The Great Pyramid of Giza as a Supermassive Cosmic Engine

"Enclosing the dangerous interface between cosmic order and the terrible formlessness of time
before the beginning, the Pyramid was better understood as the very meeting point of life and light
with death and darkness..."

Egypt was a cradle of civilization, allowing the same basic culture and language to prosper for
nearly 3,000 years. Even before the rise of the first Pharaoh that united the country, Narmer(also
called Menes), an organized culture existed in the region, flourishing along the Nile. It may not
have been a complex pyramid building cultures like ancient Egypt around 2,600 BC, but
nonetheless, it was an advanced one.
Ancient Egypt Dynastic period is usually acknowledged to have begun around 3100 B.C. But even
before that, between 9300 and 4000 B.C., the Nile plain was inhabited by Neolithic peoples, about
which we knew very little.
What we do know is that this ancient culture, a civilization that would later give rise to the Ancient
Egyptians was a pre pharaonic people who built megaliths, intricate shires as well as calendar
circles that resemble mini-Stonehenges. “…several behavioral indicators, combined with the
technological and ceremonial architecture, such as calendar circles and sanctuaries, imply a level
of sophistication that goes well beyond that shown by groups of herders…”
In the years after Narmer, Upper and Lower Egypt grew together, and slowly, step by step and
piece by piece, ancient Egypt became a mastermind of civilization as different rulers came to the
throne.
But a real revolution took place around 2,700 BC. Pharaoh Djoser ruled over ancient Egypt and
with his reign, the giant pyramid of stone appeared in the 3rd dynasty. Djoser erected the
first pyramidand mortuary complex made from stone, surrounded by a massive enclosure wall
more than 1,600 meters long.
But pyramid building and the origins of the most impressive pyramids in Egypt can be traced back
to the modest pit graves of the predynastic period, covered by simple mounds of sand and gravel.
Not long after, on the very start of the 1st Dynasty, around 2,900 BC, royal tombs were built as
intricate mudbrick boxes installed into Egypt’s desert and divided into several rooms, just like
houses. Tombs would become more complex, and while most of them were monumental in terms
of size, none of them could match the scale that emerged suddenly in the 3rd-Dynasty reign of
Djoser, circa 2630–2611BC.
Djoser’s pyramid heralded the pyramid age in ancient Egypt, and the Pharaoh’s architect Imhotep
revolutionized Ancient Egyptian architecture.
During the Old Kingdom right until the first intermediate period around 2,100BC, the ancient
Egyptians built incredible structures called pyramids for their God-Kings in a 72-kilometer span of
the desert, extending from Abu Rawash just northwest of Giza to Meidum in the South, at the
footsteps of Fayum.
The pyramids of Djedefre and Sneferu are exceptions.
The most massive of the pyramids of Egypt would eventually be erected over the course of only
three generations; Pharaoh Sneferu, his son Khufu and grandson Khafre.
If Sneferu built the Pyramid at Meiudm, which eventually collapsed, as well as the two stone
pyramids located at Dashur, then his pyramids contain more than 3.4 million cu. meters (124
million cu. ft) of stone. Interestingly, all other pyramids built by Egyptian Pharaohs combined
contain only 41 percent of the total mass of the pyramids erected by Sneferu, Khufu, and Khafre.
Although Menkaure, who built the third-largest pyramid at the Giza plateau still used massive
blocks of stone weighing several tons, the total mass of his pyramid was less than that of Djoser.
The Great Pyramid of Giza, believed to have been commissioned by Khufu saw builders use more
than 2.3 million blocks of stone to build it. This resulted in a pyramid that would remain the tallest
structures built on Earth for the next 3,800 years. The overall weight of the Great Pyramid of Giza
is estimated at around 6 million tons. Researchers have calculated that 5.5 million tons of
limestone, 8,000 tons of granite(imported from Aswan), and 500,000 tons of mortar were used in
the construction of the Great Pyramid.
According to one chronology, no more than 60 years passed between the completion of Djoser’s
Pyramid and the start of the construction of the Great Pyramid of Khufu.
This means that someone may have been a small child when Djoser’s Step pyramid was finished
and lived to see the building od the Great Pyramid when ancient Egyptian pyramid building was at
its peak.
The rule of Sneferu, Khufu and Khafre saw the building of the most massive pyramids the country
would ever witness. Rulers of ancient Egypt’s 5th and 6th dynasty would still continue building
pyramids, but incomparable in size and complexity with the structures built during the fifth dynasty.

During the first intermediate period, Egypt nearly forgot about Pyramid building. But the
phenomenon did not stop, although pyramids would be of lesser materials and quality.
But Egyptologists argue that pyramids were tombs. Pyramid Complexes acted as divine
superstructures. This means that each major tomb in ancient Egypt was actually a tomb for the
Pharaoh.
Since in ancient Egypt, Pharaohs were deified as gods, each pyramid was part of a temple
complex that was managed and maintained by priesthood long after the Pharaoh left the Earthly
realm.
But as revealed by Lehner, the pyramid was also an economic engine, deploying people and
redistributing food through the temple complex. But this was only possible because the pyramid
was also a cosmic engine, one that would serve not only as a tomb, but a structure that made the
ensured the rule of universal order; the turning of the days and seasons as well as the flooding of
the Nile.
But Lehner doesn’t mean that the structure itself was an engine like many alternative theories
suggests, although there is compelling evidence it may have been more than just a tomb.
Lehner explains that the mechanics of the pyramid as a cosmic engine were tied to the ancient
Egyptian concept of a person and the distinct phases of life and death, referred to in ancient Egypt
as kheperu. The pyramid, in a sense, was an instrument that enabled an ancient type of Egyptian
alchemy to take place; in the distinct phases of life and death, the kheperu, the transformation
would continue when the ka,the ba, and the body interacted in the final transformation, turning into
the akh; a glorified being of light, existent in the afterlife.
The pyramid–the pyramid complex– was precisely the cosmic machine that allowed this magical
transformation to take place, meaning that even for the ancient Egyptians, the pyramid was not
only a tomb that would house the pharaohs remains. The Pyramid was the instrument that allowed
the process to take place for the pharaoh, who ruled over the land as the god incarnate, and
allowed the incarnation to pass from father to son; from Osiris to Horus.
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Enclosing the dangerous interface between cosmic order and the terrible formlessness of time
before the beginning, the Pyramid was better understood as the very meeting point of life and light
with death and darkness, and our earliest insights into such ideas originate from the Pyramid
Texts, sacred glyphs written on the walls of the pyramid chambers of Pharaoh Unas, from the 5th
dynasty. The Pyramid Texts explain the meaning of the pyramid as an icon and offers clues into
the burial ceremonies that took place for the god-king and the rituals that were performed by royal
priests, once the Pharaoh’s mummification process had taken place and he was entombed, setting
off the cosmic engine in motion.
Written in Old Egyptian, the pyramid texts were carved onto the subterranean walls
and sarcophagi of pyramids at Saqqara from the end of the Fifth Dynasty, and throughout
the Sixth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom, and into the Eighth Dynasty of the First Intermediate
Period.
Essentially, for the Pharaoh, the pyramid became the place of ascension and transformation. And
it is the names of the pyramids that are a tell-tale sign that pyramids were seen as places of
ascension and transformation; Khufu’s pyramid was akhet, the Horizon of Khufu. Archaeologists
have discovered a series of 5th dynasty pyramid names that make references to the rising of the
king, while five maker reference to his perfection.
In that sense, the Pyramid was a machine, a device, a sort of channel that was used not as much
as a tomb perhaps, but as a higher, cosmic engine, thousands of years ago.