The Bootstrap Engine
A Self-Reinforcing Electrochemical Model of the Great Pyramid and the Giza–Dahshur Industrial Complex
Stephen Horton | Independent Researcher | February 2026
Building on the work of Christopher Dunn and recent radar discoveries beneath Khafre’s Pyramid
“Both of us were right. The pyramid is a battery AND a hydrogen production system — because it’s a bootstrap engine that starts as one and becomes the other.”
Abstract
This paper proposes that the Great Pyramid of Giza functioned as a self-reinforcing electrochemical engine, resolving the apparent contradiction between two competing alternative theories: the galvanic battery model and Christopher Dunn’s hydrogen-based power plant model. Drawing on recently published ground-penetrating radar data revealing massive subterranean infrastructure beneath Khafre’s Pyramid — including twin 80-meter rectangular cavities, eight cylindrical shafts descending 600+ meters with helical internal structures, and five symmetrically arranged chambers at the pyramid’s base — this paper presents a unified model in which the system bootstraps itself from a passive galvanic cell into a self-sustaining electrolysis loop.
The twin cavities serve as anode and cathode half-cells separated by porous brine-saturated limestone acting as a natural salt bridge. The helical shaft structures function as conductor coils and hydrogen gas conduits. The quartz-rich granite of the King’s Chamber serves as the piezoelectric terminus where pressurized hydrogen induces electrical output. The model generates testable predictions and, if validated, would reframe the Giza–Dahshur pyramid complex as an integrated industrial system for hydrogen production and ammonia synthesis.
1. Introduction: Two Theories, One Machine
For over two decades, two alternative theories have dominated the non-funerary interpretation of the Great Pyramid. The first, advanced most comprehensively by mechanical engineer Christopher Dunn in his 1998 work The Giza Power Plant, proposes that the pyramid functioned as a coupled harmonic oscillator that converted Earth’s vibrational energy into microwave radiation, with hydrogen gas playing a central role in the energy conversion process within the Grand Gallery and King’s Chamber.
The second theory, rooted in electrochemistry, observes that the pyramid’s internal architecture — dissimilar metals, saline water access, insulating limestone casing, and conductive granite chambers — constitutes the functional components of a massive galvanic cell. In this model, the King’s and Queen’s Chambers serve as electrode compartments housing copper and gold (or iron), generating direct-current electricity through spontaneous redox reactions.
These two theories have generally been treated as competing explanations. This paper argues they are complementary descriptions of different phases of a single, self-reinforcing system — what we term the Bootstrap Engine. The system initiates as a passive galvanic cell, transitions through electrolysis into active hydrogen production, and achieves steady-state operation through a self-sustaining feedback loop that simultaneously generates electricity and produces hydrogen gas.
The key to this synthesis is the recently published radar tomography data from beneath Khafre’s Pyramid, which reveals infrastructure that maps precisely onto the requirements of such a system.
2. The Khafre Subsurface Discovery
2.1 Overview of Findings
Recent ground-penetrating radar analysis of the area beneath Khafre’s Pyramid has revealed an extensive subterranean complex of unprecedented scale. The data, published by an international research team led by Dr. Mei, identifies several distinct structural elements arranged in what the researchers describe as a “highly organized manner, implying an intentional design.”
The principal features include:
- Five shallow chambers near the pyramid’s base arranged symmetrically, each bearing what Dr. Mei describes as “a striking resemblance to the King’s Chamber” of the Great Pyramid, complete with layered stone beams forming peaked roofs.
- Eight massive cylindrical shafts descending in two rows of four to depths of approximately 600–650 meters.
- Helical structures winding around the interior walls of each shaft, inferred from spiral-pattern radar reflections.
- Two immense rectangular cavities at the base of the shaft array, each approximately 80 meters across, described as “large enough to fit a cathedral inside.”
2.2 Conventional Interpretation and Its Limitations
The researchers interpret these features as an underground network, possibly connecting to further tunnels or spaces, with the giant chambers serving as “central hubs.” The helical structures are tentatively described as spiral staircases or ramps. However, this interpretation raises significant questions. Spiral staircases descending 600 meters into bedrock represent engineering on a scale that dwarfs any known ancient construction project. The purpose of such access infrastructure — if purely for human passage — remains unexplained.
The electrochemical model proposed here offers a more parsimonious explanation for every observed feature.
