"The ancient pyramids of the pharaohs... were they built as merely colossal burial tombs?" "The pyramids are an enormous feat of engineering." "Or was their real purpose not of this Earth?" "The pyramid is this cosmic engine on the grandest scale." "Were these mounds of stone designed as transport ships to carry a pharaoh's soul and all his riches deep into the" " heavens?" " The pharaoh was thought to" " travel among those stars." " What might hold the ultimate secrets about how and why they were built?" "Those kinds of shafts, with specific stellar destinies, do not exist anywhere else except in the Great Pyramid." "From the searing sands of Egypt to the brilliant beacons deep within our galaxy, we embark on a journey to finally unlock an age-old mystery." "Are the ancient pyramids of Giza connected to the universe?" "Ancient mysteries shrouded in the shadows of time." "Now, can they finally be solved by looking to the heavens?" "The truth is up there, hidden among the stars... in a place we call..." "the universe." "The ancient pyramids of Giza, mystical stacks of stone that loom above the desert sands of Egypt." "These astonishing feats of engineering continue to inspire awe and wonder." "They also hold one of mankind's oldest secrets." "Could they be cosmic links between Earth and the unknown universe above?" "Basically what you're seeing with the pyramids is this cosmic engines on the grandest scale, so by getting the king resurrected in this pyramid, in this cosmic engine, you basically ensure the survival" " into the netherworld." " All we know for certain is that these elusive monuments once entombed the great pharaohs who reigned during Egypt's fourth dynasty" "4,500 years ago." "The Great Pyramid, the largest of the three, is one of the" "Seven Wonders of the ancient world." "It's built for the pharaoh Khufu, the most powerful ruler of the old kingdom." "The second largest is made for his son, Khafre, and the smallest for his grandson," "Menkaure." "For 4,000 years, the great pyramid is the tallest man-made structure on Earth." "Built from over 2 million blocks of stone, the iconic structure covers an area of seven city blocks." "The finished masterpiece is originally coated with glistening white limestone and topped with a gold-covered capstone." "What drove this ancient civilization to create such grand burial tombs?" "Or were they burial tombs?" "Is it possible that the pyramids of Giza have a more profound purpose?" "The pyramids were first and foremost a burial place because they held the body of the pharaoh in a sarcophagus, but it's also a symbolic way to help the soul of the pharaoh to get" " to his final destination." " Were the pyramids built as cosmic engines to beam the pharaohs to the hereafter, and where in the universe did the Egyptians believe this life beyond the grave existed?" "The burial remains and treasures once sealed in these tombs are plundered within years of their completion, and no written documents exist about their construction." "No blueprints have survived." "To decode these mysteries, egyptologists consult the sky for answers." "To the Ancient Egyptians, the sky was incredibly important." "Perhaps you can imagine in a world without electricity, where there's no light pollution at night the stars are very clear." "You can see the milky way, so it's like a world up there that is very much present and very much observed." "Cryptic clues about the pyramid's connection to the sky can be found within the pyramid texts, a series of funeral rituals and spells inscribed on the walls of a later tomb from the fifth dynasty." "The pyramid texts come about in the late fifth dynasty, perhaps 150, 200 years after the fourth dynasty, but we can guess that those texts reflect what was important to their ancestors" " as well." " These spiritual texts describe the pharaoh going forth into the northern sky and living among the "Imperishable Ones." These are the circumpolar stars that never rise or set below the horizon." "After death, a pharaoh's soul is destined to live among these eternal beacons that symbolize immortal gods." "When the pharaoh died, he was regarded as the emissary of the gods, going to the sky, being transformed into a celestial being to participate in the same activities of the cosmic order that the sky was already carrying forward." "But how do the pyramids enable the pharaohs and their entombed treasures to ascend deep into the universe?" "When archeologists begin excavating on the Giza plateau they make a startling discovery." "The sides of all three pyramids face the four cardinal directions, north-south and east-west, with extreme accuracy." "What's more, the entrance of each pyramid faces due north with masterful precision, within 1/10 of a degree." "Are these near-perfect proportions a coincidence, or calculated?" " And for what purpose?" " Here we are at the Giza plateau, at least a model of it, and you see the three Giza pyramids." "Khufu's pyramid, the largest one, Khafre's