The mystery of the Great pyramid : traditions concerning it and its connection with the Egyptian Book of the dead : with numerous illustrations

CHAPTER III

Tue GREAT PyrRAMID : TOMB OR OBSERVATORY ?

Tuat the idea of the Great Pyramid being a royal tomb has always been the one to find more general acceptance than any other is, no doubt, because it appears the easiest way of disposing of the problem, and also because most of the other pyramids have evidently been intended as such.

Though we have dealt with this aspect of the Great Pyramid in our previous volume, it is desirable to introduce it again here, not only for the benefit of new readers, but to submit additional evidence and facts that further study has revealed. Also, unless the tombic theory is seen in its proper perspective, the real significance of the structure cannot be appreciated as it should be.

The fact that all subsequent pyramids copy, in a greater or less degree, the second pyramid of Gizeh, with its single descending passage terminating in an underground chamber or tomb, shows that their builders were unacquainted with the interior upper passages and chambers of the Great Pyramid, which they imitated just so far as they knew it. To argue, as is generally done, that because the Second and Third—and other—pyramids either were, or were intended to be, tombs, therefore the Great Pyramid was meant for a like purpose, is to confuse cause and effect.

It does not seem to have occurred to those who argue for the tombic theory of the Great Pyramid that, not unlikely, the descending passage leading from the entrance in the north face down to an unfinished chamber deep in the

Ai