Tourists arriving on vacation in Egypt, as a rule, are interested in the pyramids much more than other local attractions. Against the background of all existing ancient buildings, the pyramid of Cheops is of particular interest.
Find out what is remarkable about it and what you need to remember when going on this kind of excursion.
During this excursion, you will see at once three nearby pyramids of Ancient Egypt, namely:
- Cheops;
- Mekerin;
- Khafre.
Among them, the pyramid of Cheops is the highest.
A memo of the ancient Egyptian civilization is located near the city, in the suburbs of Cairo. It is extremely difficult to establish the exact time of the construction of the pyramid: the data of numerous studies are very different from each other. The Egyptians themselves believe that construction work began in 2480 BC. and this event is celebrated annually on 23 August.
According to the assumptions of historians, about 100 thousand workers were simultaneously engaged in the construction of the pyramid. During the first decade of hard labor, a road was made for the delivery of stone blocks and the arrangement of underground structures was completed. The monument itself was erected for another 20 years.
The height and overall dimensions of the monument are truly impressive. Initially, the pyramid towered by about 147 m, but time did not spare the monument: as a result of the loss of the facing and filling with sand, the previously cited figure decreased to 137 m.
At the base of the pyramid is a square with a side of 230 m. According to averaged data, the construction of the monument took over 2.3 million blocks, each weighing an average of 2500 kg.
The price of a trip to the pyramids depends on where you live and how you will get on the excursion. Those living in Cairo or Giza will not have any problems with the trip - the distance is short, you can also get there by bus. As for the popular Egyptian resorts, the fastest way to get to the pyramids is from Hurghada - the distance is about 457 km. Taba is a little further - about 495 km. The longest road will be for residents of Sharm el-Sheikh - about 576 km.
Long away? Naturally! And it's good that you found out about this before your trip, and not already upon your arrival in Egypt. In general, you will have to spend about a day on a trip to the pyramids and back.
As for the tour, in specialized agencies it is most often referred to as "excursion to Cairo", and in addition to the famous pyramids includes visits to local museums and various trade shops, mostly sponsored.
The cost of the excursion also depends on how exactly you are going to get to the Cheops pyramid. So, tourists are usually taken from Hurghada by bus. The guests of Sharm el-Sheikh and Taba have the opportunity to fly. Average prices are as follows:
- bus tour from Hurghada - $ 50-70 for an adult and $ 40-50 for a child ticket;
- by bus from Sharm el-Sheikh - $ 50-60, by plane - $ 170-190;
- by bus from Taba - $ 50-70, by plane - $ 250-270.
Helpful advice! Do not immediately discount the possibility of flying. To get started, familiarize yourself with the features of the road to the pyramids and back. It is possible that after studying the information provided, you will change your mind.
There are no questions about the flight - I got on the plane, waited a little, and now you are at your destination. Tourists who choose bus tours need to know the following:
- firstly, it is hot in Egypt at any time of the year. To prevent travelers from getting sick during a bus trip, travel agencies carry out transfers mainly at night;
- secondly, you can hardly count on a trip in a comfortable modern bus with powerful air conditioning. Of course, these vehicles have air conditioners, but they rarely "cope" with the local climate. When driving, do not hesitate to ask the driver to increase the power of the air conditioner.
You will arrive in the suburbs of Cairo at about 7-8 a.m. Here you will be asked to get into the caravan and calmly, accompanied by local security, proceed to your destination. You will reach approximately 10-11 am.
After listening to the stories of the guide, looking at the areas open to tourists, taking the desired number of pictures, you will go back to the hotel and get to your room in the middle of the night.
Description of the pyramid
The external design of the monument is very interesting and unusual. There are many grooves of various sizes on the walls. At the correct viewing angle, individual lines add up to an incredibly tall portrait of a man, presumably one of the deities of the ancient Egyptian civilization. Around the main image there are several pictures and other design elements of a more modest size, namely:
- airplane bird;
- interior plans;
- trident;
- texts with beautiful signs, etc.
On the northern part of the monument, you can see a beautiful image of a woman and a man with bowed heads. The painting was applied shortly before the installation of the last stone.
