag the little globe around until you maximize the landmass in one hemisphere.

At the center of that hemisphere is France.