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)

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

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

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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.

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.

“The Egyptians built what they knew how to, as simply and logically as possible.”  –Jean-Pierre Houdin

Continuation of the interview Jean-Pierre Houdin gave exclusively to Pyramidales, to coincide with the public presentation of his “theory” Khufu Reborn (aka Khufu Renaissance).

After discussing his working approach in presenting the Great Pyramid’s construction in a new light, then flying us over the Giza Plateau (royal causeway, external ramp extended by a second internal ramp), he takes us inside the monument to show us structures abandoned a great many centuries ago to the silence of the stone.

The aim of his reasoning:  to reveal the “how” of the pyramid’s primary function. Before being a gigantic arrangement of limestone and granite blocks, this monument was actually designed and built to serve as the eternal resting place for a deceased Pharaoh. Now, the similarities between the Fourth Dynasty pyramids lead the architect to draw the obvious conclusions, given the funereal architectural logic of the era: the inference of the existence of two antechambers in front of the King’s Chamber; the abandoning of the “service circuit” (descending and ascending corridors, Grand Gallery, etc.) as insufficiently “noble” for the royal funeral; the second entrance (the real one) to the King’s Chamber, and so on.

The “Noble Circuit” inside the Great Pyramid

For Jean-Pierre Houdin, the constructional logic of his former builder “colleagues” is irrefutable: how could Khufu have given up the technical advances used in pyramids built immediately before his own? Unthinkable! The seventh Wonder of the World, the Great Pyramid, in its internal configuration, was only able to include the “Noble Circuit” and the essential facilities for an eternal resting place, by starting with the antechambers to the sarcophagus chamber.

Calling on the 3D techniques in which they are the internationally renowned specialists, the experts at Dassault Systèmes made virtual models of the pyramid to test the “feasibility” of the construction project as identified by Jean-Pierre in his study of the monument. The architect himself drew practical conclusions from this study: from now on, we can no longer look at or study the Pyramid of Khufu as we have considered it in the past. Archaeological myopia no longer applies to this illustrious monument.

The external ramp : up to 1/3 of the pyramid’s height

Pyramidales: “The facts learned from your reconstitution of the Great Pyramid’s construction are now well known: an external ramp up to one third of the final height, equivalent to two thirds of the pyramid’s final volume; a regularly reset counterweight system, developing into the Grand Gallery and the ascending corridor, to raise the monoliths for the King’s Chamber; an internal ramp to transport the blocks used for the last third of the volume, equivalent to the last two-thirds of the pyramid’s total height. Are you sticking to these facts? Or are you changing them with Khufu Reborn?”

Two Internal Ramps

J.-P. Houdin: “In fact I am coming back to these facts, by building on them. The new position of the external ramp, determined by the position of the plateau ramp, and the discovery of a room behind the notch on the north-east edge had a very special significance: 85% of the pyramid’s volume could be built using the external ramp.

Level +43m (storage area for the granite beams)

“From then on, I suspend construction of the internal ramp at level +43 m (south face) during the construction of the King’s Chamber and until the pyramid reaches a height of 70 m. The internal ramp ends in the south-west corner at level +43 m and resumes its progress at the same level in the south-east corner. Between the two, the teams dragging the facing blocks made of Tura stone passed through the storage area for the granite beams at this same level. The internal ramp, which runs counter-clockwise and which I now call the ‘main internal ramp’, no longer cuts across the path of the external ramp, so a second internal, spiral, open-trench ramp extends the route up a slope in the body of the pyramid, this time in a clockwise direction. The possibilities offered by this second ramp stop at about +70 m, as the snake chases its own tail.

Advancement of the construction (external ramp and internal ramp)

The trench is then filled in and the section of the internal ramp between the two south-west and south-east edges is built, permanently connecting the two parts. The southern part is built up to catch up with level +70 m. The external ramp can then be dismantled to provide the limestone blocks needed to construct the last 76 meters in height. No extracted stone will be wasted.

“The price paid by the Egyptians: a section of the main internal ramp is horizontal, which might appear stupid: on the contrary, by sacrificing slope in this section, the Egyptians greatly reduced the workload of the ramp: it still needed to provide supplies for the construction up to the summit, that is to enable construction of the remaining 76 m in height, but only 15% of the volume instead of 33%. The advantage far outweighs the disadvantage.

“Moreover, the very strong supposition concerning the presence of a first counterweight on the plateau consequently supports the function of the Grand Gallery as a slide channel for the second counterweight. I fail to see any reason constraining the designers to give the Grand Gallery two functions. Making an antechamber of it? With a slope of 50%, it is not the most practical place to store funereal goods!

In the Khufu Reborn version of the theory of Jean-Pierre Houdin, the internal ramp has two levels: The first one, at the lower level, for the teams pulling the sledges carrying the blocks; the second, the upper level, for the teams coming back to their base with the empty sledges. The big advantage: the external gangway has disappeared. Everything is done inside the pyramid. At the junction of two sections of the internal ramp the sledges were rotated at a 90° angle to face the next section. An example is “Bob’s Room”, the notch which has been explored by Dr Bob Brier, the Egyptologist and friend of Jean-Pierre Houdin

“We forget that the pyramid was built in successive horizontal layers (courses) and that therefore, at each level, workers were working on a flat surface. It was then easy to construct rooms of the same type as the antechambers in the Red Pyramid in parallel with construction of the Grand Gallery, and to create the shortest possible corridors to connect them to the entrance in the north face. For example, the second horizontal corridor of the Queen’s Chamber, discovered by the Japanese, is located at the same level as the summit of the first series of rafters above the descending corridor. No need to use a donkey to follow the route: it’s flat!

“I cannot see my colleagues of the period forgetting to make such as corridor and being content only to keep a route leading to the Queen’s Chamber, passing through the known structures. Taking the descending corridor over nearly 40 m, then continuing by going back up the ascending corridor for 35 m, and following another 35 m of horizontal corridor finally to enter this chamber: this is an assault course, not a logical plan for a precise function, namely to get from A to B by the shortest route, as the Egyptians had the habit of doing in pyramids.”

Pyramidales: “Now let’s go inside the pyramid, in your company. Let’s begin at the start of the journey that will bring us as far as the funereal chamber: the entrance to the monument.

What is the configuration?”

The “Adaptor”

Jean-Pierre Houdin: “This other structure of the Great Pyramid still reveals the genius of its designers: it’s what I call the ‘adaptor’.

The entrance of the pyramid: the “adaptor”

“The Egyptians, while keeping a single entrance shared by all the pyramid’s corridors, grafted a double room a few meters from the north face onto the descending corridor. The role of the rafters we can see in this area was to cover voids (the double room) to the back of which the other circuit, the ‘Noble Circuit’, could be connected. The funereal route then became logical and short: 5 m of descending corridor, passing through a 2 m-high shaft into the double room, continuing through a second ascending corridor, 35 m long and parallel to but higher than the known one, arriving in a horizontal corridor linking the first antechamber, passing into the second antechamber and ending up in the King’s Chamber through a short 5 m corridor beginning more than 7 m above the floor of the antechambers.

“I could describe the route of Snefru’s funeral in similar fashion, with the difference that, for the latter, the procession descended from the entrance, while for Khufu it climbs. And this adaptor had a last function: to link the ‘Noble Circuit’ to the internal ramp, which crosses a few meters above, through a small vertical shaft that was modeled in the bedrock and 50 m east of the pyramid, as the same time as other complex details that we find inside, such as the junctions of different corridors.

“This small shaft will play a very significant role at the end of the funeral: after having sealed the King’s Chamber and corridors, the workers will leave the pyramid by going back up this shaft and taking the internal ramp as far as its entrance at the pyramid’s base; once outside, this entrance will be sealed in its turn. Nothing simpler and more logical… because it was designed in advance!

“One last thing: the Egyptians certainly never thought of constructing pyramids so that their architectural structures would become enigmas to be solved by a civilization coming along several millennia later. They built what they knew how to, as simply and logically as possible. They never considered building tricks, to fool possible looters; this function was reserved, with a greater or lesser degree of luck, to the portcullis and especially the stopper-blocks we find in the pyramids. The ‘Noble Circuit’ that I suspected matches the architectural logic perfectly.”

Structures of the internal ramp

Pyramidales: “After having followed a second ascending corridor, then a second horizontal corridor – ‘new features’, if I may say so, in Khufu Reborn – the solemn funeral procession ended up at what you call the ‘Royal Apartments’. What were their function and their configuration?”

Two Antechambers

J.-P. Houdin: “In the funereal architectural tradition of the end of the Third Dynasty and a large part of the Fourth, the deceased’s apartments in the hereafter were composed of two antechambers immediately adjacent to the sepulchral chamber. To continue his life in the next world, the King therefore had his goods and personal possessions stored in these antechambers, what through the greed of man would later be called the ‘treasures of the Pharaohs’, but which in the spirit of the age had only a religious purpose; and this is only the later which interest me.

“At the end of the Third Dynasty, then in the Fourth under Snefru’s long reign, the architectural model of these apartments was based on the principle of a funereal chamber immediately preceded by two antechambers, slightly offset on a longitudinal axis. We find them in the form of two small cubicles in the Pyramid of Meidum, then as two contiguous rooms in the Bent Pyramid at Dashur, and finally as two twinned rooms in the Red Pyramid, again at Dashur.

“In parallel, we see continuous elevation of the funereal apartments, constructed first in the bedrock, then totally within the mass of the stonework for the Red Pyramid, the last one built before Khufu’s Pyramid.

“We find nothing of this architectural logic in Khufu; and there lies the real reason that we can ask ourselves: do we really know this pyramid? Would its looting and exploration by the Caliph Al-Ma’mun have led to a misunderstanding that lasted twelve centuries? The simple fact that looters reached as far as the King’s Chamber does not necessarily imply that we were aware of the funereal apartments. The end of the story of looting by the Caliph, finally ending in failure, must be seen as an invitation to push on further in terms of the internal architecture.”

Pyramidales: “We may wonder about the structural link between the configuration of the two chambers in front of the actual King’s Chamber and the monumental superstructure, over several floors – the so-called “relieving chambers” – for this latter chamber…”

Without the “Relieving Chambers” structure, the antechambers would have been crushed by the oblique load transferred by the rafters on the north side of the roof, their corbelled roofs being unable to bear any other load than a vertical one.

Above the King’s Chamber, the purpose of the “Relieving Chambers” is to raise up, higher up in the core of the masonry, the limestone rafters which cover the whole structure, acting like an umbrella.

The “Umbrella” Roof

J.-P. Houdin: “If, in the Pyramid of Khufu, we include conceptual consideration about the possible existence of a funereal apartment in this architectural continuity, while also including a change in technical expression (here I am talking about the innovative choice made by the designers to cover the sepulchral chamber with a flat ceiling, but without challenging technical knowledge, the magnificent corbelling of the antechambers in the Red Pyramid), the reason for the presence of this structure of “relieving chambers” suddenly becomes crystal clear.

“By combining antechambers roofed by corbelling (arches with springer stones), structurally only able to withstand vertical loads, and a vault with rafters located on a perpendicular axis, for the roof of the King’s Chamber, transferring oblique loads, the Egyptians made the bold choice by taking a calculated risk. Very knowledgeable about materials and force transfer, they chose granite to make the ceiling of the King’s Chamber, because it was the only stone that made it possible. As this ceiling takes no load, they would then have been able to place the roof of limestone rafters immediately above it, but then, the north slope of the latter would have transferred the supported load laterally and the corbelling would have been crushed under the load. They only had one solution: move the roof very high into the mass, which we can compare to an umbrella protecting the ceilings, so that the oblique loads transferred from the northern slope are no longer applied to the corbelling.

“The cost was worthy of the stakes: to create a room with absolutely perfect dimensions in the heart of the edifice, because the pyramid’s constructors had to place more than 3,000 tons of granite stacked over five ceilings. After having already been obliged to build in the counterweight systems for the beams for the first ceiling, they used installation methods that were already planned anyway.”

Pyramidales: “In your opinion, the only visible entrance to the King’s Chamber, which is still used today, only had an access role to this part of the construction site. How was it permanently blocked off?

“And the other entrance, in the west part of the north wall of the King’s Chamber, the one that you say was used for the funeral ceremonies, how was it permanently closed in its turn, to preserve the privacy and secret of the royal sepulcher?”

A Complex and “Wonderful” Closure System

J.-P. Houdin: “The entrance to the King’s Chamber on the east side of its north wall, from what I call the service circuit (ascending corridor and Grand Gallery), could only be sealed from inside the chamber. Many details prove it. The sealing block that “lay around” in the chamber for 1,200 years is the absolute proof of it.

“To close off access to the chamber from the 2nd circuit, the “Noble (or funereal) Circuit”, the Egyptians had included the essential technical process for perfect and simple closure right from the original plans, in the section of the corridor linking the last antechamber to the King’s Chamber.

“If we carefully analyze the closure system in the west access corridor of the Bent Pyramid at Dahshur, we notice the presence of two enormous oblique portcullis stones intended to block the passage to the funereal chamber. Through the chance of history, one of these two portcullis stones remained in its raised position, the second blocking the corridor in front. This closure mechanism is based on a block weighing several tons maintained in its raised position by a wooden prop on the corridor side (visible on the second, unreleased portcullis), while being ‘unstuck’ from its slide by being tipped up on a limestone block on the opposite side. Such unsticking is fundamental to avoid what is called ‘starting (or sticky) friction’, which if not dealt with prevents any movement without a ‘bit of a boost’, even on a pronounced slope (this is why on Egyptian bas-reliefs we often see figures carrying wooden levers used to unstick the back of the runners on transport sledges).

“The operating principle of this type of portcullis is therefore as follows: a worker removes the wooden prop straddling the corridor, thus releasing the portcullis that, not being ‘stuck’ to its slide, moves forward by making the rear block tip over. The portcullis then gains speed on its slide and ends its travel in the rebate made at the other end of its journey. We can say that this is practically an ‘automatic’ portcullis.

“From this system, the architects transposed a more elaborate version of it than that in the Bent Pyramid at Dashur. In the case of the Great Pyramid, it was no longer a question of closing the access corridor, but of very cleanly and almost undetectably sealing the funereal chamber itself. The closure block therefore had to be able to merge completely with the other blocks in the room. The floor of the last antechamber before the funereal chamber being nearly 8 m lower than that of the chamber, it was impossible for a dozen workers to raise a block weighing more than 3 tons to such a height, and particularly to introduce it into a corridor having an identical cross-section, to the nearest 2 mm. The only solution: store this block between the two rooms, as close to the connecting corridor as possible, and bring it into the corridor after interring the King in his sarcophagus.

