Almost any representative of modern society at least once in his life wondered about who or with whose help the great historical monuments were built, what tools, tools and mechanisms our ancestors used in the construction process and are there any answers to the riddles of the ancient pyramids?
First, we suggest that you first get acquainted with some concepts, moments in history, as well as with the opinions of various people.
What is a pyramid?
From the point of view of architectural science, a pyramid is a structure that is a polyhedron, as a rule, with four triangular faces. Ancient people of this kind of structure served as tombs (mausoleums), temples, or simply monuments.
The history of the pyramids begins in about the 3rd millennium BC. It is these figures that confuse many historians. It is difficult to believe that people have advanced tools at the time if the descendants of some of them are still engaged in hunting and gathering, which is characteristic of a primitive level of development.
Modern scientists distinguish several main points of concentration of the ancient pyramids.
Egypt
It's no secret that the "country of the pyramids" is the second name of Egypt. Such a metaphor is well deserved. It was here that the very first pyramids in the world were built. They are located on the Giza plateau, in the territory of an ancient cemetery.
Only some pyramids of Ancient Egypt have survived to our times. These are the pyramids of Cheops, Mykerin and Chefren. According to scientists, before they existed much more.
Cheops’s pyramid is considered to be the most important, because it is the highest pyramid. Formally, she is recognized as one of the wonders of the world. Its height is 147 meters, which is comparable to the height of five ten-story houses. The sides of the bases, in turn, are about 230 meters long. The construction area is 50 square kilometers.
The size of the Cheops pyramid at one time was struck by the great Napoleon. According to his dictum, the stone blocks with which the Egyptian pyramids were built would be enough to completely surround France with a three-meter wall.
Chefren's pyramid was built as a tomb for the son of Cheops. Its dimensions are slightly smaller than the previous one.
It is worth noting that the composition of this burial complex, unlike other pyramids, includes the famous Great Sphinx. According to one legend, the Sphinx's gaze is directed towards Mount Kailash, in the bowels of which, according to ancient legends, secret knowledge is imprisoned.
Pyramid Mykerin is considered the smallest and "youngest". Its height is 62 meters, and the length of the sides is equal to the length of the football field. There are suggestions that the pyramid used to be a bit larger, since the building was originally covered with red granite lining, which may have been lost as a result of the Mameluke raids. During the construction of this pyramid of Ancient Egypt, Pharaoh Mencourt ordered the use of blocks of stone, much larger in size than in the pyramids of Chefren and Cheops. He also allowed workers to process the stone not thoroughly. The fact is that the pharaoh wanted to finish the tomb before his death and by all means tried to speed up the construction process. However, before his graduation, Mencourt could not survive.
Mesopotamia
It would seem that it’s not so far from Mesopotamia to Egypt, the conditions for construction and materials are almost the same, therefore, their approach to architecture should not differ much. But it was not there.
The pyramids of Mesopotamia are unique religious buildings - ziggurats (translated from Babylonian "top of the mountain"). Their external structure resembles the Egyptian pyramids, but, in contrast to them, the levels of the ziggurat were connected using stairs, and along the edge of the wall, in turn, special ramps (gentle ascents) that led to the temple were sent.
Another feature of the structure of ziggurats is the broken line of the wall, formed with the help of ledges.
In the event that the presence of window openings was required in the construction, then they were created, as a rule, on the upper part of the wall. They were a narrow gap.
It is noteworthy that the peoples of Mesopotamia did not use ziggurats as burial structures for the reason that they did not see any connection between the preservation of the body of the deceased and their attainment of immortality in the afterlife, as the ancient Egyptians did.
Sudan
At one time, the Sudanese kings revived the ancient Egyptian tradition associated with the use of the pyramids as burial places of the rulers of the country.
By and large, the cultures of Ancient Egypt and Sudan were closely interconnected. Consequently, architecture had a lot in common.
In Ancient Sudan, the following types of pyramids existed: classical structures (according to the Egyptian construction principle) and mastaba shaped like a truncated pyramid. In contrast to the Egyptian, Sudanese buildings have a steeper slope.
The most famous pyramids are the archaeological sites of Meroe. In the second half of the sixth century BC, the capital was moved here, which later became also the cultural and religious center of the state.
Modern scientists in Meroe have counted several dozen pyramids that have survived to this day. In 2011, these archaeological sites were officially declared a World Heritage Site.
Nigeria
Here, according to custom, the pyramids were erected in honor of the god Al. Ancient people believed that it is possible to contact the deity through these structures. They believed that at the top of the pyramids is precisely his abode.
The official opening of these religious buildings took place only in the 30s of the last century. Then, the famous archaeologist Jones took several photographs of the pyramids for his own archive (however, they were published only after eighty years).
