Egypt

Time for the Great Pyramid?

Archaeology Magazine (Mark Rose)

Like any scientific research, the methods, data, and conclusions presented in JAMA can now be evaluated and debated. Right now, for example, I am working on a short piece about the results to go into our May/June issue. There’s something I’m checking about one point of the DNA analysis, and I wish that more of the CT scan-bone interpretation side of the study had been presented here. The implication of malaria as a cause in Tut’s death seems speculative—he might have had it earlier and survived. In places, what’s in the JAMA paper seems to have been overplayed in the media. Tut’s widely reported “cleft palette” is actually a partially cleft palette and within the normal range of variation.

But the point is that Hawass and colleagues have done the science and put the results out there for discussion. That’s how it should work. Interestingly, a week or two back I received in the mail a copy of Khufu’s Pyramid Revealed from architect Jean-Pierre Houdin, whose investigations into the possible use of an internal spiral ramp in the construction of the Great Pyramid were featured in Bob Brier’s article “How to Build a Pyramid” (May/June 2007) and update “Return to the Great Pyramid” (July/August 2009). Though I have only known Houdin for a few years, his passion and boundless energy for this topic strike me as quite similar to Hawass’s.

- Secret Chambers At Great Pyramid Proposed
Discovery News (Rossella Lorenzi) A French architect campaigning for a new exploration of the 4,500-year-old Great Pyramid of Giza said on Thursday that the edifice may contain two chambers housing funereal furniture. Jean-Pierre Houdin -- who was rebuffed...

- More Evidence Of Secret Passages In The Great Pyramid
Talking Pyramids (Vincent Brown) Vincent has picked up on a video on the National Geographic website: National Geographic has posted a video to their YouTube channel today that presents supporting evidence of Jean Pierre Houdin’s internal spiral ramp...

- Book Review: The Secret Of The Great Pyramid
Publishers Weekly The Secret of the Great Pyramid: How One Man’s Obsession Led to the Solution of Ancient Egypt’s Greatest Mystery by Bob Brier and Jean-Pierre Houdin. Collins/ Smithsonian Since its construction 4,500 years ago for Pharaoh Khufu,...

- Egypt Says No Onsite Tests For French Pyramid Theory
http://www.metimes.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20070411-035121-2808r"The powerful head of Egypt's antiquities department Tuesday ruled out any onsite tests to check the veracity of a new French theory about the building of the Great Pyramid. 'It...

- Bob Brier On Pyramid Construction
http://www.archaeology.org/0705/etc/pyramid.htmlThis is the best summary so far of old and new theories of pyramid construction possibilities, by Egyptologists Bob Brier, on the Archaeology magazine website. It includes helpful diagrams to accompany detailed...

Egypt