Pyramid Quest - Odessey of excavation discoveries | Yukinori Kawae | TEDxKyoto

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences.

We haven't solved pyramid secrets very much yet. For example, how did pyramid workers live their daily lives? Yukinori Kawae, archaeologist illustrates the status quo of excavation by using modern technology.

My name's Kawae.
I'm an archaeologist.

I am working in Egypt.

But I don't wear a hat like Indiana Jones.

You may wonder
what kind of relationship remains

between ancient Egypt and us.

You may wonder
about usefulness of archaeologists.

I see some of you are indeed
agreeing with me.

People often ask me these questions.

Whenever they do, I remind them
about one scene of "Schindler's List".

Did you see "Schindler's List"?

Many of you did.

The scene I'm talking about is

the one with the Nazi soldiers
separating Jewish people by profession.

They give a blue card to people
who are considered with an useful job.

People who are considered
with an unuseful job

are sent to the ghetto immediately.

There is a history teacher in the queue.

Of course, he is sent to the getto.

When the history teacher is deported,
he whispers,

"When is history not essential?"

I'm not going to talk to you today
about something useful.

But I think that my story is essential
to understand us, human beings.

I'd like to talk
about the pyramids of Giza.

You know,
pyramid mystery remains unsolved.

Our knowledge about these 4,500 year-old
huge buildings is very limited.

Do you know why?

Rudyard Kipling,
writer of children's literature,

says this,
He wrote "The Elephant Child".

He gave us an answer
of "why the elephant’s nose is long".

In the story,
thought-provoking stories are followed

by a poem: "the six honest serving-men".

Do you know this poem?

I keep six honest serving-men.

Their names are What and Why and When

and How and Where.

I send them over land and sea,
I send them east and west.

All right! Let's apply this to pyramids.

What are pyramids?

Why did they build them?

When, how and where did they build them?

Many people have investigated
those questions.

But, one serving-man is missing.

"Who" is missing, isn't he?

Who on earth built them?

Where did people who built them live?

How did they live?
Nobody has ever studied these questions.

Who has already visited Egypt among you?

Not so many of you.

If you don't go there,
the image of pyramids is very romantic,

like they stand alone
in the middle of desert.

But reality is like this.

Crowds of people.

13 million per year.

30 thousand tourists visit the site
on a daily basis.

Let's just switch tourists with workers.

We, archaeologist of Egypt, estimate

there were 20 to 30 thousands
pyramid workers.

With a mental image
of 30 thousand tourist a day,

you can imagine what it means
to have 30 000 workers 4500 years ago.

That is the image of 4500 years ago.

We can't talk about the pyramids
without considering the people.

We should avoid very complicated theories,

like aliens
and super-ancient civilization.

When we think of pyramid
with crowds of workers,

we find proper answers
of how to build them.

Mark Lehner, American archaeologist

and Captain of Ancient Egypt
Research Associates Inc.

investigated the Giza Plateau
to find out traces

of its people 28 years ago.

The original theory goes like this:

cities were on its east side of the Nile
and graves were on its west side.

But Mr. Lehner thought differently.

He thought
people were looking for convenience.

As the pyramids were a national project,

surely they would build a city and live
next to the building site.

That was why he excavated Heit el-Ghurab,

which was located 500m south from Sphinx.

He found unique remains of a town.

We call it a pyramid town.

We've been excavating this town
for 30 years.

I am in charge of the west part
of the town,

where, we believe,
the nobles and bourgeois lived.

I especially excavate "house unit one",

the largest residence in pyramid towns.

The lay-out of the rooms
is almost the same as ours,

when you look at it carefully.

For example, there was a kitchen,
of course.

Ancient Egypt mainly ate bread.

This bread is baked in a Baja,

a big ceramic amphorae used as oven.

It is very delicious.

Why do I know this?

Because I baked them on a TV program
this February.

We made them from Emmer wheats.

This is really filling.

The taste is full of love.

There was beer, too.

It was not cold.

Egyptians often drink high-nutrient beer
with low alcohol.

There were many beer amphorae
in this house unit one.

Needless to say, there were also bedrooms
in the house.

Surprisingly, the bedrooms
are in middle of the house.

The sleeping person is Ali,
one of our excavation team members.

We often check comfortable beds
to sleep in,

under the name of archaeology.

I slept there, too.

It was very comfortable.

We can glimpse at the lifestyle
of the people who built the pyramids.

Based on this insight, we want
to think again how they built them.

We have a problem though.

We don't have any data.

No data may be misleading.

Let me give you an example.

This is the kind of data that we do have.

Pyramids are square cones.

They usually are illustrated
in a very linear way.

These illustrations represent
what we, today,

imagine was the original blueprint.

Nobody depicts each and every stone.

You may think that archaeology consists
of excavation.

Actually, the most important is to record.

We can understand past events
only if they are proprely recorded.

With this illustration,
we still don't know

how they built the pyramids.

So, we measured the fourth pyramid

by using the latest analytical tools.

Let's compare this blueprint
with the result of our work.

This is what we've generated.

This is 3D measurement.

Do you see the points
that create the image?

It is not computer graphics.

It's a point cloud.
It's made from many many points.

Each point has a 3D and a RGB color data.

We record them as they are.

We try to understand how they did it,
by using this simulation.

We are lacking many data.

So computer scientists compensate that

by using Morphological Image Processing.

We don't know how to cut stones.

So we use an edge
editing algorithm called PEAKIT.

It helps us understand things.

We don't know the base
of megalithic structure

like pyramids because
of backfill with sand.

In this case, we've used satellite images
to complete the data.

That's how we challenge
the pyramids' mysteries today.

Let's come back to our six serving men.

Kipling closed the final chapter
like this.

"Children don't have only six questions.

They have 10,000 questions."

They always ask "Why? Why? Why?"

Pyramids still have many, many secrets.

Pyramids are not precise square cones.

They gully up a bit
in the north, south, east and west.

We don't know the reason.

There are huge walls buried
under limestone plateau

in the northeast
of the Great Pyramid of Khufu.

We don't know why.

We have infinite questions.

In Japanese cosmology
we refer to 8 million

when speaking about infinity.

Pyramids too, are still
challenging us 8 million times...

Naturally, I can't solve them alone.

We tackle pyramid quests
with partners or in groups.

These are the members of my group.

Today I talk to you
as their representative.

Various people attend this TEDxKyoto.

One of my purpose is
to recruit new members.

We also need supporters.

So if you are interested,
please let me know.

In the end of the speech,
I'd like to express

my warmest thanks to Mark Lehner,

Captain, Mr. Kamei, Mr. Sato

and all the Egyptian members.

By discussing our various opinions,

we get interesting ideas.

Thank you.

(Applaud)