The Egyptian pyramids. What was their true function?
By Konstantin Borisov, Ph.D.
October 15th, 2018
The traditional Egyptology suggests that Egyptian pyramids were used as tombs for the Pharos and their
queens, though not much evidence was offered to support this hypothesis. Thus, other competing
hypotheses were proposed drawing to spiritual, mathematical, astronomical, and agricultural role [1-6].
After careful review of each of those hypothesis, however, none of them I found plausible. In this article I
present another hypotheses for the function of Egyptian pyramids. I will collaborate my reasoning with
some historical records and facts for ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia and will use some technical
language where needed to support my conclusions. Below are my insights.
Khafre’s pyramid is one of the largest and is still standing at Giza, see Figure 1. The pyramid is made of
limestone blocks quarried locally, weighting each around 2 tons, has two passages, two portcullis, and a
large coffer in the main chamber. The inner limestone blocks were covered by a layer of Tura limestone
quarried across the Nile. The pyramid had the pyramidion at the peak [7, 13].
Figure 1. Khafre’s pyramid.
I will explain below how but at this point let’s assume the pyramid generates negative ions. As the Tura
limestone has good isolation properties and create a shell around the pyramid, no ions would escape
through the pyramid sides but move through the inner moist limestone core toward the pyramidion. As
the charge density increase there, the air around the pyramidion would be ionized creating coronal
discharge which would show there as a light glow (Atum). This phenomena is also known as St. Elmo’s
light and has been known for ages [8]. It needs to be mentioned here that Atum, the first god in Egyptian
mythology, was closely associated with the pyramidion. In fact, it was believed he dwelled there and
would bring enlightenment to anyone who could see him [9]. With this I can only wonder if by
“Enlightenment” the ancient Egyptians meant not some spiritual enlightenment but real light they could
see. As the ionization process continue, two things will happen next.
First, the ionic wind will occur (Shu). The ionic wind is a process by which the movement of electric charges
pick up and move the air molecules along with it [10]. As air move upwards from the pyramid it will pick
up the hot air at the ground surface and move it to lower layer of atmosphere. There, the hot air would
condense creating rain (Tefnut) or hail, falling down on the pyramids. It is interesting to note that Ancient
Egyptians actually had hieroglyphs for snow and hail. Where Would Ancient Egyptians saw snow?
Figure 2. Meteo Systems Rainmaking process.
The process of creating rain with the ions released into atmosphere is not a new or out of sky fi movies
thing. At least two companies have products for rainmaking which employs this technology [11, 12]. One
of them is a Switzerland company Meteo Systems, based in Zug. The company was founded in 2004 and
provide rain enhancement services to various arid regions of the world. The company has a patent titled
“Apparatus and related methods for weather modification by electrical processes in the atmosphere”
[14]. In a very concise summary of the granted patent, the company employs antenna arrays that, with
high voltage, generate negative ions releasing those into atmosphere where they form water droplets.
Figure 2 illustrates the general idea behind the process [14] and Figure 3 shows the arrays that
MeteoSystems use to generate negative ions. The Egyptians may have used a similar process in the ancient
past. With pyramid releasing negative ions, there would be cloud formation over the pyramid (Seth),
turning into rain.
Figure 3. Antenna arrays for ion generation (WeatherTech by MeteoSystems).
The ionized particles would move upwards from the pyramid toward ionosphere. There they would be
colliding with the molecules of the gasses exciting those which are normally de-exited with the release of
photons (light in other words) [15]. Depending on which molecule the ions excite, the created light color
would be different. So, if someone would be standing at the Giza, most likely that person would see an
aurora light in the sky above the pyramid (the eye of Horus). Also, with more light, the earth and sky
horizon (or in other words separation between two) would be more visible which I interpret as “Geb
separated from Nut”. (See Egyptian creation myth [28]).
If you have a look at the Egyptian pyramids, most of them have similar profile where the complex include
enclosure walls, temple and causeway leading away from the pyramid. Mark Lehner of the Oriental
institute in Chicago and his team reconstructed the Khafre’s pyramid, the model of which I show in Figure
4. In my opinion, the purpose of the enclosure walls you can see in blue could be to collect the rain water
running down from the pyramid sides and remove it from the site toward Nile. This is not any different
than the drainage system around foundation of any modern house to prevent soil erosion. By the way
significant limestone erosions were noticed in the Khafre’s temples, causeway and the sphinx enclosure
which could be caused by this water passing through. The negative ions could be used for precipitation,
though how the negative ions were produced?
When Giovanni Belzoni opened the coffers’ lid in the main chamber of Khafre’s pyramid, he did not find
gold nuggets inside but found bull bones. Why so many ancient Egyptians sites have bull bones in the
coffers? [16]. let’s assume in ancient past someone placed Oxen along with yeast and starch components
into the coffer and closed the lid. As fermentation process starts, the yeast will convert starch into carbon
dioxide gas. This will be building pressure inside in coffer. As the pressure builds inside the box, it will
stress the Quartz crystals present in the granite material, releasing ions [17].
