What is the period of construction of the pyramid of Cheops. Pyramid of Cheops - the largest pyramid in Egypt

The most ancient wonder of the world that we can admire even now is the pyramid of Cheops. Shrouded in myths and legends, the Egyptian pyramid was the largest and tallest building for many millennia. Khufu (another name for the pyramid) is located in Giza - the most popular tourist attraction.

History of the pyramids

The pyramids in Egypt are practically the main attraction of the country. There are many hypotheses related to their origin and construction. But they all agree on one important conclusion of the pyramids in Egypt - these are impressive tombs for the great inhabitants of the country (in those days they were pharaohs). The Egyptians believed in the afterlife and life after death. It was believed that only a few were worthy of continuing their life path after death - these are the pharaohs themselves of their families and the slaves who were constantly next to the lords. The images of slaves and servants were painted on the walls of the tombs so that after their death they could continue to serve their king. According to the ancient religion of the Egyptians, a person had two inner souls Ba and Ka. Ba - left the Egyptian after his death, and Ka always acted as a virtual double and waited for him in the world of the dead.

So that the pharaoh did not need anything in the afterlife, food, weapons, kitchen utensils, gold and much more were left in the tomb of the pyramid. In order for the body to remain unchanged and wait for the second soul of Ba, it was necessary to preserve it. This is how the birth of embalming the body and the need to create pyramids arose.

The emergence of the pyramids in Egypt originates from the construction of the pyramid of Pharaoh Djoser 5 thousand years ago. The outer walls of the first pyramid were in the form of steps, which symbolized the ascent to heaven. The height of the structure was 60 meters with many corridors and several tombs. Djoser's chamber was located in the underground part of the pyramid. Several more passages leading to small chambers were made from the royal tomb. They contained all the accessories for the further afterlife of the Egyptians. Closer to the east, chambers for the entire family of the pharaoh were found. The building itself was not so huge compared to the pyramid of Pharaoh Cheops, whose height is almost 3 times greater. But it is with the pyramid of Djoser that the history of the emergence of all Egyptian pyramids begins.

Very often in the photo of the pyramid of Cheops you can see two more adjacent pyramids. These are the famous pyramids of Herfen and Mekerin. It is these three pyramids that are considered the most important assets of the country. The height of the pyramid of Cheops significantly distinguishes it from the rest of the standing and other pyramids of Egypt. Initially, the walls of the structure were smooth, but after a long period of years they began to crumble. If you look at modern photos of the Cheops pyramid, you can see the relief of the facade and its unevenness, formed over millennia.

The birth of the pyramid of Cheops

The Pyramid of Cheops, according to the official version, was erected in the autumn of 2480 BC. The date of the first ancient wonder of the world, many historians and researchers dispute, arguing in favor of their arguments. The construction of the Great Pyramid lasted about 2-3 decades. More than one hundred thousand inhabitants of ancient Egypt and the best masters of that time participated in it. First of all, a large road was built for the delivery of building materials, then underground passages and a mine. Most of the time was spent on the construction of the upper part of the pyramid - the walls and internal passages and tombs.

There is a very interesting feature of the building: the height of the pyramid of Cheops in its original form and the width was 147 meters each. Due to the sands that covered the base of the building and the shedding of the facing part, it decreased by 10 meters and now it is now 137 meters in height. A giant tomb was built mainly from huge blocks of limestone and granite weighing about 2.5 tons, which were carefully polished so as not to lose the ideal shape of the structure. And in the tomb of the most ancient pharaoh, granite blocks were found, the weight of which reached almost 80 tons. According to Egyptologists' calculations, it took about 2,300,000 huge stones, which cannot but impress us all.

The doubts associated with the construction of the pyramid were that in those dark times there were no special machines and devices at all capable of lifting and ideally folding heavy blocks under a certain slope. Some believed that more than a million people took part in the construction, others that the blocks were lifted by a lifting mechanism. Everything was so thought out and as perfect as possible that without the use of concrete mortar and cement, the stones were laid in such a way that it was completely impossible to insert even thin paper between them! There is an assumption that the pyramid was created not at all by people, but by aliens or another force unknown to man.

We are based specifically on the fact that the pyramids are still the creation of people. In order to quickly extract a stone of the required size and shape from the rock, its outlines were made. The conditional form was carved, and a dry tree was inserted there. It was regularly watered with water, the tree grew from moisture, and under its pressure a crack formed in the rock. Now a large block was removed and betrayed to her the required shape and size. Stones for construction were redirected along the river by huge boats.

Massive wooden sleds were used to lift the heavy boulders up. On a gentle slope, the stones were lifted one by one by teams of their hundreds of slaves.

Pyramid device

The entrance to the pyramid was originally not where it is now. It had the shape of an arch and was located on the northern side of the building with a height of more than 15 meters. In an attempt to rob the great tomb in 820, a new entrance was made, already at a height of 17 meters. But Caliph Abu Jafar, who wanted to enrich himself with the loot, did not find any jewels and valuables and left with nothing. This passage is now open to tourists.

The pyramid consists of several long corridors leading to the tombs. Immediately after the entrance there is a common corridor that diverges into 2 tunnels leading to the central and lower parts of the pyramid. For some reason, the chamber below was not completed. There is also a narrow loophole, behind which there is only a dead end and a three-meter well. Climbing up the corridor, you will find yourself in the Great Gallery. If you turn left at the first turn and walk a little, you will see the chamber of the bishop's wife. And along the corridor above there is the largest one - the tomb of the pharaoh himself.

The beginning of the gallery is interesting in that a long and narrow almost vertical grotto was built there. There is an assumption that he was there even before the foundation of the pyramid itself. From both tombs of the pharaoh and his wife, narrow passages about 20 centimeters wide were made. Presumably they were made to ventilate the wards. There is another version that these passages and corridors are pointers to the stars: Sirius, Alnitaki and Tuban, and that the pyramid served as a place for astronomical research. But there is another opinion - according to the belief in the afterlife, the Egyptians believed that the soul returns from heaven through the channels.

There is one important and interesting fact - the construction of the pyramid was carried out strictly at one angle of 26.5 degrees. There is every reason to believe that the inhabitants of antiquity were very well versed in geometry and the exact sciences. What are the proportional smooth corridors and ventilation ducts.

Not far from the pyramid itself, during the excavations, Egyptian, cedar boats were found. They were made of pure wood without a single nail. One of the boats of the ball is divided into 1224 parts. The restorer Ahamed Yussouf Mustafa managed to assemble it. For this, the architect had to spend as much as 14 years, such a high patience in the name of science can only be envied. The assembled boat can be admired today in the museum of a bizarre shape. It is located on the south side of the Great Pyramid.

Unfortunately, inside the pyramid itself, you can not shoot video and take pictures. But on the other hand, you can take many incredible pictures against the background of this creation. Various souvenirs are also sold here, so that an excursion to these enchanting places can remind you of yourself for a long time.

Photos of the Cheops pyramid, of course, do not reflect all the grandeur and uniqueness of this building.. With us you will plunge into history and look at the world with different eyes.!

) is truly a wonder of the world. From the foot to the top, it reaches 137.3 meters, and before it lost the top, its height was 146.7 meters. A century and a half ago, it was the tallest building in the world, only in 1880 it was exceeded by two built-on towers of the Cologne Cathedral (by 20 meters), and in 1889 by the Eiffel Tower. The sides of its base are 230.4 meters, the area is 5.4 hectares. Its initial volume was 2,520,000 cubic meters; now it is about 170,000 cubic meters smaller, because for centuries the pyramid was used as a quarry. About 2,250,000 stone blocks were used for its construction, each with a volume of more than a cubic meter; this material would be enough to build a city with a hundred thousand inhabitants. Its weight is 6.5-7 million tons. If it were hollow, it would include a launcher for space rockets. According to experts, even the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima would not have destroyed it.

