Civilization #18: The Great Pyramid as Ancient Egypt's Manhattan Project

The Great Pyramid was built around 2500 BC—that's 4,500 years ago—by a pharaoh named Khufu. It was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and is the only one that's still standing. From 2500 BC until 1400 CE, a period of about 4,000 years, it was the tallest man-made building in the world. The Great Pyramid is oriented to true North, meaning you can actually use it as a compass to tell the directions.

Let's look at the architecture of the Great Pyramid. The center contains The King's Chamber, where the king's mummy rests in the sarcophagus. There's a Grand Gallery that gives you access to the King's Chamber, followed by a slope, all within the pyramid structure. On the very top of the pyramid is what is called a Benben, or the pyramidion.

The pyramidion is extremely significant culturally and religiously in Egypt. In Egyptian mythology, the creator god Atum (also known as Ra, the Sun God) first came into existence on the Benben. Imagine a large, dark ocean with nothing in it, and then suddenly a mound emerges called a Benben; that's where the creator god Atum or Ra appears. Another legend says that from the dark ocean of space, a Benben comes down, and on top of it rests Atum. This idea of the pyramidion, the Benben, is central to the idea of creation in Egyptian mythology. This is an extremely powerful and beautiful monument to Egyptian culture.

Architecturally, Napoleon, who visited the Great Pyramid, calculated that if you took all the stones from it, you could build a wall around the perimeter of France. There is more material in the Great Pyramid than in any other structure except for two: the Great Wall of China and the Three Gorges Dam, also in China. It took them about 26 years to build this pyramid.

We're going to look at three questions:

1. How did they build this?
2. Why did they build this?
3. Why did they stop building pyramids?

How Was It Built?

How the pyramid was built is an extremely controversial question that has plagued historians, Egyptologists, and archaeologists for hundreds of years. Originally, the Greek historian Herodotus proposed the idea that the pyramid was built in steps, like a step pyramid, and then they used pulleys to pull the stones up. This was the accepted idea for the longest time because there was no better one, but architecturally, it has been disproven; it can't work that way.

Then, about 10 years ago, a French architect named Jean-Pierre Houdin came up with a new theory. He's an architect who has never been to Egypt, doesn't speak Arabic, and never studied Egyptology, but he and his father were very interested in how the Great Pyramid was constructed. They have run computer simulations and discovered this theory to be true, and there's also a lot of physical evidence to suggest it.

This is how they built the Great Pyramid:

1. They first constructed an external ramp in order to build the base.
2. From the base, they built two structures with counterweights, which are like pulleys that allowed them to pull the stones up high.
3. Surrounding these two structures is what they call an internal spiral ramp to carry the stones up.

They basically built the pyramids from the inside out. Once they built the structure, they covered it with limestone so that it would reflect in the sun. If you were living back then and saw the pyramids from a distance, you would think it was a star that had come down on planet Earth.

This raises another interesting question: how did they come up with this plan and execute it without blueprints or modern engineering techniques? The answer is that they likely built a model right beside the pyramid, which allowed them to figure out how to build the larger one. However, some Egyptologists still believe this was not possible because they believe that Egyptians didn't have the intellectual capacity to imagine this to be true. I'll show you later on that they actually did and that we underestimate their imagination and intellectual capacity.

Why Was It Built?

A more controversial question is why it was built. For the longest time, the accepted theory is that this was a tomb. The reason is that Egyptians believed in the afterlife, so the theory is this pyramid was designed to ease the pharaoh's transition into the heavens, where he would become a star or a sun. The common phrase is that this is almost a resurrection machine, where the pharaoh goes up to the sky and, after a few centuries, reincarnates inside the pyramid. This is the generally accepted theory today.

Problems with the Tomb Theory

There are three major problems with this theory which basically discount it.