In his opinion, the buildings of Nigeria were built much earlier than the pyramids of Ancient Egypt, and also that the local civilization is much older than many others. Unfortunately, the pyramids have survived to this day in a rather worn condition.
Mexico
Since ancient times, this country was inhabited by a people to which modern historians attribute a rich mythology and cultural heritage - the Aztecs.
Although the heyday of civilization dates back to the XIV-XVI centuries, the Aztec pyramids were built long before that. So, for example, the famous pyramid of the Sun, which occupies the 3rd place in the world in size and only seven meters below the tomb of Cheops, according to the calculations of historians, was erected in about 150 BC.
The pyramids of Teotihuacan, in turn, are considered a monumental attempt to realize the eternal blessed utopia.
For seven centuries, the Aztec pyramids have been a guiding light whose radiance called all thirsty to taste a noble dream. It is believed that the city of Teotihuacan was obsessed with the idea of order and regularity. However, love and harmony did not prevent the flow of human blood through the blades of barbarism and inhumanity. Every objectionable Aztecs mercilessly killed and sacrificed to the gods.
The pyramids, where exactly these sacrifices were made, had some similarities with the Mesopotamian ziggurats: they also had a "step" shape, there was also a ramp (it was the only one leading to the very top of the structure).
Unfortunately, far from all the Aztec pyramids were able to survive, even today. Most of them were destroyed during the invasion of Mexican European colonizers in the 16th century.
China
Of course, some readers, having seen this subtitle, were very surprised. After all, they almost never talk about or write about the Chinese pyramids.
In total, scientists count about one hundred such structures. They acted as burial tombs for the rulers of famous Chinese dynasties. The shape of the pyramid was truncated (like the Sudanese scale). Due to the nature of the local flora, some large structures took the form of overgrown hills.
The origin of the pyramids is quite interesting. The fact is that in written sources that date back to the fifth century BC, buildings are already called "ancient". Did the pyramids really appear much earlier than the moment of writing the document? It should be recognized that humanity is unlikely to know about this. A detailed study of the structures, as is done in Egypt, is practically not possible: excavations in the areas where they are located are often prohibited by local authorities.
North America
In the XI century, when endless wars were fought in Europe, on the other end of the hemisphere, in the Mississippi Valley, the civilization of the Indians peacefully developed and flourished. They quickly built their homes, developed infrastructure.
The ancient Indians also had the habit of constructing special embankments with an area of about several dozen football fields. Here they did almost everything: celebrated holidays, held religious, sporting events, etc. Quite often, the embankments served people as burial mounds (burial places). One of the largest concentrations is Kahokiya - a group of 109 barrows. It has also been declared a World Heritage Site.
Who and why did they build them all the same?
People have been puzzling over this issue for many years. It is unlikely that anyone will be able to keep in mind the fact that the construction of the pyramids at the level at which the ancient people did, even today is a rather complicated process, given modern methods and technologies. How, for example, did the Egyptians drag stone blocks weighing 7-10 tons to the height of a ten-story building, and how did they manage to perfectly process them (sometimes even a blade cannot squeeze between unfastened blocks)?
Currently, there are several theories and hypotheses that are the most plausible.
I. The existence of highly developed civilization
Everyone is accustomed to thinking that man today is a highly developed and enlightened being who is sometimes subject to Mother Nature herself, and many thousands of years ago people were savages living to satisfy their primitive needs. However, few people thought that once upon a time a similar civilization already existed on our planet with a high level of intelligence and technology. Maybe they knew a lot from what we are rediscovering today?
According to one version, this civilization may be the Atlanteans, who either built the pyramids themselves using inaccessible to other technologies, or helped to do this.
According to another, ancient people were able to find and quickly adapt for use the technology of previously existing, but disappeared, highly developed civilizations.
Another version says that the ancient people (the same Egyptians) themselves were at a fairly high level of development, both mentally and technologically.
All this can refute the only fact - in ancient manuscripts contacts with any super-civilizations were never mentioned.
II. Alien intervention
This theory of the origin of the pyramids is the most common and discussed. According to her, representatives of extraterrestrial civilizations helped people to build various constructions.
To begin with, let's figure out why all of a sudden aliens from outer space (even if they had a place) to help underdeveloped people at that time to build the pyramids of the world?
According to one version, the structures served representatives of extraterrestrial civilizations as a source of energy, yet incomprehensible to humanity, or as intermediaries for communication between the planets (a rather strange form of the pyramid, as an architectural building as a whole, is also attributed here).
There is another theory. It lies in the fact that ancient people, coming into contact with aliens, could take them for gods.
The aliens, with their technologies and “chariots of fire”, had a huge number of opportunities, which people used, turning to representatives of highly developed civilizations for help in such matters as the construction of the pyramids.
