The Djedi Project

Picking up where we left off with Pyramid Rover, this Em Hotep exclusive covers how the Djedi Team won the “Robot Olympics in the Desert”, the members who make up the team, the specifics of the robot’s design, and the results of Djedi’s maiden voyage up QCS and into the chamber behind the first blocking stone.  Through interviews and exchanges with the Djedi Project manager, Shaun Whitehead, as well as other team members, this article promises to be the resource for the published Djedi material to date.

Pyramid Rover Recap

Pyramid Rover was a successful reconnaissance mission into the southern shaft coming out of the Queen’s Chamber (QCS).  The mission had confirmed that the 20 x 20 cm blocking slab and the final section of U-block were made of a higher quality type of limestone than the rest of the shaft, most likely the fine limestone quarried at Tura rather than the rougher local yellow limestone.  The blocking slab and final U-block were also smoother and of higher craftsmanship than the rest of the shaft blocks.  The Rover mission also confirmed that the blocking slab was affixed with two copper pins that were bent downward at a 90-degree angle.

Regarding the white circular patches observable behind the pins, Pyramid Rover’s close-up analysis revealed that these were most likely mortar patches rather than royal seals, one of the possibilities offered up by the Upuaut Project.   Rover’s impact-echo probe had shown that the blocking slab was only 5-9 cm thick, which placed it within the capabilities of Rover’s drill and probe-mounted camera.

Rover successfully drilled a small hole in the slab, about 2 cm in diameter, while inflicting as little damage as possible.  The probe-mounted fiber optic camera was successfully deployed and gave us our first look behind Gantenbrink’s Door.  What the Pyramid Rover team discovered was a small chamber formed by the Tura limestone U-block, the basal stone, the blocking slab/door, and a rough block of the local limestone on the opposite side, about 19 cm away from the “door.”

But the probe camera had its limitations.  It was fixed inside a rigid tube and had no tilt or pan capabilities—all it could do was look straight ahead.  The LED array on the probe did not provide much ambient light, so Rover was unable to examine the walls and floor of the chamber, much less the back of the blocking slab.  Even the view of the opposite block was limited by the quality of the light.  With the center being overly reflective and the periphery fading into darkness, details were hard to make out.  What appeared to be cracks could just as easily be tool marks, mason’s lines, flaking, or just shadows.

Larger, more structural questions presented themselves as well.  Was the opposing block another blocking slab/door?  Did the shaft continue on the opposite side, or come to an abrupt end against the core masonry of the pyramid?  Was the block inserted into the shaft like a cork, or did it sit flush against the end of the shaft like a lid?

The Pyramid Rover had also made a remarkable discovery in the northern shaft of the Queen’s Chamber—another door, nearly identical to the one Gantenbrink discovered, and at about the same elevation.  The QCN door also had copper pins and also appeared to be made of the higher-quality limestone and exhibited superior workmanship.  Could there be another chamber in QCN?

To even begin assessing these questions would require another mission and another robot.  But this meant asking new questions. Who should design the next robot?  How could they improve on the previous missions?  What would be the scope of the project?  Zahi Hawass, the Secretary of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, had some decisions to make.

 Selecting a New Mission Team:  Robot Olympics in the Desert

Initial planning for the next mission into the Queen’s Chamber shafts began soon after the conclusion of the Pyramid Rover Project, and at one point it seemed that a team from Singapore University had been selected as early as August, 2004.  Speaking with Chinese reporters at that time, Dr. Hawass talked as if the Singaporean mission was a done deal.  “The manufacturing of the robot will start in October,” Hawass said, “with the university [of Singapore] footing the bill.  The exploration will likely start next year” (People’s Daily Online, New robot to uncover pyramid mysteries, August 12, 2004).

Click here to view the embedded video.

By mid October, 2005, the Singaporean project, called Tomb Trekker, appeared to be on schedule.  According to The Independent, Singapore University had been working on Tomb Trekker for two years and Dr. Hawass would be inspecting the robot within a week (The Independent, Robot to explore Great Pyramid’s secret chamber, by Anne Penketh, October 12, 2005).  But apparently he was not entirely convinced with what he saw and decided to open the project up to competition.  In 2006 and 2007 Tomb Trekker would have to face off with a competing team from Leeds University for the right to explore the pyramid shafts.

The next mission into the Queen’s Chamber shafts would have two primary objectives:

Send a robot crawler up QCS to explore the space behind the first blocking slab using the same opening Pyramid Rover had drilled, determine if the rough block at the opposite side was the end of the shaft or another blocking slab, and if the latter, drill a hole through it and see what is behind it.

Send a robot crawler up QCN to drill a hole through that blocking slab and see what is on the other side.

To accomplish these objectives, the mission would have to meet certain criteria as well.  The tube-mounted camera on Pyramid Rover was unable to look around the inside of the chamber and the light quality was not fully up to task.  The next robot would need to be able to look up and down and from side to side, as well as take a look at the back of the blocking slab.  One of the most curious features of the shafts is the copper pins in the two blocking slabs.  To have a better understanding of these pins the new robot would need to be able to examine the backs of these slabs.

Another consideration would be scale.  The impact-echo probe used by Pyramid Rover covered nearly half the surface area of the blocking slab.  Obviously, something of comparable size would not be able to fit through the hole in the first blocking slab, and minimizing damage meant the team could not drill a larger hole.  The next mission would have to employ a probe that could fit through the tiny hole already made by Rover.

Damage prevention was not just a consideration with the blocking slab, it had become one of the main criteria of the mission.  The tank-like treads used by Upuaut-2 and Pyramid Rover had left scuff marks on the shafts.  There is an old adage that cave explorers use—take only pictures, leave only footprints.  But the pyramid shafts are a different type of spelunking and the Supreme Council of Antiquities was determined that whoever they selected for the next mission would leave no footprints at all.

To select which team—Singapore or Leeds—was best able to fulfill the mission and meet all the criteria, Zahi Hawass arranged for the two sides to face off in a sort of robot Olympics in the desert.  The SCA had a group of Egyptologists and engineers from Cairo University design a limestone “competition tunnel” in the desert that mimicked the actual pyramid shafts as nearly as possible in terms of size, slope, and conditions.  The panel of judges was an impressive list of experts.  According to the Official Report of the mission findings:

The trials were supervised and witnessed by a team that included a group from the Faculty of Engineering at Cairo University; Dr. Ali Radwan, a professor of Egyptology at Cairo University; Dr. Sabri Abdel Aziz, Head of the Pharaonic Sector of the SCA; and Mr. Hisham El Leithy from the SCA.  (Hawass, Whitehead, et. al, p. 206)

The competition was exciting, but not without some anxiety for both sides.  For the Singapore team it meant defending a concession to do the work which they had thought had already been won back in 2004.  For the Leeds team it meant testing an entirely new crawler design against one that had held up fairly well with Upuaut and Rover.  Dr. TC Ng, one of the members of the Leeds team, describes the moment:

While our team’s rover was doing the test and we were sweating like Indiana Jones under the Egyptian sun, a dozen disciplined Singaporean engineers marched in like soldiers with identical T-shirts. They seemed good…Their robot was brilliant and exceptionally well made (South China Morning Post, Dentist digs deep to discover Giza secret, by Adrian Wan, September 28, 2010).

Both robots were equipped with the tools they would need to achieve the mission goals, but in the end one particular criterion set the Leeds robot above Trekker.  Tomb Trekker had relied on the same type of over-and-under tread system that had propelled Upuaut-2 and Pyramid Rover, which uses pressure against the floor and ceiling of the shaft to hold the robot in place.  But this is also the same design that had damaged the pyramid shafts.  At the end of the competition, under the guidance of the star panel he had assembled, Dr. Hawass pronounced the Leeds team the victors.

The Leeds robot had proved that innovation and evolution sometimes prevail over convention and tradition, these latter two often being the bread and butter of Egyptology.  But the emerging field of robot archaeology was about to make a quantum leap from crawlers that looked like something from a WWII battlefield to a sleek new design that would be at home on a space exploration mission.  And as we shall see, that was no coincidence.

Before we get into the details of Djedi’s design and the results of its maiden voyage, let’s take some time to get to know the Leeds team and how they came together.

The Djedi Team

On pronouncing the Leeds team the victors, Dr. Hawass dubbed the mission robot Djedi, after the magician Pharaoh Khufu attempted to trick into showing him the secrets of the Sanctuary of Thoth.  It was now the mission of the Djedi team to tease out the secrets of the shafts in Khufu’s pyramid, and in doing so maybe learn more about how the pyramid was built.  The team itself was composed of modern magi—scientists, engineers, and technicians from the top ranks of their respective fields.

The Djedi Team had its early genesis with the efforts of Dr. Ng “TC” Tze Chuen, who began dreaming of his own project to explore the Queen’s Chamber shafts when he saw the broadcast of Pyramid Rover’s first peek behind the blocking slab.  Dr. Ng worked as a dentist in Hong Kong, but he had made his real mark designing precision tools for space exploration.  TC Ng knew that a third mission into the Queen’s Chamber shafts was inevitable, and he believed that space exploration technology might offer the best solutions to many of the problems Pyramid Rover and Upuaut-2 had faced.

Dr. Ng tried to get the ball rolling by cold calling on the Supreme Council of Antiquities, attempting to convince Dr. Hawass to hear his proposal.  At first his cold calls got him the cold shoulder.  As he describes it:

Winning the operation rights for the third attempt took me more than a dozen trips knocking on the doors of SCA uninvited.  It was a bitter experience in the early stage.  I still remember being pushed out of the main gate of SCA for not having a valid appointment. (Hong Kong Dental Association Newsletter, Second Door? by Dr. Ng Tze Chuen, November/December 2010. Pp. 30-1).

But persistence paid off, and after hearing TC’s proposal Dr. Hawass gave him the go-ahead to begin assembling a team.  At first Dr. Ng attempted to work with the team he would eventually compete with—the University of Singapore.  But when that relationship failed to thrive, he turned to a friend he had made while working on a Mars lander project, Shaun Whitehead.

Shaun was a respected inventor and the founder of Scoutek UK, a company specializing in robotic technology for space and terrestrial exploration.  TC recalled Shaun’s drive and ability to generate enthusiasm for a project and knew that he was the ideal person for building the sort of interdisciplinary team that the Djedi Project would require.  Whitehead was immediately taken with the project.  “As soon as TC told me what he was trying to do,” he says, “I jumped at the opportunity.”

Shaun began looking for potential team members in the UK.  He knew that the team would require a balance of academic and technical expertise, and an understanding of the conditions in which Djedi would have to perform.  The robot would have to be small, but tough.  As with space exploration, where every ounce counts, the crawler would need to be light enough to navigate the shafts without damaging them, delicate enough to enter and work behind the small hole in the blocking slab, and durable enough that it wouldn’t break down where it would be impossible to repair or retrieve.

The challenges of the Djedi project are very similar to space exploration.  The rover has to be mass-optimized, to minimize damage to the shaft walls (higher weight = more brace force required for grip), and there also is very little opportunity for maintenance when the rover is deployed over sixty meters up into the shaft, just as we can’t repair space robots!  So everything needs to work right first time.  It’s a real “systems engineering” task, and consequently the robot is a lot more advanced than most people imagine. (Em Hotep interview with Shaun Whitehead, January 8, 2012)

He discovered that there was a small team at Manchester University that seemed to fit the bill.  Dr. Robert Richardson, the Lecturer in Robotics at the School for Computer Science, was involved in a project to develop robots for urban search and rescue situations following natural disasters.  The types of crawlers Dr. Richardson was working on were both rugged and dexterous.  “Everything that’s in the building falls over, and most buildings tend to partially collapse,” he explains. “If you can’t interact with debris, you drive up and get stuck” (New Scientist, Mechanical mole could seek out disaster survivors, by Kurt Kleiner, September 17, 2007).

Click here to view the embedded video.

Shaun approached Dr. Richardson, who understood the mobility requirements for the pyramid shafts, and was happy to put himself and his team behind the project.  Dr. Richardson had a highly skilled crew at Manchester who offered a wide range of experience and specialization.  One was Stephen Rhodes, a computer science analyst for the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, and a gifted technician.  Another was Andrew Pickering, who had been with the Manchester Robotics Group since 1994, and who had helped develop mobile robots that were designed to interact intelligently with their environment.

The team at Manchester was dedicated and they enjoyed working under Dr. Richardson, who Shaun describes as “very bright and very positive about the opportunity.”  Most importantly, they worked well together.  “I have great respect for the talent of those guys,” Whitehead continues.  “I have rarely known them to be stumped by any mechanical or electronic challenges.”  The team remained cohesive even after Dr Richardson moved to the University of Leeds, taking the project with him.  With the addition of Adrian Hildred, a researcher who develops and tests cars for Bentley, Shaun had his UK team.

For its own part, the University of Leeds has tremendously benefitted from its involvement in the Djedi Project, which has been a training ground for several generations of engineering students.  The enthusiasm, creativity, and commitment of these students have been vital to the project’s success, and Shaun particularly singled out the participation of Jason Liu and William Mayfield as “a particularly keen and hard-working pair who will stick with the project right to the end.”

From across the Atlantic, the team was joined by Ron Grieve, founder of the Canadian consultancy company Tekron and a trailblazer in the field of impact-echo testing.  Ron had developed technology for assessing the conditions of buildings and other structures, and specialized in creating miniature sensors to monitor stress, movement, humidity, temperature and corrosion.   His innovations included micro-transducers capable of taking measurements from the smallest and roughest surfaces, which made him the best choice for helping solve the problem of how to analyze the rough surface of the second block behind the chamber door.

Mr. Grieve passed away in late December, 2010, but his contribution to the team was immeasurable.

He was the “non-destructive testing” expert in the team, responsible for assessing the condition of the blocking stones.  We developed the miniature “Sonic Surveyor” together.  This device uses an acoustic wave to measure stone thickness where there is access to just one side.  Ron was a very experienced member of the team, and was often called in to investigate things like bridge and power station failures. Most importantly, he was a very positive team-player and a very good friend. We miss him. (Interview with Shaun Whitehead)

The team was rounded out with the addition of Mehdi Tayoubi, Richard Breitner, and Ben Willcocks from the French company Dassault Systèmes.  Like Whitehead and Ng, Breitner had a background in aerospace technology, but readers may be most familiar with Mehdi and Richard from their work with Jean-Pierre Houdin on Project Khufu and Khufu Reborn Interactive.  Using Dassault Systèmes’ scientific 3D/Virtual Reality software, CATIA, Project Khufu produced   the most complete survey of the Great Pyramid in history, modeling the pyramid in an immersive 3D/VR environment that allowed Jean-Pierre’s work to be effectively communicated to experts and laypersons alike.

To help model and fit-check the robot, Dassault Systèmes provided the powerful SolidWorks 3D software and the expert guidance of Ben Willcocks.  The intuitive nature of SolidWorks 3D allowed students and team members to master the software quickly, to share models with each other around the globe, and to directly “print” parts of the robot using the software’s rapid prototyping capabilities.  The modeling elements of the software also helped determine the best composition of materials to provide the maximum weight-to-strength ratio to allow Djedi to make the tortuous climb up the irregular geometry of the pyramid shafts.

Mehdi and Richard’s experience with modeling the Great Pyramid would also come in handy when it came time to model, analyze, and present the data culled by the robot crawler.  Dassault Systèmes was able to help financially support the project through its Passion for Innovation program, which is specifically set up to help assist projects like Khufu and Djedi by providing funding, software, and technical assistance free of charge.

Through the dedication of the team members, the support of organizations like Leeds and Dassault Systèmes, and the commitment of Dr. Hawass and the Supreme Council of Antiquities, the third mission into the Queen’s Chamber shafts became a reality.  As it turns out, the actual robot itself was not prohibitively expensive, thanks to these efforts.

A popular misconception is that the Djedi robots cost a lot of money to produce, this is not true, mainly thanks to the generous contribution of manpower by individuals and organizations. Most funding was spent on travel and accommodation for the various tests and demonstrations.  (Interview with Shaun Whitehead)

Now that we know how the team came together, we will take a look at the Djedi robot itself before diving into the mission and its findings.

Djedi—Creationeering the Next Generation in Robotic Archaeology

The Djedi robot won the competition with Tomb Trekker for a number of reasons, but ultimately the Leeds team was selected because Djedi represented the next generation of robotics while Trekker was stuck spinning its treads the old way.  If you peel the labels off, you might have a hard time distinguishing Trekker from Upuaut-2 and Pyramid Rover.  But Djedi is a whole new design, from the tools it carries to the way it carries them.  “Djedi has been custom-built from scratch to do this specific job,” explained Shaun Whitehead, “and to do it as well as possible while protecting the pyramid.”

This is not to say that the Djedi team did not learn from the previous missions.  Both Upuaut-2 and Pyramid Rover had provided useful reconnaissance from QCN and QCS and gave the engineers from Leeds an idea of the challenges they were facing.  But part of the lesson came from learning what they did not want to reproduce in the robot.  Shaun Whitehead continues:

I always like to look at previous design solutions to challenges and see what we can learn from them.  In this case, there wasn’t much to be learned apart from the fact that I did not want to use a tracked robot.  However, we did use the findings of both robots to find out what challenges we might face in terms of inclinations, bends, steps, block thicknesses, etc., and have used those to drive the specification of our robot.  (Interview with Shaun Whitehead)

One of several improvements was the camera and lighting array.  For Djedi, the team used a miniature “micro snake” camera that was designed by Scoutek.  This camera uses a wide-angle lens surrounded by six high-intensity LEDs for optimum light.  Mounted on a snake-like appendage that uses miniature servos to operate its mechanical muscles and tendons, Djedi’s camera is capable of a full 360 degrees of motion (+/- 180 degrees pitch and yaw).  With a diameter of less than 8 mm, the snake-cam easily fits through the existing hole in the blocking slab.

Another improvement was in the size and technology of the impact-echo probe used to measure the thickness of the blocks in the shaft.  As we have noted, the probe used by Rover required a surface area nearly equal to half that of the blocking slab.  Rover also benefitted from the fact that the first blocking slab has a smooth, finished surface.  But the second blocking stone in QCS has a rough surface and lies 18 cm away, on the other side of a 2 cm hole.

