The dimensions of the facing slabs of the pyramid of Cheops. Mysteries of the pyramid of Cheops


The pyramid is part of the ritual and burial complex of the earthly ruler: the pharaoh. Therefore, with all the differences, all the pyramids, in addition to the general shape, also have a common internal organization, which is due to the obligatory presence of the hall in which the pharaoh's sarcophagus and passages leading to it were installed. Let's see how they are arranged Egyptian pyramids inside on the example of the tomb of Cheops - the highest stone structure in the world.

The only entrance, which was provided by the ancient builders, is located on the north side of the pyramid structure at a height of 12 meters from the ground. Once this entrance was hidden by cladding slabs, but already at the end of the 18th century, the first European scientists who explored this wonder of the world - the French, saw it open, because by that time people had already deprived ancient building facing plates.

Inside the pyramid of Cheops there is a passage-corridor, which has an almost square section. The angle of inclination of the corridor, apparently, was not chosen arbitrarily - it coincides with the angle at which the ancient Egyptians could observe the North Star. Therefore, the first researchers had to face certain difficulties - then there were no railings, which are now made for the convenience of tourists, and the feet slid along the polished stone floor slabs. Yes, and with ventilation then it was incomparably worse than today (although even now it is far from ideal). The corridor sometimes narrowed to such an extent that they had to crawl on their haunches. Now, again, for the benefit of tourists, everything has been “corrected”.

Pyramid of Cheops inside


Unlike most other similar structures in Egypt, which have one burial chamber, the most famous pyramidal collos has three of them. One of them - underground - is located below the base of the structure, cut directly into the natural foundation. However, this chamber was not completely finished. Apparently, the plans of the builders have changed, and the other two chambers are already located directly in the above-ground stone body of the giant structure. For a long time, scientists explained this by the fact that the pharaoh wanted the tomb to be ready for a possible funeral ceremony at any stage of construction. And when the builders started building the next chamber, located above, the need for an underground chamber disappeared.

This theory does not explain why all other similar structures have a burial chamber below the base line. Only the pyramids of the pharaohs Sneferu and Cheops have burial chambers inside above the base in the thickness of the masonry. A significant number of modern Egyptologists believe that such an arrangement of chambers in the tomb of Cheops was associated with certain religious views of the ancient inhabitants of Egypt. Briefly, this theory is as follows. There are facts that allow us to conclude that Cheops began to be revered as the god Ra during his lifetime.

The pyramid of this pharaoh is called the "Horizon of Khufu", which meant that he, like the god Ra himself, rises every day to the horizon. The sons and successors of Cheops, Djedefra and Chefren, became the first pharaohs whose titles contain the epithet - "son of Ra". That is, Khufu was identified with Ra, so his burial chamber should be located above the ground and closer to the sky - where the real sun is visible. True, it should be noted that in relation to Pharaoh Sneferu, no facts have yet been found that would make it possible to interpret the location of his burial chamber in this way.

But back to what is Cheops pyramid inside. From the corridor leading down to the underground chamber, at approximately ground level, an upward passage begins. From it you can get into a small gallery, and then into a small chamber, called the queen's chamber. One of the underground "junctions" If you don’t turn towards the queen’s room, but go further, then the Great Gallery will begin, having a length of 47 and a height of 8.5 meters. This magnificent gallery is a unique architectural structure. The ancient masters laid the limestone slabs of the false vault in such a way that each subsequent layer overlapped the previous one by 5-6 cm. The limestone slabs framing the walls are polished to a shine and pressed together with amazing accuracy - even the blade of a thin knife could not pass through the joints . Notches are chiselled into the floor, allowing movement without having to hold on to smooth walls.

After the Great Gallery there is a small airlock room leading to a room called the king's chamber. Its dimensions are:

  • length - 10.5 m;
  • width - 5.2 m;
  • height - 5.8 meters.

The lining of the chamber is made of pink granite slabs. Above the ceiling are five unloading chambers, the top of which has a gable roof made of giant granite blocks. They take on the enormous weight of the stone mass, preventing it from crushing the burial chamber of the pharaoh. It should also be noted that the pharaoh's chamber is precisely oriented to the cardinal points.