pyramid, slightly smaller, and then Menkaure's pyramid's the smallest one of all." "The one thing they all have in common is that they have their" " entrance on the north side." " The north-facing door of each pyramid opens to a long passageway that descends down to a burial chamber where the pharaoh was once entombed." "Each one resembles a giant telescope pointed towards the northern sky." "Are the northern doors and passageways designed to be cosmic portals to the stars?" "It's often called the descending passage, but from the spirit's point of view, it's the ascending passage." "Because it's pointing north, it points to the circumpolar stars." "One of the analogies for the afterlife is that the spirit joins with the imperishable stars." "What that means, of course, is that the spirit, because it's no longer physical, will not die again." "It's imperishable, and we can only speculate that this was perhaps the original idea behind the pyramids of the third and" " the fourth dynasty." " The Ancient" "Egyptians don't have GPS or even a compass." "So how do they astronomically align the massive passageways" " due north with such precision?" " There are a couple of ways to find true north." "One is to watch the stars at night and look at particular those stars that never set but just seem to circle one point in the sky." "That point is directly over the" "North Pole." "That's because the Earth spins in its orbit and the North Pole always points to a single spot." "The North Celestial Pole is the point in the sky that all the stars rotate around, so even the ancient peoples, they had an idea that there was a point in the sky that was fixed, that" " everything moved around it." " Ancient Egyptians could've looked generally toward the north and watched as stars circle around, and by estimating the center of the circular motions they could've determined where north is." "Once pinpointing the North Celestial Pole, the" "Ancient Egyptians could have constructed a descending passageway towards that northern direction in the sky and then built the rest of the pyramid on top of it." "The pole star method is a good candidate for how the" "Ancient Egyptians would have aligned the descending" " passageway." " The passageways of the pyramids were orientated with sheer precision to the north in the direction of the imperishable, circumpolar stars." "But did these astronomical alignments imbue them with the power to propel the pharaohs' soul to live among their stellar gods of the universe?" "The pyramids of Giza hold the secrets of an ancient culture that thrived over 4,500 years ago." "Are these colossal tombs designed to transport the pharaohs and all their worldly riches to a new home deep in the universe?" "And if so, what powers these cosmic machines?" "For the Egyptians, life after death was crucial, and the motion of the pharaoh into the sky to take his rightful place among the stars in the northern part of the sky was part of their religion and one of the main functions of the pyramid." "To understand how the Ancient Egyptians could conceive of such a journey we look to the internal design of the Great Pyramid." "It contains a system of hidden corridors and rooms." "At the heart of the structure is the king's chamber." "It contains an empty sarcophagus, which once held the" " remains of the pharaoh Khufu." " In this sarcophagus, the pharaoh's body was put to rest, right on the center axis of the" " pyramid that protected it." " The pharaoh's body is also protected through mummification, a process that involves removing the internal organs and then drying out the corpse." "Once all the moisture is gone, the body is wrapped in linens." "After the deceased decomposes, the mummified skeleton acts as a substitute corpse, symbolically preserving the pharaoh's life force, or Ka, so it can join with the pharaoh's soul, or Ba." "This is important because if the pyramid is a cosmic engine, the mummy is kind of the core of the battery." "By mummification you brought back together, at the anchor of" " the mummy, the Ba and the Ka." " The unification of the Ba and Ka in the mummified corpse may be what the Ancient" "Egyptians believed ignited the cosmic fuel needed to beam a pharaoh's soul to the afterlife amongst the stars." "That makes sense of why it's important to get the king not only mummified but also ensuring the deceased relative is set up" " in the afterlife." " But is the descending passageway the mystical vault to the stars?" "Or does the Great Pyramid possess other celestial portals?" "And just where in the universe might they transport the pharaoh?" "On the north and south walls of the king's chamber are two peculiar shafts." "They penetrate all the way through the pyramid to the outside." "At first, they are thought to be some sort of ancient ventilation system, or even an illumination" " feature." " There were already suggestions that they were meant to light the burial chamber when a certain star passed overhead at a certain time of