Pyramid Quest (47 page)

Bonwick (1877, pp. 20-22) cites other possible etymologies for
pyramid.
The pyramids were sometimes referred to in Arabic as Haram or Alehram, signifying old age or an old structure. Other variations of this were El-Haram and Pi-Haram. It was also suggested that Haram could mean a holy place. The Coptic phrases
pirá-mona
and
pi-re-mi
are said to both mean “splendor of the sun.” Some authors also suggested that pyramid may be derived from the Coptic
ramas
(rich),
pouro
(king), and or
mici
(birth).
Piromes
was also said to refer to statues of kings and priests. Another derivation suggests that it was originally
pooramis,
where
pour,
or
bour,
is prison or sepulcher, and
amit
means “of the dead,” thus prison, cave, or sepulcher of the dead.

In certain numerological interpretations, 7 is the unity of spirit and matter, represented respectively by 3 (the trinity, which far predates Christianity) and 4 (the four elements of earth, air, fire, and water; the four principles or characteristics of cold, dry, hot, wet). The pyramid represents 7, with a square base (4) and triangular sides (3); that is, a pyramid represents matter giving rise to spirit.

Alan Alford, author of
Pyramid of Secrets
(2003), has suggested (private e-mail from Alford to Schoch, January 9, 2004) that

A number of Arab stories or traditions concerning the Great Pyramid existed during medieval times, covering a period of about a thousand years, most of which were variations on the same basic themes (see Greaves, 1646, 1704, 1737; Kingsland, 1935; Vyse, 1840, vol. 2). In outline, many of the Arab traditions attributed the Great Pyramid or the Giza Pyramids more generally to the king of Egypt Saurid (or Saurid Ibn Salhouk, or Surid, or a variation on this theme), said to have lived 300 years before the Flood (i.e., the Noachian flood or its equivalent). Saurid had a prophetic dream in which he saw the stars wandering from their courses and falling from the sky (comets and cometary action?) and the earth in upheaval, after which Saurid assembled his priests (the high priest is sometimes referred to as Philimon or Iklimon), the deluge was foretold, and Saurid had the pyramids built as vaults to preserve treasures; writings, artifacts, symbols, talismans preserving knowledge and wisdom; and the bodies of ancestors and deceased priests. Statues or idols that had magical powers guarded each of the pyramids; furthermore, the pyramids were said to be haunted by living spirits who would keep out all intruders other than those worthy of admission (apparently these spirits included, according to some legends cited by Tompkins, 1971, p. 21, “a naked woman with large teeth,” who, after seducing trespassers, drove them insane).

These Arab traditions are often simply dismissed outright, as for instance by Greaves (1646; quoted in Kingsland, 1935, p. 101): “Thus far the
Arabians,
which traditions of theirs are little better than a Romance, and therefore leaving these, I shall give a more true and particular description out of mine own experience and observation” (italics in the original). Kingsland (1935, pp. 103-104), however, suggests that the Arab traditions do have meaning, but they are not referring to the Giza Pyramids literally, or to a true historical tradition in terms of a king named Surid or Saurid, and so on. Rather, the Arab tales refer in veiled terms to occult knowledge and the ancient mysteries and initiatory rites of the Egyptians.

There is sometimes a popular conception that the Israelites, or proto-Israelites, as slaves of the Egyptians, built the Great Pyramid. In fact, there is no good evidence to support this contention, and the time of Moses and the Exodus was over a millennium after the erection of the Great Pyramid. In the first century A.D., the Jewish historian Josephus promulgated this Israelite-pyramid connection by writing: “The Egyptians inhumanly treated the Israelites, and wore them down in various labours, for they ordered them to divert the course of the river (Nile) into many ditches, and to build walls, and raise mounds, by which to confine the inundations of the river; and, moreover, vexed our nation in constructing foolish pyramids” (quoted in Bonwick, 1877, p. 72).

Various authors have traced Freemasonry back to the ancient Egyptians, and to the Great Pyramid in particular in some cases (see for instance Churchward, 1898; Cornish, 1986, 1990; Fellows, 1877; Hall, 1937; Higgins, 1923; Holland, 1885; Rowbottom, 1880). One concept, in simplified form, is that Masonry/Freemasonry actually originated with the very masons and stonecutters who worked on the Great Pyramid and, in the course of building the structure, could not help but learn the secrets and were thus themselves compelled to protect the sacred knowledge.

Palmer (1994, p. 138) says that the Great Pyramid was built as a “Freemasonic or Rosicrucian temple” and in it was celebrated the “Rite of the Little Dead.” In this rite the initiate was said to spend three days in the “Pit” (Subterranean Chamber) in the total darkness without food or water, and a limited supply of air, during which time he or she would experience altered states of consciousness (compare discussions in Horgan, 2003), and ultimately the ego would die. After three days, the initiate would be reborn and taken to the King’s Chamber for an initiation ceremony.

The concepts of “Pyramid Inches,” “Primitive Inches,” “Sacred Cubits,” and “Pyramid Cubits” are due to nineteenth and twentieth-century “Biblical Pyramidists” (Kingsland, 1932, p. 38; other authors have referred to them less sympathetically as “pyramidiots”—see, for instance, Cottrell, 1963, p. 183) such as C. Piazzi Smyth, Morton Edgar, and D. Davidson. Considering the Great Pyramid to be a building that was directly inspired by God, Smyth reasoned that the “profane cubit” of the ancient Egyptians was either not used in the Great Pyramid or was supplemented by a different “Sacred Cubit.” Smyth apparently derived this idea of a Sacred versus Profane Cubit from the work of Isaac Newton (see Newton in Greaves, 1737), who had sought to identify the cubit used by the ancient Israelites.

