“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.

Previously available only in French, this is the first official English language translation, made available through our partnership with Pyramidales and Dassault Systèmes.  Over the next few weeks I will be publishing, in addition to Part Two of this interview, translations of additional material that is being very kindly provided by Marc, Jean-Pierre, and the Project Khufu team at Dassault Systèmes.  This will allow me some time to get caught up and reoriented after having to take one of my infamous sabbaticals (sometimes life just shows up with a bag full of challenges, but all is well, Gentle Reader!).

“There is no reason to abstain, especially when you are an architect, from studying the construction of the pyramids, on the pretext that you don’t have the ‘certified Egyptologist’ badge” (Jean-Pierre Houdin)

It was on March 30, 2007, a significant date for the architect-researcher Jean-Pierre Houdin: on this day he publicly “revealed”, in the futuristic setting of the Géode, (la Villette in Paris), what it is advisable to call his “theory” on the construction of the Pyramid of Khufu.

Today, January 27, 2011, for the preview of Khufu Reborn (also known as Khufu Renaissance), still the same venue, the same décor. But while the same people are involved (the Dassault Systèmes “Khufu Team” is still at the controls), the contents of the paper have developed considerably, as would have been expected. Since 2007, when it was essentially a question of an internal ramp and of the Grand Gallery as a track for a gigantic counterweight inside the Great Pyramid, Jean-Pierre Houdin has taken his inventory of the monument much further, in its internal structure and it topographic environment.

New elements in the reading and understanding of the pyramid, the results of numerous observations made by the architect, represent not only a development but, in his mind, a real revolution – the word is not too strong – that could well cause shudders, or even the grinding of teeth, in (elevated) spheres and among all ranks of pyramidology. From Khufu Revealed (2007), the first formulation of Jean-Pierre Houdin’s “theory”, to Khufu Reborn (2011), there is not only a four year gap, but above all a radical change in perspective, already underlying Khufu Revealed, but here expressed in full maturity.

Jean-Pierre Houdin has actually broadened the scope of his research. He has probed deeper into the bowels of the Great Pyramid. He also went to see the Red Pyramid and the Bent Pyramid, always with his eye on gaining a better understanding of Khufu’s Pyramid. And there it was, the surprise appeared, in his view, as an obvious fact: common points between these pyramids emanated from the same architectural “school”, to the point of making room for the “copy-and-paste” technique to configure the main structures of the monuments. This is what Jean-Pierre Houdin call “inheritance”.

With this approach, major structural elements appear inside the Great Pyramid that have been oddly left in the shade for many centuries: two antechambers to the King’s Chamber, a second (in fact: the real) entrance to this very chamber, a second access corridor to the Queen’s Chamber, a second ascending corridor starting at the (T-shaped) entrance to the monument, followed by a second horizontal corridor leading to the antechambers, an evacuation shaft for the end of construction, connecting the upper space of the pyramid’s entrance to the internal ramp… all these elements making up a “Noble Circuit” reserved for the Pharaoh’s funeral. As far as the other known structural elements are concerned (descending and ascending corridors, Grand Gallery, drop-stone trap chamber, service shafts, etc.), in Jean-Pierre Houdin’s analysis, they only had a functional role, serving no purpose once the construction of the King’s Chamber was finished.

Left to right: Marc Chartier, Jean-Pierre Houdin, Keith Payne

Pyramidales will examine the results of this substantial addition to the inventory in detail. As a preview, here is an exclusive interview that Jean-Pierre Houdin gave us, during which he discusses his working method and the essential skills learned from some twelve years of his research in the shadow of the monument, which he still considers as an absolute architectural masterpiece: the Pyramid of Khufu.

Below is the Part One of the interview.

Pyramidales: “Jean-Pierre Houdin, you have already been kind enough to answer my questions, for readers of Pyramidales. During this interview, you announced a major continuation of your research into your reconstitution of the construction site for the Great Pyramid of Giza.

The time has come to publish the results of this new research, which you have called Episode Two.

Does this mean that in your opinion Episode 1 was incomplete, despite the very large audience that this first work met, as much among the general public as with informed researchers, in numerous countries?”

A two-stage tactic

Jean-Pierre Houdin: “I’ll say right away that already in the summer of 2003, so nearly eight years ago now, my work on the Pyramid of Khufu had provided a much more comprehensive explanation for this construction project than that prevailing at the time.

“In June 2005, during my first meeting with my friends at Dassault Systèmes, Mehdi Tayoubi and Richard Breitner, of course I decided to tell them everything about this work. They felt the extent of the theory and the overturning of “The Unique Thinking’ aspect of what I had just revealed to them appeared too important, and above all too explosive, to be placed in the public domain in one go. We therefore agreed on a two-stage tactic: Episode 1 covered the whole theoretical part of the theory dedicated to construction of the pyramid and Episode 2 covered everything relating to the architecture of the funereal apartments. The intention was to target the largest possible audience and present the theory in the most scientific and credible way possible, through virtual validation using Dassault Systèmes’ software, in order to gain unassailable credibility on this point.

