Last May the Project Djedi Team caught the world’s attention, and imagination, when they announced that the robot crawler designed to explore the southern shaft leading out of the Queen’s Chamber of the Great Pyramid had transmitted back images of markings left behind by the pyramid’s builders.  Hidden behind a “door” that had either thwarted or limited previous attempts to investigate the shaft, the markings prompted much speculation about their nature and purpose.

The Djedi Project was back in the headlines at the end of December when New Scientist magazine named the discovery one of the Top 10 Science Stories of 2011.  For the next few articles, Em Hotep will bring you up to date on the history of the exploration of the mysterious shafts in the Great Pyramid.  This current article will cover the ground from Waynman Dixon up to the Pyramid Rover Project, with the next article focusing exclusively on Project Djedi.  This will be followed by a couple of very special interviews you will not want to miss..

The Pyramid Shafts

The Great Pyramid of Giza (Photo by Keith Payne)

The Great Pyramid was built over 4,500 years ago as the final resting place of Pharaoh Khufu, the second pharaoh of the Fourth Dynasty.  Designed and executed by Khufu’s vizier and Master of Works, Hemienu, Khufu wanted a pyramid that would rival that of his father, Snefru—the Red Pyramid located at Dashur.  He succeeded.  The Great Pyramid is the tallest, and at 146.5 m would remain the tallest man-made structure in the world for another 3,800 years.

Hemienu and his fellow architects took the secrets of its construction to their graves and we are only just now beginning to fathom how the work could have been done with the tools and methodologies that we know existed at the time (for more on this, start with Hemienu to Houdin: Building A Great Pyramid – Introduction).  But even ignoring for the moment how the pyramid was built, many of the elements in the structure itself have raised questions.  From the unusually tall sloping passage known as the Grand Gallery to the equally puzzling tiered compartments above the King’s Chamber, Egyptologists and everyday people have wondered whether these labor and resource intensive structures served  ritual or structural purposes, or both.  The pyramid shafts would fall into this category as well.

There are four shafts that we know of, two exiting the north and south walls of the King’s Chamber (KCN and KCS, respectively) and two exiting the north and south walls of the Queen’s Chamber (QCN and QCS).  Their purpose has always been cause for speculation.  They have often been referred to as ventilation shafts, but they seem to be too long and narrow to efficiently provide airflow, so this is almost certainly not their purpose (But see Comments section at the end of the article).  Zahi Hawass, former secretary of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, has proposed that they are related to king’s spirit and the solar boats that were discovered buried on the southern side of the pyramid.

The boats are oriented on an east-west axis, corresponding to the daily journeys that the sun god Ra would make through the sky. He believes that the southern shaft [KCS] symbolically served as a portal through which the king’s ka could travel in the night and day barques in the afterlife.  He also speculates that the northern shaft (KCN) would allow the king to symbolically journey on his boats toward the east as Horus surveying his kingdom of Upper and Lower Egypt. (Hawass et. al, 2010, p. 215)

This theory sits well with what we know about Old Kingdom royal funerary practices, but it doesn’t tell us much about the shafts in the Queen’s Chamber.  Unlike those of the King’s Chamber, QCN and QCS do not exit the pyramid—they seem to terminate somewhere within its massive bulk (it is worth noting that even the King’s Chamber shafts may have been covered by the now-missing casing stones that once covered the pyramid’s surface).  This would also seem to rule out astrological functions, as the sky would not be visible from the shafts, and would eliminate the ventilation theory for obvious reasons.  Besides, until their discovery in 1872 by a British engineer named Waynman Dixon, the shafts were sealed from the inside as well.

The Djedi Project is the latest in a series of explorations to better understand the pyramid shafts, particularly the Queen’s Chamber shafts, and what purpose they may have served.  Were they of religious significance, or did they serve a functional purpose in the building of the Great Pyramid?  Even if their purpose was spiritual in nature, which aspects of their structure are symbolic and which are functional?  Were the markings found in QCS by the Djedi Project team religious in nature, or were they notations left by the ancient builders?

