The great pyramid passages and chambers

PLATE CXLVIII. general appearance. Two of our photographs show the fractured Ramp-stone very plainly, and also the depression in the west wall of the Grand Gallery, which marks the place formerly occupied by the missing portion of the Ramp immediately above the Well-mouth—See Plate XIII. One of these (Plate CXLVI) was taken from a point on the east side of the Horizontal Passage leading to the Queen's Chamber. The camera was erected three and a half feet to the south of the centre of the Wellmouth, with the lens about 18 inches above the floor, and therefore much below the inclined upper surface of the West Ramp at this place. The other photograph (Plate CXLVIII) was taken with the camera placed in the opposite (north-east) angle of the Grand Gallery, on top of the East Ramp. The sloping upper surface of the East Ramp appears in the foreground. '

532 It has been claimed (by Professor Flinders Petrie among others) that the Well did not form part of the original design of the Pyramid, but that, as a mere afterthought, it was dug out first through the already completed masonry of the Grand Gallery, and then down vertically through the core masonry and rock to the lower end of the Descending Passage—Plates IX & XVII. If this were so, it is unlikely that the stones in the immediate vicinity of the Well-mouth on the west, would show any great difference in shape and arrangement from those directly opposite on the east side of the Grand Gallery. Yet a careful comparison reveals a number of important differences. This circumstance, in addition to the fact that the Well is an indispensable feature in the symbolical teaching of the Great Pyramid’s passage and chamber system, seems to us to support the opinion held by Professor C. Piazzi Smyth

The \Well-mouth, from the east.

‘Since arriving home in Scotland, we have prepared from our various photographs two drawings which show the whole of the Well-mouth with its immediate surroundings —Plates CKLV & CXLVII.

In these drawings, which are similar to the two photographs described above, the principal additions are to the foreground. They show, at the line of the north edge of the Well-mouth, the irregular cut-off in the continuation of the sloping floor of the First Ascending Passage (Compare Plates XII & XVIII); also a small portion of the flat floor of the Horizontal Passage, which commences at this point and progresses to the Queen’s Chamber,

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