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How Old Are the Pyramids?

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Desiree
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« on: February 03, 2007, 08:45:56 am »

WERE THE THREE GIZA PYRAMIDS MODELS FOR EGYPT’S "PYRAMID AGE"?

Expanding our sphere of inquiry to now include all three of the Giza Pyramids, we find that an interesting historical conundrum arises regarding their "accepted" construction. If, as conservative scholars surmise, the three Giza Pyramids were built in the Fourth Dynasty by the succession of three Pharaohs—Khufu, Khafre and Menkhare— what we find regarding the sizes of the three pyramids in association with the three reigns is inconsistent with what we would have expected to have happened.

First, Khufu ruled and supposedly constructed the Great Pyramid. Khafre followed Khufu, and in order to be politically and religiously "correct," we would have expected him to have erected a pyramid larger than Khufu’s. To do otherwise would have seriously reflected on his being inferior to his predecessor. Generally speaking, a ruler could not afford for his people to think that their Pharaoh was weaker in power and less blessed by the gods and goddesses than the ruler before him.

After Khafre, Menkhare next took the throne of Egypt, and in order to be in continued good political and religious form, we would have expected him to build the largest pyramid of all, dwarfing those of Khufu and Khafre in order to make sure he was not to be outshone by either of his predecessors.

Yet what we find at Giza is exactly opposite the expected scenario: Supposedly Khufu constructed the largest pyramid, Khafre built his slightly smaller than Khufu’s, and Menkhare erected a pyramid only a third the size of the other two.

If what actually happened contradicts what should have happened if the three Giza pyramids were built in the Fourth Dynasty, then this can only mean that something is fundamentally wrong with the accepted scenario.

Instead of the three Pharaohs building the three Giza pyramids, what if the pyramids were already present, old with age, and in the Fourth Dynasty the three succeeding rulers simply claimed possession of the structures, doing repair work on them, and building only the minor subsidiary pyramids around them for themselves and their families—just as the Inventory Stele describes Khufu did. What would we expect would have happened?

Khufu, first on the scene, would naturally have laid claim to the largest pyramid for himself, or the Great Pyramid. His successor, Khafre, now left with only two pyramids to choose from, would have taken possession of the second largest. Menkhare, the last to reign, would have had to be content with the last pyramid available, the smallest of the three.

Such a scenario best fits the actual facts, for this is exactly the succession of pyramids the Pharaoh had jurisdiction over, each in their turn. Clearly, what this suggests is the Giza pyramids came first, then the Pharaohs ruled, not the other way around.

According to conservative scholars, the Giza Three were supposed to represent the "height of accomplishment" in the Egyptian age of pyramid building, from the Third to the Thirteenth Dynasties, 2700 to 1800 B.C. But if the Giza Pyramids are in reality 12,000 years old, then they instead must have served as the models the Dynastic Egyptians repeatedly tried to copy and emulate. If we recognize this greater antiquity for the Giza Three, then many mysteries surrounding the design and construction of Egypt’s other pyramids find their solutions.

The conservative view purports that the early pyramids along the Nile developed by stages of "evolution." Initially, in the First and Second Dynasties, from circa 3200 to 2800 B.C., the Pharaohs were buried in mastabas, which were rectangular-shaped structures with walls sloping inward, built over underground vaults. What has baffled archaeologists is that each of the first kings of Egypt had not one but two such mastabas, at Abydos, and at Saqqara. One of these served as a cenotaph, or an empty tomb in honor of the royal person. The reason for this early practice is still a puzzle to scholars, not yet solved.

However, we know from ancient records that the peoples of the ancient world at one time had knowledge of the existence of the known entrance to the Great Pyramid, and they left evidence, in the form of torch soot and graffiti on the walls, that they penetrated as far as the Descending Passage and Pit Chamber. The Second and Third Pyramids also possess passages and empty chambers deep beneath their foundations. Did the early Pharaohs, in studying the design of the Giza Pyramids standing silently before them on the Nile, imitate the empty Pyramid chambers in the building of their second royal tombs, believing the empty chambers had a special spiritual significance they wished to emulate?

In the Third Dynasty, beginning about 2780 B.C., Pharaoh Zoser undertook to build a mastaba for himself as had his predecessors, but then decided to go several steps further. Two more mastaba structures were constructed on top of the first in step fashion, and finally, these in turn were incorporated as one side of a six-tiered pyramid. The development of this curious structure—today called the Step Pyramid, and located at Saqqara—indicates that Zoser was attempting to copy or duplicate a particular image. The pyramid does resemble a Sumerian ziggurat, or "holy mountain," except that unlike the ziggurat Zoser’s structure possessed no sanctuary at its apex, and had a system of internal tunnels and chambers. The only structures which come close to being models for Zoser’s work are the Giza Pyramids.

Significantly—and again in imitation of the Giza monuments—Zoser was not buried in his Step Pyramid. The foot of a mummy thought to have belonged to Zoser was found in one chamber, but the wrappings proved to be from a period much later than the Third Dynasty. All in all, a total of sixty mummies were found in and around the Step Pyramid, but these have been dated to the Saitic or Late Period, in the first millennium B.C. Zoser’s tomb has been identified as located at Bet Khalaif, and no pyramid structure was found associated with it.

Following Zoser, his successor, Pharaoh Sekhemket, attempted to build a pyramid, but it appears never to have been completed, and today is only a mass of rubble. However, archaeologists did find at the bottom of a shaft below the structure a sealed alabaster sarcophagus. When the sarcophagus was opened, it was found to be completely empty, mirroring the state the Stone Box was found in, in the Great Pyramid.

