The Earth Pyramid Project is a truly ambitious project with noble aims. The goal is to get the world thinking about the future of the planet and to bring together the different governments, schools and other groups to discuss these global issues.

The pyramid will function as a time capsule into which children from participating schools from around the world will be putting messages.

One of the time capsules

The leveling of the site and alignment of the foundations could be carried out using ancient methods such as sighting the stars, or the sun.

The construction itself could use clever techniques such as the Internal Ramp theory developed by Jean-Pierre Houdin. Thanks to Dassault Systèmes and their 3D software we’ve seen Jean-Pierre’s theory in full 3D using virtual reality. To see a pyramid actually being built from the inside out though would be truly spectacular and move the concept from theory to practice.

By incorporating and combining ancient methods with modern tools and materials perhaps we can learn from the ancients as we strive to educate the future generations.

Related posts:

1. ‘Khufu Reborn’ – Unveiling Secrets In three days time Jean-Pierre Houdin and Dassault Systèmes will...
2. Secret Chamber Discovered in the Great Pyramid Corners of the internal ramp Breaking in the news this...
3. How Were the Egyptian Pyramids Built? – Part 5 Houdin’s Internal Ramp French Architect Jean-Pierre Houdin has a revolutionary...

Discover the New Khufu’s Pyramid Building Theory by Jean-Pierre Houdin:

Visit the Dassault Systemes website to experience Khufu Reborn.

Download the study carried out by Jean-Pierre Houdin, which has some very interesting observations: 34 Clues in Support of the Theory (7mb PDF)

Enter Khufu Reborn and if you are still wanting more, try the original: Khufu Revealed.

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1. ‘Khufu Reborn’ – Unveiling Secrets In three days time Jean-Pierre Houdin and Dassault Systèmes will...
2. How Were the Egyptian Pyramids Built? – Part 5 Houdin’s Internal Ramp French Architect Jean-Pierre Houdin has a revolutionary...
3. Brier on the Spiral Ramp Inside the Pyramid Bob Brier spoke on NPR (National Public Radio) explaining how...

As you’ve probably already heard the Egyptian Museum on Tahrir square in Cairo was ransacked and 70 items (reports differ, some say 100) were reportedly damaged and the heads of two mummies were removed. The Museum’s gift shop was completely cleared out by thieves. The following is a look at who was responsible for the damage and looting based on reputable news sources, eye-witness statements and Egyptologists’ reports.

The Gift Shop
Hawass has stated in the past few days that he thanks God that the looters were idiots that they mistook the Museum’s gift shop for the museum itself.

The people entered the gift shop and stole all the jewellery and escaped; they thought the shop was the museum, thank God! 

Dr Hawass’ website

“I’m glad that those people were idiots. They looted the museum shop. Thank God they thought that the museum shop was the museum.”

TIME

Several initial reports stated that these looters turned out to be the museum’s own security guards and also Egyptian Police who had changed into plain clothes to disguise thier identity so they blend in with the protesters.

An official announcement yesterday from the Egypt Cultural Heritage Organisation also concluded that it was the Egyptian Museum security guards as well as Tourist Police who looted the Egyptian Museum’s gift shop after they had changed into plain clothes.

The only damage that these looters managed to do appears to have been to the ticket office and the museum gift shop was cleared of all its trinkets and books. The perpetrators of the looting of this gift shop appear to have been security guards and tourist police who had removed their uniforms.

The same day Zahi Hawass was reported as saying the gift shop was looted by ignorant criminals who thought the gift shop was part of the museum. Here is part of an interview with Michele Norris from National Public Radio on Tuesday:

Dr. Zahi Hawass was a longtime government antiquities official, and as of yesterday, the new minister of state for archeology. He says, though, he knew the museum had been broken into Friday night, he could not survey the damage until Saturday morning because of a government curfew.

Dr. HAWASS: In the ceiling of the museum, the windows are like from glasses. They broke the glasses and they were like maybe 15 feet down at night, therefore they could not see anything. Then they began to open 13 cases, and they began to look for gold. When they found no gold, they threw the statues on the ground.

NORRIS: Mm-hmm. It looked like they spent a good deal of time in the gift shop.

Dr. HAWASS: Yes, they did that.

NORRIS: Were they possibly mistaken? Did they think that that was actually part of the museum?

Dr. HAWASS: Exactly. You know, they’re ignorant people. They have no education. They are criminals. But the most important thing, the real Egyptian who love their antiquities, protect the Cairo Museum, not the police. And the army came at 10 o’clock, and they still, the commanders now, surrounding the museum from everywhere, protecting the Cairo Museum.

