Pyramid of Cheops (Khufu)
The Great Pyramid, the last remaining wonder from the ancient list of the seven wonders of the world, is a fantastic masterpiece of engineering, not only because of its gigantic size. It weighs 6.5 million tons and contains more building material than it took to build all the cathedrals, churches and chapels in England! Its uniqueness also lies in the exceptional accuracy of the orientation of the faces according to the cardinal points. The error is negligible - 0.015 percent! Today, achieving such accuracy would require the use of laser theodolites, topographic maps with a resolution of 10 meters and an army of engineers, astronomers and stonemasons.
By the way, the word Pyramid does not define a three-dimensional triangle, and at the same time its root is not even Egyptian. The word Pyramid is made up of the Greek word "pyra" meaning fire, light (or visible) and the Greek word "midos" meaning measures (another meaning is the middle (inside)). The fact is that until 1301, when, after a strong earthquake, the Arabs began to use the loosened cladding for the construction and restoration of palaces and mosques in destroyed Cairo, the Pyramid of Khufu (Cheops - in ancient Greek transcription / 2590-2568 BC /. ), which had an initial height of 146.6 meters (now 138 meters) was lined with polished limestone slabs. Part of the cladding (top 22 rows) is still preserved on the Khafre pyramid. They were so shiny that they could be seen hundreds of kilometers away.
The base of the Pyramid, resting on a granite surface with a deviation from the horizontal of no more than two cm, is an almost perfect square (maximum deviation 3 minutes 33 seconds) with sides of about 230 meters (northern 230.1, western and eastern 230.2, southern 230.3). And the whole structure, which today consists of 203 rows of masonry, was erected without cranes, wheels and powerful stone-cutting tools. Why did the ancient architects achieve such high accuracy, if this accuracy could not even be seen with the naked eye?
One of the answers to these questions, perhaps, lies in the desire of the ancient architects to encrypt some fundamental numerical values in the dimensions of the Great Pyramid. And this requires high dimensional accuracy. As a result, for example, the ratio of the length of the base of the pyramid to its height, divided in half, gives the famous number "pi" (the ratio of the circumference to its diameter) to six decimal places! This number is also mentioned in the ancient Egyptian papyrus Rinda (kept in the British Museum in London). Perhaps it is deliberately encrypted in the size of the Pyramid of Cheops, and with a more accurate value than the great Archimedes, who lived 2000 years later, knew it!
This idea inspired enthusiasts to search for other fundamental ratios in the Pyramid of Cheops.
Astronomical calendar
Egyptologist Graham Hancock and his colleague Robert Boval, who deny the generally accepted idea of the Great Pyramid as the tomb of Cheops, because in none of the pyramids, despite empty sarcophagi, dead bodies were found. (I will especially talk about the Menkauru pyramid. When the British Colonel Howard Wens entered the burial chamber of this pyramid in 1837, he found a basalt sarcophagus there, a wooden coffin lid in the form of a human figure and bones. The sarcophagus sank along with the ship transporting it to England, and the dating of the coffin lid and bones attributed them to the era of early Christianity.) When in the 9th century AD. e. the expedition penetrated the pyramid of Cheops and explored the royal crypt with great difficulty, the large stone sarcophagus, as it turned out, was empty, but there were no signs of a previous ruin. The truth, Hancock and Boval believe, lies in the astronomical data.
At a distance of about 160 meters from the pyramid of Cheops, the pyramid of Khafre rises, the height of which is 136.6 meters, and the length of the sides is 210.5 meters. However, the Khafre pyramid visually seems to be higher than the Cheops pyramid - the effect is achieved due to the fact that its base is at a higher level. The Pyramid of Menkaure, which is even smaller, is located 200 meters from the Pyramid of Khafre. Its height is 62 meters, and the length of the sides is 108 meters. The three pyramids are part of the complex, which also consists of a sphinx, several temples, small pyramids, tombs of priests and officials.
But back to astronomy. Due to the so-called procession (swaying of the earth's axis under the gravitational influence of the Sun and Moon), the constellations change their position in the sky with a period of 25920 years. With the help of a computer, it was possible to reconstruct the starry sky over the Great Pyramid in 2500 BC. It turned out that in those days one of the southern corridors of the Pyramid was exactly directed to the star Sirius, identified by the Egyptians with the Goddess Isis. Another southern corridor pointed to the lower of the three stars that made up Orion's Belt, a constellation believed to be the abode of the God Osiris, who brought civilization to the Nile Valley.
These coincidences, according to Hancock and Boval, are not accidental. Moreover, the third largest pyramid (Menkaur) is knocked out of a straight line connecting the first (Cheops) and second (Khephren) pyramids. Looking at Orion's Belt, Robert Boval noticed a completely similar arrangement of three stars! Thus, the scientist concludes, apparently the three largest pyramids in Giza symbolize Orion's Belt on earth! However, the angle of the Belt now does not coincide exactly with the axis of the three pyramids. The use of a computer that calculated the time of the exact coincidence of Orion's Belt and the three largest Egyptian pyramids showed that this moment refers to the time of 10642 - 10546 BC. e., that is, half the period of precession to the present day, at 25920 years, like the ancients, or 25729 years according to modern data, the year BC. According to Boval and Hancock, although all three pyramids were completed around 2500 BC, the plan of the Giza complex was drawn up 8,000 years earlier! It was passed down from generation to generation until the time when it was possible to combine the inner corridors with the direction to the desired stars!
In their book Guardians of Creation, Bauval and Hancock emphasize that they believe the creators of the Giza pyramid complex and the famous Sphinx intended to build some kind of chronological "beacons" that would encourage many future generations to search for the true meaning of their project. Selecting the position of monuments using the "language of the stars" should be understandable to any culture familiar with astronomy. The Giza Pyramid Complex probably contains rooms containing the most important messages of the ancient architects, facing the future. Boval and Hancock are convinced that humanity is on the threshold of the Great Discoveries in the pyramids.
Evgeny Menshov expresses another opinion in his article. Claiming that the Pyramids remind us of the planets of the solar system and the catastrophe that occurred on September 22, 10532 BC.
Where are the Great Messages kept?
Everyone has heard about the treasures of the pyramids and their robbers. The way to the Great Pyramid of Cheops, in 820, was found by the Arab Ale Manune. (Caliph Al-Maamoun) He began to dismantle in the center of the Northern Wall, where, according to legend, there was an entrance.
To do this, he poured vinegar on the stones, warmed them with fires, and then used battering rams. Hearing the sound of stones rolling off to the left of their tunnel, the treasure hunters dug to the source of the sound, which led them to a passage leading down (at an angle of 26.30). At the lower end of the sloping passage was what came to be called the bottomless pit (P), or a large underground chamber located at 180m. below the top of the pyramid. The falling stones that the Arabs heard rolled into it. If not for this accident, the entrance would never have been found.
At present, the main entrance to the Pyramid is the entrance pierced by the Arabs. The real entrance is higher, seventeen meters above the ground and seven meters east of the main north-south axis. Having a section of 1m x 1.22m, it is clamped by floor blocks 2.6m thick and 3.6m wide and a floor slab 0.76m thick and 10m long.
From the inclined tunnel (D), at the same angle, there is an ascending tunnel (A), connected to the Grand Gallery (G), which is 46.6 meters long, ending with an entrance to a room of polished granite 5.2x10.4 meters and 5.8 meters tall, known as the Royal Crypt(K). It is covered with five 70-ton slabs supporting the upper part of the pyramid, is located at a height of 42.7 meters above the ground, and inside it stands an empty granite box without decorations.
The stone plug placed at the entrance to the ascending tunnel is made of rare red granite, identical to the granite of Mount Horeb, where, according to legend, Moses received the 10 commandments. To circumvent it, the Arabs carved the softer limestone around it.
