Lunar Cubit is a site specific proposal to be constructed in Abu Dhabi just outside Masdar City, the world’s first zero carbon metropolis once completed.

Lunar means relating to or involving the moon and cubit is the name given to the oldest recorded units of length; employed though antiquity, the oldest cubit being the royal cubit, dating back to the Step Pyramid of Djoser circa 2,700 B.C.

Lunar Cubit is a timekeeper, a monthly calendar, allowing viewers to measure time through the eight lunar phases represented by a ring of eight pyramids encircling one central pyramid.  All nine are proportional to the Great Pyramid of Cheops in Giza but they’re not made from stone; they’re made of glass and amorphous silicon, giving them the appearance of onyx polished to a mirror finish.

Nine pyramids resting on tan sand; encircled by distant trees; antiquity gilded with technology.

Lunar Cubit

How the great pyramid of Khufu in Giza was built remains an engineering enigma. Jean Pierre Houdin has invested time and considerable resources in his quest to elaborate a comprehensive theory that explains how the ancient Egyptians were able to built this perfect geometric shape at such a massive scale. So far, Houdin’s internal ramp theory is backed up by high end computer modeling and examination of construction details preserved in the pyramid, but it has not been tested in situ due to permit problems.

Why is it important to attempt to finally solve this engineering riddle is perhaps best summarized in Houdin’s own words:

…the Egyptians of that time had an extraordinary mastery of the techniques used, advanced knowledge in geometry, mathematics, geology, topography, astronomy and a remarkable organization system for the construction operation.

The corpus of knowledge of one of the most advanced ancient civilizations is thus hidden at this moment within the four walls of this iconic monument, a true wonder of the ancient world.

Building the Great Pyramid of Khufu is not as easy as amassing stone blocks in the shape of a mountain. The manmade structure is neither solid nor exactly hollow. Its internal passages and chambers require careful planning before embarking in such a colossal project.

Besides the use of internal ramps, Houdin presents a very plausible hypothesis on the construction and purpose of the Grand Gallery as a gigantic pulley system to carry the immense granite blocks located on top of the King’s Chamber, designed by ancient architect Hemienu to divert the enormous weight on top of the chamber and prevent the collapse of the entire structure.

Mark Rose’s article “Time for the Great Pyramid?” mentions that Houdin himself has indicated how his internal ramp theory could be tested with infrared thermography. This non destructive research can be done in about 18 hours on site, at a distance of some 50 meters from the pyramid. Rose concludes that “if we are comfortable with sampling the royal mummies for DNA, it should be possible to structure this research in a way that meets the permit criteria.”

The Great Pyramid of Giza: An Engineering Enigma

VIDEO: How the Egyptians built the Great Pyramid: Bob Brier and Jean-Pierre Houdin

The Supreme Council of Antiquites announced the discovery by Egyptian archaeologists of another group of 4th dynasty tombs belonging to workers who built the great pyramids of Giza.

Egyptologists Dr. Zahi Hawass and Dr. Salima Ikram commented on the importance of this discovery, which sheds more light on the living conditions of the ancient Egyptian working class and the distribution of wealth across social classes.

Contrary to popular imagination, the Pyramids of Giza, the remaining ancient wonder of the world, were not built by enslaved laborers.

The men who built the pyramids, numbered in the tens of thousand, were paid and fed by the administration officials in charge of the massive project, to the tune of 21 cattle and 23 sheep sent to them daily from farms in northern and southern Egypt, according to Dr. Hawass.

Men were required to work on these pharaonic projects during the season of inundation of the Nile, when working hands were idle. Although this have been traditionally considered by scholars a “corvée” tax imposed on the working class by pharaoh’s officials, the fact is that these workers enjoyed better nutrition and those who died during construction were honored by being buried in mud brick tombs close to the pharaoh’s resting place.

The most important of the newly discovered tombs, according to Hawass, belonged to a man named Idu.

Source: The New York Times

Thanks to Stan Parchin

The following improvements to the site of Giza are being implemented to make the visit to the Pyramids and the Sphinx a more enjoyable one.

New road: Built around the perimeter of the archaeological site to eliminate traffic and reduce damage caused by vibration, pollution and noise.

Animals: Camels and horses will be kept outside the road ring. People who want to ride will be able to do so outside the road, with a beautiful view of the Pyramids.

Buildings: No new buildings will be allowed inside the ring road, and all existing buildings will be removed, to make the view better and protect the monuments from building projects.

New entrances: With parking space for cars and tour buses. Visitor centers will bring information about the pyramids before entering the site. There will be one educational center specifically for students and school groups.

Transportation: Visitors will take new electric cars up to the monuments, making the site more pedestrian friendly.

drhawass.com

Private Tour: Giza Pyramids and Sphinx

Pollution from the nearby (literally 30 metres) town of Nazlet as-Samaan at Giza ravages the Pyramids daily as tourists flock to see the great monuments. Some days, it is said you can barely see the mighty structures through the smog. It’s not just near the Pyramids however, it is the same all over Egypt. In fact, the country is said to have among the highest greenhouse gas emissions in the world.

As such, Egypt is now trying to reverse that by diversifying and cleaning its electric power production. Due to the country’s location and almost constant sun, the obvious way to do this is via solar power.

In Kureimat in the Egyptian desert, workers prepare to capture sun rays and turn them into energy. Constructing solar panel structures in an area of 65 thousand square meters of desert, it is the first part of the country’s planned solar energy scale-up, itself part of a regional plan extending across North Africa.

Meanwhile, construction has begun on the country’s first solar unit, with operation expected to commence in 2010. It is part of a larger facility that also includes three non-solar units and is expected to generate 2,900 megawatts once it comes onstream. Egypt aims to generate 20 percent of its power from renewable sources by 2020.

