Display of the reconstruction of the elevation in Giza.
Their monuments covered in sand,
their halls fell into oblivion,
but their names are spoken
because of the deeds they accomplished,
for they are beautiful…
Egyptian poetry
Of all human achievements in the history of mankind, the most remarkable and enigmatic is the Great Pyramid. Proudly preserving the memory of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, it is now the only one remaining, as a eloquent witness to the glory of past times and the efforts of its builders to attain eternity.
It must have been an exceptionally impressive sight to sail towards the pyramid, whose polished casing gleamed like a diamond under the blazing Egyptian sun. Specifically, a special canal connected the Nile to the port in the Valley Temple, which was the only entrance to the pyramid complex, clearly intended only for selected visitors. The Valley Temple was a very simple, elegant structure made of large, precisely carved red granite blocks. From there to the Mortuary Temple… In front of the pyramid, there was a long and fairly steep corridor, 6 meters wide and 1400 meters long. This corridor did not lead straight, but at an angle of 14°, which later turned out to be not accidental. Both temples, the entrance corridor, and the pyramid were surrounded by a protective wall of megalithic dimensions, which in some places reached a height of ten meters. Unfortunately, only scattered remains of the entire complex surrounding the pyramid are visible today.
Was the builder really Khufu?
Since the pyramid was opened, researchers have been amazed that such a monumental work does not contain a single inscription or any other trace of its builders. It is unusual that Egyptologist Howard Vyse, in the mid-nineteenth century at the end of his not particularly successful career, “discovered” a cartouche with the name of Pharaoh Khufu in a difficult-to-access relieving chamber. Dr. Samuel Birch, a specialist in hieroglyphics, was the first to seriously doubt this discovery, as the cartouche was poorly inscribed. scribed with semi-hieratic symbols, a type of linear hieroglyphs that did not exist during the time of the Old Kingdom, meaning not even during the time of Khufu. Other experts accused Vyse of copying a passage from a book, which happened to be incorrect, so Vyse transferred the error into his own copy. Nevertheless, official Egyptology has firmly held onto this evidence ever since in order to attribute the Great Pyramid to Khufu. If it weren’t for Egyptologists attributing the construction of the Great Pyramid to him, this pharaoh would have gone unnoticed in history. H. P. Blavatsky writes in her work The Secret Doctrine: “Khufu could have built any other pyramid, just not the one that bears his name!” The ancient builders of the complex at the Giza plateau left nothing to chance. The geographical position of the Great Pyramid is a puzzle. Located several kilometers from the Nile, with an orientation deviation of only 4.35˝ from the meridian, it surpasses the accuracy of modern observatory construction in Paris. An important piece of evidence against the claim that the Great Pyramid was built by Khufu. The pyramid of Cheops contains the Stele of inventory, which was discovered by the founder of the Cairo Museum, Frenchman Auguste Mariette. In it, Cheops mentions that the Great Pyramid was already there long before his time and that he only restored it and built one of the smaller pyramids next to it for one of his wives, Henutsen. This stele also states that the Sphinx existed long before the appearance of the pharaoh Khefren, its presumed builder.
The Great Pyramid is built on an artificially leveled stone elevation. With its height of 146.7 meters, it was the tallest building in the world until the construction of the Eiffel Tower. The pyramid’s base is not a perfect square, but the largest deviation between its sides, which are 230 meters long, is only 20 cm (0.08%). Such accuracy astonishes modern builders who allow themselves much greater deviations. The sides of the pyramid are triangular, but almost imperceptibly concave in the middle. This “irregularity” can only be noticed through aerial photographs. The accuracy of orientation and alignment of the pyramid with the cardinal directions is equally impressive. And towards the four sides of the world, it is also astonishing because the average deviation of three angular minutes is less than 0.06%. Today’s experts claim that such accuracy at a distance of 230 meters is impossible to achieve without a laser theodolite and a very good knowledge of astronomy.
Approximately 2.5 million stone blocks with an average weight of about 2.6 tons were used to build the pyramid. If we are to believe Herodotus’ records, the pyramid was built in just twenty years. To accomplish such a feat, 125,000 blocks had to be placed annually. With a maximum of 350 working days, each day required the placement of 360 blocks. If they worked 12 hours a day, they had to place 30 blocks per hour, or 1 block every 2 minutes?!? We won’t even mention the difficulties of quarrying, transporting, and lifting such weight to a height of over 100 meters in a time when wheels, pulleys, or any kind of iron tools were not used. It should also be added that much larger blocks measuring 4 x 2 x 2 meters and weighing about 30 tons were used during construction (sl (continued below). All of this cannot but evoke admiration as this endeavor seems impossible even with all the technology available today.