“Once the theory was established, we thought we could rapidly put it to the critical test by obtaining authorization to undertake a research mission on site using non-destructive tests. The great advantage of the theory lies in the fact that it is irrefutable: the discovery of the internal ramp would close debate over the question of the monument’s construction.

“The Khufu Revealed presentation at the Géode on March 30, 2007 elicited considerable response from around the world. In one morning, the theory was recognized as the most plausible on the subject. Unfortunately, afterwards, as far as real validation was concerned, things did not go as planned; submission of an application for a scientific mission remained impossible despite several meetings at the highest level. In the end, this additional period ‘granted’ to us turned into a real godsend: Episode 2, version 2011 has gained considerable weight compared with Episode 2 as first imagined in 2005, and we have been very successful in collecting clues on the ground.”

With technical support from Dassault Systèmes (in the foreground: Richard Breitner)

Pyramidales: “Before coming to the real content of your new developments on the Pyramid of Khufu, can you give us an insight into your research method? Looking at your previous publications and presentations, I think I see at least three principal working themes in your approach to the Egyptology ‘thing’: meticulous observation of the site, a builder’s logic (we haven’t forgotten you are an architect), enabling you to ‘talk’ across time with the Egyptian builders, and an awareness of construction techniques specific to several pyramids from various eras.

 “Do you recognize yourself in this description? If necessary, how would you add to it?”

More than 5,000 hours spent modeling in 3D

J.-P. Houdin: “First of all, there was a ‘founding’ event that led me to devote more than twelve years of my life, full-time, to Khufu and, by extension, to all the great smooth pyramids. It was the intuition my father had on January 2, 1999 and that I love to recall: ‘If I had to construct the Pyramid of Khufu’, he told me, ‘I would build it from the inside’. With a single sentence, ‘The Unique Thinking’ was blown apart! At the time, I was approaching fifty and Bulle, my wife, finally convinced me that we don’t live forever, that routine is the enemy of passion, and so I was looking for an ‘idea’ worth devoting myself to. Khufu ‘landed in my lap’! The architect in me told me quite simply that this was my path. The Pyramid of Khufu was worth it!

“Starting from this intuition, slowly and surely I unwound the ball of thread that nobody had been able to untangle, because they didn’t have the right code to find one of its ends.

“And then, after spending my whole childhood immersed in building and civil engineering, having qualified as a professional architect and having worked in the profession for more than twenty years, being initiated into computer-aided design, I had the ‘necessary qualifications’ to enable me to succeed in seeing through a serious and probing study of the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ of the pyramids, and then publish proposals in this field.

“Between 1999 and 2005 (before meeting Dassault Systèmes), I thus spent more than 5,000 hours modeling my ideas in 3D, with the unique advantage of being able to visualize whatever came into my mind, practically in real time. I also had the possibility of finding out the precise relationships in space between the various elements that I had in front of me on the computer screen.

“From the start, I understood that I had to think as an ‘Egyptian of the time’ and not as a modern builder. I therefore did a lot of research on the subject, both in books and on the Internet (having spent a year in New York from 1996 to 1997 and experienced it first-hand, I had grasped the huge revolution that this tool would bring), to find out about the techniques, materials, tools and expertise of the ancient Egyptians. This enabled me to notice in passing that the literature about the pyramids was fairly thin, padded with rehashed quotations passed from one author to the next, with no personal analysis and particularly very often missing the point. Finally, starting 2004, thanks to help from sponsors, I was able to make regular trips to Egypt and do my own research on site; every time, I found a clue to support my proposals.”

Pyramidales: “Among your working tools, 3D now occupies an essential place, thanks to the skills and intellectual proximity you have found with your friends at Dassault Systèmes. What extra benefit does this virtual presentation bring to your work?”

 

From left to right: J.-P. Houdin, Mehdi Tayoubi, Richard Breitner

J.P. Houdin: “As I told you before, 3D has an essential place in my research. My meeting with the engineers from Dassault Systèmes was extraordinary: we spoke the same language and they offered me the Rolls-Royce of the computer-aided design field. At once my work took giant leaps forward, scientific simulations underpinning virtual modeling. For example, simulations performed by the Khufu Team in connection with the cracking of the beams over the King’s Chamber provided the precise answer enabling me to confirm that the Egyptians mastered the situation very well at a moment of disarray and did not abandoned this room during construction. The best proof: 45 centuries later, the damage has not got worse.”

Pyramidales: “There’s no point burying your head in the sand! The logistics established around your work, with the media impact we have seen, have aroused envy and will do so again. Unfortunately, it seems that the microcosm of Egyptology, no doubt like other areas of scientific research, cultivates an innate sense of controversy. How do you explain this observation?”

