Eight years ago, Jean-Pierre Houdin, a successful French architect, became obsessed by the age-old mystery of how the Great Pyramid was built. He renounced his architectural practice, sold his Paris apartment, and for ten hours a day labored at his computer to create exquisitely detailed 3-D models of the interior of the Great Pyramid. After five years of effort, the images rotating on his computer screen provided irrefutable evidence of an astonishing secret. Corkscrewing up the inside of the Great Pyramid is a mile-long ramp, unseen for 4,500 years. The pyramid was built from the inside. The revelation casts a fresh light on the minds that founded earth's first civilization. The narration takes place in two time frames: ancient and modern. The ancient story explains how a nation of farmers that had only recently emerged from the Stone Age could construct one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. To execute something as complex and massive as the Great Pyramid, Egypt needed architects, mathematicians, boat builders, stone masons, metallurgists. It took twenty years to build the Great Pyramid. By the time its capstone was laid in 2560 BC, the innovations born of the building quest had transformed agrarian Egypt into the world's most modern, most powerful nation. As we follow the progress of Hemienu, the innovative architect who planned, organized and oversaw construction of the Great Pyramid, we also follow Houdin working to discover how and why the ancient architect designed the pyramid as he did. Houdin works as a 'forensic' architect, aiming to reconstruct the lessons Hemienu had learned from construction of three previous pyramids and to visualise his blueprint for the massive stone building.

"Houdin's theory solves many mysteries about the huge structure." -- Scientific American " The authors' prose is lucid, aided by drawings and photos, and the theories are intriguing." -- Publishers Weekly "It's a plausible theory, well-illustrated, and makes a useful addition to the always seductive study of pyramids...An intriguing new twist to an old enigma." -- Kirkus Reviews " Great fun for Egyptophiles." -- Barbara Mertz, author of Temples, Tombs, and Hieroglyphics "A serious attempt at a new explanation for one of the oldest Egyptological mysteries." -- Peter Der Manuelian, Giza Archives Project Director, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Bob Brier is a world-famous Egyptologist who has conducted research on pyramids and tombs in fifteen countries. A senior research fellow at the C.W. Post campus of Long Island University, he is the author of seven books, including The Murder of Tutankhamen, and hosted the Great Egyptian series for the Learning Channel. Jean-Pierre Houdin left his Parisian architecture firm in 1999 to devote himself to solving the mystery of the Great Pyramid. He has been awarded the Montgolfier Prize for his research.