“And here again Egyptian genius has worked wonders: this block was positioned, with a little bit of play, in the wall of the corridor, halfway along it, as an integral part of this wall; it was held in place by a wooden prop laid on the floor across the corridor, this prop becoming the trigger for the planned mechanism. Stuck to the back of this block, a second ‘twinned’ block was positioned in a small corridor perpendicular to the access corridor. The aim was to bring the first block into position in the access corridor and to replace it in the wall by its twin. So that the operation was able to function, it was necessary to be able to push the two blocks from behind the second block using an independent mechanism; and this is where we find the development from the Bent Pyramid’s portcullis system. This was transformed into a ‘push-block’, while keeping the same original characteristics for starting it moving.

“The mechanism was very simple: after having sprinkled a very fine layer of Sinai sand on the corridor floor (for its perfectly regular ‘quartz beads’ properties), workers positioned in the second antechamber removed the wooden prop from the corridor using a rope. Once it was cleared away, the push-block was released and pushed the two twin blocks, the first taking its place in the corridor, and the second its place in the corridor wall. It only remained to push the closure block up to its final position in the wall of the funereal chamber.

“And here again, a stroke of genius: a wooden ‘piston’ (a single piece of wood about 7 m long) positioned longitudinally over cross-beams fitted between the corbelling of the second antechamber, at the same level as the corridor floor, was operated from the room. Once the block was in the corridor, there only remained about 1.50 m to travel for it to reach its final position. The piston was then brought up to the rear of this block weighing more than 3 tons. To push it, a force of about 750 kg/f was required, which was a mere formality for the workers. The piston was operated using ropes from the base of the antechamber, almost 8 m below. About eight workers climbed ‘by rope’, adding their own weight to the mechanism, four others remained on the floor pulling the entire system until the block arrived at its stop against the floor slab of the funereal chamber.

“In the Red Pyramid, it is very easy to confirm that this system was also used, by analyzing the second antechamber (holes in the corbelling for the beams supporting the piston) and the connecting corridor (twin block different from the other wall blocks and special feature of the ceiling in two parts).

“This system functioned perfectly and was repeated for Khufu’s Pyramid. When the closure block was put into place, some sand was perhaps pushed inside the funereal chamber, leaving something unusual on the floor. It was perhaps this that attracted the attention of looters from the time of Al-Ma’mun: although there are close to 32 linear meters of wall in this room, they dug a tunnel just to the right of this closure block…nowhere else. They felt that there should have been ‘something’ in this area, but instead of thinking of digging horizontally into the wall, they dug vertically to a depth of more than 5 meters!”

Pyramidales: “Every construction project comes to an end. Like others, even that of the most sumptuous pyramid. And of course an exit route was needed for the last workers… Until now, a certain consensus was formed around the usefulness, for this purpose, of the ‘well’ leaving from the junction of the ascending corridor-horizontal corridor towards the Queen’s Chamber, coming out into the descending corridor. Now, according to you, this well had no other function than to ventilate the site. So from where did the last workers leave? And, for that matter, the priests and officials from the funeral procession, once the royal mummy had been laid in its eternal resting place?”

The Exit Well

J.-P. Houdin: “The technique used to construct this ventilation shaft says a lot. Originally, there would have had to be a vertical route between the bedrock and the rear of the west wall of the Great Gallery at its junction with the ascending corridor, its route being the most logical. It had to be extended into the rocky footing at an angle, until it joined the descending corridor level with the ceiling of the underground chamber, thus creating what is called a ‘throat effect’, like in a fireplace to increase the draw and create a double circuit with the descending corridor.

“The presence of an unexpected cave immediately adjacent in the footing pushed the architects to take advantage of this void to save time. The part dug towards the underground chamber started vertically to join the theoretical oblique route and continue as planned. On the other hand, to return to the vertical towards the Great Gallery, the architects were obliged to reduce the deviation from the original vertical route: being so close to the north-south axis, they had the means of knowing where they were going. So they constructed the part of the shaft within the mass by remembering that they were sappers, people who dig. So they laid a first horizontal layer (course) of limestone blocks and dug into this layer to ‘find’ the shaft beneath. They continued in this way slightly offsetting the hole towards the north, but always the same distance from the north-south axis, until they returned to the vertical of the planned outlet. From then on they continued the process vertically.

 “This well was necessary to enable a dozen workers to dig the underground chamber under acceptable conditions. The position of its outlet at the bottom of the Grand Gallery was shrewd: throughout its entire construction, ventilation was provided at no great cost! The well had taken the shortest possible route in order to be used for the longest possible time.

“But when the King’s Chamber was constructed, the underground chamber was permanently abandoned and the Grand Gallery was going to be used for the reason it had been constructed: to be the slide channel for a giant counterweight. The well’s outlet, dug into the shelf on the west side, was filled in with perfectly executed masonry, in order to enable the roller train to move correctly.

“The way it was rediscovered by Al-Ma’mun’s men clearly shows that this shaft had been very carefully filled in from inside the Grand Gallery, preventing it being used to evacuate workers after the funeral, what’s more setting off the stopper-blocks obstructed the bottom of the ascending corridor.

“Nonetheless we must remember a fundamental element: the architects that designed this pyramid certainly did not forget the ‘why’ of the project, namely to construct a royal tomb to ensure eternity for their King. The question of the funeral was therefore one of the main subjects in their thoughts. They weren’t going to ‘botch’ this part of their project. In designing the ‘Noble Circuit’, the one passing through the antechambers, they planned the way out for priests and workers.

“Fifty meters east of the pyramid, they modeled all the slightly complex details that they were not able to deal with using their design system (using a horizontal grid and a vertical grid, which gives 3D when you read the two grids at the same time!). Thus we find details of the entrance to the descending corridor, its junctions with the ascending corridor, and finally the junction between the ascending corridor, Grand Gallery and horizontal corridor. And they detailed, above the junction of the ascending and descending corridor, a shaft that had very great significance for the project and that has not (yet) been found in the pyramid: this well had to connect the ‘Noble Circuit’ to an element that had already been included in the project from the start, for good reason: the internal ramp. The designers traced its route by making it cross the ‘Noble Circuit’ close to and a few meters above the entrance rooms (under the rafters).

“One shaft four meters high settled the problem of evacuating the workers after sealing the ‘Noble Circuit’ from the inside. The rest was just a ‘walk in the park’! The workers, once they had reached the internal ramp, were able to descend as far as its entrance on the south face. Stonemasons were waiting to close this entrance for good and bury it beneath the cloak of Tura limestone: 10 m2 of blocks immersed in a facade of 21,000 m2… a needle in a haystack!”

Pyramidales: Following Khufu Revealed, you have called Episode 2 Khufu Reborn – for Khufu Renaissance  -. Why this term? Our dictionaries offer several definitions for the word “renaissance”: “new birth”, “reappearance or new lease of life”, “intellectual and artistic revival”, appeared with the Italian Rinascimento in the XVth-XVIth centuries… Which of these definitions did you use as your reference?”

J.-P. Houdin: “This is a very interesting question. Khufu Renaissance is a title suggested by Mehdi Tayoubi. It matches the content of this new stage in the development of my work perfectly, by combining each of the definitions you quoted:

• ‘new birth’, because our knowledge of the Great Pyramid is incomplete and it was really ‘born’ on January 27, 2011 (from my point of view, at least);
• ‘intellectual revival’, because this challenges our perception and our analysis of this monument: all the explanations regarding its construction, its internal layout and the funeral journey are ‘blown apart’;
• ‘reappearance’: we had not actually given any news since 2007;
• ‘new lease of life’: this presentation will relaunch the theory and especially bring an analysis and a new look to the whole Giza Plateau and beyond, including the other great pyramids: the Red Pyramid, the Bent Pyramid and Khafre’s Pyramid.

“And finally, in the context of The Renaissance as ‘intellectual and artistic revival’, it is actually a major evolution/revolution in the approach of archaeology; it brings it out of the simple context of studying documents, analysis on the ground and excavations, projecting it into the past using technologies of the future, at the center of which is 3D in all its forms (design, virtual reconstitution, animation and real time and relief immersion, for example). It brings a new dimension, anticipatory archaeology, enabling research on the ground to be guided.”

Pyramidales: “Jean-Pierre, to thank you for the welcome you have given readers of Pyramidales and for the clarity of your answers… a trick question! There was Episode 1 (the Great Pyramid in its operational structures). Now there is Episode 2 (the pyramid in its functional and ritual structures), from which we can already catch a glimpse of the impact on the general public and informed ‘pyramidologists’. Will there be, in the medium or longer term, an Episode 3? Or there again, are you planning to pitch your researcher’s tent at the foot of some other pyramid?

And now?

J.-P. Houdin: “Marc, strictly speaking there will be no Episode 3. No Hollywood thoughts in my approach, no desire for a Khufu Saga, but throughout all these years of research, I have discovered and studied all the great smooth pyramids from Snefru’s to Menkaure’s and, little by little, I have, in parallel, solved the problem of constructing each one.

“A fundamental point common to them all: they were all constructed from the inside and they all, except Menkaure’s (and the Djedefre interlude), had an internal ramp running around their mass; on the other hand, this internal ramp was adapted to each pyramid. The route for one differed from that of another.

“Starting with Menkaure’s Pyramid, the technique of constructing from the inside continued for the smooth pyramids, but the problem of height, less serious, would be solved by construction trenches as can be seen in the ruins of the pyramids of Sahure and Neferirkare at Abu Sir.

“My next steps should lead me to North Dashur (the Red Pyramid) and South Dashur (the Bent Pyramid), with yet another surprise in terms of the stages of construction for the latter.

“But nothing will take me away from the Giza Plateau, because I still have one last small formality to complete: to be able to walk along the internal ramp and visit the funereal apartments… This is the only thing I have not achieved!”

Copyright by Marc Chartier, 2011.  All rights reserved.

The burial room of Pharaoh Khufu required that his Overseer of Royal Projects, the great architect and engineer Hemienu, transport massive beams of granite, some of which weighed in excess of 60 tons, more than 60 meters above the pyramid’s foundation.  With each successive course of blocks his workspace became more confined, the uphill drag became longer, and the placement became more precise.  Where did the energy required for this undertaking come from?

In Phase One we looked at how two thirds of the pyramid and all of its internal structures below the King’s Chamber were constructed with a ramp that reached less than one third of its height.  In Phase Two we will look at how the King’s Chamber and its related architecture were built using this same ramp, as well as some innovations in design and methodology that included scaffolding, an elevator, and a powerful tractor, all of which were integrated into the architecture itself, and all of which used tools and principles known to be in existence during Hemienu’s time.

We will devote this current article to explaining exactly what it was Hemienu was building in Phase Two.

During Phase Two Hemienu was entirely concerned with the construction of the King’s Chamber, and perhaps it is best to forget for the moment about the rest of the pyramid.  The Great Pyramid at that point was a massive 43 meter high platform that provided both the foundation for and the machinery involved in building a smaller pyramid, which in turn served the dual purpose of support and scaffolding for the burial chamber and its related architecture.  In Phase Two, the superstructure we will be referring to is not the Great Pyramid itself, but this mini-pyramid being constructed on its fiftieth course.

But we will also be taking a much more detailed look at the Grand Gallery and its related architecture.  If the Great Pyramid was a machine of construction during Phase Two, then the Grand Gallery and the Ascending Corridor housed its engine.  Phase One was a saga of architecture, geometry, and logistics.  Phase Two is a tale of men and machines—elevators, counterweights, ballasts, even trolley tracks.  And yes, ramps.

The megalithic beams used in the King’s Chamber and the Relieving Compartments were first pulled up the external ramp and stored on a reinforced staging area.  This was accomplished with the help of a counterweight system in the Grand Gallery.  Then a mini-pyramid was built as the King’s Chamber went up.  This structure served as both the support for the King’s Chamber architecture and the scaffolding for the project.  A freight elevator, also powered by the counterweight system, was incorporated into this mini-pyramid, all of which would disappear into the core of the Great Pyramid in Phase Three.

Like Phase One, Phase Two can be divided into three sections—the worksite formed by the fiftieth course of the pyramid and how the external ramp functioned during this phase, how the counterweight system worked, and then finally the King’s Chamber.  But in order to fully appreciate how the worksite was organized, how the mini-pyramid was constructed, and how the counterweight system worked, it is best to start with a detailed description of the King’s Chamber and its related architecture.

Hemienu to Houdin Phase Two will thus be divided along these lines:  Part A—The King’s Chamber; Part B—The Grand Gallery and Counterweight System; and Part C—How It All Came Together.

The King’s Chamber… Or is it?  

Arguments to the contrary notwithstanding, as far as we know the King’s Chamber was intended to be Pharaoh Khufu’s final resting place, which (obviously) is why it is called the King’s Chamber.  While there are those who believe that Khufu’s actual burial room lies yet undiscovered within the Great Pyramid, there is some fairly good circumstantial evidence that the King’s Chamber was intended to be the focal piece of the whole ensemble.  To begin with, it contains a sarcophagus…  generally considered a pretty reliable clue that a room might be a burial chamber.

[Anecdotal Exception:  I once knew a police detective who kept a coffin in his living room.  When I asked him why, he said because the neighbors complained about it being on his porch.  True story.]

The King’s Chamber and the sarcophagus – usually, but not always, a good sign that someone was interred (Photo by Keith Payne)

But there are other reasons as well.  Structurally speaking, it is the center of the design.  This does not mean that it is literally in the physical center of the pyramid.  Instead, it means that everything below, beneath, and around the King’s Chamber was designed to support a 20×10 cubit room with a flat ceiling, exactly where it is located.  Everything else, from the materials used in its construction to its exact positioning, was geared toward achieving this goal.  Hemienu would accomplish this using tried and true methods and innovations that expanded on these techniques.

As we will see throughout our explication of Phase Two, the Grand Gallery exists as it does and where it does in order to build the King’s Chamber.  When compared with the external ramp and the elevation of the Relieving Compartments, every detail from the length and height of the Grand Gallery to the positioning of the Great Step was determined by the dimensions of the King’s Chamber and the gabled ceiling of the structure above it.  So if there is an even more regal tomb in the pyramid—we’ll call it the Emperor’s Chamber—then where is it and how was it built?

One possibility is that it could be to the south of the Queen’s Chamber, but again, where?  In order to stay on the north/south axis it would have to be lower than the southern “air shafts” (intercom channels) leading out of the King’s and Queen’s chambers, which would situate it lower than both, which is not a very stately location for an Emperor.  Royal burial chambers in the large-scale pyramids prior to Khufu (Djoser’s Step Pyramid is an exception, but a lot of changes followed Djoser) were higher than other chambers and antechambers, and Khafre would likewise follow suit. 