The exact composition of the granite material of the coffer in the Khafre’s pyramid is not known but it is
safe to assume that it contains around 40% of the Quartz crystals. Based on the size of the box, Quartz
content, coffer wall thickness and pressure at 250Mpa, I estimated the coffer will generate around 100k
volts at no current. I made assumption about the pressure at 250Mpa, as this is generally considered the
limit for the granite material strength [18]. This is also close to the pressure limit the yeast can survive at
[22]. The Oxen meat is a source of oleic acid which is essential for the yeast to maintain growth rate and
overcome the toxic effect of ethanol that yeast releases during fermentation [18-21].
I want to clarify here that in no way I am suggesting that ancient Egyptians new the process of ionization
and particle physics but perhaps what was noticed in the ancient passed as a phenomena could get refined
over the years with nothing else but trial and error, reaching the climax with the construction of the
pyramids to utilize that phenomena. If you think about that Ancient Egyptians had millennia (or a few) to
sharpen and refine this practice.
Figure 2. Khafre’s pyramid, enclosure walls, temple and causeway.
If you look at figure 5, there I show the prevailing wind patter for Giza and Mesopotamia [29]. Notice that
the prevailing wind pattern is pointing toward Mesopotamia, then along the Fertile Crescent shown in
Figure 6. So, this brings me to the following point: if Egyptians created rain clouds, Mesopotamia would
probably be the main beneficiary of the precipitation. The cloud would be created over Giza/Saqqara and
wind would blow all that toward Mesopotamia bringing moisture and life to that region.
Figure 3. Prevailing wind pattern over Egypt and Mesopotamia.
At this point I will cite one interesting fact. Around 4.2kBP, the Mesopotamia and the old kingdom of Egypt
were hit with a devastating drought. The drought was so harsh that is known in history under its own
name 4.2 kilo event [23]. Researchers agree that a very prosperous Akkadian civilization dominating the
Mesopotamia around that time (shown in Figure 7), mostly collapsed due to this event [24]. According to
some studies 75% population of the ancient Mesopotamian settlements were displaced as a result of that
event [25]. Some other nearby civilization were affected as well.
The interesting aspect of the event is that no one really knows what caused it. Basically, when something
like that happens, the researchers look at the Greenland reconstructed temperature data, looking for any
correlation on a chart with the weather. Looking at the 4.2k mark, however there is none (see Figure 7).
It almost looks like there was “business as usual”, but the evidence of the drought is undeniable across all
Mesopotamia. So, what could possibly happen? I cannot help but wonder if someone in the old kingdom
at that time intentionally or unintentionally pulled the pyramids plug. So, instead of a rainy cloudy weather
which Mesopotamians and Egyptians got use to have, they got 24/7 scorching sun heat (Sekhmet).
Figure 4. Fertile Crescent.
Figure 7. Old Kingdom and Akkadian civilization.
Lastly, the curse of Akkad [27], the famous Akkadian poem tells the story of king Naram-Sin, plundering
the temple of a weather god [26] and a quote form [26] “For the first time since cities were built and
founded, the great agricultural tracts produced no grain” If the poem refers to the Tefnut, Shu and other
gods (or their Akkadian equivalents), perhaps it is not a big stretch to say that someone plundered the
monuments used for making good weather, altering forever the weather pattern in the region.
While writing this article I cannot say I did not think about Egyptian authorities investing some effort and
time into renovating one or the other pyramids they still have standing. The idea of selling weather to
their eastern petroleum rich neighbors sounds not bad at all to me. Somehow I feel Egypt would be making
the way more revenue selling rainy weather than selling something like petroleum (which I know Egypt
does not have much). In contrast to what many may believe, I do not think petroleum is gold in that part
of the world but rain certainly is. Surely, rain would be appreciated by lots of customers if Egypt would
like to offer rain making service.
Figure 5. Central Greenland Reconstructed temperature.
References:
[1] John Taylor “The Great Pyramid: Why Was It Built? And Who Built It?” Cambridge University Press, ISBN10: 9781108075787, Year: 1859.
[2] Erica Brown and Ellen Uchimiya “Ben Carson’s unusual theory about pyramids” CBS News, November 4, 2015
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[11] Australian rain technologies: “http://www.australianrain.com.au”
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[23] 4.2 kilo year event, Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4.2_kiloyear_event
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[26] Fiona Zublin “The drought that lead to the death of the whole civilization” https://www.ozy.com/flashback/the-droughtthat-led-to-the-death-of-a-whole-civilization/74696
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[29] Prevailing Winds, Wikipedia. “https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prevailing_winds”
Bio:
Konstantin Borisov received his M.S degree from the University of Nevada, Reno and Ph.D. degree from
the Mississippi State University all in electrical engineering. He worked as a scientist in Research Institute
of Dielectric Materials and Semiconductors in Tomsk, Russia. He also worked at the Center of Advanced
Vehicular System (CAVS), Mississippi State Research Park. In the past 11 years he worked as Sr. Staff
Engineer/Sr. Project Manager at Johnson Controls, involved in design and development of high energy
systems for heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC). Konstantin Borisov has 7 US patents and 15
publications.