What is the pyramid of Cheops. Secrets of the Egyptian pyramid of Cheops. An example of building craftsmanship and creative genius

11.04.202227.05.2017

During the construction of the most grandiose monument of antiquity, the pyramid of Cheops, more than one year was spent and a huge number of slaves were involved, many of whom died at the construction site. So the ancient Greeks claimed, among them Herodotus, one of the first historians who described this grandiose structure in detail.

But modern scientists do not agree with this opinion and argue: many free Egyptians wanted to work at a construction site - when agricultural work ended, it was a great opportunity to earn extra money (they provided food, clothing and housing here).

For any Egyptian, it was a duty and a matter of honor to participate in the construction of the tomb for their ruler, since each of them hoped that he would also be touched by a piece of Pharaonic immortality: it was believed that the Egyptian ruler had the right not only to life after death, but could also take with him their loved ones (usually they were buried in the tombs adjacent to the pyramid).

True, ordinary people were not destined to get into the afterlife - the only exception was slaves and servants, who were buried with the ruler. But everyone had the right to hope - and therefore, when the housework was over, for many years the Egyptians rushed to Cairo, to the rocky plateau.

The Pyramid of Cheops (or, as it was also called, Khufu) is located near Cairo, on the Giza plateau, on the left side of the Nile, and is the largest of the tombs located there. This tomb is the highest pyramid on our planet, it was built for more than one year, it has a non-standard layout. Quite an interesting fact is that during the autopsy, the body of the ruler was not found in it.

For many years now, it has been exciting the minds of researchers and admirers of Egyptian culture, who have been asking themselves the question: were ancient people able to build such a structure and was the pyramid the work of representatives of extraterrestrial civilizations who built it with only one clear purpose?

The fact that this stunning tomb almost immediately entered the list of the ancient seven wonders of the world does not surprise anyone: the dimensions of the Cheops pyramid are amazing, and this, despite the fact that over the past millennia it has become smaller, and scientists cannot determine the exact proportions of the Cheops pyramid in condition, since its edges and surfaces were dismantled for their needs by more than one generation of Egyptians:

The height of the pyramid is about 138 m (it is interesting that in the year when it was built, it was eleven meters higher);
The foundation has a square shape, the length of each side is about 230 meters;
The area of the foundation is about 5.4 hectares (thus, five of the largest cathedrals of our planet will fit on it);
The length of the foundation along the perimeter is 922 m.

Pyramid building

If earlier scientists believed that the construction of the pyramid of Cheops took the Egyptians about twenty years, in our time, Egyptologists, having studied the records of the priests in more detail, and taking into account the parameters of the pyramid, as well as the fact that Cheops ruled for about fifty years, refuted this fact and came to the conclusion that it was built for at least thirty, and maybe even forty years.

Despite the fact that the exact date of construction of this grandiose tomb is unknown, it is believed that it was built on the orders of Pharaoh Cheops, who presumably ruled from 2589 to 2566 BC. e., and his nephew and vizier Hemion, who used the latest technology of their time, over the solution of which many learned minds have been struggling for many centuries. He approached the matter with care and meticulousness.

Preparation for construction

More than 4 thousand workers were involved in the preliminary work, which took about ten years. It was necessary to find a place for construction, the soil of which would be strong enough to support a structure of this magnitude - so the decision was made to stop at a rocky site near Cairo.

To level the site, the Egyptians built a square-shaped waterproof rampart using stones and sand. In the shaft, they cut channels that intersect at right angles, and the construction site began to resemble a large chessboard.

After that, water was launched into the trenches, with the help of which the builders determined the height of the water level and made the necessary notches on the side walls of the channels, after which the water was lowered. All the stones that were above the water level were cut down by the workers, after which the trenches were laid with stones, thus obtaining the foundation of the tomb.

Stone work

The building material for the tomb was mined in a quarry located on the other side of the Nile. To get a block of the required size, the stone was cut down from the rock and hewn to the desired size - from 0.8 to 1.5 m. Although on average one stone block weighed about 2.5 tons, the Egyptians also made heavier specimens, for example, the heaviest a block that was installed above the entrance to the "Pharaoh's Room" weighed 35 tons.

With the help of thick ropes and levers, the builders fixed the block on wooden runners and dragged it along the log deck to the Nile, loaded it onto a boat and transported it across the river. And then they were again dragged along the logs to the construction site, after which the most difficult stage began: a huge block had to be pulled to the topmost platform of the tomb. How exactly they did it and what technologies were used is one of the mysteries of the Cheops pyramid.

One of the versions proposed by scientists implies the following option. Along an angled brick rise 20 m wide, a block lying on skids was pulled up with the help of ropes and levers, where it was laid in a place clearly intended for it. The higher the pyramid of Cheops became, the longer and steeper the ascent turned out to be, and the upper platform decreased - therefore it was more and more difficult and dangerous to lift the blocks.

The workers had the hardest time when it was necessary to install the “pyramidon” - the uppermost block 9 meters high (which has not survived to this day). Since it was necessary to lift a huge block almost vertically, the work turned out to be deadly, and at this stage of the work many people died. As a result, the pyramid of Cheops, after the completion of construction, had more than 200 steps leading up and looked like a huge stepped mountain.

In total, it took the ancient Egyptians at least twenty years to build the body of the pyramid. Work on the "box" was not yet completed - they still had to be laid with stones and made so that the outer parts of the blocks became more or less smooth. And at the final stage, the Egyptians completely lined the pyramid from the outside with white limestone slabs polished to a shine - and it sparkled in the sun like a huge shiny crystal.

The plates on the pyramid have not survived to this day: the inhabitants of Cairo, after the Arabs sacked their capital (1168), used them in the construction of new houses and temples (some of them can be seen on mosques today).

Drawings on the pyramid

An interesting fact: the outer side of the pyramid body is covered with curvilinear grooves of various sizes. If you look at them from a certain angle, you can see the image of a man 150 m high (perhaps a portrait of one of the ancient gods). This drawing is not alone: on the northern wall of the tomb, one can also distinguish a man and a woman with their heads bowed to each other.

Scientists claim that these Egyptians caused the grooves several years before they finished building the pyramid body and installed the top stone. True, the question remains open: why did they do this, because the plates with which the pyramid was subsequently decorated hid these portraits.

What did the Great Pyramid look like from the inside?

A detailed study of the Cheops pyramid showed that, contrary to popular belief, there are practically no inscriptions or any other decorations inside the tomb, except for a small portrait in the corridor leading to the Queen's Room.

The entrance to the tomb is located on the north side at a height exceeding fifteen meters. After the burial, it was closed with a granite plug, so tourists get inside through a gap that is ten meters lower - it was cut down by the caliph of Baghdad Abdullah al-Mamun (820 AD) - the man who first entered the tomb in order to rob it. The attempt failed, because apart from a thick layer of dust, he found nothing here.

The Pyramid of Cheops is the only pyramid where there are corridors both leading down and up. The main corridor first goes down, then branches into two tunnels - one leads down to the unfinished burial chamber, the second goes up, first to the Great Gallery, from which you can get to the Queen's Room and the main tomb.

From the central entrance, through a tunnel leading down (its length is 105 meters), one can get into a burial pit located below ground level, the height of which is 14 m, the width is 8.1 m, the height is 3.5 m. Inside the room, near on the southern wall, Egyptologists discovered a well, the depth of which is about three meters (a narrow tunnel leading to a dead end stretches south from it).

Researchers believe that this room was originally intended for the Cheops crypt, but then the pharaoh changed his mind and decided to build a tomb for himself higher, so this room remained unfinished.

You can also get to the unfinished funeral room from the Great Gallery - at its very entrance begins a narrow, almost vertical shaft 60 meters high. It is interesting that in the middle of this tunnel there is a small grotto (most likely of natural origin, since it is located at the point of contact between the masonry of the pyramid and a small hump of the lime board), which could accommodate several people.

According to one hypothesis, the architects took this grotto into account when designing the pyramid and originally intended it to evacuate builders or priests who were finishing the ceremony of “sealing” the central passage leading to the tomb of the pharaoh.

The Pyramid of Cheops has another mysterious room with an incomprehensible purpose - the "Queen's Chamber" (like the lowest room, this room is not completed, as evidenced by the floor on which they began to lay tiles, but did not finish the work until the end).

This room can be reached by first going down the corridor down 18 meters from the main entrance, and then climbing up the long tunnel (40 m). This room is the smallest of all, located in the very center of the pyramid, has an almost square shape (5.73 x 5.23 m, height - 6.22 m), and a niche is built into one of its walls.

Despite the fact that the second burial pit is called the "queen's room", the name is erroneous, since the wives of Egyptian rulers were always buried in separate small pyramids (there are three such tombs near the tomb of the pharaoh).

