The great pyramid passages and chambers

112 On receiving this information, the Colonel, in great expectation, examined the chamber by the aid of a lighted candle on the end of a rod pushed through the small opening; but, he wrote:—‘I had the mortification of finding that it was a chamber of construction, like that below it.” He still entertained a hope, however, of discovering a sepulchral apartment somewhere above the King’s Chamber, and his men continued to work upwards, breaking into each Chamber of Construction in succession, until, after three and a half months’ labour, when they had forced a vertical shaft up to a total height of forty feet above the small passage, the fifth cavity was entered. This, owing to its inclined pointed roof, Col. Howard Vyse believed to be the highest and final chamber. According to his measurements, the apex of the gabled roof of this chamber is seventy feet above the floor of the King’s Chamber—Plate XVI.

113 On the surrounding masonry of all these Chambers of Construction, excepting the lowest, Col. Howard Vyse discovered many red-painted marks and hieroglyphs. He had careful copies of these taken and sent to the British Museum, where they were examined and pronounced to be merely quarry-marks and instructions for the masons, painted on at the quarries at the Mokattam hills on the opposite (east) side of the Nile. These are the marks referred to by Professor Flinders Petrie—Par. 74.

114 From the foregoing, it will be gathered that the ‘‘ Chambers of Construction” are not chambers in the usually accepted sense of that word, but merely hollows or vacancies consequent upon the peculiar construction of the masonry above the King’s Chamber, and hence the name ‘Chambers of Construction."’ The series of five layers of great granite beams which are built one above the other at short distances apart, and the additional pairs of great inclined limestone blocks which form the gabled roof of the topmost hollow (with also, probably, other inclined blocks resting upon these again), were evidently intended by the ancient builders to form together a support for the enormous weight of the superincumbent mass of masonry (the ancient top-stone lay more than 300 feet above the King’s Chamber), which would be solid enough to preserve for thousands of years the chaste simplicity of the noble chamber which they protect.

115 Nor were the precautions against destruction too great, for even with it all there is a slight settlement or inclination of the whole of the King’s Chamber towards the south-west corner, caused by an earthquake, most probably that reported to have occurred in the year 908 A.D.—Par. 84. The shock of this earthquake must have been very severe, for every one of the beams which form the immediate roof of the King’s Chamber, great and strong though they be, are broken across near the south wall, so that as Professor Flinders Petrie has said, the whole of the immensely heavy granite ceiling is upheld solely by sticking and thrusting! Moreover, in every one of the spaces above, the massive roof-beams are either cracked across, or are torn more or less out of the wall principally on the south side! Nevertheless, the wonderful and unique method of construction devised four thousand years ago by the ancient architect, has so well succeeded in preserving the symmetry and squareness of the great chamber, that none of the effects of the mighty convulsion of nature are apparent to the eyes of the observer standing in it. These effects reveal themselves only upon close scrutiny, with careful measuring and levelling.

116 All the chambers in the Great Pyramid run longer from east to west, than from north to south, and the entrance doorway of each opens on the extreme east of the

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