The answers to these questions could provide clues about how the pyramid was built, the religious and funerary practices of the time, and could even lead to an as-of-yet undiscovered section of the pyramid.  Before we can approach the Djedi Project and how it might help us have a better understanding of the Great Pyramid, we should first review the history of the exploration of these mysterious shafts.  This article will cover this history from their discovery by Waynman Dixon up to the Pyramid Rover Project.

Charles Piazzi Smyth and Waynman Dixon

Charles Piazzi Smyth

The story of the Queen’s Chamber shafts begins with the surveys commissioned by Charles Piazzi Smyth, director of the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, from 1846 to 1888.  Smyth became interested in the Great Pyramid when he read John Taylor’s 1859 book The Great Pyramid:  Why Was It Built?  Who Built it?  Influenced by Taylor’s notion that the pyramid had been designed and constructed by Noah, of Great Flood fame, Smyth believed that the pyramid was built on the principles of sacred geometry, and that an understanding of this system could be deduced if accurate measurements of the pyramid were undertaken.

Smyth set out to measure every aspect of the pyramid he could think of, inside and out.  His first survey was conducted in 1865, an expedition Smyth funded himself when the Royal Society refused him a grant due to what they considered to be the pseudo-scientific underpinnings of his work.  Nonetheless, his extremely thorough survey was published in the Edinburgh Observations Vol. xiii and led to his partial vindication when he was awarded the Keith Prize by the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1867.

Sacred Geometry aside, Smyth’s survey of the Great Pyramid of Khufu was the beginning of our scientific understanding of this awe-inspiring edifice (Above: Plate VII from Charles Piazzi Smyth’s “Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid”)

Charles Piazzi Smyth wanted to undertake additional measurements in 1872 but was prevented from returning to the Giza Plateau by illness.  Instead, he asked a friend and colleague, Waynman Dixon, a British engineer who along with his brother John were involved in construction work at Cairo, to take some measurements on his behalf.  The brothers Dixon set aside some time to help their friend, a fortunate development for the rest of us.  The Dixons shared Smyth’s inquisitive nature, and the addition of their expertise as builders and engineers led to one of the great discoveries in Egyptology.

The Dixons quickly fell under the Great Pyramid’s spell and were soon looking for secrets of their own.  Waynman was particularly curious about the shafts leading from the King’s Chamber and suspected that there might be similar shafts in the Queen’s Chamber.  He was drawn to a crack in the masonry of the southern wall, and after inserting a rigid wire between the blocks discovered that there was a hollow space behind them.  After chiseling through the facing stone he discovered that he was right—there was a shaft that seemed to correspond to those in the King’s Chamber.

The Smyth-Dixon survey of the Queen’s Chamber with “Dixon’s Channels” marked on the northern and southern walls. QCN still shows Dixon’s chisel marks, while QCS has been patched up a bit.

The Dixon Artifacts, minus the wooden slat (photo by Jon Bodsworth)

Using the same methodology Dixon discovered a matching shaft in the northern wall of the Queen’s Chamber, and was rewarded with an additional discovery.  In one of the shafts—he does not specify which but from the context it would seem to be QCN—Dixon found three artifacts:  a small copper hook measuring around 5cm, a small diorite ball, and a broken piece of wood about 13cm long.  Known as the Dixon Artifacts, these objects appear to be tools left behind by the ancient builders.

Diorite pounding tools were used to shape softer stone (photo by Scitim)

The Dixon Artifacts have themselves been the cause of speculation.  The wooden plank is missing, although it is thought to be somewhere in the Marischal Museum at Aberdeen (The Secret Doors Inside the Great Pyramid, by Zahi Hawass).  The diorite ball is similar to other spheres used by the ancient Egyptians to pound softer stone into shape.  The chisels used by the pyramid builders were made of copper, a soft metal that was only good for a dozen or so strokes against the local limestone, and which was totally useless against the red Aswan granite that was used in some of the structural elements of the pyramid (but see Comments below).  Diorite is harder than the red granite and was one of the tools of choice in the Old Kingdom period.

