Four Ways to Pharaoh Khufu Read Online Free Page A

quiet, and the lecturer continued. “Researchers answer these questions differently. There is no unified response that can explain the entire construction process or how all the engineering problems were solved. Nevertheless, the very fact that the Great Pyramid, which has stood for nearly five thousand years, has not had any collapses in its system of hollows likely means that the hollows were constructed according to a well-designed plan.”
    “Come on,” argued the thin, middle-aged man sitting next to Michael. “This is just a waste of time. He doesn’t know anything about the pyramids. It’s basically just guesses on top of more guesses.” He got up from his chair, slipped past Michael and headed towards the exit. Bit by bit, the crowd followed his example and began to trickle out. There’s no point in sitting here . With a sigh, Michael got up and headed towards the exit himself.
    The blaring sound of many cars honking brought Michael back to the present. He looked out at the street his taxi had turned down. Definitely better than that lecture, but I can’t believe there is this much traffic at this time of night! Slamming his fist into his horn repetitively and waving his arms out the window, his taxi driver managed to weave his way through traffic. Then they wound up stuck behind a mass of gridlocked cars and trucks. Gradually, the traffic jam dissipated and soon thereafter Michael’s taxi was in Midan Tahrir , or “The Liberation Square,” a focal point of the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 that toppled the presidency of Hosni Mubarak. The completely empty square, which resembled a large traffic circle, was enormous. The surrounding street poles flooded the scene with bright lights.
    The taxi stopped outside Michael’s room at the Cairo Downtown Hotel, just around the corner from the world-famous Cairo museum. Despite his desire to start exploring this mysterious city immediately, the jet lag combined with his fatigue took their toll on his ambition. The man at the desk gave him his key and motioned him toward the elevators. After quickly making his way through the darkened hotel to his room, Michael locked the door behind him. In minutes he was sleeping blissfully under bed sheets made of the finest Egyptian cotton.

Chapter 2
    Mennefer, Kemet, Egypt
    1225 B.C.
     
    T he ancient Egyptians called the land, Kem-ta or Kemet, meaning “black land.” In time, Kem-ta became the name of the country. A narrow strip of fruit-bearing soil, it edges the reddish-brown sands of the boundless desert while sheer cliffs border its west and east sides. Kem-ta owes its existence to the holy river, the Nile.
    The Nile, living up to its ancient personification of the holy bull Apis, obstinately and imperiously breaks through the desert bringing life-giving waters. Jutting inland among the thickening waves of the sandy sea, Apis opens the way for the treasured waters into this narrow strip of black land. Benefiting from the Nile’s biannual floods, Kem-ta receives the Nile’s nourishing silt, which gives life to the harvest and, ultimately, its people.
    To the west, within the taciturn melancholy of the Arabian Desert, also known as the country of the dead, seethed the mysterious city, Mennefer. Although history is not clear, it is thought that Menes, a pharaoh of the First Dynasty, founded Mennefer.
    Within Mennefer resides the temple Hewet-ka-Ptah. From the roof of the temple, the Hor-em-akhet or “Horus in the horizon” can be seen in the distant rays of the violet evening sun and the flaming red of the early dawn. Carved into the limestone cliffs in the distance, Horus is depicted as a Sphinx with the head of a man and the body of a lion. The Sphinx is manifest among the cliffs as the sunset strikes it, becoming visible above the three large and nine small pyramids rising out of the sand below.
    As the day slowly turned towards evening, the far away limestone cliffs took on a faint violet hue. The heat would drop any