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In Dr David's study, the builders of the pyramids are revealed as simple people with ordinary preoccupations: who worried about their families, grumbled about working conditions - and even planned a strike to improve them.
In Rosalie David's hands, the Egyptian builders of the pyramids are revealed as simple people, leading ordinary lives while they are engaged on building the great tomb for a Pharoah. This is an engrossing detective story, bringing to the general reader a fascinating picture of a special community that lived in Egypt and built one of the pyramids, some four thousand years ago.
Is it a mere coincidence that pyramids are found throughout our globe? Did cultures ranging across vast spaces in geography and time, such as the ancient Egyptians; early Bud-dhists; the Maya, Inca, Toltec, and Aztec civilizations of the Americas; the Celts of the British Isles; and even the Mississippi Indians of pre-Columbus Illinois, simply dream the same dreams and envision the same structures? Robert M. Schoch-one of the world's preeminent geologists in recasting the date of the building of the Great Sphinx-believes otherwise. In this dramatic and meticulously reasoned book, Schoch, like anthropologist Thor Heyerdahl in his classic Kon-Tiki, argues that ancient cultures traveled great distances by sea. Indeed, he believes that primeval sailors traveled from the Eastern continent, primarily Southeast Asia, and spread the idea of pyramids across the globe, particularly to the New World of the Americas where they abounded until the days of the Conquistadors.
A world-renowned archaeologist and the official guardian of Egypt's timeless treasures weaves the latest archaeological data and an enthralling family history into spellbinding narrative.
Going beyond even the expertise of archaeologists and historians, world-class engineer Craig B. Smith explores the planning and engineering behind the incredible Great Pyramid of Giza. How would the ancient Egyptians have developed their building plans, devised work schedules, managed laborers, solved specific design and engineering problems, or even improvised on the job? The answers are here, along with dazzling, one-of-a-kind color photographs and beautiful hand-drawn illustrations of tools, materials, and building techniques the ancient masters used. In his foreword to the book, Egypt's Undersecretary of State for the Giza Monuments Zahi Hawass explains the importance of understanding the Great Pyramid as a straightforward construction project.
The designs of the pyramids of ancient Egypt evolved over time; they had connections with the ancient myths, legends, and with the stars as they were in ancient times. When pyramid dimensions are converted to 'cubits' and 'seked,' revealing relationships emerge that were obscured by using using modern units. All of the energy of building came from manpower, courtesy of the energy consumed in the workers' food and drink. The mathematics of ramp construction, and of the use of ramps to convey stones at the phenomenal rates apparently achieved, challenge pet theories of construction. Most captivating is a study of the culture of the builders, evidenced in models of villages and farms, scenes of food preparation, toys, statues, magic, and tomb art.
What do the pyramids of Egypt really represent? What could have driven so many to so great, and often so dangerous, an effort? Was the motivation religious or practical? Illustrated with more than 300 photographs and drawings, this book presents an original approach to the subject of pyramid building. It reveals the connection between devices that served both a practical need for survival and a spiritual belief in gods and goddesses. It examines Egyptian technologies and techniques from the origins of pyramid development to the step-by-step details of how the ground was leveled, how the site was oriented, and how the stone was raised and placed to meet at a distant point in the sky. Here the author also asks and answers questions virtually ignored for the last century. He discloses, for example, the ancient use of shadows, now denigrated to the ornamental back-yard sundial, but once an important tool for telling the height of an object, geographical directions, the seasons of the year, and the time of day. He also reinterprets the ancient "stretching of the cord" ceremony, which once was thought to have only religious significance but here is shown as the means of establishing the sides of a pyramid.
The Egyptian pyramid texts, which are the basis of this work, were collected and inscribed on the walls of five royal pyramids at Sakkareh between the years 2350 and 2175 B.C. The present work is the first English translation with commentary.
A decade ago, French architect Jean-Pierre Houdin became obsessed by the centuriesold question: How was the Great Pyramid built? How, in a nation of farmers only recently emerged from the Stone Age, could such a massive, complex, and enduring structure have been envisioned and constructed? Laboring at his computer ten hours a day for five years—creating exquisitely detailed 3-D models of the Pyramid's interior—Houdin finally had his answer. It was a startling revelation that cast a fresh light on the minds that conceived one of the wonders of the ancient world. Written by world-renowned Egyptologist Bob Brier in collaboration with Houdin, The Secret of the Great Pyramid moves deftly between the ancient and the modern, chronicling two equally fascinating interrelated histories. It is a remarkable account of the step-by-step planning and assembling of the magnificent edifice—the brainchild of an innovative genius, the Egyptian architect Hemienu, who imagined, organized, and oversaw a monumental construction project that took more than two decades to complete and that employed the services of hundreds of architects, mathematicians, boatbuilders, stonemasons, and metallurgists. Here also is the riveting story of Jean-Pierre Houdin's single-minded search for solutions to the mysteries that have bedeviled Egyptologists for centuries, such as the purpose of the enigmatic Grand Gallery and the Pyramid's crack.
