Before the Pyramids: Cracking Archaeology's Greatest Mystery Read Free

northwest. Fortunately there was sufficient evidence available to identify the size of the absent structure and pinpoint its precise centre. This was to prove to be incredibly important.
    As we left the cold, windswept hilltop that morning we knew that we would have to travel to Egypt because something extraordinary was appearing out of the mists of time. A completely unexpected picture of the past had presented itself. Against all sense and apparent credibility, it seemed from everything we now knew possible – or to be honest – highly likely that Hem-iwnu, King Khufu’s principal architect had stood in this same English field before he began his ambitious project to create something wonderful on the west bank of the Nile.
Ancient Wonders
    As we passed between Khufu and Khafre’s man-made mountains we felt that sense of total awe that can never quite be captured by photographs or communicated though cinematography. The scale and shear solid mass of these objects creates an impression such that your entire body can feel their gravitational field. Close your eyes and they are still there.
    Even today, without their original brilliant white limestone coverings, the pyramids are soul-stirringly beautiful, sculpted by the brilliant glow of the Egyptian summer sun. These geometrically perfect structures now stand rather battered but proudly aloof on the raised outcrop known as the Mokkatam Formation, where in ancient times, the Nile had washed its eastern-facing cliff during the annual inundation. But today the rocks mark the limits of the crazy cacophony that is Cairo’s urban sprawl.
    To say that the three pyramids of Giza have been studied in minute detail would be an understatement. The largest of them, known alternatively as the ‘Great Pyramid’, the ‘Pyramid of Khufu’, or sometimes by the Greek name ‘Pyramid of Cheops’, is the only remaining and certainly the largest of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Even without its original gilded ben-ben or capstone it is 138.8 m in height with an estimated internal volume of 2.5 million m 3 – (equal to 1,000 Olympic swimming pools). Strangely, the average block of stone is 1 m 3 . Facts and figures are impressive enough but not nearly so inspiring as standing at the base of Khufu’s pyramid and staring up at the unbelievable dimensions of something so huge it is hard to comprehend how anyone could have conceived its creation, let alone brought such an idea to reality.
    According to the ancient Greek historian Herodotus, the pyramid attributed to King Khufu took around 20 years to build from start to finish. Quite what sources Herodotus had for this claim is unsure, but despite the fact that he was writing two full millennia after the event, he does have a good track record of getting his facts broadly right. If it is truly the case that the Great Pyramid was constructed so quickly, the implications are staggering. It means that working seven days a week and throughout the year for two full decades, the craftsmen and labourers involved must have cut, squared off, dragged to the site and erected 342 stones every single day. The average stone weighs two and a half tonnes, though many are far heavier. If Herodotus is to be believed a stone block must have been added to the pyramid every two minutes or so!
    Anyone who has stood on the Giza Plateau between 11 am and 3 pm on any day between May to September will appreciate how physically draining it is simply to walk around the area. It seems impossible to imagine anyone continuously cutting, dragging and raising huge stone blocks under the unremitting glare of the desert Sun. Herodotus may have been proven correct about many of his writings, but we doubt he was correct on this occasion and we remain convinced that the Khufu pyramid must have taken much longer than 20 years to complete.
    The other two pyramids in the sequence of three are smaller. The second pyramid, standing a little to the southwest of the Great