However, there was another secret passage. From the ascending tunnel, a horizontal passage branches off, leading to a completely empty room, called the Queen's Chamber (Q), and next to it is the Rough Shaft (W) connecting the Grand Gallery to the descending tunnel, about 60 meters from the stone plug.
Oddly enough, but the descending corridor was well known in antiquity. The Greco-Roman geographer Strabo left a clear description of the large underground chamber (P) into which this corridor enters (180 meters below the top of the pyramid). In this chamber, underground inscriptions were found - autographs from the time of the Roman occupation, indicating regular visits in those years. However, thanks to the secret door leading to the shaft (W) in the descending tunnel, this passage was forgotten.
There are several hypotheses about the astrological and temporal significance of the corridors, but I will not dwell on them. It seems to me incorrect to link time and distance in a pyramid. But I will provide a diagram and a link from it.
Another surprising fact is that the ventilation ducts in the main chambers maintain a constant temperature of 68 degrees Fahrenheit. For some reason, the builders left intact the last 13 cm of the block at the entrance to the two ventilation shafts in the queen's chamber (Q) and only in 1872, Wayneman Dixon, by analogy with the king's chamber, discovered them by tapping and made his way to a canal high 20 and a width of 23 cm, going 2 meters into the wall, and then, at an angle further.
It was in this channel that, in March 1993, a German engineer, a specialist in the field of robotics, Rudolf Gantenbrink, hired by the Egyptian Antiquities Organization, to improve ventilation, launched a small-sized crawler robot, controlled from a distance and equipped with powerful lights and television cameras. This robot "Upuat" (in ancient Egyptian "Pioneer") worth 250 thousand US dollars and showed on March 22 that 60 meters from the beginning of the steep rise of the mine (39.5 0) the walls and floor suddenly became smooth and the robot crawled into a passage of polished limestone, usually used for facing ritual premises and after 5 meters it ran into a deaf limestone "door"! Gantenbrink was amazed to see two copper handles on the "door" lowered down, which, in his opinion, testified to the "sliding" principle of opening and closing the door. In addition, the stone blocks stood vertically at the "door" (instead of their usual horizontal arrangement in other places). That is, they performed the unloading function. Judging by the wide gap and chip at the corner of the "door", someone has already opened it! A faint draft blew strange black dust out of the crack. In general, everything spoke about the presence of an unknown room behind the "door"!
Earlier, with the help of the latest microgravimeter device, French and Japanese scientists discovered THREE unknown rooms inside the Pyramid! One of them is 30 meters long, 5 meters wide and 3 meters high. Having drilled holes, scientists "peeped" there with a television probe and found sand in the voids, but not the one that is abundant around the Pyramid, but found only six kilometers to the southwest! In addition, as it turned out, before laying in the Pyramid, he carefully sifted. According to some experts, sand of precisely this composition prevents the passage of electromagnetic waves, which at one time tried to "see through" this structure.
A television probe found some foreign bodies in one of the large voids. The resolution of the TV camera was not enough to identify these "bodies". Director of the Department of Antiquities of Egypt, Ahmed Qadri, commented: "There is something else in the Pyramid that we don't know about yet. This part of the structure has never been penetrated before. There is some construction there!"
In 1954, archaeologists discovered two immured niches at the foot of the Pyramid. When one of them was opened, the pit smelled of the aroma of cedar planks. There lay disassembled the original Pharaoh's boat, 43.6 meters long! It took 16 years to extract and dock hundreds of perfectly preserved fragments of the boat. Now the boat stands in its original form in a glass pavilion next to the Pyramid (Solar-Barke (Solar Boat) Museum).
A narrow hole was drilled in the second niche and a light guide connected to a television camera was inserted into it. This work, with all precautions, began in October 1987. When the television camera was turned on, a clear silhouette appeared on the screen: a boat! The second boat was a huge structure of sagging boards fastened with copper staples. They are not in a hurry to extract it - it is too difficult to keep this amazing find in the air ...
Physical impact Pyramids
The French scientist Jacques Bergier, who studied the influence of various spatial forms on biological substances, built a cardboard model of the Pyramid and placed bull's blood there. After some time, it was divided into two substances - light and dark. Other scientists have made sure that perishable products are stored for a long time in the Pyramid model. A pendulum suspended above the top of the model swings to the side or rotates slowly around the top. Plants are behaving strangely. First they gravitate towards the east, then describe a semicircle, moving from south to west. The Czech inventor Karel Drbal adapted a similar model for self-sharpening razor blades in 1959, and received a patent for this unusual invention. According to Drbal, he shaved with the same blade, placing it in a model overnight, more than two thousand times! It is believed that the pyramidal shape focuses cosmic energy...
pyramid lens
American engineer Raymond D. Manners, in an article published in the magazine "Fate" for November 1996, reports that in its original form the Pyramid was distinguished by two features: sparkling surfaces and ... concave in the middle part of the face!
The ancient builders covered the Pyramid with a layer of polished limestone 2.5 meters thick! There were 144,000 20-ton cladding stones. They were so brilliant that they could be seen hundreds of kilometers away. In the morning and at noon, the sunlight reflected from this vast mirror surface was visible from the moon.
The locals have looked at the Pyramid and its polished stones with awe for centuries. But when an earthquake loosened some of the shell stones in the 13th century, the Arabs began to use the cladding to build and rebuild Cairo's palaces and mosques, including the Sultan Hassan Mosque.
Surprisingly, the cladding stones were butted at 0.5mm spacing and have perfect right angles with straight line deviations within 0.25mm. Modern technology does not allow to place such blocks with greater accuracy. It is even more surprising that this gap was intended for glue to seal and hold the stones together. The white cement that held the cladding stones together and made them waterproof is still intact and stronger than the blocks to which it was set.
As for the concavity of the edges, by the way, completely invisible from the ground and, according to some opinions, reflecting the radius of the Earth, the French scientists who accompanied Napoleon's army in the Egyptian campaign were the first to suspect it. Later, in the 1880s, this fact was confirmed by the famous explorer of the Great Pyramid, Flinders Petrie. Then they forgot about it for a hundred years. And only in our days, aerial photography by an officer of the British army P. Groves showed with certainty that the concavity of the faces, however, quite insignificant - only one meter, really takes place ...
It is interesting to note that later pyramids were built with completely flat sides! Apparently, the main builder of the Great Pyramid hid from his followers the meaning and purpose of the concavities. According to Raymond Manners, the peculiar concave "mirrors" on the edges with a total area of about 15 hectares served to focus the sun's rays on the day of the summer solstice. On this day, when the Sun was only 6.5 degrees from the zenith, a fantastic action took place: thanks to the polished edges, the Great Pyramid sparkled like a diamond! At the focus of the concave "mirrors" the temperature rose to a thousand degrees! The assembled crowds of people began to hear crackling coming from these points, gradually increasing to a thunderous deafening sound!
Amidst the blazing light and roar from the central whirlwind above the top of the Pyramid, waves of hot air shot upwards. An illusion of a fiery column rising from the Pyramid was created. It was truly the road along which God Ra himself descended to people!
Sphinx
The riddle of the Sphinx haunts people no less than the pyramids. When I read that the Sphinx had been completely covered over several times, it seemed surprising to me. However, a trip to Cairo dispelled all doubts. The Sphinx stands in a pit (the origin of which I cannot judge) at the foot of a hill with pyramids, and if you fill it up, only part of the head will be visible. True, it should be borne in mind that the Giza plateau is a rocky wasteland, and not a desert with sand dunes, as many might have thought. (the most complete association will be given to you by a stone lime quarry or a large construction site) so, in my opinion, it will take more than one decade, if not centuries, to bring it in. But let's get back to the object itself
Recently, Japanese scientists (S. Yoshimura) using echo sounders have shown that the processed stone of the sculpture of the Sphinx is MUCH OLDER than the blocks of the pyramids. I will emphasize the ANCIENT MATERIAL OF SCULPTURE. Another fact: hydrological studies revealed traces of erosion from a powerful flow of water at the base of the pedestal of the statue (including ON THE TREATED SURFACE). British geophysicists estimate the age of erosion at 10-12 millennia (!). The foregoing confirms the hypothesis, which is very popular today: the Gizov complex was built TWICE ..
