Closing the Biggest Mystery of the Great Pyramid

I just love how your whole brand is not taking history for granted/granite. It's really clever. Your first principles approach is really knocking it out of the park. Well done!

Its so interesting how the most mind-blowing theories always have a mundane quality to them. For me, thats what makes them ring true.

"you shall remember me, for I will provide you eternal employment as tour guides!"

I like this explanation. ❤

It blows my mind how much I love this channel. Egyptology isn't even a particular interest of mine, but I can't stop watching these videos. It's just so good. This is top tier work and so relaxing and educational

You just fixed Egyptology. You deserve an honory doctorate. Bravo.

From a young man that observes the bent & red pyramid from his room window ,
" tons " of thanks .
❤

OUTSTANDING!
The pyramids were tourist attractions all along.
Congratulations: you've shaken Egyptology!

Since some of your videos before I had the feeling, that this explanation could be the most logical I heard before! At one evening in Egypt 29 years ago I had the chance to be one of the last visitors in the great Pyramid and I was completely alone in the king's chamber! I still remember these feelings and this explanation fits best to them. Thank you so much for your ongoing work!

One of your best videos. I feel the culmination of years of research poured into this great view of pyramids

Excellent video, as always! It makes more sense that these monuments were symbolic temples of admonition than tombs "attempting to hide" a dead King and his treasure. Wonderful presentation and congratulations on this efficient and pragmatic theory! It's one of the few that makes any sense to me.

This has to be one of the most cogent, reasonable, and sensible explanations I've heard. This channel keeps getting better.

I can't read through the ~2000 comments to see if anyone has pointed this out, but you have imagined a limitation in the levering process that doesn't exist. This has led you to the erroneous conclusion that three successive blocking slabs would make entrance by prying almost impossible.

You have correctly pointed out that one way of raising the blocking slab would be to raise the fulcrum after each few small lifting stages as the block is raised. Your drawing at about 12:43 illustrates this. But this drawing also illustrates the fatal flaw in your understanding about how the levering process would be carried out. That drawing shows the block raised half way with red arrows indicating that the lever can only be pulled halfway to the floor. Why? Why would you stop with the lever arm only halfway to the floor? With the proper fulcrum design the lever can be pulled down all the way to the floor.

You may have presumed that this limitation exists because of the shape of the fulcrum you drew, which for some reason has changed from the round shape you showed at the beginning of the process to a shape with an extended flat top. No one would ever use a fulcrum shaped like that because when the lever arm got to the horizontal position it would begin to pivot around the edge of the fulcrum farthest from the slab, drastically lowering the mechanical advantage of the long lever arm.

Instead you would want the fulcrum to have the same kind of round top you showed initially or, better, a narrow round top with a small radius of curvature, perhaps with a sheet of metal between it and the wooden lever to prevent the fulcrum tip from chewing into the wood lever during use.

Using a fulcrum like this, the process of lifting the slab, blocking it in position, raising the fulcrum and lifting again can be repeated indefinitely, using the full height of the passageway to swing the lever arm at each stage. In fact, by putting wood or stone spacers between the working end of the lever and the slab, the slab can be recessed into the ceiling and then blocked in place there. In practice, spacers would probably be used earlier in the lifting process to avoid having to raise the fulcrum too high.

But however however it's accomplished, the important point here is that by a combination of raising the fulcrum and using spacers the lever arm can be moved from the ceiling to the floor at all stages of the lifting process, enabling each blocking slab to recessed into the ceiling if desired.

This should be in the news!!! It all makes sense 😮

I've officially taken History for Granite.
I agree completely and now my world view has shifted, thank you.

Great video but few questions that are not clear to me...

1. If the intention was to keep the KC "visitable" with the mechanism of the openable then:
- Why were the granite plugs planned in place? It must have been part of the original design due to the mechanist that stop the stones. Also it would be impossible to carry those into the pyramid once the grand gallery was closed. It is a wierd to think that ancient egyptians put so much effort to such a complitacted design to make it a "temporary" thing. If it was designed to be temporary why simply not close down the portcullis after the mourning period (or whatever)
- Why it's not the case for the other 2 pyramids in Giza?
- If the king really wanted this tomb to be a sacrad place to visit I assume the opportuniy was rather for the rich, governant officials, priests, etc... not for the regular people. If so why do such inconvenient corridors? We see that they could build convenient corridors (nort face corridor with 2 meter width and height or the grand gallery itself!). For anybody to visit the King's chamber in ancient times would needed to enter the pyramid, walk down 28 meters in a 1 meter by 1.3 meter small, airless corridor, then start crawl upwards in a similar tiny corridor (assuming there was some ladder at the block ascending passage) that does not even have stairs carved into the original floor, just to reach the grand gallery. Oh, and ofc without artifical ligh source, so either with a candle or a torch... From there the struggle continues in the Grand Gallery (at least there is enough space) till they reach the KC. Also without stairs carved into the flooring. I belive in your earlier videos you even mentioned how dangerous was this trip only a few hundred years ago. How do we expect this 4000 years ago from an older priest? Or anybody from the royal family?
- Not to mentioned the 3 granite plugging stone must have been laying in the grand gallery somewhere, probably obstructing the movement of visitors.

I am no pharao but if I wanted my subordinates and family to visit me "in my grave" why not just build a simple, straight corridor with convenient dimensions (e.g.: like the north face corridor?) that straight leads to the grand gallery. And make some stairs for them, so it's easier to walk up.
The architects shouldn't have any problem with that as they are confident enough to build (even build 2 if we count the big void) a massive, spacious corridor in the middle of the biggest pyramid. They could just simply build the whole grand gallery down to ground level for even easier access.

As things looks like now I am not convinced that Khufu really wanted his burial site to be visited....

This is an amazing theory. I've been fascinated by Egyptology since I was a little kid, for almost 40 years. I've always wanted the Great Pyramid to be something more worthy of the intelligence and effort of the people who created it, not just a fancy pile of rocks to put a dead body in. Your theory rings more true to my gut feeling that there must have been more to it, while being a more grounded explanation than aliens or ancient power plants. The simplicity of your explanation for the Queen's chamber left my mouth hanging open. I'm dying to know if you have any speculation on what the voids they've recently detected could be.

This makes so much sense, I've always thought there had to be better ways to close your pyramid than some really well-made super square granite block. If you really don't want anyone to come in you would plug up the entire passage or better still, destroy the passage so that it is maximumly difficult to dig through.
But instead they appear to be wasting a lot of time and effort making these super nice passages and doorways that's only supposed to be used once?

The pyramids seem so much more human when thought of as places designed for people to keep visiting over years and years. Fascinating.

I, like many others, stumbled upon your channel through a certain streamer and his passion for this subject, and your videos.
You are credit to the scientific community, and have regenerated a child-like interest in something so far from my life, that I haven't felt for ages.
Thnak you.

wow! even the location of the sarcophagus is on the far back wall and not centered in the room because the center was for the visitors! Amazing theory you came up with! this is going to change things forever