Diagram of the internal structure of the pyramid of Cheops. Pyramid of Pharaoh Cheops (Khufu) in Egypt

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MOSCOW, November 2 — RIA Novosti. Physicists have found a previously unknown area of emptiness in the pyramid of Cheops, which may be a secret tomb or a passage to it, according to an article published in the journal Nature.

"When we saw this void zone, we realized that we had stumbled upon something very interesting and big, abandoned all other projects and concentrated on studying this area, located right above the corridor to the tomb of Cheops. Now we are sure that it really exists, and this the first find of this kind in the pyramid of Cheops since the Middle Ages, when it was opened by Caliph Al-Mamun in the 9th century," said Mehdi Tayoubi from the HIP Institute in Paris (France).

Physicists have found two "unknown voids" in the pyramid of CheopsArchaeologists and physicists have discovered two, as they say, "previously unknown voids" inside the pyramid of Cheops, which may be secret rooms where the remains of Pharaoh Khufu lie.

Secrets of the pharaohs

The pyramid of Cheops, one of the seven wonders of the world, was built in the middle of the third millennium BC, during the time of Pharaoh Khufu (Cheops), a representative of the fourth dynasty ancient kingdom, - at the same time as all the "great pyramids" of Ancient Egypt. With a height of 145 meters and a width and length of 230 meters, this structure remains one of the tallest and largest structures ever created by mankind.

Over the past two centuries, scientists have discovered three rooms in the pyramid, in one of which the pharaoh himself was supposedly buried, in the other his wife, and the third was considered a bait or a trap for robbers. In the walls of the corridors that lead to the tomb of Khufu, unusual channels and structures were found, which scientists believe are elements of a "security system" that protected the pharaoh from defilers.

The mummies of the pharaoh and his wife were never found, which is why many archaeologists believe that in fact their tombs are still hidden in the thickness of the pyramid. Two years ago, scientists from the universities of Nagoya, Paris and Cairo began searching for these secret rooms, studying the pyramid using cosmic particle detectors and telescopes as part of the ScanPyramids project.

Breath of space

Every second, millions of muons, charged particles, are produced in the Earth's upper atmosphere as a result of the collision of cosmic rays with gas molecules in the air. These collisions accelerate muons to near-light speeds, due to which they penetrate tens and hundreds of meters deep into the surface of the planet. According to scientists' measurements, each square meter of the Earth's surface absorbs about 10 thousand of these particles.

French archaeologists and physicists, together with Japanese scientists, have adapted telescopes capable of "seeing" muons to search for voids and hidden spaces in monuments ancient architecture.

This technique works very simply - the muon flux decreases in air and in empty space much more slowly than when passing through the thickness of rocks or the earth, which makes it possible to search for secret rooms by bursts in the muon background.

In October last year, participants in the ScanPyramids project announced a sensational discovery - they managed to find several previously unknown voids in the pyramid, which may be the secret tombs of the "master of two houses" and his wife. This discovery caused a sharp rejection among archaeologists and Egyptologists, who accused physicists of misinterpreting the data.

Physics and lyrics

These allegations forced scientists to repeat measurements using three different muon telescopes at once. This time, the observations, as Tayubi emphasized, were carried out according to the same rules and principles by which the Higgs boson and other particles unknown to science were searched for at the LHC and other accelerators.

“Our measurements absolutely rule out that this void area could have arisen due to differences in the properties of the stones or due to construction errors,” states Zahi Hawass. The Egyptians were too good builders to mess up the construction of the pyramid, leave a hole in it and create a room or corridor somewhere else, "said Hany Elal (Hany Helal) from Cairo University of Cairo.

Checking whether this is true or not, scientists installed a set of films sensitive to the action of muons in the alleged tomb of the wife of Cheops, and semiconductor particle detectors were placed in the lower part of the pyramid. A few months later, they collected data, processed it and compared it with how muons should move through the pyramid if there are no other voids in it, except for the already known corridors and rooms.

If the initial results of scanning the pyramid of Cheops were erroneous, then, as Elal notes, the "pictures" obtained by different muon telescopes would not match. In fact, they turned out to be the same, which confirmed the assumptions of physicists and refuted the insinuations of archaeologists.