At present, the entire base of the sphinx and paws have been restored, so I could not see any signs of erosion. However, I have the opinion that the Egyptians not only restore but also rebuild many archaeological sites, there are even tower cranes in Luxor.
In view of the foregoing, the sequence of events can be represented as follows. About 12.5 thousand years ago, unknown architects erected a complex of pyramids, coding in its plan the connection of three planets of the solar system, and in the orientation of the lion statue - the date. when it took place. A little later, water gushed out from somewhere with monstrous force. Her stream destroyed the pyramids, but the Sphinx. hollowed out of a monolithic rock and, possibly, covered with sand, survived. After 8000 years, during the reign of the pharaohs of the fourth dynasty, the rest of the buildings were restored. It is possible, however, that the Sphinx also underwent restoration: we assume that initially it depicted simply a lion, and a human head - specifically, the head of Pharaoh Khafre (opposite the Pyramid of which it stands) - was attached to it under Pharaoh Khafre.
French archaeologists have noticed: the dating of the Egyptian flood coincides with the date of the death of the legendary Atlantis according to Plato.
Tokyo scientists also gave a second sensation: electronic equipment showed a narrow tunnel under the left paw of a stone statue leading towards the Khafre pyramid. It starts at a depth of two meters and goes down obliquely. It turned out to be impossible to trace it further, but Professor Yoshimura promised to create a new device, specifically for the study of this underground passage.
P.S. Measures of Ancient Egypt
Having delved into the history of the emergence of units of measurement and standards, it is easy to find out that the Egyptians had three units of length: the cubit (466 mm), equal to seven palms (66.5 mm), which, in turn, was equal to four fingers (16.6 mm ). Long distances were measured in tens and hundreds of cubits or palms. It is easy to see that the side of the base of the pyramid of Cheops is exactly 500 cubits.
It is tempting, of course, to see a certain "astral" meaning in the height of the pyramid of Cheops. But isn't it easier to assume that the pyramids were built exactly the way the customer required? Pharaoh or, say, a council of priests. He will order: “a hundred cubits in height” - and they will build it. And how could the pharaoh order? Most likely, he set the height in round numbers - of course, in Egyptian measures ... To verify the above assumption, let's measure the pyramids not in meters, but in cubits (lx) and palms (ld). And what happens? Of the three pyramids of Giza, the smallest, Mykerin, has a height of one thousand ld (66 m). The Pyramid of Snefru has 200 lux. Finally, at the pyramid of Khufu (Cheops) - 300 lux 100 ld (146.6 m): the son outdid his father by almost one and a half times. Other measurements of the Cheops pyramid are also curious: the side of the base is 500 lux (233 m), the apothem of the side face is 400 lux (187 m), the length of the main gallery is 100 lux (46.2 m), the upper passage is 500 ld (33 m), etc. d. Famous Pyramids are equal to the stars
The question "how old are the Egyptian pyramids?" seems to have been resolved long ago: about 4500 years. However, the method of solving this issue, based on the analysis of ancient records, is not very accurate. As a result, estimates of the age of the pyramids can be overestimated or underestimated by about 100 years. From one point of view, compared to their age, this is not much; from another point of view, man is an imperfect being and always strives for the ideal. So Egyptologists eventually could not stand the uncertainty and began to develop methods for more accurate dating. One of them, developed by the British Egyptologist Kate Spence from Cambridge, is based on astronomy.
The fact is that many mysteries and questions are associated with the Egyptian pyramids. One of them is this: how did the ancient Egyptians manage to align their creations so precisely? After all, two of the four sides of each pyramid are directed quite accurately from north to south! Keith Spence believes that the stars helped the ancient builders in this. More precisely, two stars: Mizar and Kokhab, in the constellations Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. Due to the displacement of the Earth's own axis in space (with a period of 26,000 years), these two stars in different centuries point to different parts of the world. By calculating when they pointed to the north, one can very accurately determine the time of the construction of the pyramids.
Moreover, with the help of the “two stars” theory, those errors in the alignment of the pyramids that the Egyptians nevertheless made are perfectly explained (in fact, Spence developed her own theory to explain these errors). After all, the pyramids were not built at the same time, the stars managed to shift a little during this time, and the direction “to the north” also shifted somewhat. Today's "northern" star - the Polaris - in those years did not point to the north at all and could not serve as a guide for the Egyptians.
Using her method, Kate Spence calculated the construction time of the Great Pyramid of Giza (one of the Seven Wonders of the World). She believes that this happened in 2478 BC, plus or minus five years. Thus, according to the "astronomical" theory, the Great Pyramid is 4478 years old - 75 years more than previously thought.
It is not known whether the ancient architects really determined the direction to the north by two stars, but there is no argument against the fact that they could do this. All we know for sure is that the pyramids aligned to the north because the Egyptians believed that a dead pharaoh became a star in the northern sky. Therefore, it is quite logical to assume that when building pyramids for the dead pharaohs, they looked towards their new home.
Spence's method is also important for two more reasons. Firstly, it does not contradict the prevailing ideas about the age of the pyramids: 75 years is quite within the dating error according to written sources. Secondly, it serves as an additional argument against the view that the pyramids and the Sphinx were built several thousand years earlier than previously believed. Having obtained such well-converging results using two different methods, it can be firmly believed that the pyramids were built in the middle of the third millennium BC.
How the pyramids were built
The Italian Egyptologist Osvaldo Falestiedi proposed a clue to the way the Egyptian pyramids were built. Falestiedi's hypothesis is based on the testimony of Herodotus, who mentioned in the 5th century BC about "wooden machines for building the tombs of the Egyptian rulers." The remains of one of these machines, according to Falestiedi, were found in the 19th century during excavations of the temple of Queen Hatsepshut. An enthusiastic Italian managed to restore an ancient device, and it worked!
The machine designed by Falestiedi resembles a cradle. A stone block tied with ropes is placed inside the wooden frame, which swings with the help of special wedges. With the help of such rocking, the inventor is convinced, the ancient Egyptians raised multi-ton stones. Falestiedi's discovery was tested by Japanese and American engineers and archaeologists. And: independent expertise; confirmed the correctness of the Italian. Now Falestiedi, together with engineers from the Turin Polytechnic Institute, is going to create a working model of a device that can lift stones weighing up to forty tons.
edited news olqa.weles - 9-02-2012, 12:06
For many centuries, the Egyptian pyramids have been awe-inspiring to everyone who sees them for the first time. Century after century, they keep their secrets securely. Even the method of their construction is still the subject of fierce debate among historians and engineers. Indeed, the construction of such objects, even with the help of the most powerful modern mechanisms, remains an extremely difficult task. And the ancient Egyptians had never heard of any cranes or excavators. Why, they didn’t even have a steel chisel or hammer, which is usual for us! How did these grandiose, perfect in their proportions, man-made mountains grow?
To imagine their scale, let's give an example: the pyramid of Cheops alone consists of carefully polished stone blocks with a total weight of about six and a half million tons! Napoleon, whose meeting with the pyramids we will also tell in this book, seeing these stone masses, immediately calculated (and he was a good mathematician) that if you disassemble only the Great Pyramid, then from this stone it would be possible to build a wall a foot thick and ten feet high all around France! But it's not just about the volumes: all these giant stone blocks had to be precisely oriented during installation, and before that just delivered to the place! How did it happen?
And why was it necessary to build such huge structures? Is it really all about the vanity of the pharaohs, who wanted to perpetuate their reign?
