The Great Pyramid of Giza

The Great Pyramid of Giza is the largest of the three great pyramids of the Giza pyramid complex. There is more mystery and allure surrounding the three main Giza Pyramids, and the Great Pyramid of Giza specifically, to the degree that there are more fundamental unanswered questions remaining than those we have answered.

Regardless of what textbooks, mainstream or alternative history books alike may tell you, the fact remains that nobody knows how the Great Pyramid of Giza was built. Not conclusively.

We do not even know for certain who built it, when it was built, nor for what purpose. The Ancient Greeks believed that the pharaoh of Ancient Egypt used hundreds of thousands of slaves to build the monument. Modern Egyptologists have beliefs ranging from agreement with the Greeks, to the ideas that a smaller specialized task force of skilled artisans was sufficient.

The idea that the structure was built (or at least planned) by a Lost Civilization around the End of the Last Ice Age c.10,500 BCE is especially convincing based on the evidence. Others claim that the Great Pyramid was built by ET’s or that it was manifested directly with thought by Higher Dimensional Beings.

I have no answers to offer you. Let us first understand and explore the incredible facts of the Great Pyramid of Giza, before we delve into such speculations.

Unparalleled Precision of the Great Pyramid of Giza

The first thing to understand about the Great Pyramid is what it used to look like. I have a feeling that from the image above, one might get the wrong impression of this structure. It looks roughly hewn, which is not remotely the case. It is nothing short than one of the most technically precise structures ever built, even while it was literally one of the first monumental structures built by human hands, and probably is the largest structure still, by mass.

The Great Pyramid used to be cased in gleaming white limestone. It would have been a glowing white beacon visible across the desert, reflecting light for all to see, that stood in this manner for at least 3800 years (by conventional dating). Rumor has it that it was topped with a golden capstone called the Pyramidion.

It wasn’t until 1303 CE that an earthquake fractured some of the casing stones, reaving a chink in this great monuments armour, so to speak, which allowed a sultan of the Mamluk dynasty to cart them away around 1356 CE to help build the city of Cairo.

Sir Flinders Petrie, a pioneering figure among Egyptologists, in the 19th century was the first scholar to take precise measurements of the dimensions of the Great Pyramid of Giza.

Around 1880-82 he estimated the dimensions of the Great Pyramid in units of the Egyptian Royal Cubit (the unit of measure used in Dynastic Egypt) at 280 royal cubits tall, with each of the four sides at the base of the pyramid measuring 440 royal cubits in length.

Each cubit was almost twice as long as a modern meter, giving the Great Pyramid estimated dimensions of 146.6 meters tall with side lengths of about 230.3 meters. The Great Pyramid of Giza originally stood some 481.0 feet tall (146.6 m). Though with the removal of the original white limestone casing in 1356 CE by a local sultan, and its presumed capstone at some point in antiquity, it’s height was diminished about 30 feet to 449.5 ft (137 m).

The sides of the Great Pyramid of Giza are each about 230 meters in length, enclosing a surface area some 52,900 meters squared. Each of the four sides differ slightly in length, but by an incredibly small margin, which is difficult to measure precisely as measuring the actual length of the base without the original outer casing is difficult.

What is certain is that all four sides have a length at the base within mere centimetres from one another, differing by a magnitude on the order of mere ten thousandths of a percent of the total base length. Furthermore, the base of the structure is almost perfectly level, any point of the base differing from horizontal by only $\pm 1.5 cm$. [5]

It is estimated to weigh about 6 million tonnes (12,000,000,000 lbs). Conventional theory is that it was built over a 10 to 20 year period for a pharaoh. Though this time frame is hotly contested under grounds of sheer mathematical impossibility with the technology available.

To complete the monument in 20 years they would have to place 1 block every 4.57 minutes working night and day with no variance in pace. Leaving out the fact that they couldn’t have worked this fast, nor worked through the night at all, this theory is, frankly, absurd. At least the time time frame.

The Great Pyramid of Giza consists of around 2.3 million blocks of limestone and granite, enclosing an estimated volume of 2,300,000 cubic meters, some stones weighing as much as 80 tonnes (160,000 lbs).

Each block was placed with nearly incomprehensible precision, especially when considering the sheer volume of blocks that had to be placed. All errors in alignment would have been magnified at each successive layer. Yet the space between the internal blocks is little more than a razor blade in width, and the white limestone outer casing (at least those that remains) appear to have possessed an even tighter fit. So the incredible alignment of higher levels speaks to a level of technical precision at the base we need lasers to achieve today, if we can achieve it at all on this scale.

The monument is further aligned with remarkable accuracy to the 4 cardinal directions with an error of around 1/15th of a single degree. Equivalent to an accuracy of 4 arc minutes. However the Great Pyramid is not aligned with magnetic north, but with true north, which has staggering implications for the level of knowledge, scientific and technical understanding of the builders.

There is a slight discrepancy between the north pointed towards with a compass and the actual direction of the north pole from a given position on the globe because of the curvature of the Earth itself.

From a given latitude if you were to point directly at the North Pole you would technically be pointing into the ground, rather than along the surface, because of the curvature of the Earth. The direction that you point in towards the North Pole will be in the same vertical plane with the North Star, Polaris, at least in this age. This vertical plane, depending on latitude, will differ from magnetic north as determined by a compass.

The builders of the Great Pyramid of Giza appear to have known the difference, even though they are supposed to not even had the compass back then. Even to align it with the North Star was no mean feat. They might have used the star Thuban in those times (assuming c.2500 BCE) which was the North Star then.

Interior Chambers

There are three known chambers within the Great Pyramid. There is a subterranean chamber which is believed to be unfinished because of its rough appearance. Followed by the so-called Queen’s Chamber which is in the center of the pyramid above the Subterranean Chamber, and the so-called King’s Chamber above the Queen’s Chamber.