At this point one might rightly observe that Pharaoh Menkaure, who came after Khafre, located his final burial chamber lower than an earlier burial room.  Both of these tombs were cut into the bedrock, which could explain the deviation.  While it is true that changes in a pyramid that is already under construction are risky, one safe place to make changes is in the bedrock.  Unlike a pyramid, which becomes smaller as it rises, making alterations difficult, changing the layout of the understructure in the bedrock was comparatively simple and safe.

The point being that when construction is progressing downward, as it would be in the bedrock, rather than upward, as it would be in the superstructure, Menkaure could feasibly have decided to make an even more impressive burial room deeper than the other chamber.  I am not arguing that this is the “exception that proves the rule,” but I am saying that once the pyramid was underway the only safe place to make a large change in plan was deeper into the ground (parallel excavation would have undermined more of the superstructure), and the promise of a better tomb may have outweighed tradition.

Nothing discovered so far suggests that a larger, more impressive burial chamber was excavated in the bedrock beneath the Great Pyramid, and there is no evidence of a larger tomb in the superstructure beneath the King’s Chamber.  There is evidence of additional plans in the Subterranean Chamber, such as the so-called well-shaft and the southern extension, but whatever their intended purpose may have been, they were abandoned, most likely when the Queen’s Chamber was completed and there was no longer a use for the chamber as a provisional tomb. 

Although Menkaure’s pyramid shows that tradition is not always a hard and fast rule, it does not seem likely that Khufu would have settled for a burial chamber that was both lower and smaller than the King’s Chamber.  The man who commissioned the only surviving Wonder of the Ancient World does not strike me as a man prone to compromises.  So what about beside or above the King’s Chamber?

It is not likely that an Emperor’s Chamber could exist parallel to the King’s Chamber because if it were centered along the north-south axis (as everything else is) then one or both of the southern intercom channels would pass through it.  This same problem exists for several meters higher than the floor-level of the King’s Chamber.  In fact, an Emperor’s Chamber would have to be higher than the gabled ceiling of the Relieving Compartments, otherwise the rafters would be directing the pressure from the masonry into the hollow space of the Emperor’s Chamber, leading to a collapse of both.

Building an Emperor’s Chamber above the rafters brings us back to the problems of Phase One—how do you deliver the megalithic beams that high?  Building a higher room would require another set of Relieving Compartments for a flat ceiling, or at least another set of rafters if it had a gabled ceiling.  Recall that Hemienu went to great lengths to avoid corbelling everywhere but the Grand Gallery, and both a flat and gabled ceiling would require the transport of beams that would be too large for the internal ramp, requiring a longer and higher external ramp, a problem we already examined at length.

Building an Emperor’s Chamber—a burial room at least as impressive as the King’s Chamber, only higher—would not only have required a bigger external ramp, it would have required a second counterweight system, which means a second Grand Gallery and a second Ascending Passageway are likewise hidden somewhere in the considerably more restricted space of the top half of the Great Pyramid.  Otherwise there would be no way to raise the massive beams required for its construction.  A cursory glance at the inner workings of Khufu’s Pyramid in profile shows the impossibility of this.

So to return to the question, was the King’s Chamber intended as the final resting place for Pharaoh Khufu, or is there an even better Emperor’s Chamber that lies undiscovered, the answer seems to be the former:  the room that contains the sarcophagus was indeed the king’s burial room.  The Emperor, it would seem, has neither clothes nor a tomb.

But in the final analysis, the question is largely academic.  If a secret room containing Khufu’s mummy is discovered tomorrow it will have no bearing on the question of how the King’s Chamber was built.  It may offer new questions and potentially a few answers, but it would not change a single aspect of what we do know about the King’s Chamber and its architecture, and what was required in its construction.  So let’s take a look at what we do know for certain—dimensions and materials.  We will start with what is inside the King’s Chamber—the sarcophagus.

The Sarcophagus of Pharaoh Khufu

Just as the King’s Chamber is the focal point of the Great Pyramid, the sarcophagus is the focal point of the King’s Chamber.  And likewise, just as the King’s Chamber is not the physical center of the pyramid, the sarcophagus is not in the physical center of the King’s Chamber—both are precisely aligned, but with a larger scheme in mind. 

The sarcophagus is oriented north to south close to the west wall of the burial room, with the eastern side of the sarcophagus situated along the north-south axis of the pyramid.  It was meticulously hollowed out from a single block of red Aswan granite.

One of the pinion holes in the sarcophagus' western edge that probably held a lid in place—tubular drills were slow, but precise (Photo by Jon Bodsworth)

Spiral markings inside the box and pinion holes on the western lip indicate the use of drills.  We know that copper tubular bow-drills were used during this period, and the markings suggest drills and saws were used for precision and dolerite pounders to wear away the bulk.  Rather than teeth, the copper tools would have used an abrasive grit to cut, much like sand paper.  It would have been a long and tedious process, taking no less than 28,000 hours to complete (Brier and Houdin, pp. 199-200; Stocks, pp. 918-22).

The fitting groove for the sarcophagus lid (Photo by Andrew Currie)

The sarcophagus measures 2.28 meters long, .98 meters wide, and 1.05 meters in height.  The inner dimensions are 1.98 meters long, .67 meters wide, and .87 meters deep, and it weighs around 3.75 tons.  It is a simple box with no ornamentation or markings.  There is no lid, although the pinion holes and an inner groove on the upper edges suggest it was fitted for one.  Where the lid is now is anybody’s guess.  It is estimated that it would have weighed around two tons and is an unlikely object for theft, but never underestimate the determination of souvenir takers.

Thieves and vandals ancient and not so much (Photo by Keith Payne)

The southeastern corner of the sarcophagus has been broken away, which may have been done by thieves who either used the hole to reach inside and grab the treasures within, or may have provided a leverage point for prying the lid off.  But analysis of the breakage is made difficult by the fact that visitors (vandals) have chipped away at it over the years in order to have their own little piece.  For some, nothing says veneration like wanton destruction.  Perhaps the lid suffered a similar fate? 

An unlikely fit—entrance to the King’s Chamber. Note the northern intercom shaft in the wall (Photo by John and Morton Edgar)

The sarcophagus is too large to fit through the entrance to the King’s Chamber, and so it would have been installed during construction.  No mummy was discovered in the sarcophagus, which adds to speculation about the purpose of the King’s Chamber (not to mention the pyramid itself) and about the existence of an undiscovered Emperor’s Chamber. 

Khufu’s mummy either remains interred, was misplaced or destroyed, or lies unidentified in a museum or private collection.  Or he could be propped up in a curio show next to a stuffed two-headed calf… believe it or not, there is precedence.

The King’s Chamber

Floor to ceiling red granite—the King’s Chamber (Photo by Jon Bodsworth)

The King’s Chamber measures 20 cubits (10.47m) east to west and 10 cubits (5.23m) north to south.  It has a flat ceiling that is a little over 11 cubits (5.84m) above the floor.  As with the sarcophagus, the King’s Chamber is completely unadorned and without inscriptions.  Also like the sarcophagus, the floor, walls, and ceiling are all constructed of the red granite quarried from Aswan. 

This granite is much heavier and sturdier than the nummulitic limestone that comprises the bulk of the pyramid, and served both visual and structural purposes.  The floor and walls are made of around 120 granite blocks of various sizes, and the ceiling is made of nine granite beams.

The ceiling is significant in a couple of ways.  For one, it is located at one third the vertical height of the Great Pyramid, which may have been for both structural and symbolic reasons.  Second, and more importantly, it is flat.  This is unusual in that other pyramid burial chambers are either corbelled or, in the case of the Queen’s Chamber, have a gabled ceiling. 

Corbelling in Snefru’s burial chamber in the Red Pyramid (Photo by Hajor)

Corbelling is a roof-building strategy that involves inching each layer of blocks slightly inward until the walls come to a peak.  Long blocks of limestone are too weak to span wide spaces, so corbelling bridged these gaps a little at a time, with most of the block sandwiched between the layers above and below and only a small part extended into unsupported space. 

Corbelled structures are sometimes called ”false arches” because, unlike an arch, the blocks are not supported by leaning in on one another.  The structure relies on the downward pressure of the superstructure from which it protrudes.  The main burial chamber of the Red Pyramid is a classic example of corbelled walls.

Corbelling also distributes the weight above the chamber over a wider space.  In a flat ceiling all of the weight bears straight down over the entire surface.  This means that even using a more sturdy material than limestone would not be enough to construct Khufu’s flat ceiling, there had to be a way to distribute the pressure outward and away from the ceiling, which is where the Relieving Compartments come in. 

The Relieving Compartments

Beneath the rafters (Photo by Adam Rutherford)

The Relieving Compartments are five short chambers stacked one on top of the other between the King’s Chamber ceiling and the top gable.  Like the King’s Chamber itself, the ceilings of the Relieving Compartments were made of the megalithic beams of granite supported by limestone blocks. The granite ceiling beams, each weighing between 27 and 63 tons, are arranged side by side at each level, north to south, and the limestone supports are arranged east to west between the ceilings.  The granite beams are finished on the bottoms (the compartment ceilings) but left rough on the top (the floors).

In all, there are five granite ceilings:  the King’s Chamber located at the 48.8 meter level; the first Relieving Compartment ceiling at 51.9 meters; the second Relieving Compartment ceiling at 54.6 meters; the third Relieving Compartment ceiling at 57.5 meters; the fourth Relieving Compartment ceiling at 60 meters.  Above this are the 22 limestone rafters that form the gabled roof.  Total materials for the Relieving Compartments:  43 granite beams weighing 27-63 tons each, 22 limestone rafters weighing 28-45 tons each, and the limestone supports between the ceiling layers.

The gabled ceiling of the Relieving Compartments provides further clues to Hemienu’s planning and foresight.  Before the Great Pyramid, the Red Pyramid of Snefru represented the crowning accomplishment in pyramid technology.  Hemienu knew that the ceiling of Snefru’s corbelled burial chamber successfully supported 83 meters of masonry above it.  We know by comparing other examples that the distance between the floor of the King’s Chamber and the gabled roof is about the same as it would have been if it had been corbelled, and the gabled roof, like the Red Pyramid, supports about 83 meters of masonry.  Again, methods tried and true.

The third relieving compartment, called “Nelson’s Chamber,” has the clearest hieroglyphic inscriptions (Photo by Adam Rutherford)

The relieving Compartments are the only place within the Great Pyramid where any sort of markings or inscriptions have been found, and even these appear to have been quarry markings or “graffiti” left by the pyramid builders.  Two of these markings are cartouches of Pharaoh Khufu, the only actual written evidence that the Great Pyramid was build for him.  Some of the markings continue along surfaces now covered by other blocks, evidence that these inscriptions occurred before construction was complete.  

Sketches of the hieroglyphic graffiti found in the Relieving Compartments

This completes our description of the King’s Chamber, its only contents, and the Relieving Compartments above it.  In Phase 2, Part B:  The Grand Gallery and Counterweight System, we will look at Jean-Pierre Houdin’s theory of how the Grand Gallery once housed a counterweight system that helped power the huge sleds that brought the megalithic beams up to the 43 meter-high worksite, and the lift that delivered them to their final locations in the architecture. 

Related Articles

• Introduction:  Building a Great Pyramid
• Part One:  How Do You Prefer Your Ramp?  Straight or With a Twist
• Building the Great Pyramid Year One:  Six Letters from Hemienu
• Hemienu to Houdin: Phase One, Part A—One Third of a Ramp, Two Thirds of a Pyramid
• Hemienu to Houdin: Phase One, Part B—Alternating Lanes and Building from the Inside Out
• Hemienu to Houdin:  Phase One, Part C—The Inner Workings of the Great Pyramid of Khufu

Works Cited

• Brier, Bob, and Jean-Pierre Houdin. The Secret of the Great Pyramid: How One Man’s Obsession Led to the Solution of Ancient Egypt’s Greatest Mystery. New York: HarperCollins, 2008. Print.
• Stocks, Denys A. “Stone Sarcophagus Manufacture in Ancient Egypt.” Antiquity 73.282 (1999): 918-22. Print.

Copyright by Keith Payne, 2011.  All rights reserved.

Graphic images “King’s Chamber” and “Khufu staging area” are copyrighted by Jean-Pierre Houdin/Dassault Systemes, and are used with their permission, all rights reserved.  Graphics “south of QC”, “in the substructure”, “beside or above”, “pyramid profile cutaway”, “ceilings diagram”, “khufu and red pyramid”, are copyrighted by Jean-Pierre Houdin, and are used with his permission, all rights reserved.  Photos “Khufu King’s Chamber 01” and “Khufu sarcophagus 01” are copyrighted by Keith Payne, 1997-2011, all rights reserved.  Photos “great_pyramid_37” and “great_pyramid_34” are by Jon Bodsworth, who has released them to the public domain.  Photos and images “Image-Great_Pyramid_Edgar.jpg”, “09_edgar.jpg”, and “08_edgar.jpg” by John and Morton Edgar are in the public domain.  Photo “Inside Cheops III” by Andrew Currie is used in accordance with the Creative Commons 2.0 license.  Photo “Egypt_Dashur_RedPyramid_02” by Hajor, and image “Kheops-chambre-roi.jpg” by Franck Monnier are used in accordance with the Creative Commons 2.5 license.  Photos “Campbell’s Chamber” and “Nelson’s Chamber” by Adam Rutherford are in the public domain.  Photos and images “art – relieving chambers”, “art – north south axis”, “Menkaure inner works”, “Piazzi-plate_14.jpg”, and “relieving compartments graffiti” are in the public domain.

Architect Jean-Pierre Houdin has put forth a comprehensive theory of how Khufu’s architect, Hemienu, could have built the pyramid using only the tools, methods, and materials that we know would have been available at the time.  Now, just weeks before M. Houdin is to release an avalanche of new work and material that will greatly update and solidify his theory, Em Hotep has endeavored to get a detailed and thorough description of his work to-date online and available for reference. 

Picking up where I left off over a year ago with the Hemienu to Houdin series, I admittedly have my work for the coming month cut out for me.  Wish me luck!  But with the generous oversight of the theory’s author himself, I can promise that the forthcoming will be the best precursor you can find on-line for what Jean-Pierre mysteriously refers to as “Episode 2.”  

In this current article we will examine how Jean-Pierre’s theory describes the external ramp that was used to build the bottom third of the Great Pyramid.  In particular we will see how Hemienu could have built two thirds of the pyramid with a ramp that only reached one third of its final height; we will see how the Great Builder overcame the limits imposed by the terrain and turned many of them to his advantage; and we will begin looking at how this deceptively simple structure solved some rather complex issues confronting Khufu’s Chief Architect. 