Previously, it was not easy to get into the “Queen’s Chamber”, because at the very beginning of the corridor that led to the Great Gallery, three granite blocks were installed, disguised with limestone - therefore, it was previously believed that this room did not exist. Al-Mamunu guessed about its presence and, being unable to remove the blocks, he hollowed out a passage in softer limestone (this move is still being exploited).

At what stage of construction the plugs were installed is not exactly known, and therefore there are several hypotheses. According to one of them, they were mounted even before the funeral, during construction work. Another claims that they were not there at all before, and they appeared here after the earthquake, rolling down from the Great Gallery, where they were installed after the funeral of the ruler.

Another secret of the Cheops pyramid is that exactly where the plugs are located, there are not two, as in other pyramids, but three tunnels - the third one is a vertical hole (although no one knows where it leads, since granite blocks with no one has moved yet).

You can get to the tomb of the pharaoh through the Grand Gallery, which is almost 50 meters long. It is a continuation of the corridor going up from the main entrance. Its height is 8.5 meters, while the walls at the top narrow slightly. In front of the tomb of the Egyptian ruler there is an "antechamber" - the so-called Prechamber.

From the Pre-Chamber, a manhole leads to the "Pharaoh's Chamber", built from monolithic polished granite blocks, in which there is an empty sarcophagus made from a red piece of Aswan granite. (an interesting fact: scientists have not yet found any traces and evidence that there was a burial here).

Apparently, the sarcophagus was brought here even before the start of construction, since its dimensions did not allow it to be placed here after the completion of construction work. The tomb is 10.5 m long, 5.4 m wide and 5.8 m high.

The biggest mystery of the Cheops pyramid (as well as its feature) is its 20 cm wide shafts, which scientists called ventilation ducts. They start inside the two upper rooms, first running horizontally and then sloping outward.

While these channels in the pharaoh's room are through, in the "Queen's Chambers" they begin only at a distance of 13 cm from the wall and do not reach the surface at the same distance (at the same time, they are closed at the top with stones with copper handles, the so-called "Ganterbrink doors") .

Despite the fact that some researchers suggest that these were ventilation ducts (for example, they were designed to prevent workers from suffocating during work due to lack of oxygen), most Egyptologists still tend to think that these narrow channels had religious significance and were able to prove that they were built, given the location of astronomical bodies. The presence of channels may well be associated with the Egyptians' belief about the gods and the souls of the dead who live in the starry sky.

At the foot of the Great Pyramid there are several underground structures - in one of them, archaeologists (1954) found the oldest ship on our planet: a wooden boat made of cedar disassembled into 1224 parts, the total length of which in the assembled state was 43.6 meters (apparently , it was on it that the pharaoh was supposed to go to the Kingdom of the Dead).

Is this tomb Cheops

In the past few years, Egyptologists have increasingly questioned the fact that this pyramid was actually intended for Cheops. This is evidenced by the fact that there are absolutely no decorations in the burial chamber.

The pharaoh's mummy was not found in the tomb, and the builders did not complete the sarcophagus itself, in which it was supposed to be,: it was hewn rather roughly, and the lid was completely missing. These Interesting Facts make it possible for fans of the theories of the alien origin of this grandiose structure to claim that representatives of extraterrestrial civilizations built the pyramid, using technologies unknown to science and with an incomprehensible purpose for us.

Media files at Wikimedia Commons

Pyramid age

The architect of the Great Pyramid is Hemiun, the vizier and nephew of Cheops. He also bore the title of "Manager of all construction sites of the pharaoh." It is assumed that the construction, which lasted twenty years (the reign of Cheops), ended around 2540 BC. e. .

The existing methods of dating the time of the beginning of the construction of the pyramid are divided into historical, astronomical and radiocarbon. In Egypt, officially established (2009) and celebrated the date of the start of the construction of the Cheops pyramid - August 23, 2560 BC. e. This date was obtained using the astronomical method of Kate Spence (University of Cambridge). However, this method and the dates derived from it have been criticized by many Egyptologists. Dates according to other dating methods: 2720 BC. e. (Stephen Hack, University of Nebraska), 2577 B.C. e. (Juan Antonio Belmonte, University of Astrophysics in Canaris) and 2708 BC. e. (Pollux, Bauman University). The radiocarbon method gives a range from 2680 BC. e. until 2850 BC e. Therefore, there is no serious confirmation of the established “birthday” of the pyramid, since Egyptologists cannot agree on exactly what year the construction began.

The first mention of the pyramid

The complete absence of a mention of the pyramid in Egyptian papyri remains a mystery. The first descriptions are found in the Greek historian Herodotus (5th century BC) and in ancient Arabic legends [ ] . Herodotus reported (at least 2 millennia after the appearance of the Great Pyramid) that it was erected under a despot pharaoh named Cheops (Greek. Koufou), who ruled for 50 years, that 100 thousand people were employed in the construction. for twenty years, and that the pyramid is in honor of Cheops, but not his grave. The real grave is a burial near the pyramid. Herodotus gave erroneous information about the size of the pyramid, and also mentioned the middle pyramid of the Giza plateau, that it was erected by the daughter of Cheops, who sold herself, and that each building stone corresponded to the man to whom she was given. According to Herodotus, if "to raise a stone, a long winding path to the grave opened," without specifying what kind of pyramid in question; however, the pyramids of the Giza plateau did not have "winding" paths to the tomb at the time of their visit by Herodotus; on the contrary, the Descending passage of the BP of Cheops is distinguished by careful straightness. And other premises in the BP at that time were not known.

Appearance

The surviving fragments of the facing of the pyramid and the remains of the pavement that surrounded the building

The pyramid is called "Akhet-Khufu" - "Horizon of Khufu" (or more precisely "Related to the sky - (this is) Khufu"). Consists of blocks of limestone and granite. It was built on a natural limestone hill. After the pyramid has lost several layers of lining, this hill is partially visible on the eastern, northern and southern sides of the pyramid. Despite the fact that the Pyramid of Cheops is the tallest and most voluminous of all Egyptian pyramids, Pharaoh Sneferu built the pyramids in Meidum and Dahshur (the Bent Pyramid and the Pink Pyramid), the total mass of which is estimated at 8.4 million tons.

Initially, the pyramid was lined with white limestone, harder than the main blocks. The top of the pyramid was crowned with a gilded stone - a pyramidion (ancient Egyptian - "Benben"). The cladding shone in the sun with a peach color, as if "a shining miracle, to which the sun god Ra himself seemed to give all his rays." In 1168, the Arabs sacked and burned Cairo. The inhabitants of Cairo removed the lining from the pyramid in order to build new houses.

Statistical data

Pyramid of Cheops in the 19th century

Map of the necropolis near the pyramid of Cheops

Height (today): ≈ 136.5 m
Sidewall Angle (Now): 51° 50"
Side rib length (original): 230.33 m (calculated) or about 440 royal cubits
Side rib length (now): about 225 m
The length of the sides of the base of the pyramid: south - 230.454 m; north - 230.253 m; west - 230.357 m; east - 230.394 m
Base area (originally): ≈ 53,000 m2 (5.3 ha)
The area of the side surface of the pyramid (initially): ≈ 85,500 m 2
Base perimeter: 922 meters
The total volume of the pyramid without deducting the cavities inside the pyramid (initially): ≈ 2.58 million m 3
The total volume of the pyramid minus all known cavities (initially): 2.50 million m3
Average volume of stone blocks: 1.147 m3
Average weight of stone blocks: 2.5 tons
The heaviest stone block: about 35 tons - is located above the entrance to the "King's Chamber".
The number of blocks of the average volume does not exceed 1.65 million (2.50 million m³ - 0.6 million m³ of rocky base inside the pyramid = 1.9 million m 3 / 1.147 m 3 = 1.65 million blocks of the specified volume can physically fit in the pyramid , without taking into account the volume of the solution in the interblock seams); reference to a 20-year construction period * 300 working days per year * 10 working hours per day * 60 minutes per hour results in a paving (and delivery to the construction site) speed of about a block of two minutes.
According to estimates, the total weight of the pyramid is about 4 million tons (1.65 million blocks x 2.5 tons)
The base of the pyramid rests on a natural rocky elevation with a height in the center of about 12-14 m and, according to the latest data, occupies at least 23% of the original volume of the pyramid
The number of layers (tiers) of stone blocks - 210 (at the time of construction). Now the layers are 203.

Side concavity

The concavity of the sides of the pyramid of Cheops

When the sun moves around the pyramid, you can notice the unevenness - the concavity of the central part of the walls. Perhaps the reason for this is erosion or damage resulting from the fall of the stone cladding. It is also possible that this was deliberately done during construction. As Vito Maragioglio and Celeste Rinaldi note, the pyramid of Menkaure no longer has such a concavity of the sides. I.E.S. Edwards explains this feature by the fact that the central part of each side was simply pressed inward from a large mass of stone blocks over time. [ ]

As in the 18th century, when this phenomenon was discovered, today there is still no satisfactory explanation for this feature of architecture.

