Egyptian Pyramids Essay, Research Paper
Who built the Egyptian pyramids? For centuries, the Egyptian Pyramids and the
Sphinx have stood a silent testimony to a great and powerful civilization long
since ground to dust. But behind the great walls of the Pyramids and this long
lasting silence, mysteries are still unrevealed and the explanation of these
mysteries is a set of theories based on observation and on the printed texts on
the Pyramids walls. One great mystery was the one dealing with the building of
the Pyramids and the Sphinx. In fact, there are two major theories (Pahl 1998) (Ashmawy
1995- 1997) explaining why the Pyramids were built. The first one states that
the ancient Egyptian people built them as tombs for their great kings (Ashmawy
1995- 1997) (Cottrell 1956), and the other one is that they were built by other
people more technologically advanced than us, whose purposes were much more
important than building tombs for dead Kings (Bauval & Hancock 1996). There
is an ancient Egyptian proverb, that says: "Everything fears time, but time
fears the Pyramids". They are the only Wonders of the ancient world to
remain standing, which do not need to be described. Their enormous size made
Herodotus the "Father of the ancient history", Napoleon, Alexander the
Great, and many more important invaders to stand in awe overwhelmed by the
greatest structures on earth. As for the roots of the word pyramid, they are
unknown for it has no origin in any language on earth (Russel & Sellier
1994). The first conventional and widely approved theory, says that the Pyramids
were constructed by the Egyptian people 4500 years ago, and states that they are
tombs for the dead kings. In fact, the Great Pyramid was constructed by the king
Khufu to become his tomb when he dies. For instance, Pyramid building was a
tradition to the old Egyptians before Khufu’s age, which started as a small
structure known as Mastaba (the Mastaba is an Arabic word meaning a bench),
which was a small structure were the king and his personal belongings were
buried. (Ashmawy 1995) (Cottrell 1956. The reason that lies beyond the building
of such great structures was related to the Egyptian religion. The Egyptian
religion was a very complex one, based on many after-death believes.
Furthermore, through the help of the scenes, paintings, and texts that are found
on the walls of the Pyramids, we conclude that the reason that led the Egyptians
to build the Pyramids was to protect the body of the mummified king. Besides,
the reason to mummification was due to their belief that as long as the body
endured, so long the soul continued with it (Wallbank p26) not as quickening and
animating it but as an attendant or guardian unwilling to leave the former
habitation (Moffet p22). On the other hand, when entering the Great Pyramid, the
scholars found that the king’s body was missing which lead the scientists to
believe that it was stolen, just like other smaller Pyramids which were found
empty. Moreover, the pyramidologists got the idea that these empty Pyramids are
tombs for old pharos, because there are more than seventy Pyramids found in
Egypt which contained mummified bodies of old dead kings (Russel & Sellier).
As for the way they were built, the scientists released a very popular theory,
which states that the limestones of which the Pyramids are built, were quarried
from the Mokkatam Hills, on the opposite bank of the river, and floated across
in barges at flood time. Herodotus describes that as each layer of blocks was
laid, an earth ramp was raised by gathering earth and stones covered with water,
keeping a constant angle so that the ramp would get longer and longer as the
work proceeded, on which the block was dragged up (Kemp 1989). So by putting
each block on its specific site, the construction was complete in twenty years,
by a hundred thousand workers, as Herodotus said. ( Kemp 1989) But is it
possible that a 450 feet high, having a base of 755 feet, with 22 acres of stone
bocks weighing an average of 2.5 tons each, was built with the old pharaonic
civilization tools? Another group of archeologists thinks that the Pyramids
could
BC" (Russel & Sellier 1994). They agree that the objective of these
Pyramids was more important than being a pharaoh’s tomb. In going back to the
eighth century DC, the Islamic Caliph Al Ma’moun, was told that the Great
Pyramid contained treasures and an important store of knowledge. So he tried to
enter the pyramid but he couldn’t find an entrance, so he had to tunnel into the
pyramid starting from a hinged opening from the north side. After several months
of tunneling, he reached seventy feet encountering on the way all kinds of huge
granite block, blocking the way. Once he found the passageway to the king’s
room, he found out that it was empty (Jensen & York). So upon this
discovery, the scientists started thinking about the Great Pyramid, that it was
never robbed from its contents because there weren’t any. Thinking about it for
a while we see that since Al Ma’moun dug his way though, it would be impossible
for thieves to come at night and enter the pyramid to steel its contents, unless
if there was another way to enter the pyramid which until now is uncovered.
Furthermore, after the checking of the Great Pyramid by civil engineers it was
revealed that its structure is unique in the world, and "impossible to
duplicate nowadays". In fact, Gregory Pyros, -AIA -architect- negotiates
that such a great structure should sink slowly in the ground at a fixed rate
like all other buildings. For example the U.S. capitol, Gregory says, has
settled 5 inches during the last 200 years. But the Great Pyramid settled for
less than 1.5 inches during the last 4500 years (Russel & Sellier 1994). Not
only architects were astonished by this great structure, but also geologists and
mathematicians are truly amazed by the distinct properties of the Great Pyramid.
Its placement on the earth is exactly at 31 degrees east, 30 degrees north which
is in fact the middle of the earth (Pahl 1998). And building such a structure
would require a knowledge of the structure of the earth, the longitude and the
latitude in addition to the science of astronomy, a knowledge which did not
exist in the Egyptian time (Russel & Sellier 1994) (Pahl 1998). In addition,
after the discovery of the hieroglyph by the French scientist Champollion, the
scientists could read all the written texts left by the Egyptians. And the
astonishing discovery was that there weren’t any text describing the process of
building the Pyramids, not any single picture or drawing related to them (Kemp
1989)(Russel & Sellier 1994)(Cottrell 1956). Moreover, this group of
scientists thinks of a relationship between the Giza monuments, and another
place that exists on Mars, that could explain who build these gigantic
structures. After the filming of the Cedonian location on the planet Mars by the
spaceship Viking, the archeologists turned their researches over the red planet
and what was found on it. The Cedonian location contained a human face like
structure 450 meters high and more than one mile long, in addition to some
pyramidal structures geometrically displaced, impossible to be formed unless by
an intelligent life. And the relationship to the Giza complex on earth was that
the Martian face, after complete studies and comparison, matched the face of the
Sphinx. Moreover, the position of the pyramidal structures, especially the
D&N pyramid, are perfectly fitted with the ones on Earth (Bauval &
Hacock 1996) (Russel & Sellier 1994). These recent discoveries are to be
proved in the future with another spaceship that will photograph the Cedonian
location. So the answer to the question: "which theory is more
convincing", depends on the more logical and realistic proofs that any of
the two parties can offer. In the future NASA is the only hope who is able to
reveal the relationship between the Giza monuments and the Cedonian ones.
Meanwhile children in schools are taught that the Pyramids are pharaohs’ tombs
and the Great Pyramid is the tomb of the king Khufu, considering what is a mere
unproven theory, that is, nevertheless, very credible, as an established fact.
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