Civilization #18: The Great Pyramid as Ancient Egypt's Manhattan Project

So this will be a fun class today. We are doing the Great Pyramid. The Great Pyramid was built about 2500 BC, that's 4,500 years ago, by a pharaoh named Khufu, and it was one of the seven great wonders of the ancient world. It's the only one that's still standing. From 2500 until 1400 CE, which is about 4,000 years, it was the tallest man-made building in the world. The Great Pyramid's direction is true north, meaning you can actually use the pyramids as a compass to tell the directions.

Let's look at the architecture of the Great Pyramid. The center is something called the King's Chamber. That's where the king's mummy rests in a sarcophagus. There's a Grand Gallery that gives you access to the King's Chamber, and then a slope, and then it's a pyramid structure, and on the top of the pyramid is what is called a benben, or the pyramidion. It is extremely significant culturally and religiously in Egypt, because in Egyptian mythology, the religion, the creator god Atum, he's known as Atum, he's also known as Ra, the god first came into existence on the benben. So imagine a large dark ocean, there's nothing, and then suddenly emerges a mound called a benben, and that's where comes the creator god Atum or Ra.

That's one legend. The other legend is from the dark ocean of space comes down a benben and on top of it rests Atum. So this idea of the pyramidion, the benben, is central to the idea of creation in Egyptian mythology. So this is a powerful and beautiful monument to Egyptian culture.

Architecturally, Napoleon, who visited the Great Pyramid, calculated that if you took all the stones from the Great Pyramid you could actually build a wall around the perimeter of France. There's more material in the Great Pyramid except for two structures. The first structure is the Great Wall of China, there's more stone in the Great Wall of China. There's more material in the Three Gorges Dam, also in China. And it took them about 26 years to build this pyramid.

So today in today's class I'm going to look at three questions. The first question is how did they build this, because it's still with us today, you actually go to Egypt and visit the Great Pyramid. The second question is why did they build this, what was the purpose? And the third question is why did they stop building the pyramids?

Those are the three questions we're looking at today: how was it built, why was it built, and why did the Egyptians stop building the pyramids.

How it was built is an extremely controversial question that has plagued historians and Egyptologists and archaeologists for hundreds of years. Originally the Greek historian Herodotus proposed the idea the pyramid was built in steps. It was first a step pyramid, and then using pulleys they pulled the stones up. It was the accepted idea for the longest time because there's no better idea, but architecturally that has been disproven. It can't work that way.

Then about 10 years ago there was a French architect named Jean-Pierre Houdin. He's an architect, he's never been in Egypt, doesn't speak Arabic, never studied Egypt, but his father and him were very interested in how the Great Pyramid was constructed, so he came up with this theory, and they've run computer simulations and discovered this to be true. There's also a lot of physical evidence to suggest this theory is true. So this is how they built the Great Pyramid. What they did was they first constructed an external ramp in order to build a base.

So you now have the base, and then from the base what they did was they built two structures, and this is what they call counterweights. These counterweights are like pulleys which allow them to pull the stones up high. Then surrounding these two structures is what they call an internal spiral ramp to carry the stones up. So what they did was they basically built the pyramid from the inside out, and then once they built the structure they covered it up with limestone so that it reflects the sun. If you actually were living back then and you saw the pyramids from a distance, you would think it was a star that has come down on the earth.

So that's how they built the pyramid, but then this raises another interesting question: how did they come up with this plan, and how were they able to do this without blueprints and without basically writing or modern engineering techniques? The answer is, if you think about it, what they did was they built a model right beside the pyramid, which allowed them to figure out how to build the larger pyramid.

But Egyptologists still believe this was not possible because they believe that Egyptians didn't have the intellectual capacity to imagine this. I'll show you later on that they actually did that. We underestimate their imagination and their intellectual capacity. So that answers the first question pretty easily: how was it built.