Rudolf Gantenbrink’s robot crawler, Upuaut-2, took this shot of an object in QCN that might correspond to the riveted hook recovered by Dixon. The track-like object is an iron rod abandoned by previous explorers (Photo by Rudolf Gantenbrink)

The copper hook (bronze by other accounts, cf. The Secret Doors Inside the Great Pyramid by Zahi Hawass) is of less obvious utility.  The hook has two rivets and might be related to another small rectangular object photographed by Rudolph Gantenbrink in QCN.  This latter object, which has yet to be recovered, appears to have two holes in it that might correspond to the rivets in the hook (The Upuaut Project—The Lower Northern Shaft).  It is not certain whether these objects were purposely left there by the ancient builders, or were dropped into the shaft at a point in construction when it was impossible to retrieve them.

But Dixon didn’t just recover some artifacts from QCN—he seems to have left a couple of his own.  Someone, presumably Dixon, used long iron rods to probe into the Queen’s Chamber northern shaft and several of these rods became stuck and were abandoned.  These more recent artifacts would be a vexation to the future missions into QCN, but more on that later.

Whatever we make of the iron rods, we can be certain that the Dixon Artifacts themselves are of ancient origin.  The shafts had been sealed on their lower end by the pyramid builders, and as we shall see, nobody dropped them in from above any time recently.  Dixon’s discovery of the Queen’s Chamber shafts and the artifacts therein was a major accomplishment, but it would be 120 years before another scientific mission would expand on his findings.

The Upuaut Project

The next phase of exploration originally began, somewhat inadvertently, as an effort to reduce the humidity levels in the Great Pyramid.  Humidity causes damage by allowing moisture to seep into the stone, causing it to expand.  Over time this can lead to major structural damage, so the Supreme Council of Antiquities had the idea that whether the shafts in the King’s Chamber were intended to for ventilation or not, they could potentially be used for that purpose.

Rudolf Gantenbrink

In 1989, a German engineer by the name of Rudolph Gantenbrink began working on a computer database to analyze the pyramids in an attempt to understand their construction.  It baffled Gantenbrink that, with all of the technological advances in recent years, and their potential for exploration, nobody seemed to be applying them to the mysteries of the Great Pyramid.

My engineer’s curiosity was aroused because there seemed to be so many questions and so few answers.  I just couldn’t get over the fact that we can fly to the moon and explore the depths of the oceans, but we can’t answer so many basic technical questions about the most exhaustively studied historical monument of all times.  (Rudolf Gantenbrink, The Upuaut Project—The Upuaut Story)

Rainer Stadelmann

Gantenbrink was particularly curious about the shafts.  As an engineer he appreciated the technical and mathematical genius behind creating these precise channels through a layered structure on such a grand scale and suspected they must have been an important part of Hemienu’s plan.  In 1990 he presented his analysis to the director of the German Archaeological Institute (GAI), Dr. Rainer Stadelmann.  Stadelmann was impressed with Gantenbrink’s work and met with him again in 1991, where Gantenbrink proposed revisiting the pyramid shafts with the best technology available.

A partnership was forged—Gantenbrink would make all of the technical arrangements, including the design of a robot crawler to explore the shafts, and Stadelmann would arrange all the permits through the GAI.  It was during this planning phase that the mission to explore the shafts became entangled with the ventilation project.  One of Gantenbrink’s early considerations was the possibility that the robot crawler might run into debris, and so planning for a cleaning operation would be a necessary part of the overall project.

Debris clogging KCN—before a robot survey mission or ventilation system could be installed, Gantenbrink would have to play the part of chimney sweep.

The SCA had also considered the need for cleaning out the shafts in the King’s Chamber as a part of installing the ventilation system, and Gantenbrink’s project sounded like a great opportunity to outsource this dusty undertaking.  In the process of negotiating the permits, somehow the installation of the ventilation system became a “rider” on the project to explore the shafts.  But for Rudolf Gantenbrink, all that mattered was that his project had received the go-ahead.  He arranged for a third party to design the ventilation system based on his database while he set about the task of designing the robot.

Rudolf Gantenbrink with “Father of Upuaut”

As it turned out, Gantenbrink would have to design a series of robots for his mission, The Upuaut Project.  The first robot, which was originally unnamed but came to be called Father of Upuaut, was made mostly of poly-carbonate plastic, had dual independently controllable tracks, and was mounted with a stationary forward-facing color video camera.  In March 1992, Gantenbrink prepared to deploy the robot into the Queen’s Chamber shafts, but soon discovered that the pressure from the chamber’s roof beams had caused the shafts to settle just enough that the robot was too tall—by half a centimeter.