Observation of the concavity of the sides at the end of the 19th century, Description of Egypt

Tilt angle

It is not possible to accurately determine the original parameters of the pyramid, since its edges and surfaces are currently mostly dismantled and destroyed. This makes it difficult to calculate the exact angle of inclination. In addition, its symmetry itself is not perfect, so deviations in numbers are observed with different measurements.

Geometric study of ventilation tunnels

The study of the geometry of the Great Pyramid does not give an unambiguous answer to the question of the original proportions of this structure. It is assumed that the Egyptians had an idea about the Golden Ratio and the number pi, which were reflected in the proportions of the pyramid: for example, the ratio of height to base is 14/22 (height \u003d 280 cubits, and base \u003d 440 cubits, 280/440 \u003d 14 / 22). For the first time in world history, these values were used in the construction of the pyramid at Meidum. However, for pyramids of later eras, these proportions were not used anywhere else, as, for example, some have height-to-base ratios, such as 6/5 (Pink Pyramid), 4/3 (Chefren's Pyramid) or 7/5 (Broken Pyramid).

Some of the theories consider the pyramid to be an astronomical observatory. It is alleged that the corridors of the pyramid point exactly towards the "polar star" of that time - Tuban, the ventilation corridors of the south side - to the star Sirius, and from the north side - to the star Alnitak.

Internal structure

Cross section of the pyramid of Cheops:

The entrance to the pyramid is at a height of 15.63 meters on the north side. The entrance is formed by stone slabs laid in the form of an arch, but this is a structure that was inside the pyramid - the true entrance has not been preserved. The true entrance to the pyramid was most likely closed with a stone plug. A description of such a cork can be found in Strabo, and its appearance can also be imagined based on the surviving slab that closed the upper entrance to the Bent Pyramid of Snefru, the father of Cheops. Today, tourists enter the pyramid through a 17-meter gap, which was made in 820 by the Baghdad caliph Abdullah al-Mamun 10 meters lower. He hoped to find the innumerable treasures of the pharaoh there, but found there only a layer of dust half a cubit thick.

Inside the pyramid of Cheops are three burial chambers located one above the other.

Funeral "pit"

Underground Chamber Maps

A descending corridor 105 m long, inclined at 26° 26’46, leads to a horizontal corridor 8.9 m long leading to the chamber 5 . Located below ground level in a rocky limestone base, it was left unfinished. The dimensions of the chamber are 14 × 8.1 m, it is elongated from east to west. The height reaches 3.5 m, the ceiling has a large crack. At the southern wall of the chamber there is a well about 3 m deep, from which a narrow manhole (0.7 × 0.7 m in cross section) stretches southward for 16 m, ending in a dead end. Engineers John Shae Perring and Richard William Howard Vyse cleared the floor of the chamber in the early 19th century and dug a 11.6 m deep well in which they hoped to find a hidden burial chamber. They were based on the evidence of Herodotus, who claimed that the body of Cheops was on an island surrounded by a channel in a hidden underground chamber. Their excavations turned up nothing. Later research showed that the chamber was left unfinished, and it was decided to arrange the burial chambers in the center of the pyramid itself.

Ascending Corridor and Queen's Chambers

From the first third of the descending passage (after 18 m from the main entrance) upwards at the same angle of 26.5 ° there is an ascending passage to the south ( 6 ) about 40 m long, ending at the bottom of the Great Gallery ( 9 ).

At its beginning, the ascending passage contains 3 large cubic granite “plugs”, which, from the outside, from the descending passage, were masked by a block of limestone that fell out during the work of al-Mamun. Thus, for the first 3000 years from the construction of the pyramid (including during the era of its active visits in Antiquity), it was believed that there were no other rooms in the Great Pyramid except for the descending passage and the underground chamber. Al-Ma'mun failed to break through these plugs and simply hollowed out a bypass in the softer limestone to the right of them. This passage is still in use today. There are two main theories about plugs, one of them is that the ascending passage has plugs installed at the beginning of construction and thus this passage was sealed by them from the very beginning. The second asserts that the present narrowing of the walls was caused by an earthquake, and the plugs were previously located within the Great Gallery and were used to seal the passage only after the burial of the pharaoh.

An important mystery of this section of the ascending passage is that in the place where the traffic jams are now located, in a full-size, albeit shortened model of the pyramid passages - the so-called test corridors north of the Great Pyramid - there is a junction of not two, but three corridors at once, the third of which is the vertical tunnel. Since no one has been able to move the traffic jams so far, the question of whether there is a vertical hole above them remains open.

In the middle of the ascending passage, the construction of the walls has a peculiarity: the so-called “frame stones” are installed in three places - that is, the passage, square along the entire length, pierces through three monoliths. The purpose of these stones is unknown. In the area of the frame stones, the passage walls have several small niches.

A horizontal corridor 35 m long and 1.75 m high leads to the second burial chamber from the lower part of the Great Gallery in a southerly direction. . Behind the western wall of the passage there are cavities filled with sand. The second chamber is traditionally called the "Queen's Chamber", although according to the rite, the wives of the pharaohs were buried in separate small pyramids. The "Queen's Chamber", lined with limestone, has 5.74 meters from east to west and 5.23 meters from north to south; its maximum height is 6.22 meters. There is a high niche in the eastern wall of the chamber.

Blueprint of the Queen's Chamber ( 7 )

Niche in the wall of the Queen's Chamber

Corridor at the entrance to the Queen's Hall (1910)

Entrance to the Queen's Chamber (1910)

Niche in the Queen's Chamber (1910)

Ventilation duct in the queen's chamber (1910)

Corridor to ascending tunnel ( 12 )

Granite Plug (1910)

Corridor to the ascending tunnel (left - closing blocks)

Grotto, Grand Gallery and Pharaoh's Chambers

Another branch from the lower part of the Great Gallery is a narrow almost vertical shaft, about 60 m high, leading to the lower part of the descending passage. There is an assumption that it was intended for the evacuation of workers or priests who were completing the "sealing" of the main passage to the "King's Chamber". Approximately in the middle of it there is a small, most likely, natural extension - the "Grotto" (Grotto) of irregular shape, in which several people could fit from strength. Grotto ( 12 ) is located at the "junction" of the masonry of the pyramid and a small, about 9 meters high, hill on a limestone plateau lying at the base of the Great Pyramid. The walls of the Grotto are partially reinforced with ancient masonry, and since some of its stones are too large, there is an assumption that the Grotto existed on the Giza plateau as an independent structure long before the construction of the pyramids, and the evacuation shaft itself was built taking into account the location of the Grotto. However, taking into account the fact that the shaft was actually hollowed out in the already laid masonry, and not laid out, as evidenced by its irregular circular section, the question arises of how the builders managed to accurately reach the Grotto.

The large gallery continues the ascending passage. Its height is 8.53 m, it is rectangular in cross section, with walls slightly tapering upwards (the so-called “false vault”), a high inclined tunnel 46.6 m long. 1 meter wide and 60 cm deep, and on both side protrusions there are 27 pairs of recesses of unclear purpose. The deepening ends with the so-called. The “Big Step” is a high horizontal ledge, a platform of 1 × 2 meters at the end of the Great Gallery, directly in front of the entrance to the “entrance hall” - the Anterior Chamber. The site has a pair of recesses similar to the ramp recesses, recesses at the corners near the wall (the 28th and last pair of BG recesses). Through the "entrance hall" the manhole leads to the burial chamber "King's Chamber" lined with black granite, where an empty granite sarcophagus is placed. The lid of the sarcophagus is missing. Ventilation shafts have mouths in the "King's Chamber" on the southern and northern walls at a height of about a meter from the floor level. The mouth of the southern ventilation shaft is badly damaged, the northern one appears undamaged. The floor, ceiling, walls of the chamber do not have any decorations or holes or fasteners of anything related to the time of the construction of the pyramid. The ceiling slabs have all burst along the southern wall and do not fall into the room only due to the pressure of the overlying blocks by the weight.

Above the "King's Chamber" there are five discharge cavities discovered in the 19th century with a total height of 17 m, between which lie monolithic granite slabs with a thickness of about 2 m, and above - a gable ceiling of limestone. It is believed that their purpose is to distribute the weight of the overlying layers of the pyramid (about a million tons) in order to protect the "King's Chamber" from pressure. Graffiti has been found in these voids, probably left by workers.

