The Giza Power Plant Read online

  In any machine there are devices that function to make the machine work. This machine was no different. Although the inner chambers and passages of the Great Pyramid seem to be devoid of what we would consider to be mechanical or electrical devices, there are devices still housed there that are similar in nature to mechanical devices created today. These devices also could be considered to be electrical devices in that they have the ability to convert or transduce mechanical energy into electrical energy. We might think of other examples, as the evidence becomes more apparent. The devices, which have resided inside the Great Pyramid since it was built, have not been recognized for what they truly were. Nevertheless, they were an integral part of this machine's function.

  The granite out of which the King's Chamber is constructed is an igneous rock containing silicon-quartz crystals. This particular granite, which was brought from the Aswan quarries, contains fifty-five percent or more quartz crystal. Dee Jay Nelson and David H. Coville saw special significance in the builders' choice of granite for constructing the King's Chamber. They wrote:

  This means that lining the King's Chamber, for instance, are literally hundreds of tons of microscopic quartz particles. The particles are hexagonal, by-pyramidal or rhombohedral in shape. Rhomboid crystals are six-sided prisms with quadrangle sides that present a parallelogram on any of the six facets. This guarantees that embedded within the granite rock is a high percentage of quartz fragments whose surfaces, by the law of natural averages, are parallel on the upper and lower sides. Additionally, any slight plasticity of the granite aggregate would allow a ''piezotension'' upon these parallel surfaces and cause an electromotive flow. The great mass of stone above the pyramid chambers presses downward by gravitational force upon the granite walls thereby converting them into perpetual electric generators.

  The inner chambers of the Great Pyramid have been generating electrical energy since their construction 46 centuries ago. A man within the King's Chamber would thus come within a weak but definite induction field.1

  While Nelson and Coville have made an interesting observation and speculation regarding the granite inside the pyramid, I am not sure that they are correct in stating that the pressure of thousands of tons of masonry would create an electromotive flow in the granite. The pressure on the quartz would need to be alternatively pressed and released in order for electricity to flow. The pressure they are describing would be static and, while it would undoubtedly squeeze the quartz to some degree, the electron flow would cease after the pressure came to rest. Quartz crystal does not create energy; it just converts one kind of energy into another. Needless to say, this point in itself leads to some interesting observations regarding the characteristics of the granite complex.

  Above the King's Chamber are five rows of granite beams, making a total of forty-three beams weighing up to seventy tons each. The layers are separated by spaces large enough for the average person to crawl into. The red granite beams were cut square and parallel on three sides but were left seemingly untouched on the top surface, which is rough and uneven. Some of the beams even had holes gouged into their tops.

  In cutting these giant monoliths, the builders evidently found it necessary to treat the beams destined for the uppermost chamber with the same respect as those intended for the ceiling directly above the King's Chamber. Each beam was cut flat and square on three sides, with the topside rough and seemingly untouched. Petrie wrote: "The roofing beams are not of 'polished granite,' as they have been described; on the contrary, they have rough-dressed surfaces, very fair and true so far as they go, but without any pretense to polish."2 From his observations of the granite inside the King's Chamber, Petrie continued with those of the upper chambers: "All the chambers over the King's Chamber are floored with horizontal beams of granite, rough dressed on the under sides which form the ceilings, but wholly unwrought above."3 These facts are interesting, considering that the beams directly above the King's Chamber would be the only ones visible to those entering the pyramid. Even so, the attention these granite ceiling beams received was nonetheless inferior to the attention commanded by the granite out of which the walls were constructed.

  It is remarkable that the builders would exert the same amount of effort in finishing the thirty-four beams that would not be seen once the pyramid was built as they did the nine beams forming the ceiling of the King's Chamber, which would be seen. Even if these beams were imperative to the strength of the complex, deviations in accuracy would surely be allowed, making the cutting of the blocks less time consuming. Unless, of course, the builders were either using these upper beams for a specific purpose, or were using standardized machining methods that produced parts with little variation.

