Pyramid Quest (35 page)

After discussing recorded changes in the precise position of the pole over the preceding century, Petrie speculates that such changes might be due to ocean currents, and finally concludes:

In an article published in
Science
in 1973, authored by G. S. Pawley of Edinburgh University, Scotland, and N. Abrahamsen of Aarhus University, Denmark (reprinted in Toth and Nielsen, 1985, pp. 59-63), it was tentatively suggested that at least part of the reason for the slight “misalignment” of the Great Pyramid from true north was not a builders’ error, but might be due to continent drift (that is, plate tectonics).

On the east side of the Great Pyramid is found the remains of a basalt pavement, made from sawn and fitted basalt blocks that were laid upon a bed of limestone. According to Petrie (1885, p. 15), the north-south length of the basalt pavement is approximately 177 feet, and the east-west width was originally about 84 feet or more. This apparently formed the base or floor of the now destroyed Funerary Temple (also referred to as the Mortuary Temple) of King Khufu (see Hawass,
Update to Petrie,
1990, p. 106).

Originally the complex of the Great Pyramid included the Funerary Temple on its east, which was connected by a causeway to the Valley Temple (Lower Temple) situated farther east, probably under what is now the modern village of Nazlet el-Samaan, which sits on the edge of the Giza Plateau (Hawass,
Update to Petrie,
1990, p. 117). The Great Pyramid was surrounded on all four sides by two enclosure walls, referred to as
temenos
or
peribolus
walls (Hawass, 1990, p. 119). The inner wall was about 10.1 meters from the east, north, and south faces of the Great Pyramid, and about 10.5 meters from the west face; it was 3.25 to 3.6 meters thick (Hawass, 1990, p. 119). The outer wall, remains of which have been found on the north, south, and west sides of the Great Pyramid, was 7.6 to 8.75 meters thick, and was about 69.42 meters from the inner wall (Hawass, 1990, p. 119). Lehner (1997, pp. 108-109), in his text and reconstruction, mentions and illustrates only the inner enclosure wall.

Five boat pits have been found on the south and east sides and northeast corner of the Great Pyramid. The three on the east side were mapped by Lepsius in 1843 (Hawass,
Update to Petrie,
1990, p. 111) and further studied by Petrie, who simply referred to them as trenches (Petrie, 1883, 1885). Two of these pits still contained funerary boats in modern times. In 1954 one of them was excavated, and the well-preserved remains of the cedar and acacia wood boat were rebuilt and housed in the Giza Boat Museum located alongside the Great Pyramid. This boat is 43.4 meters long by 5.9 meters wide in the beam (Hawass, 1990, p. 113). During excavation of this boat pit, cartouches of Djedefra, the son and immediate successor of Khufu, were found. The second pit, containing the apparently largely undisturbed remains of a boat, was inspected by video camera through a narrow drilled hole in 1987 but has not been excavated (Hawass, 1990, p. 112). These boats have been interpreted in different ways: as boats used during the pharaoh’s lifetime for pilgrimages and various ceremonies; as boats to carry the deceased pharaoh to the cardinal points; or as boats that were used by the pharaoh and/or the god Ra to travel through the heavens, that is, so-called solar barques (Hawass, 1990, p. 115).

On the east side of the Great Pyramid, about 87.5 meters from the base (Hawass,
Update to Petrie,
1990, p. 107), are a set of passages carved into the bedrock. These passages mimic in height, width, and orientation, but not in length, the Descending Passage, the Ascending Passage, the northern end of the Grand Gallery, and the beginning of the horizontal passage to the Queen’s Chamber. There is also a vertical shaft that is basically the same size at the surface but does not extend to the same depth as the Well Shaft of the Great Pyramid. However, in contrast to the Great Pyramid, this vertical shaft extends down to the junction of the Descending and Ascending passages rather than extending down from the northern end of the Grand Gallery area (see Petrie, 1885, pl. 2).