A more controversial question is why was it built. For the longest time the accepted theory is this was a tomb. The reason why is Egyptians believed in the afterlife, and so the theory is this pyramid is designed to ease the pharaoh's transition into the heavens, where he would become a star or sun. The common phrase is this is almost a resurrection machine, where the pharaoh goes up to the sky and then after a few centuries he reincarnates inside the pyramid, and the structure is meant to accomplish this. Again, this is the generally accepted theory, but there are three major problems with the theory which basically discount it.

The first major problem is there are about 100 pyramids in Egypt, 100 or more, we don't know. We have not found a mummy or a body inside any sarcophagus inside the pyramids.

So this is a problem. If this is a tomb, why is there no body? We can't find the body. So that's one problem.

Second problem is this. For this to be a tomb, this implies that the pharaoh, because the pharaohs are divine, they are basically the emanation of God on earth, this means that when they come to the planet earth and they become the pharaoh, their priority is to build their own tomb. Does that make any sense? They come to earth and they're like, okay, well I'm going to die, so I want to get out of here as soon as possible, so let's build that tomb right now. The problem is that this would imply that the pharaoh sees the Egyptian people as his slaves: you exist in order for me to live. But the problem is that in Egyptian mythology, gods are considered benefactors of the human race. For example, Atum is the one who gave life to the world, but then his son, his descendant Osiris, another god, gave civilization to Egypt, and then Horus, the son of Osiris, gave the institution of kingship to Egypt. So these gods come to earth in order to help the human race develop in some capacity.

So it doesn't make any sense that the pharaoh's primary purpose when he's on earth is to create a tomb, because that's a very selfish reason. Does that make sense?

And the third problem with this is just pure logic. If you're a pharaoh and your primary concern is the afterlife, resurrecting yourself, and the pyramid is a primary means of accomplishing this, and it takes about 26 years or 30 years to build a pyramid, how can you be sure that you won't die before the pyramid is built? That's a problem. So these are three logical problems, but again Egyptologists insist that it is a tomb, primarily because of the way that Egyptians understand the afterlife.

So here's some evidence to suggest it is a tomb. This is considered a writing of a pharaoh to his son about what the pyramid represents. This is what he says: "Make your grave well furnished and prepare your place in the West." The West is where they go off to die. "Look, death counts little for us. We can conquer death. Look, life is valued highly by us. We want to become immortal. The house of the dead," meaning the tomb, "is for life."

So the pyramid is what will make us immortal. This is again highly debated today. Logically speaking, it doesn't make sense that the pyramids are a tomb, but there's a lot of evidence to suggest it is a tomb, and because of this debate, different theories have been proposed as to the purpose of the pyramid, and there are lots of really strange theories out there. Lots of really strange theories.

One really interesting theory was proposed by a man named Nikola Tesla, the founder, the creator of electricity basically. His idea was this: he studied the architecture of the pyramid and he proposed the pyramid was a battery system in order to create free clean energy. The theory is this. First of all, if you look at the King's Chamber, the sound frequency in it is FP, and FP is also the frequency of planet Earth, so it seems like the pyramid is attuned to the planet Earth. Second of all, if you look at where the pyramids are geographically, it's true north, it's put in a place that matches the directions of the Earth, and so the theory is the direction of the pyramid is capturing the energy from the electromagnetic field that the Earth generates.

And the third explanation: inside the pyramid are granite stones and outside are limestones, and this is the perfect way to trap and store energy. So think of a solar panel, where the sun and the moon reflect light onto the pyramids and the energy is stored inside. This is a great theory, and again there are lots of people who believe in this, because this is actually much more plausible than the tomb theory. But the problem with this of course is it doesn't work scientifically, and also you have the question of, if they produce all this free clean energy, what are they using it for?

So this leaves us with a big question: why did they build the Great Pyramid? Today I want to propose to you another solution. The solution is this: my belief is the Great Pyramid was designed as Egypt's Manhattan Project. The Manhattan Project, as you know, was a World War II project in order to build the nuclear bomb, and you can argue the nuclear bomb is humanity's greatest invention ever. It took about 130,000 people over five to six years working in the United States, in Canada, in the UK, and these are the best scientists in the world at this time, working collectively in order to create the bomb.