It was built, according to the most common dating, in 2560-2540. BC BC, although some scientists give dates about 150 years earlier. Inside the pyramid are three chambers corresponding to the three stages of its construction. The first chamber is carved into the rock at a depth of about 30 meters below the base of the pyramid and not exactly in the middle of it; its area - 8 x 14 meters, height - 3.5 meters. It remained unfinished, as well as the second, which is located in the core of the pyramid, exactly under the top, at a height of about 20 meters above the base; its area is 5.7 x 5.2 meters, the vaulted ceiling reaches a height of 6.7 meters; once it was called the "tomb of the queen." The third chamber is the tomb of the king; unlike the other two, it is finished; in it was found the sarcophagus of Cheops. It was built at a height of 42.3 meters above the base and slightly south of the axis of the pyramid; its dimensions are 10.4 x 5.2 meters; height - 5.8 meters. It is lined with immaculately polished and carefully fitted granite slabs; above the ceiling there are five unloading chambers, the total height of which is 17 meters. They take on the weight of about a million tons of stone mass so that it does not press directly on the burial chamber.

The pharaoh's sarcophagus is wider than the entrance to the chamber. It was carved from a single piece of brownish-gray granite, without a date or an inscription, and rather badly damaged. It stands in the western corner of the tomb, right on the floor. It was placed here during construction, and, apparently, no one has moved since then. This sarcophagus looks like it was cast from metal. But the body of Cheops himself is not in it.

All three cells have "antechambers" and are all connected by corridors or shafts. Some mines end in a dead end. Two shafts lead from the royal tomb to the surface of the pyramid, going out approximately in the middle of the northern and southern walls. One of their purposes is to provide ventilation; perhaps there were others.

Discovery: Exploding history. Secrets of the Great Pyramid

The original entrance to the pyramid is located on the north side, 25 meters above the base. Now another entrance leads to the pyramid, punched in 820 by the caliph Mamun, who hoped to discover the pharaoh's untold treasures, but found nothing. This entrance is located about 15 meters lower than the previous one, almost in the very center of the north side.

The Great Pyramid was surrounded by no less labor-intensive and expensive buildings. Herodotus, who saw the road leading from the upper (mortuary) temple to the lower, which was lined with polished slabs and had a width of 18 meters, called its construction a work "almost as huge as the construction of the pyramid itself." Now some 80 meters of it have survived - the road disappeared at the end of the 19th century during the construction of the village of Nazlat es-Simman, now, like Giza, which has become part of Cairo. Somewhere in its place stood a lower temple, 30 meters high, but it probably fell victim to people looking for building material in ancient times.

Of the buildings surrounding the Great Pyramid, only the ruins of the upper (mortuary) temple and three satellite pyramids have survived. Traces of the temple were discovered in 1939 by the Egyptian archaeologist Abu Seif. As usual, it was located to the east of the pyramid, and its pediment had a length of 100 Egyptian cubits (52.5 meters); it was built of Turkish limestone, had a courtyard with 38 square granite pillars, 12 of the same pillars stood in the vestibule in front of a small sanctuary. On both sides of it, about 10 meters away, during the excavations, two “docks” hollowed out in a limestone plateau were found, where “solar boats” were probably kept, the third such “dock” was found to the left of the road to the lower temple. Unfortunately, the "docks" were empty, but archaeologists were rewarded by the chance discovery of two more such "docks" in 1954. In one of them rested a perfectly preserved boat - the most ancient ship in the world. Its length is 36 meters, and it is made of cedar.

The satellite pyramids also stand to the east of the Great Pyramid, although they were usually built to the south. The pyramids are located from north to south "by height", the side of the square base of the first pyramid is 49.5 meters, the second - 49, the third - 46.9. Each of them had a stone fence, a mortuary chapel and a burial chamber, into which a sheer shaft led; in addition, next to the first was a "dock" for the "solar boat". Most scholars believe that these pyramids belonged to the wives of Khufu, of whom the first (main), according to ancient custom, was probably his sister. The names of the first two are unknown to us, the third was called Henutsen.

All three satellite pyramids are quite well preserved, only they are devoid of external cladding.

Apparently, to the east of the first one, it was supposed to build another one, of a larger size, but construction was stopped. According to one hypothesis, it was intended for Queen Hetepheres, the wife of the pharaoh Sneferu and Khufu's mother. In the end, Khufu decided to build for her a secret tomb in the rock a little to the north. This tomb was actually hidden ... until January 1925, when the photographer Reisner's tripod fell into the gap between the camouflage blocks. Then the members of the Harvard-Boston Expedition carried out treasures for three months: thousands of small gold plaques, pieces of furniture and household utensils; gold and silver bracelets, cosmetic boxes with "shadows" for eyeliner, manicure knives, jewelry boxes with the name of the queen. Canopies with its insides and an alabaster sarcophagus were found, which, however, turned out to be empty. This is the first intact tomb of a member of the royal family of the era of the Old Kingdom.

The Great Pyramid was surrounded by a ten-meter stone wall. The ruins of the wall show that it was 3 meters thick and separated from the pyramid by 10.5 meters. Near it, in the distance, there were mastabas (tombs) of dignitaries: almost a hundred of them survived on the north side, more than ten on the south, about forty on the east.

Pyramid of Cheops (Khufu)

The Pyramid of Cheops is part of the complex of the largest Egyptian pyramids located on the Giza plateau. This grand structure, together with the pyramids of Khafre and Menkaure, as well as the majestic Sphinx, makes up the so-called Giza pyramid complex. As many scientists believe, the location of the pyramids and the Sphinx within this complex is by no means accidental, and is due not only to the desire of the ancient builders to create an integral composition of these grandiose structures.

One of the earliest hypotheses considered the Egyptian (and other) pyramids as tombs, hence the names: the king's (pharaoh's) chamber and the queen's chamber. However, according to many modern Egyptologists, The pyramid of Cheops was never used as a tomb, but had a completely different purpose.

Some Egyptologists believe that the pyramid is a repository of ancient weights and measures, as well as a model of known linear and temporal measurements that are characteristic of the Earth and are based on the principle of rotation of the polar axis. It is considered confirmed that the one (or those) who led the construction of the pyramid had absolutely accurate knowledge of such things that were discovered by mankind much later. These include: the circumference of the globe, the longitude of the year, the average value of the Earth's orbit as it rotates around the Sun, the specific density of the globe, the acceleration of gravity, the speed of light, and much more. And all this knowledge, one way or another, is allegedly laid down in a pyramid.

It is believed that the pyramid is a kind of calendar. It has almost been proved that it serves as both a theodolite and a compass, and of such accuracy that the most modern compasses can be compared with it.

Another hypothesis believes that not only the parameters of the pyramid itself, but also its individual structures contain many important mathematical quantities and relationships, for example, the number "pi", and the parameters of the king's chamber combine "sacred" triangles with sides 3-4-5 . It is believed that the angles and slopes of the pyramid reflect the most modern ideas about trigonometric values, and the contours of the pyramid with practical accuracy include the proportions of the "golden section".

There is a hypothesis that considers the pyramid of Cheops as an astronomical observatory, and according to another hypothesis, the Great Pyramid was used for initiation into the highest levels of secret knowledge, as well as for storing this knowledge. At the same time, a person initiated into secret knowledge was located in a sarcophagus.

The official theory says that the architect of the Great Pyramid is Hemiun, the vizier and nephew of Cheops. He also bore the title "Manager of all construction sites of the pharaoh." Construction under his leadership lasted twenty years and ended around 2540 BC. e. In Egypt, the date of the start of the construction of the Cheops pyramid is officially established and celebrated - August 23, 2470 BC. e.

However, there are other assumptions. Thus, the Arab historian Ibrahim ben ibn Wassuff Shah believed that the pyramids of Giza were erected by an antediluvian king named Saurid. Abu Zeid el Bahi writes about an inscription that says that the Great Pyramid of Cheops was built about 73,000 years ago. Ibn Batuta claimed (and not only him) that the pyramids were built by Hermes Trismegistus, etc. The hypothesis of the Russian scientist Sergei Proskuryakov is very interesting, who believes that the pyramids were built by Aliens from Sirius and that the architect Hemiun himself was from Sirius. Vladimir Babanin also believes that the pyramids were built by Aliens from Sirius, and possibly from Dessa of the Cygnus constellation in ancient times, but during the time of Cheops the pyramids were restored.

It seems logical that in any case the Pyramids were erected after the pole shift occurred on Earth, otherwise it would not be possible to orient the Pyramids with such incredible accuracy as they are located today.

