Sarah Korcz, a senior at Community Montessori School in New Albany, Indiana, and an aspiring Egyptologist, has shared several of her Egyptological research papers with me, and expressed an interest in doing an article for Em Hotep. Since we were about due for a catch-up session with Jean-Pierre Houdin, and I knew from some of our conversations that Sarah is keenly interested in Jean-Pierre’s work with pyramids, I asked her if she would like to interview him for the website. She was quite happy to oblige.
Whether it was officially declared or not, this June has certainly been the Month of the Mummy. June 10 saw the opening of the Modern Day Mummy: The Art and Science of Mummification exhibit at the San Diego Museum of Man, and then the incredible Mummies of the World exhibit opened at the Franklin Institute on June 18. All that was needed for a perfect Month of the Mummy was an American convention of the World Mummy Congress, and that was delivered on June 12 – 16 in San Diego.
It is probably not a coincidence that the Seventh World Mummy Congress was convened at the University of San Diego, a short trip across town from the San Diego Museum of Man, where Mumab had just settled into his new home. Mumab—short for Mummy of University of Maryland at Baltimore—has the distinction of being the first modern ancient mummy. The inspiration for his creation came in the mid 90’s when mummy expert Dr. Bob Brier realized that the only way to know how ancient Egyptian mummies were made would be to mummify a human cadaver using the same tools and methods the Egyptians used. And so he did.
In this article Em Hotep will look at the history of Mumab—how he was made, what was learned from him, and what he is up to now.
These media are from the Khufu Reborn/Khufu Renaissance phase of Project Khufu, an international and interdisciplinary initiative to explain how the Great Pyramid of Pharaoh Khufu was built based on the theories and research of French architect Jean-Pierre Houdin.
Sealing the King’s Chamber Up Close—another animation of the sealing mechanism uploaded by Marc Chartier, focusing on the sealing blocks (posted to YouTube February 09, 2011)
Architects Find New Rooms in the Pyramid of Khufu—Indonesian coverage of Khufu Reborn, but the clips are fantastic (posted to YouTube February 04, 2011)
An Architect Uncovers the Secrets of the Great Pyramid—Euronews’ coverage of Khufu Reborn, again in French but visually wonderful (posted to YouTube February 02, 2011)
Khufu Reborn coverage on France 3—French language, but excellent clips (posted to YouTube February 02, 2011)
Khufu Pyramid Secret Rooms—English-language coverage of Khufu Reborn from CCTV News (posted to YouTube January 29, 2011)
Talking Pyramids: Two Secret Pyramid Chambers Revealed—by Vincent Brown (January 29, 2011)
Thursday was ‘D Day’ and Jean-Pierre and Dassault Systèmes ended all the intrigue and mystery with their spectacular 3D presentation of Episode 2 “Legacy of Khufu” at the La Géode conference in Paris.
Talking Pyramids: ‘Khufu Reborn’—Unveiling Secrets—by Vincent Brown (January 24, 2011)
In three days time Jean-Pierre Houdin and Dassault Systèmes will be at a conference in La Géode to reveal ‘Khufu Reborn’, the sequel to Jean-Pierre’s internal spiral ramp theory.
News Stories
NTD Television: French Architect Discovers New Rooms in Ancient Khufu Pyramid—no author listed. (January 28, 2011)
French architect Jean-Pierre Houdin unveiled in Paris on Thursday the existence of two hidden and so far unknown rooms in Egypt’s Great Pyramid. No one had ever suspected the existence of any such rooms. But in his many visits to Khufu’s king’s chamber, Houdin noticed that one stone element in the burial room was not supporting any weight and therefore had once been a passage. According to funeral rites of ancient Egypt, kings would be buried with all their belongings in close proximity. In other pyramids these items are situated in a room adjacent to the burial room.
Physorg: Great Pyramid has two secret chambers—no author listed (January 27, 2011)
A French architect campaigning for a new exploration of the 4,500-year-old Great Pyramid of Giza said on Thursday that the edifice may contain two chambers housing funereal furniture.
