The Great Egyptian Pyramids of Giza - Place of Power of Imhotep

The Great Egyptian Pyramids of Giza are perhaps the most famous place of power on the African continent. The archaeological complex of the Great Egyptian Pyramids is located on the Giza Plateau, in the Libyan Desert, on the left bank of the Nile, 8 km from the old Egyptian city of Giza and only 25 km. from the capital of Egypt - the city of Cairo.

Here, on the rocky plateau of Giza, there are three great Egyptian pyramids - the Pyramid of Khufu (Cheops), the Pyramid of Khafre (Chephren) and the Pyramid of Menkaure (Menkaur). From the time of the first excavations (18th century) to this day, there is no unequivocal opinion in the scientific community about the true purpose of the huge pyramids erected on the edge of the Libyan desert. Also, there are still many questions related to the technology of their construction. In fact, over almost 200 years of active archaeological research, the Great Pyramids have only added questions to Egyptologists.

The Mystery of the Egyptian Pyramid of Khufu (Cheops)

The Egyptian Pyramid of Khufu (Cheops), the second pharaoh of the IV dynasty, was the very first and largest of the pyramids built on the Giza plateau. According to the generally accepted opinion, the Great Pyramid of Cheops was built in 2560-2580s BC. The base of the pyramid was built on a rock, which was pre-leveled to avoid tilting. The original top of the pyramid was 146.7 meters away from the base, but later the top was lost, at present the height of the pyramid is only 137.3 meters. Until 1880, until the two towers of the Cologne Cathedral were built on, the Pyramid of Cheops was considered the tallest man-made structure in the world.

Initially, the pyramid had a lining of Turkish limestone, and each side of its base was 232.4 meters. But later the lining was almost completely lost. At present (without facing), the length of the side of the base of the pyramid is 230.4 meters, and the total area of ​​​​the base, respectively, is 5.4 hectares. The angle of inclination of the walls is 51°52'. About 2.5 million stone blocks went to the construction of the pyramid of Cheops. The volume of each block is more than 1 cubic meter.

Inside the pyramid of Cheops there are three burial chambers located one above the other. The construction of the first chamber was not completed. It is carved into the rock. To get into it, you need to overcome 120 m of a narrow, steeply descending corridor.

The first burial chamber is connected with the second horizontal corridor 35 m long and 1.75 m high. The second chamber is called the "queen's chamber", although according to the rite, the wives of the pharaohs were buried in separate small pyramids.

The queen's chamber is overgrown with legends. It is associated with a legend according to which the pyramid was the main temple of a certain Supreme Deity, a place where ancient secret religious rites were held. Somewhere in the depths of the pyramid lives an unknown creature with the face of a lion, which holds in its hands the seven keys of Eternity. No one can see him, except for those who have undergone special rites of preparation and purification. Only to them did the Great Priest reveal the secret Divine Name. A person who owns the Secret Name became equal in his magical power to the pyramid itself.

The main sacrament of initiation took place in the royal chamber. There, the candidate, tied to a special cross, was placed in a huge sarcophagus. The person receiving the initiation was, as it were, in the gap between the material world and the divine world, inaccessible to human consciousness.

On the south side of the pyramid is a structure shaped like a ship. This is the so-called Solar Boat - one of the five on which Cheops was supposed to go to the other world. In 1954, a boat 43.6 m long, disassembled into 1224 parts, was discovered during excavations. It was built of cedar without a single nail and, as evidenced by traces of silt preserved on it, before the death of Cheops, it was still floating on the Nile.

The mystery of the Egyptian pyramid of Khafre (Chephren)

The second largest Egyptian pyramid on the Giza plateau belongs to the pharaoh Khafre. It was built 40 years later than the first one. Sometimes it seems that the pyramid of Khafre is even larger than that of Cheops. In fact, it is slightly smaller. The side of the square base of the Khafre pyramid is 215 meters. Height - 136 meters. However, in ancient times, like the pyramid of Cheops, it was 9 meters higher. The angle of inclination is sharper than that of the first pyramid: 53o8′. Here the whole complex of structures is more clearly visible, consisting of a temple in the valley, a road, a temple of the dead and the pyramid itself.

The lower temple, in which 25 statues of pharaohs once stood, is known for the fact that Khafre was mummified here, on the threshold of the kingdom of the dead.

The internal structure of Khafre's pyramid is relatively simple. Two chambers and two entrances on the north side, one at a height of about 15 meters, the other below it, at the level of the base. Now people get inside the pyramid from the upper entrance along the corridor, which levels out under the very base and leads to the burial chamber. The corridor leading from the lower entrance first descends to a depth of ten meters, and after a small even segment rises again and leads to the upper corridor; on the side it has a branch to a small chamber, which remained unfinished.

The burial chamber is located approximately on the axis of the pyramid, it is extended from east to west by 14.2 meters, from north to south by 5 meters, its height is 6.8 meters. The chamber is carved into the rock, only the vaulted ceiling goes into the stone mass of the pyramid. This chamber still contains an empty sarcophagus with a broken lid, discovered by the archaeologist Belzoni in 1818. The sarcophagus is made of finely polished granite. There are no more chambers and shafts in the pyramid, the Belzoni tunnel is also already covered with sand. This pyramid is the most compact building in the world: with a volume of limestone blocks of 1629200 cubic meters, the free space in it is less than 0.01%.

The Mystery of the Egyptian Pyramid of Menkaure (Menkaura)

The ensemble of the Great Egyptian pyramids on the Giza plateau is completed by the pyramid of Mikerin (Menkaur), the son of Khafre. This building is located in the southwestern part of the plateau, 200 meters from the pyramid of Khafre.