To understand how the Great Pyramid was constructed, and how Jean-Pierre Houdin’s theory suggests Hemienu went about this work, it helps to outline the project in terms of three general phases.  In each phase Hemienu had specific goals and confronted unique challenges that required individualized strategies.  Each of these phases were literally built one on top of the other, so there was no room for Hemienu to make up the plan as he went along.  Before even the first cut of the foundation was made he already knew how the pyramidion would be placed on the top. 

Whether we are talking about the theories of Jean-Pierre Houdin or not, the pyramid was by necessity constructed in three phases:  One—the bottom third, which contains all known internal structures except the King’s Chamber; Two—the King’s Chamber, during which the fiftieth level of the pyramid’s blocks literally became the construction site of a monument built inside the monument; and Three—the completion of the top of pyramid.  We will begin our breakdown of Phase One by reviewing what would not have worked and what challenges Hemienu faced. 

Review of the Cons and Pros of a Straight Ramp

Nearly all theories of how the Great Pyramid was built involve ramps, with many of them describing a straight ramp leading up from the desert to the face of the pyramid.  But as we saw in Part One: How Do You Prefer Your Ramp?, there are many problems with this idea.  One problem was how to keep the ramp from being too steep. 

Most of the blocks used to build the pyramid weighed an average of two tons, and to keep the supply train moving fast enough to complete the project on time there had to be enough room on the ramp for multiple teams.  In order to keep these teams small enough—about ten to twelve men was ideal—the incline of the ramp needed to be kept at a maximum grade of around 8—8.5 percent.  The steeper the ramp is, the more men you need pulling the blocks, and the larger the teams are, the fewer you can have on the ramp at one time.  The fewer teams, the slower the progress. 

This presents a problem because the pyramid’s original height was about 146 vertical meters.  In order for a straight ramp to reach this high, while maintaining a grade between 8 – 8.5 percent, it would have to be over a mile long.  So what is wrong with that?  Couldn’t the Egyptians, famous for their architectural feats, have built such a ramp?  Sure, but not without extreme—and unnecessary—difficulty. 

First, consider the terrain.  The only place to build such a ramp would have been to the south.   The plateau ends in a sudden drop just to the north, and there were cemeteries to the east and west that were growing even as the pyramid was being built.  But a ramp that would extend over a mile to the south would not only cut through the main quarry, it would also run straight into the wadi, a gradual drop-off formed by a sort of canyon that defines the southeastern contour of the plateau. 

Building into the wadi would have increased the size of the ramp much more than you might think.  As the  ramp spanned the drop-off formed by the wadi, the top—the walking surface—would need to maintain the same grade of around 8—8.5 percent, so the base of the ramp would need to be extended downward while the top remained at the same angle of descent.  In order to maintain the structural integrity of the ramp, the base had to be wider than the top, with the sides leaning inward and tapering up to the walking surface.  Otherwise it would grow top-heavy as it became too tall, and collapse. 

So the taller the ramp, the wider the base had to be.  Even a ramp as wide as the base of the pyramid itself, at a seven percent grade, would only reach about 130-135 meters high, which is still eleven to sixteen meters shy of the apex.  And once this ramp reached the wadi, the base would have to grow even wider as it extended downward. 

This presents a second problem with straight ramp theories.  Building a straight ramp that was one+ mile long over the wadi and through the quarry would require more building material than the pyramid itself.  Of course, the project would have been less complex than the pyramid, so it would not necessarily have doubled the time or labor, but it would have more than doubled the material required and would have severely taxed Hemienu’s schedule.  And a ramp this large, which itself could have qualified for one of the Wonders of the Ancient World, raises a third question—where are its ruins? 

Where would you hide the ruins of something at least this big? (Photo by Lyn Gateley)

Where could Hemienu have disposed of enough limestone blocks and filler material to construct a second Great Pyramid?  Some theories contend that much of the ramp would have consisted of sand, which could have been spread out over the plateau when the ramp was dismantled.  But some of the blocks transported up the ramp weighed in excess of sixty tons, which would have required a much more solid core for the ramp than sand.  

Besides, the plateau is not as sandy as one might imagine.  You needn’t dig far before hitting bedrock, and gathering enough sand to fill a structure larger than the Great Pyramid would have presented more difficulties than are immediately apparent.  Hemienu could have used limestone chips and scrap from the quarry, which takes us a little closer to how he actually did build the ramp, but again, where did he dispose of the ramp when the project was completed?  There is simply no convincing archaeological evidence that a mile-long ramp as described above ever existed on the Giza Plateau. 

We have already looked in detail at the problems of building the Great Pyramid with just a straight ramp in Part One: How Do You Prefer Your Ramp?.  But we also saw that there are advantages to using a straight ramp, some of which are indispensible.  The only feasible alternative to a single straight ramp is one that would have spiraled around—or within—the pyramid.  But spiraling ramps have their own limitations which exclude them as a singular solution to how the pyramid was constructed. 

Again, please refer to Part One: How Do You Prefer Your Ramp? for the specific details of why a spiraling ramp alone would not have been sufficient in constructing Khufu’s pyramid, especially during Phase One.  For here, we will just say that an external spiraling ramp would have been structurally unsound and would have prevented the engineers from making the observations required for maintaining the pyramid’s shape.  And both internal and external spiraling ramps are excluded by one really big factor—the 60+ ton blocks of granite that were required to construct the King’s Chamber could not have navigated the right angle turns. 

In fact, the megalithic granite blocks of the King’s Chamber pretty much demand that a straight ramp was used in some of the construction.  So where does that leave us?  It means that Hemienu needed a straight ramp that was short enough to fit into the terrain while maintaining a grade of 8—8.5 percent.  The ramp also had to be wide and stout enough to bear the 60+ ton blocks at least to the 43-meter level, that of the King’s Chamber.  A 43 meter-high ramp could have been built that would have met these criteria while fitting into the limited space, but such a ramp would reach less than one third of the pyramid’s final height. 

This isn’t quite the disaster it sounds like.  The bottom third of a pyramid has some very useful geometric qualities that worked to Hemienu’s advantage.  He had been around for the construction of Pharaoh Snefru’s pyramids and knew from the beginning what he was getting into and how to go about achieving it.  His design for Khufu’s Pyramid assured that every feature that required a straight ramp could be accomplished with one that only reached a third of the pyramid’s total height.  In essence, he could build two thirds of the pyramid with one third of a ramp.  

The Bottom Third of the Pyramid and One Third of a Ramp

Hemienu was bound by the limits set by time, terrain, and materials.  How was the Great Pyramid built within the 20-24 year timeframe which most Egyptologists agree on?  How did the builders work within the limitations imposed by the terrain?  How could it have been done with just the materials and tools for which we have evidence?  Jean-Pierre Houdin’s theory accounts for all of these conditions, beginning with the straight ramp. 

So if it’s true that the only straight ramp that could squeeze within all of these limitations would only have reached one third of the pyramid’s total height (slightly less, actually), then how much of the Great Pyramid could Hemienu have built before needing to pursue a different strategy?  This is where geometry was in his favor.  Consider the nature of the pyramid as a three dimensional shape.  If you were to build a four-faced pyramid out of sugar cubes, by the time you reached the top of the first third in terms of height, two thirds of the total volume would be in place.  

As Jean-Pierre explains: 

The Egyptians…understood that the volume of a pyramid with a square base had an amazing property:  for any value of the slope, the volume corresponding to one third of the height contains two thirds of the total volume.” (Houdin, Khufu’s Pyramid Revealed, p. 27) 

So by the end of Phase One, Hemienu would have only been one third of the way finished in terms of height, but two thirds of the pyramid’s mass would have been completed. This is not a bad investment of labor and materials—one-third of a ramp was sufficient to supply two thirds of the construction.  In fact, once the King’s Chamber and its surrounding core are factored in, the 43-meter-high ramp supplied more like 73% of the total volume of the Great Pyramid.  So in a certain sense, Hemienu actually accomplished nearly three quarters of the pyramid with one third of a ramp. 

Another aspect of the Great Pyramid’s design that maximized the usefulness of the one-third ramp is the fact that Hemienu located nearly all of the internal structures (that we know of) in the bottom third.  The pyramid’s entrance, the subterranean burial chamber, the Queens Chamber, the Grand Gallery, and all connecting passageways are below the 43 meter level.  The King’s Chamber would itself rise to nearly seventy meters, but its foundation (and worksite) was the surface of the 43 meter level.  Thus, the straight ramp remained in use throughout both Phases One and Two. 

Of course, the 43 meter-high ramp could not have moved the granite slabs or twenty-ton limestone rafters into their final positions above the King’s Chamber, about seventeen meters higher than top of the ramp.  As we shall see when we examine Phase Two, a sort of miniature pyramid was built on the surface of the 43 meter level to facilitate the construction of the King’s Chamber, complete with ramps of its own.  We will also get into the details of how the top two thirds (or one third, depending on whether we are talking about height or volume) were constructed when we take a look at Phase Three. 

So let’s now take a more detailed look at the external ramp of Jean-Pierre Houdin’s theory, including how it would have been built and how it would have worked.     

The Ramp

Materials 

Before getting into the details of the location and orientation of the external ramp we should first explain what it was made of.  In order for this to make sense, we need to jump ahead a little bit and discuss the structure of the ramp.  The specific reasons for some of these details will be explained at length as we progress, but for now we will only be describing the materials from which it was constructed and how Jean-Pierre Houdin proposes it was assembled. 

At its base the ramp would have been about 90 meters wide and divided into three lanes—a narrow central/dividing lane flanked by two wider side lanes.  As we have already discussed, the ramp would have to taper as it went up in order to remain structurally sound, so with each layer the ramp rose in height, the lanes would have become narrower.   In its earliest stages the ramp would have been mostly a horizontal causeway, sloping only at the foot.  But just as the ramp would grow narrower as it rose, the sloping section at the foot would grow longer with each layer as the horizontal section became shorter. 

In many ways, the external ramp mirrored the structure of the Great Pyramid itself.  Like the pyramid, it had an outer layer of precisely cut blocks and a dense core of rougher blocks and filler.  The central lane was an internal structure within the ramp, and like certain internal structures of the pyramid, served the sole purpose of transporting the heavy megaliths to the fiftieth level.    The final layer of the central lane even had a pavement of Tura limestone like the facing stones of the pyramid.  Using these materials was not just a matter of convenience,   it was an example of Hemienu’s foresight and a hint as to why the ramp left no ruins behind. 

The outer sides of the ramp provided structure and stability, a sort of shell that contained the core.  They would have been made of the same well-calibrated 2-ton blocks of locally quarried limestone as we see on the outer surface of the pyramid today.  In the construction of each layer of the ramp, the sides and central lane would have been constructed first because they were more precise—the core could be made to fit them, but not the other way around—and because they served as a guide for how high to make the rest of the layer.  They defined the boundaries of the lanes. 

The core filled the area of the side lanes between the superior masonry of the central lane and the outer walls.  The core blocks were cut from the same local quarry as the better-shaped blocks of the sides, but were not dressed to the same degree.  They were not as uniform in size and shape, and no attention was given to making them fit together as seamlessly as the side and central blocks.  The core blocks were packed in as closely as possible, and then limestone chips were poured into the spaces between blocks and pounded in tightly.  Gypsum mortar was used to further cement the core into place. 

Although built much later and for different purposes, it is hard to look at the causeway to Hatshepsut’s temple at Deir el-Bahri and not think of Hemienu’s external ramp (photo by Ana Paula Hirama)

The central lane was not just a divider between the side lanes, it was constructed with the final purpose of the external ramp in mind—supporting the sleds carrying the 60+ ton beams of granite up to the level of the King’s Chamber.  As stated above, the central lane was a sort of internal structure inside the ramp, the core of the core.  It had to support the heaviest weights for the longest periods of time.  The giant sleds bearing the megaliths were pulled up in forty-meter stretches and then had to rest while a counterweight system in the Grand Gallery was reset (much more on this in Phase Two). 

The central lane was made of the same well-cut blocks from the local quarry as the sides of the ramp, but the final (fiftieth) layer of the central lane would have been paved with the imported limestone that was also used for the pyramid’s facing stones, and then fitted with wooden rollers for the sleds.  The local limestone contained hard little coin-shaped fossils of marine creatures called nummulites which caused its surface to be bumpy and pock-marked.  The limestone imported from Tura did not contain these fossils and provided a smoother surface for the wooden rollers and their heavy burden. 

All of the materials Hemienu used for the external ramp were recyclable—they could be reused in building the pyramid.  The ramp was an early example of Green Technology, and the reason why there are no significant ruins of the external ramp.  As we will see when we get into Phase Three, the pyramid “ate” the external ramp.  When it was no longer useful it was dismantled, carried up through the internal ramp, and incorporated into the structure.  Jean-Pierre theorizes that the external ramp remains hidden in plain view to this day as part of the top third of the Great Pyramid. 

Orientation and Elevation 

So now that we have an idea of what the ramp was made of and the basic architecture of its layers, where exactly does Jean-Pierre Houdin propose it was built?  We have already seen that straight to the south was the shortest route to the wadi, but this was also the most level terrain.  Wouldn’t the flattest surface be the most ideal for the external ramp?  Not necessarily. 

Jean-Pierre suggests that rather than building straight toward the wadi, Hemienu could have instead built the ramp at a twenty degree angle to the southwest where he could turn the uneven terrain to his advantage.  The plateau continues to rise in a gentle upward slope in this direction, a characteristic Pharaoh Khafre made use of a generation later.  By building on the higher ground, Khafre was able to make his pyramid appear taller than Khufu’s.  Jean-Pierre observes that by locating the foot of the ramp on this slope Hemienu could have built a shorter ramp without increasing the steepness of the incline. 

There were other advantages to building in this direction as well.  To begin with, a twenty degree southwestern trajectory would have both dodged the wadi and left access to the southeastern corner of the pyramid unimpeded, the importance of which will become apparent when we discuss the internal ramp (Phase Three).  This angle would also have better aligned the ramp with the easiest route up from the quarry and the quay where ships delivered the Tura limestone and Aswan granite.  But the real advantage came from the higher ground. 

Situating the foot of the ramp on the southwestern slope meant that it would have been higher than the base of the pyramid, which would have achieved the opposite effect of building into the wadi.  Instead of having to fill in all the terrain, some of the terrain would have been incorporated into the ramp.  Of course, the gap formed by the lower terrain between the slope and the pyramid would have to be filled in, but Jean-Pierre demonstrates how even this could have been turned to Hemienu’s advantage.  

Jean-Pierre Houdin has calculated that a 43-meter high ramp built from the center of the southern face of the pyramid and oriented 20 degrees to the southwest would have its foot on a point on the plateau about eight meters higher than the base of the pyramid.  With the foot of the sloping section of the ramp at this elevation, a straight ramp around 425 meters long would extend from the foot to the apex with an incline within the 8—8.5 percent range (8.24 percent, but this an approximation).  That is admittedly a lot of numbers, angles, and directions, so let’s break it down into manageable parts. 

