Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Great Pyramid built inside out

A FRENCH architect says he has cracked the 4500-year-old mystery surrounding Egypt's Great Pyramid - it was built from the inside out.

Previous theories have suggested Pharaoh Khufu's tomb, the last surviving example of the seven great wonders of antiquity, was built using either a vast frontal ramp or a ramp in a corkscrew shape around the exterior to haul up the stonework.

But flouting previous wisdom, Jean-Pierre Houdin said advanced 3-D technology had shown the main ramp which was used to haul the massive stones to the apex was contained 10 to 15 metres beneath the outer skin, tracing a pyramid within a pyramid.

"This is better than the other theories, because it is the only theory that works," he said after unveiling his hypothesis in a lavish ceremony using 3-D computer simulation.
Mr Houdin, 56, also brushed aside concerns about the popular curse that is supposed to punish those who penetrate the secrets of the pyramids, dating back to the opening of the Tutankhamen tomb.

"Why should I be worried? I'm just explaining that the people of the time were architects of genius and that Khufu was a genius to order the pyramid's construction. What could happen to me, except that Khufu would thank me?"

Mr Houdin teamed up with a French company that builds 3-D models for auto and aircraft design, Dassault Systemes, which put 14 engineers for two years on the project, to prove his theory.

An international team is being assembled to probe the pyramid using radars and heat detecting cameras supplied by a French defence firm, as long as Egyptian authorities agree.

"This goes against both main existing theories," Egyptologist and senior research fellow at Long Island University, Bob Brier, said at the unveiling.
"I've been teaching them myself for 20 years but deep down I know they're wrong. Houdin's vision is credible, but right now this is just a theory. Everybody thinks it has got to be taken seriously."

Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities was not immediately available for comment.
Dassault said Mr Brier and other Egyptologists attending the ceremony were supporters of Mr Houdin's theory but had no financial links to him or the firm.

Mr Houdin began working full-time on the riddle eight years ago after a flash of intuition passed to him by his engineer father, and five years before actually visiting the site.
He found that a frontal 1.5-kilometre-long ramp would have used up as much stone as the pyramid, while being too steep near the top.

He believes an external ramp was used only to supply the base. An external corkscrew ramp would have blocked the sight lines needed to build an accurate pyramid and would have been difficult to fix to the surface, while leaving little room to work.

"What characterised the Egyptians was their sense of perfection and economy," Mr Houdin said.
He also claimed to have shed light on a second enigma surrounding the purpose of a "grand gallery" inside the pyramid. He believes its tall, narrow shape suggests it accommodated a giant counterweight to help haul five 60-tonne granite beams to their position above the King's Chamber.
He thinks that no more than 4000 people could have built the pyramid using these techniques rather than the 100,000 or so assigned by past historians.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Zahid

Just like you, love to share and tell about the world to the world.

Leave me some comments.

I have vsited the Great Pyramid few years ago. And it is an amazing sight.

Back then when I visited, there were no digital camera, so could not share the photos then.

May Ong

Anonymous said...

Hi Zahid

Just like you, love to share and tell about the world to the world.

Leave me some comments.

I have vsited the Great Pyramid few years ago. And it is an amazing sight.

Back then when I visited, there were no digital camera, so could not share the photos then.

May Ong

Anonymous said...

The Great Pyramid, the Mathematician, a Professor, and Engineer


A London publisher named John Taylor also a gifted mathematician desiring to analyze the pyramids astronomical elements. He studied it's measurements being seriously interested in the results from a mathematicians point of view.

His conclusion was that the architect of the Great Pyramid was not an Egyptian, either by race or religion. He believed it would be found, eventually, that the measurements and contours of the Pyramid passage system, as its chambers, were intended to indicate a prophetic and historical record, especially in relationship to Biblical revelation.

Piazzi Smyth, a Scottish Astronomer, and student of Taylor, decided to affirm, or if possible to refute the findings of Taylor. Consequently, he lifted the investigation and study of the Great Pyramid into the realm of applied science. But the only way he could do so conclusively was to go to Egypt and do his own measurements.

His findings were published and found startling. They were were highly regarded, and the summation expressed an keen insight into the builder in that he had to have had an accurate knowledge of high astronomical and geographical physics

Smyth research began to snow ball into a belief that the Great Pyramid was more than just an ancient tomb of the pharaoh Khufu. He believed that the astounding mathematics and measurements that were ensconced into the Great Pyramid could not have been integrated into stone by men of that day.

It was then the mechanical engineer Flinders Petrie who set out to measure the Great Pyramid to either substantiate or refute the work of Smyth and Taylor. His tools of measurement allowed him to measure correctly within 1/1000 of an inch.

Although Petrie belittled Smyth's basic contention about the Pyramid's perimeter incorporating the length of the solar year, it was Petrie's meticulously careful measurements that observed a definite hollowing of the core masonry on each side of the Pyramid. This discovery led to the astronomical features of the Great Pyramid, thereby confirming Smyth's conclusions.

About the author: Ken Klein is a documentary film producer and researcher. His research has brought to light secrets surrounding the Great Pyramid. For a free tour of the Great Pyramid get his free Great Pyramid walk though video.