Egyptian Pyramids Essay Research Paper Who built

Egyptian Pyramids Essay, Research Paper

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 (Wallbank p26) not as quickening and

animating it but as an attendant or guardian unwilling to leave the former

habitation (Moffet p22). 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 pyramidologists 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 limestones 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

bocks 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 passagewa

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