How cool is a pyramid

Can someone please tell me why the writing bugs occurs at the oddest of hours? Its 3:21am standard mountain time and that's odd for me because usually I'm asleep. No worries though, I'm still voluntarily unemployed and I can sleep in.

Less writing about nocturnal issues and more writing about TRAVEL!

How cool is a pyramid. Well I wondered about that because most of us in the developing world have been raised on photos of pyramids. We've all wondered "How did they do that?". I think the pyramids have most likely kept the History Channel and the The Learning Channel gainfully employed because lets face it... We can't get enough about pyramids nor the mysteries they hold.

Have you ever really really wanted to see something for real, you've had your fill of the glossy photos or the hand drawn etchings as they left an indelible mark on your imagination yet you've thirsted to see the REAL THING. For me not so much - seriously. I am astounded at how disinterested I was to see the architectural wonders of the world. For much of my life my interest has been in the natural world, and the challenges of movement. I don't like cities for the most part and unfortunately now many of the great monuments are located very close to civilization and as such they haven't been on my list of "Things to see before I die".

Boy am I an idiot. Take the Great Wall of China. I wouldn't have made a special trip to see it but I put it on the agenda when I realized I was stopping in Beijing on my way to climb in Mongolia. When I stepped on to the actual structure and was laboring along it's heroic contour of the landscape, I was humbled and astounded at how incredibly BETTER it was to see it in person. No photo could do it justice, I was standing on human history; hopes, desires, passion and ingenuity was vibrating in every brick laid into place. The ghosts of men and women past were brushing by me along with the march of human civilization. It changed me to be there and I will never disregard our human accomplishments again. Problem is I've never cared for engineers all that much and I didn't care too much about what they left behind. I am officially upgrading my idiot status to dumb-ass and its embarrassing so lets talk about pyramids.

The pyramids. I suppose I liked the pyramids as much as the next kid but I wasn't an Egyptian aficionado. Again, it wasn't on my immediate travel agenda. I knew that the great pyramids of Giza were dangerously close Cairo and I wasn't keen to be in another dirty, hustling, over crowded city. However serendipity laid her glorious hand on my shoulder and shoved me into a wondrous and grand adventure.

I had barely unpacked the content of my backpack after my trip to India. I was happy to be back on Canadian soil. Deliriously happy actually, I came home with a deep appreciation for all the gifts I was living with including my health, friends, family and the security of knowing I would always have a roof over my head and something to eat. I was not prepared to be a globe trotter again so soon. Back to Ms Serendipity....

The short version of a much longer blog is that I struck a deal with a highly controversial author and maverick Robert Bauval. I would take Robert's tour of the Pyramids in exchange for providing graphic design work. Once I hatched my plan it was easy as pitching the idea to him via email and Bob-Was-My-Uncle. Ok there was the slight issue of being stranded at the Cairo airport and Uncle Bob not knowing I was missing for two days, but that's why I called it an adventure! :-) Robert has been stubbornly writing books with hard facts to support his contention about why the Pyramids are placed the way they are within the grand space of nothing less but the geographic area of Egypt. It would appear we are witnessing engineered planning of massive proportions to achieve their placing of pyramids and areas of worship to reflect the heavens above from a much much earlier time - like 10,500BC. This is a gross over simplification of his work but will have to do. He has tenaciously withstood the derision of "expert" Egyptologists who have tried to discount his research, then ignore his research and now I think mostly they have adopted the "hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil" when it comes to Robert's work. They hope he will go away. The teensy problem is that he's been rather wildly successful with his books and he's been teaming up with equally intelligent malcontents who are determined to have their theories tested on the greater stage of academic respect and consideration. And why not? If they can't support their theories they should be laughed off the block, but guess what... These folks are professionals often in the realms of geology, engineering and human history. They have no vested interest in maintaining the status quo of knowledge that the Egyptologists of old fashioned and the current guard still support. But when one looks with fresh eyes at the data (as Robert and others have done) it appears that the earliest Egyptologists had limited understanding of how structures are actually built and had no awareness of how weather such as water affects these structures especially the Sphinx. Combined with their own religious schools of thoughts, most of these early Christian intellectuals couldn't accept an Egypt that was obviously far older than biblical accounts of human history so they created alternative theories that could fit into their world view.

