Curse of the Geek's Tomb

After eight years of study, a French architect named Jean-Pierre Houdin claims to have solved a mystery that has puzzled archaeologists for a long time: how the 2.5 ton blocks that make up the Great Pyramid of Khufu (or Cheops) were put into place.

It had long been suggested that an outside ramp had been used, but that presents real problems: Beyond a certain height of the pyramid, the ramp either has too steep a rise or becomes more massive than the pyramid itself.

Getting around that, Houdin claims that the lower parts of the pyramid were built that way but that the upper two-thirds of it were built using a spiral ramp running inside the structure. The advantage? As the structure gets taller, the ramp gets longer and so can avoid getting too steep for the workers to move the blocks along it. And since the ramp is part of the structure itself, the problem of the ramp getting more massive than the pyramid is avoided. (Not to mention the plus of having your workers working inside, in the shade, away from the heat of the desert.)

Houdin has posted a 3-D computer simulation of his notion and plans to confirm it through non-invasive tests at the site of the actual pyramid.