At the western wall (the Egyptians' afterlife began in the west) there is a massive sarcophagus carved from a monolithic block of pink granite. The lid of the sarcophagus is missing. Also, no traces of the pharaoh's mummy were found. That is, there is no evidence that the pyramid of Cheops was ever used for an actual funeral. However, no other burial site of Pharaoh Cheops has yet been discovered, just as his mummy has not been found. Nevertheless, Egyptologists have enough reason to say that the pyramids are part of the ritual-burial complex, and not something else.

When the first European explorers discovered the sarcophagus of the pharaoh at the end of the 18th century, they still did not know exactly for whom this, as they thought, tomb was erected, what was the name of the ancient ruler of Egypt. Only later, several hieroglyphs were found above the burial chamber, surrounded by an oval frame. In fairness, it should be noted that some Egyptologists consider this inscription to be a much later forgery, and there are certain grounds for this. The inscription was able to be read thanks to the scientific discoveries of Champollion, who by that time had already deciphered the language of the ancient Egyptians. It turned out that it was the name of the pharaoh, by whose order this main and first wonder of the world was built. The pharaoh's name was Khufu (the Greeks called him Cheops), and he ruled according to modern scientific ideas in the 28th-27th centuries. BC, that is, about 4700 years ago.

Mystery of the channels

Speaking about the structure of the pyramid of Cheops, one cannot fail to say that both the queen’s chamber and the king’s chamber are equipped with upwards in the northern and southbound inclined shafts-channels of square section with an average size of 20x20 cm. Until recently, it was believed that they served as ventilation ducts. However, if two passages extending from the pharaoh's burial chamber pass through the body of the structure and go outside, then two passages from the queen's chamber cannot be ventilation ducts - they end in the masonry itself far from the outer surfaces of the walls (see diagram above).

Since 1993, attempts have been made to understand, using various technical devices, for what purpose they were intended. German engineers have designed a special robot capable of crawling through such narrow shafts. But both in the southern shaft and in the northern one, the robot ran into a barrier, which is a kind of slab with two protrusions (handles?) similar to metal (copper?). An attempt was made to drill through one of the partitions, but the video camera that the robot pushed into the drilled hole showed that the small space behind the slab ended again with a new stone partition.

It was decided to continue the research by preparing a new technical equipment, but the events in Egypt that occurred in early 2011 are postponing them indefinitely.

In the light of new data, it has become widespread scientific hypothesis that these mines performed some ritual tasks related to the religious ideas of the ancients. There is also a simpler hypothesis that initially these were actually ventilation ducts. But as the building rose higher and higher, it was decided to build a third burial chamber - the king's chamber. And the builders blocked the passages leading from the queen's chamber as unnecessary. This hypothesis is indirectly confirmed by the fact that the entrances to the mines from the side of the queen's chamber were walled up and were found only after her thorough examination.

The internal structure of the pyramid of Cheops from an engineering and construction point of view, the most difficult of all such structures ancient egypt. All other Egyptian pyramids inside look about the same as the great pyramidal structure of Cheops, but in general, inside the pyramids of other pharaohs, they have a simpler device, with the exception of the tomb of Pharaoh Djoser in Saqqara, which has an extensive system underground passages and premises at its base.


It will also be interesting to see.

During the construction of the most grandiose monument of antiquity, the pyramid of Cheops, more than one year was spent and a huge number of slaves were involved, many of whom died at the construction site. So the ancient Greeks claimed, among them Herodotus, one of the first historians who described this grandiose structure in detail.

But modern scientists do not agree with this opinion and argue: many free Egyptians wanted to work at a construction site - when agricultural work ended, it was a great opportunity to earn extra money (they provided food, clothing and housing here).

For any Egyptian, it was a duty and a matter of honor to participate in the construction of the tomb for their ruler, since each of them hoped that a piece of Pharaonic immortality would also touch him: it was believed that the Egyptian ruler had the right not only to life after death, but could also take with him their loved ones (usually they were buried in the tombs adjacent to the pyramid).