The pyramid in question is not a simple stone monument, but a well-thought-out building with an extensive system of corridors. The first of them has a length of about 47 meters - this is the so-called. "Big gallery". From here you can get to the Cheops chamber, which has a height of about 6 m and dimensions of 10.5x5.3 m. The room is covered with granite. There are no ornaments.
Here tourists are invited to look at the empty sarcophagus. It was brought here during the construction of the pyramid, because the dimensions of the item would not have allowed the item to be carried later. There is a similar chamber in almost every pyramid. It was in such premises that the rulers found their last refuge.
Of the decorations and inscriptions inside the pyramid, it is worth noting only the portrait in the corridor through which you can get to the Queen's chamber. Outwardly, the portrait looks like a photograph taken in stone.
In general, there are 3 chambers in the pyramid. The first burial chamber was cut out in the rocky base, but was never completed. A narrow corridor with a length of about 120 m leads to the unfinished cell. A low (about 175 cm) 35-meter corridor was made to connect the 1st and 2nd cells. The next burial chamber of the pyramid of Cheops is traditionally called the “queen's chamber”, although according to ancient Egyptian custom, the wives of the rulers found their last refuge in their own pyramids of more modest size.
The story of the "queen's chamber" is very interesting. According to legend, in ancient times, the pyramid was the main temple of the so-called. Supreme Deity. Special religious ceremonies were held here, shrouded in darkness and secrets. According to legend, an unknown creature with a human body and a lion's face lived inside the pyramid. And the keys of Eternity were constantly in the hands of this creature. Only people who had gone through a series of cleansing procedures could see the "lion face". They alone received the magical Divine Name from the High Priest. And a person who knew the secret of the name was endowed with great magical power, not inferior to the power of the pyramid itself.
The main ceremony was held in the royal chamber. The initiate was tied to a ritual cross and placed in a large sarcophagus. While in it, the candidate found himself in the space between the material and divine worlds, where knowledge that was inaccessible to mere mortals came to him.
Inside the pyramid of Cheops, the vault above the pharaoh's chamber)
Another corridor branches off from the previously mentioned corridor, leading directly to the pharaoh's chamber.
Pyramid of Cheops - the tomb of the pharaoh
The internal structure of the pyramid is not limited to the chambers and corridors alone. There are ventilation shafts and additional rooms. For example, in one of these rooms there is a table with a book on it telling about the development of events in the country and the main achievements of civilization during the construction of the monument. The purpose of many other rooms and passages remains unclear.
The purpose of the underground structures located at the foot of the building has not been fully determined either. Some of them have been opened at different times. So, for example, archaeologists who studied the pyramid in 1954 found a wooden boat in one of the underground chambers - this is the oldest known man-made ship. No nails were used to build the boat. The traces of silt found on the ship made it possible to conclude that before the death of the pharaoh, the ship managed to swim along the Nile.
When planning an excursion to the Cheops pyramid, remember: this is a very exhausting journey. It is recommended to go on such a tour only in relatively cool periods of the year: from October to April. If possible, do not take children. Little tourists are unlikely to be interested in when he ruled and what the pharaoh became famous for. No entertainment awaits them inside the pyramid either.
If possible, avoid cooperation with local excursion companies: reviews of travelers indicate the extreme irresponsibility of such organizations. Better pay for the tour at your travel agency. So you will overpay a little, but you can be sure that on occasion you will have someone to make a claim.
Try to find out as much information as possible about the guide. The best informants are the hotel staff and guests. The qualification of a guide on such trips is very important. With an inexperienced guidebook, who somehow knows Russian, you will simply not be interested.
And the last parting word: do not expect something super-outstanding from a trip to the Cheops pyramid. Treat the excursion as one of the points of your route. Listen to the stories of the guide, see the parts of the building that are open to travelers, take some beautiful photos and add a visit to the Cheops pyramid to your personal travel credit.
Have a nice holiday!