Egypt Sees Looting In Wake Of Protests

It seems as though Zahi Hawass is conflating those who broke into the museum’s gift shop with the “criminals” who broke through the roof as though it was the same group of people.

Inside the Museum under the dome

Inside the Museum
Leaving aside the gift shop, what of the actual museum artifacts? The official statement from the Egypt Cultural Heritage says the damage done to the antiquities was carried out by a distinctly different group. It states that nine “criminals” broke in through the roof and lowered themselves down with ropes, that they brought with them presumably.

“A group of nine criminals broke into the actual museum, apparently entering it from the back, up a fire escape before coming in through the skylight, descending into the building via ropes late on the night of Friday 28th January.”

Other reports have referred to these nine men as “prisoners”. Are these men from the group of criminals who escaped from prison? How did they get out?

The Washington Post reported:

Thousands of prisoners also escaped from prison over the weekend, and it was rumored the government allowed the prison breaks to further the notion of instability.

It is becoming more apparent that these nine “criminals” that broke in through the roof, who came prepared with ropes, were likely some of those who were released from the prisons. How they got out of the prison has raised suspicions from Egyptologists and political analysts alike.

Police in Civilian Clothing
More recent reports, such as yesterday’s news from the Human Rights Watch have now confirmed other eyewitness accounts of the Egyptian Police in plain clothes looting and carrying out violent attacks in Cairo and other parts of the country. This was reported in a range of news sources including the Australian, Sydney Morning Herald and the Washington Post:

Human Rights Watch confirmed several cases of undercover police loyal to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s regime committing acts of violence and looting in an attempt to stoke fear of instability as demonstrations grew stronger Tuesday against the autocratic leader.

Peter Bouckaert, the emergency director at Human Rights Watch, said hospitals confirmed that they received several wounded looters shot by the army carrying police identification cards. They also found several cases of looters and vandals in Cairo and Alexandria with police identification cards. He added that it was “unexplainable” that thousands of prisoners escaped from prisons over the weekend.

Looters included undercover Egyptian police, hospitals tell Human Rights Watch

Government ID found on one of the thugs

That plain clothes police are being caught looting and beating people has been reported many times by eye witnesses on the ground. A recent report from Egyptologist Nicole B Hansen who was at Tahrir square on Tuesday (02.02.11) morning writes:

“I can confirm that the violence was started by criminals and secret police. … There were many plain clothes police in the crowd. Some openly admitting they were ther police. The peaceful demonstrators were being very vigilant for troublemakers. They stopped one man who they suspected was police and demanded his ID. He refused at first but finally handed it over, and ran away. I saw the ID with my own eyes. Before we left, we started to see ordinary people dragging away plain clothes police and handing them over to the army.”

The situation in Tahrir square got much more violent Tuesday with fires raging close to the museum and fire bombs being thrown around. A second attempt to raid the museum was made and men in balaclavas are shooting protestors with gunfire going on all night. There seems to be no end to the chaos in the near future. Lives were lost last night with many more lives at risk, and the Museum is once again in great danger.

UPDATE:
Egyptologist Kara Cooney on Craig Ferguson (Feb 8, 2011) states that there are many Egyptologists who suspect that Mubarak ordered his men to destroy items in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo to make the pro-democracy protestors look bad.

Here is a part of that interview:

Photo Egypt Museum by Antonio Perez Rio. some rights reserved.
Photo of inside the Museum by Paul Nendick. some rights reserved.

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Jean-Pierre told the conference that 3D simulations indicate that there are two undiscovered chambers located very close to the King’s chamber inside the Great Pyramid.

These two extra chambers are modelled on similar known chambers in his father’s ‘Red’ pyramid at Dahshur shown in this diagram of Sneferu’s pyramid from Mark Lehner’s The Complete Pyramids:

According to Houdin the inclusion of the two additional antechambers to Khufu’s pyramid was a logical extension of the architecture of his father’s pyramid and most likely involved the same architects.

“I am convinced there are antechambers in this pyramid.
What I want is to find them,”
- Jean-Pierre Houdin.

Jean-Pierre sees the existing corridors and passages as being purely mechanical and involved with the pyramids construction and impractical for a funeral procession to pass through. He suggests both the King’s chamber and the Queens chamber require an additional passage for priests and the funeral procession to pass through.