“I had to take up my pilgrim’s staff”

J.-P. Houdin: “Research is not a class prerogative; freedom of thought is fundamental and there is no reason to abstain, especially when you are an architect, from studying the construction of the pyramids, on the pretext that you don’t have the ‘certified Egyptologist’ badge.

“The pyramids were designed and built by men like Hemiunu and Ankhhaf, Viziers of all Khufu’s Great Royal Works, a title that can be compared nowadays with that of an architect or an engineer.

“Egyptology was born during Napoleon Bonaparte’s Egyptian Campaign and, from the start, was directed towards the archaeology of measurements, excavations and collection of relics. University studies in this field are based principally on the understanding of hieroglyphs, documents, history and religion; they provide no particular training in the understanding of construction techniques. The result: no theory put forward by Egyptologists bears analysis, right from the first lines. I think that my architect’s background qualifies me as much as an Egyptologist, if not more so, to investigate the problem of the construction of the pyramids 

Picture from the documentary Kheops Révélé (Gédéon Programmes)

“Now, my position as an ‘outsider’ closes the door to many facilities: not being an insider, it was out of the question for me to be supported by public bodies. I had to take up my pilgrim’s staff and go to convince sponsors in France and Egypt (because I have some there too). The commitment by Dassault Systèmes is exemplary, as part of a sponsorship program (Passion for Innovation). Sponsorship is particularly oriented towards sport and the arts; in my case, it is to support research into our past, into an admirable civilization that still has a lot to teach us. Nothing could be more normal than for sponsors to mediatize this action. Let those who are envious understand this: my breakthrough in the world of Egyptology has not been an ‘overnight success’, the fruit of this wide media exposure alone, but the result of a great deal of effort, privation, passion and conviction on the part of my contacts.

“I don’t think I need advice from people (very few incidentally) who have proved incapable of making objective and substantiated criticism of my work.”

Pyramidales: “To come now to the heart of the matter, namely the content of Episode 2, what are the main points, what are the structures or components of the Pyramid of Khufu that formed the subject of your complementary analyses and interpretations? In other words: what have you observed in what, until now, remained silent or secret from the fantastic ‘language of the stones’ that the pyramid offers to those who know how to decode it?”

J.-P. Houdin: “I called the content of Episode 2 ‘Khufu’s Inheritance’, that is the real funereal architecture of the Great Pyramid, a logical continuation of the sepulchral tradition and experience in construction accumulated by the Egyptians over more than a century, particularly in the reign of Khufu’s father, Snefru.

“In 2003, so after already having spent four years studying and researching Khufu’s Pyramid, and the other great smooth pyramids of the 3rd and 4th Dynasties, I arrived at the conclusion that there was something that didn’t ‘fit’ in the internal architecture of this funereal monument. I use this word ‘funereal’ because it is essential to come back to the ‘why’ of the royal pyramids: to serve as tombs for kings and their close family for eternity, in the belief of a life in the hereafter. This involved having a real apartment with, if I may be so bold, living room, dining room and bedroom. Also, the Egyptians paid much more attention to constructing their eternal dwelling than they did to that for their earthly life, the latter being only a brief stay.

The two antechambers of the King’s Chamber, similar to the ones of the Red pyramid

“By means of thousands of hours of 3D modeling, literally getting inside the volume with all the possibilities this technology offered me, I could observe, analyze and understand the spatial relationships between the various internal structures: the chambers (and their passageways), the corridors and the Grand Gallery. As far as the Grand Gallery was concerned, I was already firmly convinced that it could only have been a technical element associated with the construction and that it was pointless to try and give it a funereal function. Moreover, certain explanations linking the three chambers (the underground chamber, called the Queen’s chamber, and the King’s Chamber), in order to ‘include’ them in the funereal tradition seem to me to be mistaken, even fanciful.

“I had already spent enough time ‘in the company of’ my fellow architects of the period to understand that our knowledge of this pyramid was incomplete. It had no room for their constructive logic or the simplicity of their approach to the configuration of the funereal apartments.

“The presence of two antechambers in the Pyramid of Khufu, modeled on those in the Red Pyramid at Dahshur, constructed by the same ‘college of architects’ for Snefru, Khufu’s father, was a foregone conclusion for me. The language of the stones did the rest, 3D modeling contributing an extraordinary ‘beyond the visible’ visual representation.”

Pyramidales: “To back up, indeed corroborate, your observations, were you able to profit from studies, assessments or experiments, to some extent made public, or even conversely perhaps kept secret… because they were too disturbing for what you call “The Unique Thinking”?

J.-P. Houdin: “During all these years of research, I was aware that in the end you could find a great many clues just by going ‘fishing’ in projects already carried out or studies published over the years. During the micro-gravimetric campaign performed under the patronage of the EDF Foundation in 1986/87, the results were not what was hoped for at the time, namely the detection of an unknown chamber, which proves that there are many people who are not satisfied with the current status quo. The anomaly of the spiraling low-density zone would have remained at the bottom of the drawer if my curiosity had not pushed me to look much more closely at these results. The ‘catch’ had been excellent, because in my mind the probability of later finding this spiral perfectly matching that in the theory was practically zero. This anomaly can only have one rational explanation and any attempt to deflect its significance towards other constructional explanations is doomed to fail because the fundamental subject is then forgotten: how was the pyramid built? And here we have to go into detail rationally, which has not been done since the dawn of time.