Every second work on Egyptology reports that the main purpose of the pyramids is to serve as tombs for the pharaohs. But, even if we take into account that the pharaohs called themselves the living incarnations of the gods, why did they so thoughtlessly spend the labor and lives of slaves and free Egyptians, essentially immuring tens of years and thousands of lives into the foundations of 150-meter "coffins"? Maybe the pyramids were built for some other purpose?
In April 1993, newspapers, and then television and radio stations around the world, spread the news of the sensational discovery. Robotics engineer Rudolf Gantenbrink, who was using radio-controlled robots to investigate the ventilation system in the Great Pyramid, saw on his monitor a video image of an ajar door with a mysterious void behind it ...
It is also known that from its chambers, called the tombs of the king and queen, there are channels directed strictly to certain constellations - to the belt of Orion, which was associated with the god Osiris, and strictly to Sirius, the star of the goddess Isis. How could distant constellations be associated with the Giza pyramid? Riddles, riddles, riddles...
It is also strange that even the Egyptians themselves seemed to try to avoid any written mention of the pyramids, therefore, by the time of the reign of Tutankhamun, when, according to generally accepted dating, the age of the pyramids was only about a thousand years, the memory of the actual purpose of their construction, as well as of themselves creators, was most likely lost.
The Greeks and Romans who later conquered Egypt also did not pay much attention to the secrets of the pyramids, as if the dust of the desert covered a thick layer of interest in one of the greatest wonders of the world. One of the stories about the pyramids we find from the father of history, Herodotus, who traveled through Egypt in the 5th century BC. e. But much of what is given in his work "History" today is surprising and doubtful. It seems that he relied not so much on reliable facts as on traditions and legends.
The first active attempts to penetrate the secrets of the pyramids were made only around the 7th century AD. when the Arabs invaded Egypt. They tried to find the treasures hidden in the pyramids. The logic of the conquerors is absolutely clear: why was it necessary to build such mountains, if not in order to safely hide gold and precious stones in them?
In 820, the peace of the Great Pyramid was disturbed by order of Caliph Abdullah al-Mamun, son of Harun al-Rashid. For several weeks, his people made their way through the solid limestone into the depths of the pyramid, until they got into a dark, straight corridor. It led to other corridors, one of which opened onto a gallery.
Exploring the intricate system of passages, the Arabs found three spacious halls. But they were completely empty. Only one also contained an empty granite sarcophagus.
Treasures of the Egyptian pharaohs - just a mirage? The Arab historian al-Maqrishi wrote in his book Khitat that when the Caliph al-Ma'mun discovered that there were no piles of gold in the Great Pyramid, he ordered several gold items from his personal stocks to be secretly placed in the sarcophagus. He was sorry for the work of all those people who, on his orders, made their way inside the pyramid and found nothing there.
Apparently, other, unknown to us, ancient seekers, penetrating into the pyramids, remained disappointed, because for a long time interest in the pyramids faded. And only in the XVII-XVIII centuries, Europeans began to study the great Egyptian pyramids. They were already guided by the desire not so much to find treasures as to penetrate the secrets of world history and the history of religions. In particular, some of them hoped to find factual confirmation of biblical texts inside the pyramids.
And most of all those who dared to disturb the peace of the pyramids were attracted by the Great Pyramid, or the Pyramid of Cheops: numerous legends and traditions told that inside this pyramid there is a secret chamber that holds a great secret, by opening which, a person will become equal to the gods or gain their power. But neither the pickaxe, nor the dynamite, nor the X-rays have so far helped to reveal the secret of the location of this chamber.
Despite all the possibilities of modern technology, despite the fact that numerous archaeological studies annually bring a huge number of finds, the pyramids still keep many secrets and mysteries, and touching them is amazing. Perhaps, in the stone thickness of the masonry, in the dark depths of the corridors and mines, the Knowledge, which is inaccessible to us, is really immured. We will tell about attempts to find it.
Chapter 1
The history of Egypt should begin from afar, from the end of the Ice Age. The retreat of the glaciers and the disappearance of the ice sheet in Europe has caused significant climatic changes in North Africa. It was then that the vast inland lake began to turn into the river that we know today as the Nile, and deserts began to grow on the continent. Primitive nomads were forced to settle on the banks of the Nile in search of water, but they did not change hunting for agriculture very soon.
Hunting and fishing were quite easy in this area. The annual floods of the Nile left a lot of fish in small swamps and lakes, and you could take it almost with your bare hands. In the low bushes and groves that stretched along the banks, wild donkeys and Barbary sheep hid, and antelopes grazed in the meadows.
It is believed that immigrants from Palestine brought agriculture to the banks of the Nile: the lands, on which during the annual flood the river brought a lot of silt - a natural fertilizer, were good for growing cereals. So on the lands stretching along the Nile, farmers also settled. A socially divided society began to take shape: someone got game, someone grew bread, and someone began to master crafts. It was not far before the advent of the arts. Gradually, farmers began to try to direct the waters of the flooded Nile to the territories they needed. This not only increased productivity, but also gave the people who settled here the first experience of collective work.
For the social organization of work that would later so glorify Egypt, certain social institutions were needed. It was to this time that the emergence of social and religious communities can be attributed. And a lot of excavations carried out on the territory of Egypt made it possible to trace the development of local civilization.
By the end of the Predynastic period, that is, by about 3600 BC. e., life on the banks of the Nile differed little from what we can find among the tribes, and today living in the upper reaches of the Nile. Barley and wheat were already grown, keeping the harvest in pits lined with mats, weaving baskets, and weaving linen. Clothing, however, was mainly made of tanned animal skins, sewn with bone needles. Everything was pretty simple. But already in those days, the “cosmetics industry” worked: they made eye paint by mixing green malachite dust and wild castor bean oil. Ornaments were also made: ivory bracelets, amulets made of shells and pebbles, bone combs decorated with animal figures have come down to us. Weapons and tools were still made of stone.
For more than one century, they have been exciting the minds of researchers and all those who are interested. Especially many mysteries are hidden by the three pyramids, which are located in Giza, not far from the present Cairo.
On the rocky plateau of the desert, they stand, casting clear shadows on the sand - three huge geometric bodies, perfectly regular tetrahedral pyramids, which are considered to be the tombs of the pharaohs Cheops, Khafre and Mykerin. The largest of them - the pyramid of Cheops (Khufu) - is called the Great Pyramid.
In 1864, astronomer Charles Piazzi Smith suggested that the pyramid of Cheops was built to embody in this form a number of aspects of ancient, highly advanced knowledge. He had followers trying to unravel the mystery of this Egyptian pyramid.
There was an assumption about the uniqueness of the Cheops pyramid in a number of other monuments of Ancient Egypt. Its supporters claimed that it was built by the will of a higher mind by aliens from worlds with a more perfect civilization than on earth. It was assumed that ancient prophecies were encrypted in the design of the pyramid, its parameters, which later formed the basis of the Old Testament, predetermined the future history of Christianity and predict the second coming of Christ.
When measuring the Cheops pyramid itself, it turned out that the perimeter of the pyramid of Giza, divided by double the height, gives the exact number "Pi", with an accuracy of one hundred thousandth. Interestingly, the sacred measure of the length of Egypt, i.e. the pyramidal inch (coincidentally equal to modern English) is one billionth of the Earth's orbit passed by it in 24 hours. The sum of the two diagonals of the Egyptian pyramid, expressed in inches, gives the number of years during which the north pole of our earth makes one complete revolution. The volume of the pyramid, multiplied by the specific gravity of the stone from which it is made, gives the theoretical weight of the globe, and so on.
There are now many theories about how these Egyptian pyramids were built. According to some authors, the pyramid of Cheops was built by aliens; according to others, the blocks were transferred to their places with the help of a magic crystal.
