An independent researcher named Sefi Levy has proposed that a hidden message lies not inside the Great Pyramid of Giza, but in its very dimensions. Levy argues that the monument's proportions may encode data about lunar cycles, planetary movements, a calendar and ancient Egyptian beliefs about the origin of the world.
The Great Pyramid has drawn the attention of researchers for thousands of years. Levy's version of its purpose is, by his own account, a bold one: he suggests its builders encoded important information directly into the structure's architecture, including its height, the width of its base, the slope of its sides and the ratios between different elements.
Levy believes these measurements may correspond to mathematical and astronomical values. In his view, the pyramid could have functioned as a form of knowledge carved in stone, built to outlast its creators by thousands of years.
What patterns did the researcher find
To test his hypothesis, Levy analyzed the Great Pyramid's core measurements using fractions he says were known to ancient Egyptian scribes. He then compared some of the resulting figures to natural and astronomical cycles.
One calculation produced a figure of 27.5, close to the roughly 27.55 days between successive passages of the Moon through perigee, the point at which the Moon comes closest to Earth. Another calculation produced the number 70, which Levy links to the roughly 70-day period during which the star Sirius was hidden by sunlight before its heliacal rising.
Notably, a period of about 70 days has also been associated with the mummification process in ancient Egyptian tradition, though Levy acknowledges this coincidence alone does not prove the pyramid's builders deliberately built the figure into its design. He also claims to have found possible correspondences to the cycles of Saturn, Jupiter, Venus and Mars, as well as mathematical relationships in the structure's proportions tied to pi and the golden ratio.
Testing the theory on 100,000 pyramids
To gauge how likely such matches were to occur by chance, Levy modeled 100,000 hypothetical pyramids in the style of Egypt's Old Kingdom. The computer model varied the base width and slope angle of each structure, then ran the same analysis on every one.
According to Levy, 2,419 of the models, or roughly 2.4 percent, showed as many or more matches to the mathematical and astronomical values as the Great Pyramid itself. Levy argues this makes a random origin for the patterns less likely, though he stresses this is only his own simulation and has not been independently confirmed. He has also acknowledged that the numerical matches were first identified only after the pyramid's measurements and target values were already known.
A pyramid symbolizing the birth of the world
Levy's theory extends beyond mathematics. He links the monument to the ancient Egyptian Heliopolitan creation myth, in which a watery chaos existed before the emergence of the primeval mound known as Benben, the place where, according to ancient Egyptian belief, creation began. Levy suggests the Great Pyramid's shape may have been a symbolic recreation of that primeval mound.
A more contentious part of his theory concerns where that myth may have originated. Levy connects it to the Eye of the Sahara, a vast ring-shaped geological formation in present-day Mauritania also known as the Richat Structure. He proposes that the region may once have had a much wetter climate and been connected to water, and suggests ancient communities could have left the area as the Sahara gradually dried out, migrating eastward toward the Nile. Levy speculates that memories of that former homeland may have evolved into the myth, with the Great Pyramid becoming its symbolic re-creation.
Scientists remain unconvinced
Levy's theory remains speculative. His paper was published on the platforms SSRN and Zenodo, both of which host research papers and preprints, but it has not undergone independent scientific peer review.
The prevailing view among Egyptologists is that the Great Pyramid was built about 4,500 years ago as a burial monument for the pharaoh Khufu, based on its connection to the royal necropolis, an associated funerary complex and a granite sarcophagus found inside the structure.
At the same time, there is no direct evidence that Khufu was actually buried inside the pyramid. Nor does any ancient text state that its dimensions were deliberately encoded to match astronomical cycles. Evidence of a direct link between the Great Pyramid and the Eye of the Sahara is likewise absent.
