A new paper proposes that the Great Pyramid of Giza, rather than solely serving as a tomb for Pharaoh Khufu, was designed to function as a repository of knowledge, embedding a numerical code within its very structure. Independent researcher Sefy Levy argues that carefully chosen measurements of the pyramid's exterior—its height, base, sloping sides, and overall shape—form a system intended to preserve ancient Egyptian understanding of mathematics, time, and the cosmos for eternity.
Levy's theory posits that these dimensions, when analyzed using fractions common to ancient Egyptian scribes, yield striking matches with celestial cycles and mathematical constants. For example, a calculation reportedly produces the number 27.5, closely aligning with the approximate 27.55-day lunar perigee cycle. Another calculation results in 70, which Levy links to the approximately 70-day interval between the heliacal setting and rising of Sirius, a period also associated with Egyptian mummification traditions. The paper suggests other dimensions correlate with the cycles of visible planets and approximate values of pi and the golden ratio.
Levy's research, detailed in a paper posted on SSRN and Zenodo, suggests the pyramid itself is not a container for knowledge but rather a manifestation of it, made in stone. He contends that the builders did not construct the monument solely for longevity but because its form was inherently valuable information.
Mainstream Egyptology continues to view the Great Pyramid as a funerary monument for Khufu, dating back approximately 4,500 years. Evidence supporting this interpretation includes its empty granite sarcophagus, mortuary complex, and royal cemetery. However, no ancient texts explicitly state that its dimensions encode astronomical data.
To assess the likelihood of his findings occurring by chance, Levy conducted a simulation involving 100,000 hypothetical Old Kingdom-style pyramids with varying dimensions. He reported that approximately 2.4% of these models achieved as many or more matches with the target values as the Great Pyramid, a result he argues makes coincidence less probable. However, this remains a self-conducted simulation, and a stricter comparison proved inconclusive.
Beyond the numerical code, Levy presents a broader theory suggesting the pyramid symbolizes an ancient Egyptian creation tradition. This tradition describes the emergence of the first land from a primordial watery world, known as the Heliopolitan creation myth and the benben mound. Levy proposes that the pyramid was built to represent this primordial mound.
He further controversially suggests this creation story may be based on a real geographic location. Levy identifies the Eye of the Sahara, a ring-shaped geological formation in Mauritania, as a potential candidate for this ancestral homeland. Thousands of years ago, when the Sahara was a greener, wetter environment, this area, with its raised central landmass, might have been surrounded by water. Levy theorizes that communities migrated eastward towards the Nile as the region dried, carrying memories of their origin, which were later recreated at Giza. In this interpretation, the pyramid represents the hill, with a harbor and a lost Nile branch symbolizing water, and the westward causeways connecting to the setting sun and the proposed ancestral homeland.
This aspect of Levy's theory, connecting the Eye of the Sahara to Giza as an ancestral homeland and a basis for the creation myth, lacks direct archaeological or historical evidence.