The sonic surveyor designed for Djedi was a collaborative effort and an example of what Shaun calls creationeering—the fusion of creativity and engineering.  Ron Grieve and Shaun Whitehead both had expertise in micro-technology—Ron with creating micro-transducers capable of measuring stone up to 15 meters thick, and Shaun with fashioning beetle microbots that carry sensors into very tight spaces.  The Leeds team was adept at creating mobile robotic platforms to carry these tools past a multitude of obstacles, and Dassault Systèmes had the powerful software and 3D technology to analyze the data and model it in virtual reality.

The Djedi Project was a perfect alchemy of talented individuals presented with difficult but enjoyable challenges, and all the right tools and resources to innovate.  One of the most observable ways that Djedi was an evolutionary leap beyond Upuaut-2, Pyramid Rover, and Tomb Trekker, however, was in its mobility system.  All three previous crawlers had employed rubber tread belts that looped over two or more motorized drive wheels.  The belts provided the traction while the wheels provided the force that moved them.  This type of propulsion is called continuous track, or caterpillar mobility.

Caterpillar mobility is designed to maximize traction by distributing the weight of the vehicle over its entire length, and usually the vehicle’s weight helps increase traction.  But in the pyramid shafts, gravity is not your friend.  QCS has an average ascent of 39.6 degrees, while QCN averages around 36.7 degrees.  In this environment the weight of the vehicle does not provide sufficient traction to grip the floors—the crawlers have to be wedged into the shafts or they slide back down.  Upuaut-2, Rover, and Trekker all addressed this problem with over-and-under-mounted treads and chassis that could expand upward.

The upward-expanding chassis wedged the robots between the floor and ceiling of the shaft, allowing the top and bottom treads to crawl along both surfaces.  This mitigated the downward pull of the slope, but created problems of its own.  The pressure created by the expanded chassis could result in the metal drive wheels exerting force directly onto the limestone surfaces.  In fact, the serrated wheels of Upuaut-2 appear specifically designed to bite into the shafts for traction.

Djedi’s designers understood that minimizing the weight of the crawler would reduce the amount of force needed for traction and propulsion, and less force meant that the robot was not as likely to damage the shafts.  Rather than something that looks like a bulky WWII tank, the Djedi team came up with a new model that benefitted from their collective experience in aerospace and terrestrial robotic navigation, but which also somewhat resembled a relic of Waynman Dixon’s era—the adjustable roller skate.

Antique roller skates had a design that allowed their length and width to be adjusted.  They were made up of two carriages, each mounted over a pair of wheels, connected by an adjustable central rod that controlled the length of the skate.  The width was controlled by two sliding braces that extended from the sides of the front carriage.

Like the skate, Djedi’s chassis is also comprised of two carriages, each mounted over a pair of wheels, connect by a pair of sliding rods that control the length of the crawler.  Analogous to the side braces on the front of the skate, Djedi has extendable rods on the sides of both carriages, with a fifth rod that extends from the top of the front carriage.  Called bracing actuators, these rods control the width of the chassis, but whereas the side braces on the skate apply inward pressure for a snug fit around a foot, Djedi’s bracing actuators apply outward pressure to hold the crawler in place in the pyramid shafts.

Djedi’s mode of mobility is similar to that of an inchworm.  When an inchworm is stretched out to its full length, it moves by grasping with its front legs and contracting its body to pull its hind legs forward.  Once it reaches its shortest length, it grabs with its hind legs and pushes the front part of its body forward by stretching out.  Once again at full length, the inchworm grabs with its front legs, turns loose with its hind legs, and contracts again.  By repeating this series of motions it “inches” its way toward its destination.

Djedi inches along in a similar way.  When the crawler’s chassis is stretched out to its full length, the front carriage grabs the surfaces of the shaft by extending its bracing actuators.  The tips of the actuators have thick pads that protect the shaft surfaces from damage while providing the necessary traction to pull the back of the crawler forward.  The actuators in the rear carriage are in the retracted position, which leaves the back of the crawler free to move.  Djedi contracts its chassis by pulling the central connecting rods forward, moving the rear carriage up the shaft.

Once Djedi is in its contracted (shortest) position, it extends the bracing actuators in the rear carriage which then locks the back of the crawler in place, just like the inchworm grasping with its hind legs.  Djedi then withdraws the actuators in the front carriage, leaving the front end of the crawler free to move.  Now traction has been transferred from the front carriage to the back carriage.  The robot then expands its chassis by pushing the central connecting rods forward, moving the front carriage further up the shaft.  Once at full length, the front carriage extends its actuators, transferring the traction back to the front of the crawler, and the process begins again, thus “inching” Djedi up the shaft.

With this type of mobility, Djedi protects the shaft surfaces by containing the force almost entirely to the central connecting rods, rather than to a set of metal drive wheels that might accidentally—or by design—transfer both force and traction directly to the limestone surfaces.  Unlike the drive wheels in the caterpillar systems, Djedi’s wheels are not motorized, they are light weight and free rolling.  The protective padding on the actuator feet can be thicker than a tread belt because the belt has to be thin enough to move with the drive wheels.  As Dr. Richardson explains:

[The] Djedi robot climbs the shaft walls using soft pads on its ‘feet’ that grip but leave no trace. This is in complete contrast to other climbing robots that rely on tracks to move upwards on sloping surfaces, leaving scuff marks in their wake.”

For any crawler to move within the pyramid shafts, they have to apply both traction and force to the surfaces.  But using a motorized set of telescoping connector rods to provide movement rather than multiple motorized drive wheels keeps weight to a minimum and applies force in the direction of least resistance.  Whereas a track system can be left spinning and biting into the surfaces to surmount a step, Djedi’s fixed-point actuators keep traction at a constant, allowing the carriages to be pulled or pushed over steps with ease.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Now that we know how the Djedi robot crawler is designed we are ready to see how it performed on its first trip up QCS, through the hole, and behind Door Number One.

General construction of the Chamber

The floors of the shafts are made of flat limestone blocks, the thicknesses of which are unknown.  The walls and ceilings are formed by sections of inverted u-blocks that resemble upside down gutters.  Although it is uncertain what the blocks above and below the shafts look like, the shafts run at a sloping angle through the horizontal layers of the pyramid, so it is believed that the u-blocks and basal blocks rest under and on blocks that are wedge-shaped.

The first blocking slab in QCS (i.e., “Gantenbrink’s Door”) is located 63.6 meters from the shaft’s entrance in the Queen’s Chamber, plus or minus .4 meters.  Its position was determined by a combination of Djedi’s odometers—sensors that estimate the distance the crawler moves over time—and the length of the crawler’s umbilical cable.  Djedi confirmed Pyramid Rover’s measurement of the thickness of the first blocking slab as about 60 mm.

As discovered by Upuaut-2, and now confirmed by both Pyramid Rover and Djedi, the final section of u-block leading up to the blocking slab is made of a higher quality limestone than the rest of the shaft blocks, most likely the fine white Tura limestone originally used to provide the external surface of the pyramid with a smooth face.  The blocking slab also appears to be made of the Tura limestone, and both the final u-block and the blocking slab have finished surfaces, unlike the rest of the shaft.  The basal (floor) stone of the final section of the shaft is not made of the Tura limestone and has not been polished.

Although we learned from Pyramid Rover’s look behind the blocking slab that there was a small chamber behind the “door”, it was not known whether the walls and ceiling of the chamber were a continuation of the same u-block as the shaft leading up to it, or the beginning of a new section.  Thanks to Djedi’s ability to look upward and back toward the door, this question was answered.  In the shaft ceiling leading up to the door there are two crisscrossing cracks or veins which continue on the other side of the door, which confirms that the u-block continues on the other side of the slab.

The width of the shaft in front of the blocking slab was measured by the side bracing actuators in Djedi’s front carriage.  After correcting for the padding on the tips of the actuators, the shaft was determined to be 230 mm wide, plus or minus 10 mm.  Since the chamber is formed by the same u-block as the final section of shaft, it stands to reason that the chamber has the same width as the shaft.  This was confirmed when Djedi was able to look at the back of the blocking stone and observe that the gaps between the edges of the slab and the chamber walls were the same on both sides, front and back.

There is a small triangular chip in the lower right hand side of the blocking slab that allows us to see a narrow 2-3 mm lip, or ledge, against which the blocking stone rests.  The blocking slab is about 3 mm wider than the u-block, which has been cut slightly wider at this point to accommodate the “door”, thus forming the ledge.   The tool marks where this widening of the u-block took place are still visible on the right hand chamber wall behind the blocking slab.  Although less visible, the team believes there is a corresponding ledge on the left hand side, but none at the top or bottom.  There is no sign of mortar holding the slab in place, it simply rests on these narrow ledges jutting out from the side.

The back wall of the chamber is formed by the second blocking stone.  Unlike the u-block and the first blocking stone, the second blocking stone has a rough unfinished surface and appears to be made of the lower-quality local yellow limestone.  The height of the chamber was determined by scaling the height of the second blocking stone.  After adjusting for perspective, the Djedi team estimated the height of the second blocking stone to be about 230 mm—more or less equal to the width of the chamber.  Thus, both the width and height of the chamber is about 23 cm.

To judge the length, or depth, of the chamber, the team put marks on the tube probe on which the snake camera is mounted.  By comparing the snake camera’s field of view with its depth of field, they were able to determine when its tip was about 50 mm from the second blocking stone.  Using the chassis-mounted camera, the team could see from the tube probe that the tip of the snake cam was 200 mm from the front of the blocking slab, meaning that the back wall of the chamber is about 250 mm from the front surface of the “door”.  Given that that blocking slab is about 60 mm thick, the chamber was determined to be about 19 cm long (+/- 15 mm).

So by a variety of measurements, the Djedi team was able to determine that the interior of the chamber is about 190 mm by 230 mm by 230 mm (LWH).

The First Blocking Slab and the Metal Pins

Among the most interesting features of the Queen’s Chamber shafts are the copper pins affixed to the blocking slabs of both QCN and QCS.  Since we are specifically discussing the aspects of the Djedi Project which have been published so far, we will limit our observations to the pins in QCS.  The pins are judged to be copper, or mostly copper, due to their greenish coloration.  Before the installation of the ventilation system during Project Upuaut, the atmosphere inside the Great Pyramid was extremely hot and humid, conditions that are very corrosive to copper, causing it to turn green.

Both pins protrude through the front (outer) surface of the blocking stone and have been hammered downward into a 90 degree position against the blocking slab.  The bending of the pins appears to be deliberate, as they have been flattened where they were hammered.  The original ends of both pins have been broken off at points which coincide with mortar patches.  The left hand pin was broken off prior to the Upuaut Project, and the right hand pin was broken off by Pyramid Rover.  Both of the broken off ends, estimated to be about 12 mm long, were observed by Djedi and will be collected by the crawler in a future mission.

The pins are surrounded by a black material where they pass through the blocking stone.  The material seems to anchor them in place within the holes, and is itself apparently held in by mortar.  It is unclear whether this is a different substance than the pins, constitutes a separate part through which the pins were inserted, or is a wider section of the pins themselves.  It will take additional analysis to answer these questions.

Djedi allowed us to observe the back of the blocking slab for the first time.  Like the front, the back of the first blocking stone has been polished to a smooth surface, and the pins protrude from this side as well.  The back of the left hand pin appears nearly pristine, seems to exit the block and is then bent downward into a neat loop, with the bottom end of the pin flush to the block, and no mortar visible. The back of the right hand pin appears more fragile and or corroded, seems to be held in place with mortar at both the top and bottom of the loop, with the bottom inserted back into the mortar.

There is no explanation as of yet for the more corroded appearance of the right hand loop, and what practical function they may have served, if any, remains a mystery.  As noted by the official report:

The loops are very small and would only permit an approximately 3 mm diameter object to pass through them.  They do not appear to be very well positioned for functional purposes, as they are high up on the block.  (Hawass, Whitehead, et at, p. 210)

Shaun Whitehead continues:

We also realize that there are lots of theories about what the shafts are for, ranging from practical explanations such as ventilation, to the more esoteric, such as part of a giant electricity generating power plant or a hidden hall of records.  However, it’s not our part to speculate, we just want to gather as much information, and the best quality information as possible…We now know that these pins end in small, beautifully made loops, indicating that they were more likely ornamental rather than electrical connections or structural features.  (Correspondence with the writer)

Djedi also showed that on the floor immediately behind the blocking slab there was a concentration of debris on the right hand side (as viewed from behind).  The debris appears to be a combination of material from the construction of the shaft and dust produced by Pyramid Rover drilling through the door.  The location and concentration of floor debris in the chamber is helping the Djedi team precisely determine the orientation and roll of the shaft, and additional details of these findings will be published in the future.

The Chamber Floor and Its Markings

Just as the same u-block forms the walls and ceiling for both the chamber and the final (known) section of the southern shaft, the same basal block constitutes the floor in both the chamber and the section of QCS leading up to the blocking slab.  In addition to the floor debris along the bottom of the blocking slab (mentioned above), there is a dark chip on the floor that appears to correspond to a cavity located on the left hand wall, which will be detailed further below.

One of the most exciting discoveries by the Djedi Project so far has been the markings found on the floor of the chamber.  One of the marks is a straight red line that runs parallel to the right hand wall, extending from just behind the first blocking stone all the way to the base of the second blocking stone.  The line has the same appearance as other red ochre mason’s lines that appear elsewhere in the shafts.  There is an additional black mark on the floor where the red line meets the second blocking stone.  These lines usually mark where blocks were to be cut, and why this particular line was not used is one of the unanswered questions about the chamber.

The source of no small amount of speculation is a series of three red glyphs drawn at about 45 degrees to the red line, between the line and the wall.  Two other less distinct red marks occur on this side of the line, closer to the back of the chamber.  The three glyphs appear to be mason’s marks written in hieratic, a form of shorthand hieroglyphs.  The official report suggests that central and left hand glyphs appear similar to the hieratic figures for 20 and 1, respectively, or 21 when read together (p. 211).  The right hand glyph is inconclusive and is left uninterpreted by the official report.

One theory that has been put forth by Luca Miatello, an independent researcher in Egyptian mathematics, who is unassociated with the Djedi project, is that the right hand figure is the hieratic figure for 100.  Referring to the three glyphs, in an interview with Discovery News Miatello stated:

The markings are hieratic numerical signs. They read from right to left, meaning 100, 20, 1. The builders simply recorded the total length of the shaft: 121 cubits.  (Discovery News:  Pyramid hieroglyphs likely engineering numbers, by Rosella Lorenzi, June 7, 2011)

While this is one possible interpretation of the glyphs, it is far from conclusive.  The central and left hand glyphs do appear to be hieratic for 20 and 1, but in this writer’s lay opinion, the right hand glyph is not clear enough for interpretation, and in any case, looks more similar to the hieratic figure for 200 than 100.  The hieratic glyph for 200 has a mark in the crook of its “elbow”, the glyph for 100 does not.  The right hand glyph on the floor appears to me to have a mark in its crook.  Miatello’s theory is a good one, and may ultimately be vindicated with further analysis, but at this point I do not feel the evidence allows for a conclusive interpretation.

Regarding the glyphs, Dr. Richardson has gone on record already, stating “We believe that if these hieroglyphs could be deciphered they could help Egyptologists work out why these mysterious shafts were built” (Response to media enquiries, p. 1).  Shaun Whitehead would only add “Experts have had the opportunity to comment on the marks, and it is still generally agreed that they are hieratic characters.  It would be very exciting to find similar characters behind the first blocking stone in QCN” (Interview with Shaun Whitehead).

The Chamber Walls and Ceiling

The walls and ceiling of the chamber are formed by the final section of u-block, partitioned off from the shaft by the first blocking stone, and terminated by the second blocking stone.  When talking about the walls and ceiling of the chamber, therefore, it must be kept in mind that they are not separate pieces, but are all parts of the same block.  For purposes of orientation, it is assumed that we are looking across (actually, upward) to the second blocking stone.  Thus, the right wall is the one on your right hand side as you face the second blocking stone, with your back to the “door”.

As stated above, there is a cavity on the left hand wall of the chamber that appears to correspond to a chip located on the floor nearby.  The Djedi team proposes that the damage was caused by a spall “where an underlying pressure point has been created, probably from a chemical reaction” (Hawass, Whitehead, et. al, p. 212).  There is also a patch of flaking limestone close to the second blocking stone.  There are two red mason’s marks on the very edge of the left hand wall where it abuts the second blocking stone.

The right hand wall is interesting only in that it is slightly rougher near the first blocking stone.  Whereas the rest of the inside of the final u-block is finely polished and shows no obvious tool marks, there is a section on the right hand side behind the “door” where there are some diagonal tool marks visible.  The section is still smooth, but for some reason the workers were unable to sand out the tool marks in this area.  There are no corresponding tool marks on the left hand wall.

The Djedi team proposes that this is the result of the block being cut to form the ledge that the “door” rests on, visible on the outside of the blocking stone via the triangular chip in the lower right corner.  Because of the way the right hand wall angles slightly inward to form the ledge, it was thus difficult to reach this spot for polishing.  This shaved area may also have been necessary to allow the blocking slab to be angled into place, as the slab is otherwise wider than the u-block, as indicated by the ledge it nestles against.

[Note: as will be mentioned when we discuss the second blocking stone below, Shaun Whitehead indicated in the Em Hotep interview that there are some red ochre marks on the back of the right wall, near the second blocking stone, which may correspond to those on the left wall.]

The ceiling is unremarkable, other than the cracks which emerge from the other side of the blocking stone, confirming that it is the same section of u-block that comprises the final part of the shaft.  Regarding these cracks, Shaun Whitehead says “It is most likely that they occurred after the U-block was finished and positioned, as the rest of the construction is so careful in this region.” There is another large crack that angles inward from the back left corner, where the ceiling meets the second blocking stone.

The Second Blocking Stone

The second blocking stone, which forms the back wall of the chamber, has a rough unfinished surface and appears to be made of the same lower quality yellow limestone that is used in most of the shaft.  Other than the same tool marks seen on other similarly rough blocks, and a green “trickle line”, the block has no distinguishing marks.

The “trickle line” is of indeterminate nature.  It emerges from the top of the stone, just left of the center, and runs slightly diagonally to the left, stopping 3-4 cm above the floor.  It is greenish in tint, and the official report suggests that it could be either accidental, such as copper oxide leaching from a nearby copper object, or purposely painted onto the block using the “Egyptian blue” pigment created by calcium copper silicate (p. 213).  Both causes would result in the sort of green seen in the trickle line.