Deconstructing the External Ramp 

Forty-three meters high is a magic number because that was the level at which construction began on the King’s Chamber, the pyramid’s raison d’être.  Recall that the primary need for a straight ramp was to avoid right angle turns while transporting the megalithic blocks of Aswan granite up to the level of the King’s Chamber, so the straight ramp had to be at least 43 meters high.  Any higher was unnecessary because after the King’s Chamber was finished, all other building materials could come up through the internal ramp (except the pyramidion, but we will cover that in Phase Three). 

The center of the southern face of the pyramid is a magic spot because locating the top of the ramp here lines it up with the Grand Gallery.  The importance of this will become clear when we examine Phase Two, but for now we will just say that the enormous beams used in the building of the King’s Chamber were pulled up with the assistance of a counterweight system located in the Grand Gallery.  This could only work if the apex of the ramp was aligned with the Grand Gallery.  We will get into the details of how the 20-degree angle of the ramp was negotiated when we get to Phase Two. 

Twenty degrees southwest is a magic angle because building the ramp in this direction located the foot on the higher ground where the plateau continues to rise, whereas due south the plateau begins to decline.  Building on higher ground helped mitigate the need to build as short a ramp as possible with the need for the shallowest slope possible because raising the low end of a diagonal without changing the height or the slope means a shorter ramp.  Thus, locating the foot of the ramp on the incline meant a shorter ramp while still being able to keep the grade at 8—8.5 percent.  

The 8—8.5 percent grade is a magic slope because, as we have already noted, the more gradual the slope, the longer the ramp has to be, and the steeper the slope the more effort that is required to haul the 2-ton blocks up the incline.  Hemienu wanted to keep the supply chain of blocks moving at maximum pace.  Ideally, as a block was finished in the quarry at one end of the chain, a block should be fitted into place at the opposite end.  This meant Hemienu wanted room for as many teams on the ramp as possible, and an 8—8.5 percent grade allowed for small teams of ten to twelve men.  

Four hundred twenty five meters is a magic length because at this distance the foot of the ramp hits the southwest slope at an elevation eight meters higher than the base of the pyramid.  Eight meters is a magic elevation because starting the sloping section of the ramp at this height means that the vertical height from the sloping foot to the apex would be 35 meters, and a 425 meter long ramp that ascends 35 vertical meters would have an incline within the range of the magic slope ((35/425 = .08235 = 8.24%).  Again, 425 meters is an approximation, but it is a good place to drop anchor because +/- a few meters still falls within the magic slope and elevation range. 

So let’s summarize.  If you were to sit at the middle of the southern edge of the fiftieth course of the pyramid (the 43-meter level), right where the top of the ramp would be, and shine a laser pointer twenty degrees southwest at an 8—8.5 percent downward angle, the red dot would hit the southwestern slope at an elevation about eight meters higher than the base of the pyramid.  If you were to point the laser due south at the same downward angle, the beam would be longer because the terrain is lower.  To the southwest the terrain rises to meet the beam.  To the south it declines away. 

Now let’s say that you climbed down the pyramid and hiked over to the spot on the southwestern slope where your laser beam had pointed.  If you then directed the beam northeast toward the pyramid at a horizontal trajectory, the red dot would hit the pyramid at eight meters above the base, at about the top of the sixth course of blocks.  The beam would be about 425 meters long, thus establishing the full length of the longest horizontal layer of the ramp. 

This raises a new line of inquiry.  Obviously, no ramp was needed to build the first course of the pyramid—it was at ground level.  As the graphic to the left shows, the seventh level of the pyramid would have been constructed using the horizontal layer (dark grey) that forms the base of the first sloping layer (light grey), which in turn would have been used to build pyramid level eight.  But what about pyramid levels two through six? 

A Ramp of Tiers 

They had to stack it all up somehow… (Photo by Daniel Csorfoly)

There are basically two ways Hemienu could have built a straight ramp that was able to grow with the pyramid, and both types involve building successive layers of the ramp to reach the pyramid levels under construction.  One type would have consisted of diagonal layers each of which sloped all the way from the ground to the face of the pyramid.  The other type would have been constructed of layers of horizontal tiers that only sloped at the foot-end.  Again, this is easier to say than visualize, so let’s break this down too, starting with the diagonal ramp. 

But before we continue, let’s take a moment to clarify some of the terminology we will be using.  Since both the ramp and the pyramid consist of layers of construction, it is easy to get confused by statements such as the second layer of the ramp was used to build the third layer of the pyramid.  For this reason, layers of the ramp will always be referred to as layers or tiers, and levels of the pyramid will always be referred to as levels or courses.  

Thus, layer or tier X will always refer the ramp, and level or course Y will always refer to the pyramid.  We will have to adapt this system in Phase One, Part B, when we begin dealing with the facing stone and backing stone layers of the pyramid, but for now, layer refers only to a layer of the ramp, not pyramid blocks.  It is also helpful to remember the equation ramp layer X is used to build pyramid level X+1.  In other words, ramp layer 2 (X=2) is used to build pyramid level 3 (X+1). 

With that out of the way, let’s now take a look at the structure of a diagonal ramp.  Diagonal ramps take the most direct route—a sloping surface straight from the ground to the level under construction.  So once the first level of the pyramid was complete, the first layer of a diagonal ramp would have been a simple wedge from the ground to the top of the first course of blocks.  When the second course was finished, then a new diagonal layer would have been built on top of the first, again stretching from the ground to the work site.  This would be repeated until the fiftieth pyramid course. 

But there are some problems with this design.  One structural issue is the amount of pressure directed at the foot.  With diagonal layers, the weight of the ramp is directed downward and outward, and the higher the ramp goes the more pressure that is pushing down against the foot.  This is not a major problem for a ramp with an 8—8.5 percent grade—most of the weight would still be directed downward rather than against the foot.  But keep in mind that the final layer of the ramp, the fiftieth, was not only the longest and heaviest, it was also the layer that bore the 60+ ton granite slabs. 

A more nagging problem would have been the paving.  As already noted, the blocks used to build the side lanes were rough-cut stones packed in with filler.  But the top surfaces of the side lanes—the surfaces over which the two-ton blocks were transported—would have been made to a higher standard.  While probably not as well-cut as those of the sides and central lane, and certainly nothing like the Tura limestone that would cover the final layer of the central lane, the top surfaces of the side lanes would nonetheless have been smoother and more durable than the rest of the core blocks. 

This layer of higher-grade paving stones was especially important on the sloping part of the ramp.  As mentioned above, the pressure of the weight on an incline is distributed downward and outward, which on Hemienu’s ramp would have been largely mitigated by the very shallow incline—an 8—8.5 percent grade is directing most of the weight downward rather than outward.  But the reality of movement on the ramp was more complex than just this.  Not only was there the gravitational pull on the sleds, there was also the foot pressure of the pullers seeking traction and the forward pressure of the sleds in motion. 

So the cycle of movement/pressure/weight on the diagonal surface would have been the downward and outward foot pressure of the teams pulling the sleds, the downhill gravitational pull on the sleds between tugs, interspersed with bursts of uphill gouging-type pressure from the rails as the sleds in motion met the resistance of the surface of the ramp.  That is an awful lot of multidirectional jarring from millions of tons of traffic over years of use, so the pavement on the diagonal surfaces had to be pretty tough. 

A ramp constructed of repeating diagonal layers would have required this high-quality pavement over the top surface of every layer of the side lanes, one through fifty, from foot to apex.  Although the inner core could be rough, the traffic-bearing uphill surfaces would need this layer of paving, and on a diagonal ramp, every outward facing surface is uphill.  But a ramp of tiers would consist mostly of horizontal surfaces, which means better weight distribution, less effort for the pulling teams (and thus, less foot pressure on the surface), and smoother movement of the sleds over the pavement. 

Jean-Pierre believes that Hemienu would have opted for a ramp of horizontal tiers rather than diagonal layers.  Instead of the first layer being a diagonal wedge, Jean-Pierre proposes that it was a simple tier which extended from the face of the pyramid across to the foot of the southwestern slope at a constant height equal to that of the first level of the pyramid.  To construct the second level of the pyramid, the builders would have pulled their sleds down the southwestern slope and across—not up—the first layer of the ramp.  The second layer of the ramp would have been another horizontal tier atop the first.   

This answers the question of how the ramp serviced levels two through six of the pyramid, even though the foot was situated eight meters higher than the base.  The foot of the sloping section of the ramp was located at the higher elevation—parallel to the seventh pyramid level—but the first six layers of the ramp were horizontal tiers with no slopes.  This implies another advantage of a ramp of tiers over a diagonal ramp.  The first six courses of the pyramid, about 14.5 percent of the total volume, were constructed without any uphill sections.  A diagonal ramp would have been continually uphill. 

Yet another advantage of a ramp of tiers is its superior foundation.  Unlike a ramp of diagonal layers, every layer of a ramp of tiers rests on a flat surface.  Although the chance of slippage between layers on a diagonal ramp with an 8—8.5 percent grade are negligible, with a ramp of horizontal tiers it is eliminated entirely.  Of course, there would still be the short diagonal sections at the foot of each layer, but the surface beneath these sloping sections would be flat rather than another diagonal. 

Starting with the seventh layer of the ramp, each horizontal tier begins with a short sloping section at the foot-end, but these wedges are structurally superior to the long sloping stretches of a ramp of diagonal layers.  Although from the outside the ramp appears to have a single diagonal surface that grows with each layer, in reality each wedge-shaped section functions more like an individual ramp resting on its own horizontal foundation.  Unlike a long diagonal layer, each wedge bears the weight above it individually, with virtually no transference of pressure to the sections above or below it. 

Wall painting of a ramp of tiers from the Tomb of Rekhmire

As mentioned above, this configuration would also reduce the amount of paving required for the side lanes.  Superior weight distribution, reduced foot pressure due to the sled teams pulling on a flat surface rather than an incline, and less wear and tear from forward and backward jerking of the sleds, again due to a flat surface rather than an incline, meant that the paving on the horizontal sections did not have to meet the same demands as the diagonal slopes.  The short diagonals would still require the superior pavement, but the total diagonal surface would be equal to just the final layer of a diagonal ramp. 

So a ramp of horizontal tiers would have been advantageous to Hemienu in many ways.   The amount of uphill pulling would have been minimized.  In fact, building the six largest levels of the pyramid would have been a straight shot across with no uphill section of the ramp at all.  The uphill section would grow from the seventh layer to the fiftieth as both the ramp and the pyramid grew, but as the diagonal got longer and the horizontal sections got shorter, the layers of the pyramid were getting smaller too.     

A stack of horizontal tiers is more solid than diagonal layers.  The base of all sections of the ramp, even the upward-facing diagonals, would be a flat surface.  Layers one through six may have been partially extended onto the bedrock, but from level seven upward each layer would rest on a horizontal surface equal in length to its base, with nothing ever built over top of a sloping section.  With regard to paving, the total area of a ramp of tiers that would require the highest quality paving would equal to just the final layer of a diagonal ramp.  A lower-quality paving would suffice for the horizontal sections. 

So we have examined why Jean-Pierre Houdin thinks Hemienu would have built the straight external ramp twenty degrees to the southwest.  It allowed him to use the incline to situate the foot of the diagonal section of the ramp about eight meters higher than the base of the pyramid, which meant a shorter ramp while still keeping the grade below 8.5 percent.  We have seen that levels two through six of the pyramid were built using horizontal sections of the ramp as it slowly filled the gap between the pyramid and the southwestern slope, rising level by level like water filling a bowl. 

So far we have not examined why the ramp described by Jean-Pierre has three lanes.  We know the central lane was to support the sleds bearing the heavy granite beams to the King’s Chamber worksite in Phase Two, and naturally, having a central lane implies side lanes.  But the side lanes were not simply a result of dividing the ramp with a central structure, they were an essential part of the plan.  The two side lanes were an innovation designed to address another problem ignored by traditional ramp theories. 

In most theories of how the Great Pyramid was built, all work on the pyramid has to stop at the completion of each level while the ramp is built up a layer.  The architect Jean-Pierre suggests a way such stoppages could have been avoided, which he proposes the architect Hemienu would also have realized.  The three lanes of the external ramp were actually three ramps in one. 

A One Third Ramp that was Three Ramps in One

We have seen that the external straight ramp described by Jean-Pierre Houdin’s theory could be called a “one third ramp” because it only reaches one third of the final height of the pyramid, but we have also seen that this would have been sufficient to construct two thirds of the actual mass of the pyramid.  There would have been additional ramps constructed on the top surface during Phase Two in order to maneuver the huge granite and limestone beams into place above the King’s Chamber, but the 43-meter-high straight ramp would have been the means of delivering them to the worksite. 

But the external ramp of Jean-Pierre’s theory could also be called “three ramps in one.”  Since a “one-third-ramp-that-was-three-ramps-in-one” sounds like something out of Alice in Wonderland, we will continue to refer to them as lanes, but to a certain degree each lane functioned independently of the others.  The central lane would not come into service until layer fifty, and we know that the side lanes would carry all of the traffic until then, but for layers 1—34 only one of the side lanes would be in use at any given time (we will get into the details of what happens at layer 35 in Phase One, Part B). 

One of the unique features of the ramp described by Jean-Pierre’s theory is that prior to layer 35 the central lane and one of the side lanes were always under construction while the opposite side lane was used to service the pyramid level currently being built.  The active lane would alternate from left to right and back again with each successive level of the pyramid.  This pattern was the key to how work on the pyramid could continue uninterrupted for the duration of Phase One. 

Most ramp theories require a go/stop work cycle for building the levels of the pyramid:  

Build a level of the pyramid and then stop 

   

Build the ramp up a layer and then stop 

  

Resume work on the pyramid until the new level is finished and then stop 

    

Resume work on the ramp, building it up a layer and then stop.  

Repeat. 

But these work stoppages were unnecessary.  As shown in the figure to the right, while Lane B is used to build the current level of the pyramid, Lane A is being raised up from the previous layer to the same layer as B.  But once Lanes A and B are at the same layer, work continues on Lane A, raising it a second layer in preparation for the next pyramid level.  

Thus, once the pyramid level is finished Lane A will already be in place to begin work on the next level, the workers simply switch from Lane B to Lane A.  Lane B is then built up two layers in preparation for the next pyramid level. 

The ramp at Deir el-Bahri—note the wedge-shaped blocks between the horizontal and diagonal layers (Photo by Vyacheslav Argenberg)

And again we have a paragraph packed as tightly as the ramp’s core with difficult concepts to visualize!  Fortunately the next chapter, Phase One, Part B, is dedicated entirely to the concept of the alternating lanes and how the pyramid was “built from the inside out.”  