These media are from the Khufu Revealed phase of Project Khufu, Jean-Pierre Houdin’s work up to and ending with the premier of Khufu Reborn in January 2011.
Audio/Video
National Geographic Expedition Week: Unlocking the Great Pyramid—the NatGeo special on Jean-Pierre Houdin’s Khufu Revealed work, in its entirety! (posted to YouTube March 17, 2011)
Another Pyramid Fly Through—this one even better! (posted to YouTube August 17, 2009)
Jean-Pierre Houdin and Bob Brier Interviewed—Associated Press (posted to YouTube November 19, 2008)
Interview with Jean-Pierre Houdin—World News Australia (posted to YouTube November 13, 2008)
Great Pyramid Mystery Solved?—National Geographic short piece from their special on Jean-Pierre Houdin’s work, Unlocking the Great Pyramid (posted to YouTube October 31, 2008)
Jean-Pierre Houdin and Mehdi Tayoubi Interviewed—Also French audio, but also worth viewing for the clips (posted to YouTube June 24, 2007)
Jean-Pierre Houdin, Mehdi Tayoubi, Richard Breitner Interviewed—French audio, but the clips of the Dassault Systèmes animations make it worth viewing even if you don’t speak French (posted to YouTube June 24, 2007)
Pyramid of Cheops by Jean-Pierre Houdin—Spanish-language coverage of Khufu Revealed, as always the visuals make viewing desirable even if you don’t speak the language (posted to YouTube April 3, 2007)
Pyramid Fly Through-The Khufu Pyramid modeled by architect Jean-Pierre Houdin in Dassault Systèmes’ 3D Life. (posted to YouTube April 01, 2007)
Websites and Journal Articles
The Khufu Revealed/Kheops Révélé Official Page at Dassault Systèmes
The site dedicated to the first phase of Jean-Pierre Houdin’s internal ramp theory. The site provides a good, basic explanation of the general concepts of the theory up to that point, with sections for explanations, clues/evidence, and a 3D demo that requires installation of Dassault Systèmes’ proprietary 3d viewer, 3DVIA, which can be downloaded from the site.
Heritage Key: Exclusive Interview: Jean-Pierre Houdin Defends His Internal Ramp Pyramid Theory—by Malcolm Jack (September 07, 2009)
The question of how the Great Pyramid of Giza was built is one of the most hotly-debated topics in ancient history. Maverick French architect and self-styled “Mr. Pyramid” Jean-Pierre Houdin is determined that he has the answer – the 4,569 year-old monument was, he argues, erected from the inside-out, using an internal ramp built into the fabric of the structure. Others are skeptical of his theory, but Houdin is certain he has the proof.
Heritage Key: Building the Great Pyramid of Giza: Jean-Pierre Houdin’s Internal Ramp Theory—by Malcolm Jack (September 04, 2009)
We know lots about the Great Pyramid of Giza – it’s age (about 4,569 years), who it was built for (the Fourth Dynasty Egyptian King Khufu), who designed it (Khufu’s brother, the architect Hemiunu) and even who rolled up their sleeves and did the work (tens of thousands of skilled labourers from across the kingdom, as opposed to slaves as was once believed). But ask a room full of experts how it was built, and you can expect a whole lot of head-scratching and beard-stroking, followed by heated argument and possibly some light fisticuffs.
Talking Pyramids: How Were the Egyptian Pyramids Built? Part 5: Houdin’s Internal Ramp—by Vincent Brown (April 10, 2008)
French Architect Jean-Pierre Houdin has a revolutionary theory on how the pyramids were built. He looked at the three main existing theories: the large long straight ramp used to drag the stone up on sleds or rolled on logs, the wooden ‘machines’ mentioned by Herodotus & the spiral ramp theory.