3. The Bootstrap Engine Model
3.1 Phase One: Passive Galvanic Cell (Startup)
The system initiates without any external energy input. The two rectangular cavities at the base of the shaft network serve as the half-cells of a galvanic battery.
Chamber A (the anode) contains an iron or magnetite electrode immersed in saline groundwater. Chamber B (the cathode) contains a copper electrode in the same saline medium. The electrochemical potential of a copper–iron cell in brine is approximately 0.78 volts.
The critical engineering question — how to maintain ionic exchange between the half-cells while preventing bulk mixing of the electrolytes — is resolved by the geology itself. The Giza Plateau and surrounding Dahshur region sit on the Mokattam limestone formation, which is naturally porous and permeated by a high-salinity aquifer. The porous limestone between the two cavities, saturated with brine, functions as a natural salt bridge, permitting Na⁺ and Cl⁻ ion migration to maintain charge balance without requiring any constructed membrane or conduit.
This is an elegant solution: the Earth itself provides the salt bridge. The builders needed only to position their two chambers in the correct geological stratum and let the environment complete the circuit.
3.2 Phase Two: Electrolysis and Hydrogen Production (Ramp-Up)
A single copper–iron cell produces approximately 0.78V, insufficient for water electrolysis, which requires a minimum of 1.23V (and practically closer to 1.5–2.0V due to overpotential). This voltage gap has been a persistent objection to electrochemical pyramid theories.
The eight shafts resolve this problem. If the helical structures wrapping the shaft interiors are conductive windings — copper strips or wire spiraling around the shaft walls — and if these eight coil-shafts are wired in series rather than parallel, the total voltage becomes:
8 × 0.78V = 6.24 volts
This far exceeds the electrolysis threshold.
At this voltage, electrolysis of the saline water at the cathode chamber begins producing hydrogen gas at the cathode and oxygen gas at the anode. The hydrogen, being lighter than the surrounding water and air, rises naturally through the hollow cores of the cylindrical shafts.
Each shaft thus serves a dual purpose: the helical conductor on the exterior wall carries electron flow upward from the galvanic cell, while the hollow interior core functions as a gas conduit, channeling hydrogen toward the pyramid structure above. This is a coaxial design — conductor on the outside, gas pipe on the inside.
3.3 Phase Three: The Induction Question (Open)
The original formulation of this model proposed that hydrogen gas rising through the solenoid shafts would become partially ionized and generate electromagnetic induction in the coils, creating a self-reinforcing feedback loop. On further analysis, the conditions required for meaningful hydrogen ionization — 13.6 eV per atom — are unlikely to be met through pressure and ambient electric fields alone.
This remains an open question in the model. The coaxial shaft architecture is well-suited to induction if a mechanism for ionizing or otherwise making the gas column electromagnetically active can be identified. One possibility worth investigating: if ammonia vapor is present in the gas mixture (as it would be if the system is connected to an ammonia synthesis process), the NH₃ molecule has a significantly lower ionization energy (10.07 eV) than molecular hydrogen (15.43 eV) and is polar, meaning it interacts with electric fields far more readily. A hydrogen-ammonia gas mixture rising through a solenoid carrying galvanic current may behave very differently from pure hydrogen.
Whether this mechanism is sufficient to generate meaningful induction EMF is a question for experimental investigation, not armchair physics. The model does not depend on this phase — the galvanic cell and electrolysis phases function independently — but if the induction loop operates, it would transform the system from a self-starting battery into a genuinely self-reinforcing engine.
3.4 Phase Four: Steady State and the Piezoelectric Terminus
The hydrogen gas produced in the deep shafts rises through the subterranean network, through the five base-level chambers (which may serve as pressure regulators or gas accumulators, explaining their King’s Chamber–like architecture with peaked stone-beam roofs designed to withstand internal pressure), and ultimately into the pyramid’s internal chamber system.
The King’s Chamber of the Great Pyramid is lined with massive Aswan granite blocks, a material with high quartz content. Quartz is piezoelectric: it generates an electrical charge when subjected to mechanical stress. Hydrogen gas entering the sealed granite chamber under pressure from the 600-meter column below exerts force on the chamber walls, inducing a piezoelectric response in the quartz-bearing granite.
This piezoelectric output serves two potential functions: it provides an additional electrical contribution to the system, and it may represent the system’s primary electrical output — a high-frequency AC signal generated by the oscillating pressure of gas pulses arriving in the chamber.
The five relieving chambers above the King’s Chamber, long considered structural supports, take on new significance in this model. Stacked granite chambers with air gaps between them resemble a series of pressure stages or resonant cavities, consistent with a system designed to manage oscillating gas pressure and maximize piezoelectric output.
4. Initiation: The Acid Spike
The bootstrap model predicts that the system requires an initial chemical stimulus to overcome inertia. A passive galvanic cell in saline groundwater will generate current, but the reaction kinetics may be slow without intervention. The system likely required periodic “spiking” with an acid — hydrochloric acid (HCl) or sulfuric acid (H₂SO₄), both producible from materials available in ancient Egypt — to accelerate the initial electrochemical reactions and drive sufficient hydrogen production to fill the gas columns and pressurize the chamber system.
This explains several otherwise puzzling features:
Dunn documented zinc chloride and hydrochloric acid residues in the Queen’s Chamber, which he interpreted as evidence of a chemical reaction for hydrogen production. In the bootstrap model, these residues are consistent with acid-spiking of the electrolyte system. The channels and passages connecting the chambers become chemical delivery infrastructure.
The system’s current non-functionality is explained not by structural damage but by detuning: the electrolyte balance has been disrupted, the acid concentrations have dissipated, and the conductive elements in the shafts may have corroded or been removed.
5. Resolving the Dunn Paradox
Christopher Dunn’s power plant model and the electrochemical battery model have been treated as mutually exclusive. Dunn emphasized hydrogen, acoustic resonance, and the King’s Chamber as a microwave generator. The battery theorists emphasized the galvanic cell configuration and DC current production.
The bootstrap engine model resolves this apparent contradiction:
The system is a battery — at startup. It is a hydrogen production facility — once electrolysis begins. It does use piezoelectric and possibly acoustic effects in the granite chamber — at steady state.
Both theories were correct. They were describing different phases of the same machine.
6. The Giza–Dahshur Industrial Connection
If the Great Pyramid is producing hydrogen at industrial scale, the question becomes: what is the hydrogen for? The answer may lie 25 kilometers to the south at Dahshur.
The Red Pyramid at Dahshur has long been noted for a persistent ammonia smell in its interior chambers. Dunn documented this observation but did not develop it into a comprehensive theory. Ammonia (NH₃) is the product of the Haber process:
N₂ + 3H₂ → 2NH₃
This requires hydrogen gas, atmospheric nitrogen, high pressure, heat, and a metal oxide catalyst. The Red Pyramid’s corbelled chambers are structurally consistent with pressure vessels. Its passages show evidence of water flow. Egypt’s Eastern Desert provides abundant magnetite (Fe₃O₄) and iron oxide, both viable catalysts — particularly when promoted with natron (sodium carbonate), which was abundantly available and functions as an alkali promoter that lowers catalytic activation energy.
If hydrogen from the Giza system was transported to Dahshur — via underground conduit or other means — the Red Pyramid becomes an ammonia synthesis reactor.
Ammonia is the precursor to ammonium nitrate fertilizer. Industrial-scale fertilizer production would explain how ancient Egypt sustained a massive civilization in an arid climate, and it would explain why these structures were built with such extraordinary precision: they were not tombs but chemical plants, and chemical plants require engineering tolerances that funerary monuments do not.
7. Feature-to-Function Mapping
| Observed Feature | Proposed Function |
|---|---|
| Twin rectangular cavities (80m each) | Anode and cathode half-cells of galvanic battery |
| Porous limestone between cavities | Natural salt bridge saturated with saline aquifer |
| Eight cylindrical shafts (600m deep) | Coaxial conductor/gas conduit system |
| Helical structures in shafts | Copper conductor coils (solenoids) |
| Hollow shaft cores | Hydrogen gas risers |
| Five base-level chambers | Pressure regulation / gas accumulation stages |
| Peaked stone-beam roofs on chambers | Pressure-resistant architecture |
| King’s Chamber granite lining | Piezoelectric terminus (quartz-bearing granite) |
| Relieving chambers above King’s Chamber | Resonant pressure stages / piezoelectric array |
| Queen’s Chamber chemical residues | Acid-spike delivery infrastructure |
| Grand Gallery | Resonance amplification / gas flow management |
| So-called “air shafts” | Gas venting / pressure equalization channels |
8. Testable Predictions
The bootstrap engine model makes the following specific, falsifiable predictions:
Conductive residues in shaft helices. If the helical structures served as electrical conductors, spectroscopic analysis of their surfaces should reveal copper, copper oxide, or other conductive metal residues. The absence of any metallic signature would weaken the model significantly.