“Moreover, during this investigation, other results concerning other anomalies that also fell into the drawer supported my latest suggestions: micro-gravimetry had also detected low-density and high-density zones at exactly the places I expected.

“I had also learned that at the same time, under the direction of a well-respected Egyptologist, Professor Yoshimura, the University of Waseda in Japan had undertaken two radar studies in the pyramid shortly after the French project. One very significant result, detected during each of these two missions, brought to light a corridor about thirty meters long, parallel to the horizontal corridor leading to the Queen’s Chamber and finishing in the north-west corner of the chamber’s north wall. This discovery was the subject of an official publication, but the establishment misunderstood it at the time. Competition between Egyptological teams appears to be fierce, with the consequence that a mass of information is closeted away without trace for simple reasons of ego. For me, science cannot and should not be hampered by clan disputes; but this example proves that the reality is quite different.

“As for ‘The Unique thinking’ I often talk about, I will summarize it with a phrase from the Greek historian Thucydides: ‘Instead of taking the trouble to search for the truth, we generally prefer to adopt ready-made ideas.’”

Pyramidales: “Adding to your previous research, in order to refine your reconstitution of the Great Pyramid’s construction, your new observations initially led you to focus your attention on the area around the monument, namely the Royal Causeway intended to transport stone blocks. What are the configuration and route of this causeway?”

A trench in the bedrock to serve as a slide channel for a second counterweight

J.-P. Houdin: “I often say that by having had this sudden inspiration in 1999, ‘The pyramid was built from the inside’, my father had finally found one of the two ends of the thread in the ball of wool that represented the enigma of the pyramid’s construction. Those who maintained ‘The Unique thinking’, according to which the pyramid was constructed from the outside, were turning this ball around while themselves going round in circles, with nothing (the end of the thread) to establish a plausible theory. From the start, I had this element and I pulled the thread little by little, the ball getting progressively smaller.

As for the Giza Plateau, it was the thought of a reader that pushed me to examine it more closely. This reader pointed out to me that I had not explained how I transported the granite beams from the port to the base of the great external ramp; and he was right to point it out to me. Indeed, it is such remarks that help things move forward.

The building site was organized around two main axes (in red): Both pyramids of Khafre and Menkaure had not yet been built at the time

“And, as if by a strange coincidence (?), the next day on Talking Pyramids, Vincent Brown’s blog, I saw a photograph from the beginning of the 20th century taken by Spelterini from a balloon. And the penny dropped: why hadn’t I thought of it sooner? The Royal Causeway of Khafre was built on a ramp dating from Khufu’s construction project! The Egyptians always considered simplicity and economy in organizing their construction sites: first construct the pyramid in a first quarry, to supply materials over the shortest possible distance, to have as much as possible to hand, if I might say.

Illustration from Dassault Systèmes

“Nonetheless they had two materials that came from other regions of Egypt: Tura limestone for the facing stone and Aswan granite for the walls and beams of the King’s Chamber. They needed a canal and an unloading port as close as possible: the current port in front of the Valley Temple of Khafre and the Sphinx was the ideal place. From there, the Tura blocks could follow an allowable natural slope of 8 to 9%, to be delivered at the base of the pyramid, at the entrance to the internal ramp. On the other hand, the beams having to be delivered to the level of the base of the King’s Chamber, the route had to be longer to maintain an identical slope. The hypotenuse of the triangle was not suitable and the two sides of the triangle became more logical. Khafre’s Royal Causeway crossed my external ramp. By moving this slightly to the west, profiting from the greater altitude of the Plateau in this area (15 m higher than the base of the pyramid), it was shortened by about one hundred meters and its starting point was naturally located on an extension of the Causeway and practically at right-angles to it. The difference in level between the port and the base of the King’s Chamber is about 83 m, two-thirds (55 m) being covered with the aid of this plateau ramp, the final third (28 m) by means of the exterior ramp (the blue line below). Incidentally, I noticed the presence of several quarries along the route of the plateau ramp (the red line below). These must have been used as required and were directly linked.

“This ramp, which was nearly 24 m wide, was much too big to be just the foundation for Khafre’s Royal Causeway (9.50 m), especially given that the other plateau causeways have foundations that do not extend beyond their masonry (10 m for Khufu and 8.5 m for Menkaure).

“This ramp sorted out the route for materials, but did not explain how the beams were brought up from the port to the base of the Khufu’s external ramp.