There is an entrance to the Great Pyramid of Giza on the north side, which was found only after dynamite was used to blast a whole into the pyramid. Upon entering the pyramid you travel a downward-sloping passage which ultimately goes to the subterranean chamber.

Though an upward sloping passage intersects with the entryway passage called the Ascending Passage. This takes you to another intersection where one passage breaks off horizontally taking you to the Queen’s Chamber. While the ascending passage continues upwards in what is called the Grand Gallery to the so-called King’s Chamber.

Encoded Information

One of the most startling aspects of the Great Pyramid of Giza is that the builders intentionally encoded mathematical and scientific knowledge into it’s dimensions. This is a fact contested by some Egyptologists, on the grounds that it is their belief this knowledge was well beyond the level of advancement of the Ancient Egyptians at the generally accepted date of construction. They believe that these mathematical symmetries were accidental, which is a statistically irrational.

One of the encoded mathematical quantities can be found as the ratio between the Great Pyramids perimeter and height. It doesn’t matter if we take the perimeter-to-height ratio using Egyptian royal cubits (1760/280) or in modern meters (921.2/146.6). Regardless of what unit we measure the distances in, this ratio gives us an incredibly close approximation to $2 /pi$.

\begin{equation*} \begin{align} (1760/280) = 6.28571 \\ (921.2/146.6) = 6.28377 \\ 2 \pi = 6.28319 \\ 2 \big( \frac{22}{7} \big) = \frac{44}{7} = 6.28571 \end{align} \end{equation*}

The perimeter-height ratio in royal cubits is closer to $2 \pi$ if we use the common fractional approximation for $\pi$ as (22/7) whereas the precise estimates for the perimeter and height in meters give us $2 \pi$ accurate to the nearest thousandth.

This tells us that the Ancient Egyptians at the dawn of Egyptian History knew the number $\pi$, which in itself is incredible. Other encoded numbers include relationships that refer to the Golden Mean and even possibly the Dimensions of the Earth.

The Builders of the Great Pyramid

The story told by Egyptologists is that the Great Pyramid of Giza was built as a tomb for the second pharaoh of the illustrious Fourth Dynasty (Dynasty IV) of the Old Kingdom of Ancient Egypt: Pharaoh Khufu.

Khufu is believed by many to have been the son of Snefuru, the first pharaoh of Dynasty IV. His father had three vastly smaller pyramids built in his honor, which are nothing compared to the Great Pyramid of Giza. The pyramids of Snefuru are the Red Pyramid, Bent Pyramid, and Meidum Pyramid all built at Dahshur. These are believed to represent nearly all attempts at pyramid building before the engineering marvel that is the Great Pyramid of Giza.

Khufu was also the father of Pharaoh Khafre, to whom the second largest of the Giza Pyramids is attributed, and the grandfather of Menkaure, to whom the smallest of the three Giza Pyramids is attributed. In the image to the right, the three small pyramids in the foreground are known arbitrarily as the Queen’s Pyramids. The Great Pyramid of Giza is the most distant of the large three (furthest right), with the middle Pyramid of Khafre in the center, and the smallest Pyramid of Menkaure in the furthest to the left.

The only reason that these structures are associated with Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure is because this was a legendary association perpetuated by the ancient Greeks. It is from this association that we approximate a date of 2560 BCE for the Great Pyramid. However, the singular piece of evidence is a suspect piece of graffiti in one of the Relieving Chambers above the King’s Chamber.

It is suspect not only because grammatical mistakes in the graffiti itself, but in the fact that it was literally the last place explored. After finding not a shred of hieroglyphic script in any other part of the pyramids interior or exterior, literally the last place they looked, a place never supposed to have been entered at all because it was structural, they had to use dynamite to blast their way through some of the most massive stone blocks in the entire pyramid, they happened to find a misspelled inscription bearing Khufu’s name. Suspicious.

Various theories about the method of construction of the Great Pyramid have been proposed. Though not a single one of them are conclusive, as none of them work. The ramp theory (that they built a ramp to transport blocks up the pyramid to the level they were working on) is the most accepted, yet it holds no water because the ramp would have been larger than the pyramid itself.

Not a single one makes logical, realistic sense. We do not know conclusively how, why, or by whom this structure was built. Thus we do not technically know when either.

A Technological Marvel

There are so many unknowns about the Great Pyramid of Giza. At this time I have nothing constructive or conclusive to add to this state of affairs. All that we can take away from the Great Pyramid is a sense of awe and wonder, at the sheer technological skill required to build it.

Do not underestimate this piece of architecture, as it cannot be ignored. The sheer size of it. The incredible precision necessary for it to fit together so snugly after placing more than 2 million blocks of stones each of which weighing a couple thousand pounds minimum.

Remember also the mathematical relationships which give rise to advanced mathematical quantities, advanced at least for 4500 years ago, just after the earliest cultures are believed to have invented writing.

Try and get a sense of the mystery, rather than reducing this structure to certainties, of which there are few. How did they do this? When by conventional chronology this was one of the first 10 large scale structures every built by human hands?

How did they reach a level of technological precision superior to every architectural monument ever created by Egyptians in almost 3000 years afterwards?

Further Reading

1. Secrets of the Great Pyramid | Peter Tompkins | Harper Collins | 1978
2. Fingerprints of the Gods | Graham Hancock | 1995
3. What the Great Pyramid of Giza Would’ve Looked Like When First Built: It Was Gleaming, Reflective White | Open Culture | 05 December 2019
4. Great Pyramid of Giza | Wikipedia | 18 May 2020 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pyramid_of_Giza>
5. Lehner, Mark (1997). The Complete Pyramids. London: Thames and Hudson. p. 113.

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