Peter Tompkins (1919–2007)

Secrets they were when I picked up this book for the first time (in January 1988), and secrets they have remained. Tompkins covers the known history of the Great Pyramid (including all the major pyramidologists--Greaves, Taylor, Smyth, Petrie--and their theories), but what is known unfortunately doesn't amount to much. The fact is that we have no idea how the Pyramid was built; records of its construction have not survived. That's why there are so many books and hypotheses. This particular book relies heavily on a complicated geometric theory by Prof. Livio Stecchini (which Stecchini himself outlines in the appendix), but this primarily concerns the measurements the Egyptians used and fails to address the elephant in the room. How was the construction of the Great Pyramid accomplished? How, in terms of sheer physical scale, can it be accounted for? No, we don't have to fall back on the ancient astronauts catch-all, but we do need a better theory than any thus far proposed. That the Pyramid exists, and that we still cannot explain it, means our understanding of human civilization is fundamentally incomplete. It's not just an interesting ancient ruin: it may be the key to the entire puzzle. Astronomer Richard Proctor (basing his conclusion on the work of the effectively forgotten Greek philosopher Proclus) argued that the Pyramid was an observatory, and there's evidence to suggest that he was right, but consider what this means: the Egyptians not only practiced astronomy, but had the wherewithal to erect a massive, flawlessly engineered monument to that practice. What happened to the technology that enabled an achievement such as the Great Pyramid? How can it have been lost so completely?

Full of stunning black and white photographs, engravings and drawings, Secrets of the Great Pyramid makes a beautiful coffee table book if you can find a copy in near-mint condition. Sadly, there isn't a lot of substance in the text itself.… (more)