“In my theory, I say that the beams were dragged from the base of the pyramid to level +43 m using a counterweight moving inside the Grand Gallery (the green line at the top, above). Logic would therefore expect the Egyptians to have installed a first counterweight at the end of the plateau ramp to bring the monoliths to the base of the second ramp. To do this, they would have had to dig a trench in the bedrock to serve as a slide channel for this second counterweight; and this is what they did! Precisely in line with the plateau ramp, and beyond the starting point of the external ramp for Khufu’s pyramid, they dug this ditch and we had a clue we hadn’t dared hope for.

Although this trench had disappeared under Khafre’s pyramid (the green line, above, left), one detail is remarkable: while all the funereal apartments and corridors were dug into the bedrock, the corridor connecting the entrance to the sepulchral chamber, with its floor more than 10 m below the level of the plateau, has indeed also been dug, but suddenly, over about ten meters exactly aligned with the plateau ramp, it is constructed in stone, floor, walls and ceiling. And this trench had a great influence on the location of the internal structures; it required the designers to move them about twelve meters to the east, in order to avoid having a significant void to fill in under the stone-built section of the corridor.”

To be continued!

Copyright by Marc Chartier, 2011.  All rights reserved

Methinks I will be successful…

Project Khufu Timeline

Jean-Pierre Houdin (Courtesy of National Geographic)

In its earliest years, the best theory of how the Great Pyramid was built was making its rounds within the innermost circles of Egyptology.  Only a few people were “in the know” well enough to appreciate what had been accomplished—a French Architect named Jean-Pierre Houdin had formulated a theory of how the Great Pyramid was built that took into account the tools and methods that we know the Egyptians had at the time, the challenges of the terrain, and the evidence, some of which had not yet been recognized as such.

The average person with only a casual interest in Egypt has not spent much time pondering how the Great Pyramid was built, and many unfortunately still assume that it was built by slaves (it wasn’t) working on a long ramp that went all the way to the top (it didn’t) which then somehow disappeared into the sands of the desert (it couldn’t).  We have Hollywood to thank for that.  Jean-Pierre presented the first comprehensive theory that actually did work, and with a little help from his friends, brought it to the general public in a way that not only made sense but was actually interesting.

La Géode, Paris (Photo by Suaudeau)

In March, 2007, Jean-Pierre premiered his work at La Géode in Paris, and did so in a way that transported viewers to the Giza Plateau of 4,500 years ago to see how the Great Pyramid could have been built.  Working with some of the brightest engineers and experts in industrial 3D imaging technology, courtesy of Dassault Systèmes, Jean-Pierre was able to immerse the audience into the world of the pyramid builders and show what the architecture and evidence tell us. For the first time he was able to present his theory and demonstrate its validity to people of all levels of experience and interest.

From 2007 to 2010 Jean-Pierre’s work continued to be presented three times a week at La Géode as Kheops 3D, a 3D stand-alone version of his March, 2007, presentation.  Powered by the same imaging technology Dassault Systèmes uses in everything from designing exotic race cars to aerospace and defense applications, Kheops 3D took even the most the abstract and technical aspects of Jean-Pierre’s work and literally rendered it into a purely visual experience that anyone can follow.

Bob Brier (Courtesy of National Geographic)

Meanwhile, support for Jean-Pierre continued to gain momentum within the world of Egyptologists.  Another of his earliest and most vocal supporters was the Egyptologist Dr. Bob Brier, most often associated with his work with mummies, but who has more recently been writing and lecturing about ancient Egyptian architecture.   Support is perhaps an understatement.  Dr. Brier not only made the necessary introductions between Jean-Pierre and some of the other luminaries of the Egyptological world, he co-wrote The Secret of the Great Pyramid with Jean-Pierre.

In 2008, while filming the documentary Khufu Revealed, Dr. Brier discovered a small room in an exposed niche in the north-east ridge of the Great Pyramid.  His attention was drawn to the niche in the first place because Jean-Pierre theorizes that such niches would have existed at the junction points where one stretch of the internal ramp gives way to another.  This particular niche is where Jean-Pierre calculated that a north-bound corridor would have connected to a west-bound corridor.  Dr. Brier’s observations were not entirely conclusive, but the discovery inspired Jean-Pierre and the team from Dassault Systèmes to redouble their work.  (For more details see Archaeology:  “Update—Return to the Great Pyramid” by Bob Brier)

Since then Project Khufu has been using cutting edge non-invasive methods and technology to survey, model, and analyze not just the Great Pyramid, but the entire plateau and other pyramids on the vast plain known as the Memphis Necropolis.  The results of their work, which includes a massive expansion of Jean-Pierre’s theories as well as an impressive new immersive 3D presentation, will premiere, again at La Géode, on January 27, 2011.

Dassault Systèmes and Why They Matter

At first glance it may seem that Dassault Systèmes’ involvement is primarily in creating the stunning 3D eye candy that brings Jean-Pierre’s ideas to life.  And at second glance a more astute observer might realize that Dassault Systèmes’s 3D rendering technology and engineering expertise provide a level of exactitude that goes well beyond the DIY modeling of most theories of the Great Pyramid.  But their importance to Jean-Pierre’s work goes even deeper than this.