The pyramid covers an area of about 53,000 square meters. To put it in perspective, several of the largest cathedrals could fit in that space. Its volume is estimated at around 2.6 million cubic meters, and it weighs over 6.3 million tons. Despite having several chambers inside, it cannot actually be considered a hollow structure. It is built from different materials: limestone from Giza, sandstone from Nubia, granite from Aswan, alabaster from central Egypt, and basalt from the desert. Many of the blocks had to be transported from distances of over a thousand kilometers…
“The King’s” Chamber
A view of the “King’s” chamber, built entirely of red granite, impressive in its simplicity and harmony. The granite blocks used for its construction are the largest and most perfectly carved among all those used in building the pyramid. The blocks on the ceiling reach… And a hundred tons with perfect precision of connection without any binding element.
On the western side, there is a granite “sarcophagus,” which is wider than the entrance to the chamber and had to be placed in its position during the construction of the pyramid. There is no evidence that the pharaoh’s body was ever inside the coffin. Modern research has confirmed the absence of any traces of organic matter inside the sarcophagus through radioactive analysis.
The builders of the Royal Chamber endowed it with harmonious mathematical and geometric proportions: the dimensions expressed in Egyptian royal cubits (52.4 cm) are whole numbers; thus, the width of the chamber is 10 cubits, the length is 20, the diagonal of the facade is 15, and the spatial diagonal is 25 cubits.
We can consider the covering of the pyramid’s side surfaces with limestone blocks as the pinnacle of architectural ingenuity. Thanks to perfectly fitted blocks that were then completely polished, the pyramid acquired a sort of casing that is as smooth as a mirror, which has lasted for thousands of years. resnje piramide. Dimenzija je 10 x 4 m, a visina 6 m. Poznata je po izuzetno bogatoj dekoraciji zidova, koja uključuje intrikatne reljefe i hijeroglife. Smatra se da je bila namijenjena kao mjesto odmora i zabave faraona i kraljevske obitelji.
Nažalost, zbog dugotrajne izloženosti vremenskim uvjetima, veći dio dekoracije je izgubljen. Unatoč tome, “Kraljičina” odaja i dalje oduševljava posjetitelje svojom nekadašnjom ljepotom. Dok se šepuri pod svjetlošću reflektora, ostaje misterij što se točno događalo u ovom prekrasnom povijesnom prostoru. parts of the pyramid. It is assumed that it contained the statue of Ka, placed in a massive, 4.7 m high niche on the eastern wall of the chamber. Another interesting feature of the niche is its shape, which represents a scaled-down model of the Great Gallery. On the right side of the photograph, on the southern wall of the chamber, a mysterious opening with dimensions of 22 x 22 cm is visible. Originally, it was sealed off and accidentally found together with a similar one on the northern side. Before the now legendary investigations of Rudolf Gantenbrink using Upuaut, ‘The Opener of the Ways’, it was believed that they led nowhere and were abandoned during construction.
Entering the pyramid itself, a mysterious world opens up before the visitor, jealously guarding the intentions of its builders. They made sure that anyone attempting to enter into the interior of the pyramid must bow their head, thus paying homage to the grandiose achievement, as the passageways are only one meter high.
UPUAUT – “THE OPENER OF THE WAYS”
In 1993, a German engineer named Rob Rudolf Gantenbrink, the researcher, explored the so-called “ventilation” shafts that lead from the “King’s” and “Queen’s” chambers using a robot he named Upuaut, after an ancient Egyptian deity. He found that the “King’s” chamber channels lead outside on the south and north sides of the pyramid. It is surprising that each shaft was built at a different angle. The northern shaft from the “Queen’s” chamber remains unexplored to this day due to a very sharp turn at the beginning that Upuaut was unable to pass through. In the southern shaft, after a steep ascent of 65 meters, the robot reached small “doors” with two metal handles. After the sensational discovery, the research was stopped. Upuaut was no longer allowed to create new paths.
The greatest mysteries of construction are precisely the inner rooms and passages around which the meaning has been debated for over a thousand years.
