Sometimes if you turn a question around, it helps you understand the\u00a0entirety\u00a0of the topic at hand.<\/p>\n

The most common question regarding the Great Pyramid is How did they construct it?<\/strong> <\/em><\/p>\n

Far less often asked are questions like Why did they build it?<\/strong> <\/em>and Why did they make it so big?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I’m aware of quite a few books that attempt to explain how it was built. And others that provide unorthodox explanations for the Great Pyramid’s purpose, such as The Giza Power Plant<\/em>. I’m not aware of any books that provide an orthodox explanation for why <\/em>the pyramids were built. I’ve not even seen a chapter that tries to explain why it needed to be so big.\u00a0Sure, big is important – grandeur for a leader. But a quarter as big would still be awesome, and easier to achieve.<\/p>\n

So here’s an open question, that I put to amateur and professional archaeologists and history experts: Why they didn’t build a bigger pyramid?
\n<\/em>
\n<\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n
I don’t think there’s any engineering problems stopping it from being, say, 50% bigger. The Bent Pyramid is perhaps evidence of the Egyptians trying a steeper angle for the sides. So why isn’t there a collapsed pyramid out there that was designed to be bigger than the Great Pyramid?<\/div>\n
Here are some possible reasons for why a larger pyramid was not built:<\/div>\n
\n
\n
Lack of labor<\/li>\n
Lack of time<\/li>\n
Structural limitations<\/li>\n
There was a specific purpose that required a certain size<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n
Regarding the latter, if you read a book about building nuclear bunkers, it will explain the relationship between wall thickness, wall composition and protection from radiation.<\/p>\n
Example from The Nuclear Survival Handbook<\/em> (pages 95-96):<\/p>\n
2.2 inches of concrete halves the radiation from fallout, and 6 inches of it does the same to initial gamma radiation… if we double any given thickness, we more than double the protection from radiation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Now I’m not suggesting that ancient Egypt was under threat of nuclear warfare (although ancient Indian texts do describe just that), and I’m not suggesting that the Egyptians could have discovered or even\u00a0theorized\u00a0cosmic rays – but I find this interesting, about protecting astronauts from cosmic radiation, via\u00a0Wikipedia<\/a>:<\/p>\n
For passive mass shielding, the required amount could be too heavy to be affordably lifted into space without changes in economics (like hypothetical non-rocket space launch or usage of extraterrestrial resources) \u2014 many hundreds of metric tons for a reasonably-sized crew compartment. For instance, a NASA design study for an ambitious large spacestation envisioned 4 metric tons per square meter of shielding<\/strong> to drop radiation exposure to 2.5 mSv annually (+\/- a factor of 2 uncertainty).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Now the base of the Great Pyramid covers 52,900 m\u00b2\u00a0(230 metres x 230 meters). And it is estimated that the entire structure weighs 5.9 million metric tons. So that’s just over 100 metric tons per square meter, from the base.<\/p>\n
I’m not going to get into chamber positions, meters of granite above them, comparing the shielding\u00a0proficiency\u00a0of granite versus silicon dioxide (as NASA proposes), or the levels of protection aimed for. \u00a0But I do presume the following statement is true:<\/p>\n
The only proposal for walls that are anything like the thickness of the walls of the Great Pyramid, was by NASA for protection from cosmic rays.<\/strong><\/p>\n
Or, the only thing I can think of that needs to be buried deep underground to work is a Proton Decay Detector. Could the pyramid have been a\u00a0laboratory?<\/p>\n
$\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n
It might have been easier convincing your people to build a grand pyramid than an underground laboratory…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sometimes if you turn a question around, it helps you understand the\u00a0entirety\u00a0of the topic at hand.
\nThe most common question regarding the Great Pyramid is How did they construct it?
\nFar less often asked are questions like Why did they build it? and Why did they make it so big?
\nI’m aware of quite a few books that attempt to explain how it was built. And others that provide unorthodox explanations for the Great Pyramid’s purpose, such as The Giza Power Plant. I’m not aware of any books that provide an orthodox explanation for why the pyramids were built. I’ve not even seen a chapter that tries to explain why it needed to be so big.\u00a0Sure, big is important – grandeur for a leader. But a quarter as big would still be awesome, and easier to achieve.
\nSo here’s an open question, that I put to amateur and professional archaeologists and history experts: …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cosmic-rays","category-pyramids"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3237"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3303,"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3237\/revisions\/3303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}