  Traditional theory, proposed by Howard-Vyse and supported by Egyptologists, has it that the granite beams served to relieve pressure on the King's Chamber and allowed this chamber to be built with a flat ceiling. I disagree. The pyramid builders knew about and were already utilizing a design feature that was structurally sound on a lower level inside the pyramid. If we look at the cantilevered arched ceiling of the Queen's Chamber, we can see that it has more masonry piled on top of it than does the King's Chamber. The question could be asked, therefore, that if the builders had wanted to put a flat ceiling in this chamber, wouldn't they have needed to add only one layer of beams? For the distance between the walls, a single layer of beams in the Queen's Chamber, like the forty-three granite beams above the King's Chamber, would be supporting no more than their own weight (see Figure 36).

  This leads me to ask, "Why does the King's Chamber need five layers of these beams?" From an architectural and engineering point of view, it is unnecessary to have so many monolithic blocks of granite in this structure. It is especially wasteful when we consider the amount of incredibly difficult work that must have been invested in quarrying, cutting, and transporting the stone from the Aswan quarries five hundred miles away—and then raising the beams to the 175-foot level of the pyramid. There is surely another reason for such an enormous effort and investment of time.

  And look at the characteristics of these beams. Why cut them square and flat on three sides and leave them rough on the top? If no one is going to look at them, why not make them rough on all sides? Better still, why not make all sides flat? It would certainly make them easier to assemble. It is clear, then, that the forty-three giant beams above the King's Chamber were not included in the structure to relieve this chamber from excessive pressure from above, but were included to fulfill a more advanced purpose. When we look at these beams with an engineer's eye, we can discern a simple, yet refined technology in this granite complex at the heart of the Great Pyramid, a technology that operated this power plant.

  FIGURE 36. Redundant Granite in King's Chamber Ceiling

  The giant granite beams above the King's Chamber could be considered to be forty-three individual bridges. Like the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, each one is capable of vibrating if a suitable type and amount of energy is introduced. If we were to concentrate on forcing just one of the beams to oscillate—with each of the other beams tuned to that frequency or its harmonic—the other beams would be forced to vibrate at the same frequency or a harmonic. If the energy contained within the forcing frequency was great enough, this transfer of energy from one beam to the next could affect the entire series of beams. A situation could exist, therefore, in which one individual beam, in the ceiling directly above the King's Chamber, could indirectly influence another beam in the uppermost chamber by forcing it to vibrate at the same frequency as the original forcing frequency or one of its harmonic frequencies. The amount of energy absorbed by these beams from the source would depend on the natural resonant frequency of the beam.

  If this scenario is true, we have to consider the beams' ability to dissipate the energy they were subjected to, as well as their natural resonating frequency. If the forcing frequency (sound input) coincided with the beams' natural frequency (the beams were not restrained from vibrating), then the tr
ansfer of energy would be maximized. Consequently, so would the vibration of the beams.

  We know that the giant granite beams above the King's Chamber have a length of seventeen feet (the width of the chamber), the entire length of which we assume can react to induced motion and vibrate without restraint. Some damping would occur if the beams' adjacent faces were so close that they rub together. However, if the beams vibrate in unison, it is possible that such damping would not happen. To perfect the ability of the forty-three granite beams to resonate with the forcing frequency, the natural frequency of each beam would have to be of the same frequency as the forcing frequency, or be in harmony with it.

  It would be possible for us to tune a length of granite, such as those found in the Great Pyramid, by altering its physical dimensions. We could attain a precise frequency by either altering the length of the beam—as a guitarist alters the length of a guitar string—or by removing material from the beam's mass, as in the tuning of bells. (A bell is tuned to a fundamental hum and its harmonics by removing metal from critical areas.) If we would strike the beam, as one would strike a tuning fork, while it is being held in a position similar to that of the beams above the King's Chamber, we could induce oscillation of the beam. Then we could sample the frequency of the beam's vibration and remove more material until the correct frequency was reached.

