For thousands of years, between the meandering " mother of ancient Egyptian civilization ", the Nile River, and the long yellow sand of the Sahara, the mountain-like Egyptian pyramid stood tall. Not only were they magnificent and magical, they were even more mysterious! It could be said that the existence of the pyramids in Egypt was a mystery in itself. This mystery was the earliest, most incredible, and most fascinating mystery since mankind entered civilization. Its magic far exceeded human imagination...
Among the 110 pyramids of various sizes discovered in Egypt, the most famous were the three pyramids in the Giza Highlands: The Pyramid of Giza (known as Cheops in ancient Greek), the Pyramid of Kafra (Chephren), and the Pyramid of Mankala (Mycerinus). The Pyramid of Giza was the largest pyramid in Egypt. The original height of the pyramid was 146.59 meters (its current height was about 137 meters). If the previous bright Tula Overlapping Stone was included, the original average side length was 230.4 meters, which meant that the original base area was actually 5.31 hectares. As for its size? It reached 2.58 million cubic meters. In this volume, it could hold 30 Empire State Buildings in New York! It was made up of nearly 2.6 million pieces of limestone, granite, and possibly even man-made stones on the 203rd floor, weighing about 6 million tons. If they were loaded with trucks with a load capacity of seven tons, they would need about 860000 vehicles. If these trucks were connected, the total length would be about 5450 kilometers (remember, the straight-line distance between the west coast and the east coast of the United States was only 4800 kilometers). When I saw the pyramid from afar and saw the ant-like people next to it, I felt how small people were and how great the pyramid was. However, the strange thing was that when I looked at the "small" people first and then looked at the pyramids, my initial feeling was completely changed. At this time, I felt how great humans were! It was even greater than the majestic pyramid!
1. The three great pyramids of Giza were all covered with milky white Tula limestone during construction (there were about 115000 pieces on the surface of the Great Pyramid, each weighing about 10 tons). Therefore, whenever the sun shone, it would emit a dazzling light. However, due to the great earthquake in the 13th century, part of it collapsed, and this collapsed part was used as a high-quality building material. (2) Most of the previous information indicated that the Great Pyramid was made up of about 2.3 million stones. However, the actual number was nearly 2.6 million, which was more likely: There was an opening 30 feet from the ground, blown up by 19th-century explorers with explosives. This was the only place where the inside of the pyramid could be seen. It could be seen that the inner stones were much rougher than the outer ones. Moreover, they were all made up of stones of different sizes. Some were even as small as rubble. In other words, between the outer layer of the pyramid and the inner chamber, there were many smaller and substandard stones.
What was the real story behind such a magnificent project? Who was in charge of this amazing project? For thousands of years, there had been different opinions. So far, there were five main assumptions:
Speculation 1: The crystallization of the blood and sweat of millions of slaves
Speculation 2: The result of independent labor
Speculation 3: The Legacy of a Lost Civilization
Speculation 4: Masterpiece of Extraterrestrial Civilization
Speculation 5: A miracle built by the undersea people
However, no theory was perfect enough to explain the pyramid in a true sense. Did it mean that the previous pyramid researchers had misunderstood the general direction of their thinking? People stood in front of the Pyramid of Giza in ancient Egypt and encountered three mute giants. No one knew how they were constructed or why they came. The inability to interpret it was the greatest sorrow of Egyptian civilization. It was no wonder that H. G. Wales, in his History of the World, called the Egyptian pyramids " meaningless tombs erected in an era when engineering was almost unborn."
In the 5th century B.C., Herodotus, the "Father of Western Historiography" of Harikannasos in ancient Greece (B.C. 484-B.C. 424), wrote down the earliest words about the pyramids when he traveled to Egypt. He once recorded that the stones used to build the Great Pyramid of Khufu were mined from the "Arabian Mountains"(probably the Sinai Peninsula). During the construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza, Giza forced all the Egyptians to work for him. They were divided into large groups of 100,000 people to work, and each large group had to work for three months. The Great Pyramid of Giza took twenty years to build.