We will start by constructing a model of how the ramp was used to build the first two levels of the Great Pyramid, followed by an in-depth look at the construction of level three to see what is meant by “building from the inside out.”  We will conclude Part B with a look at what happens at layer 35, why it happens, and how it was resolved. 

Next in Series: 

Hemienu to Houdin: Phase One, Part B—Alternating Lanes and Building from the Inside Out

Related Articles

• Introduction:  Building a Great Pyramid
• Part One:  How Do You Prefer Your Ramp?  Straight or With a Twist
• Building the Great Pyramid Year One:  Six Letters from Hemienu

Copyright by Keith Payne, 2010.  All rights reserved.

Images “one third two thirds”, “floating king’s chamber”, “pyramide1-3”,  “bottom two thirds structures”, “ramp fiftieth level”, and “ramp and pyramid at 43m” are copyrighted by Jean-Pierre Houdin and are used with his permission, all rights reserved.  Images “exterior frontal ramp”, “exterior spiraling ramp”, “the external ramp” and “top of the ramp” are copyrighted by Jean-Pierre Houdin/Dassault Systems, and are used with their permission, all rights reserved.  The image “Contour map of the Giza Plateau” is copyrighted by Albert Ranson and Jean-Pierre Houdin, and is used with their permission, all rights reserved.  Photographs “2168146740_49ba524b93_o.jpg” by Lyn Gateley,   05b – “5140964578_7abb52ed4e_o.jpg” by  Ana Paula Hirama, and “1294081579_5e200f1f9d_o.jpg” by Vyacheslav Argenberg are used in accordance with the Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license.  Photograph “GizaPyramid_Kheops_2007jan20-42.png”  by Daniel Csorfoly, and image “Ramp – Tomb of Rekhmire” are in the public domain.

The purpose of these imaginary missives from the desk of the Overseer of All the King’s Works is to give the reader an idea of the amount of planning, materials, and manpower involved not only in building the Great Pyramid, but in preparation for the work itself.  There were mines and quarries to be opened, a fully functional workers’ city to be constructed, and an entire nation to be mobilized.

In many ways this is a re-introduction to the Hemienu to Houdin series, but it is also intended to be a stand-alone monologic narrative (fancy-speak for letters from just one person that tell a story) of how Hemienu initiated the project that would occupy all of Egypt for more than two decades.  Methods and materials, labor and logistics, tools and tasks, they are all here for your evaluation, along with a short annotated bibliography at the end.

Note:  The names used, with the exception of the Grand Vizier himself, are invented but not without some forethought (the Overseer of the Expedition to the Sinai to open the copper mines, for instance, is named Biah-Ahky, which translates to copper miner), and the titles and positions they hold do have their historical counterparts. 

Letter 1:  The Selection of the Building Site

From the Greatest of the Five of the House of Thoth, Chief Justice, Grand Vizier and Overseer of All the King’s Works, Hemienu, Holder of the King’s Seal, to the overseers, administrators, and nomarchs of the Two Lands:  Life, Prosperity, Health!

All of Upper and Lower Egypt Rejoice!  A place has been chosen for the pyramid complex of our pharaoh, Khufu, May He Live!  May He Prosper!  May He Be Healthy!  The pyramid where our king shall rest in body will be called Akhet Khufu—Khufu on the Horizon.

Hemienu and his entourage would have sailed the Nile in a more luxuriously appointed barge than this one, from the tomb of Vizier Mereruka, but the scale was probably about the same (Photo by Keith Payne)

Many of you have travelled with me the length of the Nile and have surveyed numerous sites, providing good counsel.  Many days and nights have we held court on the land and on my barge, and many passionate cases have been tendered.  Your service to our king will be remembered by all people, for all time.

I have decided against Saqqara and Dashur and have chosen instead the site in the north, at Rostau.  

I have good reasons for this choice.  First, there is a vast quantity of good yellow limestone there from which to build the inner structures of the pyramid and temples.  Second, there is a gentle slope which begins in the low area, suitable for a quay, and which connects the best location for the main quarry to the top of the plateau.  A donkey released at the summit will follow this same natural ramp down to an easy path to the Nile.  Donkeys have uncanny judgment in these matters and we should heed his guidance.

Of equal consideration are the plateau’s qualities of expanse and orientation.  It is an elevated plane with room enough for at least three, possibly more, large pyramids and numerous precincts for cemeteries.  Its elevation and orientation will make these monuments visible from Saqqara and Dashur and provide a desirable view when approached from the capital at Memphis.  In particular, I have decided upon the site that we identified as the lesser quarry, on the northeast extreme of the plateau.  This location is not the highest, but I have good reasons for this choice as well. 

The Pyramids of Abu Sir and Giza as viewed from Saqqara (Photo by Gaspa)

By constructing the first pyramid at the northeast corner, the natural ramp formed by the slope is left open to allow future building projects on the plateau.  Building on the highest point first would block access to the northeast corner.  To make the best use of the space, the plateau should be developed in the northeast first, with successive pharaohs building their pyramids along a southwest trajectory.  This will assure that the natural ramp remains open to future construction on the summit.

Building the pyramid within the lesser quarry is advantageous in other ways as well, not the least of which is 147 setat of limestone that needn’t be transported once cut.  Another advantage is the lay of the land, which slopes upward to the west.  When the outline of the pyramid is leveled, the elevated section inside the perimeter will be left intact.  By shaping this hill to fit within the construction, one tenth of the pyramid’s core will already be complete.

The main quarry at the bottom of the slope holds another 176 setat of good limestone, which together with the northeast quarry will provide more than enough blocks to construct the greatest pyramid complex ever built. 

All of Upper and Lower Egypt:  Unite for our pharaoh, Son of Re, Khufu, May He Live!  May He Prosper!  May He Be Healthy!

Letter 2:  Expedition to Open the Sinai Copper Mines

To Iahbty-Semyt, Administrator of the Eastern Desert, and to Biah-Ahky, Overseer of the Expedition to Sinai, Peace upon your goings!

There can be no doubt, Khufu on the Horizon is the greatest project ever undertaken by the people of Egypt, but this great work will require more resources than we have on hand.  There is enough copper for chisels and other tools to begin operations, but as work progresses we will have need of much more than we have now.  By way of investment, I have apportioned such supplies as you will require to lead a mining expedition to the Sinai.

Copper picks, saws, and drilling tubes have been made available, along with the powdered quartzite needed to make the drills and saws cut.  I call this an investment because these resources are in need all throughout Egypt as the great work begins.  In return, the pharaoh will need 840,000 deben of processed copper over the course of your operations.  Your work will be hard, but your afterlife will hold every luxury.

To avoid the transport of unnecessary waste materials, all smelting will take place at the mines.  You will be provided with mud brick to build the kilns and granite pounders for crushing the ore.  Moulds will be provided for pouring the copper into 50 deben ingots.  A supply train will make regular deliveries of wood for the kilns and will return with your finished ingots.

The number of donkeys and carts, baskets, and other equipment required has been left to your expert discretion, you need only inform the Overseer of Provisions of your needs.  A company of soldiers will be attached to your expedition to protect you in your journey, and will remain with you throughout operations to defend against the wild people of the desert.

The tools and methods used by these New Kingdom metal workers to smelt ore were largely the same as those used by Hemienu's workers (Graphic by Achille-Constant-Theodore Emile Prisse d'Avennes)

For this expedition you will select fifty of your best miners, no slaves or prisoners.  Your route will take you across the Eastern Desert to the Red Sea, where ships will bear you to the Sinai.  From there you will continue on donkey to the Plains of Markha and the mines at Wadi Maghara, where the greenest veins of ore—the easiest to smelt—are to be found. 

If in the course of your work turquoise is discovered and may be extracted with ease, please do so, but not at the expense of mining the ore.

In addition to reopening the copper mines at Wadi Maghara, you are to assemble missions to Sewew and the Faiyum to cull the dolerite which is abundant in those lands, and which is vital to the operation of the granite quarry at Aswan. 

It is imperative that your expeditions depart as soon as your equipment, supplies, and provisions may be gathered.  The quarries at Rostau and Tura require more copper as soon as you can deliver it, and the work at Aswan must not be delayed if the granite is to be delivered on schedule. 

May Isis watch over you.

Letter 3: Recruitment of the Unskilled and Semi-Skilled Labor Force

To Ahwet-Tepey, Administrator of the Corvée, Life and Peace!

An important task is given you, for you are my eyes and voice throughout the Two Lands.  You are to send recruiters to every nome, from Theb-Ka in the Delta to Ta-Seti at Aswan.  These recruiters will identify those men whose privilege will be to pay their bak debt working to raise Khufu on the Horizon from the Plateau of Rostau.  All the strongest men of the realm are summoned to pit their endurance and athleticism against one another for the glory of the king and the honor of their towns and families!

These recruiters will arrange the schedule of rotation and provide the men with their work assignments.  Men will be needed for the quarries at Aswan and Tura, as well as the main quarry at Rostau and the lesser quarry where the pyramid will be raised.  Men will also be needed to provide supporting services to the great work, both at home and in the quarries.

There will be jobs for hearty men of few skills who will work under direct supervision.  For these jobs select men who are stout of body and spirited in nature.  These men they will be working in teams with others from their families and villages, competing in their labor with men from all over Egypt for glory and honor.  Tell these men they will travel, gain experience and character, and will come to be all they are capable of being.  And they will eat better every day in service to the king than they do on festival days at home!

When selecting these men bear in mind the sort of labor they will be doing.  Their backs will move the levers that free the blocks in the quarries, pull the laden sleds, and load, unload, and arrange the great blocks of Khufu on the Horizon. Their arms will clear the debris and bust rocks for filler material.  They will grind gypsum and pour mortar.  Their legs will carry water for the work, wood for the fires, and tools to and from the sharpeners and the stonecutters.  They will work in quarries, on docks, and on the pyramid itself.

Teams from the corvée pulling a colossal statue on a great sled. Most of the stone moved throughout Giza would have been on much smaller sleds, but the granite beams quarried at Aswan would have been pulled on sleds not unlike this one (Drawn by Faucher-Gudin)

Of course, some men will need to remain behind on their farms to do their part for Khufu on the Horizon.  These men will till the earth, fish the Nile, and tend their flocks and herds as they have always done.  Their bak debt will be paid on hooves, in barrels, and in grain sacks.  Cattle and goats, and the drovers to deliver them.  Fish and fowl.  Emmer and Barley, garlic and leeks.  Onions, radishes, cucumbers, dates, honey, and figs.  Salt and herbs.  All for the glory of Egypt, all for the glory of the Pharaoh, all for the sake of Ma’at!

Your recruiters must also seek men with useful talents or the ability to learn quickly.  Unlike the unskilled men, who will be constantly told come here and go there, these men will have regular assignments such as positioning levers, rough shaping stone, and sharpening tools.  They will operate machines which have been designed to lift and turn the laden sleds.  They will cook the meals in the barracks and assist the bakers and brewers. 

A Young brewery worker from the Old Kingdom (Photo by Jon Bodsworth)

These are coveted positions to which they will return for their season of bak labor year after year, with prospects for advancement.  They are opportunities to learn a trade, and a clever man may find himself apprenticed to a master.  For this reason your recruiters should know that bribes and nepotism will not be tolerated.  Any man who corrupts this great work will find himself and his family made destitute, his lands seized, and his place in the afterlife forfeit.

Your men need not worry about skilled artisans and craftsmen, as these will be recruited by their nomarchs and overseers.  Your recruiters need only concern themselves with mobilizing the main body of the corvée to the pharaoh’s service. 

Arrange shifts and rotations of the corvée, send the right workers where they are needed most, and coordinate with the Royal Treasury and the Overseer of Provisions to assure that the granaries and storehouses remain stocked.

It is important for your men to work with haste, but of especial importance that those who will be recruiting from Lower Egypt, particularly the nomes of Khensu, Ka-Khem, Heq-At, and lower Aneb-Hetch—those nomes closest to Rostau—immediately send workers to the plateau to begin construction of the city where the permanent residents and rotating labor force will dwell. 

This city will grow over time, but even in Year One there will be need for barracks, granaries, bakeries, breweries, and other facilities necessary to support the great work.

I wish you peace!  May you live, prosper, and be healthy!

Letter 4:  Recruitment of the Skilled Labor Force

To the Nomarchs and Overseers of Upper and Lower Egypt—Life, Prosperity, and Health!

Let word go out to all nomes and territories—men and women of wisdom and ability, your skills are required at the main site and in the quarries for Khufu on the Horizon! 

The mudbrick buildings and narrow streets of the workers’ city (Graphic courtesy of Jean-Pierre Houdin/Dassault Systemes)

To all the nomarchs:  send proclamations throughout your domains saying that Pharaoh Khufu (May He Live!  May He Prosper!  May He be Healthy!) requires the immediate services of skilled tradesmen of all professions!

Potters, weavers, metallurgists and smiths, woodworkers, carpenters, drovers, millers, butchers, bakers, and brewers–come to Rostau to serve your bak debt.  If you choose to remain, opportunities abound for you to make your fortunes.  There will be commerce and industry the year round.

A worker’s city is to be constructed at Rostau straight away—barracks, administrative buildings, granaries, bakeries, breweries, work yards, smithies, and foundries.  There will be permanent dwellings for those who bring their families to settle, and your king encourages this heartily!  Already the workers gather to build this city, to labor in the quarry, and to cut the foundations for Khufu on the Horizon!  Those craftsmen and artisans who are first to arrive will have the most desirable jobs, the finest housing, the best in all things!

Mudbrick was used for the worker’s city because there was a need to build as quickly and cheaply as possible (Graphic by Achille-Constant-Theodore Emile Prisse d'Avennes)

To Sha-Asha, the Overseer of Craftsmen, there is immediate need at Rostau for journeymen of all professions—mudbrick makers, thatchers, carpenters, wood workers, potters, smiths, rope makers and weavers.  There is need in the quarries for men skilled in the working of copper and the making of tools.  Everywhere there is demand for basket makers.  There are ships to be built and sails to be made.  All sons and daughters of Egypt owe bak, but those who have a trade can truly better their lives.  

To Henem-Meha, Overseer of the King’s Quarries and Inspector of Masons, there is need at Rostau to build containment walls for the workers’ city, to construct a quay at the foot of the plateau, and to pave the access road from the quay to the northeast quarry.  There will also be need for a canal to be dug from the Nile to the quay, a distance of more than half an iter.  Plan for the canal to be at least 12,380 cubits in length and wide and deep enough to support a barge carrying granite beams equal in weight to well over 2 million deben of copper.