You can also make the argument that there were many working on the project who believed the Manhattan Project was about bringing peace to earth, eternal peace. It was ultimately about mastering the secrets of the universe, channeling the power of God in order to create eternal peace, to bring God on earth. And you could also argue that because we've had no major war after World War II, fingers crossed, they were right.

So that's my argument to you. The Egyptians conceptualized and created the Great Pyramid in order to harness the power of God, in order to create eternal peace on earth, to bring an end to history, to bring an end to pain, suffering and death. Before I provide the evidence, let me explain this theory in general. Again, this is my theory, it's speculation, it's imagination, but I think it makes sense. So let me explain the theory to you.

The trick is the body of the pharaoh, the mummy. Now if the pharaoh was divine, and the Egyptians believed he was divine, then after his death the body would be sacred and divine. But not only that, you think about it, after the pharaoh dies he would ascend to the heavens to become a star or a sun.

The body then becomes a portal or a mechanism for you to communicate with the pharaoh while he's in the heavens. You can also argue the body, the mummy, could be a mechanism for you to channel the pharaoh's powers on earth. So imagine this: you have the sarcophagus, the mummy is inside, and then you have the Grand Gallery, and inside the Grand Gallery, what are people doing? They are there praying and worshiping the pharaoh, which then draws the energy from the star onto the earth, and then because of the limestone this energy is reflected across Egypt, so the entire nation can bask in the divine energy of the pharaoh.

So Nikola Tesla said that this was a battery in order to channel free clean energy to power Egypt. Well, what if we change this to divine? Instead, the pyramid was a battery to channel divine energy in order to power Egypt. Right now, let me discuss, if you are a worshipper in the Grand Gallery, what are you experiencing? Well, first of all, you're experiencing the collision, the nexus of life and death, because the pharaoh, he's dead but he's still alive through faith.

Even though you're mortal, you're now in communication with God. So this is a nexus of life and death, this Grand Channel, sorry, this Grand Gallery. If you actually have a chance to visit it in Egypt, you'll recognize that this almost looks like a womb. It's almost like you're inside a dark space that's taking you back to the point of your birth. But you can also see it as a tomb, a place where you're being buried. So this is also like another collision, conflation or nexus of being born and dying.

If you were outside and you just saw the pyramid, again you would think of it as a star that has landed on earth. So this is a conflation, a nexus of heaven and earth. It's a collision, a nexus of myth and reality. You can also make the argument that through divine worship, what you're really doing is you're reversing the Great Bang, sorry, the Big Bang. You're reversing the Big Bang, you're bringing everything into this one space and you are creating wholeness and completeness. You have achieved the union and the unity of all things through your faith in the pharaoh, which gives you divine energy to be born anew, cleansed of your sins, and to cleanse others of their sins, to create a moral world.

Does that make sense?

All right, so that's a theory. Now let me explain the idea of eternal peace. Why would the pyramid create the idea of eternal peace? Well, the first reason is, even though Egypt was an empire, a dynasty at this point, it was still divided culturally. There were at least four different cultures scattered around Egypt, and they all had their own mythologies, their own religious practices, their own faiths. So the point of this pyramid was to unite all these faiths into one singular object in the worship of the pharaoh. If you were an Egyptian citizen, if you were in Egypt and you looked at the pyramids, you could not help but think, this is God on earth. This centers your faith and it forces your obedience and your submission to higher authority, which is a theocracy. That's the first reason, unity.

Second is the idea of awe. Let's just say you're a powerful army and you're an enemy and you want to conquer Egypt. Well, you send your scouts to Egypt and they see the pyramids, the Great Pyramid. What are they seeing?