Initially, the height of the Cheops pyramid was 146.6 meters. But time mercilessly dissolved 7 meters and 85 centimeters of this majestic structure. Simple calculations will show that now the pyramid has a height of 138 meters and 75 centimeters.

The perimeter of the pyramid is 922 meters, the base area is 53,000 square meters (comparable to the area of 10 football fields). Scientists calculated the total weight of the pyramid, which amounted to more than 5 million tons.

The pyramid is made up of over 2.2 million large stone blocks of limestone, granite and basalt, each weighing an average of 2.5 tons. There are 210 rows of blocks in the pyramid. The heaviest block weighs about 15 tons. The base is a rocky elevation, the height of which is 9 meters. Initially, the surface of the pyramid was a smooth surface, because. covered with a special material.

The entrance to the pyramid is at a height of 15.63 meters on the north side. The entrance is formed by stone slabs laid in the form of an arch. This entrance to the pyramid was sealed with a granite plug.

Today, tourists enter the pyramid through the 17th gap, which was made in 820 by Caliph Abu Jafar al-Ma'mun. He hoped to find the pharaoh's untold treasures there, but found only a layer of dust half a cubit thick.

Inside the pyramid of Cheops there are three burial chambers located one above the other.

When the sun moves around the pyramid, you can notice the unevenness of the walls - the concavity of the central part of the walls. Perhaps the reason for this is erosion or damage resulting from the fall of the stone cladding. It is also possible that this was deliberately done during construction.

Today we will take a trip back several millennia, to the time of the ancient pharaohs and majestic pyramids. To do this, we will go to the Giza plateau - a suburb with a population of more than 3 million inhabitants, which is visited by tens of thousands of tourists every year. After all, it is here that the Great Pyramids of Egypt are located, and not in Cairo itself, as many used to believe. And it is this place that provides us with an amazing opportunity to see with our own eyes the only one of the 7 wonders of the world that has survived to this day - the pyramid of Cheops, as well as one of the largest statues in the world - the famous Great Sphinx. Just think, the complex has existed for more than 4500 years! My head is spinning from these numbers.

What is Giza, a suburb of Cairo, today.

The modern district of Giza looks poor and nondescript. Nothing special - lots of cars, people, shops, signs...

…sometimes not entirely clear.

Smiling inhabitants of modern Giza.

Ironically, the inconspicuous town is adjacent to one of the most famous ancient architectural complexes in the world. What immediately catches your eye is an unusual combination of city buildings and the tops of the pyramids hanging over them. The majestic pyramids seem to beckon you, inviting you to come closer to open the veil of their secrets and legends.

GIZA PYRAMID COMPLEX

Information:
Giza pyramid complex
Location: Pyramids Road, Giza
How to get there: by bus: stop next to the Ramses Hilton hotel - 357 bus, or minibuses towards Giza; by metro: The Giza station, then by minibus or taxi to the pyramids; by taxi (20-30 pounds)
Cost: 80 LE, students - 40 LE
Opening hours: summer - 7:00-19:00, winter - 8:00-17:00
The ticket includes entrance to the Giza Plateau (viewing the pyramids from the outside), a visit to the Temple of Khafre in the valley (Valley Temple of Khafre), satellite pyramids of Cheops, and some separate small pyramids

Individual tickets:
Pyramid of Khufu - 200 LE, students - 100 LE; summer - 8:00-11:00, 13:00-18:00, winter - 8:00-11:00, 13:00-17:00; only 150 tickets are sold before the break and 150 after.
Pyramid of Khafre - 40 LE, students - 20 LE; Pyramid of Menkaure - temporarily closed;
Museum of the Solar Boat - 60 LE;
ISIC card discounts for students

Light show (Sound and Light Show)- daily at 19:00 - in English, 20:00 - German, Italian, Spanish, French (depending on the day of the week), 21:00 - in Arabic. Duration - about an hour. It is possible to translate into Russian, Japanese, Polish, Chinese and other languages (through headphones, included in the price).
Phones: (+202) 338-57320, (+202) 338-47823, (+202) 338-67374

Photography is prohibited inside the pyramids. Shooting on a plateau with a tripod - 20 LE. Tickets for the plateau and separate tickets for the entrance to the pyramids of Cheops and Khafre, as well as to the light show, are sold near different entrances.

Briefly about the main thing. The Giza Plateau lies in the Libyan Desert. Here are the buildings of the times of the Old Kingdom (XXVI-XXIII centuries BC). The basis of the complex is 3 Great Pyramids along with their satellite pyramids. Also on the plan of Giza you can see the tombs of members of the families of the pharaohs and the nobility, the statue of the Great Sphinx, 4 cemeteries, several temples, a modern center for the study of the pyramids and a museum. To see all these buildings in detail, you will most likely need a whole day. I, unfortunately, did not have so much time, so only the most important objects are included in my article.

Complex plan:

And so the Great Pyramids look from a bird's eye view. You can even see them from the window of an airplane if you fly over Cairo. So during my first flight to Egypt, a good half of the passengers gathered at the windows when the captain announced that if we all moved to the right side of the cabin together, the plane would tilt from such a weight, and we could see the pyramids. It worked 🙂

In the evenings, the Sphinx hosts light shows on the theme of Ancient Egypt and the pyramids (Sound and Light Show) in several languages (for an additional fee).

I want to warn you - be careful with such barkers. One friend told me the story of how her son was almost forcibly put on a camel and began to take pictures "absolutely free." But in order to remove the frightened guy from the hump of the proud ship of the desert, and return the camera to the mistress, they began to demand baksheesh. I had to threaten with guides and policemen. The moral of the story is this: you can ride, but be careful. In which case, immediately boldly declare that you will call the guide now, even if you came here alone. This, oddly enough, works. Just do not think that I dissuade you from the opportunity to take beautiful photos on a camel. In my opinion, the idea is wonderful, the main thing is to agree on a price in advance 🙂

The Great Pyramids of Giza: the main decoration of the complex.

What kind of pyramids were not built in Ancient Egypt - stepped, broken, pink, huge or very tiny ... The most famous of them - the Great Pyramids - are located in the central part of the Giza complex, where they are located on the same line - from the largest to the smallest. This is the pyramids of Cheops (Khufu), Khafre (Khafre) and Menkaure (Menkaure).

!!Fact: As you know, these 3 pharaohs were related. Chephren was the brother or son of Cheops, and Menkaure was the son of Chephren.

Each of the pyramids has its own "satellite pyramids", where members of the families of the pharaohs are buried, and its own mortuary temple (see plan of the complex). Here they are, beauties, towering against the backdrop of Cairo.

From this angle, it seems that the pyramid with the "tip" is the largest in size, but in fact, it is the middle of the three - the Khafre pyramid.

The next photo shows the smallest pyramid of Menkaure with its tiny satellites. Menkaure and Cheops got 3 "satellite pyramids", but Chephren got only one.

Until now, scientists are arguing whether these pyramids were built by people or alien creatures, whether they were intended only for burials or had other secret meanings. To go back to the past for real, to look at least with one eye at the life of Giza several thousand years ago ... Oh, dreams ...

Pyramid of Cheops: along the corridors of one of the Wonders of the World.

Having snapped some “postcards”, I went inside the Cheops pyramid. The only one in our group. What kind of ignorant people are these? So, gentlemen, this is the largest and most famous of the Egyptian pyramids, the only one of the Seven Wonders of the World that has managed to reach our days. Wow, I saw it with my own eyes! Another name for the Cheops pyramid is the Great Pyramid. It was intended, in fact, for the burial of Pharaoh Cheops (or Khufu).

Her 3 satellites - standing next to each other are small pyramids - this is the pyramid of Queen Hetepheres (GIa) - the mother of Khufu, the pyramid of Queen Meritit I (GIb) - the 1st wife of Khufu, and the pyramid of Henutsen (GIc) - the 2nd wife of Khufu. One of them is visible in the photo.

!!Fact: Initially, the top of the pyramid of Cheops was gilded.

She probably has the most crowds of people than the other points of the complex combined. Everyone wants to touch it, smell it, lean against it, take a picture ...

