THE BUILDING OF KHUFU’S PYRAMID

THE BUILDING OF KHUFU’S PYRAMID
C 2010 JoJo

I hardly watch TV these days – I’m too busy writing, chatting online with friends or engaged in day-to-day activities. But I faithfully watch 60 Minutes, and I really enjoy documentaries.

Tonight I watched “Ultimate Engineering” a program which covered the building of the great pyramid of Khufu in Giza, Egypt.

This wasn’t the first pyramid built by a Pharaoh – Imotek, (sp?) several centuries earlier, had decided he wanted to be buried in a pyramid and he had his engineers of the day, design and build one for this purpose. Thereafter, every Pharaoh wanted to have his own pyramid built as a burial chamber for himself, and of course, it goes without saying that each one wanted to outdo his predecessor’s pyramid by making it larger, higher and the actual burial chamber, more complex and harder to access. Even back then, grave robbers were a concern. They used to raid burial chambers and steal the treasures that were always placed in the Pharoah’s there, supposedly to insure that he’d have the means to live well in his afterlife.

Making the angles of the base square, without the benefit of computers and other modern day technology, was no simple task. Egyptologists pondered long and hard to understand how the ancient Egyptian engineers mastered this feat. In the end, a simple possible solution was found. By drawing one circle, overlapping with a second circle, then taking line in the middle of both circles to each of the four corners of the pyramid base, then stretching a cord to each corner along this line, this would make sure the structure was square!

Ingenious and so simple!

The Khufu pyramid is located at the top of a sandstone quarry, from which all the pyramid’s massive blocks were carved then raised to the site up ramps built for this purpose. They were first hoisted onto sleds, and workers pulled and pushed them up these ramps, one block at a time. A worker would go ahead, tossing water over the area ahead of the sled, in order to make it more slippery. There are over two million blocks in the entire structure. Two million – it boggles the mind!

Until recent times, it was believed that the pyramids were built by slaves. However, from under many feet of sand, archaeologists uncovered what had obviously been the village in which the workers lived, slept and ate. They found evidence that it was a self contained village, complete with a pottery shed to craft all the many vessels required to accommodate this thriving community. It is now theorized that the pyramid builders were free men, who were recruited from all over the country, to come and work on the site, in lieu of paying taxes to the central Government! They got free food and lodging, and (if this theory is correct) probably other benefits from this arrangement!

There are three satellite pyramids built around Khufu’s. One of them was discovered by accident, when an Egyptian photographer set up his tripod to take photographs of Khufu’s pyramid, and the earth sank under the weight of the tripod’s feet. When archaeologists carefully dug down to the pyramid and into its burial chamber they prized open the sarcophagus, and to their astonishment, found it to be empty. This is a puzzle, and various theories have been made about it. One of them is that Khufu’s mother died during his reign, and was buried in it, but her remains were stolen by grave robbers, along with the treasures in it. The reason this theory was postulated is because, at that time, Khufu’s engineers had already designed and partially built a chamber in his pyramid, located 4 ft. below its base, but this chamber was abandoned. The supposition was that, due to the raiding of his mother’s tomb, Khufu wanted an absolutely impregnable burial chamber for himself, and insisted it be re-designed so as to be located in the center of the structure itself and much harder to access.

He also insisted that the chamber itself be made of granite, not sandstone. The nearest granite quarry was located in Aswan, 580 miles from the site. The tools the workers of the day had at their disposal could not be used to carve into the granite. Workers used a rock harder than granite, to pound grooves into the granite in order to create blocks. This took thousands of workers toiling around the clock to quarry. Each block had to be shipped to the site on a boat up the Nile River – an incredible feat.

When the burial chamber had been lined with granite, it was feared that the sheer weight of the granite on the ceiling would cause it to collapse once the added sandstone blocks were placed over it, so once again, the engineers had to devise some means of preventing this from happening.

They created several layers of horizontal stone beams over the burial chamber’s ceiling, thus making the additional weight over it, to spread outwards to the pyramid’s external walls, and not directly downwards onto the chamber’s ceilings. This is hard to describe, but it was truly an engineering marvel, even by today’s standards.

As the pyramid grew higher and higher, it is believed that a circular ramp was built around it, enabling workers to pull the sandstone blocks up to the top. Since they couldn’t see the structure below this ramp, getting each block properly aligned was a major feat.

The final blocks had to he levered into place by workers, and there is no doubt that this was highly dangerous work, which probably caused injuries, if not death to many of those workers engaged in doing it.

Finally the most important stone was levered onto the top – the capstone, and now the pyramid was ready for the time when the Pharaoh would ultimately die and be buried in it.

Khufu reigned for 23 years, and in 1,583 B.C. he died. At the foot of his pyramid, embalmers started preparing his body for burial. His brain and all but one of his organs were carefully removed and embalmed in a special solution with a salt base. His heart however, was left in place because it was considered to be the center of his emotions. Each embalmed organ was stored in a different, specially crafted container.

Ancient Egyptians believed that the spirit needed a place in which to live while it waited for immortality, so embalming a body and preserving all its organs was an imperative.

When this task was completed, he was ceremonially carried to his sarcophagus by his High Priests and entourage, and his chamber sealed.

Khufu had been very concerned about grave robbers, and his engineers had crafted a foolproof system. After his body had been placed in an alabaster sarcophagus, workers stayed behind to seal the passage leading into his burial chamber. Granite rocks and rubble had been placed overhead, on wooden beams and when these workers carefully pried away the wooden beams, it allowed the rocks to slide into the passageway leading to his burial chamber, thereby sealing it.

It was initially believed that these workers perished while undertaking this task, but it was later discovered not to be the case because no skeletal remains were found anywhere inside the pyramid. It was determined that special shafts had been built leading from that area, that enabled them to crawl out of the structure, once their task had been completed.

There are two shafts leading directly to the burial chamber which archaeologists initially believed were air vents, until a startling discovery was made. One shaft points directly to the Orion Belt constellation and the other to the North Star, both of which figured predominantly in Egyptian religious beliefs of that time.
It is now assumed, the ancient Egyptians believed that when their Pharaoh died and was sealed in his chamber, he became a God, and his spirit was released out into the stars through these two shafts.

Khufu’s pyramid, stands 450 feet tall and even under today’s standards, is truly an incredible feat of engineering.

Amazing – and I hope you find these facts as utterly fascinating as I did.