The Great Pyramid of Giza contains an estimated 2.3 million stone blocks averaging 2.5 tons each. Conservative estimates say it was built in twenty years. Do the math: that’s one block placed every two minutes, day and night, for two decades. Some granite blocks in the King’s Chamber weigh 80 tons.

The base is level to within 2.1 centimeters across 230 meters. The four sides align with the cardinal directions, off by three-sixtieths of a degree. Modern construction would struggle to match either number.

And the ancient sources are almost silent on how it was done. Herodotus showed up two thousand years after construction and wrote down stories that mix fact with legend. No contemporary account describes the methods. The famous ramp theory has its own problem—a ramp gentle enough to drag multi-ton stones would run for miles.

In 2017, cosmic ray muography revealed a previously unknown void above the Grand Gallery, roughly thirty meters long. I’d speculated about hidden spaces in the pyramid in my Area 51 series years before that discovery. Sometimes fiction gets there first.

One thing most people forget: the pyramid we see isn’t the pyramid they built. It was originally sheathed in polished white Tura limestone, fitted so tightly it would have been a smooth, gleaming surface reflecting sunlight across the desert. A 14th-century earthquake loosened the casing stones and most were hauled off to build Cairo.

A beacon, reflecting light into space? To who? Why? I play with those questions in the Area 51 books.

This is one of 100 entries in The Little Black Book of Ancient Mysteries. Enigmas, Puzzles and Artifacts from the Dawn of History. https://amzn.to/4pSLpH6