Interior of the Grotto (1910)

Grotto drawing (1910)

Drawing connecting the Grotto with the Grand Gallery (1910)

Tunnel Entrance (1910)

View of the Grand Gallery from the entrance to the premises

Grand Gallery

Grand Gallery (1910)

Drawing of the Pharaoh's Chamber

pharaoh's chamber

Pharaoh's Chamber (1910)

Interior of the vestibule in front of the king's chamber (1910)

Channel "ventilation" at the south wall of the king's room (1910)

ventilation ducts

So-called "ventilation" channels 20-25 cm wide depart from the "King's Chamber" and the "Queen's Chamber" in the northern and south directions (first horizontally, then obliquely upwards). At the same time, the channels of the "King's Chamber", known since the 17th century, through, they are open both from below and from above (on the faces of the pyramid), while the lower ends of the channels of the "Queen's Chamber" are separated from the surface of the wall by about 13 cm, they were discovered by tapping in 1872. The upper ends of the shafts of the "Queen's Chamber" do not reach the surface of about 12 meters, and are closed with stone "Gantenbrink Doors", each with two copper handles. Copper handles were sealed with plaster seals (not preserved, but traces remained). In the southern ventilation shaft, the “door” was discovered in 1993 using the Upuaut II remote-controlled robot; the bend of the northern mine did not allow then to find in it the same “door” by this robot. In 2002, using a new modification of the robot, a hole was drilled in the southern "door", but a small cavity 18 centimeters long and another stone "door" were found behind it. What lies next is still unknown. This robot confirmed the presence of a similar "door" at the end of the northern channel, but they did not drill it. A new robot in 2010 was able to insert a serpentine television camera through a drilled hole in the southern “door” and found that the copper “handles” on the other side of the “door” were designed in the form of neat hinges, and individual badges were applied in red ocher on the floor of the “ventilation” shaft. Currently, the most common version is that the purpose of the "ventilation" ducts was of a religious nature and is associated with the Egyptians' ideas about the afterlife journey of the soul. And the “door” at the end of the channel is nothing more than a door to the afterlife. That is why it does not come to the surface of the pyramid. At the same time, the shafts of the upper burial chamber have through exits to the outside and inside of the room; it is not clear if this is due to some change in ritual; since the outer few meters of the facing of the pyramid have been destroyed, it is not clear whether the "Gantenbrink Doors" were in the upper shafts. (could be in the place where the mine was not preserved). In the southern upper mine there is a so-called. "Cheops niches" - strange expansions and grooves, which, perhaps, contained a "door". In the northern upper there are no "niches" at all.

Research History

Recent Research

There are those dedicated to the pyramids

, vizier and nephew of Cheops. He also bore the title of "Manager of all construction sites of the pharaoh." For more than three thousand years (until the construction of the cathedral in Lincoln, England, around 1300), the pyramid was the tallest building on Earth.

It is assumed that the construction, which lasted twenty years, ended around 2540 BC. e. The existing methods of dating the time of the beginning of the construction of the pyramid are divided into historical, astronomical and radiocarbon. In Egypt, the date of the start of the construction of the Cheops pyramid is officially established and celebrated - August 23, 2560 BC. e. This date was obtained using the astronomical method of Kate Spence (University of Cambridge). However, this date should not be considered a true historical event, since her method and the dates obtained with its help have been criticized by many Egyptologists. The existing three other dating methods give different dates - Stephen Hack (University of Nebraska) 2720 BC. e., Juana Antonio Belmonte (University of Astrophysics in Canaris) 2577 BC. e. and Pollux (Baumann University) 2708 BC. e. The radiocarbon method gives a range from 2680 BC. e. until 2850 BC e. Therefore, there is no serious confirmation of the established “birthday” of the pyramid, since Egyptologists cannot agree on exactly what year the construction began.

Statistical data

Altitude (today): ≈ 138.75 m
Sidewall Angle (Now): 51° 50"
Side rib length (original): 230.33 m (calculated) or about 440 royal cubits
Side rib length (now): about 225 m
The length of the sides of the base of the pyramid: south - 230.454 m; north - 230.253 m; west - 230.357 m; east - 230.394 m
Base area (originally): ≈ 53,000 m² (5.3 ha)
Side surface area of the pyramid (originally): ≈ 85,500 m²
Base perimeter: 922 m
The total volume of the pyramid without deducting the cavities inside the pyramid (initially): ≈ 2.58 million m³
Total volume of the pyramid minus all known cavities (originally): 2.50 million m³
Average volume of stone blocks: 1.147 m³
Average weight of stone blocks: 2.5 t
The heaviest stone block: about 35 tons - is located above the entrance to the "King's Chamber".
The number of blocks of the average volume does not exceed 1.65 million (2.50 million m³ - 0.6 million m³ of rock base inside the pyramid = 1.9 million m³ / 1.147 m³ = 1.65 million blocks of the specified volume can physically fit in the pyramid, without taking into account the volume of the solution in the interblock joints); reference to a 20-year construction period * 300 working days per year * 10 working hours per day * 60 minutes per hour results in a paving (and delivery to the construction site) speed of about a block of two minutes.
According to estimates, the total weight of the pyramid is about 4 million tons (1.65 million blocks x 2.5 tons)
The base of the pyramid rests on a natural rocky elevation with a height in the center of about 12-14 m and, according to the latest data, occupies at least 23% of the original volume of the pyramid

About the pyramid

The pyramid is called "Akhet-Khufu" - "Horizon of Khufu" (or more precisely "Related to the sky - (this is) Khufu"). Consists of blocks of limestone and granite. It was built on a natural limestone hill. After the pyramid has lost several layers of lining, this hill is partially visible on the eastern, northern and southern sides of the pyramid. Despite the fact that the Pyramid of Cheops is the tallest and most voluminous of all Egyptian pyramids, Pharaoh Sneferu built the pyramids in Meidum and Dahshut (the Broken Pyramid and the Pink Pyramid), the total mass of which is estimated at 8.4 million tons.

pyramid structure

Inside the pyramid of Cheops there are three burial chambers located one above the other.

Funeral "pit"

Some photographs taken in 1910

Interior

Ascending Corridor and Queen's Chambers

At its beginning, the ascending passage contains 3 large cubic granite “plugs”, which, from the outside, from the descending passage, were masked by a block of limestone that fell out during the work of al-Mamun. Thus, for the previous approximately 3 thousand years, it was believed that there were no other rooms in the Great Pyramid, except for the descending passage and the underground chamber. Al-Ma'mun failed to break through these plugs and simply hollowed out a bypass in the softer limestone to the right of them. This passage is still in use today. There are two main theories about plugs, one of them is that the ascending passage has plugs installed at the beginning of construction and thus this passage was sealed by them from the very beginning. The second asserts that the present narrowing of the walls was caused by an earthquake, and the plugs were previously located within the Great Gallery and were used to seal the passage only after the burial of the pharaoh.

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Blueprint of the Queen's Chamber ( 7 )

Niche in the wall of the Queen's Chamber

Corridor at the entrance to the Queen's Hall (1910)

Entrance to the Queen's Chamber (1910)

Niche in the Queen's Chamber (1910)

Ventilation duct in the queen's chamber (1910)

Corridor to ascending tunnel ( 12 )

Granite Plug (1910)

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Corridor to the ascending tunnel (left - closing blocks)

Grotto, Grand Gallery and Pharaoh's Chambers

The large gallery continues the ascending passage. Its height is 8.53 m, it is rectangular in cross section, with walls slightly tapering upwards (the so-called “false vault”), a high inclined tunnel 46.6 m long. 1 meter wide and 60 cm deep, and on both side protrusions there are 27 pairs of recesses of unclear purpose. The deepening ends with the so-called. The “Big Step” is a high horizontal ledge, a platform of 1 × 2 meters at the end of the Great Gallery, directly in front of the entrance to the “entrance hall” - the Anterior Chamber. The site has a pair of recesses similar to the ramp recesses, recesses at the corners near the wall (the 28th and last pair of BG recesses). Through the "entrance hall" the manhole leads to the burial chamber "King's Chamber" lined with black granite, where an empty granite sarcophagus is placed. The lid of the sarcophagus is missing. Ventilation shafts have mouths in the "Chamber of the King" on the southern and northern walls at a height of about a meter from the floor level. The mouth of the southern ventilation shaft is badly damaged, the northern one appears undamaged. The floor, ceiling, walls of the chamber do not have any decorations or holes or fasteners of anything related to the time of the construction of the pyramid. The ceiling slabs have all burst along the southern wall and do not fall into the room only due to the pressure of the overlying blocks by the weight.

