Pyramids do not only exist in Egypt, there are also some in China, Mongolia, in South and Middle America, France, the Canaries and even Greece. Some were used as burial sites, others temples, holy places and symbols of the world and sources of mysterious forces. Today the X-Files opens the mysterious “pyramids of the world” file and asks what are their origins, purpose and how were all these magnificent miracles of ancient architecture built?
Almost everyone knows about the amazing pyramids in Egypt. We will have much, much more to say about those extraordinary structures in future posts. Many people out there even know about the massive pyramids that have been found in South America. But very few people know about the pyramids that have now been discovered in Italy, Greece, Japan, China, Bosnia, the United States, Europe and Russia. Cultures separated by the Atlantic, who supposedly never discovered each other’s existence, built these giant triangular structures, aligned them to cardinal directions, encoded within them sacred geometry/math, and used them as a sepulture.
A few of these sites demonstrating the different styles are:
- Iraq: The reconstructed ziggurat-pyramid at Ur, in ancient Sumer.
- Egypt: The step pyramid at Saqqara.
- Giza: The smooth-walled pyramids at Giza. Hancock and Bauval (1996) suggest that the ‘ground plan’ of the three great pyramids was physically established in 10,500 bc, but that the pyramids were built around 2,500 bc. This supports the notion that the pyramid base rock with its underground chamber was an early AA terminal, and the Sphinx was the associated landmark easily identified from space.
- Mexico: The highly decorated step pyramids at Chichen-Itza, Monte Alban, and elsewhere. In the Temple of Inscriptions at Palenque, a shaft runs from the tomb up to the temple floor, similar to some of the Egyptian pyramids. There was initially a 40 ft "comb" on the top. Was this an additional identifying marker?
- Mexico: The unusual elliptical pyramid at Uxmal.
- Mexico: The huge, unexcavated pyramid at Cholula (Fig 4-1), in the shadow of the volcano, Popocatepetl ("El Popo"). Its ancient name, Tlachihualtepetl, means "man-made mountain". On Quetzalcoatl’s pilgrimage his first stop was Cholula, which means ‘the place of flight’ in Nahuatl. The huge "Piramide Tepanapa", 200 ft high and 1300 ft on a side, is the largest ancient pyramid in the Americas, and possibly the largest in the world. The earliest construction has been traced to 200 bc. It was covered with dirt to hide it from the invading Spaniards and a small shrine was placed at the top, which the Spanish replaced with a church (Fig 4-1). The small portion which has been excavated reveals remarkable masonry.
- Mexico: Tres Zapotes, an Olmec site (1300 – 400 bc), was the first adobe-brick pyramid site in Mesoamerica. (Mystery buffs please note: Before the arrival of Cortez ALL of the Olmec sites were destroyed, except El Tijin, which had been abandoned!).
- Mexico: The truncated cone pyramid of Cuicuilco. In 1917 Manuel Gamio, excavating off the road from Mexico City to Cuernavaca, found an overgrown hill called ‘Cuicuilco’ enveloped by pre-historic lava streams. It turned out to be an enormous ancient pyramid or truncated cone with four galleries and central staircase. It is one of the few remaining round stepped pyramids. The base is 370 ft and it is about 60 ft high now, although it was originally much higher. Archeologist Paul Heinrich reports the age to be 800 to 600 bc, not 6000 bc as reported by others. (Miller, 2000).
- Mexico: The beautiful miniature pyramid at Cecilia, D.F.
- Mexico: The platform-pyramids at Teotenango, Tenayaca, and Tula.
- Mexico: The multi-platform style of the Pyramid of the Sun, Teotihuacan. In his discussion of Teotihuacan, John Michel (1995) quotes another researcher: "During the 1970s Hugh Harleston, Jr …established that ‘the basic unit of measurement at Teotihuacan was 1.0594 meters, the same unit which represents the ‘Jewish rod’ of 3.4757 ft., the same unit which represents the width of the Stonehenge lintels, a six-millionth part of the earth’s polar radius…’"
- Guatemala: The huge pre-classic (150 bc-150 ad) Mayan site of El Mirador with its dozens of pyramids, including the Tigre Pyramid rising 18 stories high, probably the largest pyramid ever built by the Maya.
