Pythagoras Rides Again

The development of orthodox Egyptology in the historical context

The earliest recorded account of Egypt comes to us from the Greek historian Herodotus, who visited Egypt around 500 BC, when it was already well into its decline. Though much that he wrote has proven true, much is evidently fancy; Herodotus indiscriminately reports as truth tales told to him by an ancient version of tourist guides, whom he mistook for temple priests.

Like so many travellers after him, Herodotus marvelled at the sights. But neither he nor anyone following had access to those responsible for their construction. Throughout history, then, visitors to Egypt have recorded their impressions according to personal interpretation. But the exact nature of Egyptian knowledge, locked as it was in the impenetrable hieroglyphs, could not help but remain a mystery. Modern Egyptologists insist with justice that no possibility of understanding Egypt existed until the hieroglyphs were deciphered.

In the late eighteenth century, Napoleon invaded Eygpt armed with scholars as well as soldiers, determined to solve the mystery as well as to build an empire. Accounts of his discoveries, illustrated with fine, accurately rendered drawings, made Egyptian civilisation known to a European public for the first time and interest ran high as gifted scholars pitted their wits against the hieroglyphs. But it was not until 1822, nearly thirty years after Napoleon's campaign, that a key was found.

Jean François Champollion was convinced, at the age of twelve, that he would decipher the hieroglyphs. He set out to master all the languages, ancient and modern, that he believed would lead to this goal. The solution was provided by the Rosetta Stone, a Ptolemaic relic upon which the same inscription was recorded in hieroglyphs, demotic (a sort of shorthand or vernacular form of the hieroglyphs) and Greek. Working back through the Greek into the hieroglyphs, Champollion was eventually led to the answer or, rather, a partial answer. Egyptology was born.

Prior to Champollion's discovery, many scholars worked upon the reasonable assumption that a civilisation capable of such works must have had a high order of knowledge. Some made sound observations that were subsequently forgotten or neglected in the face of the apparently boastful, repetitive, banal and incoherent nature of the translated hieroglyphs.

The early translations stand in such striking contrast to the works themselves that it is hard to believe so few scholars should have stopped to question the paradox. But it is, of course, impossible to 'prove' a masterpiece. Those who understand, understand. Emotional and psychological factors, more than science, combined to make modern Egyptology.

Colin Ronan
Lost Discoveries
MacDonald, 1973, p. 95

How did the Egyptians build an immense structure like this [the pyramids]? We do not know all the details even now. It is clear from what remains that they used huge limestone blocks, but there are still problems over how they managed to slide one block across another, and of the way in which the walls and ceiling of the inner chamber are supported ... Obviously they used a block and tackle to lift the blocks, but even so the precise method of getting objects so large and heavy up hundreds of feet without a tall crane to help them is uncertain, while their technique of supporting the internal blocks is completely unknown.

J. P. Lauer
Le Problème des Pyramides d'Egypte
Payot, 1952, pp. 186 and 190

From the astronomical point of view, the single unarguable fact ... is the extreme care taken in the orientation. The most extraordinary result is found at the pyramid of Cheops, but the precision is scarcely less with Chephren and Mycerinus ... Such close approximations repeated by many buildings cannot be accidental, and bear witness to certain astronomical knowledge ...

From the mathematical point of view, the study of the pyramids, and especially the great pyramid reveals very remarkable geometrical properties as well as numerical rapports that deserve attention. But the whole problem that this poses is to establish the extent to which the builders were aware of these properties.

The pyramids and pyramidology

Of all the monuments of Egypt, the pyramids have always provoked the keenest interest and wildest theories. Generations of Egyptologists have stolidly declared that the pyramids were built for the most trivial and misconceived motives, that their dimensions and proportions are accidents, and that their bulk is no more than an instance of pharaonic egomania. Yet the layman remains unconvinced, and anything smacking of mystery continues to excite attention.

Ancient sources reported that the pyramids, and the Great Pyramid of Cheops in particular, were built to embody in their dimensions and proportions a wealth of astronomical, mathematical, geographic and geodesic data. (Geodesy: the branch of applied mathematics which determines the figures and areas of the earth's surface.)

One of Napoleon's scholars, Edmé-François Jomard, was particularly intrigued by this theory. But while certain of his calculations seemed to bear out the idea, others did not jibe. Accurate measuring of the pyramid overall was then impossible due to the sand and debris around the base, and — as is generally the case in science — those data that supported prevailing orthodox theory were retained, while those that were embarrassing were ignored.

In England, however, Jomard's ideas were taken up by an amateur astronomer, mathematician and religious zealot, John Taylor, who found many astonishing coincidences between the measurements and proportions of the pyramids and the then but recently verified modern measurements of the earth. He could not attribute this to chance. As a fundamentalist, however, Taylor believed in the literal truth of the Bible, and could not bring himself to attribute such knowledge to the ancient Egyptians — a race much abused in the Old Testament (though Moses learned his wisdom at the court of the pharaoh by Biblical account). Given his fundamentalism, Taylor had no choice but to call in direct divine intervention, and the pseudoscience of 'pyramidology' was born.

Dr. Kurt Mendelssohn
The Riddle of the Pyramids
Thames & Hudson, 1974, passim

The most obvious reason is believed to have been a religious one, and based on the self-interest of the individual. We know far too little about the spiritual concepts prevailing 5000 years ago to say exactly what motivated the average Egyptian farmer to give his time and labour to pyramid construction ... [Dr. Mendelssohn supports the view that the problems of policing and guarding would have made it impossible to build the pyramids with forced or slave labour,...