1. No Bodies Found: There are about 100 pyramids in Egypt, perhaps more. We have not found a mummy or a body inside any sarcophagus inside the pyramids. If this is a tomb, why is there no body?
2. The Pharaoh's Priority: For this to be a tomb implies that when the pharaohs—who are divine, the emanation of God on Earth—come to the planet, their priority is to build their own tomb. Does that make any sense? They come to Earth and think, "Okay, well, I'm going to die, so I want to get out of here as soon as possible. Let's build that tomb right now." This would imply that the pharaoh sees the Egyptian people as his slaves, existing only for him to live. The problem is that in Egyptian mythology, gods are considered benefactors of the human race. Atum gave life to the world, his descendant Osiris gave civilization to Egypt, and Horus, the son of Osiris, gave the institution of kingship. These gods come to Earth to help the human race develop. It doesn't make sense that the pharaoh's primary purpose on Earth is to create a tomb for himself; that's a very selfish reason.
3. A Matter of Timing: Just using pure logic, if you're a pharaoh and your primary concern is the afterlife and resurrecting yourself, and the pyramid is the primary means of accomplishing this, how can you be sure you won't die before the pyramid is built? It takes about 26 to 30 years.

Despite these logical problems, Egyptologists insist that it is a tomb, primarily because of the way that Egyptians understood the afterlife. There is some evidence to suggest it is a tomb. This is considered a writing of a pharaoh to his son about what the pyramid represents:

Make your grave well-furnished, and prepare thy place in the West. Look, death counts little for us. Look, life is valued highly by us. The House of the Dead is for life.

The pyramid is what will make them immortal. This is highly debated today. Logically, it doesn't make sense that the pyramids are tombs, but there's a lot of evidence to suggest they are. Because of this debate, different theories have been proposed, and there are lots of really strange theories out there.

The Energy Plant Theory: Nikola Tesla's Idea

One really interesting theory was proposed by Nikola Tesla, the creator of alternating current electricity. He studied the architecture of the pyramid and proposed it was a battery system in order to create free, clean energy. The theory is this:

• First, the sound frequency in the King's Chamber is F-sharp, which is also the frequency of planet Earth. It seems like the pyramid is attuned to the planet.
• Second, the pyramids are located geographically at true North, placed in a way that matches the directions of the Earth. The theory is the direction of the pyramid is capturing energy from the electromagnetic field that the Earth generates.
• Third, inside the pyramid are granite stones, and outside are limestones. This is the perfect way to trap and store energy. Think of a solar panel where the sun and the moon reflect light onto the pyramids, and the energy is stored inside.

This is a great theory, and many people believe in this because it's actually much more plausible than the tomb theory. But the problem, of course, is it doesn't work scientifically. Also, you have the question of, if they produced all this free, clean energy, what were they using it for?

An Alternative Theory: Egypt's Manhattan Project

This leads us with a big question: why did they build the Great Pyramid? I want to propose another solution. My belief is the Great Pyramid was designed as Egypt's Manhattan Project.

The Manhattan Project, as you know, was a World War II project to build the nuclear bomb. You can argue the nuclear bomb is humanity's greatest invention ever. It took about 130,000 people over five to six years, working in the United States, Canada, and the UK—the best scientists in the world at the time—working collectively to create it. You can also make the argument that many working on the project believed it was about bringing eternal peace to Earth. It was ultimately about mastering the secrets of the universe, channeling the power of God to create eternal peace, to bring God on Earth. You could also argue that because we've had no major war after World War II (fingers crossed), they were right.

That's my argument to you: the Egyptians conceptualized and created the Great Pyramid in order to harness the power of God to create eternal peace on Earth, to bring an end to history, pain, suffering, and death.

Before I provide the evidence, let me explain this theory. This is my theory; it's speculation and imagination, but I think it makes sense. The trick is the body of the pharaoh—the mummy. If the pharaoh was divine, and the Egyptians believed he was, then after his death, the body would be sacred and divine. Not only that, but after the pharaoh dies, he would ascend to the heavens to become a star or a sun. The body then becomes a portal or a mechanism for you to communicate with the pharaoh while he's in the heavens. You can also argue the mummy could be a mechanism for you to channel the pharaoh's powers on Earth.

Imagine this: you have the sarcophagus with the mummy inside. Then you have the Grand Gallery, and inside, people are praying and worshiping the pharaoh, which then draws the energy from the stars onto the Earth. Because of the limestone, this energy is reflected across Egypt, so the entire nation can bask in the divine energy of the pharaoh. Nikola Tesla said this was a battery to channel free, clean energy to power Egypt. Well, what if we change this to divine energy instead? The pyramid was a battery to channel divine energy in order to power Egypt.