The Grand Gallery
From the “Queen’s” level to the “King’s” chamber, there is perhaps the most beautiful architectural achievement called the Grand Gallery. Only the heart of the Great Pyramid can describe it and it is difficult to describe it in words. It climbs at the same angle of 26° as the ascending corridor, making it appear taller.
From the original entrance, there is an incredibly smooth, over one hundred meters long, steep corridor leading to the “Underground Chamber” beneath the pyramid plateau. Today, due to the danger of collapse, visitors are prohibited from entering. At the eighteenth meter from the entrance, there is a ascending, equally perfect corridor that was sealed with three huge granite blocks at the time of the Arab “opening” of the pyramid. From there, the passage leads upwards to where it merges with a horizontal and almost vertically descending passage, reaching a place where the famous Great Gallery finally rises before visitors. Originally, none of these passages had anything to make movement easier, and climbing or descending their smooth and slippery sides in complete darkness must have been a great test of bravery.
The descending corridor is extremely precise. It was built, but of very small dimensions. It is only 1.2 meters tall, 1.04 meters wide, and 105 meters long. At a 26° angle, it descends steeply into the depths to an underground chamber.
A horizontal corridor leads to the “Queen’s” chamber. In 1993, a small robot named Upuaut, The Opener of Ways, went through a narrow canal from there towards the southern side. After overcoming several obstacles, the robot arrived at unexpected “doors” with two metal wedges and traces of seals. This became perhaps the most significant archaeological discovery of the last decade of the 20th century. However, the “opening” of the doors was awaited for a whole decade.
ENTRANCE TO THE PYRAMID
The original entrance to the Great Pyramid was built with giant blocks in the shape of a pointed arch, which steadily bear hundreds of thousands of tons of stone. It is located at a height of sixteen meters, but due to the collapse of surrounding blocks, it is not used.
In 820, Caliph Al Mahamud attempted to open the sealed passage to the interior of the Great Pyramid using mining techniques. It is not known what prompted this. The excavators turn towards the east, and with great luck, they break into a narrow corridor just above the granite blocks that blocked the passage from the original entrance towards the interior of the pyramid. Further exploration of the tunnels and galleries revealed a system of three chambers, which to their great surprise were completely empty. Only in the “King’s” chamber did they discover a completely empty coffin without a lid.
The largest and most beautiful of all the rooms inside the pyramid is the Grand Gallery, which rises at the same sharp angle as the entrance corridor to the “King’s” chamber.
Based on Upuaut’s measurements of the orientation of the channels from the chambers and astronomical calculations, Robert Bauval and Adrian Gilbert proposed the so-called “stellar” theory. According to their analysis, the moment of the meridian maximum of the Orion constellation was reflected in the arrangement of the seven largest pyramids. The very demanding construction of the channels, which some archaeologists call “ventilation” channels, had a completely different purpose. They discovered that the northern channel was not actually a ventilation shaft, but rather a passage for a specific astral alignment. The northern channel from the “Queen’s” chamber is directed towards the Little Bear (Ursa Minor), and the southern one towards Sirius. The northern channel from the “King’s” chamber is directed towards Alpha Draconis (the alpha star of the Draco constellation) – the pole star of the Egyptians, and the southern one towards the Orion constellation. Orion is a constellation associated with Osiris, and Sirius, which the Egyptians called Sothis, is associated with Isis and was considered a very important star in our universe. Due to the phenomenon of precession, the apparent pattern of star arrangement in the sky repeats every 26,000 years, which raises serious doubts about the officially accepted age of the pyramids.
In front of the entrance to the “King’s” chamber, there is a closing system that could completely block the entrance. The “King’s” chamber is built from finely carved and precisely joined granite blocks, weighing from thirty to a hundred tons. With relieving chambers above it, it reflects the craftsmanship of its builders. Small narrow channels also lead from this room to the north. 1. At the base of the western side of the pyramid, a preserved, untouched section of what was once a magnificent cladding can be seen, indicating that these blocks were larger than average and weighed around fifteen tons.
2. At the top of the pyramid, a huge pyramidion was placed, likely reaching a height of eight meters and, according to legend, covered in gold. The picture shows one of the rare surviving ones, which is much smaller than the original.
3. In the pits on the southern side of the pyramid, two carefully dismantled and assembled ritual boats were found. One has been reconstructed and is 48 meters long.