Egyptologists believe that its construction was completed in 2505 BC. This pyramid is much smaller than its predecessors. Like the previous pyramids, it has a square base in plan, each side of which is 108.4 m, the initial height is 66.5 m (today - 62 m), the angle of inclination is 51 °. Under the pyramid, two chambers were found (without traces of burials) with corridors inclined downwards from the northern face.

To the south of the third pyramid are three small pyramids connected with it, surrounded by a common wall. The temple at the northern face of the pyramid of Menkaur is also unique. In 1837, the English explorers Perring and Wiese discovered in the burial chamber of this pyramid a magnificent royal sarcophagus made of basalt, the outer walls of which were processed like the facade of a palace. As you know, this sarcophagus sank during its transportation to England.

A study of the original entrance, which was blocked during further construction, shows that at the time of erection, the base of the pyramid was approximately 60 x 60 m, and it was enlarged somewhat later. Initially, the burial chamber had to be located only 6 m below the base. However, in the next phase of construction, for some reason, it was decided to lower it to a greater depth.

A distinctive feature of the pyramid of Menkaur is that it is located not on a rocky foundation, but on a specially prepared terrace (substrate) of limestone blocks.

Despite the small size of the pyramid (considered a sign of decline), Menkaur's pyramid, according to eyewitnesses, was the most beautiful of all the pyramids. The potential of the builders of this pyramid was enormous, as evidenced by one of the monoliths used in the temple of Menkaure. Its weight is estimated at over 200 tons. Putting in place a block of this size, the heaviest on the Giza plateau, was a true technical feat.

Interestingly, for the construction of this smallest of the three Egyptian pyramids, the largest blocks were used. About a third of its height, the pyramid was lined with red Aswan granite, then it was replaced by white slabs of Turkish limestone, and the top, in all likelihood, was also red granite. Such a pyramid remained until the Mamluks removed the lining at the beginning of the 16th century. The choice of granite for facing the pyramid, which is considered to be a protective material, may have made it useless to build a huge pyramid to protect the royal mummy. From the point of view of modern Egyptologists, there was no need to build a very high pyramid, since the burial chamber here was located at ground level.

Riddle of the Sphinx

Mysteriously inextricably linked with the pyramids of Giza is the statue of the Great Sphinx - a reclining lion with the head of a man, vigilantly guarding the city of the dead.

There is no statue on Earth larger than the Great Sphinx. It is carved from a single block of stone. Its length is 73 m, height is 20 m, face dimensions are 4.1 x 5 m. It is believed that the sphinx was cut down during the construction of the Khafre pyramid, and its face bears the features of this pharaoh.

Limestone served as the material for its construction. For some time, the statue was up to its head in the sand, at one time, as, for example, now, it was almost completely open. It is believed that the Sphinx depicts a solar dog, although it is still not clear what is more in it - from a dog or from a cat.

It was originally believed that the Great Sphinx was built around 2500 BC. e., but now the scientific world is actively working on the hypothesis that the sphinx was born much earlier, in 7000-10500 years. BC e., which coincides with the theory of Beauval and Gilbert.

Disputes are related to what exactly the sphinx suffered from: whether water or wind was the cause of erosion. If water is to be blamed for everything, then the time of its creation should be attributed to the time when there were prolonged heavy rains in the area, and this is already a period much earlier than indicated in the generally accepted theory about the time of the construction of the Egyptian pyramids.

The connection of the Great Egyptian pyramids with the constellation Orion

Recent studies testify to the unprecedented accuracy and correspondence of their construction to the location of stars in the sky 10,500 years ago. It turned out that the three Egyptian pyramids in Giza reproduce and display the celestial picture - the location and size of the three stars of the constellation Orion.

The top view shows that the Great Pyramid of Cheops and the second pyramid - Khafre, lie on a diagonal directed at an angle of 45˚, i.e. southwest to the south side of the first. The third Egyptian pyramid, Menkaura, is somewhat offset to the east of this line. The three stars of Orion's Belt also form, as it were, an "irregular diagonal"...

However, looking at today's sky, you will not find an exact match between the topography of the Giza valleys and the constellation Orion. In order to find out what the sky was like at the time of the construction of the Egyptian pyramids, you need to look into the past. And such studies were conducted by Bauval. To determine the period when the location of the pyramids fully corresponded to the location of the stars of Orion, he had to use the Skyglobe 3.5 astronomical computer program and take into account a cosmic phenomenon called precession.

Precession is an extremely slow swaying of the earth's axis along a circular cone, the cycle of which lasts 25920 years. The result of this cycle is a shift in the position of the stars at a rate of 1˚ in 72 years (i.e. 360˚ in 25920 years). Thus, the scientist was able to detect in the past such an epoch when the picture of the starry sky coincided with the location of the pyramids: “This epoch falls on 10500 BC, the lowest point, or the beginning (actually “First Time”) of the current precessional cycle of the constellation Orion. It was during this era, and only in it, that the location of the pyramids on earth accurately reproduced the position in the sky of the three stars of Orion's Belt.

It should be noted that Osiris in the ancient Egyptian texts is quite often called the God of the First Time. Therefore, if the date corresponds to 10500 BC. the beginning of the precessional cycle is a coincidence, then this coincidence is clearly amazing ... So far, it is difficult for science to find the answer to such riddles.

It should be noted once again that all assumptions and studies regarding the three Great Egyptian pyramids on the Giza plateau and the Great Sphinx guarding their peace are still the subject of lively debate among scientists. However, none of them can be considered absolutely proven to this day.