Monday, January 11, 2010

The Great Pyramid in the 19th Century

The pyramid is called "Akhet-Khufu" - the horizon of Khufu / Cheops and consists of blocks of limestone, basalt or granite, with a weight of two to four tons (an average of 2.5 tons) per block.

Thus, results from the pyramidal volume of around 2,500,000 m³ of a pyramid weight of about 6.25 million tonnes. It was built on a natural hill. Although the Great Pyramid, the tallest and largest of all Egyptian pyramids, but having built the Pyramids Pharaoh Sneferu resulting in Meidum (Meidum pyramid) and Dahshur (Bent Pyramid and Red Pyramid), together with a mass of around 8.4 million tonnes. This is around 2.15 million tonnes or 25.6 percent more in material than was blocked by Cheops.

Originally the pyramid was covered with polished Tura limestone. However, many of these stones are broken off and then reused for buildings in Cairo have been such that the underlying structure is now in steps. But today we get an idea of the former splendor of the pyramids if you look at the top of the lying next to the Pyramid of Cheops Pyramid of Khafre. There the top of the pyramid is still preserved with its old stone cladding, even if due to weather conditions now are covered with a brown layer.

Builder of the Great Pyramid was probably Hemiunu, probably a nephew of Cheops. He held the office of the vizier, and also wore the title "Overseer of all works of the king."

The Great Pyramid differs in its internal structure clearly from the other pyramids of Egypt and the other two pyramids at Giza, because they do not have one but has one of the Egyptian pyramids as a total of three chambers grave - and beyond the so-called "big Gallery possesses. The greater number of chambers and corridors, which create very precise alignment to the cardinal points, and the excellent workmanship so their uniqueness.

There are three chambers in the pyramid of Cheops:

1. the so-called "rock chamber below the pyramid in the natural rock rock (according to the researchers wanted the builders of this unfinished chamber representing the underworld)
2. the so-called "queens chamber" (the name comes, therefore, that in the early days of Archeology / Egyptology here the grave of the wife of Pharaoh was suspected) and
3. the so-called "King's Chamber": the top chamber approximately in the middle of the vertical structure. In it you can still visit the remains of a stone sarcophagus.

To relieve the ceiling of the King's Chamber, the ancient builders have built five low discharge chambers are arranged with the granite blocks of the upper chambers like a gabled roof. In these inscriptions were found relieving chambers of the workers who had been demonstrably applied before the stones were used.

At this - today inconspicuous - Chamber leads the "grand gallery" with a vaulted construction, which also applied already King Sneferu in his Red Pyramid. There is a corbelled, so a room whose walls taper sharply upward: a construction that serves the purpose of the weight of the overlying rocks to divert the side, so that the ceiling did not collapse.

The normal system of chambers of the pyramid, as well as the bodies of all the other pyramids and private grave constructions of that era, completely without any inscriptions. Only much later, from the 5th Dynasty can be found inside pyramids, inscriptions, such as the Pyramid Texts in the pyramid of Pharaoh Unas.

The Great Pyramid joins with the steepness of their sides in the historical context. For example, earlier pyramids are built mostly flat, later often steeper. The appropriations in the Khufu pyramid construction principles are the obvious consequence of the previously under Pharaoh Sneferu experience and knowledge in the pyramids.

A special feature of the pyramid are the so-called air shafts. Two of these wells range from the royal chamber at an angle to the north and south exterior walls and appear to the constellation of Orion, or be directed to the then North Star. It was quickly established then the theory that the pyramids were used as an observatory. Two distinct reasons contradict this theory:

1. these shafts are known only from the Great Pyramid
2. they do not run straight, a view of the night sky is not therefore possible.

The Pyramids of Giza: left of Menkaure, Khafre and right in the middle of Cheops

Researchers suspect that these are two bays either symbolically share the path of the deceased pharaoh in the sky (see Ba) or a logistic function over the pyramids filled.

With the demise of the Old Kingdom at the end of the 6th Dynasty and the end of the death cult of the dead kings came to plunder the grave plants in Giza, which includes the pyramid of Cheops was a victim. During this time, was presumably built the grave robbers corridor through which even today, the pyramid can be accessed and the system indicates that the first grave robbers knew about 4000 years ago the plans of the pyramid because they are aimed at blocking stones by blocking passages worked .

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia