The Giza Power Plant : Technologies of Ancient Egypt

This book is utterly fascinating. It comes at the historical artifacts from a physical, mechanical viewpoint. The theory is well thought out and thoroughly explained. This theory makes so much more sense than the tomb theory. A must read for anyone interested in ancient Egypt and the pyramids.

When I first sat down to this book I was very curious to see how Christopher Dunn would try to sell his -Theory- on a Giza Power Plant. The concept is pretty far fetched at first along side the theory of aliens building the pyramids. However, while many theories often ramble about observations and scriptures Dunn took a completely different approach I can relate to. Having received a degree in Electrical Engineering (telecommunications) I enjoyed seeing how Dunn approached his theory from an engineering / scientific standpoint rather than piecing together various writings. The first 1/3 of the book (~90 pages) will introduce you to Dunn's method for his theory. Over these pages he will outline trips to the pyramid and explain how he began to arrive at this theory through taking measurements and using logic. It becomes clear after his introductory parts that there is plenty of evidence to question the current logic held about pyramids. A great example used in Dunn's book is how mainstream Egyptologists all agree that at the time the best tools Egyptians had were made of Copper. Copper can not cut granite so how did they carve the granite? Let alone carve it so precisely with corridors barely 0.20 inches from being straight, precision that today could only be obtained by using machinery. Clearly Egyptians had a technique we have yet to discover. Researching this subject further I found that in 1999 a NOVA special showed how Egyptians couldn't cut granite with copper tools so instead they used SAND and would grind the copper against the sand. This method worked but was no where near being capable of producing the precise measurements we see in the pyramids. The second part of the book (~120 pages) begins to go into detail, using the information Dunn gathered to piece together how "The Giza Power Plant" could be assembled and its purposes. It is a fantastic read which slowly begins to put the puzzle together to form an actual power plant that, at least in theory, has the potential to work. Once the plant has been built, Dunn details how it would operate and would go back to his earlier evidence to show how his theory might explain the abnormalities many archeologists have logged over the years. This leads to the final part of the book which essentially summarizes his theory and the content provided (~25 pages) **OVERALL** Dunn's book is a fantastic read. It is put together from an engineering perspective on the pyramids and makes for some great reading. With this said though, the material he discusses can be a bit complex at times. The use of Radians, Degrees, Minutes etc for measurements... diagrams drawn a bit like engineering specs with tolerances etc. While Dunn does a great job explaining what the measurements and material mean, the images felt right out of one of my engineering books. If we look past this, the material in this book is fascinating. The overall theory is great! Dunn put a lot of effort into his research over the years and did a fine job connecting the dots to backup his theory. This is a 5 star book that I think would greatly entertain someone who loves the pyramids or ancient history. Out of the many theories for the pyramid I believe Dunn's has a leg to stand on. While it may or may not be true, in the end his theory takes into account the notion that man was intelligent even in the ancient times. **NOTE: The material in this book is the basis for a theory. Expect to see content like "Perhaps they..." "May have..." "Could have..." basically like any theory there is some assumption that goes along with the content to make it work. **NOTE: If you enjoyed the material, or question some of the theory, each chapter has its Bibliography outlined independently. This makes it very easy to research the material yourself rather than sift through hundreds of footnotes to find the right one.

(Edited 29/09/2012) Whilst it is of course open to anyone to come up with a theory about the Great Pyramid and write a book about it, and indeed many have done so, as someone who has had a deep interest in ancient Egypt since early childhood I have always found the theories to be lacking. Generally it seems most theories don't explain everything that has so far been found inside the pyramid or they resort to orthodoxy one way or another. Christopher Dunn's theory on the other hand is the most complete and the most convincing that I have yet read, and the engineer in me tells me that he's right, or very nearly right. The beauty of his theory is that not only does it explain everything found and recorded, from the noxious smell reported by early explorers to the salt encrustation on the walls of the so-called Queen's Chamber, without any single component it would fall apart. In other words, it demands the existence of everything which is currently known, and even allows the author to predict the nature of previously undiscovered features such as the apparent downward hole in the cavity behind Gantenbrink's Door. Christopher Dunn is a machinist, someone who has spent half a lifetime with machines and tools, and has spent the last 20 years or so working to "reverse-engineer" the known features of the Great Pyramid of Giza with a technologist's knowledge and experience and has arrived at the unshakeable conclusion that this was without a doubt an energy-generation device; a coupled oscillator which was precisely tuned to the resonant frequency of the earth itself; which operated on acoustical energy generated in the so-called "Grand Gallery" (in reality an acoustical resonance chamber), amplified in the King's Chamber then emitted from one of the shafts which are conventionally thought to be air-shafts. The other shaft carried into the King's Chamber the microwave input signal, the ever-present background resonance of universal hydrogen for which the perfect waveguide would be the exact dimensions of this shaft. The granite box in the King's Chamber, reputed to be a sarcophagus, was in reality (due to the high quartz content in the granite) essentially a crystal oscillator. Whilst the author, with disarming honesty, admits he does not know exactly how the microwave energy emitted was harnessed, it is of course well-known that Nicola Tesla demonstrated over a century ago how to transmit electricity without the use of wires; if the ancients were knowledgeable enough to create such devices then it goes without saying they would have found a way to harness the energy created. Dunn shows how the "Kings Chamber" is essentially a resonant cavity such as found in a guitar, perfectly tuned to the F Sharp chord despite being made of granite; how the massive granite beams in the so-called Relieving Chambers above the King's Chamber contain holes which show where material was removed in order to perfectly tune them to very specific frequencies (or notes); and how there was a massive explosion in antiquity which damaged the walls and ceiling of the King's Chamber, cracked the granite beams above it and effectively ended the Giza Power Plant's operational life. Conventional thinking is that the damage is the result of an earthquake. This however does not make sense; the 350-feet long Descending Passage deviates by approximately 1/4 inch over its entire length despite being bored 200 feet into the bedrock beneath the pyramid, yet shows no sign of any earthquake disturbance in the very place where it would be most expected. The nature and date of the event which put an end to this civilisation is, in my opinion, a hugely interesting question with a number of possible answers. Whilst as always conventional theories, paying lip-service to the principles of uniformity, fail to explain anything convincingly, for anyone who has read the works of "catastrophists" such as Immanuel Velikovsky, David Talbott, Dwardu Cardona, and a host of others, there are many possibilities worthy of consideration. Velikovsky, perhaps the "father" of modern catastrophism and also possibly the most perceptive, suggested there were global cataclysms around 3500 years ago, around 6000 years ago, and the greatest, the Universal Flood, possibly some time within the last 10,000 years. He also suggested there were others, on a greater or lesser scale, that have occurred whilst homo sapiens has lived on the planet. There are, of course, many variations. Cardona and Talbott for instance, both originally influenced by an unpublished suggestion of Velikovsky's, came from completely different directions yet both arrived at the exact same conclusion: that the Earth was once a satellite of the planet we now know as Saturn, once the father of all mythological gods. It seems likely to me that the cataclysm which undoubtedly ended the working life of the Great Pyramid occurred rather earlier than later, perhaps 10,000 years ago, and that the scattered remnants of a once-great people took many millenia to recover and rebuild a civilisation which was a shadow of its former self, no longer possessing the knowledge or wherewithal to regain its former glory. Its rather pathetic attempts to emulate earlier works culminated in the Step Pyramid of Djoser, an artefact which we have always been told is the oldest pyramid due to its crude construction but is actually most likely the youngest for the very same reason. I think the reason we have so far not stumbled across the machinery that undoubtedly once absolutely MUST have existed in order to creation this amazing machine is because numerous planetary catastrophes have occurred within the past 10 millennia or so and that if it still exists it lies buried far beyond our present capacity for recovery - if we knew where to even start looking. Many will scoff at such theories as far-fetched, conditioned as they are to believe that the majority view is the correct one. Yet so far no-one has proposed a satisfactory explanation for the existence of the Antikythera Mechanism, a mechanical astronomical computer recovered from a Greek ship which sank in approximately 100 B.C. This, it seems, offers irrefutable proof that the majority view is desperately in need of major revision at least, and possibly even complete rejection, for it clearly demonstrates that, even if it were the only such artefact ever to have existed (which is highly unlikely for many reasons), still there was at one time in grey antiquity a civilisation which possessed a technology which would not have been out of place in the early 20th Century. The fact that this object may have been today's equivelant of a Grandfather clock in its own time is neither here nor there; no conventional explanation has yet been able to account for it, and its very existence is a stark reminder that the more we insist we have now discovered everything there is to be discovered, the less we, or rather those who insist on clinging to such narrow-minded views, actually know about the recent history of the planet Earth and the human race. The now undeniable fact that there was previously an advanced civilisation capable of creating the industry necessary to manufacture the precision tools with which to then engineer a precision instrument such as the Antikythera Mechanism is lent additional weight by the superlative work of Dunn who documents what seems to be irrefutable evidence that the ancient Egyptians possessed advanced machining techniques which allowed them to cut and drill through igneous rocks such as granite, diorite and basalt apparently far quicker and more efficiently than we can today. They also apparently possessed the ability to guide high-powered precision stone cutting, shaping and inscribing tools through three or more axes with incredible accuracy and reliability in order to cut and shape granite and other hard igneous rocks, among the hardest known naturally occurring substances, into huge and yet intricate shapes as though they were plastic, and suggests that for him the question of the nature of the technology used to guide these tools, rather than the fact that the tools themselves indisputably once must have existed, is perhaps the more fascinating aspect. There is much much more to this book. Whilst only 280 pages there is a huge amount of information and analysis contained within it, and for anyone who finds themselves dissatisfied with the current paradigm of Egyptology which insists that these staggeringly huge and yet amazingly precise structures were built by the ancients for purposes as prosaic as burial or stargazing, this is to my knowledge the most holistic theory yet presented. Read it yourself - I am sure you will similarly feel that the apparent mystery of the true purpose of the Great Pyramid of Giza is no longer a mystery.

This is a very well researched and very thought provoking book. The author makes assumptions that go directly against mainstream Egyptology which frankly they should, because when one discusses the Giza pyramids and makes feeble attempts to explain the incredible accuracy and skill required to build them and offer inadequate reasons such as mere egotistical funerary demands for these attributes, this is where ridicle should be levelled as such explanations are grossly insufficient. There will be naysayers of course and these 'theories' should be questioned but the author does make a very convincing augument, one worthy of further experiment. Remember 'There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so (Shakespeare) in other words our perception, or how we think about something, determines whether we see it as good or bad, true or false, worthy or ignoble. For me I am exited by all those exploring alternative theories about ancient civilizations and history.

I have worked in a closely related field to Christopher Dunn and I am very impressed with his research and the detail he has collected. He has managed to account for many details that traditional Egyptologists are confused by.. It was a fascinating read. Most of the theories he has purposed are very well constructed, presented and convincing. He says himself that the ultimate use of the power that would flow from the structure is a mater of conjecture. His conjecture is good but there are also other possibilities. Overall a very interesting and thought stimulating read, I would highly recommend this book to anyone with a background or interest in the physical sciences.

Quando si parla di Antico Egitto le teorie "alternative" sono veramente infinite e quindi occorre fare una severa scrematura alla fonte, perché l'alieno e i dischi volanti sono sempre facili da inserire... Tra le tante teorie, scartando quindi quelle basate su postulati risibili e infondati e che affondano le loro basi solo sulla fantasia più sfrenata, quella che ha catturato la mia attenzione e che merita comunque di essere valutata, è quella di Christopher Dunn. Dunn ha fatto un lavoro molto meticoloso, onesto e preciso, che gli è costato anni ed anni di ricerche specialistiche, fornendoci così una indagine molto accurata che sicuramente apre il raggio delle ipotesi verso nuove ed interessanti possibilità. Sicuramente l'approccio metodologico di Dunn merita rispetto e attenzione. Purtroppo tutte le pubblicazioni e le conferenze di Christopher Dunn non sono tradotte in italiano, ma se masticate un po' di inglese troverete molti spunti interessanti anche per una ricerca personale...

Une hypothèse séduisante voir convaincante à des années lumières du narratif égyptologique officiel. Une seule certitude pour moi, la destinée des pyramides n'était pas de servir de tombeau aux pharaons. L'hypothèse de DUNN reste une hypothèse. La lecture de ce livre m'a pourtant ouvert les yeux au point que, depuis, je jette un regard entièrement neuf sur les autres pyramides. Mystérieuse Egypte...

When I came across this book I thought 'Another crazy theory about the pyramids'. Don't get me wrong, I'm convinced that the mainstream egyptologists are dismissing alternative theories because they don't fit the tomb theory but, a power plant? This book will rock your world. Christopher Dunn looks at the pyramids from an engineer & stone mason's eyes and soon debunks the orthodox theories of how and why the pyramids were built, convincingly. He puts together the facts that are ignored or dismissed as unimportant and creates a radical new theory. I found it a page turningly easy read. Each time my mind said 'Yeah but what about...' I'd turn the page and he'd answer that. From a laymans point of view the science looks good and the feedback he gets from the experts he talks to is impressive. If you have an interest in history and the enigma that is the pyramids you should read this book. If you are interested in a greener future you should read this - this just might be the technology we need.

Very interesting explanation about the construction and past use of this amazing buildings.