year." "Astronomers begin to study the direction of these shafts more closely to see if they're aimed at specific points in the sky." "If the pyramids were intentionally aligned with the heavens, the north star would be a likely target for the shafts." "But it turns out they don't line up with the north star at all, except that what we call the" "North Star today, Polaris, wasn't the North Star for the" "Egyptians." "This is because stars move about through time due to a phenomenon called precession." "I can explain precession on Earth with this toy top." "As we spin the top it's like the Earth spinning on its axis." "You can see there is a slight wobble, which is the same thing as the precession that we see of Earth's spin axis." "Earth's axis of rotation slowly rotates." "It precesses with a period of 26,000 years." "So it points to different locations in the sky at different times over this 26,000-year cycle." "And we can essentially go back in time and determine where in the sky it was pointing at a given time." "4,500 years ago, when the pyramids were built, the North Star was not Polaris but Thuban, and the northern shaft would have pointed right at it." "The southern shaft pointed near the brightest stars in the constellation of Orion." "Could this mean that rather than the pharaoh's pathway to the stars these shafts were merely designed to make the pyramid a gigantic observatory?" "There have been very romantic notions about the Great Pyramid being used as an observatory to observe those stars from deep inside the pyramid." "This is really kind of silly when you think about it." "You can just as easily observe those stars outside." "You don't need to go into a pyramid just to look at them." "Upon closer inspection, it's discovered that the shafts slightly bend at either end so no stars can be seen directly through them." "Egyptologists then begin to wonder whether the shafts were built for a ritualistic rather" " than practical purpose." " The shafts, as far as we can tell, are conduits for the king's vital force, for his soul, his Ba, to go to those places for resurrection." "They are magical shafts." "That's why it's so important to connect them cosmically to the circumpolar stars, to Orion, to connect the pyramid to the cardinal directions, because they did think they are indeed connecting to the cosmos." "Those kinds of shafts, with specific stellar destinies, do not exist anywhere else except in the Great Pyramid." "That suggests, of course, that somebody in designing and building the Great Pyramid got an idea that this would be a new and perhaps particularly effective embellishment for the" " pharaoh." " And the shafts would transport more than just the pharaoh's spirit to the stars." "They'd also carry along all the mortal comforts of Egyptian royalty." "Within tombs have been found the entire household possessions of the pharaoh, not only personal items, such as the pharaoh's organs and grooming necessities, but any number of treasures that would help add comfort and elegance to the" " pharaoh's afterlife." " An even bigger mystery surrounds the shafts." "Why are they pointed to the northern and southern skies?" "The northern shaft was directed towards the star Thuban, an imperishable star, representing eternal life, but the southern shaft is equally significant." "It once pointed to three stars in the Belt of Orion, a constellation associated with the god Osiris." "Osiris was the god of the afterlife." "He presided over the seasons, the cycle of life and death." "So he was one of the most important figures in all of the" "Egyptian pantheon." "The pyramid points toward the culmination of that constellation in the sky and this connects the pyramid with the sky in a very important way." "Reliefs in later Egyptian burial tombs depict a pharaoh's soul being released to Orion, where it becomes a living star." "There, the pharaoh's spirit joins Osiris, who symbolizes the cycle of birth, life, death, and resurrection." "Osiris is the principle that brings a plant to life from a seed and, once the plant dies, allows its seeds to produce new life and so forth." "Does the same thing with deceased people, whose spirits enter the tomb at night, go into the mummy, join with the power of Osiris, and receive from that power the ability to come to life again in the morning." "Another startling discovery is made in the queen's chamber." "The queen wasn't entombed there, but it contains two unfinished shafts." "Its southern shaft once pointed towards the star Sirius, who represents the goddess Isis, and consort of Osiris." "Could there be a deeper connection to Orion?" "What secrets could this constellation reveal about the" "Great Pyramid and its connection to the universe?" "The ancient pyramids of Giza, mesmerizing monuments built for ancient kings." "Yet their true function is lost to time." "Are they magical stairways to a celestial hereafter, or is there an even deeper meaning behind their cosmically inspired design?" "Perhaps