Here are the main parameters of the Cheops pyramid:

The height of the pyramid is 139 meters.
The 4 sides of its base are 230 meters long each, with a slight difference.
Materials for construction - limestone, basalt, granite.
The total weight of the pyramid is more than 6 million tons. It consists of about 2.5 million stone blocks. The average size of each block is 1 m³, the average weight is 2.5 tons. The heaviest of them weighs as much as 35 tons.

You can climb on the blocks, which I did. The truth is not high, otherwise the guards will start to swear. A great chance to “touch the antiquity” by yourself.

As for the entrance, there are as many as 2 of them. Previously, they penetrated inside through the old entrance. The current one is located a little lower, and tourists pass through it today. It was once broken through the wall of the pyramid, hoping to find treasures there. Not found.

So, we go inside, passing through the open gate in the background. Unfortunately, this photo was the only "legal" inside the Cheops pyramid: for some reason, shooting is prohibited here. You have to leave the camera at the entrance at your own peril and risk. I resisted for a long time, it was elementary scary for the fate of my camera. True, in the end he was returned safe and sound. Further photos will be taken using the phone, which I carefully hid so that it would not fall into the hands of the guards 🙂

The first impression of the pyramid is subdued light and silence inside, long and very narrow corridors. Inside there are no statues or wall paintings, which are found, for example, in later tombs in. It has its own special atmosphere.

But, what was my disappointment when I found that you can only go through a few corridors and go into only a few rooms. I compared what is open to tourists with what is present on the plan of the pyramid, and realized that only a third is open for inspection. As a result, the entire hike down to the end point and back, if you do not consider every corner, took only a few minutes. That's the whole Great Pyramid. I read the comments on the Internet, and came to the conclusion that either I somehow missed the passages to the top, or at that time they were simply closed. I will explain what is at stake. Look at Cheops pyramid plan.

As we can see, there are 3 burial chambers inside it, one of which, for some reason, was not completed. Also, in the pyramid there is a system of corridors with a large gallery. This is what I expected to see in theory. In fact, what I managed to get through - this is the path from the entrance (2) along the descending corridor (4) to the unfinished underground chamber (5). All, comrades! It's annoying.

Descending corridor (4).

The length of the corridor is 105 m. The descent takes place at a steep slope. If for some reason you want to stop in the middle, then this is unlikely to succeed if you do not want to delay the others: the passage is really narrow and does not even fit two people wide. Next comes short tunnel, leading to an unfinished underground chamber (5). I saw another passage closed with bars. Apparently, the missing part on the pyramid plan is hidden behind it.

Camera (5) It is a small nondescript room. That, in fact, is all. Maybe I didn't look there?

Finally, one more fact. In the 20th century, a large wooden boat was found in one of the rooms, disassembled into parts. Now it is in the Solar Boat Museum, located next to the pyramid. Unfortunately, I did not have enough time to visit the museum.

Let's move on to another one of the most beloved points of the Giza complex by tourists - the statue of the Great Sphinx, the oldest surviving monumental statue in the world. Let me remind you that in ancient Egypt, the sphinx is a stone figure of a lion with a human head. For several millennia, he has been basking under the Egyptian sun, carefully guarding the plateau and its buildings.

The height of the Sphinx is 20 m, its width is 73 m. For its age, the statue has been perfectly preserved to this day, however, having lost its nose in the fight against sandy winds. The face of the mythical animal is turned towards the Nile, from where the sun rises. Scientists believe that it has a portrait resemblance to Pharaoh Mykerin, the "master" of one of the three Great Pyramids.

What kind of photos with the Sphinx are not taken by travelers coming here .. Some jump on its background, others try to hug it, and still others give it a kiss as hot as the Libyan desert. I was no exception. The Sphinx impressed me almost more than the pyramids themselves, and I think he deserved this kiss.

An annex is located next to the statue - sphinx temple. Together they form a single complex. Separate tickets for visiting the temple are not needed, as one of the barkers did not try to convince me of the opposite. As an usher, he, of course, tried to speak himself.

On this romantic frame with a kiss, I finish my story. Until we meet again with hot Egypt!

, vizier and nephew of Cheops. He also bore the title "Manager of all construction sites of the pharaoh." For more than three thousand years (until the construction of the cathedral in Lincoln, England, about 1300), the pyramid was the tallest building on Earth.

It is assumed that the construction, which lasted twenty years, ended around 2540 BC. e. The existing methods of dating the time of the beginning of the construction of the pyramid are divided into historical, astronomical and radiocarbon. In Egypt, the date of the start of the construction of the Cheops pyramid is officially established and celebrated - August 23, 2560 BC. e. This date was obtained using the astronomical method of Kate Spence (University of Cambridge). However, this date should not be considered a true historical event, since her method and the dates obtained with its help have been criticized by many Egyptologists. The existing three other dating methods give different dates - Stephen Hack (University of Nebraska) 2720 BC. e., Juana Antonio Belmonte (University of Astrophysics in Canaris) 2577 BC. e. and Pollux (Baumann University) 2708 BC. e. The radiocarbon method gives a range from 2680 BC. e. until 2850 BC e. Therefore, there is no serious confirmation of the established “birthday” of the pyramid, since Egyptologists cannot agree on exactly what year the construction began.

Statistical data

Altitude (today): ≈ 138.75 m
Sidewall Angle (Now): 51° 50"
Side rib length (original): 230.33 m (calculated) or about 440 royal cubits
Side rib length (now): about 225 m
The length of the sides of the base of the pyramid: south - 230.454 m; north - 230.253 m; west - 230.357 m; east - 230.394 m
Base area (originally): ≈ 53,000 m² (5.3 ha)
Side surface area of the pyramid (originally): ≈ 85,500 m²
Base perimeter: 922 m
The total volume of the pyramid without deducting the cavities inside the pyramid (initially): ≈ 2.58 million m³
Total volume of the pyramid minus all known cavities (originally): 2.50 million m³
Average volume of stone blocks: 1.147 m³
Average weight of stone blocks: 2.5 t
The heaviest stone block: about 35 tons - is located above the entrance to the "King's Chamber".
The number of blocks of the average volume does not exceed 1.65 million (2.50 million m³ - 0.6 million m³ of rock base inside the pyramid = 1.9 million m³ / 1.147 m³ = 1.65 million blocks of the specified volume can physically fit in the pyramid, without taking into account the volume of the solution in the interblock seams); reference to a 20-year construction period * 300 working days per year * 10 working hours per day * 60 minutes per hour results in a paving (and delivery to the construction site) speed of about a block of two minutes.
According to estimates, the total weight of the pyramid is about 4 million tons (1.65 million blocks x 2.5 tons)
The base of the pyramid rests on a natural rocky elevation with a height in the center of about 12-14 m and, according to the latest data, occupies at least 23% of the original volume of the pyramid

About the pyramid

The pyramid is called "Akhet-Khufu" - "Horizon of Khufu" (or more precisely "Related to the sky - (this is) Khufu"). Consists of blocks of limestone and granite. It was built on a natural limestone hill. After the pyramid has lost several layers of lining, this hill is partially visible on the eastern, northern and southern sides of the pyramid. Despite the fact that the Pyramid of Cheops is the tallest and most voluminous of all Egyptian pyramids, Pharaoh Sneferu built the pyramids in Meidum and Dahshut (the Bent Pyramid and the Pink Pyramid), the total mass of which is estimated at 8.4 million tons.

Initially, the pyramid was lined with white limestone, harder than the main blocks. The top of the pyramid was crowned with a gilded stone - a pyramidion (ancient Egyptian - "Benben"). The cladding shone in the sun with a peach color, as if "a shining miracle, to which the sun god Ra himself seemed to give all his rays." In 1168, the Arabs sacked and burned Cairo. The inhabitants of Cairo removed the lining from the pyramid in order to build new houses.

pyramid structure

The entrance to the pyramid is at a height of 15.63 meters on the north side. The entrance is formed by stone slabs laid in the form of an arch, but this is a structure that was inside the pyramid - the true entrance has not been preserved. The true entrance to the pyramid was most likely closed with a stone plug. A description of such a cork can be found in Strabo, and its appearance can also be imagined based on the surviving slab that closed the upper entrance to the Bent Pyramid of Snefru, the father of Cheops. Today, tourists enter the pyramid through a 17-meter gap, which was made in 820 by the Baghdad caliph Abdullah al-Mamun 10 meters lower. He hoped to find the innumerable treasures of the pharaoh there, but found there only a layer of dust half a cubit thick.