In addition, operations are to commence at the quarry at Tura, eight miles upstream from Rostau, from which the fine white limestone for the pyramid and temple facings will be cut and dressed.  Work is also to begin at the granite quarry at Aswan.

There is need in all places for surveyors, stone cutters, breakers and ledgemen, masons, dredgers, drillers, pounders, and grinders.  Your teams will be provided with related specialists, such as carpenters and smiths, as they require.  The unskilled and semi-skilled help are being dispatched.

To Qai-Sesh, Magistrate, Overseer of the Scribes, and Overseer of the Priests of Re, to you I bid Life, Prosperity, and Health!  In all work centers, but especially at Rostau, there is need of architects and master surveyors, engineers, overseers of labor, priests to advise and bless construction and to sanctify grounds, astrologers, lawyers, physicians and herbalists, counters and inspectors, logisticians, provisioners, and scribes of all varieties.

With all haste let word go out!  As the Nile rises in Akhet, let all Egypt rise to the great work of Khufu on the Horizon!  As the crops emerge in Peret, let the wise and skilled of Upper and Lower Egypt emerge and come forth to the pharaoh’s service!  As grain is harvested in Shemu, nomarchs and overseers:  gather the bounty of Egypt’s craftsmen, artisans, and experts in all things!

Letter Five:  The Opening of the Quarry at Tura

To Iner-Sedjenajeninmer, Quarry Master and Overseer of the Expedition at Tura, Long Life!

Soon the professional craftsmen, semi-skilled workmen, and main force of no less than 500 men will begin arriving at Tura for the commencement of work.  The luminous white limestone of Tura shines in the sun like the surface of the Nile, unlike the dull and course yellow limestone of Rostau. 

For this reason the Tura limestone will be the finished outer facing of Khufu on the Horizon, as well as the mortuary and valley temples, ka and queens’ pyramids, and the finished causeway.  All of Khufu’s (Life!  Prosperity!  Health!) pyramid complex will shine like a diadem on the brow of Isis!

But those who say take leisure, that the outer casing stones will not be needed until the core is erected, are in serious error and know nothing of what my father Snefru (May He Have Life in the East!) achieved.  If the outer surface of a smooth-sided pyramid is not laid first, the corners will not meet at the top.  Small errors at the beginning grow to colossal failures in the end.  The angle and its maintenance are determined by the surface, not the core.  For these reasons, the limestone of Tura will be needed before the first course of Khufu on the Horizon can be laid.

This copper adze would have been used in woodwork, but the copper chisels used in the quarries and at the pyramid site would have looked similar (Original photo by Jon Bodsworth)

This need is compounded by the qualities of the limestone of Tura.  The limestone you will be working with is soft when it is first quarried and cuts easily in straight lines.  This makes extraction, precise shaping, and polishing very easy. 

But as soon as the surfaces are exposed to the air they begin to calcify and form a hard shell.  This increases their durability, but means that all shaping and polishing must be completed at the quarry before they are ever shipped.  This means, of course, that some blocks will sustain damage in transport, but these can be easily patched and mortared.

Dressing the blocks will require a high degree of exactitude.  To finish the stone before the surface hardens the workers will need to move fast.  You will be provided with enough copper to assure that as each chisel dulls there will be another to replace it.  Runners will be in constant motion, carrying away dulled tools and returning with sharpened ones.  Each tool will have to be reheated to be sharpened, so other runners will keep the fire of the smithies stoked.  Coordination of your workforce will be essential.

Cubit measuring rods such as these from the Eighteenth Dynasty tomb of Aperia would have been common tools in the quarries and at the pyramid construction site (Photo by Jon Bodsworth)

As the blocks are cut, they must each be lined up side by side exactly as they will be installed on the pyramid.  Once the face is cut to a perfect angle of 14/11 seked, the angle of the pyramid, it must be polished with quartzite powder.  To assure an ideal fit, a toothless copper saw with quartzite grit will need to be passed between each block to perfect their sides to their one another.  

Each block will be numbered to ensure that it is placed correctly when installed.  By installing the outer layer of Tura limestone first, the surveyors and architects will be able to observe that all the angles are correct, which if your work is exact, they will be.  With the facing stones in place, a supporting layer of well calibrated Rostau limestone forty cubits thick will be erected behind them.  The internal ramp will be built into this sturdy layer.  The rough core filling, as well as all chambers, passageways, and some machinery necessary for construction, will be contained behind the support layer.

Building from within—Workers lever one of the Tura limestone blocks into place. Also depicted is the 20 meter-thick layer of local limestone which supported the internal ramp. Some of the rough core is represented in the upper-right corner (Graphic courtesy of Jean-Pierre Houdin/Dassault Systemes)

Course by course, this is how Khufu on the Horizon will come into being.  Iner-Sedjenajeninmer, you have been chosen to oversee the work at Tura because of your qualifications, and the pharaoh is counting on you.  As you cut, shape, and perfect each numbered course of blocks, you will be essentially building the pyramid first at Tura and then shipping it to Rostau.  The rest of the pyramid will be built within what you provide.  It is imperative that you know this.  Great will be your reward, and you will dwell with the pharaoh forever.  Friend of the King, go in peace!

Letter Six:  The Opening of the Quarry at Aswan

To Emratab-Neb, Quarry Master and Overseer of the Expedition to Aswan, Prosperity!

A workforce of no less than 500 men, including quarry workers, supportive staff, and all manner of experts has been dispatched to Aswan.  Although we will not have need for granite until Year Twelve, work must begin immediately.  The qualities of the stone and the logistics required to deliver it to Rostau will make your work slow and tedious and even more reliant on the seasons than other quarry work.  Rest assured, all of these difficulties have been resolved, but your mastery and patience will be demanded in equal measure.  The pharaoh asks much of you, and great will be the glory.

An Aswan granite quarry at the site of the Unfinished Obelisk (Photo by Joe Pyrek)

The granite you will be quarrying is too hard for chisels, so expect a minimum of copper to be rationed to your operation.  Instead you will be receiving large quantities of dolerite, which is harder than the granite of Aswan.  Wooden wedges driven into natural cracks and those opened with dolerite mallets can be soaked with water, causing them to expand and free the stone.  Once extracted, the granite can be shaped into great beams with dolerite pounders.

A spherical dolerite pounder left behind in the Great Pyramid. These pounders were harder than the Aswan granite, which couldn’t be shaped with copper tools (Photo by Jon Bodsworth)

Dolerite is being collected by missions dispatched to Sewew and the Faiyum for that purpose.   Additionally, teams have been sent forth to the cataracts, where the Nile gives up dolerite shaped into spheres.  These special pounders will allow your most expert stone cutters to shape the hard granite into the specific forms needed for the great work.

These great beams will weigh up to 2 million deben [around 60 tons], some of them possibly more.  They will be used to protect vulnerable chambers within the pyramid, to bear and direct the pressure of incredible amounts of weight, and to span wide reaches with minimal support, where limestone would crack under its own mass.  They will likewise be used for structural purposes in the temples connected to Khufu on the Horizon.

You will have to quarry, shape, and ship more than 118 million deben [3,500 tons, give or take] of granite from Aswan before this great work is done, more than has been used in the entirety of Egypt’s past.  The beams will make the twenty-day journey down the Nile on mighty barges.  An expedition has been sent to Lebanon to acquire cedar for the manufacture of these barges, and the Overseer of Shipwrights and Chandlers, who has already begun work on the lesser barges for the Tura limestone, has the plans for these vessels at the ready.

Along with the other experts being sent to Aswan, you will receive a team of dredgers who will oversee the digging of trenches in the flood lands during the season of Shemu, when the plains are dry.  These trenches will be deep enough to hold the barges so that their decks are level with the land.  As granite beams are completed they will be loaded onto great sleds, wood for which is also being procured from Lebanon, and these sleds will be towed onto the barges and left there.  When the plains flood in the season of Akhet, the barges will be lifted by the Nile and carried to Rostau on the rapid currents of the inundation.

Granite beams lined up on the King’s Chamber level of the pyramid (Graphic courtesy of Jean-Pierre Houdin/Dassault Systems)

As you can see, you will need every day of the following twelve years to maintain the schedule required by the construction.  The quarrying will be slow, and the dressing of the stone many times more so.  Beams should be shipped in the Akhet immediately following their completion, to be stored on site at Rostau. 

The center of all this effort, the primary reason for the great work, is the 10 by 20 cubits chamber in which the king’s body will rest.  Everything else, from the bottom of the causeway to the tip of pyramidion, is there to physically and spiritually support that sacred space. 

The granite beams you will be sending to the plateau are what make this sacred space possible.  Without them, the great work will fail.  You labor for the king, for Ma’at, and for the glory of all Egypt. 

Cut-away view of the King’s Chamber with its granite support beams. The physics required in constructing the 10 by 20 cubits burial chamber with its flat ceiling guided nearly every other decision made by Hemienu (Graphic courtesy of Jean-Pierre Houdin/Dassault Systemes)

Annotated Bibliography

• Brier, Bob, and Jean-Pierre Houdin. The Secret of the Great Pyramid: How One Man’s Obsession Led to the Solution of Ancient Egypt’s Greatest Mystery. New York: HarperCollins, 2008.

In this paradigm-shifter, Jean-Pierre Houdin and Bob Brier introduce M. Houdin’s theories about the construction of the Great Pyramid.  Written for a general audience, but without skimming over details or dumbing down the material, The Secret of the Great Pyramid is a detailed explanation of the internal ramp theory and the physical and circumstantial evidence in support of it.

The Secret of the Great Pyramid accomplishes the delightful achievement of being a book that is equally at home in your Works Cited page and your beach bag.  But don’t confuse its mass appeal with being light on scholarship.  I do not use the words paradigm-shifter lightly–Jean-Pierre Houdin’s work takes us around the corner and into the next phase of understanding how the monuments of the Memphis Necropolis, from Saqqara to Giza, were constructed, and The Secret of the Great Pyramid is your introduction to the future of comprehending the past.  A strong endorsement, I know..  And I stand behind every word!

For this article the following sections were especially helpful:  Pyramid site selection (pp. 58-78); details of the Tura limestone (pp. 67-72); the granite quarry at Aswan (pp. 67-69); the workers’ city (pp. 64-66); logistics (pp. 70-1); Sinai mining operations (pp. 71-2).

• Hitchins, Derek K.  The Pyramid Builder’s Handbook.  Self-published via Lulu, 2010.

In The Pyramid Builder’s Handbook, Derek K. Hitchins sets out to explain how these massive national building projects were carried out in terms of systems engineering.  Hitchins brings his experience as an engineer to the task of exploring the history of pyramid development, logistics, and how the process of problem resolution utilized existing technologies and methods as well as led to new ones.

Hitchins is effective in debunking the construction theories involving external ramps only (pp. 141-5), but does not address the possibility of an internal ramp, much less a combined solution of an internal and external ramp.  He favors what he calls “rocking methods” (pp. 146-48), which involves balancing the stones on two facing wedges and inserting planks beneath each wedge while the block is “rocked” onto the other, thus raising the stone step by step. 

While this method could certainly work in raising individual blocks, and was possibly used in certain applications, compared to the internal ramp theory it seems to this writer to be tedious and impractical.  Hitchins is an expert in systems engineering and the Gentle Reader is encouraged to evaluate his arguments for him/herself.  But in the writing of this article, The Pyramid Builder’s Handbook was most useful in describing the corvée and the division of labor.

The Pyramid Builder’s Handbook is well written and presented in a textbook-style, with ample photographs and illustrations.  The material can be fairly technical at times, and general readers may find it more useful as a reference work, as opposed to something you will read from cover to cover.  While I do not agree with all of Hitchins’ conclusions, I found the book to be incredibly informative and packed with useful data and information. 

For this article the following sections were especially helpful:  The corvée and labor organization (pp. 9-12, 123-26. 138-41); logistics and feeding the workforce (pp. 117-21); Khufu’s Pyramid in general (pp. 39-45).

• Houdin, Jean-Pierre.  Khufu’s Pyramid Revealed.  Giza:  Abydos Pub., 2010.

In Khufu’s Pyramid Revealed, Jean-Pierre Houdin expands on the materiel introduced in The Secret of the Great Pyramid, going into much greater detail regarding how all of the elements of both his theory and the pyramid itself fit together into a cohesive whole.  While still a highly readable work, Khufu’s Pyramid Revealed delves further into Hemienu’s simple solutions for the complex problems posed by the Great Work of building Khufu on the Horizon. 

Nearly every page is beautifully illustrated by the aesthetically pleasing and intricately detailed computer graphics produced by M. Houdin and Dassault Systemes (some of which appear in this article), who have graciously supported Jean-Pierre in every aspect of his work.  Khufu’s Pyramid Revealed leaves—literally—no stone unturned in showing how the Great Pyramid was constructed using tools and techniques known to have been in use during the period in question.

For this article the following sections were especially helpful:  Details of the Tura limestone (p. 17); tools and logistics (pp. 19-21); requirements for the King’s Chamber (pp. 29, 53); building from within (pp. 33-35); pyramid site selection (p. 43); the corvée and workers’ city (pp. 45-47).

• Lehner, Mark. The Complete Pyramids. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1997.

Mark Lehner’s magnum opus of all things pyramidical, The Complete Pyramids covers the history and development not only of the pyramids themselves, but of the people who have studied them.  From the first instance of stacking one mastaba on top of another to the pyramids of Late Antiquity, Lehner explicates the design, function, and evolution of these complex tombs and “resurrection machines.”

The Complete Pyramids predates the publication of Jean-Pierre Houdin’s work by a couple of years, so the internal ramp theory gets a grand total of one paragraph (p. 216) and is limited to the theories proposed by Dieter Arnold.  However, for his detailed treatment of the individual pyramids, the people who built them, and the tools they used, Lehner’s Complete Pyramids is required reading for every Egyptologist, amateur and professional alike. 

Heavily illustrated and presented in textbook format, The Complete Pyramids is as accessible to laypersons as it is useful to experts, which is to say, very.  Again, I have to admit my biases in favor of Jean-Pierre Houdin’s work as being the most thorough and up to date treatment of pyramid construction, but it is difficult to fully appreciate the achievements of the latter without understanding the historical and cultural context which Lehner gives to the subject. 

As always, the Gentle Reader is encouraged to explore these books first hand and with a joyous heart and an open mind reach his or her own conclusions—and reading The Complete Pyramids is a joy.

For this article the following sections were especially helpful:  Khufu’s Pyramid in general (pp. 108-19); pyramid site selection (pp. 12-13); the Giza Plateau (pp. 106-07); logistics (pp. 202-05); quarries (pp. 206-07); tools (210-11); the corvée (pp. 224-25); the workers’ city (pp. 230-33, 238-39); feeding the workforce (236-37).