Hydrogen signatures in shaft cores. Gas chromatography or mass spectrometry of trapped air within the sealed shaft interiors should reveal elevated hydrogen or hydrogen-related compound concentrations relative to ambient atmosphere.
Electrode residues in the twin cavities. Chemical analysis of the surfaces of the two rectangular chambers should reveal deposits consistent with electrochemical activity: iron oxides on one side, copper compounds on the other.
Electrolyte traces. The chamber and shaft surfaces should show sulfate, chloride, or other ionic residues consistent with concentrated brine or acid electrolyte solutions.
Ammonia verification at Dahshur. Air sampling and surface chemistry in the Red Pyramid should confirm ammonium compounds and metallic oxide catalyst residues (iron, aluminum) on chamber surfaces.
Underground conduit between Giza and Dahshur. Ground-penetrating radar surveys of the 25-kilometer corridor between the two sites should reveal tunnel or channel infrastructure.
Magnetic field anomalies in shafts. If the helical coils carried significant current, residual magnetization of the surrounding rock should be detectable and would show a helical pattern consistent with solenoid-generated fields.
9. Implications
If the bootstrap engine model withstands scrutiny and testing, the implications extend well beyond Egyptology. The system describes a self-starting electrochemical engine that requires no external energy input beyond the chemical potential of dissimilar metals in a saline aquifer — materials and conditions available in numerous geological settings worldwide.
The design is elegant in its simplicity:
It exploits natural geology (porous limestone, saline aquifer) as functional components rather than engineering them from scratch. It uses the gravitational differential of a 600-meter water/gas column to drive gas flow without mechanical pumps. It bootstraps from passive chemistry to active electrolysis through a single continuous process.
The Giza–Dahshur complex, in this model, represents an integrated industrial system: the Great Pyramid as hydrogen generator and electrical power source, the Red Pyramid as ammonia synthesis reactor, and the connecting infrastructure as a chemical distribution network. The purpose was not the glorification of the dead but the sustenance of the living — industrial-scale fertilizer production to feed a civilization.
This model does not require invoking lost super-technologies or extraterrestrial intervention. It requires competent chemistry, skilled engineering, and an intimate understanding of local geology — precisely the capabilities demonstrated by every other aspect of ancient Egyptian civilization.
10. Conclusion
The apparent conflict between the galvanic battery model and Dunn’s hydrogen power plant model is resolved by recognizing them as descriptions of different operational phases of the same system. The Great Pyramid is a battery. It is also a hydrogen production facility. It is also a piezoelectric resonator. It is all of these things because it is a bootstrap engine — a machine that starts as the first and progressively becomes each of the others through a self-reinforcing process.
The recently discovered subterranean infrastructure beneath Khafre’s Pyramid provides the missing architectural evidence for this model: the twin half-cell cavities, the coaxial solenoid-conduit shafts, the pressure-management chambers, and the scale of engineering required to house such a system. These features, which defy conventional archaeological explanation, map precisely onto the requirements of the bootstrap engine.
The question is no longer whether the pyramids could have functioned as chemical plants. The question is whether we will test the hypothesis.
Acknowledgments
This paper builds on the foundational work of Christopher Dunn, whose decades of meticulous analysis in The Giza Power Plant and Lost Technologies of Ancient Egypt established the evidentiary basis for functional interpretations of pyramid architecture. The ground-penetrating radar data referenced in this paper was produced by an international research team whose findings, while interpreted differently here, represent extraordinary archaeological science.
References
Dunn, C. (1998). The Giza Power Plant: Technologies of Ancient Egypt. Bear & Company.
Dunn, C. (2010). Lost Technologies of Ancient Egypt: Advanced Engineering in the Temples of the Pharaohs. Bear & Company.
Mei, D. et al. (2025). Ground-penetrating radar tomography of the Khafre Pyramid substructure. [Research report].
ScanPyramids Project (2017). Discovery of a large void in the Great Pyramid by observation of cosmic-ray muons. Nature, 552, 386–390.