Inside the pyramid of Cheops there are three burial chambers located one above the other.

Funeral "pit"

A descending corridor 105 m long, inclined at 26° 26’46, leads to a horizontal corridor 8.9 m long leading to the chamber 5 . Located below ground level in a rocky limestone base, it was left unfinished. The dimensions of the chamber are 14 × 8.1 m, it is elongated from east to west. The height reaches 3.5 m, the ceiling has a large crack. At the southern wall of the chamber there is a well about 3 m deep, from which a narrow manhole (0.7 × 0.7 m in cross section) stretches southward for 16 m, ending in a dead end. Engineers John Shae Perring and Richard William Howard Vyse cleared the floor of the chamber in the early 19th century and dug a 11.6 m deep well in which they hoped to find a hidden burial chamber. They were based on the evidence of Herodotus, who claimed that the body of Cheops was on an island surrounded by a channel in a hidden underground chamber. Their excavations turned up nothing. Later research showed that the chamber was left unfinished, and it was decided to arrange the burial chambers in the center of the pyramid itself.

Some photographs taken in 1910

Interior

Ascending Corridor and Queen's Chambers

From the first third of the descending passage (after 18 m from the main entrance) upwards at the same angle of 26.5 ° there is an ascending passage to the south ( 6 ) about 40 m long, ending at the bottom of the Great Gallery ( 9 ).

At its beginning, the ascending passage contains 3 large cubic granite “plugs”, which, from the outside, from the descending passage, were masked by a block of limestone that fell out during the work of al-Mamun. Thus, for the previous approximately 3 thousand years, it was believed that there were no other rooms in the Great Pyramid, except for the descending passage and the underground chamber. Al-Ma'mun failed to break through these plugs and simply hollowed out a bypass in the softer limestone to the right of them. This passage is still in use today. There are two main theories about plugs, one of them is that the ascending passage has plugs installed at the beginning of construction and thus this passage was sealed by them from the very beginning. The second asserts that the present narrowing of the walls was caused by an earthquake, and the plugs were previously located within the Great Gallery and were used to seal the passage only after the burial of the pharaoh.

An important mystery of this section of the ascending passage is that in the place where the traffic jams are now located, in a full-size, albeit shortened model of the pyramid passages - the so-called test corridors north of the Great Pyramid - there is a junction of not two, but three corridors at once, the third of which is the vertical tunnel. Since no one has been able to move the traffic jams so far, the question of whether there is a vertical hole above them remains open.

In the middle of the ascending passage, the construction of the walls has a peculiarity: the so-called “frame stones” are installed in three places - that is, the passage, square along the entire length, pierces through three monoliths. The purpose of these stones is unknown. In the area of the frame stones, the passage walls have several small niches.

A horizontal corridor 35 m long and 1.75 m high leads to the second burial chamber from the lower part of the Great Gallery in a southerly direction. . Behind the western wall of the passage there are cavities filled with sand. The second chamber is traditionally called the "Queen's Chamber", although according to the rite, the wives of the pharaohs were buried in separate small pyramids. The "Queen's Chamber", lined with limestone, has 5.74 meters from east to west and 5.23 meters from north to south; its maximum height is 6.22 meters. There is a high niche in the eastern wall of the chamber.

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Blueprint of the Queen's Chamber ( 7 )

Niche in the wall of the Queen's Chamber

Corridor at the entrance to the Queen's Hall (1910)

Entrance to the Queen's Chamber (1910)

Niche in the Queen's Chamber (1910)

Ventilation duct in the queen's chamber (1910)

Corridor to ascending tunnel ( 12 )

Granite Plug (1910)

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Corridor to the ascending tunnel (left - closing blocks)

Grotto, Grand Gallery and Pharaoh's Chambers

Another branch from the lower part of the Grand Gallery is a narrow almost vertical shaft about 60 m high, leading to the lower part of the descending passage. There is an assumption that it was intended for the evacuation of workers or priests who were completing the "sealing" of the main passage to the "King's Chamber". Approximately in the middle of it there is a small, most likely natural extension - the "Grotto" (Grotto) of irregular shape, in which several people could fit from strength. Grotto ( 12 ) is located at the "junction" of the masonry of the pyramid and a small, about 9 meters high, hill on a limestone plateau lying at the base of the Great Pyramid. The walls of the Grotto are partially reinforced with ancient masonry, and since some of its stones are too large, there is an assumption that the Grotto existed on the Giza plateau as an independent structure long before the construction of the pyramids, and the evacuation shaft itself was built taking into account the location of the Grotto. However, taking into account the fact that the shaft was actually hollowed out in the already laid masonry, and not laid out, as evidenced by its irregular circular section, the question arises of how the builders managed to accurately reach the Grotto.

The large gallery continues the ascending passage. Its height is 8.53 m, it is rectangular in cross section, with walls slightly tapering upwards (the so-called “false vault”), a high inclined tunnel 46.6 m long. 1 meter wide and 60 cm deep, and on both side protrusions there are 27 pairs of recesses of unclear purpose. The deepening ends with the so-called. The “Big Step” is a high horizontal ledge, a platform of 1 × 2 meters at the end of the Great Gallery, directly in front of the entrance to the “entrance hall” - the Anterior Chamber. The site has a pair of recesses similar to the ramp recesses, recesses at the corners near the wall (the 28th and last pair of BG recesses). Through the "entrance hall" the manhole leads to the burial chamber "King's Chamber" lined with black granite, where an empty granite sarcophagus is placed. The lid of the sarcophagus is missing. Ventilation shafts have mouths in the "King's Chamber" on the southern and northern walls at a height of about a meter from the floor level. The mouth of the southern ventilation shaft is badly damaged, the northern one appears undamaged. The floor, ceiling, walls of the chamber do not have any decorations or holes or fasteners of anything related to the time of the construction of the pyramid. The ceiling slabs have all burst along the southern wall and do not fall into the room only due to the pressure of the overlying blocks by the weight.

Above the "King's Chamber" there are five discharge cavities discovered in the 19th century with a total height of 17 m, between which lie monolithic granite slabs with a thickness of about 2 m, and above - a gable ceiling of limestone. It is believed that their purpose is to distribute the weight of the overlying layers of the pyramid (about a million tons) in order to protect the "King's Chamber" from pressure. Graffiti has been found in these voids, probably left by workers.

Interior of the Grotto (1910)

Grotto drawing (1910)

Drawing connecting the Grotto with the Grand Gallery (1910)

Tunnel Entrance (1910)

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View of the Grand Gallery from the entrance to the premises

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Grand gallery

Grand Gallery (1910)

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"Big Step"

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Drawing of the Pharaoh's Chamber

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pharaoh's chamber

Pharaoh's Chamber (1910)

Interior of the vestibule in front of the king's chamber (1910)

Channel "ventilation" at the south wall of the king's room (1910)

ventilation ducts

From the “King’s Chamber” and the “Queen’s Chamber” in the north and south directions (at first horizontally, then obliquely upwards) the so-called “ventilation” channels 20-25 cm wide depart. At the same time, the channels of the “King’s Chamber”, known since the 17th century, through, they are open both from below and from above (on the faces of the pyramid), while the lower ends of the channels of the "Queen's Chamber" are separated from the surface of the wall by about 13 cm, they were discovered by tapping in 1872. The upper ends of these channels do not reach the surface of about 12 meters. The upper ends of the channels of the "Queen's Chamber" are closed with stone "Gantenbrink Doors", each with two copper handles. Copper handles were sealed with plaster seals (not preserved, but traces remained). In the southern ventilation shaft, a "door" was discovered in 1993 using a remote-controlled robot "Upuaut II"; the bend of the northern shaft did not allow this robot to detect the same "door" in it. In 2002, using a new modification of the robot, a hole was drilled in the southern "door", but behind it a small cavity 18 centimeters long was found and another stone "door". What lies next is still unknown. This robot confirmed the presence of a similar "door" at the end of the northern channel, but they did not drill it. A new robot in 2010 was able to insert a serpentine television camera through a drilled hole in the southern “door” and found that the copper “handles” on the other side of the “door” were designed in the form of neat hinges, and individual badges were applied in red ocher on the floor of the “ventilation” shaft. Currently, the most common version is that the purpose of the "ventilation" ducts was of a religious nature and is associated with the Egyptians' ideas about the afterlife journey of the soul. And the “door” at the end of the channel is nothing more than a door to the afterlife. That is why it does not go to the surface of the pyramid.