more proof can be found by looking at the pyramids from above." "Aerial images reveal that the two larger pyramids form a 45-degree angle." "However, the smallest pyramid is slightly offset from the other two." "You see, the three Giza pyramids seemed to be aligned." "But if you follow the line you see that you sort of bump into" "Menkaure's pyramid." "It's quite off the main line of" " the other two pyramids." " Why would the ancient architects build the pyramids in such a way when each structure is accurately aligned with only a tiny margin of error?" "Some believe the answers can be found in the southern shaft of the king's chamber, located in the Great Pyramid." "It once pointed to the three belt stars in the constellation Orion." "The stars form a diagonal line, with the smallest star slightly offset." "They bear a striking resemblance to the layout of the pyramids." "So were the pyramids of Giza built to honor the three belt stars of Orion?" "The basic idea's that the three pyramids are mapped on the ground to represent the three stars in the belt of Orion." "You can imagine yourself as up above the sky looking down on the Earth, as if you could get outside the stars, as the ancients imagined it, and project those stars right down" " to the ground." " But there's a serious problem with this theory." "In the Belt of Orion, the northernmost star is the smallest one, whereas on the Giza plateau, the northernmost" " pyramid is the largest one." " Here's the problem." "To make it match the pyramids you have to map the constellation upside down, and we have no reason to think that the Egyptians, or anyone else for that matter, would do such a thing." "So we know that directions mattered to the Egyptians, and therefore making a contradiction with the mapping just doesn't make sense." "That's an interesting hypothesis." "It sort of depends on how you look at Orion." "The belt stars align if you look at it one way and don't align if you look at it another way, so we don't really know whether" " it's correct." " And the less-than-perfect diagonal lineup of the pyramids may have more to do with geography and geology than cosmic inspiration." "You should keep in mind that the Giza plateau doesn't really look like this nice sandy surface." "It actually had a lot of quarries." "Those giant pyramids were basically built from the limestone of the plateau on which they are standing, so it might well be that there's also very practical purposes why" "Menkaure's pyramid is a little bit off line." "Still, the stars in the night sky would certainly have been important markers to the Ancient Egyptians." "But the most important star is the one they could only see during the day-- the Sun." "Throughout Egyptian mythology beliefs change over time and gods fall in and out of favor." "By the fourth dynasty, the" "Egyptians begin to exhibit a strong religious devotion to the" "Sun." "At the time, the Sun is viewed as a powerful, mysterious ball of light that arches across the sky each day and disappears each night." "They of course did not know what the Sun was." "You can see it going across the sky and setting in the west." "Where does it go?" "They had no idea where it went at night." "They could only speculate that somehow it traveled beneath the Earth, and when it set it died." "The Ancient Egyptians think their pharaohs also experience death and rebirth like the rising and" " setting Sun." " The idea is that the spirit, when the person has died, has somehow gone to sleep and needs to wake up again every morning." "And after this happens the spirit makes its way through the tomb, just as the Sun finally" " emerges at dawn." " Could the Ancient" "Egyptians' belief in resurrection explain why all three pyramids are built on the west bank of the Nile river?" "These pyramids have a whole system linked to that east-west orientation." "The Sun comes up in the east." "That's the new life." "It then goes over and sets in the west, and that's where the pyramids are." "So the setting Sun represents death." "Perhaps the pyramids transport the pharaohs to the Sun rather than the nighttime stars." "The geometric shape of a pyramid is often viewed as a solar symbol." "Its steeped-sloped sides are compared to the Sun's rays, which act as ramps to the heavens." "Even its former white veneer is interpreted as a mirror reflecting sunlight." "One thing that is clear, they chose white tura limestone to clad these pyramids for a reason." "This bright, white, gleaming pyramid right up above you is meant to be the Sun reflecting down on you, like the king being projected up by this machine." "So the symbolism was there." "So is the Sun the key to solving the ancient mystery of the pyramids?" "New evidence suggests they're more than cosmically energized tombs in a desert graveyard." "They might be part of a mysterious solar cult." "After 4,500 years, the ancient pyramids of Giza remain shrouded in mystery and intrigue." "Were these massive mounds of stone built to