Dassault Systèmes does not just provide 3D modeling of facilities and equipment, from the bird’s eye view of a manufacturing plant down to the smallest bolt in the most delicate machine in the site, they also perform virtual stress testing to predict what might happen elsewhere in the facility if that little bolt fails.  They can tell you the life expectancy of the machines and the products they will make.  They can tell you where the worker will have to stand to remain safe and avoid Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.  In other words, they don’t just make pretty models, they know everything you can possibly know about the end result.

Click here to view the embedded video.

There are plenty of firms that could have done attractive 3D imaging of Jean-Pierre’s ideas, but the significance of this marriage between the architect and the engineers is their ability to generate theories and then actually test them under laboratory conditions.  So the structures above the King’s Chamber in Khufu’s Pyramid are called the stress-relieving compartments.  Did they actually relieve stress?  Is there evidence?  Can you prove it?  What Dassault Systèmes brings to the table is the tools and the expertise to be able to say “Yes, yes, and yes…  Now let’s show you.”

Khufu Reborn

Khufu Reborn is the official launching of the next phase of Project Khufu, which will go beyond the Great Pyramid.  It is not just an update of Jean-Pierre’s theories, it is the next step in the evolution of a new way of looking at the architecture of ancient Egypt.  The project began not with Jean-Pierre, but with his father, Henri Houdin, also an architect, who asked himself, “If I were given the task of building the Great Pyramid, how would I do it?”  Henri ignored the theories that had gone before, which suffered from a tendency to gloss over details they could not explain.  How would an actual builder build this?

Mehdi Tayoubi (Courtesy of Gedeon/Dassault Systèmes)

This legacy has passed from father to son, and from architect to engineer.  With the involvement of Mehdi Tayoubi and Richard Breitner from Dassault Systèmes, the question continues to be how did the builders actually build this?  Jean-Pierre Houdin says he has figured it out, and the evidence certainly seems to back him up.  The team from Dassault Systèmes has put much effort into determining whether or not his theories could work and whether his interpretation of the evidence fits into the physical and technological world of Hemienu, Khufu’s Overseer of Royal Projects. 

Richard Breitner (Courtesy of Gedeon/Dassault Systèmes)

Khufu Reborn should provide more answers.  I will be there to cover the event, and will have plenty of opportunity to speak with Jean-Pierre about his work—past, present, and future.  I will also try to get some time with Mehdi Tayoubi.  If you have been following the Egyptological headlines you will know that Dassault Systèmes has also recently partnered with Peter Der Manuelian and the Giza Archives Project to form Giza 3D, and will also be contributing to the project based at Leeds University to explore the shafts in the Great Pyramid, the much-touted robot crawlers project!  Maybe I can learn more about this trend and the future of Dassault Systèmes’s involvement in Egyptology.

One thing we do know…  It all began with a French architect saying Aha!

Note:  I will try to get one more chapter of Hemienu to Houdin posted before leaving for Paris, but I can’t make any promises!  But I can promise I will finish the series, even if some of the concepts will be outdated.  I feel it is important to have the full evolution of Jean-Pierre’s work accessible for future analysis.

Copyright by Keith Payne, 2011.  All rights reserved.

Photo “Cite_des_sciences_de_la_Villette_-_Panorama3” by Suaudeau is in the public domain.  Still images “Mehdi Tayoubi” and “Richard Breitner” are taken from the video “Kheops Revele”, copyright by Gedeon/Dassault Systemes, used with permission, all rights reserved.  Still photos “Bob Brier and Khufu”, “Jean-Pierre at work”, and the video clip “Analyzing the beams above the King’s Chamber” are taken from the National Geographic video “Unlocking the Great Pyramid,” copyright by National Geographic (orig. air: 11/16/2008), all rights reserved.  This video clip and the related still images are used in accordance with the fair use provisions of the Copyright Act.

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.

In preparation for what Jean-Pierre Houdin calls “Episode 2,” a comprehensive update and expansion of his work with the Great Pyramid in particular and the funerary architecture of the Pyramid Age of the Old Kingdom in general, Em Hotep has embarked on this mission to lay out his theory to-date in a simple but detailed format that will allow the specialist and layperson alike to evaluate the theory as well as mark its progress in Episode 2. 

In Phase One, Parts A and B, we looked at Jean-Pierre’s detailed explanation of how Hemienu could have built two thirds of the Great Pyramid with an external ramp that only reached one third of the pyramid’s final height, and how this ramp could have used an alternating-lanes strategy to avoid work stoppages, even while the ramp was built up from layer to layer.  Now we will lay the foundation—literally and figuratively—for Phase B by looking at how Hemienu designed the floor plan of the Great Pyramid on the vertical rather than horizontal plane. 