One of the clues that led Jean-Pierre to this conclusion is a stone at floor level in the north wall of the King’s chamber that doesn’t support the large stone above it which is otherwise supported by stones on either side. This feature indicated to Jean-Pierre that this stone could be concealing an exit passage.

But the same can also be said of other stones on the first course of this chamber’s walls. One of these other stones appears in the middle of the west wall as can be seen in the photo below (outlined in green) along with the stone that Jean-Pierre is focusing on (outlined in gold).

West and North walls of the King's chamber in Khufu's pyramid

Incidentally, early explorers dug a deep hole in the floor right in front of this stone but dug down and not north underneath the wall. The floor has only recently been restored.

The hole in the floor right in front of Houdin's entrance stone

There is evidence of a long cavity that was detected on the western side of the corridor leading to the Queen’s chamber. In 1986 a French team carried out microgravity scans of the corridor wall after it was noticed the a section of stones in the western wall of the corridor were oddly arranged, as though they could indicate a hidden passage.

Three holes were drilled in the western wall of the corridor and a cavity filled with fine sand was found.

A year later a Japanese team from the Waseda University arrived on the scene and using GPR equipment surveyed the west wall of the corridor and results indicated that the cavity could be a hidden corridor. They also scanned the walls of the Queen’s chamber and detected a long cavity roughly three meters behind the chamber’s north wall and running parallel to the corridor for it’s entire length:

“This newly discovered passage starts from a point only one block’s width away from the northern wall of [the] Queen’s chamber. The reflection ends at a point approximately 30m north of [the] Queen’s chamber. Therefore the passage is thought to come to an end here or turn west at a right angle.”

So a concealed entrance to a hidden passage located at the western end of a chamber’s northern wall may have a precedent in the Queens chamber. In this light, suggestions of a similar concealed corridor in the same location in the King’s chamber appear more credible.

One more point that I think is worth mentioning is that in later pyramids in which the Pyramid Texts appear, this part of the wall is usually covered with a pattern representing the iconic ‘false door’ motif.

False door motif on the northern wall of the Unas sarcophagus chamber

Jean-Pierre wrote to me after I posted this to explain a bit more about the significance of the arrangement of the stones on the north wall and how it differs from those on the west wall.

The clue was not simply that the stone above the hidden entrance block is supported by the stones on either side, but that a supportive portico was created by two columns of stones four blocks high and topped by a lintel.

For the block concealing the second entrance, I join below several pictures which are evidence of the existence of a passage behind the north wall :
 

The strong portico created by the arrangement of blocks in the north wall

All the load (thousands of tons) above the north wall is supported by the strong portico (in red) dissimultaed in the wall. The 3 blocks, only less than 3.5 tonnes each, (in yellow) above the sealing block (in white) are also cleverly supported by the portico. The entrance block is free of any load.

The sealing block (red arrow) and the 3 blocks above, filling the void left by the portico. A long crack is visible in the lintel.

Fractures from a slight settling in the north wall

The first block, a lintel, above the entrance blocks cracked when Al-Mamoun dug a hole at the base of the block…you have 32m long of wall in the chamber and the guy dug just at the base of block; something was intriguing…may be traces of sand or dead mortar used to push the block after the funeral.

The lintel cracking is a proof that there was a small void between the first and the second block above, a void left to let enough clearance for the sealing block to be pushed from the corridor behind.

The sealing block is also cracked on the right, being crushed by the load above when the lintel cracked.

Cracks occured alos in the fourth row, in the portico. All these details are a proof of a very slight settlement.

On this picture, you can see that the loose joint on the right of the block was filled in 1998 by the workers of the SCA during the restoration of the room. Even with this filling, you still have enough void to introduce a Credit Card in the joint.

Moreover, the sealing block is not in the same alignment as the rest of the wall. The same Credit Card stumbles against the block on right when you slide it along the sealing block.

At the base, the slabs of the floor were repaired in 1998 after the filling of the hole dug by Al-Mamoun (and Vyse)

In yellow, Al-Mamoun diggings…
 
Microgravimetry carried in 1986 showed an negative anomaly just behind this sealing block

Microgravimetry results indicating a space behind the sealing block of the KC north wall

Abstract from the article “Microgravimetry probes the Great Pyramid” published in Geophyics magazine in january 1987:
 
“The main negative anomaly is located at the nortwest corner of the King’s Chamber floor.”
 