Interior of the Grotto (1910)

Grotto drawing (1910)

Drawing connecting the Grotto with the Grand Gallery (1910)

Tunnel Entrance (1910)

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View of the Grand Gallery from the entrance to the premises

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Grand Gallery

Grand Gallery (1910)

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"Big Step"

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Drawing of the Pharaoh's Chamber

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pharaoh's chamber

Pharaoh's Chamber (1910)

Interior of the vestibule in front of the king's chamber (1910)

Channel "ventilation" at the south wall of the king's room (1910)

ventilation ducts

So-called "ventilation" channels 20-25 cm wide depart from the "King's Chamber" and the "Queen's Chamber" in the northern and south directions (first horizontally, then obliquely upwards). At the same time, the channels of the "King's Chamber", known since the 17th century, through, they are open both from below and from above (on the faces of the pyramid), while the lower ends of the channels of the "Queen's Chamber" are separated from the surface of the wall by about 13 cm, they were discovered by tapping in 1872. The upper ends of these channels do not reach the surface of about 12 meters. The upper ends of the channels of the "Queen's Chamber" are closed with stone "Gantenbrink Doors", each with two copper handles. Copper handles were sealed with plaster seals (not preserved, but traces remained). In the southern ventilation shaft, a "door" was discovered in 1993 using a remote-controlled robot "Upuaut II"; the bend of the northern shaft did not allow this robot to detect the same "door" in it. In 2002, using a new modification of the robot, a hole was drilled in the southern "door", but a small cavity 18 centimeters long and another stone "door" were found behind it. What lies next is still unknown. This robot confirmed the presence of a similar "door" at the end of the northern channel, but they did not drill it. A new robot in 2010 was able to insert a serpentine television camera through a drilled hole in the southern “door” and found that the copper “handles” on the other side of the “door” were designed in the form of neat hinges, and individual badges were applied in red ocher on the floor of the “ventilation” shaft. Currently, the most common version is that the purpose of the "ventilation" ducts was of a religious nature and is associated with the Egyptians' ideas about the afterlife journey of the soul. And the “door” at the end of the channel is nothing more than a door to the afterlife. That is why it does not come to the surface of the pyramid.

Tilt angle

The study of the geometry of the Great Pyramid does not give an unambiguous answer to the question of the original proportions of this structure. It is assumed that the Egyptians had an idea of \u200b\u200b" Golden Section"And the number pi, which were reflected in the proportions of the pyramid: for example, the ratio of height to half the perimeter of the base is 14/22 (height \u003d 280 cubits, and base \u003d 220 cubits, half-perimeter of the base \u003d 2 ×220 cubits; 280/440 = 14/22). For the first time in world history, these values were used in the construction of the pyramid at Meidum. However, for pyramids of later eras, these proportions were not used anywhere else, as, for example, some have height-to-base ratios, such as 6/5 (Pink Pyramid), 4/3 (Chefren's Pyramid) or 7/5 (Broken Pyramid).

Side concavity

As in the 18th century, when this phenomenon was discovered, today there is still no satisfactory explanation for this feature of architecture.

pharaoh boats

Near the pyramids, seven pits were found with real ancient Egyptian boats disassembled into parts. The first of these vessels, called "Solar Boats" or "Solar Boats", was discovered in 1954 by Egyptian architect Kamal el-Mallah and archaeologist Zaki Nur. The boat was made of cedar and did not have a single trace of nails for attaching elements. The boat consisted of 1224 parts, they were assembled by the restorer Ahmed Youssef Mustafa only in 1968.

Boat dimensions: length - 43.3 m, width - 5.6 m, and draft - 1.50 m.

On the south side of the pyramid of Cheops, a museum of this boat is open.

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One of two solar boat pits. Eastern part of the pyramid

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The place where the solar boat was discovered

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Boat museum on the south side of the pyramid

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Cheops solar boat, discovered near the pyramid in 1954

Pyramids of Queens of Cheops

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Descent to the Henoutsen burial chamber

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Henoutsen burial chamber

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Literature

Ionina N. A. 100 great wonders of the world. - Moscow., 1999.
Vojtech Zamarovsky. Their majesties pyramids. - Moscow., 1986.

Notes

Links

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ancient kingdom
(2686-2181 BC)

1st transitional period
(2181–2040 BC)

middle kingdom
(2040-1650 BC)

2nd transition period
(1650-1570 BC)

new kingdom
(1570-1070 BC)



pyramids

sculptures

An excerpt characterizing the Pyramid of Cheops

- What are you talking about the militia? he said to Boris.
- They, Your Grace, in preparation for tomorrow, for death, put on white shirts.
- Ah! .. Wonderful, incomparable people! - said Kutuzov and, closing his eyes, shook his head. - Incredible people! he repeated with a sigh.
- Do you want to smell gunpowder? he said to Pierre. Yes, it's a pleasant smell. I have the honor to be an admirer of your wife, is she healthy? My halt is at your service. - And, as is often the case with old people, Kutuzov began to absently look around, as if forgetting everything he needed to say or do.
Obviously, remembering what he was looking for, he lured Andrei Sergeyich Kaisarov, the brother of his adjutant, to him.
- How, how, how are Marina's poems, how are poems, how? That he wrote on Gerakov: “You will be a teacher in the building ... Tell me, tell me,” Kutuzov spoke, obviously intending to laugh. Kaisarov read ... Kutuzov, smiling, nodded his head in time with the verses.
When Pierre moved away from Kutuzov, Dolokhov, moving towards him, took his hand.
“I am very glad to meet you here, Count,” he said to him loudly and not embarrassed by the presence of strangers, with special determination and solemnity. “On the eve of the day on which God knows which of us is destined to remain alive, I am glad to have the opportunity to tell you that I regret the misunderstandings that have been between us, and wish you had nothing against me. Please forgive me.
Pierre, smiling, looked at Dolokhov, not knowing what to say to him. Dolokhov, with tears in his eyes, hugged and kissed Pierre.
Boris said something to his general, and Count Benigsen turned to Pierre and offered to go with him along the line.
“You will be interested,” he said.
“Yes, very interesting,” said Pierre.
Half an hour later, Kutuzov left for Tatarinov, and Bennigsen, with his retinue, including Pierre, rode along the line.

Benigsen descended from Gorki along the high road to the bridge, to which the officer from the mound pointed out to Pierre as the center of the position, and near which rows of mowed grass, smelling of hay, lay on the bank. They drove across the bridge to the village of Borodino, from there they turned left and past a huge number of troops and guns drove to a high mound on which the militiamen were digging the ground. It was a redoubt, which did not yet have a name, then it was called the Raevsky redoubt, or barrow battery.
Pierre did not pay much attention to this redoubt. He did not know that this place would be more memorable for him than all the places in the Borodino field. Then they drove across the ravine to Semyonovsky, where the soldiers were pulling away the last logs of huts and barns. Then, downhill and uphill, they drove forward through the broken rye, knocked out like hail, along the road to the flushes [a kind of fortification. (Note by L.N. Tolstoy.) ], also then still dug.
Bennigsen stopped at the fleches and began to look ahead at the Shevardinsky redoubt (which had been ours yesterday), on which several horsemen could be seen. The officers said that Napoleon or Murat was there. And everyone looked eagerly at this bunch of riders. Pierre also looked there, trying to guess which of these barely visible people was Napoleon. Finally, the horsemen drove off the mound and disappeared.
Benigsen turned to the general who approached him and began to explain the whole position of our troops. Pierre listened to Benigsen's words, straining all his mental powers to understand the essence of the upcoming battle, but felt with chagrin that his mental abilities were insufficient for this. He didn't understand anything. Bennigsen stopped talking, and noticing the figure of Pierre listening, he suddenly said, turning to him:
- You, I think, are not interested?
“Oh, on the contrary, it’s very interesting,” Pierre repeated, not quite truthfully.
From the flush, they drove even more to the left along the road, winding through a dense, low birch forest. In the middle of it
forest, a brown hare with white legs jumped out in front of them on the road and, frightened by the clatter of a large number of horses, was so confused that it jumped for a long time along the road in front of them, arousing general attention and laughter, and only when several voices shouted at him, rushed to the side and hid in the thicket. Having traveled two versts through the forest, they drove out to a clearing on which stood the troops of Tuchkov's corps, which was supposed to protect the left flank.
Here, on the extreme left flank, Bennigsen spoke a lot and ardently and made, as it seemed to Pierre, an important order from a military point of view. Ahead of the disposition of Tuchkov's troops was an elevation. This elevation was not occupied by troops. Bennigsen loudly criticized this mistake, saying that it was foolish to leave the high ground unoccupied and place troops under it. Some generals expressed the same opinion. One in particular spoke with military vehemence that they were put here to be slaughtered. Bennigsen ordered in his name to move the troops to the heights.
This order on the left flank made Pierre even more doubtful of his ability to understand military affairs. Listening to Bennigsen and the generals who condemned the position of the troops under the mountain, Pierre fully understood them and shared their opinion; but precisely because of this, he could not understand how the one who placed them here under the mountain could make such an obvious and gross mistake.
Pierre did not know that these troops were not placed to defend the position, as Benigsen thought, but were placed in a hidden place for an ambush, that is, in order to be unnoticed and suddenly strike at the advancing enemy. Bennigsen did not know this and moved the troops forward for special reasons, without telling the commander-in-chief about it.