One of the iron rods left in QCN, photographed by Father of Upuaut during its brief trip into the shaft.

Father of Upuaut was unable to make it much more than twelve meters into the Queen’s Chamber shafts, but had proven that they were not faux structures.  The predominant theory among Egyptologists at the time was that the shafts probably did not extend more than 3-4 meters before ending, an interesting position given that Waynman Dixon had managed to get his iron probing rods at least 12 meters (actually much farther) into QCN before getting stuck!  In addition to one of these rods, Father of Upuaut was able to transmit back photographic proof that there was much more to be explored in the Queen’s Chamber shafts.  Frustrated but wiser for the effort, Gantenbrink returned to Germany to begin work on a new robot.

Upuaut-1

The next robot Gantenbrink designed took only about four weeks to construct.  Dubbed Upuaut-1, this robot was actually a sled-mounted camera equipped with a special laser pointer/receiver capable of taking exact measurements of the shafts and the block joints.  Upuaut-1 was designed specifically for surveying the King’s Chamber shafts.  It had no treads or other independent propulsion and relied on a towing system that took advantage of the fact that the King’s Chamber shafts were open-ended, meaning the sled-bot could be towed from a pulley mounted on the surface of the pyramid.

Looking down Upuaut-1’s laser-mounted snout as it climbs KCS, the towing line is visible in the upper right corner of the shaft, the red laser surveying dot can be seen on the lower left wall.

Upuaut-1 was deployed into the King’s Chamber shafts in May of 1992, and other than a few minor snags unrelated to the sled-bot (a sand storm and a lost slip of paper with survey notes and measurements that had to be repeated), it performed brilliantly.  The shafts were cleared of debris, the survey completed, and the ventilation system was installed.  It was a success by all measures, literally.  Now Gantenbrink could return his attention to the Queen’s Chamber shafts, which would require a more sophisticated type of robot than Upuaut-1.

The sled-bot had worked for the King’s Chamber shafts, but without an opening to the surface there was no way to tow a similar robot through the Queen’s Chamber shafts.  The next generation of Upuaut would have to be independently propelled.  For his next robot Gantenbrink returned to a tread system, an over-and-under design that would allow the robot to extend tracks to both the floor and ceiling, giving it excellent power and leverage.  The new robot also had a new laser guidance system and a superior camera with pan and tilt.  It was also, incidentally, shorter than Father of Upuaut.

Irregularities such as this jutting wall section in QCS press on Upuaut-2 from all sides, but also yield discoveries such as the red mason’s mark visible along the edge of the block.

Upuaut-2 was deployed in March of 1993, and returned some of the most tantalizing discoveries since Dixon’s initial discovery of the shafts.  The little robot met no small amount of obstacles.  At one point Upuaut-2 proved to be too short for QCS, somewhat ironic given Father of Upuaut’s height difficulties, but this was fixed by using long slats to push the robot forward manually.  In QCN Upuaut-2 was turned back by a combination of a difficult 45-degree angle turn and one of the rods Dixon had left in the shaft, which itself had probably become snagged in the same turn.  Gantenbrink did not want to risk getting Upuaut-2 hopelessly entangled, so he decided to focus on QCS.

Mohammed Sheeha, Rudolf Gantenbrink, and Ulrich Kapp watch the monitor as Upuaut-2 makes history.

On March 22, 1993, Project Upuaut made its greatest discovery.  After climbing one last step at the 53 meter mark, Upuaut-2 came to a section where the masonry was clearly of higher quality than the team had observed anywhere else in the pyramid shafts.  But most exciting of all was the last obstacle of QCS—a block that promised to be more than just the end of the shaft, if it was the end indeed.

As we approach the slab, we can see two dark streaks on it, which upon closer inspection turn out to be copper fittings. And there is something else. The face of the inspector sitting next to me at the monitor has become chalk white. He draws my attention to two round, white marks on the copper fittings.  “These are seals, these are seals!” he exclaims, visibly shaken.  (The Upuaut Project—The 1993 Campaign)

The blocking slab, which would popularly come to be known as Gantenbrink’s Door, was a truly unique structure in the Great Pyramid (although, as we shall see later, there is a similar feature in QCN).  To begin with, the slab and part of the surrounding shaft are made of a different type of stone.  Most of the shaft is made of the same rough local limestone as most of the rest of the pyramid.  The shafts are formed by U-shaped blocks that resemble upside-down gutters that rest on flat base blocks.  The U-blocks, laid end-to-end on top of the base blocks, form the walls and ceilings of the shaft.