Table - Cost of transfer to Giza (Cairo)
Video - Pyramid of Cheops Egypt
) Is indeed a wonder of the world. From the foot to the top, it reaches 137.3 meters, and before it lost the top, its height was 146.7 meters. A century and a half ago, it was the tallest structure in the world, only in 1880 it was surpassed by two built-on towers of the Cologne Cathedral (by 20 meters), and in 1889 - by the Eiffel Tower. The sides of its base are 230.4 meters long, and the area is 5.4 hectares. Its original volume was 2,520,000 cubic meters; now it is about 170,000 cubic meters less, because for centuries the pyramid was used as a quarry. About 2,250,000 stone blocks were used for its construction, each with a volume of more than a cubic meter; this material would be enough to build a city with a population of one hundred thousand. Its weight is 6.5-7 million tons. If it were hollow, it would include a space rocket launcher. According to experts, even an atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima would not have destroyed it.
It was built, according to the most common dating, in 2560-2540. BC e., although some scholars give dates about 150 years earlier. There are three chambers inside the pyramid, corresponding to the three stages of its construction. The first chamber is carved into the rock at a depth of about 30 meters below the base of the pyramid and not quite exactly in the middle of it; its area is 8 x 14 meters, height - 3.5 meters. It remained unfinished, as well as the second, which is in the core of the pyramid, just below the top, at a height of about 20 meters above the base; its area is 5.7 x 5.2 meters, the vaulted ceiling reaches a height of 6.7 meters; it was once called “the tomb of the queen”. The third chamber is the tomb of the king; unlike the other two, it is finished; in it the sarcophagus of Cheops was found. It was built at a height of 42.3 meters above the base and slightly south of the axis of the pyramid; its dimensions are 10.4 x 5.2 meters; height - 5.8 meters. It is faced with immaculately polished and carefully fitted granite slabs; there are five unloading chambers above the ceiling, the total height of which is 17 meters. They take on the weight of about a million tons of stone mass so that it does not press directly on the burial chamber.
The pharaoh's sarcophagus is wider than the entrance to the chamber. It is hewn from a single piece of brown-gray granite, without date or inscription, rather badly damaged. He stands in the western corner of the tomb, right on the floor. It was placed here during construction, and, apparently, since then, no one has moved. This sarcophagus looks like it was cast from metal. But the body of Cheops himself is not in it.
All three cells have "hallways", and they are all connected by corridors or shafts. Some mines end in dead ends. Two shafts lead from the royal tomb to the surface of the pyramid, going out approximately in the middle of the northern and southern walls. One of their purposes is to provide ventilation; there may have been others.
Discovery: Exploding History. Secrets of the Great Pyramid
The original entrance to the pyramid is located on the north side, 25 meters above the base. Now another entrance leads to the pyramid, pierced in 820 by the caliph Mamun, who hoped to discover the untold treasures of the pharaoh, but did not find anything. This entrance is located about 15 meters lower than the previous one, almost in the very center of the north side.
The Great Pyramid was surrounded by no less labor-intensive and expensive buildings. Herodotus, who saw the road leading from the upper (funeral) church to the lower one, which was lined with polished slabs and had a width of 18 meters, called its construction a work "almost as huge as the construction of the pyramid itself." Now some 80 meters have survived from it - the road disappeared at the end of the 19th century during the construction of the village of Nazlat-es-Simman, now, like Giza, which became part of Cairo. Somewhere in its place there was a lower temple, 30 meters high, but it probably fell victim to people who were looking for building material in ancient times.
Of the buildings that surrounded the Great Pyramid, only the ruins of the upper (funeral) temple and three companion pyramids have survived. The traces of the temple were discovered in 1939 by the Egyptian archaeologist Abu Seif. As usual, it was east of the pyramid, and its pediment was 100 Egyptian cubits (52.5 meters); it was built of Tours limestone, had a courtyard with 38 square granite pillars, 12 of the same pillars stood in the vestibule in front of a small sanctuary. On both sides of it, about 10 meters away, during the excavations, two docks were found carved in the limestone plateau, where the “sun boats” were probably kept, the third such “dock” was found to the left of the road to the lower temple. Unfortunately, the "docks" were empty, but archaeologists were rewarded with the accidental discovery of two more such "docks" in 1954. In one of them lay a perfectly preserved boat - the oldest ship in the world. Its length is 36 meters, and it is made of cedar.