This is the same kind of entrance and corridor that can be found in the Queen Chamber
 
Professor Yoshimura and a team from Waseda University carried TWO surveys with a radar in this room in 1987. The same result was found at each survey and described in their official report:
 
Study in Egyptian Culture, Volume N°8:
Non-Destructive Pyramid Investigation (2)
 
They reported that they found a second corridor 30m long parallel to the one already known, this corridor starting from the north-western corner of the nort wall (as for the KC).

Queen's chamber hidden passage detected by Waseda tests

And the position of this second corridor explains the position of the north shaft: it is just inserted between the 2 walls of the east and west corridors

And being set there, this shaft has to bent toward the west to avoid the corridor leading to the 2 antechambers of the KC.
 
Remember, the entrance is on North Face of the pyramid; the shorter way to go to the KC is to enter in it through the NORTH WALL !
 
Now, about the west wall:
You don’t have a portico to take on the load above the lintel above the block you are talking about.

All the load above (thousends of tons) applies on the block (on this picture, the 3 filling blocks are very discernable on the north wall).

Vincent, I just want to give you a full explanation about the second entrance and the block sealing it.

Cheers

Jean-Pierre
 

Where to from here?

Jean-Pierre had previously applied for permission to launch a joint expedition of Egyptian experts and French engineers to probe the pyramid with infrared, radar and other non-invasive methods but was turned down. This time a Canadian team has applied for permission to scan with thermal imaging techniques with hope of detecting the Houdin’s internal spiral ramp:

Maldague said he believes the ramp is still there and intends to show it using infrared thermography — a technology that would help “see” through the pyramid’s thick walls.

“We are looking for a direct proof to reveal the exact location of the internal ramp,” said Maldague Thursday in a telephone interview from Paris, where his project was unveiled.

He said his team wants to carry out thermal imaging of different sections of the pyramid every 20 minutes for a year.

When a surface is heated it sends out thermal waves and those waves change when they encounter a different type of structure or material. So if there is indeed an internal ramp behind the pyramid walls, the thermal waves will show where there are inconsistencies in the structure.

“By measuring the differences in temperatures on several parts of the pyramid it will tell us where the ramp is,” said Maldague, who is a professor in electrical and computing engineering.

He said the infrared cameras would be installed in a hotel room located about 300 metres from the famed tourist attraction just outside Cairo. It would be hooked up to the Internet and processed remotely by Maldague and his team at Laval University in Quebec City.

“It’s a non-invasive technique. We won’t even touch the surface of the pyramid,” he said.

Maldague put his technique to the test last summer at the university and was able to reveal the internal organization of a wall.

Maldague still needs approval from the Egyptian government to carry out his experiment. He hopes to get the authorization by the end of 2011 to start measurements by mid-2012.

“It’s really something. If we could be able to reveal the pyramid’s secret it would be wonderful for us,” he said.

The Great Pyramid, built for the pharaoh Khufu, is also known as Cheops. It is the oldest and the biggest of the three pyramids.

The Vancouver Sun: Quebec scientists to probe Great Pyramid for secret ramp

I am sure we haven’t heard the last of this. I look forward to seeing a new online 3D presentation like the one for Khufu Revealed.

Oh, and about my predictions …

… it turns out I was right about his father’s pyramids at Dahshur having something to do with the big announcement!

And the Sphinx? Jean-Pierre also reveals the significance of the photo too but I’ll leave that for Marc Chartier to explain. Click on the photo below:

Here are some videos and links for more information:

AFP: Great Pyramid has two secret chambers: French architect

See Also:
Kate Bourdet: 3D Perspectives
Marc Chartier: Pyramidales
Keith Payne: Emhotep

Cosmic Log: Scientists want to probe pyramid
National Post: Quebec professor sets out to solve the mystery of the pyramids

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3. Secret Chamber Discovered in the Great Pyramid Corners of the internal ramp Breaking in the news this...

Fellow bloggers Keith Payne from EmHotep & Marc Chartier from Pyramidales will be there along with Kate Bourdet from Dassault Systèmes to report on the event.

I thought it would be fun to speculate a bit in the mean time.

A 'teaser' Jean-Pierre sent me ten days ago

I’ve received several emails over the past year or so from Jean-Pierre hinting that something big is coming. Though he has been keeping everything surrounding the project veiled in secrecy it’s possible to pick up a few hints he’s left along the way.

The Sneferu Connection?
At the end of last year Jean-Pierre was working on the Dashur pyramids and told me he had discovered how the pyramids of Sneferu were constructed. Could there be a connection to this new revelation about his son Khufu’s pyramid?