The photographs showed that above the main corridor of the pyramid there is a zone of emptiness thirty long, eight high and about two meters wide. As Tayubi noted, it can be either a solid corridor running parallel to the ground, up or down, or a suite of rooms. So far, physicists do not have enough data to rule out the first or second option.

Scientists emphasize that they do not interpret their discovery in any way and do not claim that they managed to find a secret room - this task, according to them, should be handled by Egyptologists.

Jean-Baptiste Mouret, a physicist at the University of Paris, hopes that his team's discovery will convince Egyptian historians that they were wrong in their assessments and start a discussion about whether to try to penetrate this void zone, and if yes, how to do it.

A new round of history

In the near future, as scientists noted, they plan to continue studying the void zone, as well as other departments of the Cheops pyramid, including the tomb of the pharaoh himself, and will begin to scan other pyramids that may hide secret rooms and unknown voids.

These data, physicists hope, will help to understand exactly how the pyramids were built and whether it is possible to trust the descriptions of their construction, which have come down to our time in the writings of Herodotus.

At the same time, as scientists noted, muon scanners can not reveal all the secrets of ancient history. For example, according to Tayubi, they cannot be used to search for the secret tomb of Nefertiti in the tomb of Tutankhamen, the existence of which was recently announced by the famous British Egyptologist Nicholas Reeves.

"Muon scanners cannot be used to study the tomb of Tutankhamun and other burials in the Valley of the Kings for the reason that we do not know how voids are distributed in the rocks located above them," the scientist explained, answering a question from RIA Novosti.

Such studies, as Sebastien Procureur, a colleague of More, added, are further complicated by the fact that man-made particle accelerators cannot be used to scan the pyramids and other ancient structures, since their delivery to Giza or the Valley of the Kings will entail unacceptably high costs.

“In short, this is simply not feasible. Muons cannot be created directly - they arise from the decay of kaons and pions, and there are too few particle accelerators in the world that can accelerate them to the required speeds. In addition, they are all very large - at least 700 meters in length. It would be easier for us to transport the pyramid to such an installation than to try to build it in Giza or in other parts of Egypt. Therefore, we have to rely on space in such observations," the agency's interlocutor concluded.

The list of wonders of the world includes one very interesting building, which everyone who comes to Cheops is trying to see is considered one of the most mysterious. There are many mysteries and myths around her.

Many archaeological finds belong to this particular ancient land located on but the most amazing is the Giza Valley. And, of course, the pyramid of Cheops, Interesting Facts about which not everyone knows.

History of the tombs of the pharaohs

It is believed that the Egyptian pyramids were created tens of centuries ago. Some scientists say that their age is about three thousand years. At the same time, there is still no real evidence of when and how exactly they were built.

These structures, including (interesting facts related to which excite more than one generation), had a very extraordinary purpose. The architecture of these grandiose buildings, their "stuffing" assumed a variety of purposes.

For example, the crypts of many pharaohs are not located inside the pyramids themselves, as many mistakenly believe, but nearby, in the Valley of the Kings. In addition, according to one version, these majestic structures helped the Egyptians to build the "principle of leverage" they had mastered. However, this version is controversial. Since even one of them could be built in this way only in a century and a half, while the pyramid of Pharaoh Cheops was built in about two decades. And this is not the only mystery hovering around them. Today in Egypt, there are about a hundred tombs found, but the search continues, and the number of new finds is constantly increasing.

The most famous wonder of the world

The pyramid of Cheops was built about 4500 years ago. Today in Egypt, the date of the beginning of its construction has been established and officially celebrated. It is the twenty-third of August 2470 BC.

However, there are other assumptions. For example, the Arab historian Ibrahim Wassuf Shah is sure that all the structures in the Giza Valley were erected by an ancient ruler named Saurid. Another chronicler - Zeid Bahi - writes about the existence of a certain rock inscription, which says that the pyramid of Cheops was built about seventy-three thousand years ago.

There is a hypothesis that in those places where the pyramids were built, the Egyptians came into some kind of contact with extraterrestrial civilizations. Inside each of them are numerous tunnels and peculiar labyrinths scattered along and across their structures.

Some lead to empty spaces, and all the rest lead to a dead end. At first it was believed that all this was done aimlessly, by chance, but gradually the researchers discovered that if you draw a plan of the paths and compartments made inside the Cheops pyramid, then it will be accurately oriented according to the sky map.

