The Secrets of the Pyramids: Questions to the Official Version
One of the main “arguments” of the Egyptologists, who date the Giza pyramids to the Fourth Dynasty is the statement made by Herodotus, the “founding father of history”. In the official version even the attempts to give this construction in details so far revolve around the information from his works.
Basically, everything just comes down to a small passage in which Herodotus calls the pharaohs of the Fourth Dynasty as the direct builders of the Giza pyramids: Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure; he also provides the Greek variants of their names: Cheops, Khephren and Mykerinos.
Here is what he wrote about the Great Pyramid:
“Down to the time when Rhampsinitos was king, they [the priests] told me there was in Egypt nothing but orderly rule, and Egypt prospered greatly; but after him Cheops became king over them and brought them to every kind of evil: for he shut up all the temples, and having first kept them from sacrifices there, he then bade all the Egyptians work for him. So some were appointed to draw stones from the stone-quarries in the Arabian mountains to the Nile, and others he ordered to receive the stones after they had been carried over the river in boats, and to draw them to those which are called the Libyan mountains; and they worked by a hundred thousand men at a time, for each three months continually.
Of this oppression there passed ten years while the causeway was made by which they drew the stones, which causeway they built, and it is a work not much less, as it appears to me, than the pyramid; for the length of it is five furlongs and the breadth ten fathoms and the height, where it is highest, eight fathoms, and it is made of stone smoothed and with figures carved upon it. For this they said, the ten years were spent, and for the underground he caused to be made as sepulchral chambers for himself in an island, having conducted thither a channel from the Nile. For the making of the pyramid itself there passed a period of twenty years;”
“Cheops moreover came, they said, to such a pitch of wickedness, that being in want of money he caused his own daughter to sit in the stews, and ordered her to obtain from those who came a certain amount of money (how much it was they did not tell me): and she not only obtained the sum appointed by her father, but also she formed a design for herself privately to leave behind her a memorial, and she requested each man who came in to give her one stone upon her building: And of these stones, they told me, the pyramid was built which stands in front of the great pyramid in the middle of the three…”
From the very beginning of the narrative of the Great Pyramid the “leading authority” in history makes a great mistake: the thing is, Rhampsinitos, mentioned above by Herodotus, is the other name of Ramesses II. Thus Herodotus calls Cheops, the pharaoh of the Fourth Dynasty, a successor of the Nineteenth Dynasty, having “missed” by almost fifteen hundred years.
Historians don’t like to think about this mistake of their science founder, today’s student would get a bad mark for it though. The story of Khufu’s (Cheops) daughter as a prostitute is generally considered by historians to be a pure fiction and they modestly call it a “bit of an exaggeration”.
It should be noted that even the ancient authors have been highly sceptical about Herodotus. Diodorus blamed him: “instead of truth, he told his readers incredible stories and myths to flatter their instincts”. Lucian even called Herodotus a “liar”…
Despite such mentions of Herodotus’s contemporaries and all absurdities that his narratives contain, however, there is still a flow of people willing to prove that the Great Pyramid has been built by Cheops with the use of the methods and within the time limits, which have been provided by this ancient Greek historian:
“It is built of stone smoothed and fitted together in the most perfect manner, not one of the stones being less than thirty feet in length. This pyramid was made after the manner of steps which some called “rows” and others “bases”: and when they had first made it thus, they raised the remaining stones with machines made of short pieces of timber, raising them first from the ground to the first stage of the steps, and when the stone got up to this it was placed upon another machine standing on the first stage, and so from this it was drawn to the second upon another machine; for as many as were the courses of the steps, so many machines there were also, or perhaps they transferred one and the same machine, made so as easily to be carried, to each stage successively, in order that they might take up the stones; for let it be told in both ways, according as it is reported.
However that may be the highest parts of it were finished first, and afterwards they proceeded to finish that which came next to them, and lastly they finished the parts of it near the ground and the lowest ranges. On the pyramid it is declared in Egyptian writing how much was spent on radishes and onions and leeks for the workmen, and if I rightly remember that which the interpreter said in reading to me this inscription, a sum of one thousand six hundred talents of silver was spent; and if this is so, how much besides is likely to have been expended upon the iron with which they worked, and upon bread and clothing for the workmen, seeing that they were building the works for the time which has been mentioned and were occupied for no small time besides, as I suppose, in the cutting and bringing of the stones and in working at the excavation under the ground?”