In the 1980s, Robert Bauval, a Belgian civil engineer, drew attention to the stellar counterpart of the Giza pyramids. The pattern of the relative position of the three stars in the constellation of Orion, forming a kind of belt at the waist of a human figure, exactly repeats the layout of the three largest pyramids on the Giza plateau. The Great Pyramid and the similarly sized Pyramid of Khafre take the place of the two brightest stars in Orion's belt, Al-Nitak and Al-Nilam, while the smaller pyramid of Menkaur is offset from the axis of the two neighbors, just like the third and smallest star of the belt, Mintaka.
Such an obvious analogy posed a direct challenge to orthodox archeology, which asserted that the religion of the Egyptians was based on the worship of the sun, and not the starry sky. Be that as it may, the existence of the phenomenon cannot be denied.
Graham Hancock, author of the book Footprints of the Gods, who is working on an alternative interpretation of the history of the ancient world, believes that Bauval's observation allows dating the pyramids by no means 2500 BC. e., and approximately 10,450 BC. e., when the outlines of Orion's belt corresponded exactly to the location of the pyramids. Pyramids are one of the many evidences in favor of the existence of some advanced civilization in that ancient era. Meanwhile, the indicated era fits into the time frame of the existence of the legendary Atlantis, although no one undertakes to assert that the civilization that built the early pyramids was indeed the civilization of the Atlanteans.
Interesting data was provided by the American scientist John Anthony West, who drew attention to the fact that two objects - the Sphinx and the Temple of the Valley, located at a distance of several hundred meters from each other, have distinct traces of strong water erosion. The giant figure of the Sphinx is located in a hollow of a steep slope, from the rock of which it was carved. Such a hollow fills with sand very quickly, and the likelihood that in arid desert conditions the sand was washed out by rain torrents is extremely small. But it was not always so. The Sahara region began to turn into a sandy desert only at the end of the last ice age, and as early as 12,000 or even 10,000 years ago, rainfall was heavy enough to cause the erosion noted by West. West's observations were recognized by nearly 300 geologists who attended the 1992 Congress of the American Geological Society.
The construction of the pyramids was such a large-scale undertaking, it required such efforts on the part of the entire community, such an expenditure of time and material resources, that there must have been serious reasons for their construction. The very fact of construction was supposed to bring the favor of the gods to the community in one form or another.
In ancient sources, there is no shortage of evidence of fireballs falling from the bliss, incinerating and burning everything around. It may very well be that by erecting pyramids in different parts of the globe, people wanted to ask the higher powers to stop the destruction of civilization and stop bringing down flaming blocks from heaven.
Another mystery of the Egyptian pyramids is that the two largest pyramids were built, apparently, in two stages. After the start of construction, for some reason, work was stopped and resumed much later. Why did they make such a conclusion?
Both engineering logic and simple common sense dictate that as the pyramid grows, the size of the limestone blocks should decrease. But during the construction of the Great Pyramid, for example, in the first 18 rows, the blocks really gradually decrease in size, and by the 18th row, the weight of each does not exceed several tons. However, already in the 19th row of masonry, the blocks again sharply increase in size, although they already had to be raised to a height of over 30 meters! Why?
Not all the secrets and mysteries of the Egyptian pyramids are listed here. For a long time they will excite people, prompting new research.
Ivan Bunin wrote about what the conquerors saw when they burst into the burial chamber of the Great Pyramid: “Having illuminated with torches the polished granite walls of this chamber that shone like black ice, they retreated in horror: in the middle of it stood a rectangular and also all black sarcophagus. In it lay a mummy in golden armor studded with precious stones and with a golden sword at his hip. On the forehead of the mummy, a huge carbuncle burned with red fire, all in letters incomprehensible to any mortal ... "
And so I enter the chamber of "Cheops - the ruler of the horizon", as he himself ordered to be drawn on his pyramid. The tomb is great. It impresses with its size: length - 10.5 m, width - 5.2, height - 5.8. This room, decorated with dark Aswan granite, makes you stop on the threshold for some reason. It has a special gloomy charm, its own mood, and maybe a mystery. Perhaps because it is unexpectedly huge, black, empty, and only in the distance, near the western wall, stands a lone ominously reddish sarcophagus.
Alas, this is the end of the road. No other rooms in the pyramid of Cheops have yet been found. There is an assumption that somewhere in the depths of the pyramid there are secret rooms. According to one of the testimonies, dating back to the 19th century, travelers accidentally clicked on a certain stone in the wall, and a corridor opened up for them, along which they entered a room filled with strange metal mechanisms half-buried with sand. But where is this secret stone? Where is this secret room with ancient Egyptian technology? No one knows…
The lands of ancient Egypt stretched from north Africa far south along the bed of the Nile. From the great civilization, only monuments of distant eras remained - majestic temples and pyramids. When Napoleon came to conquer Egypt, the locals could not say anything about their purpose. For Muslim Arabs, the pyramids were nothing more than gigantic pagan structures. Over the centuries of Arab rule, the pyramids had lost their wonderful cladding, and now bare stone walls, rising, narrowing towards the sky, looked at the conquerors. Once upon a time, the Arab chroniclers reported, the pyramids were completely covered with ancient signs.
“The pyramids were built of huge stones… The stones are covered with ancient writings that no one can read now. In all of Egypt, I have not met anyone who could say that he knows how to read this letter or knows such a person. There are a great many inscriptions here, and if someone had a desire to copy only those of them that are visible on the surface of these two pyramids, he would fill them with over 10,000 pages. Probably no one wanted to.
The Arabs were not interested in the purpose of the pyramids, they were much more interested in the legends of the pyramids, because it was believed that the ancient Egyptian rulers, the pharaohs, were buried in the pyramids, while they were laid to rest with all conceivable and unthinkable riches that they owned in earthly life. There, passed from mouth to mouth, an incredible amount of gold and precious stones. The history of the pyramids has long been overgrown with fables, and the Arab sultans saw in the pyramids an amazing treasury, the entrance to which was lost. Some of the sultans, having heard a lot of such fabulous legends, dreamed of taking possession of treasures, looking for secret passages, and one of them even thought of punching the entrance to the Cheops pyramid through the side face.
Al-Mammuna - unlike many - was interested not so much in gold (he was rich), but in the maps of the starry sky and the whole Earth stored inside the pyramid (as he was told by numerous spies who were engaged in clarifying the secret of the Egyptian pyramid - Cheops from local residents) - the Sultan was an astronomer and even translated Ptolemy's Almagest into Arabic. In addition to star and earth maps, he expected to find there weapons that do not corrode, and glass that does not break and that can be bent. Because of these wonderful things, he decided to break through the huge stone blocks from which the pyramid is built.
Because the stone was extremely strong, the learned sultan applied an excellent knowledge of physical laws: at first, the chisel was hammered into the stone with a hammer, then it was red-hot, then poured with wine vinegar - the stone could not stand it and cracked. In this way, the Sultan's workers made their way to the center of the pyramid. By the way, the predatory move exists in the pyramid to this day. By a strange coincidence, it turned out to be practically next to the real entrance, which once had a secret turning mechanism: multi-ton stones rose and diverged to the sides, but for this it was necessary to find a secret turning device.
In the Egyptian papyrus, it was stated as follows: “In the middle of one of the sides of the pyramid there is a stone. Move it, and a long passage will open in front of you. But in the middle of which wall, which stone? In ancient times, this entrance was not at all a secret. According to Strabo's description, this inlet led into a very narrow and long corridor, then into a small room that had a descent into a deep, damp pit almost at the very base of the pyramid (in antiquity, this pit was such an attraction: ancient tourists came there to show off, that they were inside the pyramid!).
But over time, the place of the stone was forgotten. The Sultan, of course, could not find the rotary device, although he knew about its existence, but he had subjects thirsty for gold, and they broke through the entrance in monolithic slabs - the work must have been painful. However, they were lucky: they not only entered the corridor laid in ancient times, but were also able to literally “gnaw through” the road to the so-called burial chamber of the queen, and then, with the same torment, made their way into the burial chamber of the pharaoh, where they found an empty stone sarcophagus. There was no gold. The Sultan, who did not want to disappoint the robbers, paid for their services in full gold. In order not to disappoint his fellow treasure hunters, he hid the treasures inside the pyramid, allowing his greedy companions to find it on their own!
According to one of the legends, Al-Mammun discovered a sarcophagus in which lay a stone statue of the pharaoh, and inside the statue they found his body, which was decorated with gold and precious stones, in his hands the pharaoh held a sword that does not corrode and has power over people, but it's a legend. Al-Mammun found absolutely nothing in the pyramid, only lost time and money at this event.
In fact, it was Napoleon who initiated the scientific study of the Egyptian pyramids. In his Egyptian campaign, he took French scientists - so that they described the antiquities of Egypt and in this way immortalized the memory of the commander. Napoleon was haunted by envy of another great commander - so it becomes quite clear why he needed a senseless ballast in the army like historians and geographers. During the fighting, this ballast was driven by Napoleon's soldiers under the protection of French weapons along with donkeys, but none of the scientists complained. “Donkeys and scientists in the middle,” the order sounded, and academic academics huddled together in a herd - this is how this campaign went. Probably, not only the thought of glory made Napoleon take to war those who are absolutely unsuitable for it, there was another secret thought: Napoleon knew that military operations could damage ancient monuments, so that if their fate was destroyed, it would remain at least would be a description. In this regard, he was a prudent person.
This secret thought, by the way, turned out to be not superfluous at all. When the Giza plateau was captured by the French, the Napoleonic soldiers showed the true face of the Europeans: for fun, they shot. The great sculpture survived many centuries of pharaonic rule, Roman domination, Arab conquest, but it turned out to be absolutely powerless before the artillery of the ignorant French. The main damage inflicted on the Sphinx, he received from the army, which, by a bitter coincidence, was carrying scientists with them to study antiquities! It was an amusing sight: soldiers practicing aimed shooting at stone colossi, and scientists hurrying to sketch what could be doomed to destruction. But the pyramids and the Sphinx still managed to resist.
They stand to this day - mysterious and huge structures, attracting the attention of both Egyptologists and ordinary tourists. Those, to the best of their ability, are trying to carry away ancient stones from Egypt, but this is almost impossible - unlike European architectural antiquities like the Parthenon, the Egyptian pyramids are difficult to pull apart stone by stone: these “pebbles” are very large and unbearable.
The Egyptian pyramids, like no other, perhaps, ancient structure, cause a lot of controversy and assumptions. Some scientists try to understand the true purpose of the pyramids, expressing a variety of, sometimes absolutely wild hypotheses, others do not stop believing that the pyramids are the tombs of the pharaohs. The latter is the dogma of Egyptology, and it is almost impossible to fight this dogma. Open any school textbook, and even better - a textbook on the history of the countries of the Ancient World for students, and there you will find only this wonderful interpretation: the pyramids are the tombs of the pharaohs, although, by and large, there is not a single archaeological evidence that the pyramids were built precisely for this reason !
Not even a plundered burial was found in any of the known Egyptian pyramids. Empty sarcophagi - yes, but no traces that the body of the pharaoh was previously in the sarcophagi. No, on the contrary, all known tombs of the pharaohs were found in the so-called Valley of the Kings - the well-protected crypts of the Egyptian nobility. The remarkable burial of the young pharaoh Tutankhamun was also found not at all in a pyramid, but in an ordinary tomb, which, fortunately for Egyptology, was not plundered.
This tomb was discovered in the fall of 1922 by archaeologist Howard Carter, literally in the same area where he excavated a decade earlier. The tomb was located under the impoverished fellah huts, which the archaeologist eventually ordered demolished. It was then that the well-camouflaged entrance to the underground dwelling of Tutankhamun opened. And although the front burial chamber was looted, the robbers did not touch the second chamber. Truly royal relics were hidden in this underground chamber, and the sarcophagus of the pharaoh himself was not touched. Now, both the sarcophagus itself, the funeral golden mask, the mummy of Tutankhamen, and the things collected for his happy, make up several museum halls and are open to visitors. One mystical story is connected with the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb. It is believed that everyone who opened the tomb of the pharaoh and studied things from the burial died before the time appointed by nature.
The mystery and purpose of the Egyptian pyramids
There are three large pyramids on the Giza plateau, which, according to legend, belong to the three pharaohs of the 4th dynasty - Khufu (Cheops), Khafre (Chefren) and Menkaure (Mykerin). These pharaohs ruled Egypt 5,000 years ago. Information that the pyramid tombs belong to them does not come from an Egyptian, but from an ancient source. It was in ancient times, when Egypt was already an ancient state, that legends about the purpose of the pyramids appeared.
The modern Greek historians who described them received their information from the Egyptian priests, and it is quite possible that they could have misunderstood these priests, or the priests themselves had already safely forgotten who, when and why erected the Egyptian pyramids. One can only imagine how many secrets have been forgotten in 2.5,000 years - so much time has passed from the 4th dynasty to antiquity. Even with the incredibly accurate transmission of ancient information by the Egyptian priestly class, a lot of things could have been lost or misinterpreted over thousands of years.
By the time of Herodotus, who described to us in detail both the purpose and structure and the construction of the pyramids, the priests-storytellers could lose the lion's share of ancient knowledge. This is all the more true because by the time of Herodotus, only a few could read the sacred ideographic writing on which the priestly secrets were written. The question is complicated by the fact that all three great pyramids do not have any dedicatory inscriptions inside.
In addition to the misspelled name of Khufu, neither the name of Khafre nor the name of Mykerin, to whom the other two pyramids allegedly belong, was found in the pyramids. And this also suggests that these structures were never intended for the burial of pharaohs. The age of our great pyramids, calculated by geologists, differs sharply from that proposed by archaeologists. Both on the pyramids and on the Sphinx, traces of water erosion were found. And this is an indicator that the pyramids had already been built by the time of the 4th dynasty, that they are much older than itself!
Another thing is that the pharaohs, who ruled over Egypt later, could use the ancient pyramids for their own purposes - including for burial. So the mention in the text of Herodotus of the use of the pyramids as the tombs of specific pharaohs may be fair. It is known that during the time of the pharaohs, the Sphinx was being repaired, archaeologists have found quite material traces of such repairs. But the pyramids - apparently the same age as the Sphinx - could wear out over the millennia and also require repair. For Egypt, these were sacred structures. It was under the pharaohs of the 4th dynasty that the renovation of the pyramids took place.
We are trying to save and restore ancient monuments in the same way. If the pyramids were only tombs, there would not be a big secret in them. But the Arabic texts of the Middle Ages tell us that once each of the three great pyramids of Giza had a lining and some ancient texts were written on the faces of the pyramids. The Arabs mention that these texts were the collection of all known knowledge. However, they could be wrong: after all, at that time the language of the pyramids was firmly forgotten and they could not read the texts.
The first Egyptian texts were read only in the first half of the 19th century thanks to the work of the young French scholar Champollion. But Champollion would not have been able to read anything if during the French campaign an inscription on the Rosetta Stone had not been found, made in three different languages - Egyptian syllabary, ideographic writing and Greek. Only thanks to this Greek text was it possible to decipher the language of the ancient Egyptians. Before Champollion, it was proposed to read hieroglyphs as pictures: a lion is drawn, which means the word is “lion”, an ibis is drawn, which means the word “ibis”.
And of course - reading the Egyptian texts in this way gave the most ridiculous texts. The Arabs knew much less about the ancient language, and they did not have the Rosetta Stone. In the inscriptions on the lining of the pyramids, they saw some traces of pagan beliefs and therefore simply tore off the entire lining and ... decorated the floor in their main mosque with slabs! To this day, you can see some of the Egyptian plates if you visit this mosque. But most likely not all cladding slabs went to laying the floor. Yes, and by the Arab time, part of the lining had already been lost ...
Some scientists find much more interesting parameters in the ratios of the pyramids. Another scientist from the Napoleonic campaign, Jomar, suggested that the pyramids did not serve as the tomb of the pharaohs, but were a kind of metric sign in order to create a kind of standard of measures, an invulnerable stone standard. He was sure that the Egyptians were well versed not only in geometry, but also in astronomy, which caused Homeric laughter among his contemporaries. But Jomar was right about this: today more and more scientists agree that the Egyptians were excellent astronomers. And in this regard, the pyramid can be the key to this knowledge.
The fact is that if we take into account that the pyramid of Cheops was being completed under Cheops, then before Cheops it was used for completely different purposes. The Pyramid of Cheops (as well as other pyramids) in an unfinished version to the top could be beautiful ancient ... telescopes. The researchers considered possible options for such a device and came to the conclusion that if the burial chamber of the pharaoh had not yet been built, then this is a structure that has an observation platform instead of the king’s chamber on a flat base and a shaft going down with a slot - a slot oriented to the most “stable” for the latitude of Egypt, the star Sirius (Sothis), as well as an internal reservoir, built in such a way that the stone gap was reflected in it, served as an excellent means for observing the starry sky.
V. Vasiliev wrote about the use of a water mirror and a narrow slit with a shaft for observing the starry sky in the article “The Second Birth of Hydrooptics”: “Indeed, imagine that there is a reservoir in the center of the cave, and a hole has been made above this reservoir in the roof of the cave. The water flowing into the reservoir swirls in a slow whirlpool ... With the help of such a telescope near the equator, even without a flat mirror, you can see sunspots, like a three-dimensional body of a spherical shape ... to distinguish between double stars and satellites of the solar system. The Egyptians did not have a cave, but a pyramid with a water mirror. Even by modern standards, it was a very good telescope, which made it possible to make the most accurate astronomical calculations. But then ... then the Egyptians were not just knowledgeable in astronomical matters, but should have had an excellent knowledge of astronomy, practically at the modern level!
The proof of this can be seen not only in the fact that our pyramid suddenly turns out to be not a tomb, but an observatory, but also in the way all three pyramids are located on the Giza plateau. And their location, by the way, is quite curious. The pyramids on the Giza plateau are in a certain order, when viewed from above, they are not in one straight line, although they are oriented to the cardinal points. These deviations from a straight line enabled scientists to suggest that “the large pyramids show how Venus, Earth and Mars were located in their orbits in 10,532 BC! Moreover, the Sharaf-Budnikova method made it possible to set the date: September 22 according to the New Julian calendar! The Earth was then strictly between the Sun and the constellation Leo. This is one opinion belonging to E. Menshov.
Other researchers attribute the construction of the pyramids to an even earlier era from 21,600 years to 75,000 years. But this is... Yes, again we are faced with the assumption that the history of mankind must be largely longer than we used to think. But then the Egyptian pyramids were not built by the Egyptians at all. And there was, then, an army of slaves that pulled stone monoliths on wooden skating rinks? And the overseers did not whip the negligent workers with a whip? As for the slaves and the whip of the overseer, even under Cheops, it was not slaves at all who were employed in the construction of the pyramid, but fellahs, that is, people who were forced in some way, but personally free, and they built at a time when agricultural work was impossible, because And it turned out a total of 20 years of work. Moreover, for the construction they were paid a salary, on which they managed to support their considerable families.
But the pyramids were still built not by Cheops, but by people unknown to us of the deepest antiquity, who, according to legend, were gods and founded the first dynasties, which were later replaced by a human pharaoh. Less known as the first pharaoh of the Egyptians, a descendant of the gods. From ancient Egyptian history, information has been preserved that the architect of the pyramids was Imhotep - the high priest, it is quite possible that it was Imhotep who rebuilt the pyramids because of their certain dilapidation. The creator of the pyramids is also called the god Thoth or - according to the accepted later version - Hermes Trismegistus - Hermes Thrice Great. It is possible that this name has a special meaning: thanks to Hermes, the three great pyramids were built, for which he received the title of Thrice Great. And the pyramids of Giza can be considered as a special complex, not only as an observatory.
Scientists drew attention to the features of the Cheops pyramid: in ancient times it could serve as a kind of solar calendar, showing with great accuracy the most important astronomical milestones - the equinoxes (spring and autumn) and the summer and winter solstices. Once the area surrounding the pyramid was laid out in a specially fitted slabs with markings. The shadow of the pyramid passed over these slabs like the hand of a clock on a familiar dial. And if the ancient information is correct, then the lining of the pyramid sparkled under the rays of the sun, so it is likely that they were guided not even by the shadow of the pyramid, but by the luminous arrow that lay on the stone foundations! But the observatory and the stone calendar are not all.
There is an assumption that there was a medical complex in Giza. And this may well be because, according to the reconstruction of one specialist, pools were built around the pyramids, where the afflicted received healing baths, and the remains of temples were discovered in different parts of the plateau itself. In addition, it is known that in the Egyptian temples of a later period, priests-doctors were necessarily in the service. In addition, the pyramids were somehow connected to the Nile through a system of channels, presumably, both the remains of channels and underground passages are located under the rocky base of the pyramids. That is, the pyramids were interconnected not only visually, but also by a network of underground communications. As for the pyramids themselves, the question is, of course, debatable. But the fact that there is an underground gallery from the Sphinxes (and there were two of them, and the paired Sphinx has now been found) to the pyramid of Cheops is a fact. Even in ancient times, the existence of such a move was well known.
There is an opinion that the pyramids were something like a power plant. After all, strange glass vessels with sealed rods have been found, very much like our lamps ... There are also numerous legends about magical lamps that were used in the pyramids. Yes, and to explain how the ancient Egyptians carried out the interior paintings of pyramids, tombs and temples, if not a single trace of smoking torches was found on the walls and ceiling - the only, in our opinion, possible lighting in a room without windows - is impossible, unless to assume that the artists had devices unknown to us for lighting. Some even suggested that they knew something like solar panels.
According to other assumptions, the pyramids were water storages for a period of drought. According to the third - that they were huge granaries. According to the fourth - that these were occult centers where future priests underwent mystical initiation. And according to Hancock, the pyramids were a spaceport, from where the star gods went out into outer space. So far, none of the assumptions has been confirmed, starting with the very first, scientific one, that the deceased pharaohs were buried in the pyramids. Just of all the proposed options, this one is the most hopeless.
If you find yourself on the Giza plateau and enter the pyramid of Cheops, you will have to make a difficult and long journey inside the pyramid. This path is difficult not only because of the heat and stuffiness, but also because, starting from the very first step, you will have to walk practically on all fours - only a child can freely walk along the low predatory mine that goes from the entrance to the belly of the pyramid. You will have to go down and down, slipping on wooden steps, until a corridor rises up to the so-called queen's chamber. After the Grand Gallery, you can climb into the burial chamber of the pharaoh.
“This long gallery with a high ceiling,” V. Lebedev describes his journey inside the pyramid, “is also unique in its own way: its walls consist of carefully fitted stone blocks, and the limestone slabs of the false arch lining are laid so that each subsequent layer overlaps the previous one. . Ahead is another attraction - a gateway room, which tourists usually do not know about. But this ingenious device was a trap for robbers, on whom a load of sand from a camouflaged shelf was to fall, and a heavy grate descending along slippery grooves would block the way to the pharaoh's treasures.
