- Hardcover: 304 pages
- Publisher: HarperCollins (1 April 2009)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 006165552X
- ISBN-13: 978-0061655524
- Product Dimensions: 23.1 x 15.2 x 2.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 359,338 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
| |||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £4.25
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in The Secret of the Great Pyramid: How One Man's Obsession LED to the Solution of Ancient Egypt's Greatest Mystery for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £4.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Product details |
Product Description
Review
"Houdin's theory solves many mysteries about the huge structure." --Scientific American
Review
"Houdin's theory solves many mysteries about the huge structure."--Scientific American
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Anybody visiting the Great Pyramid in Giza has been in awe at the architectural genius that its construction exhibits - four and a half thousand years ago. The mystery of its structure has been occupying Egyptologists, architects and engineers for a long time. How was it possible to build the pyramid as high as it was and as precise? Could an outer ramp have been used to move the huge stone blocks into position or was there a hidden inner ramp? And what was the real purpose of some of chambers, in particular the commonly named "Great Hall"? Despite many theories, expertly summarized by Bob Brier, nobody has been able to prove any of them. Brier, a renowned Egyptologist himself, follows Jean-Pierre Houdin, an architect, on his nine-year absorbing quest to establish proof of his father's ground-breaking theory of the building's construction and the indisputable brilliance of the pyramid's architect, Hemienu.
Brier takes the reader through the history of pyramid building, interleafing it with the story of the Houdins' intricate search to find the evidence that was needed to convince the expert community of the validity of their theory. The author applies a fluid and conversational tone to the narrative making it easy for the reader to follow his information-rich and well-sourced account, without overloading us with too many technicalities and details. The reader is literally taken by the hand and walked through the building process of the Great Pyramid, one layer at a time, from the planning, design, and quarrying the stones, to the administrative challenges the search for the right locality and positioning and finally the actual construction. The illustrations further facilitate understanding and appreciation. [Friederike Knabe]
Brier takes the reader through the history of pyramid building, interleafing it with the story of the Houdins' intricate search to find the evidence that was needed to convince the expert community of the validity of their theory. The author applies a fluid and conversational tone to the narrative making it easy for the reader to follow his information-rich and well-sourced account, without overloading us with too many technicalities and details. The reader is literally taken by the hand and walked through the building process of the Great Pyramid, one layer at a time, from the planning, design, and quarrying the stones, to the administrative challenges the search for the right locality and positioning and finally the actual construction. The illustrations further facilitate understanding and appreciation. [Friederike Knabe]
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
What an exellent book..The guys a genius for sure. If you want to learn something that 'will' be proved factual very soon...then you need to buy and read this wonderfull book...Thankyou to Jean-Pierre Houdin who gave up so much for this project and Bob brier .
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
12 reviews
34 of 39 people found the following review helpful
More than one mystery
18 Oct 2008
Format:Hardcover
Anybody visiting the Great Pyramid in Giza has been in awe at the architectural genius that its construction exhibits - four and a half thousand years ago. The mystery of its structure has been occupying Egyptologists, architects and engineers for a long time. How was it possible to build the pyramid as high as it was and as precise? Could an outer ramp have been used to move the huge stone blocks into position or was there a hidden inner ramp? And what was the real purpose of some of chambers, in particular the commonly named "Great Hall"? Despite many theories, expertly summarized by Bob Brier, nobody has been able to prove any of them. Brier, a renowned Egyptologist himself, follows Jean-Pierre Houdin, an architect, on his nine-year absorbing quest to establish proof of his father's ground-breaking theory of the building's construction and the indisputable brilliance of the pyramid's architect, Hemienu.
Brier takes the reader through the history of pyramid building, interleafing it with the story of the Houdins' intricate search to find the evidence that was needed to convince the expert community of the validity of their theory. The author applies a fluid and conversational tone to the narrative making it easy for the reader to follow his information-rich and well-sourced account, without overloading us with too many technicalities and details. The reader is literally taken by the hand and walked through the building process of the Great Pyramid, one layer at a time, from the planning, design, and quarrying the stones, to the administrative challenges the search for the right locality and positioning and finally the actual construction. The illustrations further facilitate understanding and appreciation. [Friederike Knabe]
Brier takes the reader through the history of pyramid building, interleafing it with the story of the Houdins' intricate search to find the evidence that was needed to convince the expert community of the validity of their theory. The author applies a fluid and conversational tone to the narrative making it easy for the reader to follow his information-rich and well-sourced account, without overloading us with too many technicalities and details. The reader is literally taken by the hand and walked through the building process of the Great Pyramid, one layer at a time, from the planning, design, and quarrying the stones, to the administrative challenges the search for the right locality and positioning and finally the actual construction. The illustrations further facilitate understanding and appreciation. [Friederike Knabe]
17 of 19 people found the following review helpful
An interesting theory on the construction of the Great Pyramid
22 Nov 2008
Format:Hardcover
People have puzzled about how Kheops's Pyramid was built for centuries. The long ramp theory seems intuitively correct but no remains of the ramp have been found. Herodotus wrote that a complex series of wooden machines lifted blocks up the sides of the pyramid; archeologists doubt that there was enough wood in ancient Egypt to do so. The spiral ramp theory posited a ramp built along the outer faces of the pyramid; again, there is no evidence of such a ramp and it would have blocked lines of sight for the builders to insure accurate measurements.