In 1999, Henri Houdin, a retired French civil engineer, was watching a television documentary on the construction of Egypt’s ancient pyramids. He had supervised many dam and bridge projects, and much of what he saw on the show struck him as impractical. “It was the usual pyramid-building theories, but he wasn’t satisfied as an engineer,” says his son, Jean-Pierre, an independent architect. “He had a sparkle in the brain. ‘If I had to build one now, I would do it from the inside out.’
Archaeology: How to build a pyramid—by Bob Brier (Vol. 60 no. 3, May/June 2007)
Of the seven wonders of the ancient world, only the Great Pyramid of Giza remains. An estimated 2 million stone blocks weighing an average of 2.5 tons went into its construction. When completed, the 481-foot-tall pyramid was the world’s tallest structure, a record it held for more than 3,800 years, when England’s Lincoln Cathedral surpassed it by a mere 44 feet.
News Stories
National Geographic News: Great Pyramid Mystery to be Solved by Hidden Room?—by Brian Handwerk (November 14, 2008)
A sealed space in Egypt’s Great Pyramid may help solve a centuries-old mystery: How did the ancient Egyptians move two million 2.5-ton blocks to build the ancient wonder?
National Geographic Channel: Unlocking the Great Pyramid—by Bob Brier (November 11, 2008)
It always surprises my students when I tell them we don’t know how the Great Pyramid of Giza was built. Dancing in their heads are Hollywood’s images of lots of guys hauling blocks up a huge ramp. The truth is, that simply won’t work. In order for the workers to pull the blocks, the ramp would have to have a gentle slope, but the pyramid is 480 feet high and that would mean that Hollywood’s ramp stretches for more than a mile. The ramp would be greater in volume than the pyramid! Also, archaeologists have never found the remains of such a ramp, and something that big doesn’t just disappear in the dry desert. So how the Great Pyramid was built is still one of the greatest archaeological mysteries of our time.
Using cutting edge technology, Egyptologist Bob Brier of the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University delved into the only standing wonder of the ancient world, the Great Pyramid, and uncovered the mystery behind cracks in the massive Egyptian structure, unearthing a new room along the way.
USA Today: Scientists Ramp up for pyramid theory—by Dan Vergano (May 16, 2007)
The Great Pyramid of Giza, the sole surviving member of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, stands today as the most massive puzzle in the history of civilization.
National Geographic News: Great Pyramid Built Inside Out, French Architect Says—by Dan Morrison (April 02, 2007)
Ancient Egyptians built the 480-foot-high (146-meter-high) Great Pyramid of Giza from the inside out, according to a French architect. Based on eight years of study, Jean-Pierre Houdin has created a novel three-dimensional computer simulation to present his hypothesis. He says his findings solve the mystery of how the massive monument just outside Cairo was constructed.
A VR Geek’s Blog: The Pyramid and the biggest VR screen (March 31, 2007)
On Friday March 30th 2007, the biggest VR screen was inaugurated with a great event; A big show at La Géode (IMAX theater in Paris) to unveil the theory of Jean-Pierre Houdin about his theory on the construction of the Great Pyramid of Khufu (Kheops).
A French architect claims to have solved the mystery of how Egypt’s Great Pyramid was built. Jean-Pierre Houdin said the 4,500-year-old pyramid, just outside Cairo, was built using an inner ramp to lift the massive stones into place.
Well, I have been hinting about it for months now, and it’s almost here: On January 27, 2011, Episode Two of Jean-Pierre Houdin’s work with the Great Pyramid, called Khufu Reborn, will premiere at La Géode in Paris, and your Humble Scribe will be there to cover the event and try his best to get some inside scoop.
The Swiss Mummy Project has been reviewing all of the studies performed on mummies in the last three decades and has compiled a wealth of data about how the ancient Egyptians lived and died. They discovered that in addition to bad dental health, the ancients suffered from a wide range of maladies which we normally associate with modern life.
So, what did the mummies have to say about living well?
The Great Pyramid of Khufu has baffled professional Egyptologists and everyday people for millennia, but architect Jean-Pierre Houdin has proposed what many feel is the most likely, and certainly the most sensible, theory about the construction of Khufu’s Pyramid to date. This week France-5 of France Télévision aired a new documentary on Jean-Pierre Houdin’s work called Khéops Révélé.