- Peru: Moche Temple of the Sun. The earlier Moche built this temple-pyramid style pyramid from 140 million adobe bricks.
- Peru: Sipan Pyramid. This Moche pyramid-tomb near the town of Sipan proves that some of the early SA pyramids were tombs, as in Egypt and Mesoamerica.
- Peru: Pyramids of Cahuachi. A ceremonial site comprised of six pyramids, the highest being about 70 ft, overlooking a walled court of 4050 sq yards. (Morrison, 1988). Hadingham (1987) mentions that the "great temple" was a stepped pyramid. He quotes Helaine Silverman’s estimate that the period of most activity at Cahuachi was short lived, about 200 years, and the site was mysteriously abandoned around 200 ad, along with other several other important sites.
- Peru: The pyramids of Tucume. "Covering over 540 acres and including 26 major pyramids as well as myriad smaller structures…first built around 1100 ad by people of the Lambayeque culture…" The largest of the adobe brick pyramids, Huaca Larga, is 2300 ft long, 910 ft wide and 65 ft high. (Heyerdahl, 1995). Robert Schoch (1999) writes, "The largest of the pyramids, called Tucume…was only a little over 200 feet high, but it contained one-third more volume that the Pyramid of Khufu at Giza."
- Peru: Huaca del Sol, Moche Valley. This is a 120 ft high pyramid on the Peruvian north coast. The 1.5 million mud brick pyramid is the largest man-made mound in SA. Facing Huaca del Sol across the main plaza was a smaller mound, Huaca del Luna. The site lies at the foot of Cerro Blanco, an obvious landmark from space for this ceremonial/feeding center (Hadingham, 1987)
- Bolivia: The Akapana platform-pyramid at Tiahuanaco. The Bolivian archaeologists date the site to 1580 bc. The Akapana measures 688 ft on a side and is 49 ft high. "The earthen interior was shaped like a stepped pyramid and faced with fitted stones." (Demetrio, 1983)
- Java: Cani Sukuh pyramid, resembling the Mexico pyramid style (Childress, 1996). Who carried this style across the Pacific?
- Ryukyu Islands: The Yonaguni underwater pyramid. This unique step-pyramid-platform, 240 ft long and 90 ft high, resting 75 ft underwater, has been dated to 8000 bc! (Dopatka, 2000)
- China: The White Pyramid, near Xi’an. Hartwig Hausdorf (1998) says there are 90-100 pyramids in China, near Xi’an, the tallest being about 200 ft. Xi’an incidentally is the site of the amazing ‘Terracotta Army’ of Qin Shi Huang.
- Polynesia: "modest pyramids" at Tongatabu; a temple-pyramid on Tahiti; the Langi stepped pyramid-platform at Tauhala (a large stone, 24 x 7 ft and weighing 30-40 tons, is in the wall). Ancient pyramids are also found on Samoa and Java. (Childress, 1996)
- Greece: Pyramid of Hellinikon, near Argos. The author writes, "…built in the style reminiscent of cyclopean walls…" Its base is 15 x 13 meters, and the tallest wall still standing it only 14 ft. From the photos it probably would have stood about 10 meters high when completed. Thermoluminescent analysis of the pyramid in 1997 yielded a construction date of 2720 bc, older than the archeologists state for the Cheops pyramid! (Tsoukalow, 2000)
- Canary Islands: The pyramids of Guimar. Thor Heyerdahl writes, "…They were painstakingly built step-pyramids, constructed according to similar principles as those of Mexico, Peru, and ancient Mesopotamia."
- United States: Monk’s pyramid-mound at Cahokia, Illinois, a mud brick platform-pyramid. A large stone wall or room has recently been discovered inside the mound, but has not been excavated as of Oct 2000.
