The Great Pyramids of Giza lie on the longest continuous straight line that can be drawn on the surface of the globe without crossing a sea or an ocean. We will see here that another axis drawn from the Palace of Peace and Reconciliation in Astana, Kazakhstan, also passes through these pyramids to link points that are among the highest and deepest on the globe.
The longest straight line on land
The longest continuous straight line connects Liberia to China over a distance of 13,589 km. Its discovery (or rediscovery) is attributed to Canadian amateur geographer Guy Bruneau, who published it on Google Maps around 2017, but it is possible that the builders of the pyramids of ancient Egypt knew of its existence.
This line crosses artificial bodies of water, such as the Suez Canal and the Tharthar reservoir lake in Iraq. It also crosses the Dead Sea, between occupied Palestine and Jordan. Some opinions differ, but personally, I see no methodological problem with this, insofar as the Dead Sea is a small salt lake with no connection to the oceans. Note, however, that the Dead Sea is the lowest emerged point on the planet, with an altitude of 441 metres below sea level in July 2026, which echoes Lake Baikal, which will be discussed further on.
From the highest peaks to abyssal depths
Another Canadian researcher named Kevin McMahon has, for his part, established a correspondence between the pyramid-shaped Palace of Peace and Reconciliation in Astana and the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt. The line he discovered clearly divides the pyramids of Khufu and Khafre along the direction of their south-western and north-eastern extremities.
The extension of this line towards the south-west runs along the base of Mount Cameroon and reaches the Atlantic Ocean at the point of inflection of the African continent, to end precisely at the summit of Pico Basile in Equatorial Guinea. If extended in the other direction, this line reaches the deepest part of Lake Baikal in Siberia.
This imaginary line between Astana and Giza thus connects the largest hot desert on the planet to a lake containing 20% of the planet's fresh water reserves! But this is not its only notable contrast: Lake Baikal breaks all records with a depth of 1,642 metres, and at the other end, Mount Cameroon and Pico Basile, respectively 4,095 and 3,011 metres high, are the highest peaks in west-central Africa. About a hundred kilometres apart, these volcanic twins are visible from one summit to the other in clear weather.
What meaning should be given to the Astana pyramid?
Designed by Norman Foster and Partners and inaugurated in 2006, the Palace of Peace and Reconciliation has faces perfectly oriented towards the four cardinal points, just like the Pyramids of Giza. This postmodern temple hosts the leaders of the world's major religions during a triennial congress. For some, it symbolises the emergence of a new neo-pagan world religion. Others claim that the general plan of the new city is Masonic in inspiration. No need to add more, since an entire book was devoted to the esoteric symbolism of Astana in 2017, and the website Vigilant Citizen was already making this type of interpretation in 2009.
For their part, Canadian researchers Kevin McMahon and Scott Onstott see in this pyramid a desire to mark the geographical centre of Eurasia, in the manner of the Manitoba Parliament in Winnipeg, which marks the geographical centre of the North American continent to within a few kilometres.
From a more pragmatic angle, the Astana pyramid and the city's other monuments can be considered a spectacular example of nation building. After the collapse of the USSR, it was indeed necessary to offer a unifying narrative to the populations of the former Soviet republics that had become independent.
In conclusion
There is no obvious symbolic link between the Pyramids of Giza and the Palace of Peace and Reconciliation in Astana. The line connecting them nonetheless offers a fascinating look at the morphology of the continents, running along the Cameroon rift to end at the deepest continental depression on the planet. This axis adds to the mystery of the Pyramids of Giza, already situated on the longest straight line on land.