Many ufologists who are interested in the question of who built the pyramids are interested in the relationship between the location of the pyramids and the map of the starry sky. In their opinion, this connection is direct, since, for example, the famous Giza complex in Egypt, which we already spoke about today, corresponds to the three largest stars located in the constellation Orion. Perhaps the basis of this law is the fact that this constellation was symbolic for the Egyptians: it personified the god Osiris - one of the most important deities of Ancient Egypt.
But immediately another question arises: why did the Egyptians associate the names of the gods with the stars? According to the same experts, perhaps this was a kind of connection between these same "gods" and their abode.
As another evidence of the presence of aliens on Earth, one can cite various drawings depicting strange circles, and sometimes human-like creatures. Are real beings captured on these drawings or is it just a work of an artist with a rich imagination?
It is worth mentioning the ancient Egyptian manuscripts, which speak of a certain war of powerful Gods. What or whom could people call Gods, what was this war, did it exist in reality, or is it just a fabulous myth? The answers to these questions have long rested in non-existence.
III. Skeptical theory
According to her, ancient people were able to independently build the pyramids of the world. According to scientists who adhere to this point of view, people could have had enough incentives for the construction of such structures: religious considerations, the desire for the work to be done to get the livelihood, the desire to stand out in terms of unique architecture.
The ancient historian Herodotus was the first Greek scientist who in his works was able to describe in detail the famous pyramids of Giza. In his opinion, for the construction of a structure of this type in a short time (if you believe the descriptions, the construction period of one pyramid was usually 15-20 years), it was necessary to involve at least one hundred thousand workers.
This does not include gratuitous labor of slaves and prisoners, who died in thousands at construction sites from illness, hunger and thirst, intolerable work, the anger of the owners. In contrast, masons, architects, builders received money for building the ancient pyramids.
Ordinary peasants could be involved in the construction of the pyramids. This process could take the form of a kind of labor service, that is, the same people were called to work after a certain period of time (most likely, once a year or two for a period of several weeks). Thus, the Egyptians were able to easily renew labor.
It is possible that between the workers involved in the construction of the pyramids, there was a kind of "competition", the winners of which could be determined by the amount of work done both in the group and individually, its quality, etc. Those who could stand out among others received various promotions.
As proof of Herodotus' theory, one can cite the multiple burials of workers and architects discovered by archaeologists during excavations, as well as ramps near the unfinished pyramids, on which stone blocks most likely climbed. From the same graves, one can also judge how difficult the labor of the building structures of that time was for workers. This conclusion can be drawn by examining the remains of ancient people: numerous traces of healed fractures were found on their bones.
Moreover, the components of the device were found, which, most likely, is the prototype of a modern crane. It is unlikely that the construction of the pyramids was accelerated and facilitated only through the use of this mechanism. It is possible that there were many other devices.
Skeptics also have certain views on the technique of building pyramids.
We will begin to discuss the process from the very first stage of creating such structures - the production of building blocks. It is scientifically proven that those who built the pyramids used “soft” limestone as the main materials, as well as harder ones: granite, quartzite and basalt. However, opinions about how the construction began, are somewhat divided.
According to one version, the mining of blocks was carried out in special quarries located near the places where the pyramids were built. The disadvantage of the theory is that the use of these quarries would only complicate the construction process, and the transportation of blocks would make the process practically impossible.
Another hypothesis is that the blocks were cast in situ from limestone concrete. Her adherents are sure that those who built the pyramids knew how to make concrete mixtures from various hard rocks. However, there are opponents of this theory of the construction of ancient structures. They argue their point of view, referring to the fact that in some places where the pyramids were built in large numbers, there are simply no resources for creating a cementitious concrete mortar.
Speaking about the hypotheses of moving blocks, it is worth mentioning that here the opinions of experts are divided.
The most common version of this is the block drawing version. As evidence of this theory, historians cite one of the ancient Egyptian frescoes, which depicts about one hundred and fifty people pulling the monument of Jehutihotep the Second. At the same time, workers use special sled drags. It is noteworthy that their runners, as depicted in the fresco, are watered with water, which was most likely used to reduce friction and facilitate the process. This hypothesis has the right to refute the fact that the process is quite laborious and it is unlikely that those who built the pyramids could do it quickly.
Another theory under discussion is the use of various mechanisms by ancient people. The most famous hypothetical devices are the so-called "cradle" mechanism, the square wheel technology (using a special track), an internal ramp, etc. But, according to many, these technologies were not yet available at that time.
Summarizing
Based on the foregoing, we can conclude that the question of who built the pyramids and what is their main purpose, remained relevant at all times. Most likely, humanity will never know this. Over time, everything goes into oblivion: manuscripts, murals, drawings. And there are few such historical sources these days.
The fact that the riddles of the pyramids will never leave a person indifferent is obvious.