@FoMaHun - Marcell Fóti 🪨
1. Another interesting photo, another curious phenomenon.
Last week I made it back to the Great Pyramid of Giza again, and that’s where I captured this marvel. I ended up there again because Hungary is a small country, and from here there’s only one flight a week to Egypt—and even that only goes to Cairo.
So even though my destination was somewhere completely different, the only way to get there was through Cairo. So my colleague and I took a walk out to the pyramids. A walk... khm.
Part of the story is that we chose accommodation that was supposedly within walking distance of the pyramids—but we didn’t factor in what an average Cairo neighborhood is actually like.
But hey, I’m the idiot—what should a city of thirty million look like in a country where the GDP per capita is one-thirtieth of that of the U.S.? You heard that right—one-thirtieth, 1/30!
You could even say Egyptians don’t have to worry about GDP, because it hasn’t really been invented there yet.
Our host, an elderly Egyptian man, firmly talked us out of walking that 400 meters in the morning—in broad daylight. Hmm? As it turned out, though, he works in the pyramid area and has a gift shop there, so he offered to drive us in the morning. Deal!
But what kind of car, good lord? We rattled along in a Peugeot that’s been abused since 1977, bouncing through narrow, unpaved, dirty, dusty streets for that 400 meters from where we were staying to the entrance.
And his “gift shop”? Just a few battered tables and chairs we would’ve already thrown out ourselves, set up under a piece of shade cloth held up by some sticks. That damned GDP again.
Adventure: my colleague brought a professional laser level with him, and the plan was to just casually carry it into the site. Well, that didn’t work—we almost had it confiscated at the entrance.
But the old man saved us.
As he put it, he has 7,000 relatives in the city—SEVEN THOUSAND—and he managed to stash the laser device a few meters from the entrance with one of those relatives until the evening. One of the seven thousand.
But now let’s finally get to the pyramid! I’m skipping a bunch of parts, otherwise we’ll never get to analyzing the photo.
This picture was taken early in the morning from the north side of the Great Pyramid—the entrance side—around 9 o’clock, when the eastern sunlight just barely grazes the surface of the stones.
I didn’t notice the phenomenon myself. It’s worth traveling with a sharp-eyed inventor, because they spot things that make you blink in disbelief. Take a good look at this image!
My friend says: these are bus stops. I’m like, what? He says: these aren’t stones, they’re bus stops. The Great Pyramid is built out of bus stops.
Excuse me?
And as I look up, I see it too—each stone has a darker top section, and underneath it’s eroded in such a way that you could actually tuck yourself in there to shelter from rain or sun. Indeed, they’re like little caves—rain shelters or bus stops.
Which is interesting, because how does that happen? What kind of natural limestone behaves like that—that no matter how you rotate it, the top is always harder and more weather-resistant, while the bottom is weaker and more crumbly?
Of course, we know this isn’t natural limestone. For one, it tastes salty, and for another, Joseph Davidovits already gave (and even filmed) the recipe over twenty years ago. But reality is what it is—this hasn’t quite made it to the awareness level of archaeologists.
So there you go—the bus stop effect. It’s actually easy to explain by the settling of the artificial limestone mixture. The crushed natural limestone added into it settles toward the bottom, meaning there’s more binder at the top than below, which causes this kind of cap-like erosion.
So, bus stops.
@FoMaHun - Marcell Fóti 🪨
2. Let me zoom in for you a little bit.
BTW: the fact that you can actually take shelter under one of these “bus stops” is proven by the fact that we saw a dog lying up high under one of these overhangs—unfortunately, I didn’t have a lens that could capture anything more than a one-pixel version of the dog, so that shot didn’t happen.
Which would’ve been the truly immersive, illustrative image—a real dog, in real 3D, lounging inside the stone.
@FoMaHun - Marcell Fóti 🪨
3. Did I create a video about the bus stops? I couldn't remember. But this is what I also found on my phone.
Bus stops panorama video with wind noise. Enjoy!
And before you ask—no, sadly I didn’t lick the pyramid this time either. I simply forgot, due to the stress of nearly having our ridiculously expensive laser level confiscated. Next time I’ll lick it, I promise!
