Yet Another Theory
On how the Great Pyramid of Giza was constructed. This time, it is a French architect who claims it was done using internal ramps. The problem is that the folks in charge of the pyramid itself won't allow his theory to be tested.
Now French architect Jean-Pierre Houdin has reopened this conversation with a controversial proposal that the giant tomb of the pharaoh Khufu (Cheops to the Greeks), who reigned from about 2589 B.C. to 2566 B.C., was built from the inside out with the use of internal ramps.
The theory challenges decades of archaeological thought about how the pyramid was built, and graces the cover of the current Archaeology magazine, published by the Archaeological Institute of America. But Egypt's chief archaeologist isn't impressed. "I receive a theory every day," says Zahi Hawass, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities.
The ancient Greek historian Herodotus reckoned around 2,500 years ago that 100,000 slaves worked for 20 years to achieve this near-perfection. More than 2 million stone blocks, 5.5 million tons of stone, are placed atop one another inside the pyramid, Romer says.
The Great Pyramid has long hinted at some sort of numerological secret in its construction. Its four sides, if added together by length, would equal the diameter of a circle with a radius equal to the original 481-foot height of the structure.
In Cairo last week, Hawass heard Houdin's presentation of his belief that the pyramid builders constructed a series of ascending internal ramps to lift the blocks from the ground and into place. The ramps remain inside the pyramid, detectable by sensors, Houdin says.
In May's Archaeology, Long Island University archaeologist Bob Brier outlines the conventional ideas of how workers built the pyramid:
• A massive ramp outside the pyramid led straight from a limestone quarry to the pyramid.
• Simple wooden cranes hoisted the blocks up step-by-step, removing a need for a ramp.
• A spiral ramp was built outside the pyramid.
All have problems, Brier says: Too much labor and stone would be needed for the outside ramp; there's not enough available wood for cranes; and a spiral ramp would ruin external sightlines.
Hawass has no interest in allowing the experiments that would potentially prove Houdin's theory. Which is, of course, completely wrong anyway. We here at Blue Crab Boulevard know exactly how it was actually built.
By old_dawg, Friday, 18 May , 2007 @ 7:10 am
This should earn you a fatwa if you are lucky.