If you are a worshipper in the Grand Gallery, what are you experiencing?

• First, you're experiencing the collision, the nexus of life and death. The pharaoh is dead, but he's still alive through your faith. Even though you're mortal, you're now in communication with God.
• The Grand Gallery, if you have a chance to visit it, almost looks like a womb. It's like you're inside a dark space taking you back to the point of your birth. But it can also be seen as a tomb, a place where you're being buried. This is another nexus of being born and dying.
• If you were outside and saw the pyramid, you would think of it as a star that has landed on Earth. This is a nexus of heaven and earth.
• It's a nexus of myth and reality.

You can also make the argument that through divine worship, you're really reversing the Big Bang. You're bringing everything into this one space and creating oneness, wholeness, and completeness. You have achieved the union and the unity of all things through your faith in the pharaoh, which gives you divine energy to be born anew, cleansed of your sins, and to cleanse others of their sins to create a moral Egypt.

The Goal of Eternal Peace

Why would the pyramid create the idea of eternal peace?

1. Unity: Even though Egypt was an empire, it was still divided culturally. There were at least four different cultures scattered around Egypt, all with their own mythologies, religious practices, and faiths. The point of this pyramid was to unite all these faiths into one singular object in the worship of the pharaoh. If you were an Egyptian citizen and you looked at the pyramids, you could not help but think, "This is God on Earth." This centers your faith and forces your obedience and submission to a higher authority, which is the pharaoh.
2. Awe: Let's say you're a powerful army and you want to conquer Egypt. You send your scouts, and they see the Great Pyramid. What are they seeing? They're seeing God on Earth. You're not going to attack God on Earth; you're going to run away. It creates a sense of awe around the world.
3. Domination of Nature: Through divine inspiration, Egyptians were able to summon the Great Pyramid, and it shows the god's ability to control nature. This is important because the source of Egyptian wealth and power is the Nile River. The Nile made Egypt the wealthiest country in the world for thousands of years. If the Nile is in a good mood, you live a very good life because it floods its banks, leaves this rich soil, and you just throw some seeds in it and can grow crops very easily. But if it's in a bad mood—for example, it doesn't flood or it floods too much—you could die of starvation or drowning. It's very important for you to be able to control the moods of the gods, and that's what the pyramid is meant to do. The Egyptian word for Egypt is Kemet, which basically means "Black Earth." The source of all life in Egypt is the soil.

Let's go back to that quotation, and now we can understand it in a different way.

Make your grave well-furnished, and prepare thy place in the West.

Look, death counts little for us. [We're gods, we're pharaohs, we will never die, so we don't worry about death.]

Look, life is valued highly by us. [What is life? Life is humans, the Egyptian people. Our concern as pharaohs is for the well-being of the Egyptian people. That's our primary responsibility.]

The House of the Dead is for life. [The pyramid is our legacy to the Egyptian people. It is our benevolence, our generosity. It is how we will make Egypt eternal, stable, and prosperous.]

That's my theory of what the pyramid is: it is really the Manhattan Project, an attempt by the pharaohs to bring eternal peace.

Evidence for the "Manhattan Project" Theory

1. Egyptian Mythology: In Egyptian mythology, which is very different from other mythologies like that of Mesopotamia, the gods give everything to the people. The people don't really do anything. Ra gives life, Osiris gives civilization, Horus provides the kingship. The Egyptian understanding of the relationship with the gods is basically that if they worship the gods well enough, the gods will always reward them. The idea that the gods will make the people build tombs doesn't really make any sense. It makes more sense that the pharaoh is helping the Egyptians achieve eternal peace by inspiring them to build the pyramid.
2. Architectural Quality: There is a misconception that the pyramids were built by slaves. They had slaves, but they never used slaves for religious purposes because you can't really trust them. It was tens of thousands of laborers who built the pyramid together, and it's a complete mystery to people how they were able to achieve such a miraculous building. The answer is this: for the past thousand years, the most impressive buildings in the world are usually churches, temples, and mosques. That just demonstrates the power of religious devotion in the act of creation. If the Egyptians saw the pyramids as the ultimate temple, as bringing God on Earth, you can imagine every one of them would work very hard to do their best.
3. Historical Precedent: There is a pattern of humans trying to connect the spirit world with our world through religious worship, and the pyramid represents the ultimate temple.
   • The Cult of the Skull: Around this time and throughout the world, people practiced ancestor worship. They might keep the skull of a well-regarded ancestor, decorate it with clay and ochre, and use it as a portal to the spirit world to draw inspiration and good luck. The idea that they would use the pharaoh's body as a portal into the heavens would be a very common idea at that time.
   • Cave Paintings: We looked at Ice Age cave paintings inside caves. These paintings were a means of religious worship, of bringing the spirit world into our world and connecting the two in order to celebrate life and hunting.
   • Göbekli Tepe: This is considered one of the earliest temples. It is a religious monument on top of a hill, which would be another way for you to connect our world with the heavens and, through your worship, draw divine energy.

