Japanese will build pyramid in Egypt

Press, 4 October 1977, Page 8

Japanese will build pyramid in Egypt

NZPA-Reuter Cairo A team of Japanese archaeologists has announced plans to build a new pyramid in Egypt, the first in the land of the Pharaohs in nearly 4500 years. The Greek historian, Herodotus, had a theory that the pyramids were built with wooden cranes and ramps. Other people had put forth different theories, the chief archaeologist, Mr Sakuji Yoshimura, told the Associated Press. But so far it was all guesswork. The only way to find out how it had been done was to build one, he said. Orientalists from Waseda University near Tokyo will supervise the construction work starting in January. The project is expected to take nearly 24 months and require nearly 10,000 workers. The Japanese pyramid will stand 19.8 metres high and measure 29.2 metres along its base. That would make it about

i one-seventh the size of the Great Pyramid of Cheops at Giza, one of the Seven Wonders of the World. The selection of a pyramid site and other details are i still being worked out with the Egyptian Government, which has agreed in prin- . ciple to the project with certain restrictions, according to Mr Ahmad Kadry, director of the Egyptian Department of Antiquities. One of the conditions was that the pyramid not be built on the horizon, in the i same viewing area, as the j pyramids at Giza, Mr Kadry •'said. 'i Another condition is that ithe Japanese pyramid be rej moved as soon as it is built and photographed. | Mr Yoshimura said the pyramid blocks would be i;taken from three quarries in liCairo and Japanese ■ scientists would experiment ;with ancient stone-cutting j methods. Wooden cranes and I i ramps would be built, and J some of the rocks would be 'transported by raft along the : ißiver Nile,

: The estimated cost of the (project, sponsored and finanjced by the Nippon Television Network Corporation, is SIM. “There may be some who criticise us, but we believe that the study of ancient methods and the people who used them will help our future,” said Mr Toshiaki Kamiko, N.T.V.’s managing director, “We don’t know exactly how until it is built,” The Egyptian Government has opposed many adventurous schemes involving the pyramids, including an American expedition last (May in which a troupe of (gymnasts planned to periform on a trampoline atop ,the Cheops pyramid. ; But the Japanese archae- ; ologists insist that their project is serious. “Maybe it won’t work, maybe we will encounter some problems that we can’t surmount,” one Japanese project official said. “But that’s okay, too, because we will have learned something lanyway.”