Chapter 31 Chapter 33 The Magical Orientation

●March 16, 1993, at 3:30 in the morning, Egypt, Kesha. Through the empty hotel lobby, we—Sansa and I—went out the lobby door and into the white Fiat that had been waiting by the side of the road for a long time.The driver was a thin Egyptian youth named Ali.His task today is to avoid the eyes and ears of the guards of the Great Pyramid (Great Pyramid) before dawn, send us to the front of the tower, and pick us up after dawn.Anything wrong and we would be deported and he in jail for 6 months. Of course, nothing should go wrong.The appearance of Ali is the best proof.The day before, we had given him $150 to convert into Egyptian pounds (pounds) to distribute to all concerned guards in exchange for their temporary "blindness" today.

The car stopped less than half a mile from the pyramid.We headed north of the pyramid along the hillside on the edge of the village of Nazlet-el-Samaan.On the dark road where the lights of the guards could not reach, we stepped across the soft sand, walking forward step by step in silence, both excited and uneasy.Whether the bribery was successful or not, Ali was not at all sure. We stayed in the shadows, watching the giant pyramids soaring into the sky, obscuring the stars of the southern sky.At this moment, three armed guards rushed out from the northwest corner. They were covered with blankets to keep out the cold and held shotguns in their hands.Stopped only 15 yards from us and lit a cigarette.After Ali gestured for us to stand still, he emerged from the shadows.He walked up to the guards and began talking to them.The two sides are apparently locked in a heated debate.After they argued for a while, Ali finally waved to us and asked us to join them.

"Something went wrong," he explained, "and one of them, the captain (pointing to a short, unshaven, unhappy-looking guy), insisted we pay an extra $30 , otherwise it will be out of the question. What do you think we should do?" I took out my wallet from my pocket, counted 30 dollars, and handed it to Ali.He folded the money and handed it to the captain.The captain put the money in his breast pocket dignifiedly, and finally shook hands with us to make a deal. "Okay," Ali said, "let's hit the road!" Almost mythical high precision The guards continued to patrol from the north to the west, while we circled the northeast corner and came to the east of the Great Pyramid.

Since a long time ago, I have developed the habit of first determining where I am based on the location of the relics when exploring the relics.At this time, I found the orientation of the Shwedagon Pagoda. The north faces the true north, the east faces the true east, the south faces the true south, and the west faces the true west. 2 minutes).No matter which era and which building, this kind of precision is unbelievable, not to mention that in Egypt, where the pyramids were built 4,500 years ago, this high precision is even more indescribable, almost mythical. The 3 points of the arc, in terms of percentage, is only 0.015% error.I have talked to some structural architects about the Great Pyramid, and they all expressed their inability to understand why the pyramid required such precision.From the perspective of actual construction, it took a lot of energy, time, and money to achieve such high precision, but it didn't have much impact on the overall structure of the building, so it seems to be of little significance.Even if the orientation of the pyramid base deviates by two or three degrees of a circular arc (that is to say, there is an error of about 1%), ordinary people still cannot distinguish it with the naked eye.However, when constructing, in order to reduce the error from two or three degrees to two or three thirds, the amount of work that needs to be invested is too large to be expressed by the differences in buildings.

Obviously, at the dawn of human civilization, the master architects of ancient Egypt had a very strong motivation to place the pyramids in very strict positions.Moreover, these master builders must be highly skilled, knowledgeable, and have excellent tools and measuring instruments to be able to build such a precise pyramid.It is not difficult to confirm this from some other characteristics of the tower.For example, although the pyramid is huge, its four sides are almost equal in length, which shows that the construction technology at that time was extremely precise, and its error rate was smaller than that of ordinary office buildings today.Of course the pyramid is not an office building. It is one of the greatest and oldest buildings in human history. inch.The difference between the longest and shortest sides is less than 8 inches, which means that on a base with an average side length of 9063 inches, the four sides of the pyramid are within 1% of each other.

No matter how many numbers are shown from an engineering point of view, it is impossible to tell the spirit and technology required to achieve such precision.Scholars have yet to find a reasonable explanation for how the masters who built the pyramids achieved such a high standard of precision②. What really interests me, though, is not the precision number itself, but the underlying question: Why did the Egyptians set themselves such high standards?If they can tolerate an error of 1% to 2% instead of less than 0.1%, not only will it not have a significant impact on the quality, but it will greatly reduce the difficulty of the project.Why don't they do it?Why do they insist on doing things the hard way?In other words, why did the ancient Egyptians have to insist on a high precision that was difficult to achieve even in the mechanical age on a theoretically very "primitive" large stone monument built 4,500 years ago?

black hole of history Our group's plan to climb the Great Pyramid was actually declared illegal by the Egyptian government as early as 1983 after several stupid tourists fell to their deaths.We're stupid enough (especially trying to climb in the middle of the night), and I'd hate to break a law that's basically pretty benign.However, at this point, the strong interest in the pyramids, combined with the strong desire to know everything about the pyramids, drove me to abandon my conscience and come to the front of the pyramids desperately. After breaking up with the patrolling guard at the northeast corner, we tiptoed across the east face to the southeast corner.