The pyramid is a continuation of this sort of religious devotion, worship, and practice.

Why Did They Stop Building Pyramids?

There's a very good reason why they stopped building pyramids. Remember, this pyramid was about creating eternal peace, pleasing the gods, and unifying the world. The problem is, this theory didn't work.

In about 2200 BC, the 4.2-kiloyear event happened. Think of this as a mini-ice age where, for about 100 years, there was a drought in Egypt. That's a problem, because the entire point of the pyramid—why people sacrificed themselves so hard to work on it—was to prevent a drought. It was to control the Nile, and they failed.

This created several problems:

1. A Crisis of Faith: Many were forced to reject their faith in the pharaoh. Now you see the rise of the priesthood and other gods as well.
2. A Failed Economy: In order to build the pyramids, you need a pyramid economy, which represents centralized planning. The pharaoh and his palace are able to coordinate all the resources of the state. When you have centralization, you have three problems: inequality (if you're part of the plan, you do well; if not, you become poorer), corruption (people in the system want to steal), and waste (it's not very efficient). The pyramid economy was a complete waste of resources.
3. A Nihilistic Religious Belief: A religious belief emerged saying that life doesn't matter; it's death that matters. It's death that allows us to be like gods, to be eternal. In order to ensure their ascent into godhood, people had to be close to the pharaoh and obtain a lot of wealth in their life. Egypt was taking all its grain and resources, selling it overseas to bring back precious metals and jewelry that they could put in their graves to take into the afterlife. They were squandering the tremendous, almost unlimited wealth of Egypt on the promise of an eternal afterlife. They didn't care about the here and now, about building a great nation, or ensuring everyone was well-off and prosperous. You had an elite who was concerned about abusing power to steal as much money as possible to ensure a good afterlife.

These are the three major reasons why they stopped building the pyramids: a crisis of faith, a failed centralized economy, and a corrupting religious belief that led to tyranny.

What Did Later Egyptians Remember About the Pyramids?

Herodotus was writing around 400 BC, about 2,000 years after the Great Pyramid was built. He traveled around Egypt as a historian and journalist, wanting to know how they built it. What he discovered is that the Egyptians didn't know. Not only did they not know, but they didn't even know how to rebuild one. If you asked an Egyptian in 400 BC to build a pyramid, they had lost the expertise.

The pyramid economy was extremely complex. It required three things happening at the same time:

• Specialization: Massive specialization, including how to carve granite, how to move granite, and how to do measurements.
• Institutionalization: Creating a memory of this knowledge by passing it on to sons and grandsons, perhaps in a guild or workshop.
• Systematization: Bringing all these pieces together.

The man who created this system, the pyramid economy, was named Imhotep. He is revered in Egypt as a divine figure. He was a Grand Vizier to the pharaoh, a man of royalty, but he contributed so much that they deified him. His major contribution was creating this pyramid economy. It's very hard to put the pieces together; you need a writing system, a financial system, and many other elements.

Furthermore, for the Egyptians and the pharaoh, the pyramids represented God on Earth, so there had to be mystery and secrecy around their building. It makes sense that they would build models around the pyramid so working teams would know where to go, but after they built the pyramids, it also makes sense for them to destroy all records to maintain a sense of divinity. They were trying to create awe, fear, and inspiration, so they would not want people to know how they were built. They would want people to think it was a gift from God.

