The Pyramids of Giza Were Originally White
Today I found out the pyramids of Giza were originally white.
When the pyramids were originally finished, they were plated in and outer layer of white “casing stones”. These casing stones were cut with astounding precision to give a smooth slope to the pyramids, unlike how they appear today with the outer stones more or less forming very large “steps”.
The original casing stones were made of highly polished Tura limestone, meant to reflect the sun’s rays, and were accurate within 1/100th of an inch. All total, they were around five feet long, five feet high, and six feet deep and weighed around 15 metric tons each once the face angle was cut, being around 40 metric tons before that for the full block.
So what happened to these casing stones? Many of them were cut loose and carried off to be used on various other structures, such as when Bahri Sultan An-Nasir Nasir-ad-Din al-Hasan used the polished stones from the Great Pyramid in building mosques in Cairo, some of which are still standing with these stones still intact.
Most of the rest of the stones were worn away, being loosened by earthquakes and eventually creating piles of rubble around the pyramids, which have relatively recently been cleared away. Although, a few of the stones are still there, such as around the base of the Great Pyramid.
Bonus Facts:
- The Great Pyramid is made up of around 2.3 million limestone blocks. There are also large granite stones in the pyramid, such as in the King’s chamber. These granite stones can weigh upwards of 70 metric tons. Astoundingly, these granite stones were transported from around 500 miles away, from Aswan. All total, around 8,000 metric tons of granite, 6 million metric tons of limestone, and half a million metric tons of mortar were used to build the Great Pyramid alone.
- The Great Pyramid was constructed in less than 20 years around 2500 BC. For just under 4000 years, it remained the tallest man made structure in the world at around 500 feet tall (around 145 meters). It was finally beat by the Lincoln Cathedral, which is 160 meters tall (520 feet) and completed in the year 1300.
- Around 800 metric tons of stone were added to the Pyramid every day during its construction with around 200-300 of these mammoth blocks being put in place daily. It’s no surprise that archeological evidence suggests that spine and bone problems were prevalent among those who worked on the pyramids.
- Contrary to popular belief, it is no longer thought that the pyramids of Giza were built by slaves. Archeological evidence shows that the worker’s town comprised of whole families, not just men as would have been the case if they were slaves. Further, the people were extremely well taken care of including the highest quality health care available at the time and they were also extremely well fed. These and other such hints from the past, relatively recently discovered, seem to indicate that the laborers were there of their own volition.
- One method the Ancient Egyptians used for cutting blocks of stone to eventually be shaped and polished and the like was to chisel holes in the stone and then pound large wooden wedges into the holes. They’d then soak these wedges in water, which would cause them to expand and eventually form cracks in the rock. These cracks could then be exploited to remove large blocks from the quarries, which would then be processed accordingly and eventually shipped off to the pyramid being built, generally by boat on the Nile River.
- How accurate was the building of the Pyramids? As an example, the stones of the Great Pyramid were cut so precisely that no one side differs in length from another side by more than 58 millimeters (around 2 inches). Further, the four corners align within four minutes of the actual cardinal compass points, with north pointing to true north, not magnetic north. In addition to that, the swivel door to the Great Pyramid weighed around 20 tons, yet was so well balanced that it could be opened from inside by one person with minimal force applied. From the outside, the door was nearly undetectable due to the cut being so precise as to have nearly no crack between itself and the surrounding pyramid. The crack was also sufficiently thin to make it impossible to be used for prying the door open from the outside.
- The Great Pyramid of Giza is the only more or less intact member of the “Seven Wonders of the Ancient World”. It is believed to have been built for the Egyptian Pharaoh Khufu.
- The word “pyramid” comes from the Greek words “pyra” (fire/light) and “midos” (measures).
- The word Pharaoh derives from the Hebrew version of “per-aa”, meaning “great house”.
- It is believed the pyramids were meant to be mechanisms to allow the entombed to reach the heavens. Towards this end, there is a shaft running through the entire body of the Great Pyramid that points to the darkest part of the night sky. The Ancient Egyptians believed this dark region of the night sky was the gateway to the heavens. The pyramid then serves as a sort of launching platform for the soul of the Pharaoh. Further, the soul itself was thought to only be able to survive as long as the body was preserved. As such, the Pyramids aided in preserving the body by sealing it away.
- To date, there are around 140 pyramids that have been discovered in Egypt.
- The earliest known pyramid to date is the Pyramid of Djoser, which was designed by the famed Ancient Egyptian architect, Imhotep (who the character on the Mummy movies was extremely loosely based off of and is considered the “father” of architecture, engineering, and medical practitioners). His latter treatise on medicine was noted for being completely devoid of magical references.