The final U-block and the blocking slab (Gantenbrink’s Door) that plugs it are both made from the lighter and finer Tura limestone that was used for the now mostly missing smooth facing stones that once covered the outer surface of the pyramid.  Gantenbrink noted that both the blocking slab and the final U-block were smoother and of higher craftsmanship than any of the other features of the pyramid shafts so far.

The upper-left corner of the “end” of QCS shows the higher quality of both the craftsmanship and the limestone, as well as the left-hand copper pin.

Regarding the roundish white “seals” that appeared to mark the slab behind the copper pins there was room for maybe-maybe-not.  Stadelmann, who seemed for whatever reason to have been distancing himself from the project by this point, insisted that Old Kingdom seals were created by rolling a pressing cylinder over a lump of clay, which would have looked nothing like what they were observing on the slab that sealed the shaft.  But Gantenbrink’s own research revealed that some Old Kingdom seals were made in gypsum, which might have looked similar to the white marks on the slab (The Upuaut Project—The 1993 Campaign).

The Upuaut Project had advanced the exploration of the shafts literally by leaps (over bumps and ledges) and bounds (up inclines and through breakdowns).  The SCA had gotten its ventilation system, and Gantenbrink had been able to explore the shafts as far as his robots and the legal permits would allow.  But the greatest obstacle would seem to have been a conflict of personalities.

For now, the mystery would remain.

Despite his original enthusiasm, Rainer Stadelmann had gradually cooled to Project Upuaut to the point where he rarely showed up on-site and seemed perpetually dissatisfied with Gantenbrink’s analyses and reports.  On March 28, 1993, just five days after the discovery of the blocking slab, Rudolph Gantenbrink withdrew from the joint venture and returned home.

For their part, the German Archaeological Institute seemed to lose interest in the pyramid shafts and the permits to continue the work seemed in danger of lapsing.  Was the work about to end just as things were getting really interesting?

The Pyramid Rover Project

The Upuaut Project provided some answers, and a lot more questions.  Gantenbrink’s Door presented us again with the Timeless Question—is this a functional part of the structure, or does it serve a symbolic purpose?  The copper “handles” certainly seemed to suggest that the block was movable, but how and by whom?  It was too small and too far within the pyramid to be accessible by people, and besides, both Queen’s Chamber shafts had been sealed up during the pyramid’s construction.  This later point seemed to exclude astrological purposes, and certainly ruled out the ventilation hypothesis.

Looking up QCS toward the blocking stone and the higher quality final (?) section of U-block.

The fact that the blocking slab was made of Tura limestone was interesting, but perhaps equally interesting was that the final U-block was of the same higher quality stone and workmanship.  The U-blocks were simply the walls and ceilings of the shafts and up to that point the local limestone had been suitable for the purpose.  Why was this final section of walls and ceiling given “the works”?  Was the blocking slab the end of the line for QCS, or was it really a door?

Zahi Hawass, who had initially been more skeptical than Stadelmann but had come to take an increasing interest in the shafts, knew that the only way to find out what was behind the slab would be to drill a hole in it and take a look—easier said than done, even for the chief of the Supreme Council of Antiquities.  All of the work permits had been arranged by Stadelmann and assigned to the GAI, who were no longer pursuing the project.  Egyptian law required that the permits be assigned to a university or similar research institution, so Gantenbrink could not pursue the work on his own.

Zahi Hawass

Hawass decided that the best work-around would be to have the SCA resume the project with himself assuming directorship.  He had a good relationship with National Geographic, and in 2001 contacted Tim Kelly, president of National Geographic’s television and film division, to assist with the next chapter in the drama of the pyramid shafts.  They agreed that the operation would be broadcast live on TV “in order to refute speculation about the withholding of information that has provided great interest to many people” (Hawass et. al, 2010, p. 204).