According to Smyth (1864, 1867, 1874, 1877, 1880, 1890), the Sacred Cubit essentially equivalent to the Pyramid Cubit, as it was termed by some authors, for instance Davidson, in Davidson and Aldersmith, 1924, was 25.025 British inches (or simply inches), and the Sacred Cubit was divided into 25 Pyramid Inches (essentially equivalent to the Primitive Inches of Davidson, for instance); thus a Pyramid Inch was equal to 1.001 British inches. What was the basis of the Pyramid Inch and Sacred Cubit? It was divinely inspired, based on the polar diameter of Earth (from the North Pole to the South Pole). The contention was that the polar diameter of Earth equals exactly 500 million (500,000,000) Pyramid Inches, or 20,000,000 Sacred Cubits. Part of the allure of the so-called Pyramid Inch and the Sacred Cubit is that they would be truly Earth-commensurable units of measurement rather than simply arbitrary lengths. Who should know the true dimensions of Earth better than God?

Depending on the value of the polar diameter of Earth used, and various assumptions made, the value of the Pyramid Inch or Primitive Inch and Sacred Cubit or Pyramid Cubit varies from author to author (see summary in Kingsland, 1932, pp. 40-42). Compared to the values of Smyth, Morton Edgar (see Edgar, 1924; Edgar and Edgar, 1910, 1923) used a value of 1.001001 British inches for the Pyramid Inch (accordingly, his Sacred Cubit equals 25.025025 British inches). Davidson (see Davidson and Aldersmith, n.d., p. 92; 1924) uses a Primitive Inch equal to 1.0011 British inches (and thus a Sacred Cubit or Pyramid Cubit of 25.0275 British inches).

The most common theory as to the purpose of the pyramids, including the Great Pyramid, is that they were first and foremost tombs for the deceased. Even following this standard Egyptological dogma, to see them as primarily tombs may be an oversimplification. Kemp (in Trigger, Kemp, O’Connor, and Lloyd, 1983, p. 85) says:

It has been argued that in some ways the building of the pyramids in ancient Egypt was essentially a public works project that employed and channeled labor and resources that had the effect of increasing the overall prosperity of Egypt. Building a pyramid reinforced the authority of the pharaoh and the ruling power structure, as well as developing and solidifying administrative hierarchies and bureaucratic apparatuses that could be put to use for other purposes, be it collecting taxes, asserting control over the provinces, settling land disputes, waging war, or any of many other functions of government. Pyramid building was an industry that “provided jobs,” as it were; created demand for consumable goods, whether goods to be buried with the deceased or goods to supply the laborers on the project; required the training of craftsmen, who could then apply their skills to other purposes; and led to improvements in technology as ways had to be developed to efficiently quarry stone, carve it, transport it, and erect it into gigantic structures. In addition, the building and decoration of associated temples and so forth would inspire technological and artistic innovations.

The relative size (volume) of pyramids during the Old Kingdom Fourth Dynasty has sometimes been suggested as a crude measure of economic activity. As compiled by Kemp (in Trigger et al., 1983, p. 88), the pyramid with the largest volume is the Great Pyramid, followed by the North Pyramid (Red Pyramid) of Sneferu at Dahshur, the Second or Khafre Pyramid of Giza, and the South Pyramid (or Bent Pyramid) of Sneferu at Dashur. Note that while the Great Pyramid may be the largest single pyramid of those listed, the combined volume of the pyramids at Dahshur is considerably greater than that of the Great Pyramid. This might suggest an even greater amount of economic activity under Sneferu (assuming that both Dahshur pyramids are correctly attributed to Sneferu) than his successor Khufu.

The suggestion that the Great Pyramid might have served to make astronomical observations is a very old idea. The biblical Tower of Babel was in ancient times believed to have been used to observe the heavens (Bonwick, 1877, p. 144), and Arab legends viewed the Great Pyramid as an observatory (West, 1985, p. 91). Bonwick (1877, p. 145) quotes Edmé-François Jomard (one of the
savants
with Napoleon; see Tompkins, 1971, p. 44) as remarking that “it is very remarkable that the openings of pyramids are all to the north”; thus the “true tube” of a passage could be used for observing the stars, and “one could at the lower point see the circumpolar stars pass the meridian, and observe exactly the instant of that passage.” Most writers, however, dismissed the idea of the Great Pyramid as an observatory, since its smooth sides could not be easily ascended (thinking in terms of the pyramid supplying a raised platform from which to make observations) and its passages and entrance were blocked off once it was completed. But what if the Great Pyramid served as an astronomical observatory before it took the shape we see today? The Neoplatonic philosopher Proclus, of the fourth century A.D., mentioned in passing that the Great Pyramid had functioned as an astronomical observatory before it was completed (see Proctor, 1883, p. 177). Arab legends associated the Great Pyramid with astronomy and astronomical knowledge (see for instance Davidson and Aldersmith, 1924, n.d., p. 90). The British astronomer Richard A. Proctor (1880, 1883) argued cogently that a partially completed Great Pyramid, where the southern end of the Grand Gallery was exposed to the night sky, would make an excellent pretelescopic astronomical observatory. K. P. Johnson (1998, 1999) has more recently shown how certain of the shafts from the King’s and Queen’s Chambers could also have been used for astronomical observations.

Ballard (1882; see also Tompkins, 1971, pp. 117-120) suggested that the Giza pyramids could serve as a point of reference, or essentially a huge theodolite in reverse (theodolites are instruments used by surveyors for measuring angles), for a land surveyor along the Nile within view of the Great Pyramid. According to Ballard, the changing relative positions of the three pyramids, as viewed from different areas around the Giza Plateau, could be used to determine angles and therefore allow triangulation and establishment of land boundaries and parcels. This would be especially important in ancient Egypt, as the annual inundation of the Nile along its river plain would destroy marked land boundaries that would have to be restored.