Essential Design of the Great Pyramid Encoded in Hemiunu’s Mastaba at Giza

Manu Seyfzadeh

doi:10.4236/ad.2018.62008

Abstract

The architect of the “Great Pyramid”1 at Giza is believed to have been Khufu’s half-nephew Hemiunu. While it is possible that Hemiunu conceived its design because he was both vizier and head of this king’s works, there is no direct proof of it to date. Absent the unlikely discovery of unequivocal written evidence, whether he was involved may never be known with certainty. Here, I present evidence that Hemiunu himself was the likely brain behind the essential features of the Great Pyramid. The side length, height, the small indent into the core masonry on all four side centers, and even the factors five and eight which relate this pyramid with its smaller version at Meydum and which had significant theological meaning at the time are all embedded in the two original side lengths of Hemiunu’s rectangular mastaba G4000 in the west cemetery. Furthermore, it appears that even the expanded sides of his mastaba enshrined key interior features of the Great Pyramid like the dimensions of the King Chamber and the shaft leading from it to the outside towards its presumed target in the northern night sky, the circumpolar star region centered around alpha-Draco Thuban. Unmistakable numerical clues embedded in the dimensions of Hemiunu’s mastaba suggest that all this was done with intent, which thus lends compelling support to the notion that Hemiunu was the architect of the Great Pyramid attributed to Khufu.

Highlights

Unmistakable numerical clues embedded in the dimensions of Hemiunu’s mastaba suggest that all this was done with intent, which lends compelling support to the notion that Hemiunu was the architect of the Great Pyramid attributed to Khufu
Hemiunu’s original mastaba’s design differed with respect to its size from the standard observed in the west-field, and with respect to the proportions of the two sides, i.e. 2.2 versus ~22⁄3 (Junker, 1929: p. 16, see length/width ratios which compute based on values given in the Table part 1)
The findings presented here suggest that Thuban’s celestial position in the 26th century B.C.E. mattered to Hemiunu, but in isolation do not prove a link between Thuban and the north shaft emerging from the King Chamber nor favor either researcher’s theory over the other’s

Summary

Introduction

If the architect was a contemporary of Khufu, he may have preserved the blueprints of his creation near the monument in a more durable medium than papyrus, i.e. stone, and recorded it in a more abstract architectural language than figures, i.e. numbers. This premise prompted me to investigate Hemiunu’s mastaba for numerical clues which may identify him as the architect and definitively date the bulk of G1’s conception and construction to the 4th Kingdom and more compellingly to Khufu’s lifetime

Results

Discussion

Conclusion