The 13 Steps

Advocates of the theory also cite the 13 steps to ascend the pyramid, and the 72 visibleblocks on the front. The Great US seal is also ascribed as employing heavilymasonic imagery, with many believing the eagle to represent the masonic phoenix.The eagle holds an olive branch with 13 olives and 13 leaves in one claw,and 13 arrows in the other. The recurrence and significance of the number13 is often attributed to its importance in numerology, and also to therebeing 13 degrees in York Rite Freemasonry. The Great Seal's eagle also has32 feathers on the right wing and 33 on left wing (32 and 33 being the twohighest degrees in Scottish Rite Freemasonry).

More conventional thinkersregard the thirteen steps as referring to the thirteen colonies. If the blocksare correctly counted and their number intended, 72 has other mystical meanings:it was sacred to the Egyptians, as Plutarch says; and Persians, Jews andChristians use it as the number of nations on the Earth.