At the same time, there is another surprising fact: one of the channels is located vertically along the center line of the tomb. According to scientists, this is the direct flow of energy with which it was possible to communicate with aliens from other planets. In favor of this hypothesis, as well as the fact that the construction of these amazing monuments in Egypt was carried out in order to subsequently use them as power plants, the fact that they were built with ideal mathematical accuracy speaks in favor of this hypothesis.

Description

The pyramid stands near the city of Giza. Today the area is a suburb of Cairo. Initially, the height of the structure was a little over one hundred and forty-six meters. However, over time, seven meters and eighty centimeters of this majestic structure were erased by winds and rains.

The perimeter is nine hundred twenty-two meters, and the area of \u200b\u200bthe base is comparable to ten football fields. Scientists managed to calculate the total weight of the pyramid of Cheops: five million tons.

It consists of more than two million huge stone blocks of granite, limestone and basalt. Each of them weighs about two and a half tons. In total there are two hundred and ten rows in the pyramid.

The entrance is on the north side. It is formed by stone slabs laid in the form of an arch.

Today, you can get inside not through the entrance, which is sealed with a granite plug, but through a breach. It was made in 820 by Caliph Jafar al-Mamun, who was eager to find the pharaoh's treasures there, but found only a thick layer of dust.

About the creator

This tomb of the pharaoh is also known as Khufu. It is the largest among analogues. Its architect is considered Hemiun, the vizier and nephew of Cheops himself. He was even given the title of "Manager of all the buildings of the pharaoh." Apparently, it is no coincidence that for more than three millennia the highest on the planet Earth is the creation of his hands - the pyramid of Cheops. Interesting facts, legends and many secrets about her are told by guides to tourists coming to Egypt.

About a hundred thousand people were involved in the construction at the same time. For the first ten years, only a road was built, along which huge stone blocks were later delivered to the site. It is hard to imagine that the pyramid of Cheops was built by the hands of slaves, without technology.

Scientists say that this wonder of the world is nothing more than a kind of calendar. After all, it has been practically proven that the Cheops pyramid, a photo of which every tourist who visits Egypt brings with him, serves both as a compass and a theodolite, moreover, with such accuracy that it is possible to calibrate the most modern instruments with it.

Another interesting fact shows that not only in the parameters, but also in the individual structures of this most famous tomb of the ancient pharaohs, there are numerous mathematical quantities and ratios, including the number "pi". Moreover, the parameters of the royal chamber are combined into "sacred" triangles, the sides of which have a clear proportion - 3:4:5.

It is believed that the angles with slopes of this pyramid may reflect the most modern ideas about many trigonometric values. And its contours are made according to the "golden section" with practical accuracy.

Amazing Hypotheses

The hypothesis of the Russian researcher Proskuryakov, who is simply sure that all the pyramids in Egypt were built by aliens, has recently been improved. Our other compatriot, Babanin, agrees with his colleague, but he supplements the version: in the era of Cheops, they were restored. There is also a theory that the pyramids were built by the Atlanteans.

Pyramid of Pharaoh Khufu (in the Greek version of Cheops), or the Great Pyramid - the greatest of Egyptian pyramids, the oldest of the seven wonders of the world of antiquity and the only one of them that has come down to our time. For over four thousand years, the pyramid was the largest building in the world.

The pyramid of Cheops is located in the far suburbs of Cairo Giza. Nearby are two more pyramids of the pharaohs Khafre and Menkaure (Khafren and Mikerin), according to ancient historians, the sons and successors of Khufu. These are the three largest pyramids in Egypt.

Following ancient authors, most modern historians consider the pyramids burial structures ancient Egyptian monarchs. Some scholars believe that they were astronomical observatories. There is no direct evidence that pharaohs were buried in the pyramids, but other versions of their purpose are less convincing.

When was the pyramid of Cheops built?

Based on the ancient "royal lists", it is established that Cheops ruled around 2585-2566. BC. The construction of the "Sacred Height" lasted 20 years and ended after the death of Khufu, around 2560 BC.

Other versions of construction dates based on astronomical methods give dates from 2720 to 2577. BC. The radiocarbon method shows a spread of 170 years, from 2850 to 2680. BC.

