The mystery of the Pyramids of Giza?...
The pyramids of Giza are shrouded in numerous mysteries, from the strange powers within them to the alleged evidence that they are supposed to prove they belonged to a civilization other than the Ancient Egyptians. We actually know a great deal about the grandiose monuments, things carefully brushed aside by those who have written books and promoted alternative theories about their nature.
Imposing and fascinating the pyramids of the 4th Dynasty are the only ancient wonder still standing. It may come as a surprise that the pyramids of the later period are decidedly more modest in both size and construction quality.
This fact has given rise to much imaginative speculation as to the reasons for this decline in the engineering of ancient tomb construction.
Many argue that the pyramids are the product of an ancient civilization-Atlantis? - which existed about ten thousand years before the Egyptians. That civilization would have achieved incredibly advanced technology that enabled it to build the pyramids. Unfortunately, a cataclysm wiped such a civilization off the face of the earth, returning humanity to the Stone Age.
Others claim that the builders of the pyramids were extraterrestrials who landed on earth thousands of years ago and then, for some inexplicable reason, returned to their home without leaving a trace. Probably the same extraterrestrials who, according to others, occasionally return for a visit.
Those who support these hypotheses rely on the fact that there is no written, concrete evidence attributing the pyramids of Giza to the pharaohs of the Fourth Dynasty: Cheops, Chephren and Mycerinus.
Added to this is the fact that, even today, it is not known how pyramids were built. There are many hypotheses, but none appears satisfactory. Documenting the various theories that deviate from classical archaeology I myself had the impression that the theories proposed by Egyptologists were even less convincing or at least unclear.
The fact that amazed me the most, and which leads several Egyptophiles into confusion, is that official archaeology admits that it is still not known exactly how the pyramids were built and in what time frame. Numerous hypotheses have been made, all of which are very valid and explain what the techniques involved might have been, but none give definitive and certain answers. By this is meant that official archaeology at the present stage does not give "the answer" but rather proposes answers to the fateful question, "how were the Pyramids of Giza built?"
There are still many doubts even about the dates and various diatribes about the short chronology proposed by classical Egyptologists and the long chronology hypothesized by scholars contemporary with Manetho. The latter was an Egyptian priest of Ptolemaic times who took the trouble to write a chronicle of the Egyptian kings. Unfortunately, the versions of the work that have survived to us have been repeatedly reworked and modified, making it almost entirely unreliable.
Personally, however, I find interesting what Manetho's contemporaries who studied this work speculated and suggested in a period of about 277 years the duration of the Fourth Dynasty.
I am also convinced that the entire Giza plain is a work of genius from the mind of some great personage. Remaining in the realm of hypothesis, I would identify such a personage as Imothep, vizier of King Djoser and inventor of the pyramid structure tombs. Therefore a continuation of a project dating back to the 3rd Dynasty. This extends the period of completion of the work to about 400 years.
Returning to theories supported by archaeological evidence, the certainty of the fact that the pyramids are the work of the 4th Dynasty comes to us from some historical and cultural evidence. Such evidence is contained in numerous papyri and documents.
It is evidence that reinforces the above theory that sees the Giza project as unified.
It is necessary to consider the construction of the pyramids of Giza, not so much as the making of tombs as ends in themselves, but as the effort of an entire society to build something big by making a common effort.
Those who initiated the construction of the pyramids - Imothep? - probably had as his main purpose the unity of Egypt and the many tribes from which it was formed.
It was necessary to find something to unite people from very different groups. Often it was wars that provided a reason for cohesion, but since Egypt had no expansionist aims such as to justify war, it was probably decided to build a great work by pivoting on the one element that could motivate all the people of the Nile: religion.
The Egyptian people thus engaged in the creation of the largest of the necropolis/sanctuaries ever made by mankind.
And therein lies the real mystery surrounding the pyramid, the mystery of the logistics and organization of the Egyptian people. A whole people who managed to organize themselves in such a way as to build what we can admire today and, at the same time, continue all the activities necessary for common life, such as agriculture, animal husbandry, building houses, objects, etc.
It should also be kept in mind that the documentation we have always speaks of skilled and well-paid workers and never of slaves. Thus we know that the Egyptian people were highly skilled professionals who performed their work to the best of their ability with a high degree of motivation. This certainly explains the level of quality they achieved. Unfortunately, no document technically explains the methodologies used, which is why nothing is known about the construction techniques.
Once the Giza project was realized, the Egyptian people found themselves united and socially very strong and educated, so much so that the priestly class needed to regain a detachment from the common people.