The Boston, MA, firm iRobot was commissioned to design and build the next robot crawler, aptly dubbed Pyramid Rover.  The Pyramid Rover shared some aspects with Upuaut-2’s mobility design, including a vertically expandable chassis with over-and-under treads that allowed it to grip the floor and ceiling.  The iRobot team tested the traction system by recreating the shaft conditions in their lab.  Wooden planks were mounted at the proper angle with limestone surfaces and every conceivable obstacle, from speed bumps to sand traps.

Pyramid Rover’s primary camera was top-mounted with some tilt capabilities and a wide-angle lighting array.  The robot also had a specially mounted drill that would, if feasible, bore a small hole through the blocking slab just large enough for its secondary camera, a fiber optic camera with its own LED light source, to slip inside and take a peek.

But before any drilling could take place, Pyramid Rover would first have to determine the thickness of the slab and find an optimal spot for the hole.  This was achieved with a specially modified concrete thickness gauge (CTG) designed by Olsen Engineering, Inc., a company specializing in nondestructive structural analysis.   CTG uses impact-echo analysis, a type of sonar that works by lightly tapping a surface and then measuring the impact response.  Pyramid Rover’s CTG sensor had its own wheels so it could be moved around the face of the slab while remaining flush to its surface.

The Pyramid Rover Project was divided into two phases.  Phase I would involve a number of reconnaissance missions spread out over eight days.  Pyramid Rover was first sent up QCS for preliminary analyses of the blocking slab and the copper pins.  Phase I revealed that the base (floor) and U-blocks of QCS suffered from deterioration, most of which was natural, but some of which was attributed to scuffing from Upuaut-2’s treads.  The team also discovered two crystals that were likewise attributed to modern contamination, most likely of the New Age variety.

Of more ancient origin, Pyramid Rover transmitted back images of red marks that were interpreted as cutting lines made by the ancient stoneworkers.  Phase I also provided a more complete picture of the copper pins, which were observed to be bent downward at a 90 degree angle, flattening them against the surface of the slab.  The whitish material that Gantenbrink suggested might have been a royal seal, on closer examination, appeared to be mortar used to secure the pins in the slab.  The Rover confirmed Gantenbrink’s description of the slab as smooth highly-worked limestone of higher quality than the local limestone.

(Left) Rover sent back images of cutting lines, including this block familiar from Upuaut-2’s trip up QCS. (Right) The Rover mission also confirmed Gantenbrink’s description of the blocking stone as smooth and highly worked, but the white circular marks were looking less like royal seals and more like mortar patches.

Two of Dixon’s metal rods

Pyramid Rover was next sent up the northern shaft with a goal of exploring beyond the turn that had prevented Upuaut-2 from progressing more than 19 meters.  Rover passed this test with flying colors and navigated two more bends at 22 and 25 meters, apparently designed to keep QCN from running into the Grand Gallery.  At 27 meters Pyramid Rover encountered another modern obstacle—two more metal rods of the type Waynman Dixon had used to probe into the shaft more than a century before.  Rover could go no further into QCN at this time, having become snagged on Dixon’s now-infamous iron rods, but transmitted video showing that the shaft continued after yet another turn.

Phase II had similar objectives to Phase I:

The goals of this phase were very similar to that of the first; determine the thickness of the blocking stone in QCS, determine what was behind the blocking stone, study the metal pins on the opposite side of the block, discern the purpose of the blocking stone, and investigate the terminus of QCN.  (Hawass et. al, 2010, p. 205).

On September 16 (Cairo time), 2002, Pyramid Rover climbed QCS and deployed its echo-impact probe, which tapped ever so lightly on the door and listened…  After taking multiple readings it was determined that the slab was just 5-9cm thick, well within the capabilities of the drill and probe-mounted camera.  Whatever was on the other side, Rover would be able to fetch.  The decision was made to drill the hole, 2 cm in diameter, and proceed with the mission.  The following day, with National Geographic broadcasting live, the fiber optic camera was inserted into the hole and 4,500 years into the past.

After drilling the peep-hole (left) Pyramid Rover returned with the probe camera deployed (right).

