29.9792458 0 Degrees North...

The number listed in the title to this blog posting above represents the circumference of the base of the Great Pyramid of Giza, in Egypt.  Or, by its formal name, The Pyramid of Khufu.

Why is that number important?  I'll get back to that later, but for now, a little background.

I've been fascinated by ancient Egyptian history and lore all my life.  I've read and studied and ruminated on the enormity of it all for decades.  From more than 4,500 years ago until the end of Cleopatra's reign in the early 1st Century, Egypt was the single most powerful country on Earth for that entire period.  They somehow managed, this is the Bronze Age remember, no wheel, to build the largest man-made structure in the entire world, and for 3,800 years, the absolute tallest! 

How utterly enormous is the Great Pyramid?  Well, let's start with the fact that it's 488 feet tall.  It was built, we're told, by the 4th Dynasty of the Old Kingdom between the years 2,589 and 2,566 BCE.  However, there's a serious minority of the archaeological community that believe it, and the Sphinx, may be 11,000 or more years old. 

It is the only one of the original "7 Wonders of the World" still standing.

It is constructed of more than 2.3 million hand-cut stone blocks, each weighing an average of 20 tons.  The base is an incredible 756 feet square, covering a land area greater than 13 acres.  Or, approx. 10 football fields.  Some stones near the base weigh an incredible 50 tons!  They were quarried and shipped down the Nile from Aswan, a city more than 525 miles away.  And each was custom-carved for the space it was intended to fill.  Accuracy, in fact, to an average of 1/100th (0.02) inch.     

How?  That question is being debated throughout the scientific community.   How could a society devoid of iron, and draft animals, and made to do with soft copper, quarry and shape and fit millions of enormous stone blocks from hundreds of miles away?  Damn fine question.

The Great Pyramid is built so as align with the Cardinal Points on the compass (N. E. S. W.).  And, is is so carefully constructed with this in mind as to be the most exact physical placement of any structure on the planet.  Still.  It is also built at the exact confluence of the great land masses on Earth; the latitudinal and longitudinal lines converge directly at the Great Pyramid.  In other words, somehow, some way, these guys managed to plop this place down in the exact geographic center of the Earth.

The Great Pyramid is so big (how big is it, Chuckmeister?) that you could construct three average sized Costco big box stores inside its footprint.  It is 30 x bigger in land area than the Empire State Building, ferGod'ssake!  

And here's a little factoid you'll enjoy.  It and its other pyramids are built so as to mimic the exact layout of the Orion Constellation at the time of its construction.  And the shaft built from the King's Chamber out through to the upper side points directly to where the Orion Belt would have been 11,000 years ago. 

Did you know that the Great Pyramid has eight sides?  Well, it does.  But those "other" four sides can only be viewed from directly above on two days per year: the summer and winter equinoxes.  And those subtle demarcation lines aren't visible from any other direction at any other time.  Now why, I wonder, would these boys create something they could not see, or enjoy, or even verify they had accurately constructed?  Or maybe they had a little help...  

And here's one more little fact I think you'll find reeeely interesting.  The mortar ancients Egyptians used to hold these monstrous blocks together was made of a substance we still cannot recreate today.  It is so strong, in fact, it is stronger than the blocks it holds together; and it keeps getting stronger even to this day.

So, in the midst of all these fascinating and astounding numbers and facts, here's another one that will make you think these guys had some sort of insight into a far greater intellect:  the number in the title, 29,9792458 0 Degrees North, is exactly the speed of light!  The speed of light is 286,000,000 miles per second, or  more than 299,792,458meters per second!  

Hello!  What's the chances of this being an accident?  According to the Bureau of Weights and Measures, we're talking One in Three Billion!

So, Mr. and Mrs. 'Murica, how'd these guys do this stuff?  And know this stuff?  A large and significant minority believe there was an intervention from extraterrestrial visitors.  To impart knowledge, and abilities, and skills that vaulted these people from just post-Stone Age to the world's leading military and industrial power.  

Think it's laughable?  Ask yourself this:  How did people working without the aid of animals, or the wheel, or forged tools, manage to quarry and transport and lift 20 ton blocks 488 feet into the air?  And fit them together so finely, so tightly, that a playing card cannot be inserted between them even today?  A feat we cannot reproduce even today?

I'm waiting...