transport the pharaohs to live among the northern, circumpolar stars deep in space, or was the real destination closer to home..." "The Sun?" "The passageways leading from the burial chambers of the pyramids appear to have been deliberately oriented in the direction of the northern stars." "Yet the geometric shape and geographic location of these tombs suggest a solar influence." "The Giza pyramids not only have this northern direction, which is really important because that is where the soul of the king leaves the pyramids to join the circumpolar stars, but they also have an east-west orientation and that is related" "to the solar circle." "So the Sun comes up in the east, goes overhead, goes under in the west, and in the west is" " where the pharaoh is buried." " Do the pyramids possess a spiritual connection to the nighttime stars or the" "Sun?" "The Giza plateau reveals some of its coveted secrets when observing it from above." "The southeast corners of the three pyramids form a diagonal line in the direction of the sacred site of Heliopolis." "Today it's buried beneath the bustling city of Cairo, but it was once home to a solar cult that worships the Sun god, Ra." "I think it would be a bit radical to suggest that three generations of pyramid builders at Giza were following a master plan." "But certainly Khafre could have adjusted his pyramid to Khufu's, and so Menkaure his pyramid with respect to Khafre's." "The diagonal direction of the pyramids toward Heliopolis raises new questions." "Were these sacred tombs devoted to a cult of the Sun?" "I think that the alignment on the Giza plateau is related to the Sun god Ra because there seems to be a clear link to" "Heliopolis." "So that really suggests a solar link, rather than a celestial or stellar link." "Perhaps a more convincing discovery is found at the base of the pyramids." "The east-west sides of each burial tomb are more precisely aligned with the cardinal directions than the north-south sides." "This suggests that the Ancient Egyptians might have used the rising and setting positions of the Sun, rather than the North" " Star, to align the pyramids." " Ancient Egyptians could have used the Sun to determine the direction of north by looking at a shadow, similar to the idea of a sundial." "As the Sun is rising in the east, a sundial casts a long shadow pointing generally to the west." "As the Sun rises and traverses its journey across the sky, the position of that shadow changes and the shadow actually shortens with time." "When the shadow is the shortest," " it's pointing north." " Engineer Glen Fash has built a solar "gnomon," a vertical rod that acts like a giant shaft on a sundial." "He wants to test how the Ancient" "Egyptians might have used the Sun's shadow to accurately align the bases, or casings, of the pyramids." "The solar gnomon method is basically the same method that we teach the Boys and Girl Scouts." "It's as simple as could be." "You take a rod and you stick it into the ground, and you watch the shadow produced by the Sun" " over the course of the day." " The Sun's shadow is projected from the gnomon, or vertical rod onto a small wooden block resting on a platform." "The experiment is performed near the summer solstice when the Sun achieves its maximum elevation angle, and therefore casts a sharp shadow." "We watch the shadow every minute or so." "We center the shadow in the crosshairs, it's on the angled block, and we mark it on the paper." "Once it's projected from the block, at that particular moment we get a line across the paper that's called a "declination line," and that's the pattern that the Sun makes as it moves across the sky over the course of the day." "Here we go." "Let's see how we did." "At the end of the day you take a piece of string, you draw a circle around the rod, and that circle is gonna intercept the declination line at two points." "Those two points lie exactly east-west, so you can draw an east-west line." "Perpendicular to that is north-south." "The experiment works." "Dash is able to find true north within 1/20 of a degree using" " this primitive solar method." " I think other people will come to the conclusion fairly quickly that the Sun played a major role in pyramid alignments and may have been the method of choice for aligning the casings of the" " pyramids." " But could there be a deeper relationship between these remarkably accurate solar alignments and the fate of the pharaohs buried in the pyramids?" "Two ancient ships are excavated from elongated pits discovered around the Great Pyramid." "One is a 142-foot-long cedar vessel with 12 oars." "The exact function of these royal boats is unknown." "Are they funeral barges to carry the mummified king along the Nile river to the pyramids, or might these boats serve a symbolic purpose, a transportation system to carry the pharaoh to an afterlife in" " the distant universe?" " In Egypt, if you wanted to get from one side of the river to the other you needed a ferryman, and they