However, the official report also states that in order to produce a streak of copper oxide as prominent as the “trickle line” there would have to be a “significant presence of water” (p. 213), any source of which would be pure speculation unsupported by the existing data.  Regarding the possibility that the line could be the result of minerals within the limestone itself, Shaun observes “So far I have not seen any similar marks anywhere else in the shafts, decreasing the possibility that it was a mark that naturally occurred at the quarry” (Interview with Shaun Whitehead).

Djedi also noted that there is vertical cracking one third of the way from the right hand side which is odd (but not unique) in that it does not seem to emanate from one edge or the other:

It stops and starts suddenly and ‘feathers’ midway. These features are normally more associated with drying shrinkage rather than structural loading, although similar cracking has been observed elsewhere in the shafts. (Hawass, Whitehead, et al, p. 213)

The big question regarding the second blocking stone is whether it is the end of the shaft, and if not, what is on the other side?  Does another section of shaft resume on the other side?  Could it open into another chamber, possibly another burial chamber, or a section of internal ramp?  Or is it the terminus of the shaft, plain and simple?  A couple of factors within the scope of the Djedi Project and the robot’s capabilities could help answer these questions.

First, how does the final blocking stone fit against the end of the shaft?  Does the block lay flat against the end of the final section of u-block, like a lid, or is it plugged into the shaft like a cork?  If the former, that would suggest that the u-block terminates against the second blocking stone.  If the latter, then the u-block may continue past the second blocking stone, depending on whether the second block has a sort of T-shape, with the thinner section inserted into the shaft, or whether it is small enough to be fully inserted into the u-block like the first blocking stone, which means the shaft could potentially continue beyond it.

This first question could possibly be answered by further analysis of the edges of the back end of the u-block.  As mentioned above, there are mason’s marks on the edges of the u-block, where it meets the second blocking stone.  These marks could simply be lines the workers made when cutting out sections of u-block.  But they could also have marked a section where the u-block was shaped to form a ledge, like the one against which the first blocking stone rests.  As the official report notes, this could mean that the second blocking stone is inserted into the shaft like a cork, rather than lying across it like a lid (p. 214).

Shaun Whitehead expanded on this question in the Em Hotep interview:

At a first glance, the second blocking stone just seems to be a large, relatively rough-hewn block sitting on the end of the U-block. However, the intriguing thing is that there appear to be red ochre mason’s marks on both walls at the far end where they meet the second blocking stone. This may suggest that this U-block has been cut back at this point, to form ledges on both sides. It’s possible to follow this reasoning to several logical conclusions, all currently speculation.

The other question which lies within the scope of Djedi’s capabilities is:  how thick is the second blocking stone?  If it is, like the first “door”, more of a slab than a block, and if it is either inserted into the shaft or rests on a ledge, then this could be a pretty good indicator that there is something on the other side than the core material of the pyramid.  Again, Shaun explained the difficulties involved in taking this measurement in the Em Hotep interview:

The intention is to try to determine the thickness of the second blocking stone with the miniature “Sonic Surveyor” that I mentioned earlier. This uses a similar device to that used by Pyramid Rover, however it’s much, much more difficult to build.  Pyramid Rover’s device was so large that it covered about half the area of the blocking stone.  Ours has to fit through the existing hole in the first blocking stone, so can be no larger in diameter than a pen.  This includes the actuator for “tapping” the stone, the sensor for listening to the response and the electronics to process the signal.  We also have a much rougher stone to try to evaluate. It’s really tough to get it just right. The development was somewhat hindered by the sad death of Ron Grieve.

The Djedi team remains confident that these difficulties will be breached, and that when work in the Queen’s Chamber resumes, modifications currently being made to the robot crawler will allow them to get a good read of the thickness of the second blocking stone.  Until then the questions remain—if the shafts ends with the chamber, and the first blocking stone was simply the dressed facing stone for the end of the shaft, why was it inserted 190 mm down into the shaft rather than flush against the end of the final u-block, and, if the chamber is not the end of the shaft, why is the second blocking stone made of the rougher, unfinished limestone, rather than the dressed Tura limestone?

These questions will only be answered, if ever, with further analysis of the shaft and the chamber.

Other Marks Inside QCS

When the Djedi team was able to analyze the video footage from the southern shaft they made another interesting discovery.  On the lower right hand wall of the shaft, about 3.5 meters before the first blocking stone, there are some additional marks similar to the hieratic glyphs discovered inside the chamber.  Like the other glyphs, these marks appear to be made in red ochre and black paint.  According to the official report, the marks are about 3-4 cm tall, but “as the marks were found serendipitously, it was not possible to examine them closely” (p. 214).

The Future of the Djedi Project

Like all Egyptological fieldwork, the Djedi Project has been affected by the political environment in Egypt following the January 2011 revolution.  However, there is plenty of reason to be optimistic.  The team has resubmitted their formal application to resume work in the Great Pyramid, and Shaun reports that their application has been reviewed and they are awaiting approval by the various committees that have been established by the new government to help Egyptologists get back to work.  The Djedi team hopes to finish their work in one final season and then publish all the results as soon as possible.

The effects of the January 2011 Revolution continue to reverberate as Egypt forges a new destiny (Photo Tahrir Square, Friday 8 April 2011, by James X)

Meanwhile, there is still plenty to be done—and that is being done—to analyze the data gathered so far and to prepare for the resumption of fieldwork.  Specialists are working to complete the 3D reconstruction based on the various types of data collected from QCS and the chamber, and to integrate this into the larger picture.  As mentioned before, Dassault Systèmes has already worked with Jean-Pierre Houdin to create an incredibly accurate and detailed 3D virtual reconstruction of the Great Pyramid, and the mutually beneficial connections between Project Khufu and Djedi—having experts involved in both projects working together—are readily apparent.

Djedi is also being refitted in preparation for returning to QCS and for its voyage into the more difficult Queen’s Chamber northern shaft.  QCN had to negotiate around other internal structures, such as the Grand Gallery, and presents a greater challenge for the agile little robot.  As Shaun explained to Em Hotep:

We have completely redesigned and rebuilt the brace actuators (that grip the walls), improving the climbing algorithms and techniques of the robot, [we are] designing tools to help the robot cope with the complex bends in the Northern shaft, extending the reach and agility of the snake camera, fitting a high definition camera, perfecting the Sonic Surveyor, working on 3D video reconstruction, multispectral imaging of the shafts inside and outside the pyramid if possible…

Djedi’s remaining work may be summarized as follows:

Determine the thickness of the second blocking stone in QCS, and if feasible, drill through it and see what lies beyond.

Determine the thickness of the blocking stone in QCN, and if feasible drill through it and see if there is a chamber in QCN like the one in QCS.

If there is another chamber in QCN, with a matching second blocking stone, analyze that block as well and hopefully drill through it and see what lies on the other side.

The next obvious question is: if there is another space behind the second blocking stone in QCS, and presumably, QCN, what then?  Eventually the shafts have to end, either in a final chamber or passageway, against the core of the pyramid, or out the other side of the pyramid’s surface.  And if there is something on the other side of the second blocking stone[s], Djedi will inevitably reach the end of its capabilities.  It is obviously too large to fit into the drill holes, and while a snake camera can feasibly be extended to an indefinite length, tube drill cannot—once it reaches a certain length the weight of the tube becomes too heavy.

But necessity is the mother of invention, and Scoutek is no stranger to creating smaller and smaller robots.  The Great Pyramid of Khufu may necessitate a leap into the next, next generation of robotic archaeology.

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.

Copyright by Keith Payne, 2012.  All rights reserved.

All photographs and images watermarked “Courtesy of the Djedi Team” are copyrighted by the Djedi Project Team, all rights reserved, and are used with the permission of the copyright holders.  All photographs and images watermarked “Courtesy Dassault Systèmes/Djedi Team” are copyrighted by Dassault Systèmes and the Djedi Project Team, all rights reserved.  The photo Tahrir Square, Friday 8 April 2011, by James X, is used in accordance with the Creative Commons 2.0 license.  All images watermarked “National Geographic” are copyrighted by National Geographic, all rights reserved.  All other copyrighted images are watermarked by the copyright holders, all rights reserved by said entities.  Copyright law allows limited use of copyrighted material under the fair use doctrine, to wit, “[A] reviewer may fairly cite largely from the original work, if his design be really and truly to use the passages for the purposes of fair and reasonable criticism.”  The copyrighted material reproduced in this article is used for the sole purpose of discussing and documenting the history of these various projects and does not seek to compete with the originals, prejudice their sale, or diminish their profits, or supersede the objects, of the original work.  The positions of the originals are, as much as possible, represented fairly and accurately with no speculation attributed, implicitly or explicitly, to the creators of the originals, nor is it suggested, implicitly or explicitly, that the creators of the originals have endorsed this article or its contents.  Having said such, if you are the owner of the copyright to any of the material reproduced within this article it is not the intent of Em Hotep or any of its agents to violate your rights as the owner, and if you feel your rights have been violated and request that said material be modified or removed, it is the policy of Em Hotep, where it is reasonable to do so, to comply with said requests.  All other images are in the public domain and are not subject to copyright law.

Em Hotep:  January 27 marks the one year anniversary of the premier of Khufu Reborn at la Géode in Paris.  Of course, January 25 marked the one year anniversary of the January Revolution in Cairo.  Much has changed in Egypt in the last year, and the story continues to develop.  How has this affected your ability to work on-site, particularly with the planned survey with Laval University?

Jean-Pierre Houdin:  First of all, your question makes me think about something none of us can control:  Time!  Time flies…  It has already been one year since the premiere of Khufu Reborn at la Géode.

Jean-Pierre Houdin with his father, Henri, refining the internal ramp theory

This also begins my thirteenth year of research on Khufu’s pyramid, which has expanded to include research on the other large pyramids of the Fourth Dynasty.  When you consider twelve full years dedicated to one single quest, to learn how these large pyramids were built, that’s a lot of time invested in learning, analyzing, researching, thinking, modeling and simulating on a single subject.

In life, you learn in school—at high school and then at university—before having a job for most of the rest of your life, where your education continues.  That is what I did.  I studied architecture at the Beaux-Arts in Paris between 1970 and 1976, so that is six years spent earning my Ph.D in architecture.  Then I ran my own architectural business for more than 22 years, so that is another 22 years of field training, from designing structures on paper and computer modeling to actually being on-site to assist in their construction.

Then in January, 1999, came the big jump into the unknown, in every sense of the word.  To leave a comfortable life to focus exclusively on the search for an explanation about one of the last great enigmas of our day:  to understand a 45-centuries-old civilization in what is its biggest achievement—the pyramids.

A new life, full of uncertainties about my own future, but rich in knowledge and understanding because of this determination to resolve an enigma, something you can’t get in high school or university because they simply don’t have the answer.  This is not the kind of quest where the answer is there waiting for you in a book; for this sort of quest you have to become the scholar and write the answer yourself, based on the compilation of your learning and the addition of your own research.

Jean-Pierre Houdin at la Géode, Paris, in 2007 for the premier of the first part of his work, Khufu Revealed (photo courtesy Jean-Pierre Houdin/Dassault Systèmes)

After twelve years of research I’m still not a knighted Egyptologist, but I’ve surely acquired more knowledge on the specific subject of the pyramids than almost any other human being, Egyptologists included.  This had to be said…for those who missed this point…  My work incorporates the knowledge of Egyptologists, both what has been written and those who have worked directly with me, the expertise of engineers and computer modeling specialists, as well as my academic and practical experience as an architect and a builder.  All of these are required to understand the enigma of the pyramids.

Now, a year is gone and not a quiet one on the Egyptian soil.  While we are celebrating the first anniversary of the Géode première, Egyptians are celebrating the first anniversary of the Tahrir Square revolution, a search for a new beginning after sixty years of a non-democratic regime.  And this revolution was absolutely needed and is still not fully achieved.  Any revolution takes time to succeed…

It is not hard to imagine that, on the Egyptology side, or at least on my own research side, nothing could have happened during this period of time.  But there have been some important developments with the SCA and the Ministry of Antiquities that could clear the way for a better relationship with the authorities in charge.  We should expect less personal decisions regarding the authorizations to carry out a survey. The new Ministry of Antiquities, Dr. Mohamed Ibrahim, made it clear that now any approval regarding any mission or survey will be decided by the SCA council members and not by one man. There again, time will tell.

Meanwhile, we are still preparing, with Dassault Systèmes and Laval University, the future mission on site using an infrared camera, a truly non-destructive technique because we won’t touch the pyramid at all.  Experiments are being set for the coming weeks on the “Redoute”, a fortified building in the walls of Old Quebec.

The Project Khufu Team at Laval University (left to right) Xavier Maldague, Matthieu Klein, Mehdi Tayoubi, Jean-Pierre Houdin, Richard Breitner (Courtesy Mehdi Tayoubi/ Dassault Systèmes)

But I often ask myself, what is going wrong with our world?  Why is there this resistance to letting science move forward?  I have put forward a totally coherent theory from A to Z based on dozens of clues that I have gathered, most of which are right before our eyes for anyone to observe.  The theory is fully explained and can literally be experienced thanks to the same virtual reality and 3D technology that engineers and architects use to design modern structures.  We have many non-destructive techniques available, some of which could give a definitive proof in a few days, whilst others, like Multipolar Infrared Vision (the one in preparation) would take a little more time, but would be well worth it for Egyptology and the people of Egypt themselves.

A year from now, January 25, 2013, we could celebrate the second anniversary of the Tahrir revolution with a tremendous asset for the future of Egypt: a complete understanding of the big pyramids and a new reason for millions of tourists to come in Egypt—rediscovering Khufu’s Pyramid, walking in its internal ramp and visiting its two antechambers.

Should I be wrong…science would have been respected and Time could pass on the pyramids.  The worst thing is to do nothing.

Now…I don’t think that I will be wrong, because…

Em Hotep:  I saw where Japan recently did a television special on your work. Are there other documentaries forthcoming that we can look forward to?

Jean-Pierre Houdin:  In fact, in 2008 and 2009, several documentaries, all co-produced by Dassault Systèmes, were filmed in Egypt about my work.  The National Geographic Channel produced Unlocking the Great Pyramid (also known as The last Secret on BBC), Gedeon (for French Channels France 2/France 5) produced Kheops Révélé (directed by Florence Tran) and NHK Japan produced three different versions.  All of these documentaries were big successes and greatly helped the theory being known all around the world.

Mehdi Tayoubi and Florence Tran (Courtesy Mehdi Tayoubi/Dassault Systèmes)

Recently, I discovered the long NHK version about the theory and I was really impressed by the meticulous and scientific approach to my work.  Although it was in Japanese, thanks to the images and 3D animations, I was able to fully understand all the processes and details of the theory.  The Japanese director had remarkably transmitted the message.

Over the last four years I have seen evidence of the impact these documentaries are having:  each time one is broadcasted somewhere on Earth, the day after I always receive e-mails from viewers telling me that they are totally convinced and that they support me and my work.  By now I have received hundreds and hundreds of e-mails, and I always reply.  I’m proud of having so many ambassadors for the theory almost everywhere on the globe.

We have no plan, for now, to make a new documentary but this could change very quickly if we get permission for a survey on site.

Otherwise, time is not lost at all.  With the “Khufu Team” (lead by Mehdi Tayoubi and Richard Breitner) at Dassault Systèmes, we are now working, with the CATIA software, on the modeling of the last pyramid of Khufu’s father Snefru, the Red Pyramid at Dashur.  The architectural legacy between the Red Pyramid and the Great Pyramid is amazing and the building processes are similar, although with some design differences regarding the internal ramp.

Richard Breitner and Jean-Pierre Houdin guide us through the 3D virtual reality world of Khufu Reborn at la Géode one year ago today (courtesy Tayoubi/Dassault Systèmes)

You will be surprised by the cleverness of the architects and engineers.  Just as Khufu’s pyramid is a “Chef d’oeuvre” of great engineering due to its size and its multiple internal chambers and corridors, Snefru’s Red pyramid is equally a “Chef d’oeuvre” for its fineness, simplicity, purity and over all, for how quickly they were able to built it.

Last but not least, I’m very proud to learn more and more every day that the theory is being taught to pupils and students in many parts of the world.  Slowly but surely, this theory is gaining momentum in schools and universities, replacing theories that have been stubbornly taught for more than a century despite their lack of evidence and common sense, theories that literally cannot fit within the topography of the Giza Plateau.

Em Hotep:  In the comments section of the Pyramid Shafts article there was much discussion and explanation by you regarding the shafts, and I have had several people send me some questions which I have promised to ask you. I will be publishing the follow-up article about the Djedi Project and interviews with Shaun Whitehead and Mehdi Tayoubi about this project the first part of next week. I know the shafts play a role in the development of your theory, both as explanations as to their purpose and as clues to the antechambers. May I revisit the question of the pyramid shafts with you after the Djedi article/interviews are posted?

Jean-Pierre Houdin:  Absolutely…once your article and interviews about the Djedi Project have been published, your readers will then have a strong base to understand my own ideas about these shafts. The Queen’s Chamber and the King’s Chamber shafts seem to have the same purpose, but this is not the case.  More to come.

Copyright by Keith Payne, 2012.  All rights reserved.

My good friend Marc Chartier of Pyramidales (and more recently of Égypte-actualités, but more on that endeavor later..) had a chance to sit down recently with Jean-Pierre and discuss these questions and more.  Thanks to Em Hotep’s partnership with Pyramidales, I am able to bring you the English language version of this interview.  Enjoy, and please feel free to join the conversation, as they say…

In January 2011, Pyramidales joined the international press at La Géode in Paris for the premier of Khufu Reborn, the second phase of Jean-Pierre Houdin’s work with the Great Pyramid originally introduced to the world in 2007 with Khufu Revealed.  Thanks to the Passion for Innovation program, Jean-Pierre has enjoyed full access to the technology and talent of Dassault Systèmes, the world leader in industrial 3D CAD and simulation, to integrate and test his theories in a virtual environment based on the most thorough surveys of the pyramid and the Giza Plateau to date (you may enter and explore the simulation yourself online here).