Here then, even the most powerful priests and personages deserved dignified burial and a better life after death. The economic effort made for the construction of Giza is certainly not repeatable, thus the pyramid texts are born. It is no longer the physicality of the grandiose monument that premise for the pharaoh to reach the gods but it is the reading of the "Pyramid Texts" that allows him to do so. Drawing a parallel with modern technology, one could say that the pyramids of the 4th Dynasty are a bit like the great computers of the 1980s. Then, as they became more widespread, the size shrank and the software-the Pyramid Texts-was refined to a truly for everyone no longer tied only to the computer but also to other objects of use such as the cell phone or camera. This ubiquitous software could be compared to the book of the dead. With the book of the dead everyone can access the afterlife, there is thus what we might call the democratization of the afterlife. And it is clear that since you cannot build a pyramid for every deceased person, you get to make burials practical and inexpensive. Of course, even in this period the tombs reflect the social status of the deceased. Pharaohs will always be surrounded by priceless treasures.
These are not hypotheses, but are archaeological evidences derived from the analysis and translation of countless papyri and inscriptions.
Those who advance fanciful hypotheses disregard this evidence for several reasons, of which the first is surely that this evidence is accessible only to those with a thorough knowledge of hieroglyphic and the Egyptian language.
The mysteries surrounding the pyramids of Giza are still many, and they certainly concern construction methodologies. Mysteries that must be unraveled by taking into account what is known for certain, not neglecting notions of physics and chemistry in addition to those of archaeology.
Any hypothesis questioning the human nature of the pyramids goes against all that is known for certain. What is to be considered a mystery and a "paranormal" power of the pyramids of Giza is the fact that their mere existence compels thousands of people, who have not even really seen them, to study a wide variety of disciplines such as history, physics, astronomy, trigonometry, you name it.
Various theories attribute different functions to the pyramids, archaeology clearly shows that they are tombs but that the reasons why they were built are beyond their function. One thing is certain, the pyramids are exceptional fuel for the mind of anyone who is fascinated by them, and I fully agree with him.
As an elaboration to the historical archaeological details I refer you to the following notes which, while not going into the details of individual arguments, I hope make it clear that there has never been in Egypt any intervention "from outside" whether terrestrial or extraterrestrial.
Historical archaeological notes
1. The Fourth Dynasty
The historical events of the rulers of the 4th Dynasty (c. 2630 - 2510 BCE) are little known despite the grandeur of the monuments they had built: the Red Pyramid (ancient name Snefru appears in glory), the Rhomboidal Pyramid (ancient name Snefreu appears in glory of the South), the three pyramids of Giza (ancient names the Horizon of , (or ) is great and ( or ) is divine, the many decorated mastabas, the Sphinx etc.
Manetho speaks of eight kings, the royal papyrus of Turin, damaged in this part, seems to list nine, but the monuments attest to only six names.
Snefru reigned for about 40 years, but we do not known much about Kheope, not even how long he ruled the country, 23 years according to the Canon of Turin, 63 according to Manetho.
Gedefra (or Ragedef), the successor, remain under dark; it is not even known whether he reigned 8 years, according to the Canon of Turin, or for a longer period, but without reaching Manetho's 63 years. Gedefra marks a turning point in the dynasty: he was the first king to bear the title of the "Son of Ra" and who leaves Giza to have his tomb built at Abu Roash, some 10 km to the north. The choice is probably due to a return to pre-Kheope values.
2. The evolution pyramid form.
The architectural form of the pyramid represents, in my opinion, the end point of an evolutionary process starting with the mound, which already in predynastic times covered the pit where the deceased was buried. It is possible that the mound showed the primordial hill where the creator Sun had first appeared, according to Heliopolis theology.
During the first two dynasties, the process of evolution invests both the infrastructure and the superstructure of the tomb, and the classical type of mastaba is slowly being formed.
In Gioser, the morphological evolution of the royal tomb from mastaba to pyramid.
The studies of J. Ph. Lauer reconstruct the successive stages of the transition to pyramidal form. Lauer interprets the external appearance of the monument as the ruler's desire to make his tomb more visible.
At first Imhotep included the initial mastaba within a four-tiered pyramid, then elevated again to six tiers (total height about 60 meters).
The construction was resumed by Sekhemkhet also at Saqqara, while the pyramids at Zauiet el- Aryan herald the use of a new technique, the best example of which is Snefru's pyramid at Medium (end result a pyramid with a slope of 51° 52', 92 meters high and sides of 144.32 meters).
Snefru's new attempt at Dashur resulted in the rhomboid pyramid, modified in the process from 54° 31' to 43° 21'.
Not content with that, Snefru had another pyramid (the "red one") built at Dashur with a slope of 43° 36' (the funerary temple remained unfinished).
I will not dwell on the pyramid of Kheope (it would be useless and trivial). Only: no pyramid ever reached the size and perfection of the pyramid of Kheope. That of Gedefra, has arrived to us too damaged to allow for comparisons, That of Khefren fairly closely reproduces the model of Kheope, as does that of Macerinus, which is smaller, but has a profound difference in its internal arrangement.
