Sacred Space Profile - Erica Gott

Erica Gott
ART 1301-001
Gibney
8 November 2007

The Great Pyramid, Egypt

General Description:
The Great Pyramid of Giza, Egypt, is “756 feet (241 meters) square in plan, and 481 feet (153 meters) high. The angle of inclination of the triangular faces is about 51.5 degrees. The square of its height equals the area of each triangular face, as determined by Herodotus in 450 B. C. The base of the pyramid covers about 13 acres” (Great Pyramid of Khufu).
The pyramid has few open spaces within it. Those consist of passages to the two main rooms, called the King’s and Queen’s chambers, a grand gallery, a grotto and a subterranean chamber (Sacred Sites: Places of Peace and Power).

Architectural Design:
It has generally been accepted for many years that the Great Pyramid was built by the Pharaoh Khufu; however, this has been in dispute in recent years. Besides the fact that the people who supposedly built it did not have the appropriate tools to cut and quarry the stones, certain water markings on the stones and salt deposits found inside the pyramid lead one to believe that the pyramid may have been underwater at one time. The Giza Plateau has not seen that amount of water since eight thousand years before Khufu lived.
Harmony with Nature:
Some research has determined that objects placed within the Great Pyramid do not decay. There appears to be a channeling of energy, but no one understands why or how this occurs. Pyramids constructed on the same angles as the Great Pyramid exhibit similar characteristics, so perhaps this phenomenon is not strictly due to the pyramid’s physical location, but due to its geometry.
The following description is taken verbatim from the Sacred Sites website:
· The sides of the pyramid are lined up almost exactly with the cardinal points of the compass. The accuracy of this alignment is extraordinary, with an average discrepancy of only about three minutes of arc in any direction or a variation of less than 0.06 percent.
· The Great Pyramid functioned as an enormous sundial. Its shadow to the north, and its reflected sunlight to the south, accurately marked the annual dates of both the solstices and the equinoxes.
· The basic dimensions of the Great Pyramid incorporate measurements from which the earth's size and shape can be calculated. The pyramid is a scale model of the hemisphere, incorporating the geographical degrees of latitude and longitude. The latitude and longitude lines that intersect at the Great Pyramid (30 degrees north and 31 degrees east) cross more of the earth's land surface than any other lines, thus the pyramid is located at the center of the land mass of the earth (the pyramid is built on the closest suitable site to this intersection). The original perimeter of the pyramid equals exactly one-half minute of latitude at the equator, indicating that its builders measured the earth with extreme precision and recorded this information in the dimensions of the structure. Altogether these measurements show that the builders knew the exact dimensions of the planet as precisely as they have been recently determined by satellite surveys.
· The foundation of the Great Pyramid is amazingly level., No corner of its base is more than one-half inch higher or lower than the others. Considering that the pyramid's base covers more than thirteen acres, this near-perfect leveling far exceeds even the finest architectural standards of the present day.
· Measurements throughout the pyramid show that its constructors knew of the proportions of pi (3.14...), phi or the Golden Mean (1.618), and the "Pythagorean" triangles thousands of years before Pythagoras, the so-called father of geometry, lived.
· Measurements show that the builders knew the precise spherical shape and size of the earth and had accurately charted such complex astronomical events as the precession of the equinoxes and the lunar standstill dates. The minute discrepancies of the lengths of the base of the pyramid (several inches over the 230 meter length of its base) reveal not an error on the part of the builders but an ingenious means of incorporating into the pyramid the "discrepancies" of the earth itself, in this case the flattening of the earth's globe at the poles.

Symbolism and Sacred Objects:
Any sacred objects which may have been inside the Great Pyramid have long since disappeared. The facing stones were removed to help rebuild Cairo after a devastating earthquake in 1356 CE. Historical accounts tell us that these facing stones once had unusual writings on them, but those disappeared as the stones were ground down for new use.

How it is used by worshippers:
The Great Pyramid of Khufu is not used by Egyptians as a place of worship today, but primarily as an object of history. It remains a major tourist attraction to people from all over the world. The gods and goddesses of Egypt are mainly stories told for the benefit of those tourists, since the majority of Egypt’s citizens are Muslim. There are many people, however, who believe that pyramids, and especially the Great Pyramid, channel the energy of the universe. Tours are led to Egypt, and meditations and ceremonies are held within the pyramid, primarily in the King’s Chamber, but these have nothing to do with the citizens of the country. I was one of the privileged few who spent time in the King’s Chamber during the Spring Equinox of 2000. There were nine of us, and we were led in a meditation which profoundly affected me at the time.

Sources:
Great Pyramid of Khufu. Kevin Matthews and Artifice, Inc., 1994-2007. accessed 8 November 2007. http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/Great_Pyramid.html

Sacred Sites: Places of Peace and Power. The Great Pyramid, Egypt. accessed 8 November 2007. http://www.sacredsites.com/africa/egypt/great_pyramid.html