Talk:Great Pyramid of Giza

Sources on the weird beliefs surrounding the Great Pyramid of Giza

I don't know if I'll ever be able to edit this article extensively, but I've been delving into the esoteric and fringe ideas about the Great Pyramid for a long time, and I now have enough sources about it to have formed a fairly complete picture. There's a long history of esoteric beliefs about the Great Pyramid, which are largely responsible for inspiring the "alternative" ideas about the pyramid that circulate today. Some of this stuff is covered in the current section titled "historiographic record", but although the real dimensions and history of the pyramid should of course be the main focus of the article, I think the esoteric stuff can be covered in a more well-rounded way, even if the total text about it doesn't increase. The topic may, in fact, merit an article of its own. I thought I'd note the most significant sources here for anyone who has the interest, time, and resources to make use of them.

The most comprehensive source about the evolution of these esoteric beliefs is The Legends of the Pyramids (2021) by Jason Colavito. One of the few influential beliefs about the pyramids that Colavito doesn't discuss is the belief that the Great Pyramid's interior was used for mystery initiations, which, as described at Mysteries of Isis#Influences in modern times, derives from the 18th-century novel Séthos and then passed into Masonic lore. As Erik Hornung points out in The Secret Lore of Egypt (2001), this is one of the major beliefs that inspired Harvey Spencer Lewis and the AMORC to claim that there's a network of secret passages linking the pyramid to other places on the Giza Plateau, in which esoteric lore was stored and initiation took place. As Colavito and others have said, Lewis's ideas seem to have been the inspiration for the belief in the "Hall of Records", which fed into the Orion correlation theory, the most recent fringe belief about the pyramids to make a really big splash. The two best sources on the OCT are Giza: The Truth (2000) by Ian Lawton and Andrew Ogilvie-Herald (which is currently listed in this article's bibliography but not actually cited) and "Alternative Egypts" by Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince, in Consuming Ancient Egypt (2003), edited by Sally MacDonald and Michael Rice. (Lawton, Ogilvie-Herald, Picknett, and Prince are all fringe-adjacent, but their work in these sources is pretty level-headed—Consuming Ancient Egypt is actually published by UCL Press—and nobody with better academic qualifications seems to have discussed the history of the Orion correlation theory as comprehensively as they do.) A. Parrot (talk) 18:49, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

Would be good to add to the main article: Pyramidology

Hypnôs (talk) 19:38, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

Although that article does discuss pseudoarchaeological beliefs about the pyramids, I'm not sure it's actually correct to do so. My understanding of the word "pyramidology" is that it refers to what the article calls "metrical" and "numerological" pyramidology—the belief that the pyramid's dimensions encode mystical meanings—rather than to the whole complex of fringe ideas surrounding the pyramid (e.g., that's how Merriam-Webster defines it). A. Parrot (talk) 20:39, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

From what I gathered is that many sources include any other fringe/pseudoscience/new-age claims, as the wiki article does, for example, the BBC article[1] or Encyclopedia.com article[2]

Also, Merriam-Webster has 1924 as earliest known use, when Smyth used it as early as 1865-70.[3]

Hypnôs (talk) 22:37, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

I agree that WP:PROFRINGE belongs in Pyramidology with other various religious or pseudoscientific speculations regarding pyramids, and that real dimensions and history of the pyramid should remain the focus of the article. The concentrated fringe section of the WP:POVFORK Mysteries of Isis ethnocentric fantasy article (see Talk:Mysteries of Isis/GA2) is derived largely from the work of Lefkowitz (1997) (and Macpherson who cites her). Lefkowitz's work has been characterized (not my claim) as ethnocentric, favoring speculation over eyewitness accounts and as representing a singular view (Howe, 1998; Keita, 2000; Conyers, 1996).

The present article is not the place for personal opinions about the Great Pyramid of Giza, WP:PROFRINGE and WP:VOTESTACKING (see Talk:Eleusinian Mysteries#Relationship with other mystery rites) agendas. Seeking (below) to attribute claims to an editor rather than the RSes from which they originated, misattributing sources (such as Assmann, Hornung, and Spieth) towards personal unsupported POV pushing, insistence on viewing history under the lens of ethnocentric views and debate, favoring single author sources over reliable encyclopedic literature, and the admission (below) that the main source material for the desired edits has been heavily criticized by reliable RSes all raise obvious red flags. Charles Bélanger Nzakimuena (talk) 05:07, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

This again? Your claim that Lefkowitz is "fringe" has been rejected by every other editor who discussed it. While aspects of her work have been criticized by other RSes, the only one I can find that challenges what she says about Sethos is Howe, who does treat Sethos as a major influence on mystical beliefs about Egypt (p. 122) while pointing out that it was not the only source for such ideas among Afrocentrists (p. 135) and that Lefkowitz overlooks many of the steps in the chain of transmission between Sethos and the Afrocentrists (p. 72). None of what Howe says contradicts any of the text at Mysteries of Isis, and once again you ignore the four other reliable sources in that article (Assmann, Hornung, Macpherson, and Spieth) that also treat Sethos as a major influence on later esoteric beliefs. (In any case, whether it goes here or in Pyramidology, Sethos should only receive two or three sentences in this context, at most.) A. Parrot (talk) 03:37, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

There is not one reference or mention to how to build this structure in a tangable world. This is old rehashed ideas that makes the reader think that becouse they are given dimentions of all the chambers and what not, that some how this constitues how this structure was built, Just another redundent artical that have wiki editor patting themselves on the back. 70.190.172.188 (talk) 03:06, 21 March 2022 (UTC)Alan B Christ

Is the reliance on royal cubits in #Interior useful?