Hemienu to Houdin presents the opening statement and theories.  Soon the counselor himself will present the evidence and closing arguments.  My goal is to provide the transcript for the deliberations of you, the jury.

The Layout:  A Vertical, Rather Than Horizontal, Design

With conventional architectural designs, we are accustomed to seeing floor plans that are laid out on the horizontal plane.  Interconnected rooms are arranged on the same level, joined by doorways or horizontal corridors.  If there are other levels, then these too are arranged in horizontal space, with stairs, ramps, or elevators connecting the levels.  This is true of the majority of architecture in ancient Egypt as well.  But with the Great Pyramid things are a little different. 

Looking at the shape of a mastaba it’s easy to see how they evolved into the pyramidal form (Photo by Jon Bodsworth)

Although pyramids are the most celebrated funerary structures from the Old Kingdom Period, most people who could afford a luxurious send-off were interred in, or more accurately, under, a mastaba.  Mastabas are flat-roofed rectangular brick buildings with walls that lean slightly inward. 

They sit atop one or more vertical shafts cut into the bedrock that lead to subterranean burial chambers.  By the Fourth Dynasty, the peak of the Pyramid Age, mastabas could be rather elaborate in design.  (For a good example, albeit from the Sixth Dynasty, check out An Egyptian Bourgeoisie: The Tomb of Vizier Mereruka)

The Step Pyramid of Djoser (Photo by Keith Payne)

It is easy to see the genesis of the pyramidal shape in the tapered form of the mastaba.  In fact, the earliest pyramid that we know of, the Step Pyramid of Djoser, began as a large mastaba and ended as five additional mastabas stacked on top of the first, with each level smaller than the previous.  Another innovation is that the burial chamber moved progressively higher as pyramids evolved—from underground, to ground level, to suspended above ground level within the core. 

Khufu’s pyramid has three different burial chambers at three different levels.  Hemienu had his reasons for situating these burial chambers at different levels, not to mention at different phases of construction, and we will get into these details a little later in this article.  But their arrangement within the pyramid’s structure—the need to have them at different levels, but with similar alignment and orientation—is part of why the floor plan of the Great Pyramid is designed on the vertical, rather than horizontal, plane.

Convention during this period dictated that royal burial chambers should lie to the south of the pyramid’s east/west axis.  As shown in the illustration, the burial chambers in the Meidum, Bent, and Red Pyramids are all constructed south of the east/west axis, opposite the entrance.  In Khufu’s pyramid the King’s and Subterranean Chambers both lie to the south, and the Queen’s Chamber straddles the east/west axis perfectly. 

In the case of the Queen’s Chamber, the intent may have been for the sarcophagus to be placed in the southern half of the room, had it been used for the pharaoh’s interment.  Such exact placement has precedence within the Great Pyramid, as the sarcophagus in the King’s Chamber is arranged with its eastern side perfectly aligned with the north/south axis.  But even without knowing the exact reasons why, we do know that the three chambers are clustered around the midpoint of the pyramid at different levels, and the straight approach from the northern entrance makes for an easy vertical arrangement. 

One way of thinking about the inner structures is to consider that movement progresses from north to south.  The Entrance is on the northern face.  From there one progresses southward via the Descending Corridor.  At 28.2 meters inside, the Ascending Corridor branches up and continues southward from the Descending Corridor, which continues its own southerly journey to the Subterranean Chamber.  The Ascending Corridor ends at the base of the Grand Gallery, with a Horizontal Corridor leading off to the Queen’s Chamber.  Both the Grand Gallery and the Horizontal Corridor continue southward.  The King’s Chamber is the highest and southernmost known internal structure.

The vertical arrangement of the internal structures also had practical benefits.  Recall that most of the pyramid—the core—is made up of rough-cut blocks, filler chips, and gypsum mortar.  These blocks are made of the same locally quarried nummulitic limestone as the backing layer, but are not as precisely calibrated and were not suitable as a foundation for the inner structures.  The burial chambers, and especially the earth-rattling counterweight system that would be housed in the Grand Gallery, required a solid foundation of the same well-cut masonry that makes up the backing layer.

These more precisely-cut blocks were expensive in terms of the time it took to shape them and the materials expending in doing so.  Each well-cut block required more copper chisels, more runners to carry the dulled chisels from the worksite to the sharpeners, more wood (a rarity in the desert) to keep the smith’s fires burning, and most of all, more time.  Nothing in the Great Work of Khufu’s Pyramid could be wasted, especially time, so ideally the inner structures needed to be squeezed into as small a footprint as possible—the smaller the footprint, the less expensive the foundation. 

For all of these reasons it made sense to design the inner workings of the Great Pyramid on the vertical rather than horizontal plane.  Rather than rooms located on the same level and connected by horizontal passageways, Hemienu stood the floor plan on its edge.  The rooms would be aligned vertically on different levels, connected mostly by sloping corridors.  This vertical structure could rest on a shared foundation that was a simple north-to-south strip of pavement.