There are also exotic opinions expressed by supporters of theories of visiting the Earth by aliens, the existence of ancient pra-civilizations, or adherents of occult currents. They determine the age of the pyramid of Cheops from 6-7 to tens of thousands of years.

How the pyramid was built

The Pyramid of Cheops is still the largest stone building on the planet. Its height is 137 m, the length of the side of the base is 230.38 m, the angle of inclination of the edge is 51 ° 50", the total volume is about 2.5 million cubic meters. At the time of completion of construction, the height was 9.5 m higher, and the side of the base was 2 m longer, however, over the past centuries, almost the entire lining of the pyramid has been dismantled.Natural factors have also done their job - temperature drops and winds from the desert, carrying clouds of sand.

Ancient Greek historians reported that the labor of millions of slaves was used in the construction. Modern researchers believe that with the proper organization of work and engineering, the Egyptians would have had several tens of thousands of workers for the construction. For the transportation of materials, temporary workers were involved, the number of which, according to Herodotus, reached 100 thousand. Modern scientists fully agree with this, as well as with the reality of a 20-year construction period.

Hemiun, the head of the royal works, supervised the construction of the pyramid. Hemiun's tomb is located next to his creation; a statue of the architect was found in it.

The main material for the construction was gray limestone, which was cut down in the nearest quarries or brought from the other side of the Nile. The pyramid was lined with light sandstone, because of which it literally shone under the sunlight. Granite was used for interior decoration, which was delivered a thousand kilometers from the area of \u200b\u200bpresent-day Aswan. The building was crowned with a hewn gilded granite block - a pyramidion.

In total, the construction of the pyramid took about 2.3 million blocks of limestone and 115 thousand facing plates. The total mass of the building, according to modern estimates, is almost 6 million tons.

The block sizes vary. The largest ones are laid in the base, their height is one and a half meters. The blocks are smaller the higher they are. The height of the block at the top was 55 cm. The length of the facing slabs ranged from 1.5 to 0.75 m.

The work of the pyramid builders was extremely difficult. A lot of time and effort required the extraction of stone, hewing blocks and fitting to the right size. In those days, neither iron nor bronze was known in Egypt. The tools were made of relatively soft copper, so they wore down quickly and were very expensive. Flint tools were widely used - saws, drills, hammers. Many of them were found during excavations.

Delivery of materials was carried out by river, and the stone was brought to the construction site on a wooden sled or rollers. It was hellish work, because the average weight of one block is 2.5 tons, and some of them weighed up to 50 tons.

A variety of devices were used to lift and install the monoliths, and inclined embankments were erected to pull up the most massive elements that make up the lower rows. Images of construction work have been found in a number of Egyptian temples and tombs.

Recently, an original theory has emerged regarding the construction methods of the Egyptians. Scientists who studied the microstructure of the blocks in order to establish their origin, found foreign inclusions. According to experts, these are the remains of animal hair and human hair, from which the scientists concluded that the limestone was crushed in the places of extraction and delivered to the construction site in crushed form. Blocks were made directly at the place of laying from the limestone mass, which thus were a semblance of modern concrete structures, and tool marks on the blocks are actually formwork prints.

Be that as it may, the construction was completed, and the grandiose dimensions of the pyramid fully justify the supporters of the theories of the Atlanteans and aliens who do not believe in the possibility of human genius.

What is inside the pyramid

The entrance to the pyramid was made at a height of almost 16 meters in the form of an arch of granite slabs. It was later sealed with a granite cork and covered with cladding. The current entrance, 10 meters lower, was broken in 831 by order of Caliph Al-Mamun, who hoped to find gold here, but did not find anything of value.

The main premises are the pharaoh's chamber, the queen's chamber, the Great Gallery and the underground chamber. The passage punched by Al-Mamun leads to a 105-meter inclined corridor, ending in a chamber carved into the rock below the base of the pyramid. Its dimensions are 14x8 m., height 3.5 m. Works here were not completed for unknown reasons.

At 18 meters from the entrance, a 40-meter-long ascending corridor separates from the descending corridor, ending in the Great Gallery. The Gallery itself is a high (8.5 m) tunnel 46.6 m long leading to the pharaoh's chamber. The corridor to the queen's chamber branches off from the Gallery at its very beginning. A rectangular ditch 60 cm deep and 1 m wide was pierced in the floor of the Gallery; its purpose is unknown.

