Throughout the Middle Ages, the prevailing attempts to explain the Great Pyramid were all based on myths. Although evidence establishing the origins and history of the Great Pyramid is now abundant and consistent, myths and misconceptions still persist, and many people continue to believe them!
The Great Pyramid’s Secrets: What Science Says About Energy, Ancient Myths, and Aliens
What is particularly interesting about modern myths is that, faced with the authority and influence of science, they attempt to dress themselves in its clothes. The promoter of a myth starts with facts that have absolutely nothing to do with the subject, throws in terminology unrelated to what they are discussing, and then begins fabricating, twisting facts, and cherry-picking evidence until they produce a distorted monstrosity that they call a theory.
Faced with such extraordinary and bizarre claims, many people suspend their critical thinking and believe them. And this is not limited to the story of the pyramids; the same phenomenon occurs in many other areas.
At one point, the Great Pyramid was said to have been built by King Surid to withstand a great flood. According to the legend, it was filled with knowledge, treasures, and secrets sealed away inside it.
Most likely, the pyramid’s entrance remained accessible until the Roman period, but it was eventually blocked by accumulated debris. Then came Caliph Al-Ma’mun, who decided to make an opening to discover what lay inside.
He broke through the northern face of the pyramid, below the original entrance, which was probably unknown at the time, until he reached the pyramid’s internal passages.
Naturally, he found neither treasures nor hidden knowledge. Incidentally, this is the opening through which visitors enter the pyramid today. What is fascinating is that Al-Ma’mun’s actual entry into the pyramid also became the subject of a legend: it was said that those who entered found an amount of gold exactly equal to the money Al-Ma’mun had spent on breaking into the pyramid!
What we know today is that the Great Pyramid is a tomb built by the ancient Egyptians, representing the natural evolution of their burial architecture. Tombs began as mastabas, then developed into the Step Pyramid of Djoser, followed by attempts to construct smooth-sided pyramids, represented by the Meidum Pyramid, the Bent Pyramid, and the Red Pyramid.
These structures demonstrate a progressive improvement in the Egyptians’ ability to design and construct pyramids, culminating in the three pyramids at Giza. This sequence is supported by multiple lines of evidence, including papyri mentioning rulers, royal cartouches found in pyramids, workers’ tombs, and funerary complexes.
These are layers of evidence that reinforce one another. Most importantly, in the pyramids built after those at Giza, the ancient Egyptians began inscribing funerary texts inside the burial chambers. This allows us to identify and study the Pyramid Texts, some of the earliest and most complete examples of which are found in the Pyramid of Unas.
All these pyramids share a common purpose, and most have very simple internal structures. The only pyramid with a particularly complex internal structure is the Great Pyramid of Khufu. Its impressive architecture and towering presence have given rise to a modern myth claiming that it generates energy.
The Great Pyramid Facts
The pyramid is built primarily of limestone, but its King’s Chamber is made of granite. Above this chamber are five relieving chambers designed to reduce the pressure exerted on it.
The walls of these chambers form a gabled structure, with the sides sloping inward as they rise. This is precisely the kind of architectural design used to relieve structural pressure.
In the nineteenth century, an explorer excavated the ceiling of the King’s Chamber and managed to reach these upper chambers, where he found a cartouche bearing the name of King Khufu. Conspiracy theorists have, of course, questioned the authenticity of the cartouche.
However, the mortar covering it and the relationship between the inscriptions and the surrounding stonework indicate that it could not have been created in modern times, nor could the entire inscription have been added after all the stones had been laid.
This is typical of conspiracy theorists: they ignore the truth shining as brightly as the sun and insist that it must have been fabricated.
So, how did the claim that the pyramid generates energy emerge? According to proponents of this theory, granite contains quartz, and quartz generates electricity when subjected to pressure.
Both statements are scientifically correct. However, the problem lies in the assumption that randomly distributed quartz crystals embedded in granite would generate electricity in any meaningful or useful way. Their random arrangement, combined with the presence of other minerals and impurities, means that any electrical effects would be dispersed and would not produce the results these proponents imagine.
Consider a simple example: quartz is used in certain electronic devices to produce precise and controlled oscillations. Yet, placing a random collection of quartz crystals inside a rock does not automatically turn that rock into a power generator.
There is a fundamental difference between a material possessing a particular physical property and a structure being deliberately engineered to exploit that property. Generating useful electricity requires the right material, suitable conditions, and a mechanism for capturing and directing the resulting electrical energy.
The second problem is that, for quartz to generate electricity through the piezoelectric effect, the applied mechanical stress must change. In other words, the material needs to experience changing pressure or deformation, rather than simply remaining under a constant load.
This is not the situation inside the pyramid, where the structural pressure is essentially constant. The theory therefore claims that the relieving chambers collect vibrations, amplify them, and direct them toward the granite chamber to generate the necessary oscillations. However, there is no credible evidence that these chambers were designed to perform such a function.
Even if they somehow concentrated vibrations, the resulting effects would not automatically be strong enough to generate useful electrical power, even during powerful earthquakes.
But let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that electricity were somehow generated inside the chamber. How would it be used? This is where one of the most astonishing and scientifically implausible aspects of the theory comes into play.
According to the claim, the two shafts commonly referred to as ventilation shafts were used for different purposes: one supposedly carried diluted hydrochloric acid, while the other carried zinc salts.
This is obviously impossible in practice because, although the granite of the King’s Chamber might withstand some exposure to acid, the rest of the pyramid is made primarily of limestone, which would react with the acid, however dilute it might be. The result would eventually be severe damage to the structure and potentially the collapse of the pyramid.
So what does the theory claim? It suggests that the reaction between the acid and the zinc salts would produce hydrogen, which would then be ionized by the electricity generated inside the pyramid.
This ionized hydrogen would supposedly be used to generate an energy beam resembling a laser, but operating in the microwave range.
And even if we assumed that all this happened—which is virtually impossible—what would we do with that energy? Send it upward, toward the sky!
In Conclusion
In reality, the sheer absurdity of this theory, along with its extraordinary amount of imagination, bias, fabrication, and distortion of facts, is surpassed only by the claim that the pyramids were built by extraterrestrial beings.
Of course, that must be true, because we apparently meet aliens at coffee shops every other day and take pictures with them while filming the tenth installment of Star Wars at the entrance to the galaxy!