3. The Pyramid Texts, the Sarcophagi Texts and the Book of the Dead.
The pyramids of the 5th and 6th dynasties reproduce the external appearance of the Giza model, without reaching its grandeur. There are, however, differences in the evolution of the inner rooms, the layout of which is established at the time of Unas.
His pyramid is important for another reason: it is in fact the first to have its interior walls covered with funerary texts: the so-called Pyramid Texts.
They are found in the royal tombs of Saqqara - Unas, Teti, Pepi I, Merenda, Pepi II and Aba, but also in those of Pepi II's consorts, and in those of Pepi I's funerary complex (discovered by the French mission).
The Pyramid Texts consist of a series of formulas, some only in the pyramid of Unas, but globally handed down until the time of Aba.
Later, part of them will appear in the funerary texts, the oldest specimens of which were found in the Dakhla oasis and date to the 6th Dynasty: the so-called Sarcophagi Texts, which at the time of the Middle Kingdom will pick up the legacy of the Pyramid Texts, but without being the exclusive preserve of the ruler.
In turn, these texts will influence the Books of the Dead, New Kingdom and Late Kingdom times.
Reading all these texts provides insight into certain elements of the development of Old Kingdom royal burial.
Why, for example, did Imhotep decide to cover the mastaba with a pyramid?
The texts explain that the king's goal is the ascent to heaven, where a destiny at once solar and astral awaits him.
To achieve this goal, the king has various means at his disposal; the whirlwinds of sand, the help of the god Shu who lifts him into his arms, the transformation into a bird, usually the hawk, the bird that reaches greater heights, or more romantically, the clouds of incense, which go skyward.
More earthly, it can make use of a ladder, which can be formed by the rays of the sun. And such a ladder consists of the step pyramid, whose symbol in the hieroglyphic script serves to determine the verb "to ascend, to lift up".
Beginning in the Fourth Dynasty, the smooth pyramid is employed, symbolizing, like the benben, the petrified sunbeam by which the king ascends to heaven.
The transition to the smooth pyramid and the introduction of the benben, are meant to reconcile the opposition between Atum and Ra, which after the attempts of Gedefra and Khefren, find solution in the Fifth Dynasty, with the assimilation of one to the other.
Thus, Unas is assimilated into Atum in the underworld, presented as an equivalent of the Nun, the primordial waters in which the Creator floated, and is extracted from it in the form of the solar Atum
The texts recount this very passage, already likely symbolized concretely by the figure of the Sphinx of Giza.
They thus have the sense of reading related to their point of placement in the tomb, which corresponds, at first, to the performance of the funeral and, second, to the moment of rebirth.
In other words:
After the fall of the central government at the end of the Sixth Dynasty, the great mass of the common people took over the elaborate funerary cult that until then had been the prerogative of the king and then of the nobility only, and the rectangular wooden sarcophagi in which Middle Kingdom Egyptians buried their dead were covered with passages from the ancient funerary texts. These texts, however, had been arranged in a new version; some of the old Pyramid Texts had been discarded, and new material had been added, while the role played by Osiris as god of the dead increased considerably.
This version is called the Sarcophagus Texts, which are regarded as the antecedents of the New Kingdom Book of the Dead, when everyone, but everyone was going to the afterlife.
The collection of formulas was called by the Egyptians The formulas for going out to the day, and this title indicates the general purpose of the collection.
However, although these were the general purpose of the Book of the Dead, the formulas contained are often quite unrelated to it, and must have originally had a different use altogether.
In summary it is therefore important to consider that over time verbal spells made alive by the magic of speech and writing were incessantly worked out so that the deceased associating with Ra in heaven and Osiris in the underworld could rejoice in a radiant life without fearing death a second time.
First composed for the person of the ruler, and then, by successive stages of democratization of funerary worship, granted to all, these more life-giving than funerary works include: The Pyramid Texts, The Sarcophagus Texts, which collect the texts already included in the earlier Pyramid Texts enriched with new formulas, transcribed in hieratic handwriting on the sarcophagi of private citizens, illustrated with painted scenes, which appeared during the First Intermediate Period; the Book of the Dead, the last stage of evolution of the magico-religious texts, characteristic of the New Kingdom and the Lower Epoch.
In addition to these funerary treatises are the Book of the Amduat, the Cave Book and others that elaborately evoke ancestral myths and legends expressing the mystery of the daily regeneration of the god Ra; these are more homogeneous works found in the tombs of the Valley of the Kings.
There are also ritual books such as the Book of the Opening of the Mouth and the Book of Embalming, placed in the tomb to ensure daily services.