The one ruler who by far was the most ambitious pyramid builder of the Third Dynasty was Pharaoh Senefru. He constructed three monuments, and there is every reason to believe he attempted to duplicate the feat of the three Giza Pyramids. He came close, for his pyramids contained two-thirds as much stone, covered 90 percent as much area, and were built with comparable speed as the Giza structures. The one obvious difference is their building design and masonry were very crude, when examined alongside the work done in the Giza area.

It is in the period immediately following Senefru, at the beginning of the Fourth Dynasty, that we are supposed to believe that Egyptian architects somehow miraculously overcame all their construction shortcomings, and developed the quantum leap of techniques for advanced building that went into the making of the Giza Pyramids. But the Giza monuments, however, stand out above all the rest of the pyramids in Egypt in many unique ways, clearly showing they were not related to the other Egyptian pyramids in time or construction.

First, only the Great Pyramid and (from what is known from legend and esoteric literature) the other two Giza Pyramids have chambers in their upper interior—all the rest possess only a lower chamber or chambers near the foundation. These are copies of the pit chambers in the Giza Pyramids. The Dynastic Egyptians, not knowing of the secret chambers higher up, had no precedent for including these in their own pyramids.

Second, only the Giza Three are accurately aligned to true north, which is indicative of a very sophisticated science of Earth measurement and construction—elements exhibited in no other pyramid.

Third, only the Giza monuments were built with a high degree of accuracy—this precision, coupled with the apparent mastery of large, multi-ton stone construction, is what allowed the Giza Pyramids to reach their gigantic size, the largest in Egypt. In the Second and Third Pyramids the construction blocks are often not as massive or as finely positioned as they are seen in the Great Pyramid, but they are precise enough to place them in an entirely different category from all other structures along the Nile.

Fourth, the Giza monuments were built using construction designs totally alien to any other pyramid form. As William R. Fix, in Pyramid Odyssey observed: "Because the other pyramids consist of much smaller blocks, they were built as a series of shells with multiple internal retaining walls to give cohesiveness. The three large Giza Pyramids do not have these internal casings. The very size of the blocks produces the necessary stability. This characteristic reveals a general excellence of workmanship and also imply a much higher technological capability than that employed anywhere else..

And fifth, unlike any pyramid supposedly built either before or after the Giza Three, none of the Giza monuments contain religious symbols or pictures in any of their inner chambers.

According to conservative scholars, the Giza Pyramids were built by the Fourth Dynasty Pharaohs Khufu, Khafre and Menkhare, as tombs. Yet not one of their bodies was found in any of them. The King’s Chamber in the Great Pyramid was discovered to be completely empty upon its opening, its Stone Box sealed but vacant. In the Belzoni Chamber, beneath the Second Pyramid, a stone box was found like the one in the Great Pyramid, but it too contained no corpse. In 1878, a sarcophagus with a mummy inside was brought to light in the Third Pyramid. Though both the sarcophagus and mummy were lost at sea during their transport to the British Museum, samples had been taken from them, and when later analyzed by radiocarbon dating techniques, they were found to be from a fairly late date, only 2,000 to 2,500 years ago.

It is becoming increasingly apparent that the three Pharaohs who are thought to have built the Giza Pyramids instead simply claimed the monuments as their own, having given up on the idea of attempting to duplicate the structures, as Senefru had tried but failed to do before them. There are several subsidiary pyramids around the Giza Three which were probably built by the Pharaohs, and today are almost in total ruins because of their greatly inferior construction. According to ancient stelae and legends, the Pharaohs also made repairs on the Pyramids—but had nothing to do with their actual construction.

With Menkhare came the end of the Fourth Dynasty, and at the beginning of the Fifth Dynasty we are supposed to believe, according to the historians, that the Egyptians suddenly reverted back to the same old methods of design and greatly inferior construction techniques as seen in the pyramids prior to the Fourth Dynasty. The first Pharaoh, Shepeskaf, actually built nothing more than a mastaba for his burial place. He was then followed by Userkaf, whose pyramid was so badly made it today is only a heap of debris. Sahure, Nieswerre and Neferirkare came next, and between them at Abu Sir they attempted to erect three pyramids (again duplicating Giza), but these in no way approached the size or grandeur of the Giza Three, and today are nothing more than broken piles. The same can be said for the monuments of the Sixth through the Thirteenth Dynasties, after which pyramid building for the most part came to an end. In all, 23 major pyramids were erected following the Fourth Dynasty and in each single case, the work on them was done hastily, with little care of precision, and using blocks that were no more than roughly squared boulders. We may well ask, if the Giza Pyramids, in all their excellence, were supposedly built in the Fourth Dynasty, what happened to the advanced knowledge seen in their design and construction—why was it never used again, in not a single later pyramid?

Author William R. Fix concluded: "The many fundamental differences between the major Giza monuments and the rest of Egypt’s pyramids indicates that they do not fit into the contended chronology for dynastic Egypt. But if they do not belong to dynastic Egypt, there is only one direction in which they can be moved-not forward, but back into the past."

In truth, the Giza Pyramids were not an integral part of the evolutionary development of the Egyptian pyramids. Instead, they were there from the very beginning, the motivation and influence which spurred the building of the Dynastic pyramids along the Nile.


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Copyright 1996. Joseph Robert Jochmans. All Rights Reserved. Excerpt from "Time Capsule: The Search for the Lost Hall of Records in Ancient Egypt," now available in two volumes from Alma Tara Publishing, Alma Tara Multi-Versity, P.O. Box 10703, Rock Hill, SC 29731. Write Dr. Jochmans for a free "Time Trek" packet giving a list of these and other books available. Or call 803-366-8023 for more information.


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