Building the Great Pyramid / Kevin Jackson and Jonathan Stamp.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Jackson, Kevin, 1955-2021.

Contributor:

Stamp, Jonathan.

George Clapp Vaillant Book Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Great Pyramid (Egypt).

Pyramids--Egypt--Design and construction.

Pyramids.

Egypt.

Physical Description:

191 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 26 cm

Place of Publication:

Toronto ; Buffalo : Firefly Books, 2003.

Summary:

The Great Pyramid of Khufu is the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the World and the only one still standing. No building on earth has inspired more speculation than the Great Pyramid, or raised so many questions. Equipped with only basic tools, how were Ancient Egyptian builders able to achieve such an extraordinary degree of accuracy in its construction? How were stones, some weighing as much as 40 tons, hauled into position so precisely? What was life like for the conscripted laborers who built it, and how long did it take them to complete their task? Building the Great Pyramid traces the history of the exploration of the Giza site, from the earliest Greek and Roman travelers, through the investigations of the Arabian prince Abdullah AlMamun in the ninth century AD, to the work of Athanasius Kircher and John Greaves eight hundred years later. The origins of Egyptology are also examined: the exhaustive surveys carried out under Napoleon following the French invasion of Egypt in 1798, Jean-Francois Champollion's cracking of the hieroglyphic "code," and the work of scholars such as Auguste Mariette and Sir William Flinders Petrie in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Links with Freemasonry and the effects of mass tourism are also explored. Finally the book considers the less orthodox theories of pyramidologists and looks at how the Great Pyramid has become a magnet for all manner of charlatans, heretics and cranks, among them the mystic "Madame" Helena Blavatsky and the self-styled "Great Beast" Aleister Crowley -- who claimed to have spent his honeymoon inside the tomb.

Contents:

Chapter 1 The Pyramid and Its Site 17

Chapter 2 A Conscript's Life 31

Chapter 3 Building the Great Pyramid 49

Chapter 4 Worlds Within and Without 71

Chapter 5 Death, Afterlife and the Funeral of the King 91

Chapter 6 Travelers' Tales 109

Chapter 7 The Origins of Modern Egyptology 129

Chapter 8 Egyptology Comes of Age 149

Chapter 9 Pyramidology, Heretics, Mystics and Cranks 159.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the George Clapp Vaillant Book Fund.

ISBN:

1552977218

1552977196

OCLC:

50581683