Pyramids

We landed at about 23:30 and by the time we had got through immigration and collected our luggage it was after midnight before we set off on the 45-minute drive to the hotel.

I knew we were staying at Le Meridian Pyramids in Giza, but I was still surprised at just how close to the pyramids it was. From the front of the hotel, we had a great view of the two larger pyramids.

Checking in took longer than expected (as it seems, almost everything does in Egypt) and eventually it was after 2am before we got to bed. Which meant that an 8:30 start for the tour of the pyramids wasn’t very popular. I know that it’s sensible to go early in the morning – before it gets too hot, but couldn’t it have been on a day when we’d got a decent night’s sleep.

Of course, all thoughts of tiredness vanish when you get close up to the pyramids. I remember that the first time I saw Stonehenge I was slightly disappointed by its size – there were no such problems with the pyramids. They are huge. And very old. And just deeply impressive on many levels.

We had 20 minutes wandering around the base of the Great Pyramid. I took a few pictures and had my first encounter with the (very common) kind of Egyptian who wants baksheesh simply for putting himself in a photo that you are trying to take. Then we got back on the bus and drove past the second pyramid (the one that always looks the biggest in photos because it’s on a slightly higher plain – but actually it’s the second tallest) and on to the third (and smallest). We got to go into this one. That wasn’t actually all the interesting as everything has been removed. All we saw were a few impressive chambers that were reached by practically crawling through some tiny passages.

Then we were off to another higher plateau where we got a good view of all three pyramids and a good deal of hassle from people selling stuff at a small bazaar before going round to the other side of the pyramids to a temple and the Sphinx.

To be honest, the pyramids were the highlight of the trip and by the time we left them, we’d been in Egypt less than twelve hours.

2 comments

  1. Dave, you saw for yourself on site at Giza, the Giza Pyramids are HUGE. The impossible MODERN notion that ramps were used to build them most likely crossed your mind, as it has many others.What follows is an introduction to my own research fully based on ANCIENT historical facts and excavated artifacts of Pharaonic times.I wrote this for an Australian audience and have to mention that Flinders and Petrie were born in England, just I was.Rampless Egyptian Pyramid construction has a definite AUSTRALIAN connection.Captain Matthew Flinders (1774-1814) navigated and mapped Australia’s coastline. Flinders suggested the name AUSTRALIA which was adopted in 1824. His grandson became Professor Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie (1853-1942) who excavated ancient Egyptian artifacts. In 1895 as an employee of the Egypt Exploration Fund (now Society) of London he was excavating artifacts at Deir el-Bahari and found a cache of ancient building equipment buried for preservation in a hewn out rock pit during Pharaonic times.One of the wooden items is stated as being of “unidentified use” and has been named the “Petrie rocker” by Egyptologists.Petrie considered the “rocker” was used to raise Pyramid blocks with a “rocking” motion and in 2006 he has been proven partly correct on the matter of raising Pyramid blocks using “rockers”.The “rocker” is a component of an ancient Egyptian pulley which operates with a mechanical advantage of 2.8 and with CLASS 2 lever principle as a wheelbarrow does. (CLASS 2 lever: Pivot – Load – Effort).The technical term for the “Petrie rocker” is “pinion-pulley lobe quadrant”. Four of these surround a Pyramid block and then the pulley is hoisted causing rotation and positive engagements of pulley lobes with Pyramid steps.Consider the Pyramid as four RACKS of stone teeth on to which the PINION pulley lobes engage and here is the earliest form of RACK & PINION mechanics that we know of.This is the ancient method of Pyramid construction as used on at least four large Pyramids: Sneferu’s RED Pyramid and those at Giza of Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure.This ancient method of construction DOES NOT REQUIRE RAMPS and uses the Pyramid under construction (using all four sides simultaneously) to complete the Pyramid, thus using a Pyramid to build a Pyramid.Petrie died in Jerusalem unknowing that “Petrie rockers” are components of an ancient wooden pulley, unlike any pulley in the modern world, hitherto unknown, and one of his most important excavations.More information at http://www.haitheory.com

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