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The Pyramids.
According to common perception they were built, with the begrudging help of great armies of slaves, by the ancient pharaohs of Egypt as tombs for preserving their royal bodies. Pyramids were meant to be monuments to the pharaoh's greatness, filled with great treasures for the afterlife. To construct these massive shrines, the pharaoh's copied the oldest and largest pyramid of all, the Great Pyramid of Giza.
But the Great Pyramid itself contains no pharaoh's body, no treasure chamber, and no treasures. Who, then, designed it and built it? What as its purpose? Let us begin our tour by considering a few basic facts bout the Great Pyramid.
The Last "Wonder of the World"
Thirty times larger than the Empire State Building, the Pyramid's features are so large they can be seen from the Moon. Its base covers 13.6 acres (equal to seven midtown Manhattan city blocks), each side being greater than five acres in area. A highway lane eight feet wide and four inches thick could be built from San Francisco to New York and put inside the Great Pyramid. he oldest structure in existence, having been started 4,617 years ago, it is the sole remnant of the Seven Wonders of the World.
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Only a solid stone mountain could endure the Pyramid's immense weight. And indeed, a flat solid granite mountain happens to be located just beneath the surface of the ground directly under the Pyramid. It is built to face true North. The Pyramid is located at the exact center of the Earth's land mass. That is, its East-West axis corresponds to the longest land parallel across the Earth, passing through Africa, Asia, and America. Similarly, the longest land meridian on Earth, through Asia, Africa, Europa, and Antarctica, it also passes right through the Pyramid. Since the Earth has enough land area to provide 3 billion possible building sites for the Pyramid, the odds of it's having been built where it is are 1 in 3 billion.
Construction Unequaled by Modern Technology
Like 20th century bridge designs, the Pyramid's cornerstones have balls and sockets built into them. Several football fields long, the Pyramid is subject to expansion and contraction movements from heat and cold, as well as earthquakes, settling, and other such phenomena.
After 4,600 years it's structure would have been significantly damaged without such construction. While the bulk of the Pyramid's core was constructed of 4,000- to 40,000-pound blocks of soft limestone, the outer layer of the Pyramid was made of a beautifully bright, protective layer of polished stone. These outer "casing stones" are missing today because about 600 years ago they were stolen by Arabs, (This counts for the very worn appearance of the Pyramid today, since the inner limestone blocks are not immune to attack by the elements-wind, rain, and sandstorm.) This protective covering was made up of 100-inch-thick, 20-ton block of hard, white limestone, similar to marble but superior in hardness and in durability against the elements.
The Great Pyramid did not always look as "rough" as it does today. Originally it
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