The Pyramid Paradox
A New Theory Suggests Ancient Egyptians Designed a Radical System for Building Pyramids from the Top-Down
THE AIM for today’s newsletter is to surprise, delight, and maybe even inspire you on how you could design better systems and processes in your business or organization by leveraging some really ancient systems thinking wisdom that may explain how the pyramids at Ghiza were constructed. It comes courtesy of YouTuber DamiLee whose channel is dedicated to unconvering and explaining architecture and design through the centuries, and sometimes in literature (check out her video on the architecture of Middle Earth…)
In her recent video, Cannibalizing Structures she discusses the intriguing theory of Huni Choi who pitched her two years ago about how he believes the great pyramids at Giza were constructed, and it quite literally up-ends all prior theories. After ten years of careful study and research, Choi suggests each pyramid (Khufu, Khafre, and Menakaure) was built from the top-down employing unique management and engineering techniques to create a recursive closed-loop construction engine, with discarded material from each contributing to the next. Intrigued? Let’s dive in to the nitty-gritty.
Appreciation for a System to Un-Build a Pyramid
As DamiLee explains in the video, there have been numerous explanations for how the great pyramids were made up to and including aliens. However, each has suffered either from the absence of proof or, as any student of Deming knows about theory, a single piece of disconfirming evidence. There’s never been a totally satisfying explanation until Choi approached DamiLee with the results of his research — and from a Deming perspective it’s absolutely fascinating.
