Explore Egypt's Great Pyramid | Wondrium Perspectives

Want to stream more content like this… and 1,000’s of courses, documentaries & more?

-------------------------------------------

Did you know that the Great Pyramid of Giza is the last of the Seven Wonders that still stands? Built over 4,000 years ago under the orders of the Egyptian king Khufu, it attracts tourists from all around the world and contains mysteries that scholars are still trying to solve.

In this episode of Perspectives, three historians discuss the Great Pyramid, its construction, and some of its 4,000-year-old secrets.
-------------------------------------------
Clips in this video are from the following series on Wondrium:

The Remarkable Science of Ancient Astronomy, presented by Bradley E. Schaefer

The Great Tours: A Guided Tour of Ancient Egypt, presented by Melinda Hartwig

Decoding the Secrets of Egyptian Hieroglyphs, presented by Bob Brier
------------------------------------------

Table of Contents:
00:00 Egypt's Last Wonder
02:42 Khufu, Pyramid Builder
04:41 An Astronomical Alignment
06:43 The Mystery of the Air Shafts
09:06 The Mystery of the Fitted Stones
10:58 Pyramid Power Tests Credulity

-------------------------------------------

Wondrium Perspectives is hosted by Rich Bernett.
---------
Welcome to Wondrium on YouTube.

Here, you can enjoy a carefully curated selection of the history, science, and math videos you’ve come to know and love from brands like The Great Courses, and more.

If you’ve ever wanted to travel back in time, wondered about the science of life, wished for a better understanding of math, or dreamt of exploring the stars … then Wondrium will be your new favorite channel on YouTube!

There, you’ll find in-depth answers to everything you’ve ever wondered, with mind-blowing surprises along the way.

Your brain is going to love this place!

-------------------------------------------

And, of course, check us out on all of our social channels:

-------------------------------------------

[Three hashtags that apply to the video topic]

[aliensoup]

Your images are the 2nd pyramid, Khefren with the existing cap on the top. Khufu is the larger pyramid without the top cover.

[Antuan]

9:20 --> About these tight joints that she say you can't put in even a pin inside them. Yes is true, but...

As a structural engineer I know what amazing craftsmen the ancient stonemasons were. But these joints weren't made so tight from the beginning.

These tight joints became so after the fatigue of the material, by "Creep" as it is called. It is a phenomenon, a very slow process that creates deformation due to material fatigue after many years under pressure. Of gravity in our case.

All materials "suffer" from this deformation but it takes hundreds or thousands of years for it to become visible, depending on the material and specifically its Modulus of Elasticity. It is the property of a material that shows how elastic it is under external pressures.

In stone structures, gravity compresses the material of each stone separately and decreases them in height, and the horizontal joints slowly close over the years. However, the vertical pressure simultaneously causes a horizontal deformation in the materials, in our case, the stones, so on the upright sides of each stone, the upright joints also close so that finally one stone comes and rests exactly with the one next to it.

For every millimeter of vertical deformation for loose stones, they expand horizontally by 0.2-0.3 millimeters, i.e. 0.1-0.15 millimeters on each side.

To better visualize this, say you made a plasticine cube and you squeeze it from the top, it will decrease in height but at the same time it will open up on the side and become like a burger. This also happens to stones but after thousands of years and it happens at a rate of 0.1 to 1 millimeter every 100 years depending on the material of the stone and the above load. Granite is one thing, for example, and Limestone is another. This percentage seems to decrease over the years, that is, as the years go by the material resists this phenomenon even more.

So, tight joints are not an unheard of issue, not something extraordinary. It forms naturally after so many years under the pressure of gravity.

[hcic]

No bones were ever found in the great pyramid, but that is because it has been roughly 5, 000 years since Khufu was laid to rest. His tomb was probably robbed not long after they sealed the pyramid, as was every other tomb in egypt, even ones that weren't in pyramids. Except for King Tut, who's tomb was only intact by pure chance because it was covered by stone and dirt from a mud slide on the entrance. Pyramids stopped being made so big after these because the Pharaohs realized that the construction was a waste of time, because they took too long to build, cost too much, and most importantly, because they made the Pharaoh's burial site an easy target for robbers. That's why they started making their tombs in the Valley of the Kings, away from Pyramids, so that they might be able to hide the tombs. And if civilizations wanted to build after the pyramids, it was a lot smarter to use smaller stones, so it's not really less technology, it's just easier. And the head of the Sphinx might have originally been carved with the head of a lion, and possibly changed to the head of a later Pharaoh, which would've removed stone from the head and in turn made the head not proportioned with the body. My guess would be that you believe strange or mysterious things happened regarding the Pyramids but i can assure you, that the Truth is not as romantic as most would like it to be. Hope i answered some of your questions my friend 👍

[kennethhicks]

Don't ya think ya could leave out the religious bashing and admit ya don't know?

[cpasa]

What did the archeologists found inside the great piramed? If it is a cementary why didn’t made any analysis of the bones that they didn’t found inside? Why are not siasmic being made so we can know what is bellow the entire zone? Why new pirameds are made with less technology and are smaller if the suppose civilization is the same? Why the head of the esfinge is smaller of the rest of the body? Who would make that big of a monument without any proper proportion taking into account that the proportion of the body is good and the head too but not each other?

[Annie-qjnd]

Actually your wrong . It's was never meant to be a tomb . And it had nothing to do with kufu.

[EfrainRiveraJunior]

The Jehovah's Witnesses cult founder was a pyramidologist who believed that he could predict the end of times by measuring the Pyramid of Giza's base.

[SabbathSOG]

You people make me laugh that's use BCE. Then why do you say it's 2022? If you're going to eliminate BC, then why would you say it's 2022?

[The.Golden.Door.]

This information is extremely wrong.. and misinterpreted...from an extremely foreign and limited point of view...from an interdisciplinary study and from the story left behind from the actual culture itself. Sorry, but they completely missed the mark on this one.

[derekaduncan]

Another youtube video states that limestone was melted and poured into forms the same as concrete thereby stones were not lifted into place.