  Rather than suffering from a lack of attention, therefore, the rough top surfaces of those granite beams in the King's Chamber have been given more careful and deliberate attention and work than the beams' sides or bottoms. Before the ancient craftspeople placed them inside the Great Pyramid, each beam may have been "tested" or "tuned" by being suspended on each end in the same position that it would have once it was placed inside the pyramid (see Figure 37). The workers would then shape and gouge the topside of each beam in order to tune it before it was permanently positioned inside the pyramid. After cutting three sides square and true to each other, the remaining side could have been cut and shaped until it reached a specific resonating frequency. The removal of material on the upper side of the beam would take into consideration the elasticity of the beam, as a variation of elasticity might result in more material being removed at one point along the beam's length than at another. The fact that the beams above the King's Chamber are all shapes and sizes would support this speculation. In some of the granite beams, I would not be surprised if we found holes gouged out of the granite as the tuners worked on trouble spots. What we find in the King's Chamber, then, are thousands of tons of granite that were precisely tuned to resonate in harmony with the fundamental frequency of the Earth and the pyramid!

  FIGURE 37. Beam Tuning

  Smyth and Petrie unwittingly provided clues that this resonance theory not only may be plausible, but indeed may be probable. Both sought an explanation for the holes gouged near the ends of these granite beams. Smyth said, "These markings, moreover, have only been discovered in those dark holes or hollows, the so-called 'chambers: but much rather 'hollows of construction: broken into by Colonel Howard-Vyse above the 'King's Chamber' of the Great Pyramid. There, also, you see other traces of the steps of mere practical work, such as the 'bat-holes' in the stones, by which the heavy blocks were doubtless lifted to their places, and everything is left perfectly rough."4 Rather than seeing them as holes used for lifting the blocks into place, Petrie speculated on an alternate reason for Smyth's so-called "bat-holes"; "The flooring of the top chamber has large holes in it, evidently to hold the butt ends of beams which supported the sloping roof-blocks during the building."5

  Neither Smyth's nor Petrie's explanations are particularly satisfactory. The most likely and logical reason for the holes gouged near the end of the beam may have been to strategically weaken the beam in order for it to respond more readily to sound input. According to Boris Said, who was with engineer Tom Danley when he conducted his acoustical tests inside the King's Chamber, the King's Chamber's granite beams resonated at a fundamental frequency and the entire structure of the chamber reinforced this frequency by producing dominant frequencies that created an F-sharp chord. Not surprisingly, the F-sharp chord is believed to be in harmony with the Earth. While testing for frequency, Danley placed accelerometers in the spaces above the King's Chamber, but I do not know whether he went as far as checking the frequency of each beam. Said said something in his interview with Art Bell that may be some indication of where Danley was heading with his research: He said that the beams above the King's Chamber were "like baffles in a speaker." Further research would need to be conducted before any assertion could be made as to the relationship these holes may have with tuning these beams to a specific frequency. However, when we consider the characteristics of the entire granite complex, along with other features found in the Great Pyramid, it seems clear that the results of this research will be along the lines of what I am theorizing.

  Without confirmation that the granite beams were carefully tuned to respond to a precise frequency, I will infer that such a condition exists in light of what is found in the area. While I have not found any specific record of anyone striking the beams above the King's Chamber and measuring their resonant frequencies, there has been quite a lot written about the resonating qualities of the coffer inside the chamber itself. The coffer is said to resonate at 438 hertz and is at resonance with the resonant frequency of the chamber. This is easily tested and has been noted by numerous visitors to the Great Pyramid, including myself.

  Another interesting discovery was made by the Schor expedition. This is a preliminary report, told to Art Bell by Boris Said: It was discovered that the floor of the King's Chamber does not sit on solid rock. Not only is the entire granite complex surrounded by massive limestone walls with a space between the granite and the limestone, the floor itself sits on what is characterized as "corrugated" rock (see Figure 38). Acoustical analysis of the floor of the King's Chamber (by Danley) revealed that the flooring blocks are not sitting on solid masonry. There are pockets beneath the floor that indicate that the support for the floor is "corrugated" like an egg carton, with the flooring sitting on nodes. In addition, the walls of the chamber do not sit on the granite floor, but are supported from the outside and sunk five inches below floor level. The entire complex is freestanding from the limestone masonry, has minimal damping of the floor, and is thus free to vibrate at peak efficiency. It is no wonder the entire chamber "rings" while tourists walk around inside!

  FIGURE 38. Floor of the King's Chamber

  The granite complex inside the Great Pyramid, therefore, is poised ready to convert vibrations from the Earth into electricity. What is lacking is a sufficient amount of energy to drive the beams and activate the piezoelectric properties within them. The ancients, though, had anticipated the need for more energy than what would be collected only within the King's Chamber. They had determined that they needed to tap into the vibrations of the Earth over a larger area inside the pyramid and deliver that energy to the power center—the King's Chamber—thereby substantially increasing the amplitude of the oscillations of the granite.

  Modern concert halls are designed and built to interact with the instruments performing within. They are huge musical instruments in themselves. The Great Pyramid can be seen as a huge musical instrument with each element designed to enhance the performance of the other.

  While modern research into architectural acoustics might focus predominantly upon minimizing the reverberation effects of sound in enclosed spaces, there is reason to believe that the ancient pyramid builders were attempting to achieve the opposite. The Grand Gallery, which is considered to be an architectural masterpiece, is an enclosed space in which resonators were installed in the slots along the ledge that runs the length of the gallery. As the Earth's vibration flowed through the Great Pyramid, the resonators converted the vibrational energy to airborne sound. By design, the angles and surfaces of the Grand Gallery walls and ceiling caused reflection of the sound, and its focus into the King's Chamber. Although the King's C
hamber also was responding to the energy flowing through the pyramid, much of the energy would flow past it. The specific design and utility of the Grand Gallery was to transfer the energy flowing through a large area of the pyramid into the resonant King's Chamber. This sound was then focused into the granite resonating cavity at sufficient amplitude to drive the granite ceiling beams to oscillation. These beams, in turn, compelled the beams above them to resonate in harmonic sympathy. Thus, with the input of sound and the maximization of resonance, the entire granite complex, in effect, became a vibrating mass of energy.

  Sound farfetched? Not if we realize that many isolated aspects of this proposed phenomenon have been noted by visitors and researchers over the years. In particular, the acoustic qualities of the design of the upper chambers of the Great Pyramid have been referenced and confirmed by numerous visitors since the time of Napoleon, whose men discharged their pistols at the top of the Grand Gallery and noted that the explosion reverberated into the distance like rolling thunder. Strike the coffer inside the King's Chamber and you will hear a deep bell-like sound of incredible and eerie beauty. It has been a practice over the years for the Arab guides to demonstrate this resonating sound to the tourists they guide through the Great Pyramid. This sound was even included on Paul Horn's album, Inside the Great Pyramid. After being advised of the significant pitch produced by striking the coffer, and the chamber's response to this pitch, Horn took along a device that would allow him to replicate the exact pitch and frequency. Horn struck the coffer and tuned his flute to the tone that was emitted, which turned out to be the note A—which vibrates at 438 cycles per second. In a fascinating booklet about his experiment at the Great Pyramid, Horn described his experience in the inner chambers: "The moment had arrived. It was time to play my flute. I thought of Ben Peitcsh from Santa Rosa, California, and his suggestions to strike the coffer. I leaned over and hit the inside with the fleshy part of the side of my fist. A beautiful round tone was immediately produced. What a resonance! I remember him also saying when you hear that tone you will be (poised in history that is ever present.' I took the electronic tuning device I had brought along in one hand and struck the coffer again with the other and there it was—'A' 438, just as Ben predicted. I tuned up to this pitch and was ready to begin. [The album opens with these events so that you can hear all of these things for yourselves.]"6