On this clear August evening on the 25th, Prince Andrey was lying, leaning on his arm, in a broken barn in the village of Knyazkov, on the edge of his regiment. Through the hole in the broken wall, he looked at the strip of thirty-year-old birch trees with their lower branches cut off along the fence, at the arable land with smashed heaps of oats on it, and at the bushes, along which the smoke of fires - soldiers' kitchens - could be seen.
No matter how cramped and no one needs and no matter how hard his life now seemed to Prince Andrei, he, just like seven years ago in Austerlitz on the eve of the battle, felt agitated and irritated.
Orders for tomorrow's battle were given and received by him. There was nothing else for him to do. But the simplest, clearest and therefore terrible thoughts did not leave him alone. He knew that tomorrow's battle was to be the most terrible of all those in which he participated, and the possibility of death for the first time in his life, without any relation to worldly things, without considerations of how it would affect others, but only in relation to himself, to his soul, with liveliness, almost with certainty, simply and terribly, she presented herself to him. And from the height of this idea, everything that had previously tormented and occupied him was suddenly illuminated by a cold white light, without shadows, without perspective, without distinction of outlines. All life seemed to him like a magic lantern, into which he looked for a long time through glass and under artificial light. Now he suddenly saw, without glass, in bright daylight, these badly painted pictures. “Yes, yes, here they are those false images that excited and delighted and tormented me,” he said to himself, turning over in his imagination the main pictures of his magic lantern of life, now looking at them in this cold white daylight - a clear thought of death. - Here they are, these roughly painted figures, which seemed to be something beautiful and mysterious. Glory, public good, love for a woman, the fatherland itself - how great these pictures seemed to me, what deep meaning they seemed to be filled with! And it's all so simple, pale and crude in the cold white light of that morning that I feel is rising for me." The three main sorrows of his life in particular caught his attention. His love for a woman, the death of his father and the French invasion that captured half of Russia. “Love! .. This girl, who seemed to me full of mysterious powers. How I loved her! I made poetic plans about love, about happiness with her. O dear boy! he said out loud angrily. - How! I believed in some kind of ideal love, which was supposed to keep her faithful to me during the whole year of my absence! Like the gentle dove of a fable, she must have withered away from me. And all this is much simpler ... All this is terribly simple, disgusting!
My father also built in the Bald Mountains and thought that this was his place, his land, his air, his peasants; and Napoleon came and, not knowing about his existence, like a chip from the road, pushed him, and his Bald Mountains and his whole life fell apart. And Princess Marya says that this is a test sent from above. What is the test for, when it no longer exists and will not exist? never again! He is not! So who is this test for? Fatherland, death of Moscow! And tomorrow he will kill me - and not even a Frenchman, but his own, as yesterday a soldier emptied a gun near my ear, and the French will come, take me by the legs and by the head and throw me into a pit so that I don’t stink under their noses, and new conditions will develop lives that will also be familiar to others, and I will not know about them, and I will not be.
He looked at the strip of birch trees, with their motionless yellowness, greenery and white bark, shining in the sun. "To die so that they would kill me tomorrow, so that I would not be ... so that all this would be, but I would not be." He vividly imagined the absence of himself in this life. And these birches with their light and shadow, and these curly clouds, and this smoke of bonfires - everything around was transformed for him and seemed something terrible and threatening. Frost ran down his back. Rising quickly, he went out of the shed and began to walk.
Voices were heard behind the barn.
- Who's there? - called Prince Andrew.
The red-nosed Captain Timokhin, Dolokhov's former company commander, now, due to the loss of officers, the battalion commander, timidly entered the barn. Behind him entered the adjutant and treasurer of the regiment.
Prince Andrei hurriedly got up, listened to what the officers had to convey to him in the service, gave them some more orders and was about to let them go, when a familiar, whispering voice was heard from behind the barn.
– Que diable! [Damn it!] said the voice of a man who had bumped into something.
Prince Andrei, looking out of the shed, saw Pierre coming up to him, who stumbled on a lying pole and almost fell. It was generally unpleasant for Prince Andrei to see people from his world, especially Pierre, who reminded him of all those difficult moments that he experienced on his last visit to Moscow.
- That's how! - he said. - What fates? That's not waiting.
While he was saying this, there was more than dryness in his eyes and the expression of his whole face - there was hostility, which Pierre immediately noticed. He approached the barn in the most lively state of mind, but, seeing the expression on Prince Andrei's face, he felt embarrassed and awkward.
“I arrived ... so ... you know ... I arrived ... I’m interested,” said Pierre, who had so many times that day meaninglessly repeated this word “interesting”. “I wanted to see the fight.
– Yes, yes, but what do the Masons brothers say about the war? How to prevent it? - said Prince Andrei mockingly. - What about Moscow? What are mine? Have you finally arrived in Moscow? he asked seriously.
- We've arrived. Julie Drubetskaya told me. I went to them and did not find. They left for the suburbs.

