Norwegian scientist with new pyramid theory
Architect Ole Jørgen Bryn has reconstructed how the construction of Khufus pyramids (Great Pyramid of Giza) in Egypt was planned. Photo: Håvard Houen / NRK
For thousands of years, scientists from around the world have tried to understand how the Egyptians erected their giant pyramids. Now, a Norwegian researcher claims that he can answer an ancient, unsolved puzzle.
Researchers are so concerned about the weight of the stones that they tend to forget two major problems: How did the Egyptians know exactly where to put their enormously heavy stones? And how was the master architect able to communicate these detailed plans that required an extreme precision, to a workforce of 10,000 illiterate men?
These were among the questions architect Ole J. Bryn at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology was affronting when he began retracing Khufu’s Great Pyramid in Giza. Khufu’s pyramid, better known as the Pyramid of Cheops, consists of 2.3 million limestone blocks, is 146.6 meters high, and remained, for almost 4.000 years, the tallest built structure in the world.
What he discovered was quite simple, yet unexplored, namely principles that suggests that the Egyptians invented the modern building grid, by separating the system of precision from the constituent part of the physical building itself, thus introducing tolerance, as we in the engineering and architectural professions know it today.
Based on his own professional experience, Bryn has studied the planning of the pyramid and discovered a precision system that made it possible for the Egyptians to reach the pyramid’s last and highest point, the Apex point, with an impressive degree of accuracy. By exploring and planning the pyramid it is possible to prepare modern project documentation of not just one, but all pyramids from any given period.
As long as the architect knows the main dimensions of a pyramid, he can project the building as he would have done it with a modern building, but with building methods and measurements known from the ancient Egypt, Bryn says.
In a scientific article published in May 2010 (Retracing Khufu’s Great Pyramid in Nordic Journal of Architectural Research, 1-2 2010) Ole J. Bryn discusses his startling discovery that can explain the construction of a multitude of the Egyptian pyramids by taking the building grid, and not the physical building itself, as the starting point for his analysis.
If the principles behind Ole J. Bryn’s drawings are correct, then archaeologists will get a new ”map” in hand, given that the pyramids are no longer just a “bunch of heavy rocks with unknown structures” but, rather, incredibly precise structures.
Ole J. Bryn’s findings will be presented and explained at the exhibition The Apex point in Trondheim from September 13th to October 1st. The exhibition is an official part of the program to celebrate the centenary (1910-2010) of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
Source: NTNU
