Pyramid Quest (34 page)

Pochan (1978, p. 233) also suggests that “the singular phenomenon of the first ‘flash’ that I described might explain the comments made by Solinus, Ammianus Marcellinus, and Cassidorus to the effect that the pyramid
‘absorbed’
its own shadow” (italics in the original). Instead of absorbed, we might say the Great Pyramid swallowed its own shadow.

The area on which the Great Pyramid was built was not first leveled down to a flat bedrock foundation. Rather, a mound of rock, generally believed to be terraced to take the core blocks of the actual pyramid, was left in the middle. Various explanations for leaving this mound have been proposed. The most common, classical Egyptological, explanation is that it was simply a labor-saving means. Keeping a mound or core of bedrock in the center base of the pyramid meant that much less in the way of masonry that would have to be put into place.

Robert Bauval (personal conversation, May 2004), who is an engineer by training, disputes the notion that the Great Pyramid was built on and over the bedrock mound to save time and expense. He points out that from an engineering perspective, what is needed is a flat, level surface to enable the weight to be distributed evenly and to give clear lines of sight for surveying. Bauval speculates that the mound or knoll that lies under and within the pyramid’s base was in very ancient (Predynastic) times considered a sacred site, and the Descending Shaft and Subterranean Chamber considerably predate the Great Pyramid superstructure. Bauval also believes the Old Kingdom Egyptians took an enormous risk of structural collapse building the Great Pyramid exactly where they did, so close to the edge of the plateau. He argues that they must have known it would have been much safer to move it 100 meters or so further away from the edge, so the fact that they built it where they did indicates they wanted it exactly there for some reason, and he thinks the reason is to cover and preserve and mark the sacred knoll or mound under and within, along with the much older subterranean chamber.

Davidson and Aldersmith (1924, n.d., p. 159) suggest that a terraced mound of bedrock was left internal to the Great Pyramid as a way of counteracting subsidence, the collapsing of caverns within the bedrock, tremors, and earthquakes.

In its current state, the Great Pyramid consists of 203 layers, or courses, of stone blocks. The thickness of the courses varies, but all of the blocks within a course are very closely of the same thickness. The base course is about 58 inches thick. From the base, the thickness of each course more or less decreases, until there is a sudden increase at the thirty-fifth course; the thirty-fourth course is 26.2 inches thick, and the thirty-fifth course is 49.8 inches thick (Kingsland, 1932, p. 25; see also table of course thicknesses in Davidson and Aldersmith, 1924, facing p. 120). Likewise, according to Kingsland (based on the work of Petrie; also see Davidson and Aldersmith, 1924, n.d.), there are marked increases at the 67th, 90th, 98th, 118th, and 144th courses; but the greatest increase is the one at the 35th course. Pochan (1978, p. 10) gives the average height of the courses as 0.685 meters (26.97 inches) and the average height of the top ten as 0.562 meters (22.1 inches).

Petrie (1885, p. 11) found that the mean azimuth of the core layers of the Great Pyramid at its base is 5’ 16” west of north, whereas the casing stones, according to Petrie’s measurements are only 3’ 43” west of north, suggesting that the final orientation of the Great Pyramid was adjusted very slightly when the casing stones were applied and cut to their final form.

According to Pochan (1978, p. 1; see also Moyer, 2003), the Great Pyramid, composed predominantly of limestone but with some granite in the interior, has an estimated volume of 2.6 million cubic meters and a mass of 7 million metric tons. Typical estimates of the number of blocks composing the Great Pyramid are around 2.3 million (Petrie, 1885, p. 83 n., says there are 2.3 million blocks averaging 2.5 English tons each) to 2.5 million (DeSalvo, 2003, p. 2) or 2.6 million (Pochan, 1978, p. 10). However, according to DeSalvo (2003, p. 2), “recent quarry evidence indicates that there may only be about 750,000 blocks which weigh between ½ and 2 tons.” Taseos (1990, p. 20) calculated that the Great Pyramid would be composed of 603,728 blocks if it were solid masonry, but subtracting his estimate of 13,016 blocks’ worth of bedrock core in the center of the Great Pyramid, he concluded that the pyramid is composed of 590,712 blocks. Taseos, however, made very different assumptions about the sizes of the blocks relative to Petrie, for instance. On the other hand, using assumptions in the opposite direction, some researchers have estimated that there might be as many as 3.5 or 4 million blocks in the Great Pyramid (Moyer, 2003). In conversation with Zahi Hawass (Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities in Egypt and Director of the Giza Pyramids Excavation) on the Giza Plateau, December 5, 2003, he told me that a recent analysis estimated the number of blocks in the Great Pyramid to be 1.2 million.