The officers wanted to bow out, but Prince Andrei, as if not wanting to remain face to face with his friend, invited them to sit and drink tea. Benches and tea were served. The officers, not without surprise, looked at the fat, huge figure of Pierre and listened to his stories about Moscow and the disposition of our troops, which he managed to travel around. Prince Andrei was silent, and his face was so unpleasant that Pierre turned more to the good-natured battalion commander Timokhin than to Bolkonsky.
“So you understood the entire disposition of the troops?” Prince Andrew interrupted him.
- Yes, that is, how? Pierre said. - As a non-military person, I can’t say that it is completely, but still I understood the general arrangement.
- Eh bien, vous etes plus avance que qui cela soit, [Well, you know more than anyone else.] - said Prince Andrei.
– A! - said Pierre in bewilderment, looking through his glasses at Prince Andrei. - Well, what do you say about the appointment of Kutuzov? - he said.
“I was very pleased with this appointment, that’s all I know,” said Prince Andrei.
- Well, tell me, what is your opinion about Barclay de Tolly? In Moscow, God knows what they said about him. How do you judge him?
“Ask them here,” said Prince Andrei, pointing to the officers.
Pierre, with a condescendingly inquiring smile, with which everyone involuntarily turned to Timokhin, looked at him.
“They saw the light, your excellency, how the brightest acted,” said Timokhin, timidly and incessantly looking back at his regimental commander.
- Why is it so? Pierre asked.
- Yes, at least about firewood or fodder, I will report to you. After all, we retreated from Sventsyan, don’t you dare touch the twigs, or the senets there, or something. After all, we're leaving, he gets it, isn't it, Your Excellency? - he turned to his prince, - but don't you dare. In our regiment, two officers were put on trial for such cases. Well, as the brightest did, it just became so about this. The world has been seen...
So why did he forbid it?
Timokhin looked around in embarrassment, not understanding how and what to answer such a question. Pierre turned to Prince Andrei with the same question.
“And in order not to ruin the land that we left to the enemy,” Prince Andrei said angrily and mockingly. – It is very thorough; it is impossible to allow to plunder the region and accustom the troops to looting. Well, in Smolensk, he also correctly judged that the French could get around us and that they had more forces. But he could not understand this, - Prince Andrei suddenly cried out in a thin voice, as if escaping, - but he could not understand that for the first time we fought there for the Russian land, that there was such a spirit in the troops that I had never seen, that we fought off the French for two days in a row, and that this success multiplied our strength tenfold. He ordered a retreat, and all the efforts and losses were in vain. He did not think about betrayal, he tried to do everything as best as possible, he thought everything over; but that doesn't make him any good. He is no good now precisely because he thinks everything over very thoroughly and carefully, as every German should. How can I tell you ... Well, your father has a German footman, and he is an excellent footman and will satisfy all his needs better than you, and let him serve; but if your father is ill at death, you will drive away the footman and with your unaccustomed, clumsy hands you will begin to follow your father and calm him better than a skilled, but a stranger. That's what they did with Barclay. While Russia was healthy, a stranger could serve her, and there was a wonderful minister, but as soon as she was in danger; you need your own person. And in your club they invented that he was a traitor! By the fact that he was slandered as a traitor, they will only do what later, ashamed of their false criticism, they will suddenly make a hero or a genius out of traitors, which will be even more unfair. He is an honest and very accurate German...
“However, they say he is a skilled commander,” said Pierre.
“I don’t understand what a skilled commander means,” Prince Andrei said with a sneer.
“A skillful commander,” said Pierre, “well, one who foresaw all accidents ... well, guessed the thoughts of the enemy.
“Yes, it’s impossible,” said Prince Andrei, as if about a long-decided matter.
Pierre looked at him in surprise.
“However,” he said, “they say war is like a game of chess.
“Yes,” said Prince Andrei, “with the only slight difference that in chess you can think as much as you like about each step, that you are there outside the conditions of time, and with the difference that a knight is always stronger than a pawn and two pawns are always stronger.” one, and in war one battalion is sometimes stronger than a division, and sometimes weaker than a company. The relative strength of the troops cannot be known to anyone. Believe me,” he said, “that if anything depended on the orders of the headquarters, then I would be there and make orders, but instead I have the honor to serve here, in the regiment with these gentlemen, and I think that we really tomorrow will depend, and not on them ... Success has never depended and will not depend either on position, or on weapons, or even on numbers; and least of all from the position.
- And from what?
“From the feeling that is in me, in him,” he pointed to Timokhin, “in every soldier.
Prince Andrei glanced at Timokhin, who looked at his commander in fright and bewilderment. In contrast to his former restrained silence, Prince Andrei now seemed agitated. He apparently could not refrain from expressing those thoughts that suddenly came to him.
The battle will be won by the one who is determined to win it. Why did we lose the battle near Austerlitz? Our loss was almost equal to that of the French, but we told ourselves very early that we had lost the battle—and we did. And we said this because we had no reason to fight there: we wanted to leave the battlefield as soon as possible. “We lost - well, run like that!” - we ran. If we had not said this before evening, God knows what would have happened. We won't say that tomorrow. You say: our position, the left flank is weak, the right flank is extended,” he continued, “all this is nonsense, there is nothing of it. And what do we have tomorrow? One hundred million of the most varied accidents that will be solved instantly by the fact that they or ours ran or run, that they kill one, kill another; and what is being done now is all fun. The fact is that those with whom you traveled around the position not only do not contribute to the general course of affairs, but interfere with it. They are only concerned with their little interests.
- At a moment like this? Pierre said reproachfully.
“At such a moment,” Prince Andrei repeated, “for them, this is only such a moment in which you can dig under the enemy and get an extra cross or ribbon. For me, this is what tomorrow is: a hundred thousand Russian and a hundred thousand French troops have come together to fight, and the fact is that these two hundred thousand are fighting, and whoever fights more viciously and feels less sorry for himself will win. And if you want, I'll tell you that no matter what happens, no matter what is confused up there, we will win the battle tomorrow. Tomorrow, whatever it is, we will win the battle!
“Here, Your Excellency, the truth, the true truth,” said Timokhin. - Why feel sorry for yourself now! The soldiers in my battalion, believe me, did not begin to drink vodka: not such a day, they say. - Everyone was silent.
The officers got up. Prince Andrei went out with them outside the shed, giving his last orders to the adjutant. When the officers left, Pierre went up to Prince Andrei and just wanted to start a conversation, when the hooves of three horses clattered along the road not far from the barn, and, looking in this direction, Prince Andrei recognized Wolzogen and Clausewitz, accompanied by a Cossack. They drove close, continuing to talk, and Pierre and Andrei involuntarily heard the following phrases:
– Der Krieg muss im Raum verlegt werden. Der Ansicht kann ich nicht genug Preis geben, [The war must be transferred into space. This view I cannot praise enough (German)] - said one.
“O ja,” said another voice, “da der Zweck ist nur den Feind zu schwachen, so kann man gewiss nicht den Verlust der Privatpersonen in Achtung nehmen.” [Oh yes, since the goal is to weaken the enemy, then private casualties cannot be taken into account (German)]
- O ja, [Oh yes (German)] - confirmed the first voice.
- Yes, im Raum verlegen, [transfer to space (German)] - Prince Andrei repeated, angrily snorting his nose, when they drove by. - Im Raum then [In space (German)] I still have a father, and a son, and a sister in the Bald Mountains. He doesn't care. This is what I told you - these gentlemen Germans will not win the battle tomorrow, but will only tell how much their strength will be, because in his German head there are only arguments that are not worth a damn, and in his heart there is nothing that alone and you need it for tomorrow - what is in Timokhin. They gave all of Europe to him and came to teach us - glorious teachers! his voice screamed again.
"So you think tomorrow's battle will be won?" Pierre said.
“Yes, yes,” Prince Andrei said absently. “One thing I would do if I had the power,” he began again, “I would not take prisoners. What are prisoners? This is chivalry. The French have ruined my house and are going to ruin Moscow, and have insulted and insult me every second. They are my enemies, they are all criminals, according to my concepts. And Timokhin and the whole army think the same way. They must be executed. If they are my enemies, they cannot be friends, no matter how they talk in Tilsit.
“Yes, yes,” Pierre said, looking at Prince Andrei with shining eyes, “I completely, completely agree with you!”
The question that had been troubling Pierre from Mozhaisk Mountain all that day now seemed to him completely clear and completely resolved. He now understood the whole meaning and significance of this war and the forthcoming battle. Everything that he saw that day, all the significant, stern expressions of faces that he caught a glimpse of, lit up for him with a new light. He understood that latent (latente), as they say in physics, warmth of patriotism, which was in all those people he saw, and which explained to him why all these people calmly and, as it were, thoughtlessly prepared for death.
“Do not take prisoners,” continued Prince Andrei. “That alone would change the whole war and make it less brutal. And then we played war - that's what's bad, we are magnanimous and the like. This generosity and sensitivity is like the generosity and sensitivity of a lady, with whom she becomes dizzy when she sees a calf being killed; she is so kind that she cannot see the blood, but she eats this calf with sauce with gusto. They talk to us about the rights of war, about chivalry, about parliamentary work, to spare the unfortunate, and so on. All nonsense. In 1805 I saw chivalry, parliamentarianism: they cheated us, we cheated. They rob other people's houses, let out fake banknotes, and worst of all, they kill my children, my father and talk about the rules of war and generosity towards enemies. Do not take prisoners, but kill and go to your death! Who has come to this the way I did, by the same suffering...
Prince Andrei, who thought that it did not matter to him whether Moscow was taken or not taken the way Smolensk was taken, suddenly stopped in his speech from an unexpected convulsion that seized him by the throat. He walked several times in silence, but his body shone feverishly, and his lip trembled when he began to speak again:
- If there was no generosity in the war, then we would go only when it is worth it to go to certain death, as now. Then there would be no war because Pavel Ivanovich offended Mikhail Ivanovich. And if the war is like now, then the war. And then the intensity of the troops would not be the same as now. Then all these Westphalians and Hessians led by Napoleon would not have followed him to Russia, and we would not have gone to fight in Austria and Prussia, without knowing why. War is not a courtesy, but the most disgusting thing in life, and one must understand this and not play war. This terrible necessity must be taken strictly and seriously. It's all about this: put aside lies, and war is war, not a toy. Otherwise, war is the favorite pastime of idle and frivolous people ... The military estate is the most honorable. And what is war, what is needed for success in military affairs, what are the morals of a military society? The purpose of the war is murder, the weapons of war are espionage, treason and encouragement of it, the ruin of the inhabitants, robbing them or stealing for the food of the army; deceit and lies, called stratagems; morals of the military class - lack of freedom, that is, discipline, idleness, ignorance, cruelty, debauchery, drunkenness. And despite that - this is the highest class, revered by all. All the kings, except for the Chinese, wear a military uniform, and the one who killed the most people is given a big reward ... They will converge, like tomorrow, to kill each other, they will kill, maim tens of thousands of people, and then they will serve thanksgiving prayers for having beaten there are many people (of which the number is still being added), and they proclaim victory, believing that the more people are beaten, the greater the merit. How God watches and listens to them from there! - Prince Andrei shouted in a thin, squeaky voice. “Ah, my soul, lately it has become hard for me to live. I see that I began to understand too much. And it’s not good for a person to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil ... Well, not for long! he added. “However, you are sleeping, and I have a pen, go to Gorki,” Prince Andrei suddenly said.

The first wonder of the world of all time, one of the main structures of our planet, a place full of secrets and mysteries, a point of constant pilgrimage for tourists - the Egyptian pyramids and in particular the pyramid of Cheops.

The construction of giant pyramids, of course, was far from an easy task. Huge efforts of a large number of people were made to deliver stone blocks to the Giza or Saqqara plateau, and later to the Valley of the Kings, which became the new necropolis of the pharaohs.

At the moment, there are about a hundred found pyramids in Egypt, but the finds continue, and their number is constantly increasing. AT different times one of the 7 wonders of the world meant different pyramids. Someone meant all the pyramids of Egypt as a whole, someone pyramids near Memphis, someone three large pyramids of Giza, and the critics recognized only the largest pyramid of Cheops.

The afterlife of ancient Egypt

One of the central moments in the life of the ancient Egyptians was religion, which formed the whole culture as a whole. Particular attention was paid to the afterlife, perceived as a clear continuation of earthly life. That is why the preparation for life after death began long before it, it was set as one of the main life tasks.

According to the ancient Egyptian belief, a person had several souls. The soul of Ka acted as a double of the Egyptian, whom he was to meet in the afterlife. The soul of Ba contacted the person himself, and left his body after death.

The religious life of the Egyptians and the god Anubis

At first it was believed that only the pharaoh had the right to life after death, but he could bestow this “immortality” on his entourage, who were usually buried next to the tomb of the lord. Ordinary people were not destined to get into the world of the dead, the only exception was slaves and servants, whom the pharaoh “took” with him, and who were depicted on the walls of the great tomb.

But for a comfortable life after the death of the deceased, it was necessary to provide everything necessary: food, household utensils, servants, slaves, and much more needed for the average pharaoh. They also tried to preserve the body of a person so that the soul of Ba could later unite with him again. Therefore, in matters of body preservation, embalming and the creation of complex pyramid tombs were born.