WHICH brings me back to pyramids. I found myself in Egypt for 8 days with Robert's specialized tour and then for another couple weeks on my own. When I saw the first step pyramid I found hard to assimilate the reality that I was actually looking at something that was 5000 years old. Perhaps this shouldn't have been so difficult as I touch rocks that are millions of years old all the time. But when I first set eyes on a pyramid what I was struck with was the realization that the individuals who conceived of pyramids and then spent the next centuries perfecting them, had to be definitely on par with mastermind engineers of today. They had to be in order for these structures to exist and survive. And with that realization I found it interesting to note within myself I also harbored the arrogance that we "modern" man must be new and improved over the "ancient man" . Oh contrare. Are we are more technically advanced? It would appear obviously so. Are we smarter or more creative or more innovative? I tend to doubt it. It wasn't just about the pyramids, ALL the structures I saw were awe inspiring because they are so friggin' OLD and still HERE. We don't have answers for how they accomplished some of their feats but we are left with the buildings that represents the use of sheer human determination, ingenuity and man power. I won't even touch on the more interesting discussions of "Why" they would go to such Herculean feats to build at all - another blog perhaps.

However, once you enter the great Pyramid of Giza all bets are off. There is a room called the "King's Chamber in the dead centre of the largest pyramid. No one can fully explain how they built that room. The blocks of rock weigh an average of 40 tons "each". They are placed with microscopic precision and it defies explanation given their tools and lack of machinery. Not the engineers, nor the builders, nor the Egyptologists and not even the mystic visionaries who are communing with Isis and Osiris have a plausible explanation. So far the aliens haven't taken responsibility either. And come on, if you were an alien and you did such cool shit wouldn't you at least have written SOMETHING like "Zoltan from planet Nimrod was here" ?

We have one great big ancient mystery. And I went into that chamber and I sat there, in this grand mystery in amazing silence. For 10 minutes there was no else in the room except for my friend John Major Jenkins and I. And again it was like stepping onto the Great Wall, as I had this deep sense of awe at where I was. Yet even more so in the King's Chamber precisely because it is an enigma - wrapped in a mystery and I could feel it. It made me feel like a small little human with a tiny lifespan, so insignificant while sitting in the belly of history. These pyramids used to be covered in gleaming white alabaster and the top was covered in gold. They glittered in the desert pointing to the celestial home of the Gods - Orion's Belt. We are left with a giant Rubic's cube that modern man has shown surprisingly little serious interest in unlocking. Think about it, if we (we meaning modern man who has guns and steel and capacity to blow somebody else to kingdom come) thought that the pyramids could teach us how to kill our enemies quicker or more effectively we would have been ALL OVER FIGURING IT OUT. But alas the mystery proved too enigmatic and it had no intrinsic value to our survival so we shrugged our shoulders and decided "The aliens did it"

No matter one's opinion on the pyramids, Robert's theories of "why" they are placed the way they are doesn't help with the bigger question of "how" they accomplished these illustrious feats. Sure perhaps we know how one can construct the classic pyramid we know and love. In fact Egypt is full of the previous attempts, the failed projects and the steady progression of refinement of the step pyramid to the iconic 3 dimensional triangle we see in Giza. But we still can't explain the King's Chamber, how it was built with such precision nor how the massive sarcophagus that is inside the room got there.

Today each of us can go back in time and for a brief moment can breath the air of the past and marvel at how human genius can be made manifest. We can appreciate that our species has capacity for greatness that can withstand the tests of time. Go see the pyramids.

They are REALLY cool.