The length of the pharaoh's chamber is 10.5 m, width 5.4 m, height 5.84 m. It is lined with black granite slabs. Here is an empty granite sarcophagus. The queen's chamber is more modest - 5.76 x 5.23 x 6.26 m.

Channels 20-25 cm wide lead from the burial chambers to the surface of the pyramid. The channels of the king's chamber go out at one end into the room, at the other - onto the surface of the pyramid. The channels of the queen's chamber begin 13 cm from the wall and do not reach 12 m to the surface, and both ends of the channels are closed with stone doors with handles. It is assumed that the channels were made to ventilate the premises during the work. Another version, connected with the beliefs of the Egyptians, claims that this is the way to afterworld which the souls of the departed had to pass through.

No less mysterious is another small room, the Grotto, to which an almost vertical passage leads from the beginning of the Great Gallery. The grotto is located at the junction of the base of the pyramid and the hill on which it stands. The walls of the Grotto are reinforced with rather roughly worked stone. It is assumed that this is part of some structure older than the pyramid.

It is necessary to mention one discovery related to the pyramid. In 1954, at the southern edge, two stone-lined pits were discovered, in which were the pharaoh's boats, made of Lebanese cedar. One of the boats has been restored and is now in a special pavilion next to the pyramid. Its length is 43.5 m, width is 5.6 m.

The study of the pyramid of Cheops continues. Research using the latest methods used in the exploration of the earth's interior, show with a high degree of probability the existence of unknown caverns inside the pyramid. So it is quite possible that scientists expect new interesting findings and discoveries.

In the meantime, the Great Pyramid keeps its secrets, proudly rising in the middle of the desert, like millennia ago. After all, according to an ancient Arabic proverb, everything in the world is afraid of time, but time is afraid of the pyramids.

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 not 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 building

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 they were again 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 pyramid of Cheops 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 lined 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 were not there at all 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 Pre-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 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 the pharaoh had to go to the realm 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 enable 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.

The Pyramid of Cheops is a legacy of the ancient Egyptian civilization; all tourists who come to Egypt try to see it. It strikes the imagination with its grandiose size. The weight of the pyramid is about 4 million tons, its height is 139 meters, and its age is 4.5 thousand years. It still remains a mystery how people built the pyramids in those ancient times. It is not known for certain why these majestic structures were erected.

Legends of the pyramid of Cheops

Shrouded in mystery Ancient Egypt was once the most powerful country on Earth. Perhaps his people knew secrets that are still inaccessible to modern humanity. Looking at the huge stone blocks of the pyramid, which are stacked with perfect accuracy, you begin to believe in miracles.

According to one of the legends, the pyramid served as a storehouse of grain during the great famine. These events are described in the Bible (Book of Exodus). Pharaoh had a prophetic dream that warned of a series of lean years. Joseph, son of Jacob, sold into slavery by his brothers, managed to unravel Pharaoh's dream. The ruler of Egypt instructed Joseph to organize the harvesting of grain, appointing him as his first adviser. The storehouses must have been huge, given that many peoples were fed from them for seven years when there was a famine on Earth. A slight discrepancy in dates - about 1 thousand years, the adherents of this theory explain by the inaccuracy of carbon analysis, thanks to which archaeologists determine the age of ancient buildings.

According to another legend, the pyramid served to transfer the material body of the pharaoh into upper world Gods. Surprising fact is that inside the pyramid, where the sarcophagus for the body stands, the mummy of the pharaoh was not found, which the robbers could not take away. Why did the rulers of Egypt build such huge tombs for themselves? Was it really their goal to build a beautiful mausoleum that testified to greatness and power? If the construction process took several decades and required huge labor costs, then the ultimate goal of building a pyramid was vital to the pharaoh. Some researchers believe that we know very little about the level of development ancient civilization, the mysteries of which are yet to be discovered. The Egyptians knew the secret eternal life. It was acquired by the pharaohs after death, thanks to the technology that was hidden inside the pyramids.

