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

MYSTERY OF THE GREAT PYRAMID

on this principle. This is proved not only by its peculiar internal features, as Petrie has pointed out, but also by the masonry itself, which, as any constructional engineer knows, always shows cracks where new work has been added later on to older work along the line of demarcation between the two constructions.1 Neitherthe Great Pyramid, nor any true pyramid construction in Egypt, however, shows any such indications of having been built on the accretion plan. The former, in fact, as is proved by the lay-out of its base with its corner sockets—which sockets, it should be noted, are unique to the Great Pyramid—must have been erected on a principle exactly opposite to that which Lepsius, the inventor of the theory, endeavoured to establish. The extreme accuracy of its construction shows conclusively that the whole building was thought out and planned by a master-architect before a single stone had been placed in position, or even quarried.

Additional evidence of planning beforehand is given by the trial passages or trenches cut in the rock, east of the site of the Great Pyramid, as a guide to the workmen when building the actual passages in the Pyramid itself, forming, in fact, the contractor’s working drawings, graven in the living rock even as Job, whom we have cited (Chapter II) as one to whom its design has been attributed, wished his words might be for the benefit of posterity (Job xix, 123-4).

These trenches, which some have, in the past, thought were either the remains or the commencement of another pyramid like the Great Pyramid, but on a smaller scale, are an exact model of the Great Pyramid’s passage-system,

1 The famous Assouan Dam is a modern instance of such procedure, as not long after completion it was increased in height and thickened in order to impound a greater amount of water, and it has now been decided to increase it a second time to the height originally proposed by Sir William Willcocks in 1902.