There is no shortage of theories about how the Great Pyramid of Pharaoh Khufu was constructed, but so far they have all failed in various respects. From ramps that are as large and difficult to construct as the pyramid itself, to ramps that by their nature would make its construction even more difficult, we can’t even really explain how the blocks were moved into place.
But a French architect by the name of Jean-Pierre Houdin may be changing that. He has put forth the first comprehensive explanation of how the Great Pyramid was built that stands the tests of physics and common sense, and his work continues to gain support from prominent architects, engineers, and Egyptologists.
Jean-Pierre has kindly agreed to work with Em Hotep! to put his theory into terms that are accessible to those of us who may not be professional architects or engineers, but who may be amateur and professional Egyptologists of varying degrees. In Part One we take a close look at the evolution of ramp theories, how they work and fail to work, and what was involved with building the only remaining Wonder of the Ancient World.
The University of Zurich’s Swiss Mummy Project, headed by anatomist and paleopathologist Dr. Frank Ruhli , has succeeded in mummifying a human leg. Well, two legs, actually. Ok, to be honest, the test subject didn’t go so well, so I guess it was one leg after all.
This is the story of two architects, separated by 4,500 years, both trying to solve the same problem—how to build a pyramid measuring 756 feet on each side of the base, 480 feet high, and consisting of 5.5 million tons of stone.
Our master builders have different goals, however. The first, Hemiunu, was determined to build the greatest pyramid ever, and the second, Jean-Pierre Houdin, was equally determined to figure out how he did it.
Jean-Pierre Houdin and Bob Brier wrote a book—The Secret of the Great Pyramid—about this very subject in 2008 and the paperback edition is due to hit bookstores October 6, 2009. Ahead of the paperback, Em Hotep! is providing you with a multi-part primer to Houdin’s work, to be followed with an interview with the man himself.
The Current issue of Archaeology (Volume 62 Number 4, July/August 2009) has a great article by Bob Brier regarding the theory first proposed by Jean-Pierre Houdin about the possibility of an internal ramp inside Khufu’s Pyramid.
The theory accounts for some anomalies in a microgravemetric survey couducted by French researchers in the 1980’s, and includes his trip up the side of the pyramid to explore the “niche”. He discovered an unexplored chamber right where you would expect one if his theory of an internal ramp was correct…
Archaeology was kind enough to put the entire article online. Read it here - Update: Return to the Great Pyramid.
Whether it was officially declared or not, this June has certainly been the Month of the Mummy. June 10 saw the opening of the Modern Day Mummy: The Art and Science of Mummification exhibit at the San Diego Museum of Man, and then the incredible Mummies of the World exhibit opened at the Franklin Institute on June 18. All that was needed for a perfect Month of the Mummy was an American convention of the World Mummy Congress, and that was delivered on June 12 – 16 in San Diego.
The Swiss Mummy Project has been reviewing all of the studies performed on mummies in the last three decades and has compiled a wealth of data about how the ancient Egyptians lived and died. They discovered that in addition to bad dental health, the ancients suffered from a wide range of maladies which we normally associate with modern life.
The Great Pyramid of Khufu has baffled professional Egyptologists and everyday people for millennia, but architect Jean-Pierre Houdin has proposed what many feel is the most likely, and certainly the most sensible, theory about the construction of Khufu’s Pyramid to date. This week France-5 of France Télévision aired a new documentary on Jean-Pierre Houdin’s work called Khéops Révélé.
The University of Zurich’s Swiss Mummy Project, headed by anatomist and paleopathologist Dr. Frank Ruhli , has succeeded in mummifying a human leg. Well, two legs, actually. Ok, to be honest, the test subject didn’t go so well, so I guess it was one leg after all. 
The Current issue of Archaeology (Volume 62 Number 4, July/August 2009) has a great article by 
