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A controversial new study has suggested that the Great Pyramid of Giza may be a lot older than we think it is. While this will certainly prick people’s ears up, there are plenty of reasons to remain skeptical. Getting your head around the timescales involved is already pretty difficult. For instance, it’s often repeated that Cleopatra (born 69 BCE) lived closer to the invention of the iPhone (released 2007) than the building of the Great Pyramid of Giza (around 2600 BCE). The pyramids, and the tomb of pharaoh Khufu specifically, are undeniably old…….Continue reading…..
Source: IFLScience
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Critics:
In ancient Egypt, high social status was considered absolutely positive, and the monumental social inequalities were symbolized by gigantic pyramids versus smaller mastabas. The sizes of tombs were regulated officially, with their allowed dimensions written down in royal decrees. In the Old Kingdom only kings and queens could have a pyramid tomb. Architectural layout and funeral equipment were also sanctioned, and were, like access to material and workers, at the discretion of the king.
The Great Pyramid’s internal chambers lack inscriptions and decorations, the norm for Egyptian tombs of the fourth to late fifth dynasty, apart from work-gang graffiti that include Khufu’s names. Constructed around 2600 BC, it predates the custom of inscribing pyramids with text by over 200 years. The pyramid complex of Khufu included two temples that were lavishly decorated and inscribed. The pyramid temple was dedicated to the Sed festival, celebrating Khufu’s 30th jubilee.
Surviving scenes portray Khufu, officials, priests and other characters performing rituals. The valley temple remains largely unexcavated, but blocks reused by . Amenemhat I depict, for instance, nautical scenes and personifications of the estates of Khufu (e.g. the estate “Khufu is beautiful”). The mortuary cult of Khufu which operated in these temples for hundreds of years indicates that Khufu was successfully interred in the Great Pyramid.
That the funeral was carried out by Khufu’s son and successor Djedefre is evidenced by the presence of his cartouches on the blocks that sealed the boat pits next to the pyramid. The Great Pyramid was likely looted as early as the First Intermediate Period and may have been reused afterwards. Arab accounts tell stories of mummies and treasures being found inside the pyramid.
For instance, Al-Maqrizi (1364–1442) reports the discovery of three shrouded bodies, a sarcophagus filled with gold, and a corpse in golden armour with a sword of inestimable value and a ruby as large as an egg. In the past the Great Pyramid was dated by its attribution to Khufu alone, putting the construction of the Great Pyramid within his reign, hence dating the pyramid was a matter of dating Khufu and the 4th dynasty. The relative sequence and synchronicity of events is the focal point of this method.
Absolute calendar dates are derived from an interlocked network of evidence, the backbone of which are the lines of succession known from ancient king lists and other texts. The reign lengths from Khufu to known points in the earlier past are summated, bolstered with genealogical data, astronomical observations, and other sources. As such, the historical chronology of Egypt is primarily a political chronology, thus independent from other types of archaeological evidence like stratigraphies, material culture, or radiocarbon dating.
The majority of recent chronological estimates date Khufu and his pyramid between 2700 and 2500 BC. The internal structure consists of three main chambers (the King’s, Queen’s and Subterranean Chambers), the Grand Gallery and various corridors and shafts. None of the interior walls were decorated or inscribed, as was the norm for tombs of the 4th dynasty, apart from the marks and names of work-gangs left on blocks of the relieving chambers.
There are two entrances into the pyramid: the original and a forced passage, which meet at a junction. From there, one passage descends into the Subterranean Chamber, while the other ascends to the Grand Gallery. From the beginning of the gallery three paths can be taken:
- a vertical shaft that leads down, past a grotto, to meet the descending passage
- a horizontal corridor leading to the Queen’s Chamber
- and the path up the gallery itself to the King’s Chamber that contains the sarcophagus.
Both the King’s and Queen’s Chamber have a pair of small “air-shafts”. Above the King’s Chamber are a series of five relieving chambers. Herodotus visited Egypt in the 5th century BC and recounts a story that he was told concerning vaults under the pyramid built on an island where the body of Khufu lies. Edwards notes that the pyramid had “almost certainly been opened and its contents plundered long before the time of Herodotus” and that it might have been closed again during the Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt when other monuments were restored.
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