Subsequently, Pyramidales fully described and illustrated these new developments regarding the construction and the technical configuration of the Great Pyramid of Giza (see the Pyramidales Interviews in the right sidebar).  Now, as we come up on the one year anniversary of Khufu Reborn, Pyramidales again joined Jean-Pierre for a discussion of how the work is progressing, in particular, how the new material covered in “Phase II” has been received and interpreted by expert and amateur enthusiasts of Egyptology and the public in general.

It is with warm gratitude to Jean-Pierre that Pyramidales brings this interview to you.

Pyramidales:

Jean-Pierre Houdin, it has been nearly a year now since you premiered, at an international press conference, the continuation of the work you first presented in Khufu Revealed back in 2007 explaining your research and work regarding the manner of construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza.

Looking back, how do you assess the reactions generated both among the general public and from specialists and experts in the field of Egyptology by these extensions to your original theory?

Jean-Pierre Houdin:

The presentation of Khufu Reborn, on January 27^th, 2011, at la Géode, was already for me the expression of a major vote of confidence from my friends on the “Khufu Team” at Dassault Systèmes.  For reasons that have nothing to do with science, no scientific research has been carried out on-site since the revelation, on March 30th, 2007, of the theory of the internal ramp; the result is the inability to get scientific proof of the existence of an internal ramp.  Otherwise, the discovery by Dr. Bob Brier, while filming a documentary in 2008, of a large unknown room behind the notch on the north-eastern edge was a clue of great importance.

Given this context, the decision made four years later by the “Khufu Team” to help me, by means of an extraordinary 3D animation, to go even further in my revelations with the announcement of the possible existence of two antechambers next to the King’s Chamber, was for me a major event for the theory. After nearly eight years of silence on this aspect of my work, I can now demonstrate the consistency of this research.  No previous researcher has delved as thoroughly into the study of Khufu’s pyramid as we have, both with regard to the architectural project drawn up by the designers of the time as well as the implementation of the project.

In addition to the satisfaction they bring, public reactions are quite telling: one can observe in my proposals the gradual development of my theory and how each progression of the work consistently builds a more complete picture, based on simplicity and logic, which fully answers the questions that are related to the construction and purpose of the Great Pyramid.  The public is finally able to see the genius of the ancient Egyptians by understanding how an “inexplicable” mystery—how the Great Pyramid was built—involved neither magic nor miracles, just tried and true construction methods.  The theory explains how simple human intervention addressed seemingly impossible tasks.  Now, about the construction specialists, there again the response has been very positive.  The 3D presentation spoke their language very convincingly.

Finally, let’s talk about experts in Egyptology … the French ones!  They have not deigned to usefully express themselves since the initial presentation of the theory, so why should it be different now, particularly if the generally positive reception the work has gotten elsewhere reflects them in an unflattering light?  In contrast, many foreign Egyptologists have shown a growing interest in my work.

Unfortunately, as always, traditional Egyptological explanations about the pyramid of Khufu are based on a trompe-l’oeil: a north-south cross-section showing three rooms, some corridors and the Grand Gallery.  Looking at the inner works of the pyramid from just this perspective has resulted in theories that simply do not hold up under careful analysis.  These theories collapse when examined in light of how the different internal parts are laid out and relate to each other, how the funerary rites and processions would have been conducted, and especially in terms of building principles.  Yet the construction of the pyramids during the Fourth Dynasty, with Snefru, Khufu and Khafre, was the result of practical know-how, of course constantly improved, but in the service of architectural continuity.

An example of this sort of misinterpretation is the so-called “rupture” of Khufu, based on the famous north-south cross-section view.  This is not a rupture at all.  This erroneous conclusion is based on an Egyptological interpretation of the monument, not from an architectural interpretation.  But the pyramid was designed by architects, and it takes the perspective of a fellow builder to bring together all the elements in a way that allows us to understanding the intentions of the designers.  The stones speak to those who can understand their language … an architect, for example.

Pyramidales:

It seems to me, after a very thorough survey of the literature both in print and on-line that that your name remains primarily associated with the first phase of your work, in particular, with the internal ramp aspect of your theory.  In other words, Khufu Revealed is more well-known while Khufu Reborn seems to remain confined to more confidential spheres.  Do you feel that the second phase of your work, especially as it relates to the two antechambers next to the King’s Chamber, is encountering some difficulty in gaining traction?

Jean-Pierre Houdin:

This apparent state of affairs is absolutely not related to the “quality” of the information revealed on January 27 (the probable presence of two antechambers close to the King’s Chamber), but to the “quantity” of information that has spread on the web after the press conference.  When Khufu Revealed premiered on March 30, 2007, there was an extraordinary “cocktail” between quality and quantity of news, the theory being propelled, thanks to a very innovative presentation in 3D animation and in real time, to the top of the news cycle for more than 24 hours.  The news went around the world with the time zones.  This type of “state of grace” is exceptional and it clearly set the bar very high for any new statement on the subject.

The purpose of the press conference on January 27, 2011, was quite different: push the theory a little deeper into the minds of people, by revealing the elements (the two antechambers) that could have blurred the message if they had been included in the 2007 presentation.  The conference itself was a great success, major French television channels (TF1, FR2, and FR3 in particular) talking extensively about the event in their mid-day and evening news.  As for news agencies and newspapers, they have widely spread the information on their side, except for a large agency that has managed to “conveniently” miss the subject, resulting in fewer articles than we enjoyed in 2007.

But I believe that above all, there was a major event nobody could have anticipated or planned for, and which partly stole the show to “Khufu Reborn”: on January 25, 2011, the first news about an embryonic revolutionary movement was arriving from Cairo… on January 27, the day of the conference, the revolution in Tahrir Square was already on the front page in all media.  You know what happened next.

Also, when you search the theory on Google, there are more responses related to 2007 than to 2011. This is only linked to the quantity of information available, not to the quality.  But I can tell you, and the “Khufu Team” certainly agrees with me, that the message is very well perceived.  Every day I receive, from everywhere around the world, many e-mail from passionate people who know a lot about pyramids and who are totally convinced by the overall consistency of the theory.

A visit to the official Khufu Reborn website made by Dassault Systèmes enables visitors to put their “feet on the site” and explore both the theory and the pyramid and its environment in a way that has never been possible before.  People can visit the website and see how the entire theory fits together and when they emerge from this journey their emails to me show that they are “getting it” and their understanding of this work leaves little room for doubting the veracity of the theory.

Finally, I conclude on this issue by taking your sentence: “In other words, Khufu Revealed is more well-known while Khufu Reborn seems to remain confined to more confidential spheres

For me, on the front line, I perceive absolutely no confinement.  Khufu Reborn perfectly complements Khufu Revealed and anyone who is interested in my work ends up having knowledge of the theory as a whole.  The goal is reached.  As for the “confidential spheres”, I would say that these terms are more applicable to a very small number of people in the world of Egyptology who have chosen to ignore me. Too bad for them, the dialogue would have been interesting.

Pyramidales:

During your public presentation of Khufu Reborn last January, contacts were established with two experts from Laval University in Quebec, for a possible in-situ observation of the Great Pyramid, using the technique of Multipolar Infrared Vision.  Can you share the current status of this project?

And a necessary complement to this question: such a project presupposes an implied agreement at the highest levels of Egyptian Antiquities.  Now Egypt has experienced the upheavals that we have all witnessed.  Will the appointment of a new Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, and a minister of Egyptian Antiquities, possibly open a window to the completion of your project?

Jean-Pierre Houdin:

The collaboration with a team from Laval University, consisting of Professor Xavier Maldague, Matthew Klein and Clemente Ibarra Castanedo, is developing very well.  Working meetings were held in June at the university and we have established a specific protocol, with a strategy for the establishment of a mission.  In addition, a Multipolar Infrared Vision campaign was set up in Quebec: the experience is being applied to the “Redoute”, a fortified building in the walls of Old Quebec, with local authorities being warmly receptive to the project and amenable to making the building available.  We will therefore be able to refine the protocol based on the results acquired during this local project.

This leads me to answer the second part of your question: as always, it is essential that any survey to be carried out on-site is conducted with the cooperation of our Egyptian counterparts and in accordance with the legal authorities of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA). The current situation in Egypt does not leave a clear vision of what is going on with the SCA, the post of Secretary-General being successively held by several people in a very short time.  The current elections are an additional element of uncertainty about the future of this service.  It follows that it is unfortunately impossible to see at the moment a “window” to complete the project.

Pyramidales:

Does your theory as formulated in Khufu Reborn represent the culmination of your “reconstitution of the building site” of the Great Pyramid?  Or is it likely to have new developments or improvements?  If so, what are the new areas of your research?

Jean-Pierre Houdin:

The theory is now globally formulated, funerary architecture is determined, construction processes are detailed and the entire Giza Plateau is integrated into the explanation of the project and its progression. But as in any hypothesis, the details can still be improved.  However, they will render the theory even more relevant.  I am very pleased because the theory became more refined and simplified while its developments and its logic were enhanced.  Every step, every detail, every process, every architectural choice are supported by solid arguments or evidence visible in situ.

Countless 3D simulations conducted with the CATIA software provided by Dassault Systèmes allowed the team to construct a perfect virtual model of the pyramid and its place on the Giza Plateau, and within this environment we were able to simulate and test any concept or potentiality, and it is through this process that the refined theory has emerged.  Now, only confrontation with the reality will allow us to correct any differences in detail.

Doubt is part of the research, of course, but it is more and more difficult for me to imagine any other way apart from the technique of “building from the inside” for the construction of the Great Pyramid.  When I try to put myself “at the outside” in order to address the issue, and because of all the knowledge I gained during twelve years of research, I always understand quickly that I stumble against an impossibility.  I had the time to turn the problem in every way, believe me!

As I often say, Khufu’s pyramid has not arrived on the Giza Plateau by chance: it is the result of an evolution in the art of building from the early mastabas.  Having studied all the pyramids built from Djoser up to Menkaure, it is now appropriate that I specify for each one their specific mode of construction, especially the two pyramids of Snefru at Dahshur (the Bent and the Red Pyramids) and Khafre’s pyramid in Giza.  If construction “from the inside” is the rule, there will still be variations adapted to each of the monuments in the building processes.  The modeling of these pyramids will demonstrate these changes and can only complement and strengthen the principles of the theory.

Pyramidales:

Henri Houdin, Jean-Pierre's father, attentive to his son's research

Khufu’s pyramid is considered the ultimate pyramid architecture on the Giza plateau, the culmination of the skills of the Egyptian builders.  Does this mean that this pyramid is unique?  Or do you think that the techniques used in its construction – in particular, from your point of view, the internal ramp – have also been used to build other pyramids, Khafre, for example, or Menkaure as well?

Jean-Pierre Houdin:

As I indicated in my previous answer, Khufu’s pyramid is, at the beginning of its construction, the culmination of the expertise of Egyptian builders and is absolutely not a unique monument, although this pyramid is unique in its category (funerary architecture in the heart of the monument).  The construction technique of “building from the inside” was applied to all large smooth pyramids built after the Step Pyramid of Saqqara.  This does not mean that all smooth pyramids were built in part by an internal ramp.  This technical process was only necessary for the large smooth pyramids of the Fourth Dynasty (Bent, Red, Khufu and Khafre … and certainly Meidum).  For all other pyramids from Menkaure and after, Egyptians will continue to build “from the inside”, but without recourse to an internal ramp; a construction trench penetrating in one side of the building will be reserved during construction before being recapped at the end of construction.  There are traces of trenches in the ruins of the pyramids of Neferirkare and Sahure at Abusir.

Pyramidales:

A fundamental question to me: regarding the multiple contemporary theories which succeed each other in an attempt to decipher – at last! – The “secret of the pyramids”, what are, in your opinion, the strengths, or even more, the skills, that any researcher must or should show in this field?

Jean-Pierre Houdin:

I believe it is important to think first to the monument itself, to understand the design philosophy, to follow the logic of the scalable architecture of the time, to analyze in detail the components, and especially to not come proposing a gadget that could respond to a specific point of construction.  The Great Pyramid of Khufu was built using processes that were simple, logical, and controlled, they just did so on a larger scale than before.

The schedule of conditions was clear: build a pyramid, just a pyramid, and not, for example, build a big ramp “at lost” or build locks to build a pyramid.  Resources in Egypt were precious, and one had to build without wasting any material or effort.  Extracting a stone to build an external ramp was not an end but a step in the life of this stone.  Processes tailored to each major stage of construction lowered the cost of construction, because the same stone used in one phase (the external ramp) was recycled in the next phase, becoming a component of the building itself. This is the great art of the Egyptians of the time.

What are the necessary skills?  Certainly a good knowledge about construction, that makes sense to me … especially when I see some theories that ignore gravity!

I do not think that we can learn much just from the study of ancient texts, especially when these texts are so few and sketchy.  Herodotus is absolutely not sufficient, far from it!

To the contrary, we have to draw upon the totality of knowledge this period has left to us, a surprisingly vast reference library.  One can find common parameters, an architectural language and religious principles, and understanding these elements is mandatory to solving these puzzles.  By understanding how these principles have been applied elsewhere we can extrapolate how they may have served in the building of Khufu’s Pyramid.

Pyramidales:

You have lent your voice to encouraging and promoting the Earth Pyramid project developed by Steve Ward.  Why do you think this initiative is promising?  What does it reveal?

Jean-Pierre Houdin:

I have been in touch with Steve Ward for more than a year.  Steve found my theory simple, logical, ecological and perfectly suited to his project to build a modern pyramid today.  So there was already a likeable side in this encounter via the Internet.  But what attracted me the most was the idea of the Earth Pyramid Project: to build a monument intended to cross the centuries for future generations, involving the younger generations of today in a large rallying movement.

Why is this initiative promising?

We never get something for nothing.  The men and women who will support this initiative are themselves those who will make the initiative promising.  But the Earth Pyramid project has a lot going for it that makes me hopeful:  the project is positive, constructive, generous, peaceful, somewhat utopian (we will always need dreamers), dedicated to children around the world who have a sacred need to have another vision of Earth than the one they see all day long in the TV: wars, crises, disasters, famines … there is nothing very positive in all this.

So when someone is deeply motivated, fights for a noble and smart idea (transmitting messages from children intended to be read in a thousand years), I support it, it’s as simple as that.  It’s a bit of fresh air in a quite turbulent world.  And the symbol of the pyramid containing a “time-capsule” is a great idea.  It is clear that this type of monument can defy time without too much trouble … These are just the actions of men that can disrupt their life: who would dare attack a symbol dedicated to children from around the world?

In addition to providing the full simulation illustrating Jean-Pierre’s theory in detail, the Khufu Reborn universe is interactive.  You can actually navigate you way around the Giza Plateau of 4,500 years ago.  But if you aren’t ready to dive into Khufu’s world just yet, this Em Hotep tour and tutorial will equip you for the journey.

On January 27, 2011, Khufu Reborn premiered at La Géode in Paris, France.  This was the official launch of Episode Two of Jean-Pierre Houdin’s work with the Great Pyramid of Pharaoh Khufu.  The presentation was a stunning larger than life 3D simulation of the Giza Plateau, the pyramid, and a detailed explanation of Jean-Pierre’s theory.  But if you were unable to attend the premier, Dassault Systèmes has brought it to you, right to your desktop.

Marc Chartier, Jean-Pierre Houdin, and Keith Payne at the premier of Khufu Reborn (Courtesy of Marc Chartier)

Now you can log on to the Project Khufu section of the Dassault Systèmes website, download a small plugin, and see the presentation in its entirety, but with an advantage those of us in attendance did not have—at any point during the presentation you can take control and travel to anyplace in the Khufu Reborn universe to look at things in as much detail as you wish.  Here is the link to the site:

Click Here to Go Back 4,500 Years to Khufu’s Egypt!

Feel free to click on and jump right in!  But if you would like a short guided tour, then do read on.

The Khufu Reborn online interactive simulation is rendered in such detail that it really has to be seen to be believed.  And despite having all of the eye-popping graphics and navigational freedom of a cutting edge first-person video game, this universe is not by any stretch make-believe.  The environment is based on accurate surveys of the Giza Plateau and the pyramid itself, with the clock turned back 4,500 years.  Ancient details, based on up-to-date archaeological evidence, have been recreated in a way that lets you move through the Giza Plateau of Khufu and his Master Builder, Hemienu.

Click here to view the embedded video.

When you first go to the site you will land at the Khufu Reborn: The Story Continues page where you can watch a brief introductory video.  The video gives you an idea of how Jean-Pierre Houdin’s theory has evolved and will set the stage for the journey you are about to embark upon.  After the video, click on the Discover a unique interactive 3D experience with 3dVia button located below the video.

The first thing that will happen is you will be prompted to install the 3dVia software from the Dassault Systèmes website.  You need the 3dVia software to run the simulation, and since the software comes direct from Dassault Systèmes you can be assured that it is safe, virus and ad-ware free, and that your privacy will be in no way compromised.  Once the software is installed on your computer you are ready to visit the Giza Plateau of 4,500 years ago.

You next find yourself at the loading screen for the simulation, as shown below.

Note the blue progress bar in the lower right-hand of the screen.  This bar does not move at a regular pace and will possibly seem to freeze up as the simulation is loading, but be patient!  The Khufu Reborn simulation is a very detailed program and some of the segments can take a while to load, and you may begin to suspect that the program is frozen.  You may even get a pop-up window saying that the plug-in appears to have stopped, asking if you want to cancel it.  Choose “no” as it is almost certainly still loading.  The wait will be worth it.

Another thing discovered during beta testing was that pulling up another application, or even another window from your browser, can cause the simulation to actually lock up, so I would recommend that you visit the Khufu Reborn universe at a time when you can dedicate your computer to just exploring the simulation.  Give yourself about an hour for your first visit so you have time for all of the narrated segments, as well as time to explore on your own.  It is, after all, interactive!

After the simulation finishes loading you will be at the intro screen, as appears below.

There are five different sections, and for your first visit you might want to take the entire tour, starting with the first section, The two enigmas of the Great Pyramid.