Where Was the Pharaoh's Mummy?

In this theory, what matters is not the pyramid; what matters is the body of the pharaoh. It's the pharaoh's body that's sacred and divine. If that's the case, then you need a priesthood, a cult of the pharaoh, to secure and take care of the body. There had to be a team taking care of the mummy, ensuring its safety first and foremost.

The Great Pyramid was part of the Giza complex, which includes two other pyramids and surrounding tombs of people who worked for the pharaoh but were not divine. You can make the argument they were trying to create a constellation. When you look at the sky, stars don't travel by themselves; they travel in constellations. It makes sense for the son and grandson to be buried alongside Khufu, but as lesser deities in lesser pyramids, to show the Egyptian people the harmony, balance, and order of the system. This system also ensures the loyalty of people working for the pharaoh, because if you're loyal, you're granted a tomb around him, which guarantees your ascension into the eternal afterlife.

When the system was breaking down and it was clear Egypt was heading into civil war, the cult of the pharaoh had a responsibility to take the body and place it somewhere no one could find it. Again, what matters is the body; the body is what gives the pyramids energy and power. They had to protect that body at all costs. The reason we can't find the body is they made sure we could not find it. The body is the mechanism, the portal by which the pharaoh will resurrect himself. If we have that, we control the pharaoh; we control God. They must have had secret caves or places where they put these bodies to ensure they could never be found.

What Was Found Inside the Great Pyramid?

The pyramids have been around for 4,500 years, and tomb raiding was a huge problem. So what was actually in the pyramids, we can't be sure. We didn't find that much inside the Great Pyramid. There were no pictures or artwork and very few hieroglyphics. There are hieroglyphics and paintings in other pyramids, but inside the Great Pyramid, we haven't found that much, which I think gives even more credence to my theory that this was meant to be a temple of worship. This is also why people believe it's a tomb—because there is so little artwork. If it were a temple, you would imagine there would be a lot of artwork.

A Different Way of Thinking

Why is my interpretation so radically different from the mainstream academic interpretation? I want to propose that the way our minds work today is radically different from the way the minds of people like the Egyptians worked, for three reasons. The ancient Egyptians had a pre-literate, pre-science, and pre-capitalistic mind.

1. Pre-Literate: This simply means they didn't read and write; they just spoke. We are taught the literate mind is more powerful than the oral mind, but that's not true. The oral mind works through imagination and is capable of tremendous memory. Back then, to do anything, you had to memorize a lot of information. Now, we can just go online. Their minds, though pre-literate, were much more imaginative than ours, and their memories were stronger. That's why they were able to build the Great Pyramid—everyone was able to memorize the model and figure out his or her place. They were able to imagine the Great Pyramid in their heads. Children learned Homer and Virgil by memorizing them. People today memorize the Quran and the Torah. They were able to build the pyramid because they could visualize it in their minds.
2. Pre-Science: In today's world, science is our god. In school, you're taught the scientific method: you collect information, synthesize it, and then write your thesis. It's a step-by-step, logical process. But if you have a pre-scientific mind, where do you get your ideas from? You get them through divine inspiration, through God. You can make the argument that back then, they were capable of these grand ideas that we're not capable of today because we're locked in by the discipline of science. The other problem with science is it's very materialistic, meaning we're focused on the here and now, on what we can see as opposed to what we feel or believe. When we look at the pyramid, we're always thinking about what was built instead of what they were feeling when they were building it.
3. Pre-Capitalistic: Today, we do things to make money. We come to school because we want to get a job to make money to buy things. It's a very utilitarian mindset. But for most of human history, most civilizations were not capitalistic. They were religious, focused on community, and on what they could contribute to the betterment of the people around them. They were concerned about their relationship with God and how to create peace in the world. They were asking big questions: What is good and what is evil? What is justice? What is fairness? They were much more focused on building a pyramid as a way to build community, peace, and eternity on Earth.

What's interesting is that even though we are much more technologically advanced and wealthier than the Egyptians, we don't have the imagination or the will to build something like the Great Pyramid again. That's why, even today, the Great Pyramid captures the imagination of so many people around the world—because it's really beyond our own imagination. It shows the limitations of our own imagination.