Pharaohs Tombs And The Great Pyramid example essay topic

Who built the Egyptian pyramids For centuries, the Egyptian Pyramids and the Sphinx have stood a silent testimony to a great and powerful civilization long since ground to dust. But behind the great walls of the Pyramids and this long lasting silence, mysteries are still unrevealed and the explanation of these mysteries is a set of theories based on observation and on the printed texts on the Pyramids walls. One great mystery was the one dealing with the building of the Pyramids and the Sphinx. In fact, there are two major theories (Pahl 1998) (Ashmawy 1995-1997) explaining why the Pyramids were built. The first one states that the ancient Egyptian people built them as tombs for their great kings (Ashmawy 1995-1997) (Cottrell 1956), and the other one is that they were built by other people more technologically advanced than us, whose purposes were much more important than building tombs for dead Kings (Bauval & Hancock 1996). There is an ancient Egyptian proverb, that says: "Everything fears time, but time fears the Pyramids".

They are the only Wonders of the ancient world to remain standing, which do not need to be described. Their enormous size made Herodotus the "Father of the ancient history", Napoleon, Alexander the Great, and many more important invaders to stand in awe overwhelmed by the greatest structures on earth. As for the roots of the word pyramid, they are unknown for it has no origin in any language on earth (Russel & Sellier 1994). The first conventional and widely approved theory, says that the Pyramids were constructed by the Egyptian people 4500 years ago, and states that they are tombs for the dead kings. In fact, the Great Pyramid was constructed by the king Khufu to become his tomb when he dies.

For instance, Pyramid building was a tradition to the old Egyptians before Khufu's age, which started as a small structure known as Mastaba (the Mastaba is an Arabic word meaning a bench), which was a small structure were the king and his personal belongings were buried. (Ashmawy 1995) (Cottrell 1956. The reason that lies beyond the building of such great structures was related to the Egyptian religion. The Egyptian religion was a very complex one, based on many after-death believes. Furthermore, through the help of the scenes, paintings, and texts that are found on the walls of the Pyramids, we conclude that the reason that led the Egyptians to build the Pyramids was to protect the body of the mummified king.

Besides, the reason to mummification was due to their belief that as long as the body endured, so long the soul continued with it (Wall bank p 26) not as quickening and animating it but as an attendant or guardian unwilling to leave the former habitation (Moffett p 22). On the other hand, when entering the Great Pyramid, the scholars found that the king's body was missing which lead the scientists to believe that it was stolen, just like other smaller Pyramids which were found empty. Moreover, the pyramid ologists got the idea that these empty Pyramids are tombs for old pharos, because there are more than seventy Pyramids found in Egypt which contained mummified bodies of old dead kings (Russel & Sellier). As for the way they were built, the scientists released a very popular theory, which states that the limestone's of which the Pyramids are built, were quarried from the Mokkatam Hills, on the opposite bank of the river, and floated across in barges at flood time. Herodotus describes that as each layer of blocks was laid, an earth ramp was raised by gathering earth and stones covered with water, keeping a constant angle so that the ramp would get longer and longer as the work proceeded, on which the block was dragged up (Kemp 1989).

So by putting each block on its specific site, the construction was complete in twenty years, by a hundred thousand workers, as Herodotus said. (Kemp 1989) But is it possible that a 450 feet high, having a base of 755 feet, with 22 acres of stone books weighing an average of 2.5 tons each, was built with the old pharaonic civilization tools Another group of archeologists thinks that the Pyramids could not have been built by the "Quasi stone-aged technology of 2900 BC" (Russel & Sellier 1994). They agree that the objective of these Pyramids was more important than being a pharaoh's tomb. In going back to the eighth century DC, the Islamic Caliph Al Ma " moun, was told that the Great Pyramid contained treasures and an important store of knowledge. So he tried to enter the pyramid but he couldn't find an entrance, so he had to tunnel into the pyramid starting from a hinged opening from the north side. After several months of tunneling, he reached seventy feet encountering on the way all kinds of huge granite block, blocking the way.

Once he found the passageway to the king's room, he found out that it was empty (Jensen & York). So upon this discovery, the scientists started thinking about the Great Pyramid, that it was never robbed from its contents because there weren't any. Thinking about it for a while we see that since Al Ma " moun dug his way though, it would be impossible for thieves to come at night and enter the pyramid to steel its contents, unless if there was another way to enter the pyramid which until now is uncovered. Furthermore, after the checking of the Great Pyramid by civil engineers it was revealed that its structure is unique in the world, and "impossible to duplicate nowadays". In fact, Gregory Pros, -AIA -architect- negotiates that such a great structure should sink slowly in the ground at a fixed rate like all other buildings. For example the U.S. capitol, Gregory says, has settled 5 inches during the last 200 years.

But the Great Pyramid settled for less than 1.5 inches during the last 4500 years (Russel & Sellier 1994). Not only architects were astonished by this great structure, but also geologists and mathematicians are truly amazed by the distinct properties of the Great Pyramid. Its placement on the earth is exactly at 31 degrees east, 30 degrees north which is in fact the middle of the earth (Pahl 1998). And building such a structure would require a knowledge of the structure of the earth, the longitude and the latitude in addition to the science of astronomy, a knowledge which did not exist in the Egyptian time (Russel & Sellier 1994) (Pahl 1998). In addition, after the discovery of the hieroglyph by the French scientist Champollion, the scientists could read all the written texts left by the Egyptians. And the astonishing discovery was that there weren't any text describing the process of building the Pyramids, not any single picture or drawing related to them (Kemp 1989) (Russel & Sellier 1994) (Cottrell 1956).

Moreover, this group of scientists thinks of a relationship between the Giza monuments, and another place that exists on Mars, that could explain who build these gigantic structures. After the filming of the Cedonian location on the planet Mars by the spaceship Viking, the archeologists turned their researches over the red planet and what was found on it. The Cedonian location contained a human face like structure 450 meters high and more than one mile long, in addition to some pyramidal structures geometrically displaced, impossible to be formed unless by an intelligent life. And the relationship to the Giza complex on earth was that the Martian face, after complete studies and comparison, matched the face of the Sphinx. Moreover, the position of the pyramidal structures, especially the D&N pyramid, are perfectly fitted with the ones on Earth (Bauval & Hancock 1996) (Russel & Sellier 1994). These recent discoveries are to be proved in the future with another spaceship that will photograph the Cedonian location.

So the answer to the question: "which theory is more convincing", depends on the more logical and realistic proofs that any of the two parties can offer. In the future NASA is the only hope who is able to reveal the relationship between the Giza monuments and the Cedonian ones. Meanwhile children in schools are taught that the Pyramids are pharaohs' tombs and the Great Pyramid is the tomb of the king Khufu, considering what is a mere unproven theory, that is, nevertheless, very credible, as an established fact. 32 a.