When you click on two enigmas you will again be greeted with the loading screen.  Allow the program time to load.  The gods of Egypt will be impressed with your patience.  I would again reiterate that while the loading screen is present don’t pull up another program or browser window.  This will displease the gods, who will punish you with a genuinely locked up simulation.  The good news is that once the segments are loaded the program is extremely stable.  While writing this tutorial I was able to switch back and forth between Google Chrome, MS Word, and Photoshop while the simulation was loaded and running without a single crash.

The Two Enigmas section will begin with a flight up the Nile to the Valley Temple and the scene of Khufu’s embalming.  The narration will begin, explaining what you are seeing.  After that we are again off and flying—up the course of Khufu’s Royal Causeway, over the Upper Temple, and circling around for a great view of the Great Pyramid.

This might be a good opportunity for your first experiment with the interactive part of the simulation.  If you click on the button labeled Free Navigation Mode in the lower right of the screen you will find that the narrative stops and the buttons change to say Normal, Expert, and Play Mode.  If the Expert button is lit up, click on Normal.  The screen should now have some navigation controls in the upper right of the screen.

The navigation controls operate the virtual camera that flies you through the simulation.  With the narration paused, you are now in full control.  The controls are pretty easy to use.  The +/- on the left side of the controls allow you to tip the camera angle up or down.  The directional keys in the center of the circle move the camera forward and backward and from left to right.  The +\- on the right of the control allows you to zoom in and out.  The left/right arrows at the bottom allow you to pan the camera circularly left and right.  As simple as these commands are, they allow you to travel practically anywhere on the landscape and observe from any angle and distance.

In the above image I have navigated over to get a closer look at the boat pits.  Take a little time playing with the navigation controls to get a feel for how they work.  The movement is very intuitive and in no time you will be flying around the virtual environment like Horus himself.  When you are done, press the Play Mode button and the camera automatically reorients itself and the narration resumes where it left off.

Once the two enigmas segment has finished you will want to return to the intro screen to select the next segment.  You will notice that at all times when in the simulation there are three small icons in the upper left of the screen.  The first icon, shaped like a house, is the Home button.  Press this at any time during or after a segment to return to the intro screen.  The middle icon, with the question mark is a Help button.  The third icon, shaped like a gear, pulls up the Options panel.

The Options panel allows you to toggle the music and narration on and off, as well as switch to full screen mode.  You will also notice that you have an option to immerse yourself more fully into the Khufu Reborn universe with 3D.  You can either set the simulation to work with a 3D TV, or you can go the old fashioned route and don your 3D shades.  The old cardboard type with the red and blue lenses will work just fine.  After checking out the Options panel, click on the Home button to return to the intro screen.

Back at the intro screen, you will notice that if you move the cursor over the next section, The genius of the builders, that you have three options:  the Fifth Year, the Fourteenth Year, and the Fifteenth Year, each representing different phases of the construction leading up to the King’s Chamber.

For your first trip through I recommend taking the sections in order so you get both a fuller understanding of Jean-Pierre Houdin’s theory and a complete idea of what the Khufu Reborn universe contains.  The simulation is intended to be enjoyable and educational, but it is also a tool for your own research, so it is worth the time invested to learn how it works.

Once the genius of the builders—the fifth year segment has loaded you will notice that there is an arrow icon on the left side of the screen.  If you run your cursor over this icon the Timeline will appear, as pictured below.

The Timeline is divided into chapters and you can either move the segment forward or backward using the vertical sliding bar, or jump straight to a chapter by clicking on it.  Not all segments have chapters, so the Timeline will not be available everywhere.  As always, you can pause the narration at any time and take control of the camera by clicking on the Free Navigation mode button.

The last thing we will look at is the top bar of the display where you will see buttons labeled Khufu Reborn, 3D Experience, The Story, and Clues.  You will notice that the 3D Experience button is toggled while you are in the simulation.  Khufu Reborn simply takes you back to the screen with the introduction video.  The Story gives you the option to download a pdf (or pull it up in your browser”) of the press kit that was provided at the Khufu Reborn premier.  This tells the story of how Jean-Pierre Houdin became interested in the Great Pyramid, how Dassault Systèmes became involved in the project through their Passion for Innovation program, and touches on some of Dassault Systèmes’ other current projects on the Giza Plateau.

Clues gives you an opportunity to evaluate the evidence for Jean-Pierre’s theory for yourself.  There are two videos—one explaining the counterweight system in the Grand Gallery and another explaining “Bob’s Room”, the corner room first explored by Bob Brier.  There is also another pdf file you can view and download called “Khufu’s Pyramid—The “Inside-Out” Construction Theory:  34 Clues in Support for the Theory”.  If you are skeptical of Jean-Pierre’s theory, then this is the place to get some answers.  Here Jean-Pierre lays out the physical evidence for his theory in detail.

That pretty much concludes this guided tour of the Khufu Reborn online interactive experience.  Go forth now and explore!

Click Here to Go Back 4,500 Years to Khufu’s Egypt!

Copyright by Keith Payne, 2011.  All rights reserved.

Unless otherwise stated, all images are provided courtesy of Jean-Pierre Houdin and Dassault Systèmes, copyright 2011, all rights reserved.

These media are from the Khufu Reborn/Khufu Renaissance phase of Project Khufu, an international and interdisciplinary initiative to explain how the Great Pyramid of Pharaoh Khufu was built based on the theories and research of French architect Jean-Pierre Houdin.

Audio/Video

Sealing the King’s Chamber—animation uploaded by Marc Chartier (posted to YouTube February 09, 2011)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Sealing the King’s Chamber Up Close—another animation of the sealing mechanism uploaded by Marc Chartier, focusing on the sealing blocks (posted to YouTube February 09, 2011)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Architects Find New Rooms in the Pyramid of Khufu—Indonesian coverage of Khufu Reborn, but the clips are fantastic (posted to YouTube February 04, 2011)

Click here to view the embedded video.

An Architect Uncovers the Secrets of the Great Pyramid—Euronews’ coverage of Khufu Reborn, again in French but visually wonderful (posted to YouTube February 02, 2011)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Khufu Reborn coverage on France 3—French language, but excellent clips (posted to YouTube February 02, 2011)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Khufu Pyramid Secret Rooms—English-language coverage of Khufu Reborn from CCTV News (posted to YouTube January 29, 2011)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Websites and Journal Articles

• Talking Pyramids:  Two Secret Pyramid Chambers Revealed—by Vincent Brown (January 29, 2011)

Thursday was ‘D Day’ and Jean-Pierre and Dassault Systèmes ended all the intrigue and mystery with their spectacular 3D presentation of Episode 2 “Legacy of Khufu” at the La Géode conference in Paris.

• Talking Pyramids:  ‘Khufu Reborn’—Unveiling Secrets—by Vincent Brown (January 24, 2011)

In three days time Jean-Pierre Houdin and Dassault Systèmes will be at a conference in La Géode to reveal ‘Khufu Reborn’, the sequel to Jean-Pierre’s internal spiral ramp theory.

News Stories

• NTD Television:  French Architect Discovers New Rooms in Ancient Khufu Pyramid—no author listed.  (January 28, 2011)

French architect Jean-Pierre Houdin unveiled in Paris on Thursday the existence of two hidden and so far unknown rooms in Egypt’s Great Pyramid.  No one had ever suspected the existence of any such rooms.  But in his many visits to Khufu’s king’s chamber, Houdin noticed that one stone element in the burial room was not supporting any weight and therefore had once been a passage.  According to funeral rites of ancient Egypt, kings would be buried with all their belongings in close proximity. In other pyramids these items are situated in a room adjacent to the burial room.

• Physorg:  Great Pyramid has two secret chambers—no author listed (January 27, 2011)

A French architect campaigning for a new exploration of the 4,500-year-old Great Pyramid of Giza said on Thursday that the edifice may contain two chambers housing funereal furniture.

These media are from the Khufu Revealed phase of Project Khufu, Jean-Pierre Houdin’s work up to and ending with the premier of Khufu Reborn in January 2011.

Audio/Video

National Geographic Expedition Week:  Unlocking the Great Pyramid—the NatGeo special on Jean-Pierre Houdin’s Khufu Revealed work, in its entirety!  (posted to YouTube March 17, 2011)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Another Pyramid Fly Through—this one even better!  (posted to YouTube August 17, 2009)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Jean-Pierre Houdin and Bob Brier Interviewed—Associated Press (posted to YouTube November 19, 2008)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Interview with Jean-Pierre Houdin—World News Australia (posted to YouTube November 13, 2008)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Great Pyramid Mystery Solved?—National Geographic short piece from their special on Jean-Pierre Houdin’s work, Unlocking the Great Pyramid (posted to YouTube October 31, 2008)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Jean-Pierre Houdin and Mehdi Tayoubi Interviewed—Also French audio, but also worth viewing for the clips (posted to YouTube June 24, 2007)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Jean-Pierre Houdin, Mehdi Tayoubi, Richard Breitner Interviewed—French audio, but the clips of the Dassault Systèmes animations make it worth viewing even if you don’t speak French (posted to YouTube June 24, 2007)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Pyramid of Cheops by Jean-Pierre Houdin—Spanish-language coverage of Khufu Revealed, as always the visuals make viewing desirable even if you don’t speak the language (posted to YouTube April 3, 2007)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Pyramid Fly Through–The Khufu Pyramid modeled by architect Jean-Pierre Houdin in Dassault Systèmes’ 3D Life.  (posted to YouTube April 01, 2007)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Websites and Journal Articles

• The Khufu Revealed/Kheops Révélé Official Page at Dassault Systèmes

The site dedicated to the first phase of Jean-Pierre Houdin’s internal ramp theory.  The site provides a good, basic explanation of the general concepts of the theory up to that point, with sections for explanations, clues/evidence, and a 3D demo that requires installation of Dassault Systèmes’ proprietary 3d viewer, 3DVIA, which can be downloaded from the site.

• Heritage Key:  Exclusive Interview: Jean-Pierre Houdin Defends His Internal Ramp Pyramid Theory—by Malcolm Jack (September 07, 2009)

The question of how the Great Pyramid of Giza was built is one of the most hotly-debated topics in ancient history. Maverick French architect and self-styled “Mr. Pyramid” Jean-Pierre Houdin is determined that he has the answer – the 4,569 year-old monument was, he argues, erected from the inside-out, using an internal ramp built into the fabric of the structure. Others are skeptical of his theory, but Houdin is certain he has the proof.

• Heritage Key:  Building the Great Pyramid of Giza:  Jean-Pierre Houdin’s Internal Ramp Theory—by Malcolm Jack (September 04, 2009)

We know lots about the Great Pyramid of Giza – it’s age (about 4,569 years), who it was built for (the Fourth Dynasty Egyptian King Khufu), who designed it (Khufu’s brother, the architect Hemienu) and even who rolled up their sleeves and did the work (tens of thousands of skilled labourers from across the kingdom, as opposed to slaves as was once believed). But ask a room full of experts how it was built, and you can expect a whole lot of head-scratching and beard-stroking, followed by heated argument and possibly some light fisticuffs.

• Talking Pyramids:  How Were the Egyptian Pyramids Built? Part 5:  Houdin’s Internal Ramp—by Vincent Brown (April 10, 2008)

French Architect Jean-Pierre Houdin has a revolutionary theory on how the pyramids were built.  He looked at the three main existing theories: the large long straight ramp used to drag the stone up on sleds or rolled on logs, the wooden ‘machines’ mentioned by Herodotus & the spiral ramp theory.

• Smithsonian:  Monumental Shift—by Diana Parsall (August 01, 2007)

In 1999, Henri Houdin, a retired French civil engineer, was watching a television documentary on the construction of Egypt’s ancient pyramids. He had supervised many dam and bridge projects, and much of what he saw on the show struck him as impractical. “It was the usual pyramid-building theories, but he wasn’t satisfied as an engineer,” says his son, Jean-Pierre, an independent architect. “He had a sparkle in the brain. ‘If I had to build one now, I would do it from the inside out.’

• Archaeology:  How to build a pyramid—by Bob Brier (Vol. 60 no. 3, May/June 2007)

Of the seven wonders of the ancient world, only the Great Pyramid of Giza remains. An estimated 2 million stone blocks weighing an average of 2.5 tons went into its construction. When completed, the 481-foot-tall pyramid was the world’s tallest structure, a record it held for more than 3,800 years, when England’s Lincoln Cathedral surpassed it by a mere 44 feet.

News Stories

• National Geographic News:  Great Pyramid Mystery to be Solved by Hidden Room?—by Brian Handwerk (November 14, 2008)

A sealed space in Egypt’s Great Pyramid may help solve a centuries-old mystery: How did the ancient Egyptians move two million 2.5-ton blocks to build the ancient wonder?

• National Geographic Channel:  Unlocking the Great Pyramid—by Bob Brier (November 11, 2008)

It always surprises my students when I tell them we don’t know how the Great Pyramid of Giza was built. Dancing in their heads are Hollywood’s images of lots of guys hauling blocks up a huge ramp. The truth is, that simply won’t work. In order for the workers to pull the blocks, the ramp would have to have a gentle slope, but the pyramid is 480 feet high and that would mean that Hollywood’s ramp stretches for more than a mile. The ramp would be greater in volume than the pyramid! Also, archaeologists have never found the remains of such a ramp, and something that big doesn’t just disappear in the dry desert. So how the Great Pyramid was built is still one of the greatest archaeological mysteries of our time.

• Free Republic:  Egyptologists use high-tech software to analyze construction of the Great Pyramid—by Sumathi Reddy and Nia-Malika Henderson (October 21, 2008)

Using cutting edge technology, Egyptologist Bob Brier of the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University delved into the only standing wonder of the ancient world, the Great Pyramid, and uncovered the mystery behind cracks in the massive Egyptian structure, unearthing a new room along the way.

• USA Today:  Scientists Ramp up for pyramid theory—by Dan Vergano (May 16, 2007)

The Great Pyramid of Giza, the sole surviving member of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, stands today as the most massive puzzle in the history of civilization.

• National Geographic News:  Great Pyramid Built Inside Out, French Architect Says—by Dan Morrison (April 02, 2007)

Ancient Egyptians built the 480-foot-high (146-meter-high) Great Pyramid of Giza from the inside out, according to a French architect.  Based on eight years of study, Jean-Pierre Houdin has created a novel three-dimensional computer simulation to present his hypothesis. He says his findings solve the mystery of how the massive monument just outside Cairo was constructed.

• A VR Geek’s Blog:  The Pyramid and the biggest VR screen (March 31, 2007)

On Friday March 30th 2007, the biggest VR screen was inaugurated with a great event; A big show at La Géode (IMAX theater in Paris) to unveil the theory of Jean-Pierre Houdin about his theory on the construction of the Great Pyramid of Khufu (Kheops).

• BBC News:  “Mystery of Great Pyramid ‘solved’—no author listed (March 31, 2007)

A French architect claims to have solved the mystery of how Egypt’s Great Pyramid was built.  Jean-Pierre Houdin said the 4,500-year-old pyramid, just outside Cairo, was built using an inner ramp to lift the massive stones into place.

This is the seventh article in a series based on Marc Chartier’s discussions with Jean-Pierre Houdin following the premier of Khufu Reborn, the long awaited revelation of the second chapter of Project Khufu.  These articles are provided in English to Em Hotep via special arrangement with Marc Chartier/Pyramidales, Jean-Pierre Houdin and the Project Khufu team at Dassault Systèmes.

• March 30, 2007: Khufu Revealed.

• January 27, 2011: Khufu Reborn (aka Khufu Renaissance).

Two dates that, for the architect Jean-Pierre Houdin, punctuate some twelve years of research into the “why” and particularly the “how” of Egypt’s pyramids. Two highlights punctuating the development of a “theory”, the foundations of which date back to 1999, when Jean-Pierre’s father, Henri Houdin, an engineer, had an intuition that something was wrong with the “standardized” presentation of the Great Pyramid’s construction. Hence the idea of the internal ramp, which subsequently fit the developments we know about.

In an exclusive interview given to Pyramidales, Jean-Pierre Houdin presented the main themes of Khufu Reborn, which is his new interpretation of the internal structures and the environment of the Pyramid of Khufu.

Various articles in this blog have already been devoted to this subject: the antechambers, the King’s Chamber, the “Noble Circuit”, the layout of the Giza Plateau, etc.

The entrance to the pyramid has also been re-interpreted by Jean Pierre Houdin, who offers the following details to Pyramidales’ readers.

The scaffold leading to the entrance of the pyramid

We are (approximately) in the year 2550 BC. King Khufu, Pharaoh and sovereign ruler of Egypt, is dead. Long live the King!

His body is transported in his Solar Boat as far as the Lower Temple at Giza, where priests must undertake the mummification, a ritual lasting seventy days.

The Pharaoh is then ready for his great voyage to the Eternal Stars, traveling along his pyramid’s the Royal Way, built for this one occasion of the solemn funeral.

The funeral procession begins by going up the Royal Causeway that connects the Valley Temple to the High Temple, at the foot of the pyramid’s east face. “There,” comments Jean-Pierre Houdin, “the priests perform the mouth-opening ceremony to give the King the use of his senses. He thus recovers his speech and can appear before Osiris for the weighing of the souls. Nothing reproachable coming to light during his confession, he is ready for eternity in the hereafter.”

As the sun sets, the procession reaches the entrance to the Pharaoh’s last resting place – “his” pyramid – more than seventeen meters above the ground on the north facade. To do this, the procession uses wooden scaffolding, built many years before, giving access to the monument’s interior. It then gets ready to enter the bowels of the monument to reach the King’s Chamber, where the bulky granite sarcophagus was put in place, as a result of its size, at the time this chamber was constructed.

The “Service Circuit” and the “Noble Circuit”

According to Jean-Pierre Houdin, the funeral procession will indeed enter through the mouth of the descending corridor in the north face but, contrary to common belief, will leave this passage a few meters further on, ignoring the entire route following on from it – the ascending corridor (to which we now add the detail “No. 1”), the Grand Gallery, the portcullis chamber and the access corridor (to which we also add the detail “No. 1”) to the King’s Chamber – a route that visitors from all over the world have followed since tourism and curiosity have existed, to take the tunnel dug in the north-south axis when caliph Al-Ma’mun broke into the pyramid in AD 820.

The tourist route will not be followed for good reason: it was blocked in several places. It was used as a “service circuit” throughout the period of constructing the King’s Chamber and the strange structure above it. At the end of this construction phase, having no further use, it was abandoned to the silence of the stones until rediscovered by “visitors”, well intentioned or otherwise, who would never have imagined that this was not the real route for the royal funeral.

