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These three simple objects-a sphere, a hook, and five wooden fragments- were found in a secret shaft of the Great Pyramid of Giza. When these items were found, it became huge news. After all, these are the only things ever discovered inside this giant pyramid. And we have absolutely no idea what it is. Now, thanks to the latest technology, we are bringing these strange objects to light. A stone sphere about the size of a baseball. The stone is clearly roughly worked. It has a scratch, especially noticeable around the entire circumference. The corroded copper hook is divided into two curved prongs.
It looks like it had to be attached to something, but what? We just don't know. And five wooden fragments once had strange markings. For over 4,000 years, the Great Pyramid, where they were found, has fascinated people. There are still many mysteries surrounding it that we have never been able to solve. Is it possible that these objects could somehow shed light on some of these mysteries? Are n't they a false trail? Are they even real, or are they really have belonged to the builders of the Great Pyramid? Why were they hidden inside? And what are they needed for?
1872, Doctor Grant and engineer Wayman Dixon explore the Great Pyramid. The interior of the Great Pyramid is a veritable labyrinth of passages and openings. Inside, they make discoveries of their entire lives. Grant and Dixon were looking for the shafts leading from the Queen's Chamber. Dixon has his own tools. He digs, he digs, and finally finds one and makes his way to her. And on the other side they find a second mine.
It is in these mines that they discover three mysterious objects. This is making headlines around the world. We are in the Great Pyramid of Egypt, the main monument of this ancient culture, and this is the first time These items became known as the " Dixon relics." Could they explain some of the mysteries of the Great Pyramid, the only wonder of the world that has survived to this day? It was built in a time when the wheel had not even been invented yet. And the pyramid itself holds few clues to these mysteries. At that time, the Egyptians didn't even decorate the inside of their tombs with hieroglyphic inscriptions that could be read to
understand what they were doing there and why. There are no bodies in the pyramid, no burial utensils, nothing. This is why Dixon's relics are of such great importance. If they are real, they could help unlock the secrets of the pyramid. But if they are fakes, they won't tell us anything. Is it possible that someone planted them later? Unfortunately, there are many people who had the opportunity to throw Dixon's relics into the pyramid. Dixon and Grant were far from the first to go through the pyramid and take things out. The ancient Greeks and Romans visited here. And as European colonialism expanded and Egyptomania swept the world, even Napoleon visited the Great Pyramid and is said to
have spent a night alone inside it. The only way to know that these artifacts weren't planted by a later visitor is to date them. The sphere and hook end up in the British Museum. The wood, on the other hand, at some point disintegrated, broke into five pieces, which were placed in a cigar box, and it disappeared. Stone and metal cannot be dated. And that's all they have. The real question of whether these items were left behind by the pyramid builders could not be answered without the wood. The wood fragments disappear sometime in the late 40s.
This is a dead end. In 2019, the Assistant Curator is working in the Asian Collection at the University of Aberdeen. She comes across a strange lacquered box that doesn't quite seem to fit in there, because she recognizes it as decorated with elements from an old Egyptian flag. She discovers that it contains these five wooden fragments. Reopening the fragments changes everything. Now they can conduct radiocarbon analysis of the relics and find out if they are real or not. But the results are shocking. This was 500 years earlier than the date of construction of the Great Pyramid, which was truly amazing. 500 years is a pretty long time. From the perspective of the ancient Egyptians, this was long before they even thought about building pyramids.
Is it really plausible that something so old could be used 500 years after its creation? There is good quality wood in Egypt. And so this wood was imported from Lebanon. And because it was very expensive to transport to Egypt, it was reused as soon as it lost its original purpose. In fact, archaeological excavations now show that ancient Egyptians often reused old wood, especially in later monuments and tombs. So, despite the great age of the wood, its discovery inside the younger Great Pyramid is consistent with what we know about Ancient Egypt. But this does not answer the main question. What are they for? When the Dixon relics were first found, some experts believed they were complex surveying instruments, a toolkit of Egyptian builders.
The construction of these pyramids was not just about moving huge blocks. This also required precision. And the angle from the base of the pyramid to the very top is 51.5 degrees. Make a mistake at the bottom-and you will have a huge error when you reach the top. The Egyptians already knew that wrong angles were a big problem. This pyramid was built by Cheops' father, Snofru. It is known as the Bent Pyramid. In fact, it seems that Snofru's pyramid was originally built at too steep an angle and it did not hold up.
Realizing the mistake, the Egyptians corrected it, and because of this it looks a little bizarre. Apparently, the ancient Egyptians eventually concluded that 51 degrees was the optimal angle for building a pyramid. A set of tools to help keep the course was probably a necessity to achieve such high accuracy. Dixon's relics could solve the mystery of how the builders achieved this in the Great Pyramid. These may be parts of a single instrument. The wooden piece could be a handle attached to a hook, and the ball could be attached to this tool as a kind of spike.
The pendulum works like this: it's essentially a weight hanging on a rope, and thanks to gravity, you get a perfect vertical. This would explain the groove around the sphere. By adding just a few missing wooden pieces, Dixon's relics become a polygonal plumb bob, which allows for measurements not only of verticals, but also of horizontals and diagonals.