- Yonaguni: Situated between the East China Sea and the Philippine Sea, about 300 miles from Okinawa, is the island of Yonaguni-Jima. Off it's coast is a huge apparently manmade (god-made?) monument about 100 ft below the surface. Its a platform pyramid 600 ft wide, 90 ft high constructed of precisely hewn megalithic stones. The pyramid, apparently a part of a ceremonial center, has been dated to 8000 bc, 5000 years before the oldest pyramid in Egypt!
HOW WERE THEY BUILT?
We can only speculate as to their purpose or how ancient man roughly five thousand years in the past had the technical prowess to accomplish such a feat. In addition, we find that almost all of the pyramids around the world are designed with some type of astronomical alignment in mind and likely took thousands of years of detailed, advanced sky observations alone just to be able to infer such configuration.
While mainstream archaeologists will tell you ancient pyramids were built by thousands of slaves dragging several ton granite blocks for miles, common sense tells you otherwise. Many modern engineers have come forward to say that even with today’s technology we simply could not cut multi-ton granite stones with that kind of precision. The blocks from the Great Pyramids of Giza are cut so precise that you cannot even fit a sheet of paper between two of the bricks – they have only 1/50 of an inch space between them. This is better than the optical precision of the tiles on the space shuttle. The three pyramids of Giza also are a perfect reproduction of the three stars of Orion’s belt.
In addition, it has been recently discovered that the air shafts of the great pyramid project directly toward the stars in Orion’s belt – apparently with the aim of projecting the soul inside the pyramid directly into heaven. It is believed by some that the pyramid may have also served as an “Ascension” machine – where priest initiates would lie on their back in the chamber and enter into a sort of trance where they faced the dark night of the soul.
Given that the technology needed to construct these monuments is far beyond anything the ancients were supposed to have at the time it would appear that some type of advanced civilization at least had a hand in their construction. This brings to mind the stories of Atlantis, from as far back as Plato, where in his Dialogues he describes a “lost” civilization on Earth that was far more advanced than anything we can imagine.
There is also speculation that the pyramids could have been constructed by other humans from elsewhere in the galaxy. Maybe humans from a civilization millions of years ahead of our own seeded life on this planet and decided to let a younger generation of humans start from scratch building a civilization on their own. The pyramids may have been built by this older generation as a sign of our connection to the stars.
Maybe we are the younger generation of humans who were given the Earth to live on, with perhaps one day having evolved enough to achieve enlightenment and universal peace as a species. Maybe this would be the prerequisite for rejoining our galactic family. Some say this is impossible and point to humanity’s history of endless war and conflict. They ask: how can we ever achieve such a utopia? During this transitory period in our civilizations history our duty in the present is to envision such a utopia and know that in time it is not only possible, but inevitable. According to the Tibetan concept of time, Kalachakra, the mechanism of time is quite literally a “machine” that produces enlightened beings. It may take millions of years, but that is the direction our conscious, evolving universe is taking – and you are an integral part of this cosmic evolutionary process.
So why was ancient man being guided to construct pyramids? Were they really just a tomb to house a dead pharaoh with a gigantic ego? What purpose could these monuments serve?
It seems obvious by now that pyramids were constructed by humans with the assistance of a civilization far more advanced than we are today. Pyramids themselves have many uses and serve practical applications as well as cultural ones. We look at a stone block from a pyramid and to us it’s just a piece of rock. Perhaps the ancients used this stone as a type of technology. Maybe they stored information about their advanced knowledge of the universe within the fabric of the stone itself – waiting for the right time to be unlocked. Preposterous you say? I will ask you to think about the silicone quartz stone crystals that power every microchip and piece of technology we use today – from cell phones to laptops to iPods.
Also, is it just sheer coincidence that the base diameter of the pyramids in Mexico and Egypt are exactly the same size even though the cultures were separated by a vast ocean and had no contact with one another whatsoever? It seems the deeper we dive into this mystery, the more clear a set pattern becomes.
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