They're seeing God on earth. So you're not going to attack God on earth, you're going to run away. So it creates a sense of awe around the world. The third is the domination of nature. Through divine inspiration, Egyptians are able to summon the Great Pyramid, and it shows the god's ability to control nature. Why is this important? Because the source of Egyptian wealth and power is the Nile River. Basically it's the Nile River that's made Egypt the wealthiest country in the world for thousands of years.

The thing about the Nile is, if it's in a good mood you live a very good life, because the Nile just floods, leaves this rich soil, and then you just throw some seeds in it and you can grow all these crops very easily. It's a very easy life and you can become very wealthy that way. So if it's in a good mood, then you are a very happy person, but if it's in a bad mood, for example it doesn't flood or it floods too much, you could die of starvation or of drowning. So it's very important for you to be able to control the moods of the gods, and that's what the pyramid is meant to do.

The Egyptian word for Egypt is Kemet, which basically means Black Earth. So the source of all life in Egypt is the soil, the Black Earth.

Okay, so let's go back to this quotation, and now we can actually understand it in a different way. "Make your grave well furnished and prepare your place in the West." That's fine. Now, "Look, death counts little for us." We're gods, we're pharaohs, we will never die, so we don't worry about death, we don't have to worry about dying. "Look, life is valued highly by us." What is life? Life are humans, the Egyptian people. Our concern as pharaohs is for the well-being of the Egyptian people, so that's our primary responsibility. "The house of the dead," the pyramid, "is for life." The pyramid is our legacy to the Egyptian people. It is our benevolence, it is our generosity, it is how we will make Egypt eternal and stable.

So that's my theory of what the pyramid is. It is really the Manhattan Project, an attempt by the pharaohs to bring eternal peace. Any questions about this idea before I elaborate on it and present the evidence for it?

Any questions about this? You guys don't find it controversial? Are you confused by anything? Do you want to challenge me before I present the evidence? Okay, all right, so let me start presenting the evidence.

The first piece of evidence is again Egyptian mythology. In Egyptian mythology, and it's very different from other mythologies we'll study in the future like that of Mesopotamia, the gods give everything to the people. The people don't really do anything. Ra gives life, Osiris gives civilization, Horus provides the kingship. So the Egyptian understanding of the relationship with the gods is basically, if they worship the gods well enough, the gods will always reward them. So the idea that the gods will make the people build tombs doesn't really make any sense. It makes more sense that the pharaoh is helping the Egyptians achieve eternal peace by inspiring them to build the pyramid.

The second thing is the quality of the pyramid. Now there is a misconception, a myth, that the pyramids were built by slaves. They had slaves, they used slaves, but they never used slaves for religious purposes, because slaves, you can't really trust slaves.

So it was tens of thousands of laborers who built the pyramid together, and it's a complete mystery to people how they were able to achieve such a miraculous building. The answer is this. Let's think about the past thousand years: the most impressive buildings in the world are churches, temples, mosques. That just demonstrates the power of religious devotion in the act of creation. So if the Egyptians saw the pyramids as the ultimate temple, as bringing God on earth, you can imagine every one of them would work very hard in order to do their best. Does that make sense?

The third is the idea of the cult of the skull. Around this time and throughout the world, people practiced ancestor worship. The way they did that usually is maybe they have an ancestor who was well regarded, they would keep a skull around, they would decorate it with clay and ochre, and they would use this skull as maybe a portal into the outer world, to the spirit world, in order to draw inspiration, to draw good luck from this. So the idea that they would use the pharaoh's body as a portal into the heavens would be a very common idea at that time.

And then you have cave paintings. Remember, way back, way early in the semester, we looked at Ice Age cave paintings inside caves, and we discussed these paintings were a means of religious worship, of bringing the spirit world into our world, connecting the two in order to celebrate life and hunting. Then you have a place like Göbekli Tepe, which is considered one of the temples. Remember, it is a religious monument on top of a hill, which would be also another way for you to connect our world with the heavens and for your worship to draw divine energy from the heavens. So in other words, there's a pattern of humans trying to connect the spirit world with our world through religious worship, and the pyramid represents the ultimate temple. Does that make sense? So the pyramid is a continuation of this sort of religious devotion and worship and religious practice. Any questions before I move on?