Some authors have suggested that the Great Pyramid is not actually composed of blocks of stone per se but of blocks of concrete or a similar type of substance. Thus, back in 1877, James Bonwick (p. 9) wrote: “One reputed architect has informed the world that the whole was constructed of
pisé.
Water, by elaborate machinery, was led up to the required heights to mix with the sand, &c., to set in blocks of the needed size, and formed themselves tier by tier in the moulds.” Originally writing in 1928, Manly P. Hall says: “The theory once advanced that both the Pyramid and the Sphinx were built from artificial stones made on the spot has been abandoned” (Hall, 2003, p. 113). More recently, Joseph Davidovits (Davidovits and Morris, 1988) and Gadalla (2000) have promoted the idea that the Great Pyramid is composed of “synthetic stone” or “concrete.” I have personally looked into to this issue firsthand, examining both the indisputably natural bedrock of the area and the stones of which the Great Pyramid is built, and I am convinced that the Great Pyramid is indeed composed of natural rock blocks that were quarried and set into place.

The interior or core of the Great Pyramid is composed of locally quarried limestone that varies in color and hardness, and in places contains abundant fossils of nummulites, reefal organisms, sea urchins, and other oceanic creatures, while the facing, or casing, was apparently composed of the finer and whiter Mokattam limestone (also known as Tura limestone; see Hawass,
Update to Petrie,
1990, p. 105) quarried farther away on the other side of the Nile (Emery, 1960). Of the Mokattam limestone, Bonwick (1877, p. 16) writes: “The material came from the quarry of Mokattan [Mokattam, Mokhattam], beyond Cairo, and is commonly known as
swine-stone,
or
stink-stone,
from the odour proceeding from this marble [actually it is a limestone] when struck; but few fossils have been detected” (italics in the original). For a geological description of the Mokattam Formation and the layers above and below, see Said (1962, p. 136). Emery (1960) discusses the lithologies, weathering, and erosional features of the limestone rocks that compose the Great Pyramid. For a general modern description of the geology of the Giza Plateau, see Sampsell (2003, pp. 103-113). Granite used in the Great Pyramid and elsewhere on the Giza Plateau came from Aswan in southern (Upper) Egypt.

It is generally, if not universally, assumed that originally the Great Pyramid was completely covered with casing stones as finely worked, jointed, and polished as the few intact stones that were found at its base. Personally, I am not convinced that this is a valid assumption. It may well have been that the casing, while appearing finely worked from a distance, may not have been as carefully crafted high up on the completed pyramid where it could not be viewed close up. It has even been suggested that the majority of the Great Pyramid was never covered with any kind of actual casing, and smooth casing stones were placed just around the base to a certain (undetermined) height as a way of keeping people from attempting to climb the structure (see discussion in Bonwick, 1877, pp. 17-18).

Pochan (1978, pp. 219-223) contends that the casing stones of the Great Pyramid may originally (or at least at some point) have been painted red. He bases this contention primarily on chemical and spectrographic analyses of fragments of casing stone that apparently retained a reddish ochre-based paint on their external surfaces. I do not think it is inconceivable that at least some of the casing stones were painted at some point, perhaps even during a restoration of the Great Pyramid, but in my opinion Pochan has far from demonstrated that the pyramid was originally painted in its entirety. It should be noted, however, that Vyse (1840, 2:171; cited by Kingsland, 1935, p. 93), on the basis of some fragments of casing stone he found that appeared to be covered with red paint, also suggested that the Great Pyramid may have originally been painted red.

As to the incredible workmanship and tolerances exhibited by the casing stones, this is a matter that is taken on faith by many writers. Unfortunately, the few remaining casing stones
in situ
have suffered since the time they were uncovered in the 1830s by Howard Vyse’s crew. Vyse commented on the magnificence of the finish of the casing stones, comparing it to modern (of course, early nineteenth-century) optical work (West, 1985, pp. 86-87).

It is worth quoting Petrie’s (1883, p. 44) comments on the subject:

The Great Pyramid is located, along with two other major pyramids and another six smaller pyramids (three to the east of the Great Pyramid and three to the south of the Third, or Menkaure, Pyramid; these smaller pyramids are often referred to as Queen’s Pyramids) on the Giza (Gizeh) Plateau on the west bank of the Nile outside of modern Cairo at the approximate apex of the Nile Delta. Also found on the Giza Plateau are the Great Sphinx, and a number of temples, tombs, boat pits, and other smaller structures.

Pochan (1978, p. 8) gives the geographic position of the Great Pyramid as:

Pochan (1978, p. 8) says, without giving any references, that the previous determination was:

Smyth (1877, p. 70) gives the latitude of the Great Pyramid, according to his on-site measurements in 1865, as:

Schwaller de Lubicz (1961, p. 331) cites the astronomer Nouet as determining the Great Pyramid to be at:

The Cole Survey (1925) found the following orientations for the four sides and two diagonals of the Great Pyramid relative to true north (azimuths are read clockwise where true north is the 0° point).

Thus, we can see that the Great Pyramid overall is oriented very slightly west of the direction of true north (by the minuscule amount of about 3’ 6” on average; see Pochan, 1978, p. 223). Petrie (1885, pp. 40-41) found this to be the case not only for the Great Pyramid and its passages but also for the Second Pyramid and its passages. To quote Petrie (1885, pp. 40-41) on this point: