Ancient Egypt


The Luxor Las Vegas. Sadly, we didn't take this picture but it does illustrate where we stayed in all its splendor. Now you might wonder how the Luxor hotel compares to the Pyramids at Giza. From the Luxor Hotel's Fact Sheet:

THE GREAT PYRAMID AT GIZA THE LUXOR LAS VEGAS PYRAMID
The Great Pyramid is the largest building in the world and covers slightly over 13 acres. The Luxor Las Vegas pyramid, with its parking lot, occupies 47 acres of land along the Las Vegas Strip.
The Giza Pyramid contains nearly 90 million cubic feet of stone, enough to build 30 Empire State buildings. The Luxor Las Vegas pyramid is held in place by 150,000 cubic yards of concrete poured in place around an intricate steel skeleton.
The Giza Pyramid original side length is 755-3/4 feet. The Luxor Las Vegas pyramid side length is 600 feet.
The Giza Pyramid unfinished height to the top is 454-1/2 feet. The height as planned by the original builders, as evidenced from the Architect's original design is 485 feet—equal to a 48-story modern skyscraper. The top piece, or capstone, was never set, having been rejected by the builders. The Luxor Las Vegas pyramid is 350 tall, or 30 stories high, and contains 2,521 guest rooms and suites. The Luxor Las Vegas pyramid is 1/4 smaller than the Great Pyramid at Giza.
It is estimated 100,000 men labored for twenty years, dragging five to six million tons of stone from as far away as 500 miles to build the Great Pyramid at Giza. Sixteen "inclinator" elevators rise to the top floor of the Luxor Las Vegas pyramid in a 39 degree shaft. Each corner of the pyramid contains an inclinator shaft with four elevators, which travel at 750nfeet per minute. Each elevator landing overhangs the one below by 7 feet.
In its original state, covered with white alabaster, the Great Pyramid was supposed to be visible from the moon as a brilliant star on earth because it would have reflected so much light. The white casing stones covered all four sides. Each side was 5-1/4 acres that acted like gigantic mirrors, reflecting beams of light that could be seen for many miles around. The four bronze glass curtain wall faces of the Luxor Las Vegas pyramid slope inward at 49% and the guest rooms follow the same profile, cantilevering inward at 7 feet per floor. The longer, shallower corner diagonals, which incline at 39 degrees contain the elevator cores. The four cores meet at the top of the building to form A-frames.
By means of reflection and shadow, the Great Pyramid became the great sundial of Egypt, not only for the days and hours, but for the seasons of the year. Reflections from the pyramid accurately gave the days upon which the Winter Solstice, Spring Equinox, Summer Solstice and Autumnal Equinox occurred. The Luxor Las Vegas guest-rooms dividing walls that support the cantilever use heavily reinforced, 7000-psi concrete. Over 10,000 tons of reinforcing steel were incorporated into the design.
At the 10th, 12th, 14th and 16th floors of Luxor Las Vegas, rings of post-tension cables "unload" the cantilevered floors. These floors have a series of ducted pt cable that completely encircle the building. This "profile" sweep acts to "lift" the center of the building, while transferring the load to the corners, where the concrete box elevator core serves as an anchor. Each of 22 ducts per post-tensioned floor contains seven cables, which put 14 million pounds of outward force into the system.
The very peak of the Luxor Las Vegas pyramid is formed out of an aluminum space frame that was assembled on the ground and flown into place in one piece. It provides the support for the "sky beam".
During the peak manpower period at Luxor Las Vegas, over 1800 tradesmen worked three shifts to open the hotel on time, October 15, 1993. Luxor Las Vegas was completed in 18 months.
The ancient principle of reflection was incorporated into a new system of reflectors in the "skybeam" high atop the Luxor Las Vegas pyramid. Estimated to generate 42.3 billion candle power, the 39 xenon lamps generate a beam of light that can be seen by airplanes at cruising altitude 250 miles away. Luxor's light can also be seen from the International Space Station.
The Sphinx at Luxor Las Vegas is ten stories high, 35 feet taller than the original Sphinx. It is also 25 feet longer, 265 feet compared to 240 feet. While not carved from solid limestone, like the original, its custom plaster and EIFS form allowed architects and designers to replicate incredible features. With ears that are 11 feet high and eyes more than 6 feet across, the Sphinx's beard is also more than 20 feet in length. Exterior gypsum sheathing served as an underlayment for urethane foam, which was then sculpted into the famous sphinx face.


As might be expected there's a story behind our anniversary trip to Vegas and the Luxor. As for Vegas the answer is simple, it's the best place on earth! A 24 hour city with lots of neon, great buffets and free shows/displays at every casino that rival, if they don't exceed, the offerings at Disney World. In 3 trips to Vegas we still haven't seen all the casinos & their free offerings much less the "premium" shows that the casinos have to offer.

The Luxor as you've probably noticed by now is a 3/4 replica of the Great Pyramid with a giant spotlight/capstone. On a previous trip to Vegas while wandering the Luxor we found out about the inclinators - inclinators are the Luxor's version of elevators and provide access to the upper floors (guest rooms). Unlike elevators inclinators don't go straight up and down but rather they travel at a 39' angle. The inclinators are located at the corners of the Luxor and run up the edges of the pyramid. We attempted to ride them, but we were turned away by security as the inclinators are only for guest use only. So this trip we decided to stay at the Luxor and give the inclinators a try.

Now inclinators are really weird. About the closest description is that riding inclinators is similar to "T-Surfing" (a sport in Boston where you ride their light rail system without holding on), not that there is any risk of falling if you lean against the inclinator walls/railings. But the motion feeling is there. This is mostly due to the (rather unexpected) 3 vectors of force from the inclinators acceleration. You'd expect there to be two force vectors, the vertical (y-axis) and the forward/back (z-axis.) However, inclinators also have a strong side-to-side force vector (x-axis.) That's because you're very unlikely to be exactly aligned with the direction of motion of the inclinator and thus there is a sideways acceleration.

After the entertainment wears off (it does take a while - try jumping as the acceleration is ending!) we found that inclinators don't actually lead to all that comfortable of a ride. They're a little disorienting and there's suspicions that they are more likely to lead to motion sickness. Inclinators also require significantly more building space than normal elevators. This is because the counterweight which normally occupies a fairly nominal space in an elevator shaft now requires a large tracked system running parallel to the inclinator. So as you can tell inclinators aren't likely to replace elevators. But we highly recommend staying at the Luxor for a couple of days so you can try them out for yourself.


A shot of our Pyramid Room in the Luxor. Did I mention the other advantage of staying in Vegas - everything is really inexpensive. Our deluxe Pyramid room on the 24th floor came to $59/night along with a coupon book with various 2-for-1 specials at the Luxor including buffets, shows (Blue Man Group has a permanent show/theatre at the Luxor) and various gift items. It wasn't the best deal in town - the Excalibur at $35/night had them beat hands down. Also, the Exalibur's rooms are significantly larger (about 700sq. ft. in the Excalibur hotel room vs. 500sq. ft. in the Luxor.) But as mentioned the the Luxor has inclinators. And let's be honest, 500sq ft. is bigger than some apartments we've stayed in.


View from our window of Vegas/desert/the mountains. Note the slanted glass windows/walls on the pyramid outside wall in this picture and the previous shot.


View from the railing outside of our room on the atrium/inside of the Luxor pyramid. The monolith in the center is about 10 stories high. The Luxor pyramid has the world's largest atrium at 29 million cubic feet.



View from the base of the monolith (with a mini-sphinx - the larger than life sized one is outside adjacent to their intra-hotel light rail system.


Up.


And Up! Not our spotlighting - part of the Luxor's light displays being projected on the inclinator shafts.

To the Water Park!