According to Jean-Pierre Houdin’s proposals, the procession will follow what we will call an “alternative route”, but which in reality, to use the architect’s phrase, is the “Noble Circuit”, as designed and constructed just for the day of the solemn royal funeral ceremony.

A consequence of this configuration, unknown to this day: to give access not only to the “service circuit” but also and especially to the “Noble Circuit”, the original entrance to the Great Pyramid has to incorporate this dual function, supposed to remain secret so as to give no clue to those who might desecrate the royal sepulcher, into its very structure. Proof of this is that caliph Al-Ma’mun and his soldier-sappers did not succeed in detecting the real entrance to the monument, but undertook digging to a lower level to end up on… the “service circuit”!

Clues present

With the exception of Al-Ma’mun’s breach, which is like a wart on the north face of the pyramid, even if very useful today for tourist access, and given the fact that this pyramid has been deprived of its Tura limestone facing blocks for several centuries, what clues reveal the real entrance to the “Noble Circuit”?

Jean-Pierre Houdin lists them as follows:

• The Tura limestone rafters above the original entrance are too large for the roof of the descending corridor (two cubits, or 1.05 m, wide) and, in addition, much too high in relation to it.

• By measuring the existing oblique abutments, we can see on site that there are six pairs of rafters missing from the lower part and three missing from the upper part: the lower series having covered a void, while the upper series constituted an overlapping roof, extending a second void “that the Egyptian builders,” says Jean-Pierre Houdin, “thrifty in time and materials, had to have had a very good reason to build. The present large hole did not exist at the time. Everything visible today was immersed in the mass of stonework and recessed about ten meters behind the original north face. Much closer to the facade, a first room (where the current hole is) was located just above the descending corridor, and a vertical access shaft, centered on the room, linked these two structures directly. The rest of the descending corridor is taken to have been used by the funeral procession, but in reality it was only used by workers during the construction of the pyramid.”

• 

  Arrow : higher density area

  Jean-Pierre Houdin continues: “Micro-gravimetric measurements made 25 years ago detected an anomaly, namely the presence of a zone of very high density beneath the north face of the pyramid, in a precise continuation of the entrance rafters. This is located to the east of the north-south axis, so aligned with the known corridors in the pyramid. Furthermore, this high-density zone ended directly in line with the second section of the hypothetical internal ramp.¹
• The grooved block inserted beneath the first row of rafters, and previously stored at the back of the second room, has visibly been pushed from inside, traces of mortar protruding under the right rafter. In front of this block, we can see that the limestone floor has been pointed with plaster and given a surfaced and perfectly flat finish;
• the grooved block does not go as far as the point of the opening; a triangle 40 centimeters high has been filled with stonework centered on the ridge of the rafters.

The Greek geographer Strabo (first century BC) wrote of this stone: “At a certain height on one of its sides there is a stone that can be removed, which, once removed, allows us to see the entrance to a tortuous gallery or hypogeum, leading to the tomb.”² Hence its current name of “Strabo’s stone”.

A single entrance opening onto two rooms

“Faced with these observations, I had the proof,” Jean-Pierre Houdin goes on, “that other rafters had been installed to a much reduced distance from the face, in front of the currently visible rafters. From then on it was obvious that in the area of the present gaping hole, there had been two rooms, one in front of Strabo’s stone, the other behind this stone, slightly higher up.

“Then I understood that the Egyptians, being the very great architects they were, had designed a single entrance to serve several corridors at once. This entrance could lead to any chamber in the monument, so being used for Khufu’s funeral and, at quite another moment, for access to the site during the pyramid’s construction.

“The two rooms under the rafters enabled a direct connection to be made to the descending corridor, connecting it to a second series of corridors that led to the Queen’s Chamber and the King’s Chamber without passing through the Grand Gallery.”

Due to the complexity of its configuration, the original entrance to the pyramid is therefore characterized by a clever multiplication of uses: it gives access, via the descending corridor, to the “service circuit” (of no further use at the end of the construction phase), and it opens onto the “Noble Circuit”, which immediately includes two separate routes: one, horizontal, towards the Queen’s Chamber (we should not forget that this chamber was intended to receive the king’s sepulcher in the event of his untimely demise); the other, ascending, as the first part of the journey leading to the King’s Chamber.

The function of the two successive rooms was to begin the “Noble Circuit” (the “Royal Way”) deep within the mass of the pyramid (the back of the second room is about 16 meters from the facade). In contrast to those in all previous pyramids, the King’s Chamber is very high within the mass of the pyramid. Consequently there is no longer any question of providing access to it by means of a descending passage emerging practically perpendicular to the façade. Rather, an initial ascending passage (more or less parallel to this facade, arriving tangentially and not at right-angles: a “whistle” configuration, hard to implement), then a horizontal corridor (no. 2) leading to the two antechambers. Moreover, the passage of the internal ramp in this zone would have resulted in the intersecting the ascending corridor no. 2 that serves as point of departure for the funereal “Noble Circuit” to the King’s Chamber. The simplest and most economical solution was to push the beginning of this corridor further back into the mass, the two horizontal entrance rooms serving as connecting and displacing modules.

At the same starting point, a shaft is connected to the neighboring internal ramp, for the evacuation of the last workers: “At the end of Khufu’s funeral,” says Jean-Pierre Houdin,

…and after having sealed the pyramid at several “sensitive” points (chamber, antechambers, access corridor, entrance room), the workers are thought to have left the funeral circuit via the internal ramp, getting back to it through a connecting shaft dug just behind the second entrance room, at the starting point for the second ascending corridor. The designers had previously simulated this set up in the mock-up of the construction site dug out of the bedrock about 50 meters east of the pyramid.

The priests and other officials for the funeral ceremony had previously left the pyramid as they had entered, taking exactly the same route, as befit their positions.

Footnotes

¹ The internal ramp represented one of the major elements of Khufu Revealed. Obviously it is still present in Khufu Renaissance, but with variants that will be covered in a future article in Pyramidales.

² the precise translation of the Greek text, as confirmed by Ian Lawton, for example, the author of Giza, the Truth, in a letter sent to Jean-Pierre Houdin, is indeed “leading to the tomb” (and not “leading to the foundations”). Which is what was suggested by Amédée Tardieu: “At a certain height on one of its sides there is a stone that can be removed, which, once removed, allows us to see the entrance to a tortuous gallery or hypogeum, leading to the tomb.”

Copyright by Marc Chartier, 2011.  All rights reserved.

Jean-Pierre Houdin’s theory of the how the Great Pyramid was built continues to unfold.  How were the sixty-ton megalithic beams moved from the harbor at the base of the Giza Plateau to 43+ meters high into the Great Pyramid?  Was there a second counterweight system like the one in the Grand Gallery?  Why was Khafre’s Royal Causeway so wide?

In this, the sixth in a series of articles and interviews from Pyramidales writer Marc Chartier, we learn some of the key evolutions in Jean-Pierre Houdin’s theory.  In the few short years between Khufu Revealed and Khufu Reborn, researcher/architect Houdin has expanded his work to account for anomalies surrounding the pyramid of Khufu’s successor, Pharaoh Khafre, and what they tell us about Khufu’s pyramid.

The English-language version of this article was very kindly provided by Marc Chartier, Jean-Pierre Houdin, and the Project Khufu team at Dassault Systèmes exclusively for Em Hotep readers.

The "main construction causeway" for the building site

The number two has pride of place in Khufu Reborn (aka Khufu Renaissance), the new version of Jean-Pierre Houdin’s reconstitution of the Great Pyramid’s construction. After the two ascending corridors (one for the service circuit inside the pyramid, the other for the “Noble Circuit”), the two horizontal corridors (one giving access to the Queen’s Chamber, the other being a section of the “Noble Circuit”), the two antechambers preceding access to the King’s Chamber, two entrances to this chamber and the two levels of the internal ramp, space was made for two external ramps built on the Giza Plateau to transport the materials used to construct the monument (limestone blocks and granite monoliths from the Aswan quarries).

The first of these ramps, qualified as the “main construction causeway”, follows a line east-west towards the position where the Pyramid of Khafre would later be built; its upper part is equipped with a counterweight system. The other ramp continues towards the south face of the Great Pyramid and enters the monument under construction, as a trench, up to the 70 m level.

Tale of a discovery, in several steps

A study of the Giza Plateau, together with the technical implications of transporting the materials used to construct the Pyramid of Khufu, led Jean-Pierre Houdin to the following observation: “Everything on the Giza Plateau proves that the Royal Causeway, connecting the Low and High Temples of the Pyramid of Khafre, was constructed on a ramp that had previously been used for the construction of the Pyramid of Khufu.”

The architect was thus able to provide a significant variant to the theory that he had developed and published in 2007, according to which the Great Pyramid’s construction site was supplied from the port following the natural slope of a wadi (temporarily dry riverbed), workers obviously dragging the sledges loaded with blocks or monoliths along the gentlest slope.

“When I presented my ‘Khufu Revealed’ theory,” Jean-Pierre Houdin tells us:

I explained that the granite beams for the King’s Chamber were hauled up the external ramp using the counterweight system in the Grand Gallery. Well, one day I received this message from someone who attended one of my conferences: ‘Your counterweight enables the beams to be raised from the base of the external ramp as far as the level of the King’s Chamber (+43 m). But how do you get these same beams from the port to your ramp? The distance between them is at least 500 m, and more particularly the port is located 40 m lower than the ramp. Shouldn’t you consider a second system to haul the blocks over this distance?’

This correspondent was right! Explains Jean-Pierre:

If the Egyptians had considered the counterweight solution, they would certainly have applied it to the entire journey made by the beams. A second counterweight would have had to be used to haul the granite blocks from the unloading port for materials coming from Aswan as far as the base of the external ramp. But do traces of its existence still remain?

A revealing photograph

The right questions had been asked. It was now a matter of trying to answer them…

Two days later, the architect discovered a photograph of the Giza Plateau with its three pyramids on the Talking Pyramids website. It was taken in 1905, from a balloon, by the aerostat pioneer Eduard Spelterini.

“As I was examining this document,” comments Jean-Pierre Houdin, “an obvious fact came to me: the royal funereal causeway linking the Low Temple to the High Temple of Khafre’s Pyramid had been built on an old ramp. This foundation could only have been used during a construction project before Khafre’s: that for the Pyramid of Khufu!”

Days passed… Then, during a recent trip to Egypt, Jean-Pierre Houdin spent long hours studying the topography of the site at Giza, with the aim of checking the accuracy of his intuitions against Spelterini’s photographs. He describes his observations:

I started by examining Khafre’s royal causeway in order to find any clues to the existence of the ancient ramp leading from the port to Khufu’s construction site. Then I discovered that this causeway, about ten meters wide, is laid on a perfectly uniform foundation 23 m wide, extending 6.5 m on each side, which is the case neither for Khufu’s royal causeway (10 m wide), nor for Menkaure’s causeway (8 m wide). Over the better part of the south side, very large limestone blocks were even put into place to fill in hollows.

After walking back up Khafre’s royal causeway to its western end, I stood exactly where the external ramp for the Pyramid of Khufu should have started. From there, I was surprised to discover a sort of large slab floor, made of limestone blocks, pointing towards the Great Pyramid. These blocks have nothing to do with Khafre’s Pyramid (the transport of the blocks needed to construct this pyramid did not require such an infrastructure), from which I deduced that they would probably have served as the foundation for the external ramp of Khufu’s Pyramid.

Moreover, along its route, this ramp serves several of the quarries on the plateau, which supplied most of the materials for the Great Pyramid. This ramp, currently measuring nearly 500 m with a slope of 8.5%, is ideal for the stresses of moving sledges, even more so for dragging beams loaded onto large sledges on rollers.

 In my view, the conclusion was obvious: the royal funereal causeway connecting the Low and High Temples of the Pyramid of Khafre had been constructed on an ancient ramp that could only have been used on the previous construction project for the Pyramid of Khufu. King Khafre must have reused a route that had served in the construction of his father’s pyramid.

Two counterweight systems

The counterweight sliding in Grand Gallery

However there remained a problem: human strength alone, which has limits for reasons of co-ordination, could not be sufficient to drag beams weighing up to 63 tons the length of this royal causeway. Jean-Pierre Houdin considers that additional force was therefore absolutely essential: the most logical possibility, given the Egyptians’ technical knowledge at the time, is that the source of this force would have taken the form of a counterweight moving in a slide channel, a technique enabling human strength to be combined with mechanical force, the mechanical force being “rewound” by human force sequenced in time and space.

But if there had been a counterweight, it was still necessary to find traces of it, proof of its existence…

Resuming his observations “on the ground”, Jean-Pierre Houdin then took an interest in the configuration of the second Giza pyramid.

Jean-Pierre Houdin notes:

When you study plans of Khafre’s Pyramid you notice that the funereal corridor leading to the King’s Chamber was dug into the ground, under the monument, about ten meters below the level of the Plateau in this area. But there is an anomaly in its construction. Over a length of 8 m, the Egyptians did not dig the corridor: they built it, floor, walls and ceilings, in stone. Why? The only plausible explanation is that there was a sizeable hole there, a very deep trench requiring special treatment. Now, if we extrapolate the ramp from the port, or royal causeway, as far as the Pyramid of Khafre, we observe that it crosses the funereal corridor exactly where this construction is found.

This meant there could be no further doubt for Jean-Pierre Houdin: in the precise line of the royal causeway starting from the port, and toward its higher end, this trench under the Pyramid of Khafre had been dug into the bedrock at the time of Khufu, to serve as a slide channel for a counterweight system.

Based on the considerable, not to say indispensable, advantages offered by an external ramp built as an “expressway”, he understood that the Giza Plateau had been landscaped to provide the following logistical facilities: a direct ramp from the port to the foot of the pyramid’s external ramp (in red on the sketch above), simplifying and speeding up material supplies to the site; then, as an extension, almost right-angles, a second ramp running towards the south face of the pyramid (in blue). The special feature of this system is that its “driving force” relied on two identical counterweight systems (in green):

It was not possible to use human strength alone, so the architects and engineers decided on the principle of using counterweights from the start of the project, in other words from the design phase. This meant installing two counterweight systems. The first, sited in a trench excavated in the bedrock of the Giza Plateau, to haul the monoliths from the port (level 20 m) to the foot (level 75 m) of the external ramp of the Pyramid of Khufu. A first dragging ramp was built from the port, toward this trench, for this purpose. The second system was sited directly in the heart of the pyramid, between levels +21 m and +43 m: its still visible slide channel, namely the Grand Gallery, is opposite the external ramp that served the construction site up to a maximum level of +43 m.  (Jean-Pierre Houdin)

An external ramp… extending as an internal ramp

Another new feature then appeared in the reconstitution of the Great Pyramid’s construction, the Khufu Renaissance version: the configuration of the external ramp extending beyond the royal causeway and heading towards the monument’s south face.

External ramp (level 43 m)

Located on a natural promontory of the plateau, the starting point for this ramp was higher than the pyramid’s base level. The ramp thus reached a height of 43 m (base of the King’s Chamber, with a length of only 325 m. It was extended in a trench, inside the monument, to a height of 70 m (this is new compared with the 2007 hypothesis), the whole thing having a slope scarcely more than 8.5%.

At a height of 70 m, no more than 15% of the volume remained to be built, over an additional 76 m height. This last part of the construction site was out of reach of the external ramp; otherwise it would have been necessary to extend it excessively and make it exceed the volume of the pyramid itself. Hence the necessity for the internal ramp, the central idea of the Houdin theory in its first Khufu Revealed version.

“At the start of my research into construction of the Pyramid of Khufu,” says Jean-Pierre Houdin,

I thought that the Egyptians had built almost three-quarters of the monument using the external ramp. But I was still far away from what they were capable of doing… Discovering the ramp from the port enabled me to position Khufu’s external ramp precisely on the ground. Among other things, I noticed that it arrived at the monument at the level of the base of the King’s Chamber to the west of the south face, almost at the point where the internal ramp ended. During the construction of the King’s Chamber, the pyramid continued to rise normally, except for this southern part where the granite beams were stored.

External ramp (level 70 m)

The external ramp arrived at the south-west corner and continued as a trench in the pyramid by turning clockwise until it reached above the roof of the King’s Chamber (+70 m). The southern part remained at level +43 m while the King’s Chamber was built.

Construction of the internal ramp was therefore interrupted in this southern part, but the Egyptians’ big trick was to continue its construction and use by making it restart from the south-east corner. Thus for several years, teams were dragging sledges on the flat and in the open air at level +43 m, then pulling them up a slope from the south-east corner. When they had finished using the external ramp, the southern part was filled in and a horizontal tunnel was constructed to link the internal ramp from the south-west corner to the south-east corner. This is why, as shown by measurements made in 1986, the section of ramp in this southern part remains horizontal.

"You must first ask yourself the true questions”

By not cutting across the path of the external ramp with the internal ramp during the construction of the King’s Chamber, the Egyptian builders had succeeded in constructing 85% of the pyramid’s volume by using the external ramp. However this trick had one drawback: part of the internal ramp stayed permanently horizontal at level +43 m, but this was largely compensated for by the fact that there remained no more that 15% of the volume to be constructed. On the other hand, there still remained more than 76 m in height to be completed: this is where the internal ramp played its part to the full.”

Three complementary ramps

In summary, Khufu’s Pyramid was built using three separate and complementary ramps: the ramp from the port (future Khafre’s royal causeway) used, with its counterweight, as far as the level of the current Pyramid of Khafre; the external ramp, as far as level +43 m of the pyramid, extended by a ramp built in a trench running clockwise as far as the +70 m level; the internal ramp, constructed from the base of the pyramid (south-east side), spiraling counter-clockwise and including a flat part at the +43 m level.

It is precisely onto this flat part (+43 m) that the monoliths for the King’s Chamber and the relieving chambers were first raised (using the counterweight in the Grand Gallery), then stored temporarily before being put in place (still using the Grand Gallery counterweight system) at their various levels to form the ceilings of the King’s Chamber and the relieving chambers.