But perhaps the pyramid was built "inside out"?
-- An outside ramp made from smaller blocks was used to build the first 43 meters of the pyramid.
-- An internal spiral ramp made from those blocks ran behind the faces of the pyramid to complete the construction; and
-- The Great Gallery contained an ingenious system of counterweights to lift the heavy granite ceiling rafters in the King's Funeral Chamber.
This fascinating book tells the story of how this "out of the box" theory was developed:
"On January 2, 1999, while I was once again away in New York, my father, a retired engineer, saw a television programme about the construction of the pyramids presented by François de Closets. With his civil engineer's eye he took a critical look at theories in vogue at that time. He thought they just didn't stand to logic. And then suddenly an idea dawned: what if the pyramids had been built from within - from the inside out as it were? This was a revolutionary concept that swept away all the other hypotheses that had been put forward until then. As an architect with experience in three-dimensional graphics, I was called in to assist him in his research."
I remember a TV special several years ago in which a robot climbed up a shaft within the pyramid, only to discover a door blocking the ramp. Archaeologists have been puzzled by the shafts since they were discovered in 1872. Some believed they were built as vents, others that they were passages for the dead king's soul to ascend to the afterlife. In this theory, they provided space to turn the small blocks around 90 degree corners on the edges of the pyramid.
This book spells out the various efforts to prove the thesis in informal and warm prose, but with excellent technical support. The photographs and drawings help the general reader understand how it may have been done. The first Comment describes some of the online sources which support and challenge the theory. Altogether, this book is a great introduction to ongoing research on this incredible structure.
Robert C. Ross 2008
PS: National Geographic is going to release a television show it carried recently on its channel on this subject; details of the DVD are at Unlocking the Great Pyramid. B.
But perhaps the pyramid was built "inside out"?
-- An outside ramp made from smaller blocks was used to build the first 43 meters of the pyramid.
-- An internal spiral ramp made from those blocks ran behind the faces of the pyramid to complete the construction; and
-- The Great Gallery contained an ingenious system of counterweights to lift the heavy granite ceiling rafters in the King's Funeral Chamber.
This fascinating book tells the story of how this "out of the box" theory was developed:
"On January 2, 1999, while I was once again away in New York, my father, a retired engineer, saw a television programme about the construction of the pyramids presented by François de Closets. With his civil engineer's eye he took a critical look at theories in vogue at that time. He thought they just didn't stand to logic. And then suddenly an idea dawned: what if the pyramids had been built from within - from the inside out as it were? This was a revolutionary concept that swept away all the other hypotheses that had been put forward until then. As an architect with experience in three-dimensional graphics, I was called in to assist him in his research."
I remember a TV special several years ago in which a robot climbed up a shaft within the pyramid, only to discover a door blocking the ramp. Archaeologists have been puzzled by the shafts since they were discovered in 1872. Some believed they were built as vents, others that they were passages for the dead king's soul to ascend to the afterlife. In this theory, they provided space to turn the small blocks around 90 degree corners on the edges of the pyramid.
This book spells out the various efforts to prove the thesis in informal and warm prose, but with excellent technical support. The photographs and drawings help the general reader understand how it may have been done. The first Comment describes some of the online sources which support and challenge the theory. Altogether, this book is a great introduction to ongoing research on this incredible structure.
Robert C. Ross 2008
PS: National Geographic is going to release a television show it carried recently on its channel on this subject; details of the DVD are at Unlocking the Great Pyramid. B.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Construction of the Great Pyramid: Puzzle Solved
2 Aug 2009
Format:Hardcover
As an amateur Egyptologist I highly recommend this volume. It is easy ready, as Bob Brier is not only a knowledgeable Egyptologist and excellent teacher but a writer who with an easy, almost conversational style. Jean-pierre Houdin, co-writer and the architect/engineer whose tenacity and great ability to "problem solve" all the data, past and current, provides at the very least the most probable explanation as to the construction of the Great Pyramid of Khufu. Other explanations for the construction of the pyramid are legion, from the reasonable supposition that ramps were used and lengthened as the pyramid rose (but would end up requiring ramps miles long), all the way to the ridiculous (space aliens, again.) Brier first gives the history of the pyramids (function, theories of construction, interesting anecdotes) and then leads us step by step down the path to understanding the logic behind Houdin's reasoning, using modern technology, of the use of "inner" ramps to move blocks as the pyramid got higher. The reader will love the explanation of "cornering". Photos, excellent diagrams, and pictures are presented in an orderly fashion that explains this "theory" (no longer a theory to this writer). Especially fascinating is Houdin's explanation of the function of the Grand Gallery leading to Khufu's burial chamber. Those interested in this subject are in for a treat.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