Petrie (1883, 1885) considered these passages to be “trial passages” that acted as a model and practice for the construction of the actual passages of the Great Pyramid, an opinion that Hawass considers “most likely” (Hawass, 1990, p. 110). It has also been suggested that these passages may have been the substructure for a fourth Queen’s Pyramid (in addition to the remains of the three so-called Queen’s Pyramids still remaining east of the Great Pyramid), or it may have been a “satellite” or “ritual” pyramid for Khufu. Hawass (1990, p. 110) suggests that Khufu may not have even had a ritual pyramid, and he further points out that the function of so-called small ritual pyramids, when found with a larger pyramid, has been highly debated. Possible functions listed by Hawass (1990, p. 110) are: “symbolic burials of the king as ruler of Upper and Lower Egypt; tombs for the viscera; tombs for crowns; burials of placentas; burials for the king’s ka; temporary storage of the body; solar symbols; and dummy tombs connected with the
Sed
festival” (italics in the original).

The second pyramid on the Giza Plateau, Khafre’s (Khafra’s or Chephren’s) Pyramid, retains almost all of its apex and has a height of 471 feet (Lepre, 1990, p. 139; 472 feet ± 13 inches, according to Petrie, 1885, p. 32), a base length of 707 feet (Lepre, 1990, p. 139; mean of 706.24 feet, according to Petrie, 1885, p. 32), and a slope of 52° 20’ (Lepre, 1990, p. 139) or a mean of 53° 10’ ± 4’ (Petrie, 1885, p. 32). The lowest course of casing stones, or possibly the two lowest, were of granite, while the remainder of the Second Pyramid was cased with Mokattam limestone (Petrie, 1885, p. 32). Given that the Great Pyramid lacks an apex, the Second Pyramid is currently taller than the Great Pyramid. Furthermore, the Second Pyramid’s base is on higher ground than that of the Great Pyramid. Consequently, as seen today, the Second Pyramid is both taller than the Great Pyramid and reaches higher in the sky. When new, assuming that the Great Pyramid came to an apex, both the Great Pyramid and the Second Pyramid would have reached to approximately the same absolute altitude in the sky (see, for instance, measurements and diagrams in Vyse, 1840, 1842); or, in fact, the Second Pyramid may have been slightly higher. According to Vyse (and cited in Bonwick, 1877, p. 207), the base of the Second Pyramid is 33 feet and 2 inches above the base of the Great Pyramid. This means that, assuming the original height of the Great Pyramid was 481 feet, the Second Pyramid was about 10 feet shorter than the Great Pyramid, but since it was on an elevation of about 33 feet higher, it was actually about 23 feet higher than the Great Pyramid in absolute elevation.

The third pyramid on the Giza Plateau, Menkaure’s (Menkara’s, Mycerinus’s) Pyramid, has a height of 218 feet (Lepre, 1990, p. 141; Petrie, 1885, p. 37, gives a height of 213.66 feet ± 15 inches), a base length of 356 feet (Lepre, 1990, p. 141; Petrie, 1885, p. 37, gives an average base length of 346.13 feet ± 3 inches), and a slope of 51° (Lepre, 1990, p. 141; Petrie, 1885, p. 37, gives 51° 0’ ± 10’). The Third Pyramid was cased with granite on its lower parts (lower quarter? Petrie, 1885, p. 37, suggests that the granite casing only extended to the level of about 54 feet) and apparently with limestone above that, although it has also been suggested that it was originally to be cased entirely in granite (or possibly recased and restored in granite). The base of the Third Pyramid is set on even higher ground than that of the Second Pyramid (about 8 feet 5 inches higher; Bonwick, 1877, p. 207, citing Vyse), but it is much smaller overall.

In this section, some basic descriptions and comments on the various passages and chambers in the Great Pyramid are given. In the next section, basic measurements for these features are presented.

The Great Pyramid originally had a single entrance on the north, which occurs on the north face and slightly east of the middle of the pyramid (see hereafter for discussion of the eastern displacement of the passageways). Due to the loss of the external casing stones of the Great Pyramid, and probably the first few layers of the core stones in many areas, the floor of the remaining portion of the original entrance corresponds to the sixteenth layer of core masonry, but since the entrance passage is angled down toward the south, extending the passage up toward the north to find its original position would place the doorway as having come out at the nineteenth course (i.e., between the eighteenth and twentieth courses), according to Petrie (1885, pp. 16-17, pl. 7). Having established this position for the original entrance, Petrie calculated that the original entrance was approximately 668 inches above the pavement of the Great Pyramid, about 524 inches horizontally south of the north edge of the pyramid’s casing, and its middle was 287 inches east of the center of the north face (Petrie, 1885, p. 17). As seen today with the outer casing stones removed, the original entrance has over it a huge gable made of massive limestone blocks.

