Scientists ramp up for pyramid theory

[snopes]

The Great Pyramid of Giza, the sole surviving member of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, stands today as the most massive puzzle in the history of civilization.

Now French architect Jean-Pierre Houdin has reopened this conversation with a controversial proposal that the giant tomb of the pharaoh Khufu (Cheops to the Greeks), who reigned from about 2589 B.C. to 2566 B.C., was built from the inside out with the use of internal ramps.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science...d-theory_N.htm

[Silas Sparkhammer]

The idea of the spiral ramp (or even the paired spiral ramps) is not new; I've seen this in any number of books and articles on the subject. This may be a refinement of the concept, but the linked article had nothing new (other than some really cool 3-D graphics!)

But, if you want, here is a theory that I have not ever heard before: that the complicated inner workings were built up first, as a kind of rough vertical temple, and that once the corridors and chambers were in place, then the fill-stone and facings were added.

i.e., the drawings in the linked article show the whole thing being built up by addition of horizontal layers. Nothing "sticks up" from the current working plane. But this requires some very tricky mathematics! If, instead, they built the ramps "out in the open" and then walled them, and then roofed them, and only then built the bulk of the pyramid around them, that would make the math a lot easier.

This probably isn't the first time this notion has been presented, either, but I've never seen it anywhere else.

Silas

[Base Ten]

One of the more interesting theories I've come across involves (at least some of) the limestone blocks being poured like concrete.

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2006/1...20061208120000

http://www.mse.drexel.edu/max/PyramidPresentation.htm

Base Ten