Okay, so now the last question: why did they stop? There's a very good reason why they stopped building pyramids, because remember, this pyramid was about creating peace, pleasing the gods, unifying the world.

That's a theory. The problem is this theory doesn't work, because in 2200 BC the 4.2 kiloyear event happened. Think of this as a mini ice age, where for about 100 years there's a drought in Egypt. Well, that's a problem, because the entire point of the pyramid, why people sacrificed themselves so hard to work on the pyramid, was to prevent a drought in Egypt. It was to control the Nile, and they failed. So this creates first of all a crisis of faith. Many are now forced to reject their faith in the pharaoh, and now you see the rise of the priesthood and other gods as well. So the first major reason why they stopped building the pyramids is a question of faith.

Second problem is, in order to build the pyramids you need a pyramid economy, and what the pyramid economy represents is centralized planning, centralization. The pharaoh and his palace are able to coordinate all the resources of the state in order to create the pyramids. We know that when you have centralization you have three problems. The first is inequality. If you're part of this plan economy, you do very well for yourself, but if you're not, then you become poorer.

So inequality is a huge issue. But you also have a problem of corruption, where people want to steal because it's just easier to do. And the third problem is just waste. It's not very efficient. So basically the pyramid economy is just a complete waste of resources.

All right, the third problem is this, and this is actually a huge problem. This idea of a nihilistic religious belief. What this religious saying is, life doesn't matter, it's death that matters. It's death that allows us to be like gods, to be eternal. In order to ensure our ascent into godhood, one, we have to be close to the pharaoh, we have to be loyal to the pharaoh, but two, we have to ensure we obtain a lot of wealth in our life. So basically what Egypt was doing during the pyramid economy was taking all its grain, all its resources, and then selling it overseas in order to bring back precious metals that they could put in their graves, so that they could take these precious metals on their journey into the afterlife with them.

So basically they were just taking all this tremendous wealth of Egypt, almost unlimited wealth of Egypt, and just squandering it, gambling it away basically, on the promise of an eternal afterlife. They didn't care about the here and now, they didn't care about building a great nation, they weren't concerned about ensuring everyone was well off and prosperous and happy in the nation. So you had an elite who was concerned about abusing power in order to steal as much money as possible in order to ensure a good afterlife.

And these are the three major reasons why they stopped building the pyramids. One, because it's a question of faith, it doesn't really work. Second is the centralization creates inequality, corruption and waste. And third is the religious belief can only lead to the corruption of the state and tyranny. So I've answered those three questions. Any questions before I continue?

Right, so yeah, that's a great point. You're absolutely right that even though they stopped building pyramids, this civilization would go on for another 2,000 years and it was still, for the majority of that, a very prosperous, stable nation that was basically the hegemon of the Western world. So this is the Old Kingdom.

The Old Kingdom focused on building the pyramids, but the Middle Kingdom and New Kingdom would also have a lot of glory as well, so I don't mean to denigrate their society. I'm just pointing out some logical flaws in their society that will lead to their decay, because even though the Old Kingdom will collapse, the society is very resilient. As I said, the Old Kingdom will be replaced by the Middle Kingdom after a large civil war. Also, they will make changes to society that will make society much more stable, and the major change is to take all the centralized powers of the pharaoh and devolve it into the priesthood, creating a priestly bureaucracy, which is very much like the Confucian bureaucracy in China. They will also start importing new ideas from overseas.

So I apologize if I'm implying that this is the end of Egypt. It's not. After the Old Kingdom, after they stopped the pyramids, you will have a new flourishing of creativity and innovation in Egypt, but they stopped perceiving the pyramids as the be-all and end-all. And the point I want to make is that during the Old Kingdom they did perceive the pyramid as the Manhattan Project.

