From the chiasmus archive: November 17, 2019 . "MONUMENTS OF ARCHITECTURE AND CREATORS OF THE TRANSCENDENCE - CENOTAPHS OF DOOM (PART 6)"
(Images: www.loc.gov)
As we discussed earlier in this series, when studying the great pyramids as structures that although built to be an embodiment of the Pharaohs godlike persona, its design and purpose was of a engineering ornamentation in delivering them onto the next life. What is left is a testament to us as mortal beings, that creative urge within our consciousness, that we can build and design a structural presence. That not only transcends time, but can survive when a civilization could not; there is no Egyptian Empire anymore, just these awe inspiring monuments, left thousands of years ago in its wake. I have always been curious of the dynamism that is the monolithic pyramid design, away from any mysticism of Egyptian worship. There was, maybe inadvertently, a human desire to create an inanimate imprint that would outlast the very biology that created it. As a structural exemplification of both life and death, set forth as an engineering project, even thousands of years ago in Egypt, to instill an awareness that what was being constructed was to endure, not just the harshness of the African desert, but the very rise and fall of the Civilization it was to represent.
This could be, in its simplistically, an answer to the mystery of the Pyramids, with newer detection equipment being used to look inside these massive tombs, more so an ability to understand the scale of its engineering, particularly the Great Pyramid of Giza, using sophisticated muon particle detectors. Physicists have detected a massive void in its center. An elongated reinforced area, above its foundations. Theorized to be part of its construction, maybe to assist in maintaining the integrity of the structure. The so called Void itself has no open corridors or any doorway to access it, yet it is not a 'chamber' or 'tomb'. So, if the architectural blueprints of The Great Pyramid of Giza was built as a beacon of human ingenuity it was designed maybe intentionally, over four thousand years ago, for us now, in this present to be marveled at its enduring longevity from a society that has since perished. Could the Pyramid, by its design, be a representation of death? To which it maintains significantly, in its visual medium, to be an entombed structure. Created architecturally as a everlasting projection, that could entail its tomb like presence to encompass of all of humanity. An archaeological resonation of futures past. A point of reference for another civilization within the Universe, who finally answered our call of whether we are, as intelligent life, alone in the vast cosmos. Arriving on this tiny planet called Earth, only to be discovered that we have long become extinct. What is left, are these cenotaphs of doom.
I ask this question in its speculative idealism of design, not as some metaphysical possibility of the pyramidal shape – but as a possible doomsday reflection, because at the height of the Cold War, when the the world did indeed stand at the brink of Mutually Assured Destruction via nuclear weapons. A pyramid structure was built as a key note to human extinction. In 1970, construction began on a desolate part of North Dakota in lieu of the infamous SAFEGUARD deterrent antimissile system, a costly project, that in theory, would detect and launch nuclear missiles at an incoming Russian Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) threat against America. By 1974 this complex was finished and was finally unveiled on the barren plans of North Dakota was almost surreal in its entirety; a reinforced radar station encased in a pyramid shell, a brutalist inspired projection of concrete and steel, set within an array of 46 separate silos, housing nuclear missiles. Each one designed, once a Russian attack was detected, to be ordered as an intercept. With the long range missile treaties being signed by America and the Soviet Union in the mid to late 70's, the necessity for intercept stations, such as the SAFEGUARD program began to be scaled back, when the base began operations n 1975, within one year, it was shut down in 1976. Soon after, the silos were filled with concrete, welded shut and this impressive Pyramid, the epicenter of this doomsday project, was stripped of any of its electronics. Leaving only a shell within.
What is impressive about this complex, is that it was designed and built specifically to exasperate an annihilation of the human race. We can look it in its morbidity, yet, this now deserted missile base with its unusual pyramid structure as a center piece, is so similar to the civilizations like the Egyptians and Aztecs. Both have utilized the vary shape as a pharos of power, but as we know from history, these great civilizations no longer exist. Leaving these remnants, reminders that are the cenotaphs of doom.
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(A.Glass 2019)
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