Tilt angle

It is not possible to accurately determine the original parameters of the pyramid, since its edges and surfaces are currently mostly dismantled and destroyed. This makes it difficult to calculate the exact angle of inclination. In addition, its symmetry itself is not perfect, so deviations in numbers are observed with different measurements.

The study of the geometry of the Great Pyramid does not give an unambiguous answer to the question of the original proportions of this structure. It is assumed that the Egyptians had an idea of \u200b\u200b" Golden section"And the number pi, which were reflected in the proportions of the pyramid: for example, the ratio of height to half the perimeter of the base is 14/22 (height \u003d 280 cubits, and base \u003d 220 cubits, half-perimeter of the base \u003d 2 ×220 cubits; 280/440 = 14/22). For the first time in world history, these values were used in the construction of the pyramid at Meidum. However, for pyramids of later eras, these proportions were not used anywhere else, as, for example, some have height-to-base ratios, such as 6/5 (Pink Pyramid), 4/3 (Chefren's Pyramid) or 7/5 (Broken Pyramid).

Some of the theories consider the pyramid to be an astronomical observatory. It is alleged that the corridors of the pyramid point exactly towards the "polar star" of that time - Tuban, the ventilation corridors of the south side - to the star Sirius, and from the north side - to the star Alnitak.

Side concavity

As in the 18th century, when this phenomenon was discovered, today there is still no satisfactory explanation for this feature of architecture.

pharaoh boats

Near the pyramids, seven pits were found with real ancient Egyptian boats disassembled into parts. The first of these vessels, called "Solar Boats" or "Solar Boats", was discovered in 1954 by Egyptian architect Kamal el-Mallah and archaeologist Zaki Nur. The boat was made of cedar and did not have a single trace of nails for attaching elements. The boat consisted of 1224 parts, they were assembled by the restorer Ahmed Youssef Mustafa only in 1968.

Boat dimensions: length - 43.3 m, width - 5.6 m, and draft - 1.50 m.

On the south side of the pyramid of Cheops, a museum of this boat is open.

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One of two solar boat pits. Eastern part of the pyramid

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The place where the solar boat was discovered

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Boat museum on the south side of the pyramid

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Cheops solar boat, discovered near the pyramid in 1954

Pyramids of Queens of Cheops

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Descent to the Henoutsen burial chamber

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Henoutsen burial chamber

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Literature

Ionina N. A. 100 great wonders of the world. - Moscow., 1999.
Vojtech Zamarovsky. Their majesties pyramids. - Moscow., 1986.

Notes

Links

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ancient kingdom
(2686-2181 BC)

1st transitional period
(2181–2040 BC)

middle kingdom
(2040-1650 BC)

2nd transition period
(1650-1570 BC)

new kingdom
(1570-1070 BC)



pyramids

sculptures

An excerpt characterizing the Pyramid of Cheops

What are you talking about the militia? he said to Boris.
- They, Your Grace, in preparation for tomorrow, for death, put on white shirts.
- Ah! .. Wonderful, incomparable people! - said Kutuzov and, closing his eyes, shook his head. - Incredible people! he repeated with a sigh.
- Do you want to smell gunpowder? he said to Pierre. Yes, nice smell. I have the honor to be an admirer of your wife, is she healthy? My retreat is at your service. - And, as is often the case with old people, Kutuzov began to absently look around, as if forgetting everything he needed to say or do.
Obviously, remembering what he was looking for, he lured Andrei Sergeyich Kaisarov, the brother of his adjutant, to him.
- How, how, how are Marina's poems, how are poems, how? That he wrote on Gerakov: “You will be a teacher in the building ... Tell me, tell me,” Kutuzov spoke, obviously intending to laugh. Kaisarov read ... Kutuzov, smiling, nodded his head in time with the verses.
When Pierre moved away from Kutuzov, Dolokhov, moving towards him, took his hand.
“I am very glad to meet you here, Count,” he said to him loudly and not embarrassed by the presence of strangers, with special determination and solemnity. “On the eve of the day on which God knows which of us is destined to remain alive, I am glad to have the opportunity to tell you that I regret the misunderstandings that have been between us, and would like you to have nothing against me. Please forgive me.
Pierre, smiling, looked at Dolokhov, not knowing what to say to him. Dolokhov, with tears in his eyes, hugged and kissed Pierre.
Boris said something to his general, and Count Benigsen turned to Pierre and offered to go with him along the line.
“You will be interested,” he said.
“Yes, very interesting,” said Pierre.
Half an hour later, Kutuzov left for Tatarinov, and Bennigsen, with his retinue, including Pierre, rode along the line.

Benigsen from Gorki went down the high road to the bridge, to which the officer from the mound pointed out to Pierre as the center of the position, and near which rows of mowed grass, smelling of hay, lay on the bank. They drove across the bridge to the village of Borodino, from there they turned left and past a huge number of troops and guns drove to a high mound on which the militiamen were digging the ground. It was a redoubt, which did not yet have a name, then it was called the Raevsky redoubt, or barrow battery.
Pierre did not pay much attention to this redoubt. He did not know that this place would be more memorable for him than all the places in the Borodino field. Then they drove across the ravine to Semyonovsky, where the soldiers were pulling away the last logs of huts and barns. Then, downhill and uphill, they drove forward through the broken rye, knocked out like hail, along the road to the flushes [a kind of fortification. (Note by L.N. Tolstoy.) ], also then still dug.
Bennigsen stopped at the fleches and began to look ahead at the Shevardinsky redoubt (which had been ours yesterday), on which several horsemen could be seen. The officers said that Napoleon or Murat was there. And everyone looked eagerly at this bunch of riders. Pierre also looked there, trying to guess which of these barely visible people was Napoleon. Finally, the horsemen drove off the mound and disappeared.
Benigsen turned to the general who approached him and began to explain the whole position of our troops. Pierre listened to Benigsen's words, straining all his mental powers to understand the essence of the upcoming battle, but felt with chagrin that his mental abilities were insufficient for this. He didn't understand anything. Bennigsen stopped talking, and noticing the figure of Pierre listening, he suddenly said, turning to him:
- You, I think, are not interested?
“Oh, on the contrary, it’s very interesting,” Pierre repeated, not quite truthfully.
From the flush, they drove even more to the left along the road, winding through a dense, low birch forest. In the middle of it
forest, a brown hare with white legs jumped out in front of them on the road and, frightened by the clatter of a large number of horses, was so confused that it jumped for a long time along the road in front of them, arousing general attention and laughter, and only when several voices shouted at him, rushed to the side and hid in the thicket. Having traveled two versts through the forest, they drove to a clearing on which stood the troops of Tuchkov's corps, which was supposed to protect the left flank.
Here, on the extreme left flank, Bennigsen spoke a lot and ardently and made, as it seemed to Pierre, an important order from a military point of view. Ahead of the disposition of Tuchkov's troops was an elevation. This elevation was not occupied by troops. Bennigsen loudly criticized this mistake, saying that it was madness to leave the high ground unoccupied and put troops under it. Some generals expressed the same opinion. One in particular spoke with military vehemence that they were put here to be slaughtered. Bennigsen ordered in his name to move the troops to the heights.
This order on the left flank made Pierre even more doubtful of his ability to understand military affairs. Listening to Bennigsen and the generals who condemned the position of the troops under the mountain, Pierre fully understood them and shared their opinion; but precisely because of this, he could not understand how the one who placed them here under the mountain could make such an obvious and gross mistake.
Pierre did not know that these troops were not sent to defend the position, as Bennigsen thought, but were placed in a hidden place for an ambush, that is, in order to be unnoticed and suddenly strike at the advancing enemy. Bennigsen did not know this and moved the troops forward for special reasons, without telling the commander-in-chief about it.