Excerpted from an article by Timon Singh for MENA Infrastructure

The series is based on the extensive research done in Egypt and around the world by Dr. Carmen Boulter of the University of Calgary.

The Pyramid Code features interviews with geologists, physicists, archaeologists, engineers, and authors and asks the questions; Who were the ancients and what did they know? Could the pyramids be much older than traditional Egyptology would have us believe? Could it be that the ancients were more technologically advanced than we are today? Why do we have so little understanding of the ancient Egyptians?

The family were in Egypt visiting family on the northern coast and were on their way to a relation’s house for dinner when the collision happened.

Despite there being a hospital 20 miles away in Alexandria, the children were taken to a hospital two hours away in Cairo.

Daniel died shortly after the accident but Courtney, who suffered a heart attack and was starved of oxygen while being transported to the hospital, survived for another seven days in intensive care.

The children are now buried at the foot of the pyramids, in Giza, after Mrs Khattab, 35,  discovered it was her son Daniel’s final wish.

A memorial for the children will be held at Oxclose Community School next Sunday.

Mail Online

The Red (or North) Pyramid at Dashur was King Sneferu’s third attempt at building a massive pyramid. He had already built at Meidum, near the Faiyum Oasis, and at Dashur, resulting in the Bent Pyramid. This time he would get it right from the start, and pave the way for his son Khufu to build the Great Pyramid of Giza.

The king’s pyramid would be built at a gentler slope, making it less likely to collapse. Sneferu’s engineers began construction of the new pyramid in around the 30th year of the king’s reign. Work had been abandoned on the Bent Pyramid, although Sneferu’s workmen would return there later to finish the job. Sneferu also had a small mortuary temple built on the east side of the pyramid, as well as a Valley temple. His causeway, which normally links the mortuary and valley temples, appears never to have been built. These elements would become standard in pyramid complexes as time progressed.

The entrance to the Red Pyramid can be found twenty-eight meters up its northern wall; from here a narrow shaft descends for 62m through the body of the pyramid until ground level is reached. Here a horizontal shaft leads into a large chamber with a corbelled roof, just over twelve meters high. A further horizontal tunnel leads into a similar chamber, again with a corbelled roof. Today visitors can climb a wooden staircase to this short passage; crouching down and passing through they reach the king’s burial chamber. Although some scholars believe that this was Sneferu’s final resting place, I believe that he was actually buried in the nearby Bent Pyramid, as it was here that his funerary cult continued after his death.

drhawass.com

During the initial stages of constructing the Bent Pyramid the blocks were laid sloping inwards, just as had been done with the earlier step pyramids, although this pyramid was planned from the start to be a true, smooth-sided pyramid. Then, roughly half-way up the pyramid the decision was taken to lay the blocks horizontally and to lessen the angle of slope for the second time. This reduced the stress on the interior chambers of the pyramid and led to its distinctive bend. It also reduced the amount of masonry needed to complete the pyramid. The ground below the pyramid was unstable and so these drastic measures had to be taken to save the monument from collapsing.

The interior of the pyramid is also unusual. There are two entrances: one on the north side and another on the west side. The northern entrance is about 11.8 metres high off the ground, from here you descend down a long thin shaft for about 80 metres. You then enter a corbelled room. Then, in order to reach the lower burial chamber 6.25 metres up the south wall, you must now climb a wooden set of stairs. The western shaft is gentler in slope than the northern one, heading down about 65 metres to another burial chamber, higher up in the body of the pyramid than that from the northern entrance. Ancient cedar wood can be seen in this chamber, placed there to help relieve the stress on the chambers.

Standing within the pyramid you can sometimes feel cool air flowing from inside the pyramid to the exit. This means that one of the chambers could be connected to the outside, indicating that there could still be more secret chambers left to discover.

drhawass.com

Since its construction 4,500 years ago, the Great Pyramid of Giza, the only standing one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, has remained an engineering enigma.

Previous theories have suggested that the Great Pyramid builders raised the man made structure’s millions of stone blocks using an external ramp, either extended, or spiral.

The main difficulty in the single external ramp theory is that the structure required to haul the blocks effortlessly to the top of the Great Pyramid would need a slope of a maximum of 8 degrees, which implies a mile long ramp with a volume as large as the pyramid itself, effectively doubling the labor for a structure meant to be dismantled after the pyramid is complete.

A more sensible hypothesis is that of a ramp spiraling upwards around the Great Pyramid as each block is put into place. The main objection to the external spiral ramp theory is that such a structure prevents the completion of corners until the pyramid has been assembled. Frequent and precise measurements of the angles at the corners of the pyramid are needed to assure that the four triangular sides would meet at the top.

As recently as 2007, French architect Jean-Pierre Houdin proposed that the most effective way for the ancient Egyptians to build the Great Pyramid at Giza is the use of an internal ramp that, according to the architect and supported by microgravity measurements conducted in 1986, still exists inside the ancient manmade structure.

Carlos Eduardo Rodríguez Varona, a graduate in Education, specializing in Physics and Electronics, from Cuba, is advancing a new hypothesis on the construction of the Great Pyramid which involves an internal ramp with a slope of only 3.9 degrees and small movable external ramps ascending on one side of the pyramid as the structure progresses in elevation. The internal ramp has a rest horizontal area where workers can manipulate the blocks easily. The fundamental problem posed by the internal ramp theory has to do with the method of completing the levels as the work progresses.

None of the theories mentioned above is currently supported by solid evidence or ancient documentation. Further investigation needs to be conducted at the Giza plateau itself. The solution of the engineering enigma on how the Great Pyramid of Giza was built is in the hands of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, the sole entity in charge of authorizing this type of research.

Source: All-About-Egypt