The great pyramid passages and chambers

Nevertheless, the Grand Gallery is so large, and the floor slopes away so steeply, that we think it will be impossible to reproduce on paper a true idea of its appearance when looking north. '

576 One of our photographs, however, shows the details of a large section of the north end of the Grand Gallery very clearly—Plate CLUI. At the bottom appears the upper half of the doorway of the First Ascending Passage. Six of the seven overlappings of the walls are shown; and it will be noticed that the lowermost on each of the east and west side walls is not developed on the north wall. Immediately above the third overlapping on the west (left) wall, there can be seen a small section of one of the pair of shallow grooves, which are cut opposite each other in the masonry of the east and west walls, and which run the entire length of the Grand Gallery—Compare Plate XVII. The original purpose of this pair of peculiar corresponding grooves is difficult to imagine; the structural reason for their existence has not yet been satisfactorily explained ; but no doubt there is some symbolical significance in connection with them, as there is in connection with many other mysterious features in this immense and generally little understood edifice.

577. Col. Howard Vyse, who first drew attention to these grooves, wrote with regard to them: “For the long grooves running on each side the whole length of the passage, it is difficult to assign a use; they are roughly cut, and therefore could not have been used for a sliding platform, for which, at first sight, they appear adapted. Perhaps they were made to receive a scaffolding for the workmen employed in trimming off the sides of the passage.’ But to this suggestion Professor C. Piazzi Smyth objected“that the groove is represented so near the bottom of its overlapping sheet, that there was little strength left to support any weight; and as the grooved portion has toa great extent perished, without any strain being put upon it,—we cannot nepaud it as anything connected with scaffolding, but rather with some symbolic meaning.’

578 The grooves are each 6 inches wide by 34 of an inch deep; and the distance from the edge of the third overlapping up to the lower edge of the groove is, in each case, 514 inches. According to the measurements of Professor Flinders Petrie, the lower edges of these grooves run parallel with, and exactly midway between, the floor and roof of the Grand Gallery.

579 We have secured several photographs of the lower end of the Grand Gallery looking south, with the camera erected about two feet from the north wall. These show the sheer cut-off of the floor of the Grand Gallery immediately above the low doorway

'Plate CLV is a reproduction of a drawing of the north wall of the Grand Gallery, kindly drawn for us by Mr. Muirhead Bone, an eminent and well-known artist, brother of Mr. Bone of Messrs. Bone & Hulley, the printers of this publication.

The photographs we secured of this north part of the Grand Gallery have, fortunately, been comprehensive enough to convey to Mr. Muirhead Bone a sufficiently accurate impression of its details and very difficult perspective lines, to enable him to record a pictorial idea of the appearance of this remarkable and noble Gallery, truer to the reality than any we have seen.

It must be remembered that, to one looking north, the side Ramps of the Grand Gallery dip down very steeply. In order to gain this effect in the drawing, we suggest that the Plate be held in a vertical position at a distance of six inches from the eyes, and with the top edge of the book a little below the level of the eyes. When holding the book in this position, the reader requires to look down upon the illustration, and thus he obtains the effect of the Ramps receding from him,

289