Petrie (1885, pp. 72-73) argued that the Great Pyramid must originally have had a moveable stone flap door that pivoted out and up. He quotes Strabo as saying: “The Greater (Pyramid), a little way up one side, has a stone that may be taken out, which being raised up, there is a sloping passage to the foundations” (Petrie, 1885, p. 72). Petrie also points out that an Arab manuscript, written a couple of decades after Al Mamun (early ninth century A.D.) had forced his way into the Great Pyramid and thereby found the original entrance via entering the Descending Passage and working back to the original entrance, mentions a door.

From the original entrance one enters the Descending Passage.

The Descending Passage extends for approximately 350 feet from the original entrance of the Great Pyramid to the Subterranean Chamber (the upper portion is through the masonry of the pyramid and the lower portion cut through the bedrock; Kingsland, 1932, p. 60, says that the bedrock is entered at a distance of approximately 1,350 inches, presumably measured from the position of the original entrance). This passage is remarkable in both its close orientation to true north and in its straightness and consistent angle of descent. Petrie (1885, p. 19) found that the mean axis of the entire length of the Descending Passage is west of true north by a mere 3’ 44” ± 10”, which is incredibly close to Petrie’s (1885, p. 11) calculation of the average (mean) azimuth of the sides of the Great Pyramid at the base of the casing, namely 3’ 43” ± 12”. This is compatible with the concept that the Descending Passage was laid out first and then used to orient the entire Great Pyramid. Pochan (1978, p. 229) asserts that, “the Pyramid’s entire interior layout was linked to the
impeccable
placement of the Descending Passage on a plane
strictly
parallel to the Pyramid’s meridian plane” (italics in the original). Note that Petrie’s azimuths for the overall orientation of the Great Pyramid differ slightly from those of the Cole Survey (1925). According to the Cole Survey, the Great Pyramid is oriented even closer to true north than Petrie’s measurements indicate; the Cole Survey did not measure the azimuth of the Descending Passage, but on the basis of the consistency between the Petrie and Cole measurements, indications are that if the Cole Survey had dealt with the Descending Passage, it too would have found its azimuth to be approximately the same as the average azimuths for the sides of the Great Pyramid.

The original entrance (top center) and the forced entrance made by Al Mamun (lower right) on the north face of the Great Pyramid. Photograph courtesy of Robert M. Schoch.

Petrie (1885, p. 19) found the angle of descent of the Descending Passage to be 26° 31’ 23” ± 5”? (question mark in Petrie), and he noted: “The average error of straightness in the built part of the passage is only
inch, an amazingly minute amount in a length of 150 feet. Including the whole passage the error is under ¼ inch in the sides, and
on the roof, in the whole length of 350 feet, partly built, partly cut in the rock.” Kingsland (1932, p. 52) calculated the mean angle for the Descending Passage as 26° 13’ 37.4”, trigonometrically based on his best estimates of the horizontal and sloping lengths of the Descending Passage, and the vertical distance between the entrance level and the level of the bottom of the passage. These measurements and calculations of the angle directly contradict Pochan (1978, p. 229) where he says: “constructing a slope gauge for digging the Descending Passage posed no problem (because its angle, 26° 34’, corresponds to cotangent 2).” In fact, this is not the case; rather, the slope “is just slightly less than one in two” (Kingsland, 1932, p. 60) and not as simple to gauge as Pochan and some other researchers have suggested. This lends further credence to the idea that it was laid out astronomically by sighting on a star, as advocated by Proctor (1880, 1883). Note, too, that in order to measure the azimuths precisely, both Petrie and the Cole Survey made observations on the stars, in particular Polaris at elongation (the star closest to the north celestial pole in our own epoch).