True, ordinary people were not destined to get into the afterlife - the only exception was slaves and servants, who were buried with the ruler. But everyone had the right to hope - and therefore, when the housework was over, for many years the Egyptians rushed to Cairo, to the rocky plateau.

The Pyramid of Cheops (or, as it was also called, Khufu) is located near Cairo, on the Giza plateau, on the left side of the Nile, and is the largest of the tombs located there. This tomb is the highest pyramid on our planet, it was built for more than one year, it has a non-standard layout. Quite an interesting fact is that during the autopsy, the body of the ruler was not found in it.

For many years now, it has been exciting the minds of researchers and admirers of Egyptian culture, who are asking themselves the question: were ancient people able to build such a structure and was the pyramid the work of representatives extraterrestrial civilizations who built it for only one clear purpose?


The fact that this stunning tomb almost immediately entered the list of the ancient seven wonders of the world does not surprise anyone: the dimensions of the Cheops pyramid are amazing, and this, despite the fact that over the past millennia it has become smaller, and scientists cannot determine the exact proportions of the Cheops pyramid in condition, since its edges and surfaces were dismantled for their needs by more than one generation of Egyptians:

  • The height of the pyramid is about 138 m (it is interesting that in the year when it was built, it was eleven meters higher);
  • The foundation has a square shape, the length of each side is about 230 meters;
  • The area of ​​​​the foundation is about 5.4 hectares (thus, five of the largest cathedrals of our planet will fit on it);
  • The length of the foundation along the perimeter is 922 m.

Pyramid construction

If earlier scientists believed that the construction of the Cheops pyramid took the Egyptians about twenty years, in our time, Egyptologists, having studied the records of the priests in more detail, and taking into account the parameters of the pyramid, as well as the fact that Cheops ruled for about fifty years, refuted this fact and came to the conclusion that it was built for at least thirty, and maybe as much as forty years.


Despite the fact that the exact date of construction of this grandiose tomb is unknown, it is believed that it was built on the orders of Pharaoh Cheops, who presumably ruled from 2589 to 2566 BC. e., and his nephew and vizier Hemion was responsible for the construction work, using the latest technologies of his time, over the solution of which many learned minds have been struggling for many centuries. He approached the matter with care and meticulousness.

Preparation for construction

More than 4 thousand workers were involved in the preliminary work, which took about ten years. It was necessary to find a place for construction, the soil of which would be strong enough to support a structure of this magnitude - so the decision was made to stop at a rocky site near Cairo.

To level the site, the Egyptians built a square-shaped waterproof rampart using stones and sand. In the shaft, they cut channels that intersect at right angles, and the construction site began to resemble a large chessboard.

After that, water was launched into the trenches, with the help of which the builders determined the height of the water level and made the necessary notches on the side walls of the channels, after which the water was lowered. All the stones that were above the water level were cut down by the workers, after which the trenches were laid with stones, thus obtaining the foundation of the tomb.


Stone work

The building material for the tomb was mined in a quarry located on the other side of the Nile. To get a block of the required size, the stone was cut down from the rock and hewn to the desired size - from 0.8 to 1.5 m. Although on average one stone block weighed about 2.5 tons, the Egyptians also made heavier specimens, for example, the heaviest a block that was installed above the entrance to the "Pharaoh's Room" weighed 35 tons.

With the help of thick ropes and levers, the builders fixed the block on wooden runners and dragged it along the log deck to the Nile, loaded it onto a boat and transported it across the river. And then again they dragged along the logs to the construction site, after which the most difficult stage began: a huge block had to be pulled to the topmost platform of the tomb. How exactly they did it and what technologies were used is one of the mysteries of the Cheops pyramid.

One of the versions proposed by scientists implies the following option. Along an angled brick rise 20 m wide, a block lying on skids was pulled up with the help of ropes and levers, where it was laid in a place clearly intended for it. The higher the Cheops pyramid became, the longer and steeper the ascent turned out to be, and the upper platform decreased - therefore it was more and more difficult and dangerous to lift the blocks.


