ANCIENT STONES
truly extensive, probably maritime, prehis- toric trade routes). Mica, an excellent dielec- tric, is typically an igneous rock, one of sev- eral phyllosilicates, or sheet silicates, composed of silicon, oxygen, hydrogen, and fluorine, along with aluminum, magnesium, or iron, and several other metals, which may vary…in other words, very complex chemical compounds. The crystals tend to be mono- clinic (rectangular or hexagonal prisms with parallelogram bases). Is it possible that the mica, clearly obtained at great expense, de- spite being of no structural or esthetic value, may have compensated in part for the pyr- amid’s smaller size and allowed the chi force to be harnessed?
PYRAMID PLANNING Continued from Page 33
most scholars felt it was highly unlikely that the great pyramid builders would have used other measures. The Egyptian Royal cubit represented the forearm of the pharaoh and was divided into 7 palms. The latter was di- vided into 4 fingers or digits.
In the early 1880s, when W.H. Flinders Petrie traveled to Giza, he was the first truly modern archaeologist to study the Great Pyr- amid. His measurements on the Giza plateau in general, and on the Great Pyramid in par- ticular, are so accurate, that they remain, to this day, the main source of measurements used. Based on Petrie’s measurements, it is now established that the exact length of an Egyptian Royal cubit, as used for the Great Pyramid, was 52.355 cm.
Wall at Ollantaytambo
There is other evidence that certain rocks and minerals were deliberately chosen by ancient builders for reasons other than es- thetics, availability, or durability. At Ollan- taytambo in Peru, most of the megaliths are of stone quarried from across the Urubamba River and raised up the steep side of the valley. The huge stones in the Wall of the Six Monoliths rest on smaller stones for no obvi- ously logical reason and are separated by col- umns of smaller stones. The structures at Sacsayhuaman make no sense at all to a modern observer and are also constructed in part, of stone quarried some distance away and hundreds of feet below the site, again, for no apparent reason. At Tiahuanaco in Bo- livia I discovered (or rediscovered) a row of magnetized monoliths.
Scientists willing to think outside the box might actually test rocks and minerals for effects and properties unexplainable in conventional terms. Certainly, tests could be done with the bluestones of Stonehenge, or even samples of similar rock in a laboratory. Do they really generate heat, perhaps by tap- ping the chi energy? Perhaps we can learn from the ancients, revive their science, and combine it with our own, developing a new approach to the New Age.
62 ATLANTIS RISING • Number 85 62 ATLANTIS RISING • Number 85
To measure angles, the Egyptians used the ‘rise and run’ method, where a seked is the horizontal distance run for every 1 Rc rise (7 palms). The seked of the slope of Khufu’s pyramid is 5 palms, 2 fingers run, for every one Rc rise. Likewise, the seked of the slightly steeper Khafre pyramid is 5 palms, 1 finger. The seked was used to define most pyramid slopes in the Old Kingdom. Researchers have looked in vain for the tools used at the building site to implement this angle of slope. In his new paper, Bryn argues that the seked was most probably used on the drawing board and not at the building site. This specific rise and run had to be translated into other means of preci- sion when transferred to a building site. “The only precise ‘tool’ available to the Egyp- tians on this scale,” says Bryn, “was gravity. It has always worked.” And in his paper, Bryn shows how it was possible for the pyramids to reach the elusive apex point using nothing more than a plumb line and a string.
Apex Point Key
Bryn has studied the plans from the 30 oldest Egyptian pyramids, and uncovered a system of precision that could have made it possible for the Egyptians to reach the pyr- amid’s last and highest point, the apex, with an impressive degree of accuracy. By ex- ploring and making a plan of the pyramid, it is possible to prepare modern project docu- mentation of not just one, but all, pyramids from any given period.
“The building grid,” says Bryn, “was prob- ably necessary in order for the apex point of the pyramid to be established, with the apex point itself being a true grid point.” The py- ramidion is the last piece of masonry placed on site, but that point must have been built into the project documentation during the entire time span of the monument’s erec- tion. One may even claim that the entire building’s purpose was to reach that singular point. By focusing on the grid rather than the building itself, it is possible to retrace the architectural drawings showing the in- ternal structure and thereby explain the pyr-
amid’s advanced geometry.
“As long as the architect knows the main dimensions of a pyramid, he can project the building as he would have done it with a modern building but with building methods and measurements known from ancient Egypt,” says Bryn.
The Core
“The need for a structure to rise with the grid is obvious,” he adds. When putting in place the curtain wall on a skyscraper, the precision is already (hopefully) in place within the concrete and steel core. A step pyramid is ideal to raise a grid. We know from the earliest third dynasty step pyramids in Egypt that they were built with accreditation walls or layers. In those early pyramids the accreditation layers were tilted inwards at an angle. The tilting was probably done to support temporary ramps from step to step and/or to provide structural stability. Each part of the pyramid between two steps is referred to as a ‘mastaba.’ Each ac- creditation wall or layer formed one step of the step pyramid and defined the base of the next mastaba by reducing the height of the wall layer by layer.
To this day, the interior or core of Khufu’s pyramid is hidden from view by the preserved masonry. Most archaeologists, however, believe that the pyramid is com- prised of horizontally laid masonry with the same height of the masonry visible on the surface today. The core of Khufu’s great pyr- amid, Bryn believes, is most probably a step pyramid.
This step pyramid was used to transfer the pyramid’s precision system, the building grid, vertically; and the blocks seen today are backing blocks that do not necessarily align with those of the underlying mastaba. Bryn argues that the accreditation walls forming the stepped core of a true pyramid are made with horizontally laid masonry. (One excep- tion is the Meidum pyramid which started out as a step pyramid with tilted masonry.) The Egyptians most probably used the base of each mastaba for measuring the face of the finished pyramid. “It is quite possible,” says Bryn, “that it was the mastabas which were first carefully geographically aligned North-South, and not the baseline we see today.” Note that the grid points used to measure out to the face of the pyramid would have been placed at the base, and not the top, of each mastaba.
By erecting walls with horizontally laid masonry, they could introduce tolerance be- tween the accreditation layers, thereby trans- ferring the building grid vertically from mas- taba to mastaba with a plumb line. The outlines of each accreditation wall were care- fully measured out on top of each mastaba. Those lines and point could now be adjusted using the 3-4-5 triangle and the diagonal. Those lines represented the building grid.
The ‘Diamond Matrix’
Aerial photographs taken in the 1920s re- veal that Khufu’s pyramid was not set on a square base. The center line on each face is
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