Between the Great Pyramid and the three "subsidiary" small pyramids in the east, a dilapidated and winding stone road was shrouded in a huge black shadow. Beside the stone road, there were three deep and narrow stone pits like a giant cemetery.According to the research of archaeologists in the early years, the shape of these three caves should be built to store a streamlined, high-performance ship; but when the archaeological team excavated, there was nothing in the cave. Walking halfway to the east entrance of the Shwedagon Pagoda, there was another oncoming patrol guard. One of them was at least 80 years old, and the other was a pale young man with pimples on his face.The two said Ali didn't pay enough and that if we were going to move on, we'd have to pay them another 50 Egyptian pounds.Without hesitation, I took out the money and gave it to the young man.I don't care about spending money anymore, as long as it allows me to climb up the pyramids and come down before dawn without being arrested.

We go forward, around the eastern corner of the pyramid.It was just after 4:15 am. In modern architecture, even in the houses we live in, we have never seen a structure with a positive 90-degree angle. It is very common for the corner to be off by one or two degrees, because the technology of building a right angle is very difficult. The difference not only does not affect any structure, nor will anyone notice.However, when building the Great Pyramid, we know that the ancient master builders were able to minimize the error, such as 89 degrees 56 minutes 27 seconds for the southeast corner, 90 degrees 3 minutes 2 seconds for the northeast corner, and 90 degrees for the southwest corner. 0 minutes and 33 seconds, while the northwest angle is 89 degrees, 49 minutes and 58 seconds, which is only 2 seconds away from the right angle.

Although it is not a perfect right angle, such precision is surprising and even more puzzling.There are so many incredible places in the Great Pyramid.The Egyptians' superb construction technology is not inferior to modern people.They should have experienced at least several thousand years of evolution before they could obtain such a high level of technology.But looking through the history of Egypt, we can't see any records of the technological development of the Egyptians.The Great Pyramid and the ruins around it have become a big black hole in the history of architecture, so deep and so big that no one knows where to peek into its bottom.

ship of the desert Ali, who was sweating profusely, did not explain to us why he had to take us around the base of the pyramid for a week before ascending.We circled from the east side of the pyramid to the south, heading west.There are also two vertical caves in the shape of ships, one of which has not been opened yet. Someone used a fiber optic camera to insert and investigate, and found a large ship more than 100 feet long buried inside.The ancient ship is now housed at the southern end of the pyramid, in an ugly building called the Boat Museum. This beautiful ship, built of cedar and with a displacement of about 40 tons, still retains the appearance of 4,500 years ago.From the eyes of experts, it is full of whimsical design. "Obviously be prepared for all sea voyages. The bow and stern of the ship are so high that they even surpass the Viking ships, indicating that the wind and waves faced by this ship are by no means the small waves of the Nile River, but the big waves of the ocean." An expert said . Some experts believe that this wonderfully designed and thoughtful pyramid ship should be "more suitable for sailing in open seas than the ships used in Columbus' sea expeditions."And all authorities agree that the ship was designed by "men of long experience and tradition on the high seas." Who built this ocean-going ship at the beginning of Egypt's 3,000-year history? The Egyptians who lived by farming in the inland Nile lowlands all year round should have no chance to accumulate "long-term experience and traditions of sailing in the open sea." Completion of such a mature design is.So where did the builder of this ship get his experience from? In addition, another more puzzling question is: the ancient Egyptians were very good at developing symbols and symbolic meanings, and liked to make various objects into reduced models.Egyptologists believe that the pyramid ship belongs to this type of model, and its only function is to carry the soul of the pharaoh to the heaven.But I can't believe that it took so much effort to make several such large and complicated ships in succession just for the reason of a single sacrifice, and then buried them in the ground.And if the purpose was only to send the pharaoh's soul to heaven, they only needed one ship, not several ships, and they didn't need to be this big.Logically, these gigantic ships should have had some practical and symbolic uses that modern man has never thought of... When we reached the midpoint of the south face of the Great Pyramid, we finally realized that we were being led around in a big circle, the purpose of which was to distribute money at four important points.In addition to the original 30 dollars in the north and 50 Egyptian pounds in the east, a guard suddenly appeared in the south that Ali should have arranged for the day before, and he also asked for 50 Egyptian pounds. "Ali," my voice began to be unfriendly, "when are we going to climb the pyramids?" "Now, Mr. Graham," said our guide.He continued to move forward very confidently, and pointed upwards with gestures, saying: "We will climb up from the southwest corner..." note ① Cole's "Exploring Egypt", Chapter 39: Determination of the orientation and precise size of the Great Pyramid of Giza. JH Cole, Survey of Egypt, paper no. 39: The determination of the Ex act Size and Orientation of the Great Pyramid of Giza, Cairo, 1925. ②For example, the traditional explanations in the book "The Pyramids Egypt" are often unsatisfactory, and even Edward, the author of this book, has to admit it.See pages 85-87 and 206-241 of the book. ③ Carson's "Ancient Ships and Navigation", page 17. Lionel Casson, Ships and Seafaring in Ancient Times, Texas University Press, 1994, p.17. ④ Spencer's "Pyramid Facts". AJ Spencer, The Great Pyramid Fact Sheet, PJ Publications, 1989