Some researchers believe that the pyramid of Cheops was built by a great civilization even older than the Egyptian one, about which we know nothing. And the Egyptians only restored the existing ancient buildings, and used them at their own discretion. They themselves did not know the intention of the forerunners who built the pyramids. The Forerunners could be the giants of the Antediluvian civilization or the inhabitants of other planets who arrived on Earth in search of a new homeland. The gigantic size of the blocks from which the pyramid is built is easier to imagine as a convenient building material for ten-meter giants than for ordinary people.

One more interesting legend I would like to mention the pyramid of Cheops. It is said that a secret room is hidden inside the monolithic structure, in which there is a portal that opens paths to other dimensions. Thanks to the portal, you can instantly find yourself at a selected point in time or another, habitable planet Universe. It was carefully hidden by the builders for the benefit of the people, but will soon be found. The question remains whether modern scientists will understand ancient technologies in order to take advantage of the discovery. In the meantime, archaeological research in the pyramid continues.

In the era of antiquity, when the heyday of the Greco-Roman civilization began, ancient philosophers compiled a description of the most outstanding architectural monuments on Earth. They were called "Seven Wonders of the World". They included hanging gardens Babylon, Kolos of Rhodes and others majestic buildings built before our era. The Pyramid of Cheops, as the oldest, is in the first place in this list. This wonder of the world is the only one that has survived to this day, all the rest were destroyed many centuries ago.

According to the descriptions of ancient Greek historians great pyramid shone in the rays of the sun, casting a warm golden sheen. It was lined with meter-thick limestone slabs. The smooth white limestone, decorated with hieroglyphs and drawings, reflected the sands of the surrounding desert. Later locals dismantled the lining for their dwellings, which they lost as a result of devastating fires. Perhaps the top of the pyramid was decorated with a special triangular block made of precious material.

Around the pyramid of Cheops in the valley there is a whole City of dead. Dilapidated buildings of the mortuary temples, two other large pyramids and several smaller tombs. A huge statue of a sphinx with a broken nose, which has recently been restored, is carved from a gigantic monolithic block. It comes from the same quarry as the stones used to build the tombs. Once upon a time, ten meters from the pyramid was a wall three meters thick. Perhaps it was intended to protect the royal treasures, but could not stop the robbers.

Construction history

Scientists still cannot come to a consensus on how the ancient people built the pyramid of Cheops from huge boulders. According to the drawings found on the walls of others, it was suggested that workers cut each block in the rocks, and then dragged it to the construction site along a ramp made of cedar. History does not have a single opinion about who was involved in the work - the peasants for whom there was no other work during the flood of the Nile, the pharaoh's slaves or hired workers.

The difficulty lies in the fact that the blocks had to be not only delivered to the construction site, but also raised to a great height. The Pyramid of Cheops before construction was the tallest building on Earth. Modern architects see the solution to this problem in different ways. According to the official version, primitive mechanical blocks were used for lifting. It is terrible to imagine how many people died during the construction by this method. When the ropes and straps holding the block broke, it could crush dozens of people with its weight. It was especially difficult to install the upper building block at a height of 140 meters above the ground.

Some scientists suggest that ancient people had the technology to control the earth's gravity. Blocks weighing more than 2 tons, from which the pyramid of Cheops was built, could be moved with this method with ease. The construction was carried out by hired workers who knew all the secrets of the craft, led by the nephew of Pharaoh Cheops. There were no human casualties, backbreaking labor of slaves, only building art that reached the highest technologies that are inaccessible to our civilization.

The pyramid has the same base on each side. Its length is 230 meters and 40 centimeters. Amazing accuracy for ancient uneducated builders. The density of the masonry stones is so great that it is impossible to stick a razor blade between them. An area of five hectares is occupied by one monolithic structure, the blocks of which are connected by a special solution. There are several passages and chambers inside the pyramid. There are ventilation openings facing different directions of the world. The purpose of many interior spaces remains a mystery. The robbers took out everything of value long before the first archaeologists entered the tomb.

The pyramid is currently listed cultural heritage UNESCO. Her photo adorns many Egyptian tourist brochures. In the 19th century, the Egyptian authorities wanted to disassemble the huge monolithic blocks of ancient structures for the construction of dams on the Nile River. But the costs of labor far outweighed the benefits of work, so the monuments of ancient architecture still stand today, delighting the pilgrims of the Giza Valley.