The workers had the hardest time when it was necessary to install the “pyramidon” - the uppermost block 9 meters high (which has not survived to this day). Since it was necessary to lift a huge block almost vertically, the work turned out to be deadly, and at this stage of the work many people died. As a result, the pyramid of Cheops, after the completion of construction, had more than 200 steps leading up and looked like a huge stepped mountain.

In total, it took the ancient Egyptians at least twenty years to build the body of the pyramid. Work on the "box" was not yet completed - they still had to be laid with stones and made so that the outer parts of the blocks became more or less smooth. And at the final stage, the Egyptians completely faced the pyramid from the outside with white limestone slabs polished to a shine - and it sparkled in the sun like a huge shiny crystal.

The plates on the pyramid have not survived to this day: the inhabitants of Cairo, after the Arabs sacked their capital (1168), used them in the construction of new houses and temples (some of them can be seen on mosques today).


Drawings on the pyramid

An interesting fact: the outer side of the pyramid body is covered with curvilinear grooves of various sizes. If you look at them from a certain angle, you can see the image of a man 150 m high (perhaps a portrait of one of the ancient gods). This drawing is not alone: ​​on the northern wall of the tomb, one can also distinguish a man and a woman with their heads bowed to each other.

Scientists claim that these Egyptians caused the grooves several years before they finished building the pyramid body and installed the top stone. True, the question remains open: why did they do this, because the plates with which the pyramid was subsequently decorated hid these portraits.

What did the Great Pyramid look like from the inside?

A detailed study of the Cheops pyramid showed that, contrary to popular belief, there are practically no inscriptions or any other decorations inside the tomb, except for a small portrait in the corridor leading to the Queen's Room.


The entrance to the tomb is located on the north side at a height exceeding fifteen meters. After the burial, it was closed with a granite plug, so tourists get inside through a gap that is ten meters lower - it was cut down by the caliph of Baghdad Abdullah al-Mamun (820 AD) - the man who first entered the tomb in order to rob it. The attempt failed, because apart from a thick layer of dust, he found nothing here.

The Pyramid of Cheops is the only pyramid where there are corridors both leading down and up. The main corridor first goes down, then branches into two tunnels - one leads down to the unfinished burial chamber, the second goes up, first to the Great Gallery, from which you can get to the Queen's Room and the main tomb.

From the main entrance, through a tunnel leading down (its length is 105 meters), one can get into a burial pit located below ground level, the height of which is 14 m, the width is 8.1 m, the height is 3.5 m. Inside the room, near on the southern wall, Egyptologists discovered a well, the depth of which is about three meters (a narrow tunnel leading to a dead end stretches south from it).

Researchers believe that this room was originally intended for the Cheops crypt, but then the pharaoh changed his mind and decided to build a tomb for himself higher, so this room remained unfinished.

You can also get to the unfinished funeral room from the Great Gallery - at its very entrance begins a narrow, almost vertical shaft 60 meters high. It is interesting that in the middle of this tunnel there is a small grotto (most likely of natural origin, since it is located at the point of contact between the masonry of the pyramid and a small hump of the lime board), which could accommodate several people.

According to one hypothesis, the architects took this grotto into account when designing the pyramid and originally intended it for the evacuation of builders or priests who were finishing the ceremony of “sealing” the central passage leading to the tomb of the pharaoh.

The Pyramid of Cheops has another mysterious room with an incomprehensible purpose - the "Queen's Chamber" (like the lowest room, this room is not completed, as evidenced by the floor on which they began to lay tiles, but did not finish the work until the end).

This room can be reached by first going down the corridor down 18 meters from the main entrance, and then climbing up the long tunnel (40 m). This room is the smallest of all, located in the very center of the pyramid, has an almost square shape (5.73 x 5.23 m, height - 6.22 m), and a niche is built into one of its walls.

Despite the fact that the second burial pit is called the "queen's room", the name is erroneous, since the wives of Egyptian rulers were always buried in separate small pyramids (there are three such tombs near the tomb of the pharaoh).

Previously, it was not easy to get into the "Queen's Chamber", because at the very beginning of the corridor that led to the Great Gallery, three granite blocks were installed, disguised with limestone - therefore, it was previously believed that this room did not exist. Al-Mamunu guessed about its presence and, being unable to remove the blocks, he hollowed out a passage in softer limestone (this move is still being exploited).