imagined the same thing in the afterlife for the spirit, to persuade the ferrymen in the next world to" "ferry the spirit to the other side." "The Ancient Egyptians believe the dead traverse through dangerous waters to reach their eternal destination in the sky." "At night, the deceased pharaoh accompanies the Sun god Ra in his boat through the perilous underworld, between sunset and sunrise." "Night in Ancient Egypt is a very dangerous time, and they can imagine the same thing for the spirit proceeding through the night of its death into the morning of its afterlife." "The royal boats as well as the shape, location, and alignment of the pyramids all point to the influence of a Sun cult on the Giza plateau." "But the pyramids' true connection to the universe might be found elsewhere on the Giza plateau, behind the mysterious face of the Great Sphinx." "The ancient pyramids of Giza." "Are they merely physical tombs, or spiritual vehicles that propel the pharaohs to an afterlife in the distant sky?" "The alignments of passageways and shafts indicate a connection to the nighttime stars, while the shape and diagonal placement of the pyramids, as well as the excavation of solar boats, show a devotion to the Sun." "Yet recent archeological evidence indicates another imposing feature of the Giza plateau might hold the ultimate secrets of these mysterious monuments." "In front of the pyramids is the" "Sphinx, a gigantic lion sculpture bearing a human head." "Taller than a six-story building, the half-human, half-beast is one of the largest and most famous statues in the world." "The Ancient Egyptians made the Sphinx right out of the natural rock by quarrying around it and leaving a core from which they carved the lion body and the pharaoh's head." "For thousands of years, the crouching lion baffles egyptologists." "No inscriptions are found on the sculpture that reveal when it was built or for what purpose." "But within ancient cultures, the lion is a Sun symbol and a human head on an animal often signifies royal intelligence and power." "There is this idea of the king on a lion's body representing the power of kingship in relation to both the celestial and solar theology." "The Sphinx protects the cosmos." "The Sphinx protects the order of the entire world." "Unraveling the meaning behind the Sphinx requires examining its eroded face." "Who is this human-headed lion?" "The statue lies at the base of a long causeway leading to the second largest pyramid that entombed the pharaoh Khafre." "But does the monumental sculpture bear the likeness of Khafre or his father Khufu?" "I see some possibility that the Sphinx actually could be a kind of monumental gatepost at the major entrance up to the" "Giza plateau over three generations." "Maybe it was begun in Khufu's reign." "During the spring and fall equinox, a remarkable solar phenomenon occurs on the Giza plateau." "As the Sun passes over the top of the Sphinx, it rests directly between the pyramids of Khufu and Khafre, creating an Akhet, the Sun symbol of Ancient Egypt." "Perhaps the Sphinx is the guardian of the horizon, protecting the pharaohs as they follow the path of the Sun over the horizon and into the afterlife amongst the northern stars." "It seems more than coincidence that they took the" "Sphinx and its temple and they moved them like that so you'd get that alignment, that the Sun sets midway between the Khufu and the Khafre pyramids." "There's very good evidence that the Sun cult, as we call it, was becoming very important during" " this time." " So what can we conclude about the real purpose for the building of the ancient pyramids?" "With the information collected to date, it is well within reason to consider that the iconic monuments are designed to launch the pharaohs to the sky, where they dwell among both the Sun and northern stars." "The Egyptian idea of the afterlife is really cool." "They imagined traveling in the daylight with the Sun on his boat across the sky, and at night joining with the" " imperishable stars." " For the Ancient" "Egyptians, the practice of astronomy went beyond myth." "Both the stars and the Sun may have even guided them in their masterful creation of the pyramids themselves." "They may have aligned the pyramid itself and the tomb chamber, using the Sun, for the east-west orientation, where the descending passageway was specifically designed to get the spirit of the king to the imperishable ones, and that" "would have required a celestial alignment." "So it makes sense from a spiritual point of view that they would have aligned the casings of the pyramid with the" "Sun but the descending passageway with the stars." "By looking at how astronomy is used to help build these monuments, we are given a rare glimpse into an ancient culture that is highly civilized, where astronomy, architecture, and religion are woven together a one," "a society that is keenly aware of the universe and its importance to life on Earth, and their belief in the hereafter."