C.W. Post professor helps unravel pyramid mysteryBY SUMATHI REDDY AND NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON |
sumathi.reddy@newsday.comnia-malika.henderson@newsday.com
6:40 PM EDT, October 20, 2008
Using cutting edge technology, Egyptologist Bob Brier of the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University delved into the only standing wonder of the ancient world, the Great Pyramid, and uncovered the mystery behind cracks in the massive Egyptian structure, unearthing a new room along the way.
Brier, French architect Jean-Pierre Houdin and a team of software specialists from Dassault Systems in Paris used 3-D modeling software to determine that the burial chamber's stone support beams cracked as final construction of the Giza wonder was near completion 4,500 years ago.
The team discovered that the cracks occurred when three things happened: one wall of King Khufu's burial chamber settled, stone rafters in a room above the chamber slipped, and the height of the pyramid reached 392 feet.
Brier, a professor at the C.W. Post Campus in Brookville; and Houdin are presenting their findings at a Microsoft Innovation Management Forum in Seattle today.
"I thought it was important to look back in time to look forward in time," said Simon Floyd, worldwide industry technology strategist for innovation at Microsoft and one of the organizers of the conference. "The Egyptians were great innovators. They were perhaps the first documented innovators that we could look at. I felt that this would be a fantastic sort of look back in time to see how an ancient civilization was able to do some incredible things that have been long-standing in time."
Floyd said Brier's collaboration with Houdin is especially innovative. "They've applied a fantastic new technique . . . to help prove out many of his theories," he said.
The cracks had been a known but poorly understood fact about the pyramid - the largest and oldest of the three on that site - since the 1880s. The team found that the pyramid's architect, Hemienu, cut a tunnel into a sealed space above the burial chamber to assess the damage and filled the cracks with plaster that would indicate if the cracks were widening. The ancient fix-it job worked: the beams held and the pyramid was complete.
The discoveries are detailed in a book by Brier, released last week called, "The Secret of the Great Pyramid: How One Man's Obsession Led to the Solution of Ancient Egypt's Greatest Mystery." Brier will also speak Monday at C.W. Post.
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/ny-lipyra2112084891oct21,0,5217474.story