They really thought, if we build this thing then there will be eternal peace. You can also make the argument that the Israelites in the Bible make fun of them, because there's the Tower of Babel story, where the humans are arrogantly trying to build a tower up to heaven to be with God. You can argue that that's what the pyramid is, and God laughs at them and mocks them and they never succeed, and then God punishes them by making them speak different languages.

Sure. So this is a great question. What do the Egyptians remember about the Great Pyramid? Herodotus was writing about 400 BC, and this is about 2,000 years after the Great Pyramid. Herodotus travels around Egypt, and he's basically a historian, a journalist, he wants to know how they built the Great Pyramid, and what he discovers is the Egyptians don't know. Not only do they not know, they don't even know how to rebuild one. If you ask an Egyptian in 400 BC, can you build a pyramid, they've lost the expertise.

Let me elaborate on this. When I talk about the pyramid economy, I'm talking about three things. I'm talking about massive specialization, including how to carve granite, how to do measurements. You have specialization going on. Then you have something called institutionalization, which is basically creating a memory of this knowledge, and you do that by passing this on to your sons and your grandsons, and maybe in a guild or workshop. And then you also have systemization, which is to say you have to bring all these pieces together. So the pyramid economy was extremely complex, because you need all three things to happen at the same time: specialization, institutionalization and systematization.

You can also argue the man who created the system, the pyramid economy, his name is Imhotep, and he's revered in Egypt as a divine figure. He was basically grand vizier to the pharaoh. He was royalty, but he was a man, but he was able to contribute so much to Egypt that they deified him basically. You can argue his major contribution was in creating this pyramid economy that has all three elements, specialization, institutionalization and systemization.

Because it's actually very hard to put the pieces together. You need a writing system, you need a financial system, you need a lot of elements. I'm making this sound a lot easier than it really is. So that's the first thing, very complex.

Second thing is, remember, for the Egyptians and for the pharaoh the pyramids represented God on earth, so there has to be mystery and secrecy around the building of the pyramid. As I said, what makes the most sense is for them to build these models around the pyramid so that these working teams would know where to go at what time. But after they built the pyramids, it makes sense for them to destroy all records in order to maintain a sense of divinity and inspiration. They're trying to create awe and fear and inspiration, so they would not want people to know how to build a pyramid. They would think this has to be a gift from God, from the pharaoh. Does that make sense? But that's a great question, thanks. Any more questions before I move on?

Okay, that's a great question: where was the mummy of Khufu?

In this theory you have to understand what matters is not the pyramid, what matters is the body of the pharaoh, because it's the pharaoh's body that's sealed in the divine. If that's sealed in the divine, then you need a priesthood, a cult of the pharaoh, to secure and take care of the body. Does that make sense? So in other words, there had to be a team taking care of the pharaoh's body, to ensure first and foremost its safety.

The Great Pyramid was part of a complex called the Giza complex, so there are actually two other pyramids, and then around the pyramids are these tombs of people who worked for the pharaoh but who were not divine. You can make the argument that what they're trying to do is create a constellation, because when you look at the sky, stars don't travel by themselves, they travel in constellations. So it makes sense for the son and the grandson to be buried alongside Khufu, as lesser deities, as lesser pyramids, to show the Egyptian people the harmony, balance and order of the of the. What's great about the system is it ensures loyalty of people working for the pharaoh, because if you're loyal, you're granted a tomb around the pharaoh, which guarantees your ascension into the eternal afterlife so you could be eternally with the pharaoh.

So this is a system of morality. This is fine, because there's lots of protections for the pharaoh, he's surrounded by many different systems. But when the system was breaking down, when it was clear that Egypt was breaking into civil war, then the cult of the pharaoh had a responsibility to take the body and place it somewhere that no one could find it. Again, what matters in this system, what matters is the body. The body is what gives the pyramids energy and power, so they have to protect that body at all cost. So the reason why we can't find the body is they made sure we could not find the body, because the body is the mechanism, the portal by which the pharaoh will resurrect himself. If we have that, then we control the pharaoh, we control God. Does that make sense? So they must have secret caves or places where they put these bodies, and the purpose is to ensure they can never be found. So great question, thank you. Any more questions before I finish the class?