On this clear August evening on the 25th, Prince Andrey was lying, leaning on his arm, in a broken barn in the village of Knyazkov, on the edge of his regiment. Through the hole in the broken wall, he looked at the strip of thirty-year-old birch trees with the lower branches cut off along the fence, at the arable land with smashed heaps of oats on it, and at the bushes, along which the smoke of fires - soldiers' kitchens - could be seen.
No matter how cramped and no one needs and no matter how heavy his life now seemed to Prince Andrei, he, just like seven years ago in Austerlitz on the eve of the battle, felt agitated and irritated.
Orders for tomorrow's battle were given and received by him. There was nothing more for him to do. But the simplest, clearest and therefore terrible thoughts did not leave him alone. He knew that tomorrow's battle was to be the most terrible of all those in which he participated, and the possibility of death for the first time in his life, without any regard for worldly, without considerations of how it would affect others, but only in relation to himself, to his soul, with liveliness, almost with certainty, simply and terribly, she presented herself to him. And from the height of this idea, everything that had previously tormented and occupied him was suddenly illuminated by a cold white light, without shadows, without perspective, without distinction of outlines. All life seemed to him like a magic lantern, into which he looked for a long time through glass and under artificial light. Now he suddenly saw, without glass, in bright daylight, these badly painted pictures. “Yes, yes, here they are, those false images that agitated and delighted and tormented me,” he said to himself, turning over in his imagination the main pictures of his magic lantern of life, now looking at them in this cold white daylight - a clear thought of death. - Here they are, these roughly painted figures, which seemed to be something beautiful and mysterious. Glory, public good, love for a woman, the fatherland itself - how great these pictures seemed to me, what deep meaning they seemed to be filled with! And it's all so simple, pale and crude in the cold white light of that morning that I feel is rising for me." The three main sorrows of his life in particular caught his attention. His love for a woman, the death of his father and the French invasion that captured half of Russia. “Love! .. This girl, who seemed to me full of mysterious powers. How I loved her! I made poetic plans about love, about happiness with her. O dear boy! he said out loud angrily. - How! I believed in some kind of ideal love, which was supposed to keep her faithful to me during the whole year of my absence! Like the gentle dove of a fable, she must have withered away from me. And all this is much simpler ... All this is terribly simple, disgusting!
My father also built in the Bald Mountains and thought that this was his place, his land, his air, his peasants; and Napoleon came and, not knowing about his existence, like a chip from the road, pushed him, and his Bald Mountains and his whole life fell apart. And Princess Marya says that this is a test sent from above. What is the test for, when it no longer exists and will not exist? never again! He is not! So who is this test for? Fatherland, death of Moscow! And tomorrow he will kill me - and not even a Frenchman, but his own, as yesterday a soldier emptied a gun near my ear, and the French will come, take me by the legs and by the head and throw me into a pit so that I don’t stink under their noses, and new conditions will develop lives that will also be familiar to others, and I will not know about them, and I will not be.
He looked at the strip of birch trees, with their motionless yellowness, greenery and white bark, shining in the sun. "To die so that they would kill me tomorrow, so that I would not be ... so that all this would be, but I would not be." He vividly imagined the absence of himself in this life. And these birches with their light and shadow, and these curly clouds, and this smoke of bonfires - everything around was transformed for him and seemed something terrible and threatening. Frost ran down his back. Rising quickly, he went out of the shed and began to walk.
Voices were heard behind the barn.
- Who's there? - called Prince Andrew.
The red-nosed Captain Timokhin, Dolokhov's former company commander, now, due to the loss of officers, the battalion commander, timidly entered the barn. Behind him entered the adjutant and treasurer of the regiment.
Prince Andrei hurriedly got up, listened to what the officers had to convey to him in the service, gave them some more orders and was about to let them go, when a familiar, whispering voice was heard from behind the barn.
– Que diable! [Damn it!] said the voice of a man who had bumped into something.
Prince Andrei, looking out of the barn, saw Pierre coming up to him, who stumbled on a lying pole and almost fell. It was generally unpleasant for Prince Andrei to see people from his own world, especially Pierre, who reminded him of all those difficult moments that he experienced on his last visit to Moscow.
- That's how! - he said. - What fates? That's not waiting.
While he was saying this, there was more than dryness in his eyes and the expression of his whole face - there was hostility, which Pierre immediately noticed. He approached the barn in the most lively state of mind, but, seeing the expression on Prince Andrei's face, he felt embarrassed and awkward.
“I arrived ... so ... you know ... I arrived ... I’m interested,” said Pierre, who had so many times that day meaninglessly repeated this word “interesting”. “I wanted to see the fight.
– Yes, yes, but what do the Masons brothers say about the war? How to prevent it? - said Prince Andrei mockingly. - What about Moscow? What are mine? Have you finally arrived in Moscow? he asked seriously.
- We've arrived. Julie Drubetskaya told me. I went to them and did not find. They left for the suburbs.