At about 18 cm from the first slab was another block.  Unlike Gantenbrink’s Door, this block was more rough cut, appeared to be of the local yellow limestone, and had no features like the copper handles, just what appeared to be cracks.  There were two possible takes on this discovery.  It might mean that Pyramid Rover had come to the end of the line—that after an ornate faux block the shaft ended with the core stone that makes up the bulk of the pyramid’s solid structure.  The other, more optimistic take was that this was a second sealing block with something else beyond.  Understandably, Dr. Hawass opted for the later.

“What’s this…? We can see another sealed door. It has cracks… It’s another sealed door! It’s another space, another sealed door, but it looks to me we have a discovery.” (Zahi Hawass, National Geographic Pyramids Live: Secret Chambers Revealed)

But Hawass’ optimism was not unfounded.  Yes, the opposite “wall” did appear to be a rough-cut block of local yellow limestone rather than the Tura limestone of the first blocking slab and the surrounding U-block, but so was the rest of the shaft preceding the door.   There was no reason to assume the shaft could not continue on the other side as it had leading up to the small chamber.  And it did appear to be a chamber.  If the door had been a facing stone, why the 18 cm gap?  The space inside seemed to be intentional.

Hawass also pointed to the large chip in the bottom of the rough block, just right of the center.  It appears that the floor of the shaft continues under the block, which would not be the case if the shaft came to an end against the core masonry.  Although it was not certain by any stretch, a reasonable argument could be made for the block on the opposite side of the chamber being something that was inserted into the shaft, like a cork in a bottle, rather than something pressed against the shaft’s end, like a lid on a jar.

Unfortunately, the Rover’s probe-mounted camera had no tilt or pan capabilities, and the LEDs did not provide enough ambient light to tell much about the inside of the chamber.  The fixed mounting also meant that the camera could not look back at the backside of the door, so there was no way of knowing if the metal pins continued on the other side.  In some ways, it was like a high-tech version of the rigid wires Waynman Dixon had inserted into the masonry of the Queen’s Chamber to discover the shafts—they knew there was something back there, they just couldn’t say for sure what without being able to take a better look.

A new frontier? A third blocking stone in QCN

But the Pyramid Rover Project wasn’t quite finished yet.  Three more trips were made up the northern shaft, and this time Pyramid Rover made it past the metal rods that had stalled it at 27 meters.  Pushing up the slope, at 63 meters they discovered another blocking slab nearly identical to the one found in QCS, metal pins included.  Another interesting discovery was made between 18 and 21 meters within QCN—a plain piece of paper and a ticket for the Sphinx and pyramids!  Although modern contamination was expected, this was a fairly good distance into the shaft for these light objects to be discovered, considering that airflow is limited by the blocking slabs.

Charles Piazzi Smyth’s quest for the sacred geometry of Noah and Waynman Dixon’s chisels and iron rods may seem anachronistic by the standards of today, but they undoubtedly paved the way for Upuaut-2 and Pyramid Rover.  Far be it from us to judge the shoulders upon which we stand.  The next step into the pyramid shafts would build not only on the adventures we have covered here, it would pull together some of the most brilliant minds in fields as far reaching as scientific 3D simulation and virtual reality development, search and rescue technology, even space exploration.  Prepare to meet Djedi, and with apologies to George Lucas, the Force will be strong with this one.

Works Cited

• Zahi Hawass, Shaun Whitehead, TC Ng, Robert Richardson, Andrew Pickering, Stephen Rhodes, Ron Grieve, Adrian Hildred, Mehdi Tayoubi and Richard Breitner.  “First report: video survey of the southern shaft of the Queen’s Chamber in the Great Pyramid.”  Annales du Service des AntiquitÉs de l’Égypte.  Tome 84, 2010.  Pp. 203-16.
• Pyramids Live: Secret Chambers Revealed.  Dir. Cynthia Page.  National Geographic Television & Film, 2003. DVD.

Copyright by Keith Payne, 2012.  All rights reserved.

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Tags: Charles Piazzi Smyth, Djedi Project, Gantenbrink's Door, Khufu's Pyramid, Project Upuaut, Pyramid Rover Project, Pyramid Shafts, Queen's Chamber, Queens Chamber Shafts, Rainer Stadelmann, Rudolf Gantenbrink, Waynman Dixon, Zahi Hawass