Can you talk a little bit about how that supports? Okay, so what's inside the pyramid? First of all, the pyramids have been around for about 4,500 years and tomb robbing was a huge problem, so what was actually in the pyramids we can't be sure about, because of time, because of tomb robbing. We didn't find that much inside the pyramid. There were no pictures, artwork, there were very few hieroglyphics inside the Great Pyramid. There are hieroglyphics and paintings in other pyramids, but inside the Great Pyramid we haven't found that much, which I think gives even more credence to my theory that this was meant to be a temple. This is also why people believe it's a tomb, because there's so little artwork. If it were a temple instead, you would imagine there would be a lot of it.

Okay, any more questions before I finish the class? Are you guys clear so far? All right, so I want to finish the class with a different question, which is why is my interpretation so radically different from the mainstream academic interpretation? I want to propose that the way that our minds work today is very different from the way that the minds of people like the Egyptians worked, for three reasons.

Today, the Egyptian people had a preliterate mind, they also had a pre-science mind, also pre-capitalistic. Let me explain. Preliterate is very simple, it just means they didn't read and write, they just spoke. We are taught the literate mind is more powerful than the oral mind, but that's not true. If you think about it, the oral mind works through imagination. Your mind is capable of tremendous memory, because back then in order to do anything you had to memorize a lot of information. Now we can just go online. So their minds, even though they were preliterate, were much more imaginative than we are today and their memories were stronger. That's why they were able to build the great pyramids, because everyone was able to memorize the model and figure out his or her place inside the structure. They were also able to imagine in their heads the Great Pyramid. Remember Homer and Virgil, the way that children learn Homer and Virgil is by memorizing them, and you can do that. There are people today who memorize the Quran and who memorize the Torah. It takes some time, but you're able to do that.

So back then they were able to build the pyramid because they were able to visualize the pyramid in their minds, and you can do that with a preliterate mind.

Second is the idea of pre-science. In today's world, science is our God. In school you're taught the scientific method, which is basically you collect information, then you synthesize it, then you write your thesis. It's a step-by-step logical process. But if you're a pre-scientific mind, then where do you get your ideas from? You get your ideas through divine inspiration, through God. So you can make the argument that back then they were capable of these grand ideas that we're not capable of today because we're locked in by the discipline of science. The other problem with science is it's very materialistic, meaning we're focused on the here and now, we're focused on what we can see as opposed to what we feel or what we believe. So when we look at the pyramid, we're always asking about what was built instead of what were they feeling when they were building this, and that's a huge difference.

The third difference is pre-capitalistic. Today we do things to make money.

We come to school because we want to get a job, because we want to make money to buy things. It's a very capitalistic mindset. But for most of human history, most civilizations were not capitalistic. They were religious, they were focused on community, they were focused on what they could contribute to the betterment of the people around them. They were concerned about their relationship with God, they were concerned about how to create peace in the world. They're asking big questions like what is good and what is evil, what is justice, what is fairness. So they were much more focused on building a pyramid as a way to build community and peace and eternity on earth.

So in other words, what's interesting is even though we are much more technologically advanced, we're much wealthier than the Egyptians, we don't have the imagination, we don't have the will to build something like the Great Pyramid again. That's why I think even today the Great Pyramid captures the imagination of so many people around the world, because it's really beyond our own imagination. It really shows the limitations of our own imagination. Okay, that's it. Any, okay, yeah, let's all be intuitive and pre-science here.

Yeah, okay. So this begins a Bronze Age. This is part of the Bronze Age. Egypt is the greatest civilization of the Bronze Age. Next class we'll look at Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley civilization. So there are three great Bronze Age civilizations: Egypt, Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley.