This is the second edition in a new three-part blog series, delving into the mysteries of the Great Pyramid of Giza. In Part 1, I looked at the claims Egyptologists make regarding its creation. In Part 3, I’ll discuss my own experiences of visiting the Great Pyramid, offer a few travel tips and consider the supernatural elements of the pyramid design. In this week’s instalment, however, I’m going to be discussing the various theories regarding how the Great Pyramid was built and the extraordinary suggestion that it may once have been a power plant.
Mysteries of the
Great Pyramid
Part 2 of 3:
The Great Power Plant
How was it built?
The Egyptians had no iron tools (just soft copper), no wheels and no pulleys and yet they built to such accuracy that modern construction techniques and laser levelling would find it hard to replicate.
The pyramid’s apex is exactly over its base, when even a minor error could have led to a misalignment.
The stones are joined together within 1/1000th of an inch.
North is indicated more accurately than the Greenwich meridian building (3/60ths compared to 9/60ths).
Finally, somehow these ancient architects managed to locate the Great Pyramid at the centre of the land mass of the earth. The east/west parallel that crosses the most land and the north/south meridian that crosses the most land intersect in two places on the earth, one in the ocean and the other at the Great Pyramid.
How long did it take to build?
One of the key problems in accepting the 10 to 20-year build estimation is the construction rate that it implies.
If we accept the longer 20-year estimate, then the labourers would have to have worked 10 hours a day, 365 days a year (highly unlikely!) and lifted an astonishing 31 blocks into place every hour.
Considering these blocks weighed, on average, 3 tonnes, you may begin to see the difficulty of blindly accepting this widely accepted timeline.
How exactly did the labourers move the blocks into place?
According to some scholars, the only method open was a ramp. Yet, to have a gradient of 1:10 to the top would have required a ramp that was 4,800 feet long, a structure that would be three times as massive as the pyramid itself! Only a stone ramp could have born the weight of these enormous stone blocks, yet, where did it go? Where is the evidence that it even existed?
How did they get the blocks to the site?
The large blocks in the King’s Chamber were 25 to an astonishing 80 tonnes and came from Aswan, more than 500 miles away. Bearing in mind the horse & cart wasn’t deployed until the 17th dynasty (1600 BC), how did they achieve this? If you’re notion is of Stonehenge-style rollers, you should know that there were hardly any trees in Egypt and fig trees were far more prized for their figs than for their lumber.
Some ancient depictions suggests the use of sledges, with water being poured before them but it is hard to understand where the wood for the sledges came from and how such sledges would have managed weight of such magnitude.
Is there a supernatural explanation?
Fascinatingly, there are ancient references to magicians using ‘words of power’ to move stones. The British Museum Papyrus 604 refers to the magician, Horus the Nubian, who made a vault of stone 200 cubits long and 50 cubits wide rise above the head of pharaoh and his nobles. That’s roughly a block of 100 by 25 metres!
If it wasn’t a tomb, what was it?
Would you believe that it might have been a power plant?
No.
It’s certainly an outlandish theory but it’s one worth considering. I mentioned the difficulties with accepting it is just a tomb in my last blog (particularly the lack of inscriptions – see photo below – and the lack of any sarcophagus or a body) but here’s another curiosity – there used to be 20 tonne doors which were engineered so perfectly that they opened with a slight push.
So, as well as making it the most conspicuous tomb ever constructed, they added entrance doors? If it were a tomb, why make it so accessible? They might as well have put up signs with ‘this way to the gold’!
(photo by Chacaruna, all rights reserved)
But there is no machinery inside, is there?
Maybe it is cleverly hidden and the choice of granite for the building blocks might be key (see below) but I’ve always been struck by the curious lay-out inside. Nothing about it suggests it is a temple to the dead, yet the Grand Gallery is, oddly, very reminiscent of a modern factory.
Also, remember how, in Part 1, I related that the Great Pyramid had been originally covered in white polished limestone? This would have had the affect of making the interior perfectly insulated but for what purpose?
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Why do you think they choose granite?
As I related in my series on the Serapeum of Saqqara (see link here), granite contains large amounts of quartz crystal which creates electricity when put under pressure (like the tonnes of stones of the pyramid structure. Limestone was common in Giza, why ferry a rock from 500 miles away unless it had a specific property that they required?
Coincidentally (or not!) the pyramid is built over underground rivers and aquifers – powerful natural energy generators. Perhaps the missing capstone, long-rumoured to be gold (which would also explain its early theft!) conducted the energy into the ionosphere. If the pyramid were just such a ‘Tesla Tower’ (see image above), perhaps the many great obelisks (see photo below) built across Egypt were the receivers?
So, why don’t we know about this?
If you don’t believe anyone would have an interest in covering up something so extraordinary, ask yourself why Tesla’s plans for free wireless electricity were suppressed in the last century. The fossil fuel industry would be decimated and the world economy would fundamentally change. Life, as we know it, would be transformed by such a gift.
Even in the midst of the current Covid-19 crisis, we see the oil industry being carefully protected – is it really so unrealistic to imagine that any hint that humanity once enjoyed free energy would be hidden?
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