The pyramids
Such is their timeless grandeur that they still continue to find a place in the revised twenty-first century’s list of Seven Wonders of the World. Indeed, they are the only one from the original list of monuments that are still in existence. I am of course referring to the Pyramids of Giza. Such being the case, one would have thought that the Pyramids of Giza would very easily have topped a 450 BC historian’s lists by a stratospheric margin. Not so. Herodotus pegs it at a miserable third. [Herodotus 2.148]
In essence, he says, “the pyramids surpass description, but the Labyrinth surpasses the pyramids... and wonderful as is the Labyrinth, the work called the Lake Moeris, is yet more astonishing.” [Herodotus 2.148] In other words, first comes the Lake Moeris, followed closely by the Labyrinth and finally, inexplicably, in third place, lag the pyramids. So curious is the lapse that we cannot help but feel we are missing something here.
Let us examine the wonders on Herodotus’ list and see if we can find the underlying cause of this discrepancy.
Lake Moeris was nothing more that a large artificial lake. Now, reservoirs, however big, have only a barely legitimate claim to artificiality in the first place. They are, after all, created with little intervention by man. Generally, all the ingenuity required to build such reservoirs is a basic knowledge of building barriers or dams. Large bodies of water by itself too are not an unfamiliar sight and cannot have impressed a normal person. In short, the ingenuity or engineering quotient in its construction or in the end product itself would hardly have merited mention under normal circumstances. But then again, Herodotus did see things differently and an ingeniously constructed reservoir is just the kind of thing that would have caught his fancy. Even so, how could an ‘ingeniously constructed reservoir’ have posed a threat to the Pyramids of Giza in terms of grandeur, ingenuity, engineering or peculiarity is still beyond comprehension.
Similarly, the labyrinth, with its 3000 chambers and all, simply could not have overshadowed something that cast its mesmerizing shadows over a whole modern-day city, as does the Great Pyramid of Giza over Cairo.
Such being the case, the unshakable realization that Herodotus did not ever set his eyes upon the Great Pyramid of Giza, takes firm hold. For if he had, it most certainly would have had his undivided attention and he, without question would have placed it at the top of his list of wonders. What is more, he would have documented this truly wondrous and patently artificial creation in the choicest of prose, in a manner that would leave no doubts in the mind of his readers of the Pyramid’s identity and grandeur.
The point I am trying to make is, the Great Pyramid of Giza, was, is and always will be a striking monument that overwhelms the viewer. If this does not come through in the text, or shoots right through the top of any fancy list of wonders complied by anyone at any time, then we may most assuredly conclude that the Pyramids of Giza were not seen. Herodotus for one, most assuredly, never set his eyes upon them. Such being the case and assuming that he did see the ‘pyramids,’ the only reasonable conclusion that can be made here is, that the pyramids that Herodotus saw were different. Oh yes, there is this possibility as well to consider apart from, that is, jumping up and calling him a liar. Very likely, what he saw were ziggurats.
Ziggurats
Ziggurats were built in the Ancient Near Eastern arena by the Sumerians, Babylonians and Assyrians. The earliest examples of the ziggurat date from the fourth millennium BC. Ziggurats were essentially temple-towers.
Now, ziggurats were as different from pyramids as cheese is from chalk. While pyramids were monuments, artificial Mt. Horebs of sorts, ziggurats were actually multistoried buildings, office blocks and such like, that invariably had a stepped-pyramid-like construction, thanks to the limitation of the building materials available during these times.
Let me explain. Although the idea of building multi-storied buildings had gained currency, building materials, concrete and steel, that would wonderfully facilitate this flight of fancy, had yet to hit the market. Steel was yet to be discovered and concrete awaited the arrival of the Romans. Given that, the only alternative was to build pseudo-multileveled structures. Now, these were cunningly designed stepped structures wherein each floor actually rested upon a solid inner core of earth. In other words, they merely appeared to be multistoried structures.
In essence, building a ziggurat was much like building a terraced building on a mountainside. The only difference is, here it is a wrap-around building and the mountainside was replaced by an artificial mound of compacted earth and rubble at the center.
Once the inner core mound was ready, the building was started top downwards. That is right. This is especially so if you are using megaliths. You had to build the top tier first all around. After that, you built the middle tier followed by the bottommost. The end result is a stepped structure, consisting usually of three distinct tiers and looking somewhat like a stepped pyramid.
Ruins of ziggurats can still be found aplenty in the Middle East. The temple-tower of Etemenanki in Iraq, popularly associated with the Bible’s Tower of Babel in Babylon, is one such. An even larger one is located at Choga Zanbil, in Iran. This has a 335 ft square base and had three tiers. It has a solid core of earth and rubble and large slabs of stone used to erect the ziggurat. The best-preserved ziggurat is the one at Ur, in Iraq that was built entirely of bricks in 2113 BC .
Yet another structure that is similar to the ziggurat of Herodotus is mentioned in the Bible. I am of course referring to the Temple of the Jews, the one that Solomon built. It was of course an improved version, one that incorporated the very latest in architectural innovations of the time and therefore seemingly different. Here three levels of stones were built and the tiers fashioned into chambers of decreasing sizes, built as explained before, one above the other, in a staggered or stepped fashion, upon a solid core of earth.
This structure incorporated the very latest in architectural innovations. The stones, for example, were precut monoliths that were cut and polished at the quarry itself. Another innovation that considerably refined the design was a new roofing material that increased the roof-span. Stones slabs restricted the size of rooms, which in turn increased the number of pillars. Indeed, often we see ancient ruins with innumerable pillars and wonder if there was any usable space at all within the building.
The answer was cedar beams. Cedar beams that afforded long span ceilings had finally reached the market. Kings from as far away as Assyria and Egypt were queuing up for this wonder material at the forests of Lebanon, where it grew in rare abundance and presumably was wiped out in a trice. Solomon too managed to get his hands on a few trees and had them shipped to his kingdom at considerable cost.
Bronze was yet another new material on the market. Bronze body amours were the very latest thing in warfare and whole battalions, often sworn enemies from opposite camps, were seen patiently queuing up for the metal at Philistine smithies. The Bible records Solomon’s fascination with the metal and he too managed to procure a quantity of this metal. He used it to create a vast tank, two pillars and two dozen or so of pomegranates—presumably decorative elements—for his building projects.
Needless to say, these architectural innovations caused considerable excitement in the fledgling Jewish kingdom. Hoary scribes too, were swept away by the hullabaloo, as science stealthily crept into the camp. They too set aside their gods and hobbled across to record these simple engineering feats in the best of biblical prose. We of the reinforced concrete age, failing to fathom the excitement over cedar beams and bronze pomegranates, surreptitiously plumb these biblical verses for a religious dimension that it does not hide!
Diagram 17: Herodotus’ Pyramids. Herodotus’ pyramids were distinctly stepped structures and had only three tiers. The upper tier was finished first, then the middle and finally the lower tier. This reversed building suggests the use of megaliths and a core of earth. Add all these up and you get a ziggurat.
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