The "main construction causeway" (in red) and the natural ramp (in blue)

To complete this logistical configuration of the Giza site, Jean-Pierre Houdin guides us to a final observation, while still keeping an eye on the plateau’s topography. This time it is connected with the facing blocks made of Tura limestone delivered to the port and those extracted from quarries excavated around the Sphinx and a little higher up.

There was no need for these blocks to take a detour towards the position where Khafre’s Pyramid was subsequently erected. They were quite simply pulled over a small natural ramp (in blue on the sketch above) following the incline of the plateau in order to be brought as far as the entrance to the internal ramp located in the southern face of Khufu’s Pyramid and about 25 m from its south-east corner.

Transported to the foot of the pyramid being constructed, the blocks then began their ascent into the bowels of the monument, following the internal ramp.

“After filming of the ‘Khufu Revealed’ documentary in 2008,” adds Jean-Pierre Houdin,

..and Bob Brier’s discovery of a room behind the notch in the north-east ridge, we were able to use 3D modeling of this area to specify the geometry of the internal ramp. This enabled us to understand the role of this room and gave us very precise information about the route of the internal ramp within the pyramid, because we now had several reference points in space: firstly, at the base of the pyramid, the entrance in the south-east area; then the passage above the rafters of the north-face entrance, then again the end at level +43 m under the west face, and finally this room at +81 m in the north-east edge; the horizontal route of the ramp at level +43 m beneath the south face then became evident.

By relying on the picture of the density anomaly detected in 1986, and by positioning the entrance to the internal ramp precisely using field observations, I was able to reconstruct the likely route for blocks inside the pyramid.

The first section of the ramp (in blue) is parallel to the face and climbed as far as the first corner chamber in the north-east corner. The second and third sections (the first two white segments) climbed ‘at an angle’, because as they rose they followed the slope of the pyramid inclined towards the interior. The fourth section located at a height of +43 m (in yellow) is horizontal and parallel to the south face. The following fourteen sections (in white) climb ‘at an angle’ as far as the summit.”

At each corner of the pyramid, corresponding to the junction between two sections of the ramp, a volume (a room as discovered by Bob Brier) was created to rotate the sledges used to transport the blocks.

One of these volumes, under the north-east edge of the pyramid, gave rise to detailed exploration by the American Egyptologist Bob Brier.

The results will be presented in a forthcoming article on this blog.

Interview by Marc Chartier

Illustrations: copyright Jean-Pierre Houdin / Dassault Systèmes

Copyright by Marc Chartier, 2011.  All rights reserved.

French architect Jean-Pierre Houdin sees the answer in the arrangement of internal elements of the pyramid’s architecture still hidden from plain view, but discernable by other architectural and material oddities, such as the relieving compartments themselves.  Why were they so high?  What purpose did raising the pressure points serve?

This is the fifth in a series of fascinating dialogues held between writer Marc Chartier, of the website Pyramidales, and Jean-Pierre Houdin following the premier of Khufu Reborn, the next chapter in the unraveling the mysteries of the Great Pyramid and the Giza Plateau.  This series of articles is being provided in English for Em Hotep in an exclusive arrangement with Marc, Jean-Pierre, and the Project Khufu team at Dassault Systèmes.

I do not think this will be a scoop for anyone: the King’s Chamber in the Great Pyramid is topped by an imposing and complex superstructure, made from five so-called “relieving chambers”, supposed to protect it from hypothetically crushing the last remains of the Pharaoh nestled in the heart of the monument.

Even those uninitiated into the subtleties of the art of Egyptian construction can easily feel how much these masses and spaces capping the funereal chamber could and still can fuel debates between Egyptologists or pyramidologists. (This latter term is sufficiently vague that it usefully covers an entire army of researchers trying to understand the hows and whys of the Egyptian pyramids).

In particular, among other good questions, why a “simple” raftered vault would not have sufficed, as in what is called the “Queen’s Chamber” – also intended to house the mortal remains of the Pharaoh at some time in the pyramid’s history, and on the face of it subject to the same volumetric compression? What is the “security” bonus of this stack of utterly enormous monoliths?

We will skip over the thorny question of the cracks that appeared in this enormous structure: this is not relevant here. Moreover, Pyramidales has already made a contribution on this subject, unwittingly stirring up a pretty unhealthy controversy just where the search for knowledge is called for, to the exclusion of any favoritism or personal bitterness.

As the five superimposed chambers are not there purely for style, nor in answer to any gratuitous challenge the Egyptian builders might have set themselves, but really are important pieces of the gigantic pyramid “puzzle”, Jean-Pierre Houdin could not disregard them in his Khufu Reborn (aka Khufu Renaissance) reconstitution of the Great Pyramid’s construction. Quite the opposite, he recognizes their essential role, without which part of the “puzzle” could collapse.

Let’s summarize what we already know from Khufu Reborn. Following Jean-Pierre Houdin along what he calls the “Noble Circuit” (corridors and structures deep within the pyramid intended for the royal funeral procession), we have discovered two antechambers in front of the King’s chamber, then an access corridor running up to the “formal” entrance to this chamber, distinct from the service entrance.

The architect then continues his reading of these places, using a totally new approach. In his opinion, the relieving chambers were not designed to be, as is generally thought, a cascade of bulwarks to prevent the King’s chamber caving in. Their construction and disposition must rather be associated with the existence of the two corbel-vaulted antechambers, ensuring their stability by protecting them from the effects of transferred load.

A major technical challenge

According to Jean-Pierre Houdin, the major technical challenge that must have faced Hemienu and Ankhhaf, the architects of the Great Pyramid, derives directly from their decision to build a flat ceiling for the King’s chamber. This innovation was fundamental… but it did not make the task easier! It is the very key to the special nature of the monument’s construction and the raison d’être for some of its main structures, such as the Grand Gallery, for example.

 “From one pyramid to the next,” comments Jean-Pierre Houdin,

Egyptian builders kept what was successful, abandoned what they considered not so good and, above all, took advantage of the opportunity to try new construction techniques. For the Great Pyramid, they kept corbelling for the antechambers and set themselves a gigantic challenge: that of offering their king, Khufu, a funereal chamber with a flat ceiling. This was a technical feat that they had never before attempted.

The entire organization of the project depended on this bold choice. The architects ordered materials from different quarries, from those at Tura for the facing blocks, from those at Aswan, more than eight hundred kilometers to the south, for granite for the King’s Chamber. This granite was the only material capable of spanning a void of some 5.20 m between the north and south walls of the chamber. The quarrymen could not deliver the beams to Giza at the start of construction because it would take years to extract and transport them. While they got down to their work, the monument was taking form. The beams would all have to be delivered to the site by the fourteenth year of Khufu’s reign at the latest, the pyramid having then reached a height of 43 m.

Jean-Pierre Houdin then made a detailed examination of the consequences, in terms of cost and technological progress, of the architectural choice governing erection of the Great Pyramid, which had a funereal chamber that until then had not featured on any architect’s plans:

The Egyptians did not order granite beams from Aswan for the pleasure of hiding such a quantity of beams inside the bulk: 2,100 tons altogether in the 43 beams distributed over 5 ceilings between level +48.85 m and level +60.15 m.

Exceptional technical resources were deployed to bring them from the banks of the Nile to their final position: between the levels of the delivery port (altitude 20 m ASL) and the last ceiling (altitude 100.15 m ASL), an uphill haul of more than 80 m!

Exceptional resources for an exceptional project

Major resources for a major project. Indeed, exceptional resources for an exceptional project. According to Jean-Pierre Houdin, the construction of the Great Pyramid required nothing less than:

• the construction of a ramp more than 600 m long (in red on the sketch above) between the port and the bottom of the Great Pyramid’s exterior ramp (in blue on the sketch);
• the installation of a counterweight-assisted traction system by cutting a huge trench in the bedrock (later buried under the pyramid of Khafre: in green, in the middle, on the left on the sketch) as an extension of the ramp coming from the port (Pyramidales will return to these technical aspects in a future article);
• construction of the Grand Gallery (in green, on top on the sketch) , a real built-in “crane”, as a second counterweight-assisted traction system to bring the beams into the pyramid enclosure for the construction of the ceilings;
• creation of an entire series of additional structures (ascending corridor no. 1, horizontal corridor no. 1, portcullis chamber), needed to operate the counterweight.

Counterweight sliding in Grand Gallery

This is what it cost to implement the ambitious plans of the architects for the Pyramid of Khufu! “The construction of a corbelled roof for the King’s Chamber,” comments Jean-Pierre Houdin,

would not have required any of these facilities, and there would never have been any granite in this pyramid. To have brought granite into the pyramid, the only material capable of spanning a void more than 5 m side and thus the only material to allow the construction of a flat ceiling, is the result of an architectural choice.

The “umbrella” effect

At this stage in our reading of the architectural plan for the Great Pyramid, guided by Jean-Pierre Houdin, a question arises: Hemiunu and Ankhhaf decided to install a flat ceiling on the King’s chamber. So be it! But why were they not content with just one ceiling, then capping it directly with a raftered vault, the only structure to deflects loads laterally, rather than transmit them vertically downward?

The architects of the Great Pyramid didn’t choose this solution

With such a hypothetical single ceiling surmounted by its inverted “V” vault, the Grand Gallery with its corbelled vault constructed parallel to the slope would not have seen its stability threatened in the slightest. The location of the Grand Gallery on a projection of the northern rafters of the roof at a slope of 50% would have been structurally equivalent, for example, to a buttress of a Gothic cathedral. The gallery therefore certainly did not require the installation of additional relieving chambers.

Let’s read our architect-guide’s explanations: “Rafters transfer loads along an oblique, and if there had been only the Grand Gallery in the zone receiving the oblique load, it would have had no difficulty ‘absorbing’ it.

“There are three reasons for this:

• the Grand Gallery is aligned with the oblique load and, given its very imposing structure, it reacts as an abutment (it is even stronger than the surrounding ‘in-fill’);
• the empty part of the Grand Gallery (2 cubits: the width of the last corbelling) only receives the oblique load over half of each rafter, which is positioned so that the other half is butted against the side walls of the Grand Gallery;
• given the position of the Grand Gallery entirely to the east, the rafters transfer more than 90% of the northern oblique load into the ‘in-fill’, compared with 100% of the southern rafters’ load.

“Conclusion: there would be no structural reason for the structure of the relieving chambers, as constructed, if there were only the Grand Gallery to consider.”

The relieving chambers were not therefore constructed to protect the Grand Gallery, although the Grand Gallery was built to transport and position the monoliths for the five load-deflecting chambers.

From this it follows that the reason for the relieving chambers must be sought elsewhere. And this “elsewhere” is called the “antechambers”, an essential part, according to Jean-Pierre Houdin, of the funereal architecture in the “Khufu’s Inheritance” version (see previous article from Pyramidales).

Without the relieving chambers superstructure, the antechambers would have been crushed down by the oblique load transferred by the rafters of the North side of the roof.

Jean-Pierre continues:

If the Egyptian builders had put the inverted “V” roof immediately above the ceiling of the King’s chamber, this roof would have underpinned the entire load above it in order to transfer it to the sides. And the corbel-roofed antechambers, unable to withstand this huge oblique load, would have ended up collapsing. They would have been crushed under the load.

So the architects had not hesitated. As they needed the counterweights of the Grand Gallery to construct the first ceiling in any case, it was no harder for them to construct five of them, each one above the other, before installing the raftered roof.

In the end, what we term the ‘relieving chambers’ were not constructed to protect the King’s Chamber, but to protect the nearby antechambers. Nor are the ‘ceilings’ really ceilings, but beams that retain the side walls of a large void (described nowadays as a ‘reinforced trench’). Hemiunu and Ankhhaf, the Viziers of Khufu’s Great Royal Works, were not only great architects, they were also great engineers.

By raising the roof very high, the architects greatly enlarged the protected zone so that the oblique load passed above the corbelling of the antechambers. Therein lies the real reason for the huge structure above the King’s Chamber. The Egyptians could not have done otherwise. The ‘relieving chambers’ served only to raise the roof of the King’s Chamber as high as possible, so that the oblique loads did not push on the corbelling of the antechambers.

This is what Jean-Pierre Houdin describes as the “umbrella” effect: “This type of structure is only found in the Great Pyramid, but it is essential due to the choice made by the designers to cover the King’s Chamber with a flat ceiling.”

Jean-Pierre Houdin concludes his analysis:

With the antechambers perpendicular to the King’s Chamber, they could possibly have been covered by raftered roofs. The problem would then only have been worse: it would also have been necessary to ‘raise’ the ‘stone umbrella’ (the raftered roof) very high up in the mass, because, being perpendicular to the funereal chamber, they would have similarly received the oblique load from the northern rafters of the roof to the King’s Chamber. They would then have been distorted (tilted) or perhaps even crushed under the pressure.

But another problem would have arisen: the eastern slope of the antechambers’ raftered roofs would then have transferred the absorbed vertical loads laterally directly against the western wall of the Grand Gallery; and it is the latter that would finally have been crushed. The choice of corbelling for the antechambers was extremely shrewd and perfectly suited to the situation: they wisely absorbed the vertical loads, without spreading them around, which is why they had been considered and tested for almost a century.

The pyramid’s designers therefore created a zone devoid of oblique load from the rafters between the top of the antechambers’ corbelling and the upper oblique line of the sheltered zone.

This is explicit proof of a very great understanding of materials, loads, forces, stresses and structural behavior. Nowadays would we call this an ‘Engineering and Building Technology Consultancy’.

One little detail: this was 45 centuries ago; in other words, with 5 generations per century, 225 generations ago. Egyptology, which was itself born following Napoleon Bonaparte’s Egyptian Campaign, can only claim (a maximum of) 10 generations in existence…”

Interview by Marc Chartier for Pyramidales.

Copyright by Marc Chartier, 2011.  All rights reserved.

So who pushed the block into place, when did they do it, and how did they get out?  Human sacrifice within royal tombs had not been practiced since the early years of the Second Dynasty, so, cork or no cork, ultimately the King’s Chamber had to be sealed from the outside.  How do we reconcile this contradiction?

This is the fourth in a series of articles and interviews conducted by Marc Chartier, writer and webmaster of the French-language site Pyramidales, with Jean-Pierre and other key members of Team Khufu, provided in English exclusively to Em Hotep.

The King’s Chamber in its current state

In the new “reading” that the architect-researcher Jean-Pierre Houdin is suggesting for the pyramid of Khufu – Khufu Reborn – the King’s Chamber takes all the honors. And for good reason! This room is in fact the heart of the entire architectural system of the monument, its function and that of the entire pyramid being to contain the mummified mortal remains of the king who built it, for eternity.

Well, the funereal chamber of the Great Pyramid has been, and still is, the subject of a great many interpretations and endless, sometimes stormy debates, regarding its purpose, its structure, its superstructure (what are known as the “relieving” chambers), its shafts (for “ventilation”), the damage it has suffered (well known cracks in the ceiling, which have given the neighbors something to talk about), its final use (did it or did it not house the august pharaonic mummy?), its hypothetical counterpart lost who knows where in the bulk of the monument (did someone say “secret chamber”?), etc.

To the list of questions and answers, we must now add the entrance to this chamber, namely the only passage still “in service” today, under which visitors must “bow their heads” in order to enter the chamber, in the north-east corner. For centuries and centuries, the “Consensus Thinking”, to use Jean-Pierre Houdin’s expression, has taken this entrance to be the one used by the funeral procession transporting the mortal remains of the Pharaoh.

In Khufu Reborn, Jean-Pierre Houdin takes this entrance to be in reality merely an additional element in the service circuit, therefore already sealed long before the day of the royal funeral. According to his analysis of the pyramid, the King’s Chamber had to be accessible through another – “real” – entrance, the end for the “Noble Circuit”, now hidden from our eyes.

Actually, not everyone’s eyes! As the following demonstrates…

Reading the Language of the Stones

At a glance, the King’s Chamber at its heart bears witness to the changes or upheavals the Great Pyramid of Giza has undergone over the centuries (sarcophagus lid missing, damage in the north-west corner, etc.), the various intruders, well intentioned or otherwise, not always having had the wherewithal to achieve their ends.

A more experienced eye will be able not only to interpret these changes, but also to recognize the original plan in the construction and lay-out of the chamber. Stones have their own language for those who can understand them.

First Observation: the disappearing block

The first observation made by Jean-Pierre Houdin: where did the stone block come from that we could still see, a few years ago, beside the sarcophagus, on the west side of the north wall of the King’s Chamber? And what happened to it, since it has now disappeared?

Entrance in the northeastern side of the King Chamber

The answer to the second part of the question is simple: during renovation of the King’s Chamber in 1998, Dr Zahi Hawass, then supervisor in charge of Egyptian antiquities, ordered the block to be removed. No doubt he thought it was too untidy.

“At the same time,” comments Jean-Pierre Houdin, “he removed ‘part of the puzzle’.”

“Happily,” the architect continues, “many witnesses had made drawings and taken photographs to prove the existence of this block.” But as to where it is now… mystery!

More importantly: what was the original position of this block, and what was its function in the overall structure?   

The block’s dimensions, observes Jean-Pierre Houdin, exactly matched (since it has disappeared, we should use the past tense) those of the entrance in the east of the funeral chamber’s north wall. So it quite naturally had its place, as originally planned. 

We should immediately note that there is a difference of 2 cm between the floor levels in the chamber and in the corridor, the latter being lower. We must also be aware that the cross-sectional area of the corridor between the Grand Gallery and the portcullis chamber is smaller than that of the corridor between the portcullis chamber and the King’s Chamber. So for Jean-Pierre Houdin, the conclusion is clear:

The block that sealed the entrance to the King’s Chamber, on the east side, never passed through the portcullis chamber. And yet, it finished by exactly blocking access along the line of the north wall of the King’s Chamber, pushed up against the floor in this room. For this reason, thieves who succeeded in reaching the back of this block via the entrance dug in the north face of the pyramid, the ascending corridor, then the Grand Gallery and finally through the portcullis chamber, were forced to break the top part of it and, when there was enough room, to tip it into the King’s Chamber, where it loitered for 1,250 years.