At what stage of construction the plugs were installed is not exactly known, and therefore there are several hypotheses. According to one of them, they were mounted even before the funeral, during construction work. Another claims that they did not exist at this place before, and they appeared here after the earthquake, rolling down from the Great Gallery, where they were installed after the funeral of the ruler.


Another secret of the Cheops pyramid is that exactly where the plugs are located, there are not two, as in other pyramids, but three tunnels - the third one is a vertical hole (although no one knows where it leads, since granite blocks with no one has moved yet).

The tomb of the pharaoh can be reached by Big gallery which is almost 50 meters long. It is a continuation of the corridor going up from the main entrance. Its height is 8.5 meters, while the walls at the top narrow slightly. In front of the tomb of the Egyptian ruler there is an "antechamber" - the so-called Prechamber.

From the Ancillary Chamber, a manhole leads to the "Pharaoh's Chamber", built from monolithic polished granite blocks, in which there is an empty sarcophagus made from a red piece of Aswan granite. (an interesting fact: scientists have not yet found any traces and evidence that there was a burial here).

Apparently, the sarcophagus was brought here even before the start of construction, since its dimensions did not allow it to be placed here after the completion of construction work. The tomb is 10.5 m long, 5.4 m wide and 5.8 m high.


The biggest mystery of the Cheops pyramid (as well as its feature) is its 20 cm wide shafts, which scientists called ventilation ducts. They start inside the two upper rooms, first running horizontally and then sloping outward.

While these channels in the pharaoh's room are through, in the "Queen's Chambers" they begin only at a distance of 13 cm from the wall and do not reach the surface at the same distance (at the same time, they are closed at the top with stones with copper handles, the so-called "Ganterbrink doors") .

Despite the fact that some researchers suggest that these were ventilation ducts (for example, they were designed to prevent workers from suffocating during work due to lack of oxygen), most Egyptologists still tend to think that these narrow channels had religious significance and managed to prove that they were built, given the location of astronomical bodies. The presence of channels may well be associated with the Egyptians' belief about the gods and the souls of the dead who live in the starry sky.

At the foot of the Great Pyramid there are several underground structures - in one of them, archaeologists (1954) found the oldest ship on our planet: a wooden boat made of cedar disassembled into 1224 parts, the total length of which in the assembled state was 43.6 meters (apparently , it was on it that the pharaoh was supposed to go to the Kingdom of the Dead).

Is this tomb Cheops

In the past few years, Egyptologists have increasingly questioned the fact that this pyramid was actually intended for Cheops. This is evidenced by the fact that there are absolutely no decorations in the burial chamber.

The pharaoh's mummy was not found in the tomb, and the builders did not complete the sarcophagus itself, in which it was supposed to be,: it was hewn rather roughly, and the lid was completely missing. These Interesting Facts give fans of theories of the alien origin of this grand structure claim that representatives of extraterrestrial civilizations built the pyramid, using technologies unknown to science and with an incomprehensible goal for us.

An example of impudent slander.

This information is located on a deaf but relatively popular site.

It's called an article

" Pyramid "Cheops ": Dimensions in meters."

Green indicates reliable information, red - blatant lies. Blue are my comments.
Orange, and other shades - dubious information.

The Pyramid of Cheops, one of the three pyramids in Giza, is located near Cairo and built in the form of a regular pyramid with a square at the base. According to accurate reconstruction (it was partially dismantled into stone local residents ):

  1. Base: Square with sides of 230.35 meters (b=230.35 m)
  2. The height of the priamis of Cheops: 146.71 meters (h = 146.71 m)
  3. The side face of the pyramid isisosceles right triangle - angle at the top 90 o , two corners at the bottom - 45 o each (A blatant lie, this happens only in a square divided by diagonals, i.e. the height of the pyramid = 0)
  4. There are 4 triangular faces in total (of course, because the base is a square)
  5. Pyramid made up of cubic limestone blocks, the largest of which has a rib length of 1.5 meters
  6. Probably, originally, 210 steps led to the top of the pyramid. (What would you apply it to?)

