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Re: Secrets of the Great Pyramid
MR LUIS G ORDONEZ (GBHF25A@PRODIGY.COM)
Tue, 31 Oct 1995 14:22:09 EST
-- [ From: Luis G. Ordonez * EMC.Ver #2.10P ] --
Expanded recipient data:
cc: Francesco Balderacchi \ PRODIGY: (YPGQ04A)
> About the only things we can be really sure of is that the Egyptians
1) knew how to build > pyramids, which is impressive, but not beyond
human capacity given their technology and > materials. It no doubt
involved considerable trial and error.
You are completely correct, Martin, that neither Gods nor aliens
constructed this incredible building of solid masonry. But to say that
is is not beyond human capacity given their technology is definitely an
understatement for the builders of the Great Pyramid. Let me just give
a brief background:
"Ten miles west of the modern city of Cairo at the end of an acacia,
tamarind and eucalyptus avenue stands a rocky plateau. A mile square,
it dominates the luxuriant palm groves of the Nile Valley from a height
of 130 feet. On this man-leveled plateau, called Giza by the Arabs,
stands the Great Pyramid of Cheops. To the west stretch the vast wastes
of the Libyan desert.
The Pyramid's base covers 13 acres, or 7 midtown blocks of the city of
New York. From this broad area, leveled to within a fraction of an inch,
more than tow-and-a-half million blocks of limestone and granite -
weighing from 2 to 70 tons apiece - rise in 201 stepped tiers to the
height of a modern forty-story building, etched against the cloudless
blue of the Egyptian skies.
In terms of solid masonry, the structure contains more stone than all
the cathedrals, churches and chapels built in England since the time of
Christ; as a feat in masonry it was not to be matched till the
construction of Boulder Dam. Modern engineers are astounded by both the
enormity of the problems involved in the construction of the Pyramid
and the optician's precision with which these problems were resolved.
As originally designed, with its full mantle of polished limestone, the
Pyramid must have been a dazzling sight. Unlike marble, which tends to
become eroded with time and the weather, limestone becomes harder and
more polished.
What the Great Pyramid looked like when it was completed, or even for
the first one or two millennia thereafter, is not recorded in history.
No description of the Pyramid has survived in the Egyptian texts.
Legends have it painted in various colors, marked with designs and
inscribed with symbols. The thirteenth-century Arab historian, Abd-al-
Latif, says the Pyramid was once inscribed with unintelligible
characters in inscriptions so numerous they would fill ten thousand
pages: his colleagues assumed them to be the graffiti of myriads of
ancient tourists."
Furthermore, some granite blocks surrounding the Sphinx enclosure
weigh up to 200 tons! Moving these massive pieces was not possible in
our era until 1959, with modern machinery. I believe that even with our
space-age technology, the feat of constructing the Great Pyramid is
improbable. There is no other building matching the greatness of the
Great Pyramid. (Where are the signs for trial and error?)
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