The first pyramid in Egypt. Pyramid of Djoser

Talking about the construction of the pyramids in Ancient Egypt in general, it is worth mentioning the beginning of their history. The very first pyramid in Egypt was built about five thousand years ago at the initiative of Pharaoh Djoser. It is in these 5 millennia that the age of the pyramids in Egypt is estimated. The erection of the pyramid of Djoser was led by the famous and legendary Imhotep, who was even deified in later centuries.

Pyramid of Djoser

The entire complex of the building under construction occupied an area of 545 by 278 meters. Along the perimeter, it was surrounded by a 10-meter wall with 14 gates, only one of which was real. In the center of the complex was the pyramid of Djoser with sides 118 by 140 meters. The height of the pyramid of Djoser is 60 meters. Almost at a depth of 30 meters there was a burial chamber, to which corridors with many branches led. Utensils and sacrifices were kept in the branch rooms. Here, archaeologists found three bas-reliefs of Pharaoh Djoser himself. Near the eastern wall of the Djoser pyramid, 11 small burial chambers intended for the royal family were discovered.

Unlike the famous great pyramids of Giza, the pyramid of Djoser had a stepped shape, as if intended for the ascension of the pharaoh to heaven. Of course, this pyramid is inferior in popularity and size to the pyramid of Cheops, but still the contribution of the very first stone pyramid to the culture of Egypt is difficult to overestimate.

The Pyramid of Cheops. History and brief description

But still, the most famous for the ordinary population of our planet are the three pyramids of Egypt located nearby - Khafre, Mekerin and the largest and highest pyramid in Egypt - Cheops (Khufu)

Pyramids of Giza

The Pyramid of Pharaoh Cheops was built near the city of Giza, currently a suburb of Cairo. When the pyramid of Cheops was built, it is currently impossible to say for sure, and research gives a strong scatter. In Egypt, for example, the date of the beginning of the construction of this pyramid is officially celebrated - August 23, 2480 BC.

Pyramid of Cheops and Sphinx

About 100,000 people were simultaneously involved in the construction of the wonder of the world pyramid of Cheops. During the first ten years of work, a road was built, along which huge stone blocks were delivered to the river and underground structures of the pyramid. Work on the construction of the monument itself continued for about 20 years.

The size of the pyramid of Cheops at Giza is amazing. The height of the pyramid of Cheops initially reached 147 meters. Over time, due to falling asleep with sand and the loss of lining, it decreased to 137 meters. But even this figure allowed her to remain the tallest human structure in the world for a long time. The pyramid has a square base with a side of 147 meters. The construction of this giant is estimated to have required 2,300,000 limestone blocks weighing an average of 2.5 tons.

How were the pyramids built in Egypt?

The technology of building the pyramids is controversial in our time. Versions vary from the invention of concrete in ancient Egypt to the construction of pyramids by aliens. But still it is believed that the pyramids were built by man solely by his strength. So for the extraction of stone blocks, first a shape was outlined in the rock, grooves were hollowed out and a dry tree was inserted into them. Later, the tree was doused with water, it expanded, a crack formed in the rock, and the block was separated. Then it was processed to the desired shape with tools and sent along the river to the construction site.

Pyramid of Cheops (Khufu)

The Pyramid of Cheops is part of the complex of the largest Egyptian pyramids located on the Giza plateau. This grand structure, together with the pyramids of Khafre and Menkaure, as well as the majestic Sphinx, makes up the so-called Giza pyramid complex. As many scientists believe, the location of the pyramids and the Sphinx within this complex is by no means accidental, and is due not only to the desire of the ancient builders to create an integral composition of these grandiose structures.

One of the earliest hypotheses considered the Egyptian (and other) pyramids as tombs, hence the names: the king's (pharaoh's) chamber and the queen's chamber. However, according to many modern Egyptologists, The pyramid of Cheops was never used as a tomb, but had a completely different purpose.

Some Egyptologists believe that the pyramid is a repository of ancient weights and measures, as well as a model of known linear and temporal measurements that are characteristic of the Earth and are based on the principle of rotation of the polar axis. It is considered confirmed that the one (or those) who led the construction of the pyramid had absolutely accurate knowledge of such things that were discovered by mankind much later. These include: the circumference of the globe, the longitude of the year, the average value of the Earth's orbit as it rotates around the Sun, the specific density of the globe, the acceleration of gravity, the speed of light, and much more. And all this knowledge, one way or another, is allegedly laid down in a pyramid.

It is believed that the pyramid is a kind of calendar. It is almost proved that it serves as both a theodolite and a compass, and of such accuracy that the most modern compasses can be compared with it.

Another hypothesis believes that not only the parameters of the pyramid itself, but also its individual structures contain many important mathematical quantities and relationships, for example, the number "pi", and the parameters of the king's chamber combine "sacred" triangles with sides 3-4-5 . It is believed that the angles and slopes of the pyramid reflect the most modern ideas about trigonometric values, and the contours of the pyramid with practical accuracy include the proportions of the "golden section".

There is a hypothesis that considers the pyramid of Cheops as an astronomical observatory, and according to another hypothesis, the Great Pyramid was used for initiation into the highest levels of secret knowledge, as well as for storing this knowledge. At the same time, a person initiated into secret knowledge was located in a sarcophagus.

The official theory says that the architect of the Great Pyramid is Hemiun, the vizier and nephew of Cheops. He also bore the title of "Manager of all construction sites of the pharaoh." Construction under his leadership lasted twenty years and ended around 2540 BC. e. In Egypt, the date of the start of the construction of the Cheops pyramid is officially established and celebrated - August 23, 2470 BC. e.

However, there are other assumptions. Thus, the Arab historian Ibrahim ben ibn Wassuff Shah believed that the pyramids of Giza were built by an antediluvian king named Saurid. Abu Zeid el Bahi writes about an inscription that says that the Great Pyramid of Cheops was built about 73,000 years ago. Ibn Batuta claimed (and not only him) that the pyramids were built by Hermes Trismegistus, etc. The hypothesis of the Russian scientist Sergei Proskuryakov is very interesting, who believes that the pyramids were built by Aliens from Sirius and that the architect Hemiun himself was from Sirius. Vladimir Babanin also believes that the pyramids were built by aliens from Sirius, and possibly from Dessa of the Cygnus constellation in ancient times, but during the time of Cheops, the pyramids were restored.

It seems logical that in any case the Pyramids were erected after the pole shift occurred on Earth, otherwise it would be impossible to orient the Pyramids with such incredible accuracy as they are located today.

Initially, the height of the Cheops pyramid was 146.6 meters. But time mercilessly dissolved 7 meters and 85 centimeters of this majestic structure. Simple calculations will show that now the pyramid has a height of 138 meters and 75 centimeters.

The perimeter of the pyramid is 922 meters, the base area is 53,000 square meters (comparable to the area of 10 football fields). Scientists calculated the total weight of the pyramid, which amounted to more than 5 million tons.

The pyramid is made up of over 2.2 million large stone blocks of limestone, granite and basalt, each weighing an average of 2.5 tons. There are 210 rows of blocks in the pyramid. The heaviest block weighs about 15 tons. The base is a rocky elevation, the height of which is 9 meters. Initially, the surface of the pyramid was a smooth surface, because. covered with special material.

The entrance to the pyramid is at a height of 15.63 meters on the north side. The entrance is formed by stone slabs laid in the form of an arch. This entrance to the pyramid was sealed with a granite plug.

Today, tourists enter the pyramid through the 17th gap, which was made in 820 by Caliph Abu Jafar al-Ma'mun. He hoped to find the pharaoh's untold treasures there, but found only a layer of dust half a cubit thick.

Inside the pyramid of Cheops there are three burial chambers located one above the other.

When the sun moves around the pyramid, you can notice the unevenness of the walls - the concavity of the central part of the walls. Perhaps the reason for this is erosion or damage resulting from the fall of the stone cladding. It is also possible that this was deliberately done during construction.

Pyramid building

Preparation for construction

Stone work

Drawings on the pyramid

What did the Great Pyramid look like from the inside?

Is this tomb Cheops

Pyramid age

The first mention of the pyramid

Appearance

Statistical data

Side concavity

Tilt angle

Internal structure

Funeral "pit"

Ascending Corridor and Queen's Chambers

Grotto, Grand Gallery and Pharaoh's Chambers

ventilation ducts

Research History

Statistical data

About the pyramid

pyramid structure

Funeral "pit"

Ascending Corridor and Queen's Chambers

Grotto, Grand Gallery and Pharaoh's Chambers

ventilation ducts

Tilt angle

Side concavity

pharaoh boats

Pyramids of Queens of Cheops

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Literature

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Notes

Links

An excerpt characterizing the Pyramid of Cheops

The afterlife of ancient Egypt

The first pyramid in Egypt. Pyramid of Djoser

The Pyramid of Cheops. History and brief description

How were the pyramids built in Egypt?

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