Golden Sections: Denote c the length of the "ladder", which is formed by the inclined side face of the pyramid. According to the Pythagorean theorem:

c 2 =h 2 +(b/2) 2 ~186.52 meters (theorem is correct, the numbers are doubtful)

(b/2)/c~0.618 golden ratio.

Later, another "golden pattern" was noticed: The area of ​​the base of the pyramid refers to the area of ​​all 4 side faces of the pyramid in the proportion of the "golden section". The area of ​​the side face turned out to be equal to the square of its height (bc/2 = h 2). (property of the pyramid of the golden section)

Question: Who needs such "Information"?

Additional help.

Mathematically, the exact dimensions of the pyramid of living section of the 3rd order (Ф 3), corresponding to the pyramid of Cheops, with a base length of 230.35 m, has a height h = 146.505 m. At a height of h = 146.71 m, the length of the base of the pyramid b = 230.673 m

Below are the data of various measurements by different researchers at different times.

The size Howard-Vyse tailor Smith Petrie Cole Proskuryakov
A

Foundations

232,751 232,867 231,394 230,561 230,365 233,164
H 148,153 148,133 147,113 146,721 146,731 146,595
h 188,395 188,415 187,158 186,592 186,539 187,300
a

tilt angle

51°51" 51°49"57" 51°49" 51°50"34" 51°52"06" 51°30"21"
F \u003d tg 2a 1,620676 1,618623 1,616799 1,619834 1,622818 1,581158

The discrepancies are mainly related to where the base line was taken. Which point was taken as the top one is also not entirely clear, because the top of the pyramid is truncated. If it was a real top point, if it was determined by the lines continuing the faces.

In particular, if we take Proskuryakov's measurements as a basis, then it seems that he measured the base along the most achievable bottom line, and the height to the real top. In this case, we get the following dimensions of the Cheops pyramid.

At the base b \u003d 233.164 m. The mathematical height of the pyramid h \u003d 148.295 m.

The height of the pyramid truncated along the third sphere h_= 146.344 m.

If we take as a basis h_ = 146.595 m.

Then b = 233.572 m h= 148.554 m.

Full edge apothem c= 188.964 m. ((b/2)/c=0.618034, or c/(b/2)=1.618034)

Apothem of the truncated face c_= 186.478 m.

According to a number of my assumptions, these values ​​seem to me more correct.

The Pyramid of Cheops is a rare case in Egyptology when we can be sure exactly who owns the monument. Often the ancient monuments of Egypt were appropriated by later rulers. The appropriation technology was very simple - the name of the pharaoh-builder (cartouche) was simply confused 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 Tutankhamen. Until 1922, when archaeologist Howard Carter unearthed , 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 hidden rooms. You can still see traces of such methods on the surfaces of structures (see photo on the left).

During such research, small rooms were found above the main burial chamber. Explorers rushed there hoping to find treasure, but of course there was nothing there 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 relieve the mechanical load. 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 a product, so the ancient Egyptian foremen marked the blocks: “A block such and such for the pyramid of Khufu, produced then, laid then.” These inscriptions cannot be fake, they prove that this building was built by Cheops.

A little about Pharaoh Cheops

In the last paragraph, we used the name "Khufu". This is the official Egyptian name of this pharaoh. Cheops is the Greek interpretation of his name, and not the most common. Other pronunciations of "Cheops" or "Kiops" are more common.

The name “Khufu” is more common 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 that this pyramid was built, we know that Khufu organized expeditions to explore useful resources on the Sinai Peninsula. That's all. Only two artifacts have survived from Khufu to this day - a giant pyramid 137 meters high and a small ivory figurine only 7.5 centimeters high (pictured right).

Pharaoh Cheops remained in the people's memory as a tyrant ruler who forced people to work on a grandiose construction. We can read about this in the works of the Greek historian Herodotus, who visited Egypt and wrote down the stories of the priests.