What about Djedefre?
How does Khufu’s son Djedefre relate to the Great Pyramid’s construction? Does Djedefre fit into the puzzle somehow?

Relieving Chambers?
There is some disagreement among architects and Egyptologists over the function of the low-ceiling spaces above the King’s chamber known as the ‘Relieving chambers’. I get the feeling that Jean-Pierre has some exciting developments to share with us in this department.

The Sphinx?
Exactly a year ago today Jean-Pierre sent me an email doubting the Sphinx’s connection with Khafre and told me to store it safely as a witness for when the Sphinx Enigma will be over, presumably at the release of ‘Khufu Reborn’. As usual Jean-Pierre was very careful with his responses, never saying too much but always leaving little hints about what might be coming…little crumbs to keep me intrigued.

One of the Talking Pyramids ‘Friday Photos’ I posted created some excitement with Jean-Pierre telling me that a clue was staring me in the face in the center of the picture.

Can you figure it out?

Click to enlarge for a closer view

… or perhaps we will all have to “wait like everyone else.”

Extras:
Dassault Systèmes ‘Khufu Revealed’ – Jean-Pierre Houdin’s theory in 3D
Video: Fly through the internal ramp in 3D.

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2. How Were the Egyptian Pyramids Built? – Part 5 Houdin’s Internal Ramp French Architect Jean-Pierre Houdin has a revolutionary...
3. More Evidence of Secret Passages in the GP National Geographic has posted a video to their YouTube channel...

Just when you thought you’d heard them all, up pops another new theory explaining how the pyramids were built. This new theory was developed by Ole Jørgen Bryn, Associate professor from the Faculty of Architecture and fine Arts at the Norwegian University of Sciense and Technology (NTNU) and was published earlier this year in a scientific article in the Nordic Journal of Architectural Research.

In the paper Bryn explains how the construction of most of the Egyptian pyramids could have been carried out using a simple grid and the number seven.

Here’s an exert from the NTNU’s website:

What Bryn discovered was quite simple. He believes that the Egyptians invented the modern building grid, by separating the structure’s measuring system from the physical building itself, thus introducing tolerance, as it is called in today’s engineering and architectural professions…

…Bryn has studied the plans from the thirty oldest Egyptian pyramids, and discovered a precision system that made it possible for the Egyptians to reach the pyramid’s last and highest point, the apex point, with an impressive degree of accuracy. By exploring and making a plan of the pyramid it is possible to prepare modern project documentation of not just one, but all pyramids from any given period.

As long as the architect knows the main dimensions of a pyramid, he can project the building as he would have done it with a modern building, but with building methods and measurements known from the ancient Egypt, Bryn says.

In a scientific article published in May 2010 (Retracing Khufu’s Great Pyramid in the Nordic Journal of Architectural Research, vol 22, no. 1/2, 2010) Bryn discusses aspects that can explain the construction of a multitude of the Egyptian pyramids by taking the building grid, and not the physical building itself, as the starting point for the analysis.

Could Ole Jørgen Bryn be right?

Download his paper to read more about the theory: Retracing Khufu’s Great Pyramid. The “diamond matrix” and the number 7 (right-click and ‘save as’).

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Last March he was back with an extension of that idea, creating a grid that may indicate the location of the lost pyramid of Userkare at South Saqqara, directly south of Djoser’s Step pyramid.

Now he’s back with “The Cosmic Landscape in the Age of the Pyramids”, which appears in the current issue of the Journal of Cosmology. Here is the abstract:

The pyramids of Egypt are to be counted among the most outstanding works of architecture in the whole of human history. The sites for their construction were chosen in accordance with topographical criteria which, while taking practical needs into account, were also profoundly and intimately connected with Maat, the cosmic order. As a consequence, the pyramid’s fields are criss-crossed by geometrical axes which were – and partially still are – easily perceptible on the ground. In the 4th and the 5th dynasty, such axes ideally connected the monuments with the temple of Heliopolis on the opposite bank of the Nile, while during the 6th dynasty new pyramids were ideally connected with older ones by means of meridian – south to north – alignments. In recent years, the present author attempted to provide a comprehensive analysis of this sacred landscape, and of its astronomical and symbolical interpretation in terms of the “cosmovision” of the ancient Egyptians. The present paper offers a brief but complete overview of the results of this analysis.

Read the full article in the Journal of Cosmology: The Cosmic Landscape in the Age of the Pyramids, by Giulio Magli

Photo from the New York Public Library.

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