The officers wanted to take their leave, but Prince Andrei, as if not wanting to remain eye to eye with his friend, invited them to sit and drink tea. Benches and tea were served. The officers, not without surprise, looked at the fat, huge figure of Pierre and listened to his stories about Moscow and the disposition of our troops, which he managed to travel around. Prince Andrei was silent, and his face was so unpleasant that Pierre turned more to the good-natured battalion commander Timokhin than to Bolkonsky.
“So you understood the entire disposition of the troops?” Prince Andrew interrupted him.
- Yes, that is, how? Pierre said. - As a non-military person, I can’t say that it is completely, but still I understood the general arrangement.
- Eh bien, vous etes plus avance que qui cela soit, [Well, you know more than anyone else.] - said Prince Andrei.
– A! - said Pierre in bewilderment, looking through his glasses at Prince Andrei. - Well, what do you say about the appointment of Kutuzov? - he said.
“I was very pleased with this appointment, that’s all I know,” said Prince Andrei.
- Well, tell me, what is your opinion about Barclay de Tolly? In Moscow, God knows what they said about him. How do you judge him?
“Ask them here,” said Prince Andrei, pointing to the officers.
Pierre, with a condescendingly inquiring smile, with which everyone involuntarily turned to Timokhin, looked at him.
“They saw the light, your excellency, how the brightest acted,” said Timokhin, timidly and constantly looking back at his regimental commander.
- Why is it so? Pierre asked.
- Yes, at least about firewood or fodder, I will report to you. After all, we retreated from Sventsyan, don’t you dare touch the twigs, or the senets there, or something. After all, we're leaving, he gets it, isn't it, Your Excellency? - he turned to his prince, - but don't you dare. In our regiment, two officers were put on trial for such cases. Well, as the brightest did, it just became so about this. The world has been seen...
So why did he forbid it?
Timokhin looked around in embarrassment, not understanding how and what to answer such a question. Pierre turned to Prince Andrei with the same question.
“And in order not to ruin the land that we left to the enemy,” Prince Andrei said angrily and mockingly. – It is very thorough; it is impossible to allow to plunder the region and accustom the troops to looting. Well, in Smolensk, he also correctly judged that the French could get around us and that they had more forces. But he could not understand this, - Prince Andrei suddenly cried out in a thin voice, as if escaping, - but he could not understand that for the first time we fought there for the Russian land, that there was such a spirit in the troops that I had never seen, that we fought off the French for two days in a row, and that this success multiplied our strength tenfold. He ordered a retreat, and all the efforts and losses were in vain. He did not think about betrayal, he tried to do everything as best as possible, he thought everything over; but that doesn't make him any good. He is no good now precisely because he thinks everything over very thoroughly and carefully, as every German should. How can I tell you ... Well, your father has a German footman, and he is an excellent footman and will satisfy all his needs better than you, and let him serve; but if your father is ill at death, you will drive away the footman and with your unaccustomed, clumsy hands you will begin to follow your father and calm him better than a skilled, but a stranger. That's what they did with Barclay. While Russia was healthy, a stranger could serve her, and there was a wonderful minister, but as soon as she was in danger; you need your own person. And in your club they invented that he was a traitor! By being slandered as a traitor, they will only do what later, ashamed of their false reprimand, they will suddenly make a hero or a genius out of traitors, which will be even more unfair. He is an honest and very accurate German...
“However, they say he is a skilled commander,” said Pierre.
“I don’t understand what a skilled commander means,” Prince Andrei said with a sneer.
“A skillful commander,” said Pierre, “well, one who foresaw all accidents ... well, guessed the thoughts of the enemy.
“Yes, it’s impossible,” said Prince Andrei, as if about a long-decided matter.
Pierre looked at him in surprise.
“However,” he said, “they say war is like a game of chess.
“Yes,” said Prince Andrei, “with the only slight difference that in chess you can think as much as you like about each step, that you are there outside the conditions of time, and with the difference that a knight is always stronger than a pawn and two pawns are always stronger.” one, and in war one battalion is sometimes stronger than a division, and sometimes weaker than a company. The relative strength of the troops cannot be known to anyone. Believe me,” he said, “that if anything depended on the orders of the headquarters, then I would be there and make orders, but instead I have the honor to serve here in the regiment with these gentlemen, and I think that we really tomorrow will depend, and not on them ... Success has never depended and will not depend either on position, or on weapons, or even on numbers; and least of all from the position.
- And from what?
“From the feeling that is in me, in him,” he pointed to Timokhin, “in every soldier.
Prince Andrei glanced at Timokhin, who looked at his commander in fright and bewilderment. In contrast to his former restrained silence, Prince Andrei now seemed agitated. He apparently could not refrain from expressing those thoughts that suddenly came to him.
The battle will be won by the one who is determined to win it. Why did we lose the battle near Austerlitz? Our loss was almost equal to that of the French, but we told ourselves very early that we had lost the battle—and we did. And we said this because we had no reason to fight there: we wanted to leave the battlefield as soon as possible. “We lost - well, run like that!” - we ran. If we had not said this before evening, God knows what would have happened. We won't say that tomorrow. You say: our position, the left flank is weak, the right flank is extended,” he continued, “all this is nonsense, there is nothing of it. And what do we have tomorrow? One hundred million of the most varied accidents that will be solved instantly by the fact that they or ours ran or run, that they kill one, kill another; and what is being done now is all fun. The fact is that those with whom you traveled around the position not only do not contribute to the general course of affairs, but interfere with it. They are only concerned with their little interests.
- At a moment like this? Pierre said reproachfully.
“At such a moment,” Prince Andrei repeated, “for them, this is only such a moment in which you can dig under the enemy and get an extra cross or ribbon. For me, this is what tomorrow is: a hundred thousand Russian and a hundred thousand French troops have come together to fight, and the fact is that these two hundred thousand are fighting, and whoever fights more viciously and feels less sorry for himself will win. And if you want, I'll tell you that no matter what happens, no matter what is confused up there, we will win the battle tomorrow. Tomorrow, whatever it is, we will win the battle!
“Here, Your Excellency, the truth, the true truth,” said Timokhin. - Why feel sorry for yourself now! The soldiers in my battalion, believe me, did not begin to drink vodka: not such a day, they say. - Everyone was silent.
The officers got up. Prince Andrei went out with them outside the shed, giving his last orders to the adjutant. When the officers left, Pierre went up to Prince Andrei and just wanted to start a conversation, when the hooves of three horses clattered along the road not far from the barn, and, looking in this direction, Prince Andrei recognized Wolzogen and Clausewitz, accompanied by a Cossack. They drove close, continuing to talk, and Pierre and Andrei involuntarily heard the following phrases:
– Der Krieg muss im Raum verlegt werden. Der Ansicht kann ich nicht genug Preis geben, [The war must be transferred into space. This view I cannot praise enough (German)] - said one.
“O ja,” said another voice, “da der Zweck ist nur den Feind zu schwachen, so kann man gewiss nicht den Verlust der Privatpersonen in Achtung nehmen.” [Oh yes, since the goal is to weaken the enemy, then private casualties cannot be taken into account (German)]
- O ja, [Oh yes (German)] - confirmed the first voice.
- Yes, im Raum verlegen, [transfer to space (German)] - Prince Andrei repeated, angrily snorting his nose, when they drove by. - Im Raum then [In space (German)] I left a father, and a son, and a sister in the Bald Mountains. He doesn't care. That's what I told you - these gentlemen Germans will not win the battle tomorrow, but will only tell how much their strength will be, because in his German head there are only arguments that are not worth a damn, and in his heart there is nothing that alone and you need it for tomorrow - what is in Timokhin. They gave all of Europe to him and came to teach us - glorious teachers! his voice screamed again.
"So you think tomorrow's battle will be won?" Pierre said.
“Yes, yes,” Prince Andrei said absently. “One thing I would do if I had the power,” he began again, “I would not take prisoners. What are prisoners? This is chivalry. The French have ruined my house and are going to ruin Moscow, and have insulted and insult me every second. They are my enemies, they are all criminals, according to my concepts. And Timokhin and the whole army think the same way. They must be executed. If they are my enemies, they cannot be friends, no matter how they talk in Tilsit.
“Yes, yes,” Pierre said, looking at Prince Andrei with shining eyes, “I completely, completely agree with you!”
The question that had been troubling Pierre from Mozhaisk Mountain all that day now seemed to him completely clear and completely resolved. He now understood the whole meaning and significance of this war and the forthcoming battle. Everything that he saw that day, all the significant, stern expressions of faces that he caught a glimpse of, lit up for him with a new light. He understood that latent (latente), as they say in physics, warmth of patriotism, which was in all those people whom he saw, and which explained to him why all these people calmly and, as it were, thoughtlessly prepared for death.
“Do not take prisoners,” continued Prince Andrei. “That alone would change the whole war and make it less brutal. And then we played war - that's what's bad, we are magnanimous and the like. This generosity and sensitivity is like the generosity and sensitivity of a lady, with whom she becomes dizzy when she sees a calf being killed; she is so kind that she cannot see the blood, but she eats this calf with sauce with gusto. They talk to us about the rights of war, about chivalry, about parliamentary work, to spare the unfortunate, and so on. All nonsense. In 1805 I saw chivalry, parliamentarianism: they cheated us, we cheated. They rob other people's houses, let out fake banknotes, and worst of all, they kill my children, my father and talk about the rules of war and generosity towards enemies. Do not take prisoners, but kill and go to your death! Who has come to this the way I did, by the same suffering...
Prince Andrei, who thought that it was all the same to him whether Moscow was taken or not taken the way Smolensk was taken, suddenly stopped in his speech from an unexpected convulsion that seized him by the throat. He walked several times in silence, but his body shone feverishly, and his lip trembled when he began to speak again:
- If there was no generosity in the war, then we would go only when it is worth it to go to certain death, as now. Then there would be no war because Pavel Ivanovich offended Mikhail Ivanovich. And if the war is like now, then the war. And then the intensity of the troops would not be the same as now. Then all these Westphalians and Hessians, who are led by Napoleon, would not have followed him to Russia, and we would not have gone to fight in Austria and Prussia, without knowing why. War is not a courtesy, but the most vile thing in life, and one must understand this and not play war. This terrible necessity must be taken strictly and seriously. It's all about this: put aside lies, and war is war, not a toy. Otherwise, war is the favorite pastime of idle and frivolous people ... The military estate is the most honorable. And what is war, what is needed for success in military affairs, what are the morals of a military society? The purpose of the war is murder, the weapons of war are espionage, treason and encouragement of it, the ruin of the inhabitants, robbing them or stealing for the food of the army; deceit and lies, called stratagems; morals of the military class - lack of freedom, that is, discipline, idleness, ignorance, cruelty, debauchery, drunkenness. And despite that - this is the highest class, revered by all. All the kings, except for the Chinese, wear a military uniform, and the one who killed the most people is given a big reward ... They will converge, like tomorrow, to kill each other, they will kill, maim tens of thousands of people, and then they will serve thanksgiving prayers for having beaten there are many people (of which the number is still being added), and they proclaim victory, believing that the more people are beaten, the greater the merit. How God watches and listens to them from there! - Prince Andrei shouted in a thin, squeaky voice. “Ah, my soul, lately it has become hard for me to live. I see that I began to understand too much. And it’s not good for a person to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil ... Well, not for long! he added. “However, you are sleeping, and I have a pen, go to Gorki,” Prince Andrei suddenly said.