- Imhotep was officially the “Chancellor of the King of Egypt, Doctor, First in line after the King of Upper Egypt, Administrator of the Great Palace, Hereditary nobleman, High Priest of Heliopolis, Builder, Chief Carpenter, Chief Sculptor, and Maker of Vases in Chief…” He was also a well thought of poet and philosopher of his day, all combined making him one of the most prolific polymaths in history. All this earned Imhotep the privilege of becoming one of the very few commoners to be given divine status after he died. He eventually became the god of medicine and healing.
- Imhotep also designed his own tomb, which to date has still not been found as it was well hidden on construction.
- Giza is currently the third largest city in Egypt with a population of around 2.7 million people within the city itself and a total of 6.3 million people including the surrounding suburbs.
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quite interesting but still hard to believe…gonna need more info
So you’re teling me, that these pyramids were built in under 20 years? I dont’ think so buddy. Think about what your sating with your factoids here. That would mean they would have had to cut (from raw form of course), dress (make it a perfect dimention) and place these limstone blocks every 11 seconds. Hmm… With copper chisels that break very easily. Hmm. Sounds like MISINFORMATION if you ask me!!
@Kevin: Clearly historians must be incorrect! No way could they have done it in 20 years… There is of course another possibility… Ancient Aliens… 😉
Hahahaha…..XD I totally agree with Daven!
MOST of the Great Pyramid is only so-so fitting blocks of poor limestone. ONLY the public areas consisting of the descending passage, the AScending passage, Grand Gallery and the Kings and Queens chambers are well fit and finished. The layer of stones immediately BEHIND the casing stones are very good, but not perfect. After that? it gets worse
I’ve SEEN a several thousand year old wood sledge used to move heavy objects. And rulers and squares and other objects. STring has been found in some digs.
On site accomdations for a couple thousand workers who apparently worked year-round. During the seasonal flooding, the rest of the population was available to quarry and move stone. The Granite MUST have been ordered very early in the process since it is 400 miles or so South of the GP, though near the Nile.
A fairly recent theory is that of the INTERNAL RAMP. Spiralling around INSIDE the outer wall, it provides full access ALL the time and rises with the pyramid. Another ramp was used at the beginning and was later taken apart, the stones used for the interior stones of the pyramid.
Some evidence supports this which I’ll not go into, since it is very detailed and requires the reader to have somewhat more than a passing knowledge of the structure.
What the pyramid IS and Represents, is a MASTERS CLASS in ORGANIZATION.
Clearly the people who have studied this their entire lives have to be wrong and some guy who posts here is to be believed….lol.
ahahaha…20 years? you can barely get 30 school children to play nice together, much less the amount of workers required to synchronize their development efforts to build these pyramids with primitive tools, not to mention a short lifespan. And no, I don’t believe in Aliens, but this is complete nonsense. It’s more likely that another civilization existed before the Egyptians who built the pyramids, and the Egyptians modified them. The history is not so clear because quite frankly, nobody knows how they built the pyramids. There is only hypothetical speculations.
100,000 slaves helped so it’s not impossible…
Icplusplus: but YOU know for a fact that it DIDN’T happen this way.
The Egyptians were meticulous record-keepers which is how we know that the largest pyramid was constructed in a little less than 20 years.
Wow, that’s about 315 blocks every day, about 1 every 3 minutes. I am no expert or authority, but it seems pretty hard to believe.
@John Lynn: A Boeing 747-8 contains about 6 million parts, yet Boeing could churn out one every couple days via their assembly line (total build time per plane at around a few months). The Pyramids aren’t nearly as complex, but, in the end, many hands make light work and an efficient construction process can produce remarkable results.
yaah that is a nice explanation related to that
Cmon, if we can’t reproduce the pyramids today, then ancient Egyptians with primitive tools would have no chance building this, its obvious that mainstream ancient history is a big load
Who says we can’t reproduce the pyramids today? That’s not a terribly difficult engineering problem.
Only one was covered in white casing stones. That’s also the only one of all the pyramids that has an a sending passage. The other pyramids are copies.
Smoke and mirrors. This sound like one of those Disney stories. I guess that’s why common sense was in invented. It deals with the masses. “Common”. Let’s fool them all..lol
Turns out that sense is not very common at all, which is why it’s easy to fool the masses, as opposed to certain people within them.
It involves two invisible forces. Magnetic induction and frequency. It presents the same formula as the Sun. The total volume squeezed to a single point. Spiritual maybe, after death the spirit may have resonate at that frequency of 7.83Hz while the energy was deflected upward as a concentrated form.
The guy that built the fortress in Florida city Florida used the same system that was used to build the pyramids he carved and transported the coral reef just as the pyramid builders did the granite blocks the very same system my grand dad moved heavyweight without help other than the system he Ed and the pyramid builders used knowledge has been around from the beginning GOD SAID NOAH DID AND i saw my grandad transport that weight of five tons with his system
You found this out just today? This has been known for about a century.