The companion pyramids are also located east of the Great Pyramid, although they were usually built to the south. The pyramids are located from north to south "in height", the side of the square base of the first pyramid is 49.5 meters, the second - 49, the third - 46.9. Each of them had a stone fence, a funeral chapel and a burial chamber, into which a sheer shaft led; in addition, next to the first was the "dock" for the "solar boat". Most scholars believe that these pyramids belonged to the wives of Khufu, of whom the first (main), according to ancient custom, was probably his sister. The names of the first two are unknown to us, the third was Henutsen.
All three companion pyramids are fairly well preserved, only they are devoid of external facing.
Apparently, to the east of the first, it was planned to build another, larger one, but the construction was stopped. According to one hypothesis, it was intended for Queen Hetepheres, the wife of the pharaoh Sneferu and Khufu's mother. In the end, Khufu decided to build a secret tomb in the rock for her a little to the north. This tomb was indeed concealed ... until January 1925, when the photographer Reisner's tripod fell through the gap between the camouflage blocks. Then the members of the Harvard-Boston expedition carried out treasures for three months: thousands of small gold plaques, furniture and household items; gold and silver bracelets, cosmetic boxes with "shadows" for eyeliner, manicure knives, jewelry boxes with the name of the queen. Canopy with her entrails and an alabaster sarcophagus were found, which, however, turned out to be empty. This is the first intact tomb of a member of the royal family from the Old Kingdom to be found.
The Great Pyramid was surrounded by a 10-meter stone wall. The ruins of the wall show that it was 3 meters thick and 10.5 meters away from the pyramid. Near it, in the distance, there were mastabas (tombs) of dignitaries: almost a hundred of them survived from the north, more than ten from the south, about forty from the east.
The pyramid of Pharaoh Khufu (in the Greek version of Cheops), or the Great Pyramid, is the greatest of the Egyptian pyramids, the oldest of the seven wonders of the world of antiquity and the only one that has survived to our time. For over four thousand years, the pyramid was the largest building in the world.
The pyramid of Cheops is located in the distant suburb of Cairo Giza. Nearby are two more pyramids of the pharaohs Khafre and Menkaur (Khafren and Mikerin), according to ancient historians, the sons and successors of Khufu. These are the three largest pyramids in Egypt.
Following ancient authors, most modern historians consider the pyramids to be burial structures of ancient Egyptian monarchs. Some scientists believe that these were astronomical observatories. There is no direct evidence that the pharaohs were buried in the pyramids, but other versions of their purpose are less convincing.
When the pyramid of Cheops was built
On the basis of the ancient "royal lists" it is established that Cheops ruled around 2585-2566. BC. The construction of the "Sacred Height" lasted 20 years and ended after the death of Khufu, around 2560 BC.
Other versions of the construction time, based on astronomical methods, give dates from 2720 to 2577. BC. The radiocarbon method shows a spread of 170 years, from 2850 to 2680. BC.
There are also exotic opinions expressed by supporters of the theories of aliens visiting the Earth, the existence of ancient civilizations, or adherents of occult movements. They determine the age of the Cheops pyramid from 6-7 to tens of thousands of years.
How the pyramid was built
The Pyramid of Cheops is to this day the largest stone building on the planet. Its height is 137 m, the length of the side of the base is 230.38 m, the angle of inclination of the face is 51 ° 50 ", the total volume is about 2.5 million cubic meters. At the time of the completion of the construction, the height was 9.5 m more, and the side of the base was 2 m longer, However, over the past centuries, almost the entire lining of the pyramid has been dismantled.Natural factors have also done their job - temperature drops and winds from the desert carrying clouds of sand.
Ancient Greek historians reported that the labor of millions of slaves was used in the construction. Modern researchers believe that with the correct organization of work and engineering, the Egyptians would have had several tens of thousands of workers for construction. For the supply of materials, temporary workers were involved, the number of whom, according to Herodotus, reached 100 thousand. Modern scientists fully agree with this, as well as with the reality of the 20-year construction period.