Japanese scientists were able to pass a miniature camera through a gap inside the monolithic blocks from the room with the sarcophagus, and the camera showed another room, empty, and then a heavy door with obscurely shiny copper handles was clearly visible. So far, it has not been possible to break through to this door. Perhaps there is a room behind it, where the pyramid will reveal all the secrets to us? And it may well be that this room will turn out to be empty, as happened more than once in the history of the study of Egyptian antiquities.
Pyramids to this day keep many secrets and mysteries. Some of them, of course, have already been disclosed, but there are questions that still disturb the minds of scientists and historians. How and by whom were these monuments created? What technologies were used in construction? How did the builders manage to move stone blocks of enormous weight? Why did the pharaohs need this kind of tombs? You will learn all this and many other interesting facts from the article and become a little closer to understanding the secrets of the pyramids and knowing their power and greatness.
Interesting facts about the Egyptian pyramids
These ancient building structures have been occupying their places of honor for more than one century and glorify the talent of their creators, thanks to whom they managed to make eternal monuments. Until now, scientists have not been able to reliably determine how the pyramids were made and what technologies were used. Only some data is known, but most of the technologies used remain secret.
Just tombs?
There are about 118 pyramids in Egypt, created in different periods, of various sizes and types. There are two varieties of pyramids, the older step ones, one of the earliest surviving examples is the Pyramid of Djoser, circa 2650 BC. e.
In fact, these pyramids are graves, and their clusters are a cemetery. In ancient times, it was believed that wealthy people should be buried with everything they might need in the afterlife, so the pharaohs found their last refuge in luxurious pyramids, which they began to build long before their death.
The robbers of the tombs of the pharaohs
The horrors that take place about the Egyptian pyramids are directly related to the robbers who so love to visit them under the cover of night and take away their last property from the deceased. However, not only for the sake of the jewels hidden in the tombs, marauders visit the monuments.
Local residents spoiled the appearance of some pyramids a lot. For example, the two pyramids at Dahshur do not look at all like they used to, all the limestone they were covered with was stolen to build houses in the nearest city. Also, stone blocks and other building materials are often stolen, which leads to incredible destruction.
Secrets and myths
The horrors of the Egyptian pyramids also lie in the fact that many legends reign around them. The reason for the emergence of such a myth was the fictional curse of the most famous tomb in the world - the tomb of Tutankhamen. It was discovered in 1922 by a group of explorers, most of whom died within the next seven years. At the time, many believed it was related to the curse of the tomb or some mysterious poison, although most still believe so.
But it all became one huge delusion. Immediately after the tomb was opened, it made a splash. In one of the newspapers, in the name of raising ratings, it was indicated that in front of the entrance to the tomb there was a warning sign that anyone who entered here would die. However, this turned out to be just a newspaper duck, but after the researchers began to die one after another, the article gained popularity, and since then there has been a similar myth. It is worth noting that most of these scientists were of advanced age. This is how easy some of the mysteries of the Egyptian pyramids are solved.
The device of the pyramids
The burial complex of the pharaohs consists not only of the pyramid itself, but also of two temples: one next to the pyramid, one should be washed by the waters of the Nile. Pyramids and temples, which were not far from each other, were connected by alleys. Some have partially survived to this day, for example, the alleys between Luxor and Between the pyramids of Giza, unfortunately, no such alleys have been preserved.
Inside the pyramid
Egyptian pyramids, interesting facts about them, and ancient myths - all this is in direct connection with the internal structure. Inside the pyramid there is a chamber with a burial, to which passages lead from different sides. The walls of the aisles were usually painted with religious texts. The walls of the pyramid in Saqqara, a village near Cairo, were painted with the oldest funeral texts that have survived to this day. Next to the pyramids of Giza is also the famous figure of the sphinx, which, according to legend, should protect the peace of the deceased. Unfortunately, the original name of this building has not survived to our time, it is only known that in the Middle Ages the Arabs called the monument "the father of horror"
Types of pyramids
Many mysteries of the Egyptian pyramids are directly related to their creation. Until now, no one has been able to reliably determine how the ancient Egyptians managed to create such monumental buildings, which are still preserved to this day.
Scientists believe that the construction was carried out in several stages, during which the size of the pyramid could increase significantly compared to the original. Construction began long before the death of the pharaoh and could take several decades. Just to create a suitable site for construction and leveling the soil, it took about a dozen years. It took two decades to create the largest pyramid to date.
Who built the pyramids
There is an opinion that the pyramids were built by slaves who were starved and whipped for poorly done work, but this is not true. showed that the people who built the pyramids were kept in good conditions, they were well fed. However, no one has yet been able to figure out for certain how the heaviest stone blocks rose up, because human strength is incapable of such a thing.
However, archaeologists believe that over time, the construction technique changed, and the Egyptian pyramids themselves changed. Interesting facts in mathematics also relate to the construction of pyramids. So, scientists managed to determine that the pyramids have mathematically correct proportions. How the ancient Egyptians managed to do this remains a mystery.
Egyptian pyramids - wonder of the world
- The Pyramid of Cheops is the only surviving wonder of the world.
- There are several theories about the construction of the pyramids. According to one of them, the construction took place on the principle of leverage, but taking into account this, it would take no less than a century and a half, and the pyramid was erected in two decades. That's what remains a mystery.
- Some lovers of the mystical consider these buildings to be powerful energy sources and believe that the pharaohs spent time in them during their lifetime in order to receive new vitality.
- There are also quite incredible theories. For example, some believe that the pyramids were built by aliens, while others believe that the blocks were moved by people who own a magic crystal.
- There are still some questions regarding the construction. For example, it has not yet been clarified why the pyramids were built in two stages and why breaks were needed.
- The pyramids were built for two centuries and were built several at a time.
- Now, according to the studies of various scientists, their age is from 4 to 10 thousand years.
- In addition to the exact mathematical proportions, the pyramids have another feature in this area. The stone blocks are arranged in such a way that there are no gaps between them at all, even the thinnest blade will not fit through.
- Each side of the pyramid is located in the direction of one side of the world.
- The Pyramid of Cheops, the largest in the world, reaches a height of 146 meters, and its weight is more than six million tons.
- If you want to know how the Egyptian pyramids were built, you can learn interesting facts about the construction from the pyramids themselves. Construction scenes are depicted on the walls of the aisles.
- The sides of the pyramids are curved by one meter so that they can accumulate solar energy. Thanks to this, the pyramids could reach thousands of degrees and emit an incomprehensible rumble from such incandescence.
- An ideally straight foundation was made for, so the faces differ from each other by only five centimeters.
- The first pyramid built is dated 2670 BC. e. In appearance, it resembles several pyramids located next to each other. The architect created a type of masonry that helped achieve this effect.
- The pyramid of Cheops was created from 2.3 million blocks, perfectly even and matching each other.
- Structures similar to the Egyptian pyramids are also found in Sudan, where the tradition was later picked up.
- Archaeologists managed to find the village where the pyramid builders lived. A brewery and a bakery were discovered there.
- Many secrets hide the Egyptian pyramids. Interesting facts relate, for example, on the basis of which the pyramid is made. The walls are at an angle of 52 degrees, which makes the ratio of height and perimeter equal to the ratio of length.
Power and greatness
Why were the Egyptian pyramids built? Interesting facts about the construction do not give an idea of what they served for. And pyramids were created to praise the power and greatness of their owners. Lush tombs were a significant part of the entire burial complex. They were filled with things that the pharaohs might need after death. There you could find literally everything that a person might need. Any clothes, jewelry, utensils - all this and many other things were sent along with the pharaohs to their tombs. These riches, buried with the owners, are often the reason for the appearance of robbers who want to get jewelry. All these mysteries and myths that envelop the pyramids, starting from the very creation, have remained unsolved for many centuries, and no one knows if they will ever be revealed.