Is the use of egyptian royal cubits (and one use of egyptian feet) really the best way for describing the measures of the tunnels and chambers? In my opinion it's unwieldy to read, and its used in a quite inconsistent manner sometimes giving way to metric or imperial measurements, and is arbitrarily converted to 1 cubit equaling either 0.50m or 0.52m as it happens to fit.

I'd suggest changing it to a uniform "[metric] ([imperial])" and "[metric] ([imperial]; [cubit])" where appropriate.

Any notes or opinions? SkSlick (talk) 00:33, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

The Great Pyramid is not 6500 years old.

More evidence has been discovered proving the Pyramid is closer to 10,000 years or older. 2601:601:517:364F:9533:E936:114A:2C8D (talk) 22:27, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

What source(s) do you have for that? It's current age is given as approx 4590 years. Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:32, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

When was the record height surpassed?

When did the Great Pyramid of Giza cease to be the tallest building in the world? According to the infobox on this page, it was surpassed by Lincoln Cathedral in 1311. But where does this idea come from? On the Lincoln Cathedral page, any existing sources are weak, typically either coming from news articles (leading me to fears of WP:CITOGENESIS) or crappy trade books. I previously raised this issue in a talk page thread back in November 2020, to no resolution. I added a dubious tag in December 2020 that Maruf Hossain removed the following April, though that editor offered no source or resolution. I have since added it back. Tkbrett (✉) 02:24, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

G.k

Where is the Great Pyramid of Giza located 106.207.9.187 (talk) 14:49, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

2.3 stone used to build the Great Pyramid

This number was made using an estimation based on the bulk divided by a standard sized block of stone. I believe this calculation was done before the realization that a substantial amount of the volume of the pyramid was made up by the incorporation of the a portion of the ridgeline within in it. The estimation is 23%. https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00319586/document. I believe also that the volume of pyramid did not take into account the 500,000 tons of gypsum mortars used within and general sloppiness of the core stones.

The average side measurement, at the base = 759.3 ft. The height used was 201 steps high, or 480 feet. (This is minus the height of the Capstone, which was one piece in itself. The number reached by the Pascal computer program was 603,728 blocks used. The solid core takes up the space of 13,016 stones. So, the actual number of stones used to build the Great Pyramid is 603,728 - 13,016 = 590,712. This figure is (2,300,000 - 590,712) = 1,709,288 blocks less than the often published 2.3 million value. Hanslune Hanslune (talk) 01:28, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

This isn't the place to share original research or debate one's own theories. We base all our articles on published material from reliable sources. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 01:58, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

The 2.3 is stated as an estimate with no citation - where exactly did it come from then? Here is the problem that number 2.3 is used alot but no one ever looks at when it was made and how? It doesn't appear to have incorporated in that calculation the inclusion of the ridgeline? So, if no one know where the number came from why is it in this wikipedia page? Oh, and not I'm not a fringe nut I'm someone who has notice we are using a number that doesn't appear to be correct or come from a scientific source. I believe we should challenge it and determine if it is scientifically valid or just a case of repeating information because it was being used in the past. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hanslune (talk • contribs) 06:49, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

@Hanslune Of course it's cited - to John Romer. We can't do our own calculations, see WP:NOR. Also see [https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=2.3+million+blocks+great+pyramid&btnG=]. Doug Weller talk 09:47, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply Doug we use debate at Hall of Ma'at and few other places. The link worked and here is what one said: Most books and encyclopedias stated that there were 2.3 million stone blocks in the Great Pyramid,

without mentioning the method used to calculate this figure [4,6,7,11]. The British astronomer Charles

Piazzi Smyth estimated that there were about two hundred floors of blocks on the pyramid and that the

number of blocks in the Great Pyramid was about 2.69 million [2]. Socrates [6] determined the size and

weight of a standard block and ran a Pascal computer program to obtain an estimate of the number of

blocks used, which was about 600,000 blocks.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Dominic-Thibault/publication/360089118_Mathematical_Equation_for_Determining_the_Number_of_Blocks_in_an_Egyptian-like_Square-Based_Pyramid_of_Equilateral_Type/links/62619a93bca601538b5cd66a/Mathematical-Equation-for-Determining-the-Number-of-Blocks-in-an-Egyptian-like-Square-Based-Pyramid-of-Equilateral-Type.pdf

Yeah so we have a basis but what hasn't been done is take into account the incorporation of the ridgeline into the structure (https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00319586/document) which estimates it takes up 23% of the volume plus the general slop of the core tiers and the gypsum mortar all of which effects a pure mathematically volume calculation. For slop we have an aerial image of the top tier of GP. https://i.imgur.com/RMTkLMf.jpg. for the lower core stones we have what I believe is the NE corner. https://i.imgur.com/PwCpoI6.jpg, so some slop and irregular fitting leaving gaps. Now shouldn't the solid volume calculation be redone to include the ridgeline, mortar and slop? Thanks Hanslune (talk) 23:03, 23 December 2022 (UTC)