The construction of the pyramid was supervised by the head of the royal works, Khemiun. The tomb of Hemiun is located next to his creation, in which a statue of the architect was discovered.
The main material for the construction was gray limestone, which was cut in the nearest quarries or brought from the other bank of the Nile. The pyramid was faced with light sandstone, which made it literally shine in the sunlight. For interior decoration, granite was used, which was delivered over a thousand kilometers from the area of \u200b\u200bpresent-day Aswan. The structure was crowned with a hewn gilded granite block - a pyramidion.
In total, the construction of the pyramid took about 2.3 million blocks of limestone and 115 thousand facing slabs. The total mass of the building, according to modern estimates, is almost 6 million tons.
The block sizes differ among themselves. The largest are laid in the base, their height is one and a half meters. The higher the blocks are, the smaller they are. The height of the block at the top is 55 cm.The length of the facing slabs ranged from 1.5 to 0.75 m.
The work of the builders of the pyramid was extremely hard. It took a lot of time and effort to extract the stone, trim the blocks and fit the required size. In those days, neither iron nor bronze was known in Egypt. The tools were made of relatively soft copper, so they were quickly ground down and at the same time very expensive. Flint tools were widely used - saws, drills, hammers. Many of them were found during excavations.
The delivery of materials was carried out by the river, and the stone was brought to the construction site on a wooden sled or roller. It was a hell of a job, because the average weight of one block is 2.5 tons, and some of them weighed up to 50 tons.
A variety of devices were used to raise and install the monoliths, and inclined embankments were erected to drag the most massive elements that make up the lower rows up. Images of construction work have been found in a number of Egyptian temples and tombs.
Recently, an original theory has emerged regarding the building methods of the Egyptians. Scientists who studied the microstructure of the blocks in order to establish their origin found foreign inclusions. According to experts, these are the remains of animal hair and human hair, from which the scientists concluded that limestone was crushed at the mining sites and in a crushed form was delivered to the construction site. Directly at the place of laying, blocks were made of limestone mass, which thereby were a semblance of modern concrete structures, and the traces of tools on the blocks are actually imprints of the formwork.
Be that as it may, the construction was completed, and the grandiose size of the pyramid fully justifies the supporters of the theories of Atlanteans and aliens, who do not believe in the possibility of human genius.
What's inside the pyramid
The entrance to the pyramid was made at a height of almost 16 meters in the form of an arch made of granite slabs. It was later sealed with a granite plug and covered with cladding. The current entrance 10 meters lower was pierced in 831 by order of the Caliph Al-Mamun, who hoped to find gold here, but found nothing of value.
The main premises are the pharaoh's chamber, the queen's chamber, the Great Gallery and the underground chamber. The passage made by Al-Mamun leads into a 105-meter inclined corridor, ending in a chamber carved into the thickness of the rock below the base of the pyramid. Its dimensions are 14x8 m, its height is 3.5 m. For unknown reasons, the work here was not completed.
At 18 meters from the entrance, the descending corridor is separated by an ascending one with a length of 40 meters, ending in the Great Gallery. The Gallery itself is a high (8.5 m.) Tunnel 46.6 m long, leading to the pharaoh's chamber. The corridor to the queen's chamber branches off from the Gallery at its very beginning. In the floor of the Gallery, a rectangular ditch in cross section, 60 cm deep and 1 m wide, has been pierced, its purpose is unknown.
The pharaoh's chamber is 10.5 m long, 5.4 m wide, 5.84 m high. It is faced with black granite slabs. There is an empty granite sarcophagus here. The queen's chamber is more modest - 5.76 x 5.23 x 6.26 m.
Channels 20-25 cm wide lead from the burial chambers to the surface of the pyramid. The channels of the tsar's chamber exit at one end into the room, with the other on the surface of the pyramid. The channels of the queen's chamber begin 13 cm from the wall and do not reach 12 m to the surface, and both ends of the channels are closed by stone doors with handles. It is assumed that the ducts were made to ventilate the premises during the work. Another version, associated with the beliefs of the Egyptians, claims that this is the path to the afterlife, which the souls of the deceased had to pass.