Surprisingly, his father, Pharaoh Snefru, remained in the people's memory as a very kind ruler, although he built as many as three pyramids ( and ) and overtaxed 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 pyramid of Cheops based on real research

  1. For about three thousand years, the Cheops pyramid was the tallest creation of human hands in the world.. Only when in 1311 Lincoln was built Cathedral, this building became the second tallest.
  2. The construction of the pyramid was carried out for 20 years. It remains a mystery how, with an archaic level of building knowledge and disgusting logistics, such a monumental structure was built so quickly. Building others burial structures took much longer - from 50 to 200 years.

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  3. The Pyramid of Cheops - accurate compass . The faces of the pyramid of Cheops are oriented to the cardinal points. The error is only 5 degrees. Such conformity is not easy to achieve even with the current level of construction development. At first, the alignment was perfect, and only the constant movement of the north pole of the Earth allowed a slight deviation to appear.

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  4. Pyramids of Cheops seen from space. The construction of the structure took more than 2.2 million blocks of limestone. This friable building material would certainly have collapsed over time if it had not been lined with granite. There are no gaps between the facing plates, they are perfectly polished. When the cladding was in place, the sunlight reflected from it was so bright that the structure of Cheops must have been visible from space.

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  5. Constant temperature inside the building - 20⁰С. The Pyramid of Cheops is a giant isothermal chamber - when the outside air temperature reaches 50⁰С, it does not rise above 20⁰С in this structure.

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  6. The Pyramid of Cheops Never Had a Pharaoh's Burial. 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 were kept the necessary things, which, according to the ancient Egyptians, helped the ruler in the afterlife.

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  7. The delivery of building materials was carried out in a way unknown to science.. The construction methods of stone monsters can be explained by the high level of construction organization. Huge stones were cut in quarries located on mediterranean coast. It remains a mystery how they were transported a hundred kilometers from the quarry to the construction site - the condition of the horse-drawn and water transport did not allow moving heavy stones over considerable distances.

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  8. The Pyramid of Cheops was built by free people. This building was built by free architects and masons who came to the place of construction from all over the Egyptian state. It is possible that slaves were used as labor force, but there is evidence that most of the workers were free and built for money. By the way, this ancient temple death erected about 100,000 people.
  9. The composition of the mortar used to fasten the blocks of the pyramid has not yet been unraveled.. Limestone and granite slabs are held together by a mysterious mortar that has no modern analogues. The gripping material was developed in the early Predynastic period. After cooling, the solution became stronger than stone and was not afraid of heat, dry winds, or time. Scientists do not know how and from what it was prepared.

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  10. Even a blade cannot be inserted between the facing of the pyramid. The craftsmanship of the builders is admirable, who were able to fit the cladding so tightly that even a knife blade cannot be inserted between the cladding slabs. Few modern buildings can boast of such a quality of laying building materials.

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  11. The number pi and other oddities. The existence of the pyramid confirms the fact that the Egyptians knew about the "golden ratio", the number π and other constants used in geometry and architecture. Scientific evidence of these formulas were developed by ancient Greek mathematicians a thousand years later.

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  12. The walls of the pyramid of Cheops from the inside are not covered with drawings or hieroglyphs. The walls of the corridors of the pyramid of Cheops are empty - they do not have numerous inscriptions and drawings. Egyptologists have found dozens of 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 technology of erecting this religious building.

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  13. The ancient Greeks and Arabs knew about the pyramid of Cheops. The first researchers Egyptian antiquities became the Greeks. The mathematician Thales was well aware of the existence of the structure of Cheops, and even measured the length of its shadow. Arab scientist Abdullah Al Mamun made an attempt to penetrate the forbidden walls. He managed to do this, but did not find any treasures or secret knowledge.
  14. Napoleon was interested in ancient structures and during the Egyptian campaign he 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 issue of visiting the ancient tombs. But he supported the interest of scientists in uncovering Egyptian mysteries and sponsored several scientific expeditions.

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  15. Birthday of the pyramid of Cheops - National holiday Egypt. Modern Egyptians receive a good income from tourists visiting ancient monuments. They even approved the birthday of the Cheops pyramid - it is celebrated on August 23rd. 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.