Inside the Great Pyramid

Smithsonian Mag ^ | 01 Sept 2011 | Mike Dash

[Palter]

[Palter]

Giza, ping.

[silverleaf]

kewl stuff

Anyone out there climbed this puppy?

I have!

[taxcontrol]

I’ve been there but not inside the great pyramid.

[beebuster2000]

the mind boggles at the % of the Egypt nations GDP went into the pyramid, and for what? stimulus? hmmm.....

[frogjerk]

I was there a long time ago. An incredible sight!

[KamperKen]

"Anyone out there climbed this puppy? I have!"

Share your impressions.

[the invisib1e hand]

now that's stimulus.

[DonaldC]

“the mind boggles at the % of the Egypt nations GDP went into the pyramid, and for what? stimulus? hmmm..... “

I guess it depends on how one values the focus of society and given how long Ancient Egypt lasted, maybe they were doing something right.

[MNDude]

at least they have something to show for their stimulus.

Obama could have done something, anything better with his trillions he spent— dig a hole to the center of the world, send a man to Mars, build a tunnel to Japan, irrigate all of Death Valley, even build a mile high lolipop would be something to show for for all that money, but he’s got nothing to show!

[RWGinger]

Great great article

and thank you
those pictures are the cloest I will ever get to being inside.

As I told my friends at caves in KY I will wait for you in the gift shop.

thanks for posting
and the pic of the WWII plane flying over the pyramids is spectacular!

[winodog]

Nice pic!! Got anymore?

[elcid1970]

Wonder if the Arab Springers will blow up this survivor of the world before Islam, just like their Taliban brethren did to the Bamayan Buddhas?

Or maybe the job’s just too d@mn big even for the ROPers. But it’s certainly been discussed. Nothing but nothing built before Mohammed and his time can be allowed to remain standing.

Ever wonder why the jihadis are licking their chops over the prospect of conquering Rome for Islam? All those Roman antiquities and especially the Vatican, to the muzzies the most righteous of all targets.

Anyway, I think the Pyramids will survive. Even the Muslim Brotherhood knows that Egyptian tourism depends on non-muslim visitors. They’re not that stupid, or are they?

[ETL]

Here's an enlargement of the diagram:

[enraged]

Good Read. Whether you believe him or not Zacharia Sitchen has a pretty cool read on this very thing in his book ‘stair way to heaven’. What I've always wondered about is, why are there no hyrioglyphics anywhere in the pyramid? Other than a few marking supposed to be from the stone-cutters, the place is completely blank. The Egyptians littered everything with paintings and symbols, but not in the tomb of their most powerful Pharaoh? Seems weird to me. There is a zodiac cut into the ceiling at the bottom of the "well", I have never heard of anything else.

[DonaldC]

“Wonder if the Arab Springers will blow up this survivor of the world before Islam, just like their Taliban brethren did to the Bamayan Buddhas?”

They have done enough damage as it is. Muslims removed most of the cover stones that were originally there and tunneled the entrance now used, where they found it as empty as it is today. I don’t know who built it or why, but I doubt Khufu had anything to do with it. So much about that site we don’t know.

[Red_Devil 232]

stimulus? Exactly!

[Red_Devil 232]

C-46 over the Pyramids! neat!

[Palter]

Several here. The WWII is a favorite of mine.

[KamperKen]

""the mind boggles at the % of the Egypt nations GDP went into the pyramid, and for what? stimulus?"

I posted a while back on this same subject. Since ancient Egypt would have been largely subsistence agriculture, it was not possible to consume most of the nations disposable product to build something of no identifiable economic utility.

What I believe is one of the misconceptions surround its history is that it was built in the agricultural 'off season', though there is no such thing as an off season for near-subsistence living; one is always engaged in some form of economic activity if it's not agriculture at the moment.

It was certainly built by humans and not aliens or supernatural agencies, but not over the course of a single Pharaoh's reign. It was probably built over centuries, if not millenia. The largest temple of the Classical world, the temple of Jupiter in Athens, took 700 years to complete, finally being completed during the reign of Hadrian. Why would one reasonably expect that the far more massive Great Pyramid was built in less time?

There is a curiosity worth contemplating that somewhat corroborates the above. If one does an image search on "Khufu", all that shows up is small, two inch high ivory figurine. That's the only (possibly) contemporary image we have of the builder of what would reign as the greatest human structure in both height and mass for almost 5000 years. One would think that the monarch responsible for this enormous monument would memorialize himself as well in an equally massive way.

The conventional wisdom and chronology I believe to be incorrect, along with many others, who are far more knowledgeable than me on this topic.