No less mysterious is another small room, the Grotto, to which an almost vertical passage leads from the beginning of the Great Gallery. The grotto is located at the junction of the base of the pyramid and the hill on which it stands. The walls of the Grotto are fortified with rather rough-cut stone. It is assumed that this is part of some more ancient structure than the pyramid.
One discovery related to the pyramid should be mentioned. In 1954, at the southern edge, two pits faced with stone were discovered, in which there were Pharaoh's boats made of Lebanese cedar. One of the boats has been restored and is now in a special pavilion next to the pyramid. Its length is 43.5 m, width is 5.6 m.
The study of the Cheops pyramid continues. Research using the latest methods used in the exploration of the earth's interior shows with a high degree of probability the existence of unknown caverns within the pyramid. So it is quite possible that scientists are expecting new interesting discoveries and discoveries.
In the meantime, the Great Pyramid keeps its secrets, proudly towering in the middle of the desert, as thousands of years ago. After all, as the ancient Arab proverb says, everything in the world is afraid of time, but time is afraid of the pyramids.
The Pyramid of Cheops is a rare case in Egyptology when we can be sure exactly who the monument belongs to. Often the ancient monuments of Egypt were appropriated by later rulers. The appropriation technology was very simple - the name of the builder pharaoh (cartouche) simply got lost with the inscriptions in the temple or in the tomb, and another name was knocked out.
This phenomenon was very common. Take, for example, the famous pharaoh Tutankhamun. Until 1922, when archaeologist Howard Carter dug up, Egyptologists doubted the existence of this ruler. There was almost no written evidence about him, everything was destroyed by subsequent pharaohs.
In the 19th century, archaeologists often used very barbaric research methods. In the pyramid of Cheops, explosions of gunpowder were used to search for secret rooms. You can still see traces of such methods on the surfaces of structures (see photo on the left).
During such research, small chambers were discovered above the main burial chamber. Explorers rushed there in hopes of finding treasures, but of course there was nothing but dust.
These rooms, only 1 meter high, had a purely technical purpose. These are unloading chambers, they protect the ceiling of the burial chamber from collapse, and remove mechanical stress. But it was on the walls of these unloading chambers that scientists discovered inscriptions made by ancient builders.
These were block markings. As we now put a label on the goods, so the ancient Egyptian foremen marked the blocks: "Block such and such for the pyramid of Khufu, produced then, laid then and then." These inscriptions cannot be fake, they prove that this structure was built by Cheops.
A little about the pharaoh Cheops
In the last paragraph we used the name “Khufu”. This is the official Egyptian name for this pharaoh. Cheops is the Greek interpretation of his name, and not the most common one. Other pronunciations of "Cheops" or "Kiops" are more common.
The name “Khufu” is more widespread in the world. If you are going on an excursion to Giza with a Russian-speaking guide, then there will be no problems, he will be aware of this phonetic difference. But if you communicate with locals or tourists from other countries, we recommend using the name “Khufu”.
Although Pharaoh Khufu is one of them, it will not be possible to write much about him. We know very little about him.
In addition to the fact of the construction of this pyramid, we know that Khufu organized expeditions to develop useful resources on the Sinai Peninsula. That's all. To this day, only two artifacts have survived from Khufu - a giant pyramid 137 meters high and a small ivory statuette only 7.5 centimeters high (pictured on the right).
Pharaoh Cheops remained in the people's memory as a tyrant ruler who forced people to work on grandiose construction. We can read about this in the works of the Greek historian Herodotus, who visited Egypt and recorded the stories of the priests.
Surprisingly, his father Pharaoh Sneferu remained in the people's memory as a very kind ruler, although he built as many as three pyramids (s) and overextended the country twice as much as Cheops.
The Pyramid of Cheops is a monumental structure, fraught with many facts and mysteries. Here are fifteen of them, most of which you've probably never heard of. We will not touch on myths and legends - the most interesting facts about the Cheops pyramidbased on real research
- For about three thousand years, the pyramid of Cheops was the tallest creation of human hands in the world.... Only when the cathedral was built in Lincoln in 1311 did this building become the second tallest.
- The construction of the pyramid took 20 years... It remains a mystery how, given the archaic level of building knowledge and disgusting logistics, such a monumental structure was built so quickly. The construction of other burial structures took significantly longer - from 50 to 200 years.
- Pyramid of Cheops - accurate compass... The faces of the Cheops pyramid are oriented to the cardinal points. The error is only 5 degrees. This correspondence is not easy to fulfill even with the current level of construction development. At first, the match was perfect, and only the constant movement of the Earth's north pole allowed for a slight deviation.
3
- The pyramids of Cheops were visible from space... More than 2.2 million limestone blocks were used to build the structure. This loose building material would surely have deteriorated over time if it were not covered with granite cladding. There are no gaps between the cladding plates, they are perfectly polished. When the facing was in place, the sunlight reflected from it was so bright that the structure of Cheops was probably visible from space.
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- Constant temperature inside the structure - 20⁰С... The Pyramid of Cheops is a giant isothermal chamber - when the outside air temperature reaches 50⁰С, in this structure it does not rise above 20⁰С.
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- There was never a burial of a pharaoh in the pyramid of Cheops... Many consider the pyramid of Cheops to be the burial place of the pharaoh. In fact, the remains of the rulers were buried in the Valley of the Kings. And inside the thick walls, the necessary things were kept, which, according to the ancient Egyptians, helped the ruler in the afterlife.
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- Delivery of building materials was carried out by a method unknown to science... The methods of building stone monsters can be explained by the high level of construction organization. Huge stones were carved in quarries along the Mediterranean coast. It remains a mystery how they were transported a hundred kilometers from the quarry to the construction site - the state of horse-drawn and water transport did not allow moving heavy stones over considerable distances.
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- The pyramid of Cheops was built by free people... This building was built by free architects and masons who came to the construction site from all over the Egyptian state. Perhaps slaves were used as labor, but there is evidence that most workers were free and built for money. By the way, this ancient temple of death was built by about 100,000 people.
- The composition of the mortar used to secure the pyramid blocks has not yet been solved.... Lime and granite slabs are held together by a mysterious mortar that has no modern counterparts. The grasping material was developed in the early Pre-dynastic period. After cooling down, the solution became stronger than a stone and was not afraid of heat, or dry winds, or time. Scientists do not know how and from what it was prepared.
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- Even a blade cannot be inserted between the facing of the pyramid.... It is admirable for the skill of the builders, who were able to fit the cladding so tightly that even a knife blade could not be inserted between the cladding boards. Few modern structures can boast of such a quality laying of building materials.
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- Pi and other oddities... The existence of the pyramid confirms the fact that the Egyptians knew about the "golden ratio", the number of π and other constants used in geometry and architecture. Scientific proof of these formulas was developed by ancient Greek mathematicians a thousand years later.
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- The walls of the Cheops pyramid from the inside are not covered with either drawings or hieroglyphs... The walls of the corridors of the Cheops pyramid are empty - there are no numerous inscriptions and drawings on them. Egyptologists found several dozen cartouches and inscriptions indicating the names of the builders who took part in the construction of the tomb. There were inscriptions of a technical nature that shed light on the construction technology of this cult building.
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- Ancient Greeks and Arabs knew about the Cheops pyramid... The Greeks were the first researchers of Egyptian antiquities. The mathematician Thales knew very well about the existence of the construction of Cheops, and even measured the length of its shadow. Arab scholar Abdullah Al Mamun attempted to penetrate the forbidden walls. He managed to do this, but did not find any treasures or secret knowledge.
- Napoleon was interested in ancient buildings and during the Egyptian campaign wished to visit the tomb of Cheops. But after the first minutes spent inside the ancient building, Napoleon felt so bad that he no longer returned to the question of visiting the ancient tombs. But he kept scientists interested in uncovering Egyptian secrets and subsidized several scientific expeditions.
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- Birthday of the Cheops pyramid - a national holiday in Egypt... Modern Egyptians make a good income from tourists visiting ancient sites. They even approved the birthday of the Cheops pyramid - it is celebrated on August 23. Despite the fact that this date is very controversial, the Egyptians on this day celebrate the beginning of the construction of the tomb of Cheops.
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