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

TOMB OR OBSERVATORY?

very great, and the workmen were almost on the point of refusing to go on with their apparently fruitless exertions, when a stone was suddenly heard to fall in the interior. Renewing their efforts, and working towards the spot where the sound came from, they at last broke into the descending passage just below the granite plug (see accompanying diagram), and found that the stone dislodged was the one (S), which formed the roof of the Descending Passage (D), and which hid the underside of the Granite Plug (G) and the Ascending Passage above it. When therefore this prismoidal stone was in place, there was nothing to indicate to anyone traversing the Descending Passage that any other passage existed leading out of it. The Great Pyramid, consequently, appeared to be just the same internally as the Second and Thirdand, indeed, most of the other—Pyramids, the only difference being that its underground chamber was unfinished—and purposely so—and at a much greater depth than other similar chambers. (See Note L.)

The dislodgment of the concealing stone, however, did not end their labours in their effort to discover the Great Pyramid’s secret ; progress was still blocked by the granite plug. Finding this too hard to quarry through with the tools then in use, the workmen cut a passage round, through the softer limestone at the side of it, and eventually, after hewing through several other limestone blocks 1 lying in the passage above the plug, were at last able to enter the Ascending Passage and thence into the Grand Gallery and Chambers beyond. Then, for the first time was the whole of the upper parts of the Pyramid’s interior revealed.”

1 See Note M.

* The Arabs of Al Mamoun’s time did not explore the Descending Passage down into the subterranean pit, as it was blocked up by the debris from their quarrying round the granite plug.

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