• Lehner, Mark.  Et al.  AERAgram:  The Official Newsletter of Ancient Egypt Research Associates.  Vol. 1-10.

The Ancient Egypt Research Associates (AERA) is the organization founded in 1985 by Mark Lehner and Matthew McCauley for the purpose of funding and facilitating the Giza Plateau Mapping Project, and extension of Lehner’s work with the Great Sphinx.  AERA’s primary focus in the last decade has been the excavation and analysis of the pyramid workers’ city at Giza.

AERAgram is the newsletter and biannual report of the work at the site and has been extremely valuable in understanding the corvée and the bak system, as well as how the various social strata of the pyramid city worked and lived.  All ten volumes of AERAgram, which are available in pdf format from the official AERA website, were consulted in writing this article.

• Siliotti, Alberto. Guide to the Pyramids of Egypt. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1997.

Alberto Siliotti’s Guide to the Pyramids of Egypt is an excellent introductory-level encyclopedia of pyramids, with hundreds of photographs, maps, and diagrams.  Siliotti’s large-format book has entries on all of the major pyramids and necropolises, with details of the temples and complexes associated with them.

While the photography provides a veritable tour of the architecture and landscape, I found the site and structure maps especially useful.  While clearly an entry level book, its thoroughness and layout makes it a handy reference for Egypt aficionados of all varieties.  This is one of those coffee table books you often see on the bargain tables and in the remainder bins, and if you come across a copy you will not regret picking it up.

For this article the following sections were especially helpful:  Khufu’s Pyramid in general (pp. 48-53); the Giza Plateau (pp. 46-7); tools and construction (pp. 40-4); workers’ city (p. 45).

• Wilkinson, A. H. Toby.  Early Dynastic Egypt.  New York:  Routledge, 1999.

Early Dynastic Egypt explores how government and the world’s first bureaucracy developed in the earliest phase of Old Kingdom Period of Egypt, from Dynasties Zero to Three.  In this heavily researched work (nearly every paragraph in this book has at least one citation!), author Toby A. H. Wilkinson delves into the subjects of administration, foreign relations, and the establishment of urban centers with the thoroughness of a master who knows his subject and sincerely wants you to know it as well.

Wilkinson provides individual mini-biographies for every Egyptian ruler from the unnamed kings of Dynasty 0 through to Huni and Qahedjet.  The section on the establishment of authority (pp. 92-279) explains in detail how the royal administration developed, from the petty nobility to the creation of the vizier, and the growth (by necessity) of a complex system of titles and functionaries. 

Although the timeframe of Early Dynastic Egypt (just barely) predates the subject of this article, it was an invaluable resource in understanding the foundations of the political system and hierarchy in which Hemienu operated and how it was vital to mobilizing the nation toward the singular goal of building Khufu’s Pyramid.   It has been stated that while the Egyptians built the pyramids, the pyramids built Egypt.  In other words, the national political system emerged from the process of organizing the great work of pyramid construction.  Toby Wilkinson shows that the roots of the nation-state of Egypt actually reach considerably further back than the Fourth Dynasty.

For this article the following sections were especially helpful:  Administration and royal titles (pp. 92-126); Sinai mining operations (pp. 121-22; 139-46); mines and quarries in general (144-45); development of the corvée (pp. 94-95, 120); the institution of the vizier (116-118); administration of royal building projects (pp. 113-14).

Copyright by Keith Payne, 2010.  All rights reserved.

Graphics “Workers’ city”, “Building from within”, Granite beams qued”, and “King’s chamber” by Jean-Pierre Houdin/Dassault Systemes are copyrighted by Jean-Pierre Houdin and Dassault Systems and are used with their kind permission—all rights reserved.  Graphic “Contour Map of the Giza Plateau” by Jean-Pierre Houdin/Albert Ranson is copyrighted by Jean-Pierre Houdin and Albert Ranson and is used with their kind permission—all rights reserved.  Photographs “The Pyramids of Dashur and Giza as viewed from Saqqara” by Gaspa, and “Aswan granite quarry” by Joe Pyrek are used in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.  Photographs  “Dolerite Sphere”, “Cubit measuring rods”, “Old kingdom figure showing beer making”, “Basalt drill core”, and “Copper adze” by Jon Bodsworth have been kindly released by Mr. Bodsworth to the public domain.  Drawings “Stone-cutters finishing the dressing of limestone blocks”, “Colossal statue being dragged on a sled”, and “Measuring wheat and depositing it in the granaries“ drawn by Faucher-Gudin (Maspero, Gaston. History of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria. Vol. II, Part A. London: Grolier Society), courtesy of Project Gutenberg, and plates “Metal workers” and “Mudbrick makers”, by Achille-Constant-Theodore Emile Prisse d’Avennes (Atlas de I’Histoire de I’Art Egyptien, d’apres les monuments, depuis les temps les plus reculesjusqu’d la domination romains, 1877), are in the public domain as their copyrights have expired.

Our master builders have different goals, however.  The first, Hemienu, was determined to build the greatest pyramid ever, and the second, Jean-Pierre Houdin, was equally determined to figure out how he did it.

Jean-Pierre Houdin and Bob Brier wrote a book—The Secret of the Great Pyramid—about this very subject in 2008 and the paperback edition is due to hit bookstores October 6, 2009.  Ahead of the paperback, Em Hotep!  is providing you with a multi-part primer to Houdin’s work, to be followed with an interview with the man himself.

But first, who are these two architects?

Hemienu, son of Nefermaat—or Snefru

Hemienu: Vizier, Master of Works, and architect of the Great Pyramid (courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Although the Great Pyramid bears the name of Pharaoh Khufu, Hemienu was the genius behind its construction.  It was no coincidence that Hemienu should be selected for the job, and his pedigree would have well prepared him for the task.  What we don’t know from primary sources we may infer from what we do know about his probable history, and history in general.

There are two main theories regarding Hemienu’s childhood.  According to one theory he was the son of Pharaoh Snefru’s vizier, Nefermaat.  Vizier Nefermaat also bore the title “King’s Eldest Son,” which taken literally would have made Hemienu Snefru’s grandson.  As the positions of Vizier and Master of Works usually went hand-in-hand, it is believed that Nefermaat probably designed and built Snefru’s pyramids, including the Red Pyramid, the first true pyramid

If Nefermaat was Hemienu’s father, it is not difficult to imagine the two of them visiting building sites together, the youngster rapt with his father’s instructions to the workers, his discussions of geography and topography as he surveyed locations, and geological reports delivered from distant provinces.  He would have witnessed firsthand the difficult and painful lessons of the failures of the collapsed pyramid at Meidum and the second guessing that led to the oddly shaped Bent Pyramid at Dashur.

Pharaoh Snefru (courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

The other theory is that Hemienu was the son of Snefru, the pharaoh himself.  As a son of the pharaoh, Hemienu would have had an elite education leaving him well versed in the principles of mathematics and astronomy, and with an appreciation for the importance of architecture in religion.  His days at the court would have familiarized him with the intricacies of leadership and logistics.

While Hemienu, as the son of Pharaoh Snefru, may not have visited the building sites of the pyramids (although he very well may have), he would have been privy to the discussions of their construction.  We may safely assume this from the fact that regardless of who his father may have been, he eventually became vizier and Master of Works himself for his brother—or uncle—Khufu.  And as such, he showed clear signs of having learned from, and improved upon, the methods used by pyramid builders who preceded him.

The Pyramid Age had been ushered in by Imhotep, the vizier and master architect of Pharaoh Djoser.  Imhotep invented the pyramid, and while the form he designed may have changed, his template for pyramids and the complexes associated with them would set the standard for centuries to follow.  Before Imhotep, pharaohs and other nobles were buried under mastabas, rectangular stone buildings that contained mortuary shrines to the deceased and often symbolically mirrored the homes they occupied in life.

Imhotep conceived of a burial monument consisting of a number of mastabas stacked on top of each other, growing smaller as they rose.  His invention was the Step Pyramid, and he arrived at it through a process of modification and experimentation.  Like a Third Dynasty Einstein, Imhotep started with the idea of a pyramid and by devising, testing, and refining his idea, he achieved what had never been done before.

Hemienu, on the other hand, was more like Michelangelo.  He knew exactly what he wanted from the beginning, and by precisely executing his vision he achieved what has never been done since.  He had a plan which underwent very little modification, nor could it have.  Hemienu understood how every layer had to look and function—from the underground provisional tomb to the pyramidion—before he began digging.

Jean-Pierre Houdin, son of Henri

Jean-Pierre Houdin (center) - An architectural solution to an architectural question (courtesy of Jean-Pierre Houdin)

Jean-Pierre Houdin also grew up among the construction of great monuments.  His father, Henri Houdin, was part of the generation of French children born after WWI whose lives would be shaped by the events of WWII.  At the end of the war, he earned a Ph.D. in engineering from Paris’s presti-gious École des Arts et Metiers.  With more than 7,000 bridges to be rebuilt, young engineers were given tremendous responsibilities. Thus in 1947 24-year-old Henri Houdin was placed in charge of rebuilding the Conflans Bridge outside of Paris (Brier and Houdin, pp. 2, 38).

Jean-Pierre was born in 1951, the younger of two sons, and spent much of his childhood playing at construction sites with his brother, Bernard.  Henri had been assigned to the Ivory Coast, a French protectorate, where he was instrumental in the rebuilding of that country, and family outings often consisted of picnics at construction sites (Brier and Houdin, pp. 38-40). 

It was thus no surprise when Jean-Pierre decided to become an architect.  He entered the École des Beaux-Arts in 1970 for that purpose where, as part of his final year studies, Jean-Pierre designed a solar house that would be considered cutting edge green technology today.  The year was 1976.

Henri Houdin first became intrigued with the construction of the Great Pyramid in 1998, when he viewed a television program on the subject, The Mystery of the Pyramid.  He watched with interest as the theories of construction were spelled out, but his instinct told him that the conventional theories didn’t quite add up.  They were illogical to the trained eye of an experienced master builder and were neither based on true civil engineering techniques nor masonry processes.

The engineer immediately spotted two misconceptions. The first was that blocks were always depicted being delivered to the site from the base to the top from the outside. The second misconception was that the pyramid facing was shown being installed at the end of the process, from top to base, with no means of controlling the shape of the monument. Henri didn’t see how that could be possible.  He then had an ingenious idea: if he would have to build a pyramid, he would build it from the inside.

Henri Houdin now had a project to keep him busy in his retirement, and he tackled the quandary with relish.  How would he, as an engineer, build the pyramid?  He worked and reworked his ideas, and in 1999 went so far as to publish his theory in the journal of the French National Society of Engineers and Scientists (Brier and Houdin, p. 126).

Henri discussed his newfound passion often with Jean-Pierre, but just as the engineer had seen flaws in the approach of the non-engineers, the architect son began to notice things his engineer father had missed.  For instance, Henri had envisioned an internal ramp spiraling up the inside of the pyramid in a circular fashion.  Jean-Pierre knew that it would be impossible to move heavy blocks in a circular pattern—there is no efficient way to push or pull such weights around a constant curve. 

Jean-Pierre also knew that there was no way the internal ramp could accommodate some of the larger blocks used in the construction of the King’s Chamber (Brier and Houdin, p. 126).  Somehow Hemienu had found a way to move granite slabs, some of which weighed more than sixty tons, to a height of nearly 200 feet and maneuver them into exactly the right place. 

So the architect stepped in where the engineer left off.  How had Hemienu done it?  Or more to the point, how was Jean-Pierre going to do it?  How do you reverse engineer a five and a half million ton pyramid?

Synthesis

About a hundred feet to the east of the Great Pyramid, cut into the limestone bedrock, is a sixty-foot trench first surveyed in the 1880’s by Sir William M. Flinders Petrie.  The trench contains, rendered in 3D, an exact model of the descending and ascending passages of the pyramid, around which the rest would be designed.  Although the halls are much shorter, they are the exact dimensions of the real thing, a veritable walk-in blueprint, right down to the narrowing of the ascending passageway to allow blocks to be wedged in (Brier and Houdin, pp. 114-17).

As it turns out, Jean-Pierre Houdin would approach the problem in exactly the same way Hemienu did.  Thinking like his architect predecessor, Jean-Pierre used architectural software to produce the first true 3D model of the pyramid since Hemienu.  Other models had been made of the pyramid, to be sure, but Jean-Pierre was able to use specialized computer imagery that allowed him to turn the pyramid in any direction, to see the interior through its external skin, and to virtually travel through its passages just as Hemienu did in his 3D model.

The Great Pyramid of Khufu - Does a mile-long ramp lie hidden within? (Photo by Keith Payne)

Jean-Pierre’s life experience as the son of an engineer, his professional training and experience as an architect, and his technological savvy made him an ideal person to reexamine the question of how Khufu’s Pyramid was conceived, planned, and ultimately built.  His zeal would bring him to the attention of Dassault Systèmes, the world leader in 3D imaging, where he would assemble a dream team of modern pyramid builders and gain the resources to give his project the attention it deserves.

Hemienu to Houdin—Building a Great Pyramid

Over the next few weeks Em Hotep! will take you inside Jean-Pierre Houdin’s ideas, explore his vision, and evaluate his conclusions.  The first part will be an examination of the internal ramp theory.  What are the shortcomings of the traditional theories and how does his internal ramp resolve these issues?  Then we will go into the core of the pyramid itself and explore Houdin’s explanations of some of the pyramid’s abiding enigmas, such as the purpose of the Grand Gallery, and how those titanic granite blocks were put into place.  Finally, we will end with an exclusive interview with Jean Pierre Houdin himself to get clarification and find out where he will take us next.

Jean-Pierre Houdin’s mind is in perpetual motion, and describing Khufu’s Pyramid as his passion is actually an understatement—it is his magnum opus, his mission.  With his and Bob Brier’s book, The Secret of the Great Pyramid, just going into paperback in October, you can rest assured his work has continued.  In addition to the coming interview, he just might provide some clarification as we explore his theory.  Who knows what new insights may arise?

Next Part: 

Hemienu to Houdin Part One: How Do You Prefer Your Ramp, Straight or With a Twist?

Work Cited:  Brier, Bob and Jean-Pierre Houdin.  The Secret of the Great Pyramid.  New York:  Smithsonian, 2008.

Photographs ”Statue-of-Hemiun.jpg” by Einsamer Schütze and “Snofru Eg Mus Kairo 2002.png” are provided courtesy of Wikimedia Commons  and are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License. In short: you are free to share and make derivative works of those files under the conditions that you appropriately attribute them, and that you distribute them only under a license identical to this one. Official license.  Both photographs of Jean-Pierre Houdin are courtesy of Jean-Pierre Houdin, all rights reserved. 

ALL OTHER photographs and text are copyright (c) 2009 by Keith Payne, all rights reserved.