Northeastern entrance: to bow one’s head

In other words, this block, whose function was to block the north-east entrance to the King’s Chamber, was not put in place “after” the royal funeral ceremony. “It was from the 17th year of the pyramid’s construction, a date mentioned by graffiti in the last ‘relieving chamber’,” explains Jean-Pierre Houdin:

…so when construction of the King’s Chamber was finished and the counterweight system in the Grand Gallery no longer served any purpose, that, pushed from the inside of the chamber before the setting in place of the slab on which it stopped, it was put into the place it occupied until the year 850 AD (arrival of Al-Ma’mun), to seal access to the chamber. It was thus sealed for 3,350 years, no more, no less, until the day Al-Ma’mun’s advance scouts broke it and then tipped it into the chamber. But it was then no longer in its original position.

It follows that the migrant block, even if it was observed for a long time close to the grille covering the tunnel in the north-west corner of the King’s Chamber, had nothing to do with this tunnel opened by Al-Ma’mun and later re-visited by Perring. It did not come out of it. It was actually made of granite, while the sapping opens onto limestone blocks. Note that I am using the past tense in my description of the block, as it is no longer accessible for observation following the strange decision by the ‘master of the house’ to remove it from our view!

Second Observation: a second entrance, “between the lines” in the north wall of the King’s Chamber

It becomes a question of the sapping, on the west side of the north wall of the King’s Chamber. It has a quite unusual history.

Why did Al-Ma’mun’s soldier-engineers dig here precisely? They must certainly have spotted clues “somewhere” in the wall, attracting their curiosity and justifying their efforts.

These clues, if they were really revealing, should still exist today. Al-Ma’mun, doubtlessly searching for any treasure associated with the funereal chamber, simply made a mistake in interpreting them. He had excavations made downwards, when he should have dug horizontally!

So let’s look at the north wall, following Jean-Pierre Houdin’s instructions:

What do we see on the wall? On the right (east side, low down, in orange), the entrance through which we currently enter this room. On the left, the layout of granite blocks forms a doorway (in pink) that takes the entire weight of the (dark) granite ceiling beams. The (yellow) blocks filling the doorway do not bear on the central block at the bottom (blue). This seals the second entrance. It is free, exactly like the block that once sealed the first entrance. Free: in other words, it could be moved… for example, at the end of the king’s funeral ceremony, when the pyramid had to be sealed.

The cracks on the North wall of the King’s Chamber (from Gilles Dormion drawings)

Since these observations I have entered the pyramid numerous times, especially to the King’s Chamber, to make a close analysis of this north wall. I then paid attention to several other details. The first yellow block above the blue block is cracked in two places, at the center. This proves that there was a space between the two blocks, so that the one above did not rest on the one below.

Furthermore, we know that the ceiling beams have been cracked since construction, following subsidence of the chamber’s south wall. Later, certainly when Al-Ma’mouns workers dug the hole at the foot of the second entrance, the north wall also moved a little, 2 or 3 mm, i.e. practically nothing. But this was enough for the yellow block to crack and rest on the blue block.

The true entrance in the King’s Chamber

I also carried out an experiment with an out-of-date plastic credit card: I tried to slide it into the right-hand joint between the blue block and the pink block of the doorway I could do it easily, although it is practically impossible elsewhere. (It is often said of the joints in the pyramid that they are so perfect you could not insert a razor blade into them.) I slid this card, laid flat, along the stones, from block to block, to check their alignment. The only time my card stopped was exactly on this joint, proving that the blue block is slightly below the pink block. If the blue block had been put into position at the same time as the other blocks in the chamber, it would have been perfectly aligned with the others.

We close!

At this stage in the inventory of structures in the Great Pyramid, as made by Jean-Pierre Houdin, we find the subject of the previous article in this series, concerning this author:  the two antechambers. It is also good to remember certain developments from the second part of the exclusive interview given by the author to Pyramidales (see under the sub-title “A complex and wonderful closure system”).

Passing (virtually) through the north wall of this room, from inside the King’s Chamber, on the other side we actually find the upper part of the second antechamber, by passing along a fairly short corridor that plays an essential role in permanently sealing the funereal chamber, after the royal funeral.

Finally, do we really need to insist, in order to pay homage to a preconceived and outdated idea that found favor for a while? The King’s Chamber was not permanently closed from the inside. The royal mummy could hardly make workers, however devoted, wall themselves up like kamikazes. While the stone blocking the first entrance – service entrance, east side – was positioned from inside the chamber in the manner and for the reasons given above, that blocking the second entrance – the “Noble Circuit”, west side – was positioned from the outside by means of a pushing-block and piston operated from the second antechamber.

This technique introduced by Jean-Pierre Houdin in his reconstruction of the building of the Great Pyramid has been described and illustrated in the interview mentioned above.

Given its complexity, here is another explanation of it, a Pyramidales special, offered by the author:

The problem:

1 – For the day of the royal funeral, the corridor between the second antechamber and the King’s Chamber had to be totally cleared to allow the funeral cortège to pass.

2 – Yet it had to be possible to close the King’s Chamber with a granite block that sealed it perfectly, so having dimensions 2 or 3 mm smaller than its final position, and stored “nearby, on hand”.

3 – The King’s Chamber had to be closed from the outside, so that the workers were not imprisoned in the room after the operation, with no possible way out.

4 – It is impossible, “practically” and “materially”, to store the closure block in the second antechamber, then to raise it 7 m and present it in front of a passageway having the same dimensions, to the nearest 2 or 3 mm, and insert it … This would have required equipment and precision of movement that the Egyptian workers performing the operation could not possibly have provided.

5 – The “storage” area for the closure block therefore had to be located between the King’s chamber and the second antechamber, at that level.

The solution:

1 – Presence of a small corridor, about 4 cubits long and 2 wide, perpendicular to the connecting corridor and on its east side

2 – In this small corridor, two “twin” blocks (1 and 2 on the diagram above) were placed, the first becoming part of the east wall to the connecting corridor, the second “stuck” behind it.

3 – The front face of the second in contact with the rear face of the first was very slightly concave so as to leave a small space over the greater part of the surface. A brass “pad” was inserted into the second block, two thirds of the way up, projecting sufficiently to be theoretically in vertical alignment with the face. Its role was to allow the first block to be pushed fully into the corridor without “jamming” it against the opposite wall. When pushed by the piston (4 on the diagram), only this pad would be rubbed and very quickly worn away by the granite of the first block.

4 – As the driving force for the system, a pushing block (3 on the diagram), based on the type of drop-stone trap built into a corridor of the Bent Pyramid: this expertise gave rise to a pushing block used for the Red Pyramid and Khufu’s Pyramid.

5 – Up to this stage, everything was done “automatically”, the system being triggered (removal of a wedge across the corridor) by workers further on, movement being achieved on a “layer” of very fine sand.

6 – A stop prevented the pushing block from going further in its movement than necessary. When the second block had taken the place of the first, it could no longer move forward because the pushing block was at the end of its travel.

7 – The piston was pre-assembled in the second antechamber, on cross-beams. It did not move as long as the first block had not been pushed into the connecting corridor.

8 – Once the block was in the corridor, the piston was moved up to its north rear face (formerly the north side face of the block when it was still in the perpendicular corridor), then placed against it.

9 – In order to get the 750Kg-f needed to move the block, eight workers climbed onto the traction ropes, and four others pulled on the assembly: the first block moved forward in the connecting corridor until it stopped against the raised edge of the King’s Chamber floor.

10 – At the end of the operation, everything that could be recovered was dismantled and removed.

Much more to come!

Copyright by Marc Chartier, 2011.  All rights reserved.

But erecting the final resting place of a god-king involved more than structural and aesthetic considerations.  Hemienu was creating sacred ground, and within Khufu’s holy mountain there were specific paths to be trodden and a celestial order of operations to be observed. 

Beginning with the physical evidence from the pyramid, Jean-Pierre Houdin pieces these ancient traditions together in a way that suggests where to look and what to look for in unlocking the secrets of the Great Pyramid.  This is the third in a series of articles and interviews conducted by Marc Chartier with Jean-Pierre and other key members of Team Khufu, provided in English exclusively to Em Hotep.

In his studies of the Great Pyramid, presented in Khufu Reborn (read the exclusive interview given by the author to Pyramidales), Jean-Pierre Houdin has identified a “Noble Circuit”, namely the ritual route inside the monument followed during the Pharaoh’s funeral. One stage of this circuit did not pass unnoticed, and for good reason: two antechambers with corbelled vaults, a few meters before the entrance to the King’s Chamber, designed to shelter the sovereign’s goods and personal possessions.

Here Jean-Pierre Houdin contributes a few remarks in addition to the interview mentioned above, for readers of Pyramidales.

In the summer of 2003, when Jean-Pierre Houdin had already invested several thousand hours in 3D computer modeling, he made an observation that led him to suspect the existence of two antechambers in the pyramid of Khufu. A “dark zone” in the middle of the known internal structures kept coming up in his research. He could already distinguish this zone by analysis of micro-gravimetric readings that were in his possession but, oddly, had been overlooked. Now comparative observations of pyramids from the Third and Fourth Dynasties provided an answer to this dark zone.

The architect did not in fact consider the pyramid of Khufu as an isolated monument, even if it was the most famous in ancient Egypt. He placed it in a lineage, in an architectural scheme in which, from the stepped pyramid of Djoser to the smooth pyramids, each pyramid designer built on the innovations used in previous ones, while further developing the architectural concept. This is what Jean-Pierre Houdin sums up with the term “inheritance”. And Khufu did not escape the rule.

Two Observations

Two observations in particular captured the architect’s attention.

Firstly, the strange misalignment of the corridors and the Grand Gallery in the pyramid of Khufu, relative to the north-south axis. Such an offset could not be the result of chance. Nor could it be a “mistake” made by the Egyptian architects: they knew their job perfectly, based on solid tradition. So this could not possibly be an error, but a project, a plan, even if it is not necessarily easy to grasp at first glance, especially when we are bogged down in what Jean-Pierre Houdin calls “consensus thinking”.

After years spent 3D-modeling numerous potential solutions, illumination – the second observation, the real turning point of Khufu Reborn – was finally provided by another pyramid: the Red Pyramid, the last construction of Snefru, Khufu’s father. So, what was observed? This pyramid, built just before that of Khufu, encloses two magnificent antechambers with corbelled roofs, in front of the entrance to the funeral chamber. They are level with the base of the pyramid, although the chamber is nearly 8 m higher. This was a change in pyramid architecture: the funeral apartments had gained in height.

“Why, all of a sudden,” Jean-Pierre Houdin wondered, “did Khufu’s architects abandon this type of antechamber? They already had a lot to tackle, with the new roofing technique (flat ceiling) for the King’s Chamber, and they were not going to change everything from one pyramid to the next. They had a duty to respect their tradition, thus to ‘develop’ but not ‘revolutionize’ ”.

The two antechambers and the funerary chamber of the Red Pyramid

The two antechambers and the funerary chamber of Khufu’s Pyramid: a perfect copy and paste

Jean-Pierre continued his reasoning thus: “An experiment was called for: one of taking the antechambers from the Red Pyramid of Khufu’s father and quite simply ‘pasting’ them into his son’s pyramid, on a ‘design grid’ made up of one-cubit-sided squares. (1 cubit = 52.36 cm.) The funereal apartments of the Red Pyramid then appeared perfectly positioned in the pyramid of Khufu.”

“My investigation was making clear progress,” adds the architect-researcher. “I had a perfect antechamber model, similar to those we can visit today in the Red Pyramid at Dashur. And using CATIA 3D design software from Dassault Systèmes, I merely had to paste this model onto the Khufu grid, taking into account various factors already known or that I had found:

• for the Queen’s Chamber: a second entrance, a section of the ‘Noble Circuit’ and a marked deviation in the northern shaft;
• for the King’s Chamber: a very precisely located second entrance and a bizarrely routed northern shaft.

And here again: surprise! The model fitted perfectly. Not only did both the antechambers from the Red Pyramid ‘fit’ the grid perfectly, but they were centered on the north-south axis. The two antechambers from the Red Pyramid and the associated ‘Noble Corridor’ fit perfectly into the pyramid of Khufu. The interior architecture of the Great Pyramid was finally beginning to look like the funereal architecture of Egypt’s Fourth Dynasty.”

The Red Pyramid and the Pyramid of Khufu:  Look for the Similarity!

The press release summarizing Jean-Pierre’s research and conclusions and issued at the official presentation of Khufu Reborn on January 27, 2011, provides further explanations:

The Red Pyramid has the purest plan. The funeral chamber is in the edifice, preceded by two antechambers. The access corridor, antechambers and the chamber are perfectly aligned along the monument’s axis. The antechambers served to store the funeral belongings left to the deceased.

This very pure plan and these antechambers, led Jean-Pierre Houdin to wonder about Khufu’s inheritance. No antechambers in his pyramid, strangely offset corridors? Why this apparent inconsistency in the plan for the Great Pyramid? Why was the technique of antechambers with corbelled vaults, long since perfectly mastered, not used again? Would Khufu have had no goods? Hard to imagine for a king who left us the most imposing monument ever!

Hence the intuition by the author of Khufu Reborn to superimpose plans for the two pyramids. Let’s read on:

Jean-Pierre Houdin raised the corridor from the Red Pyramid and the antechambers so that the latter became those of Khufu’s chamber. They match perfectly. Better still, an explanation emerges for the well known misalignment of the descending and ascending corridors and the Grand Gallery. On the other hand, the set of antechambers is located precisely along the north-south axis and the west wall of the second antechamber is on a perfect alignment with the west wall of the King’s Chamber!

View from above

Although the current descending and ascending corridors of the Grand Gallery are generally considered as the circuit by which Khufu’s mortal remains were transported into his pyramid, Jean-Pierre Houdin has always challenged the funereal character of the Grand Gallery. For him, it was only a slide used to house the counterweight system.

Furthermore, using this passage poses an insoluble problem in connection with the sealing of the King’s Chamber. The granite block that obstructed the north-east entrance to the King’s Chamber (which entrance is not to be confused with the other one – the real one – on the west side of the chamber’s north wall), which was removed by Al-Ma’mun, could only be put back in place from the inside. And it is inconceivable to consider that a few unfortunate workers were walled up alive in the company of the dead king!

The pyramid’s plan can now be viewed in a new light. On the one hand, a consistent architectural legacy between the Red Pyramid and that of Khufu is re-established; on the other, the offset in the distribution of the corridors, considered strange until now, is explained.

As Jean-Pierre Houdin’s research progressed, his intuition, nurtured by further clues and a comparative study of pyramids from the Third and Fourth Dynasties, became a conviction: the King’s Chamber in the Great Pyramid, just like the internal layout of the Red Pyramid, based on the logic of architectural legacy, was itself preceded by two antechambers with corbelled vaults.

One final observation: inside the second antechamber of the Red Pyramid, high up, three pairs of circular holes face each other. The upper level of these holes is at exactly the same level as the floor of the corridor leading to the funeral chamber. According to Jean-Pierre Houdin, these holes were used to embed wooden beams across the antechamber and, over these beams, Egyptian builders placed a kind of “piston” made from a long piece of wood operated from below by a system of ropes. Pulling on these ropes pushed the piston forward in the corridor leading to the King’s Chamber. The piston then moved a block forward, sliding on a very thin layer of sand, and ended up resting against the floor of the King’s Chamber and sealing its entrance forever.

This closure block had quite simply been stored in the corridor’s east wall, in a small perpendicular passage in which its “twin” was also stored; a clever system, based on a pushing block and derived from a closure technique by drop-stone trap in the Bent Pyramid at Dahshur, pushed the two twinned blocks from a notch, once a wedge has been removed: the closure block was located in the corridor ready to be pushed by the piston and its twin took its place in the wall. This system can be observed in the Red Pyramid.

For Jean-Pierre Houdin, the transfer of this technique to the pyramid of Khufu seems to be a logical conclusion. Why – in what quest for originality – would the Great Pyramid’s builders have refrained from what, as a means of sealing a pyramid, was without any doubt the fruit of an architectural legacy, which, moreover, nothing would have allowed them to disregard?

 Many Centuries of Archaeological Myopia

Even if it meant facing the wrath of the higher echelons of Egyptology or researchers with various degrees of training in the vast and inexhaustible field of pyramidology, Jean-Pierre Houdin could no longer escape his own convictions: in his view, a structural analysis of the monument sheds new light on the real route of the funeral procession inside the Great Pyramid.

In this approach, without claiming to play the killjoy or, worse still, the kamikaze, he expects to have to confront many centuries of archaeological myopia. But his new plan of the Great Pyramid, in his opinion, has the merit of being based on history and sound reasoning, and, as well as being geometrically correct, explaining the many strange features in the pyramid’s design.

Above all, in the architect’s view, it provides King Khufu with the antechambers for the royal funeral goods, a logical deduction far removed from the fantasies of the treasure hunters.

In connection with these antechambers, Jean-Pierre Houdin likes to quote something a friend wrote to him in congratulation: “You have filled a historic void with a hole that dates back several millennia…”

That sums it up…

Clues from the Red Pyramid

“The Red Pyramid at Dahshur has two antechambers. Inside the second, high up, three pairs of circular holes facing each other. The upper level of these holes is at exactly the same level as the floor of the corridor leading to the funereal chamber. I considered that these holes had been used to embed wooden beams across the antechamber and over these beams, Egyptian builders had placed a kind of ‘piston’ made from a long piece of wood operated from below by a system of ropes. Just pulling on the ropes was enough to advance the piston into the corridor. Thus it pushed the block, sliding on a very thin layer of sand, ending up resting against the floor of the King’s Chamber and sealing its entrance forever.

This scenario was perfect, but still needed one most important answer: how do you push a block that could not have been lifted high enough, and that could not have been stored in the corridor because it would have prevented the funeral procession from passing. This squares the circle!

I have found part of the answer in another pyramid of Snefru: the Bent Pyramid, built just before the Red Pyramid.” (Jean-Pierre Houdin)

Clues from the Bent Pyramid

“To block the passage and prevent access to Snefru’s funereal chamber, the architects had installed two enormous portcullises in the corridor leading to it that, were retained in very narrow and inaccessible recesses before being lowered. The most interesting thing for me was the way in which these portcullises were released to block the passage:

• firstly, in the raised position, they were held leaning on a small block that prevented them remaining stuck in place at the moment they were released;
• secondly, a simple wooden wedge (in red) held them in this raised position.

To close the passage, the workers just had to remove the wedge and the portcullis was lowered automatically.”

Copyright by Marc Chartier, 2011.  All rights reserved.