Hey everyone, welcome to another installment of Mythology Explained.
In today’s video, we’ll be discussing the pyramid of giza.
Of all the ancient wonders that we inherited from our forebears perhaps none captures the
imagination more than the great pyramid of Giza. How people managed to build such a monolithic
structure with antiquated technology and excessive manpower boggles the mind. What’s more, despite
being the oldest of all the ancient wonders, predating the second oldest by about 2,000 years,
only the pyramid of Giza still stands. All the others - The Colossus of Rhodes,
The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, The Lighthouse of Alexandria, The Mausoleum of Halicarnassus,
The Statue of Zeus, and The Temple of Artemis - have all been lost to the inexorable force of
time. You would think it was us- the tribal, primitive apes that we are,
who were the destroyers, but really, it was almost all natural disasters, especially earthquakes.
Truly, this great and ancient structure stands as a monument
to one of the greatest cultures to ever add a tile to the mosaic of human civilization.
And the fact that it still exists stirs up many questions that bubble to the surface
of the ever-inquisitive brew that boils in the cauldron of the mind. Chief among these, how on
God’s green earth did those people build pyramids without electricity and motor-powered vehicles?
Let’s get into it
The Great Pyramid of Giza is a mausoleum that was built for Khufu, the fourth dynasty Egyptian
pharaoh. The pyramid's interior comprises three chambers: the king's chamber, the queen’s chamber,
and an unfinished subterranean chamber. The prevailing hypothesis about this third,
unfinished chamber is that it was originally intended to be the king’s chamber,
but that part way through construction, the king changed his mind and decided he wanted
his resting place to be situated more or less in the center of the pyramid.
After 27 years of construction, The Pyramid of Giza was finished in the year 2560 BC.
It towered to a height of 146.5 metres (481 feet), and it stood as the world’s tallest building
for 3,800 years. Another building, the Lincoln Cathedral, finally claimed the top spot in 1311AD.
While The Great Pyramid of Giza still stands, much of its majesty has faded. Its current state
is a pale reflection of the splendor it once stood with. The pyramid was used as a quarry,
especially throughout the middle ages, which was when most of the deterioration occurred.
So much stone was harvested that its modern day height has been lowered to 137 metres (449.5 ft),
a difference of about 10 metres. The rugged exterior exposed today is the base structure.
In its original condition - before it was picked clean by stone poachers - the whole exterior was
smooth and white, an aesthetic achieved by being encased in a sumptuous, finishing limestone.
As with anything, it takes a lot more effort to create than it does to destroy.
To build the pyramid of Giza, a mountain side’s worth of stone was required. Some 2.3 million
blocks were used in the pyramids construction. Most were quarried just south of the pyramid,
but the final layer, all white limestone, was quarried 10 km or 6.2 miles South of the pyramid
and transported up the Nile by boat. It is estimated that, in total, the project
took 5.5 million tonnes of limestone, 500,000 tonnes of mortar, and 8,000 tonnes of granite.
While the mystery of how exactly the Egyptians managed to build such structures hasn’t entirely
been unraveled, the best hypothesis of modern archeologists posit that a ramp
system was used to haul the massive stones uphill. And to put things in perspective,
best estimates show the largest of these stones weighed between 25 and 80 tonnes.
Long Standing beliefs dating back to ancient Greece maintained that slave labour was the engine
that built the great Pyramid. Modern discoveries within adjacent worker camps refute this notion,
however, suggesting that, instead, thousands of skilled workers made up the bulk of the
workforce. It is thought that an average workforce of 13,200 people was required and
that this workforce swelled to include around 40,000 people during peak times
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If you search for the laws of harmony, you will find knowledge.