The Largest Pyramid Was Built From Inside Out

The mystery of one the seven great wonders of antiquity (and the only one that still survives) may have been solved: the 4,500-year-old Egypt's Great Pyramid of Cheops could have been built from the inside out.

The 146.6 m (480.9 ft) tall pyramid has 3 million stone blocks, each weighing roughly 2.5 tons, and there has been a deep mystery of how the Egyptians placed the blocks in the Great Pyramid.

Previous theories have stated that the pyramid was made up by employing either a vast frontal ramp or a ramp in a corkscrew shape around the exterior to pull up the blocks.

But by employing advanced 3-D technology Jean-Pierre Houdin has revealed that the main ramp employed for transportting the huge blocks to the apex was contained 30 - 50 ft (10 - 15 m) under the outer skin, tracing a pyramid within a pyramid. The computer model points that the builders put up an outer ramp for the initial 140 ft (40 m), then built an inner ramp in a corkscrew shape to finish the pyramid. "This is better than the other theories, because it is the only theory that works," said Houdin.

Houdin collaborated with a 14 engineers team from Dassault Systemes, the French company that builds 3-D models for auto and airplane design.

Now an international team employing radars and heat-detecting cameras could verify all these on the pyramid, if the Egyptian authorities agree. "This goes against both main existing theories. I've been teaching them myself for 20 years, but deep down I know they're wrong. Houdin's vision is credible, but right now this is just a theory. Everybody thinks it has got to be taken seriously," said Egyptologist Bob Brier, a senior research fellow at Long Island University.

Houdin started his research eight years ago after his engineer suggested him this. He imagined that a frontal, mile-long ramp would have utilized as much stone as the pyramid, while hanging too steep near the top and an external ramp was employed just to supply the base.

An external corkscrew ramp would have impeded the sight lines necessary to construct an accurate pyramid and would been hard to fix to the surface, while leaving little room to work. "What characterized the Egyptians was their sense of perfection and economy. We talk of durable development now, but it was the Egyptians who invented it. They didn't waste a single stone. They relied purely on intelligence," Houdin said.

Houdin also believes that the Grand Gallery inside the pyramid, with its tall, narrow shape, could have harbored a giant counter-weight to help pull five 60-ton granite beams to their location above the King's Chamber. Under this new knowledge, just 4,000 people could have built the pyramid, compared to 100,000 assigned by past historians.