Many, many explorers argue with each other and try with the use of various calculations to prove or disprove that the Great Pyramid has been built in 20 years. Let’s not be drawn to another argument, which is, like all others, based on some hypotheses and pure fiction. After all, any calculation must take into account the real facts. And now we are going to face them.
Firstly, despite the issue of the Great Pyramid construction attracts a lot of explorers for a very long time, there is still no any hint that proves the existence of this inscription, which Herodotus has supposedly seen upon the pyramid. The inscription is carved neither on the remaining blocks of facing, nor on those ones that are still scattered around the plateau, nor those ones that have been carried off around the neighboring areas and used for the construction of the much later structures.
Moreover, there is completely nothing in ancient texts of the Egyptians themselves, which would connect the pharaohs with “their” pyramids. For example, the period of the rule of Sneferu (the construction of the Bent and the Red Pyramid in Dahshur and even the Meidum Pyramid is attributed to him) is mentioned in a number of ancient texts.
A so-called Palermo Stone reports about expeditions that have been undertaken by Sneferu beyond the borders of Egypt — in Lebanon to get cedar wood for the construction of temple doors and large ships and into Sinai to get turquoise and copper. It is also reported that Sneferu has sent a military expedition against Nubia. As a result of this expedition a lot of Nubians have been killed or captured. In the valley of Wadi Maghareh in Sinai there is a cliff with a figure of Sneferu, who smites his foes. The image of Sneferu is found there even in two reliefs, where his full titles are given and he is called the “Conqueror of the barbarians”.
However, there is no record anywhere that says Sneferu had built the pyramids. Apparently the construction of such a (record for the whole ancient world) scale couldn’t go unnoticed by the chroniclers.
Secondly, no remains of the pharaohs have been found in the pyramids. So well-known today Egyptian mummies have been found only in the underground tombs (e.g. in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor on the western bank of the Nile), but not in the pyramids. Even during the public opening of the sealed sarcophagus in the Pyramid of Sekhemkhet (Saqqara) there has been nothing found inside it.
There are records of a mummy that has been found the Pyramid of Menkaure on the Giza Plateau and later lost. But the radiocarbon dating of the preserved specimen from this mummy shows it dates back to the beginning of our era — it is 2,500 years after Menkaure.
Thirdly, construction and stone cutting technologies, that are identified to have been used to build the largest pyramids, absolutely don’t match quite a primitive development level of the Ancient Egypt society that knows only the simplest tools, thus indicating the use of the simplest manual technologies.
And finally, the Egyptians themselves related these pyramids with “gods” — the representatives of a quite highly developed civilization, who had ruled Egypt thousand years before the first pharaohs.
Thus, according to Manetho, first Egypt was ruled — for 12,300 years in total — by the seven great gods:
Ptah ruled for 9,000 years; Ra — 1,000 years; Shu — 700 years; Geb — 500 years; Osiris — 450 years; Set — 350 years; Horus — 300 years… The second dynasty of gods consisted of twelve divine rulers, the first of them was a god Thoth; they ruled for 1,570 years. In total, nineteen gods ruled for 13,870 years. They were followed by the dynasty of thirty demigods, who ruled for 3,650 years; forty nine gods and demigods ruled for 17,520 years all together. Then during 350 years there was no any divine ruler in Egypt; during this period of chaos seven mortals ruled in succession. And only then Menes founded the First Dynasty of pharaohs and built a new capital that was dedicated to the god Ptah.
The Egyptologists accept only the part of the Manetho’s list of Egypt rulers that relates to the dynastic one. And they prefer to ignore the part about god and demigod rulers and attribute it to the fibs and fancies of the Egyptian priests. Meanwhile, ancient Egyptians considered gods to be pretty real, who had really lived on their lands long before the first pharaohs.
Let’s say, for example, the complex on the Giza Plateau was called by the ancient Egyptians as a “house of sir Rostau”. It is one of the titles of Osiris. The Great Pyramid was associated with the name of Isis — Osiris’s sister (and a wife at the same time). The reign of Osiris, according to Manetho, falls in the middle of the 10th millennia BC. That’s at least 6,000-some years before the first pharaohs!
So who is right?
(A. Sklyarov)