However, in recent years, experts from all over the world had gathered on the Giza Highlands and found more than a thousand small tombs and more than 80 large tombs. Each of them belonged to a pyramid builder. The higher the terrain was, the technicians and officials were buried. The lower the terrain was, the general laborers were buried. X-ray studies showed that these people were between 30 and 35 years old. In these tombs, these workers not only left their positions and titles, but also hundreds of beverage cans. In the Giza Highlands, they also discovered a large-scale living town of the original builders. This was an unusual city ruin. The city had living quarters, craftsmen's quarters, streets, city walls, harbors, and even beer houses and bakeries. The traces of food indicated that the residents enjoyed high-calories food like fish and beef, as well as vegetables. In the residential area, the residents were made up of families. The gender of the males and females, the ratio of the elderly, the middle-aged, and the children were all well-proportioned. Some of the bones found had undergone surgery, including brain surgery, arm reattachment surgery, and leg amputation surgery. In addition, some primitive metal surgical instruments were also unearthed. All signs showed that the builders enjoyed personal freedom and family life. Not only did they have medical insurance when they were alive, but they also had a cemetery when they died. They also had the right to take a vacation. There was a record of a worker who had a conflict with his lover due to a family dispute, so he did not go to work and was not punished. There were also records of illness preventing him from coming to work. The records on the pottery shards reminded him of today's attendance slip. They generally worked for nine days and rested for one day, which was one week in ancient Egypt. According to the excavation results, the town could only accommodate 20000 people. According to the calculations of scholars, only about 4000 people were needed to work in the quarry all year round. The rest of the large number of farmers generally only came to Giza from the remote villages to work in the three months of the annual flood season of the Nile River. They took turns, so the population moved every year. In short, the builders were not slaves, but Egyptian craftsmen. The construction of the pyramid did not seem forced, but more like a collective voluntary activity for loyalty or faith. Also, they had to be paid for their work. The existing records show that the ancient Egyptian government paid these workers mainly with bread and onions, and there is evidence that the workers went on strike for higher wages (probably the earliest strike in the world). Therefore, this meant that Herodotus's claim that the pyramids were built by millions of slaves was inaccurate.
Some people believe that one of the functions of the pyramids was to provide jobs for farmers during floods. In other words, the Pharaohs were the first to practice Keynesian economic theory.
On the other hand, many people had always suspected that the pyramids were not built by the ancient Egyptians. However, Mark, an Egyptian scholar born in the United States? Dr. Mark Lehner once led a famous experiment: Using ancient Egyptian technology, 12 people built a small pyramid more than five meters high with boulders of the same size in just three weeks. However, there were always exceptions to everything. Among the more than 100 pyramids in Egypt, most of them were small and rough, simple in structure, and short in lifespan. However, the Great Pyramid had an extremely exaggerated characteristic. The height of the stones in the Great Pyramid decreased from the bottom to the top. The height of the base stones was mostly 1.5 meters, and up to level 16, there were few stones that were less than 1 meter tall. " Using rocks of the same size ", the small pyramid that was more than five meters tall was only level four. 1→3→9→27, piling up a total of 40 rocks. The 12 of them had already used it for three weeks. However, the Great Pyramid had 2.6 million stones! In addition, for a large-scale, long-term operation, the supply of food, the wear and tear of equipment, and the recovery of physical strength were big problems. It could not be simply multiplied by " 12 people, three weeks." More importantly, the Great Pyramid was not a simple pile of stones like the other pyramids. It had complex corridors and rooms inside. In contrast to the angle of the Great Pyramid, all the tunnels inside the tower were at an angle of 26 degrees. There were also the " ventilation tunnels " and vertical tunnels on the north and south sides of the Queen's Tomb and King's Tomb. They were all made of stacked stones. These required different shaped stones to be chiseled according to the trigonometric-function calculation, and the stones had to be placed accurately. Those who understood construction engineering knew how much more construction work would be required…
There was still a saying that since the pyramids were man-made in ancient Egypt, it meant that they were completely capable of building them independently. Was such a ridiculously simple way of thinking logical?
This book is provided by FunNovel Novel Book | Fan Fiction Novel [Beautiful Free Novel Book]