Before we continue on to our description of the individual elements of the inner workings of the Great Pyramid, let’s first address why Hemienu might have constructed three burial chambers, and why they couldn’t have been built on more or less the same level within the pyramid.

In the Event of Untimely Death:  The Provisional Burial Chambers

Putting aside all symbolism, and ignoring Hemienu’s personal ambitions, the Great Pyramid was ultimately built for one purpose only:  a final resting place for the body of Pharaoh Khufu.  Everything about how the pyramid was planned and executed revolved around the final burial room known as the King’s Chamber, and its unique flat ceiling.  But the King’s Chamber would not be complete until Year 15 of construction.  What if the King, gods forbid, died before that?

Hemienu had planned for such a contingency.  The Great Pyramid was designed from the outset to have three burial chambers:  the King’s Chamber and two provisional tombs.  The first provisional tomb was the Subterranean Chamber, which would serve as the royal tomb if Khufu had died during the first ten years of construction.  The second provisional tomb was the so-called Queen’s Chamber, which would have held the pharaoh’s body if he died during years ten through fifteen.  After Year 15 the King’s Chamber would be Khufu’s final resting place.

It has been argued in the past that the three different burial chambers suggest that Hemienu had altered his plan as he progressed, originally intending the Subterranean Chamber to be the tomb, then deciding to locate the burial room at the higher location of the Queen’s Chamber, then ultimately deciding to build a third, final burial room—the King’s Chamber.  However, the precision with which the King’s Chamber was located argues against this and in favor of a single, complete building plan from the very beginning.

The Great Step at the top of the Grand Gallery—its top surface is at the 43-meter level, and its face is aligned perfectly on the east/west vertical axis (Photo by Bulle Plexiglass)

We will be expanding on the evidence for Hemienu’s fore planning when we cover Phase Two, but for now consider that the placement of the “Great Step” at the top of the Grand Gallery exactly on the east/west axis, and the ceiling of the King’s Chamber exactly at the one third height of the finished pyramid, could only have been achieved with comprehensive planning. 

The length and height of the Grand Gallery are not arbitrary, as we shall see, and to know in advance where the Great Step would be located meant that Hemienu knew exactly where, and at what slope, to begin the Ascending Corridor.

For these reasons alone we can be certain that the Great Pyramid was planned with three different burial chambers from the outset.  The idea of Hemienu making radical alterations, such as adding entire rooms and corridors after construction had begun, simply does not reconcile with the exactitude of the finished product.    Planning for temporary burial chambers seems to be more in the character of Hemienu from what we can deduce from the meticulous planning which must have gone into each phase of construction.  We will now look more closely at the individual elements of the inner structure.

The Descending Corridor

Work on the Descending Corridor would have begun in the very earliest stages of pyramid construction, while the foundations were still being leveled.  It started as a passageway cut downward into the bedrock, .96 meters (3.1 feet) high and 1.04 meters (3.4 feet) wide, descending southward at a 26.5 degree angle.  Work on the Descending Corridor would have continued while the first courses of the pyramid were being laid, with the corridor being extended upward into the new masonry toward the future Entrance in the northern face of the pyramid.

Looking up the Descending Corridor toward the Entrance (Photo by Jon Bodsworth)

The bottom of the Descending Corridor at the point where it levels off (Photo by John & Morton Edgar)

Rather than the rough-cut blocks of the core, the masonry into which the Descending Corridor was extended was the well-calibrated blocks of the foundation being laid for the rest of the internal structures.  This may have contributed to the precision with which the Descending Corridor was constructed—Jean Pierre has noted that it is the most precisely cut structure within the pyramid, never deviating more than a quarter of an inch its entire run.

Once finished, the Descending Corridor passed downward from the Entrance through the masonry for 28.8 meters, continued through the bedrock for another 30.3 meters before leveling off at a depth of 30 vertical meters below ground.  After a short (8.9 meters) horizontal stretch the Descending Corridor ended at the Subterranean Chamber, for a total run of about 68 meters.

The Subterranean Chamber

Thirty meters below the base of the pyramid, the Subterranean Chamber was the first of the two provisional tombs, and is where the body of Khufu would have been interred if he had died during the first ten years of construction.  Fortunately, Khufu never had use for it, and the incomplete state of the walls and floor suggest that Hemienu considered the king to be in good enough health to move on.  Besides, the chamber was far enough along that if Khufu had died it could have been finished during the time that it took to mummify his body.

The eastern wall of the Subterranean Chamber with the entrance in the northern wall visible—the squatting fellow to the left (Photo by John & Morton Edgar, courtesy of Jon Bodsworth)

The Subterranean Chamber has irregular dimensions, but measures roughly 8 by 13 meters, with a height of about 3.1 meters, and is oriented east to west, with the northern wall aligned on the east/west axis.  The chamber also contains an unfinished “well shaft” and what appears to be an unfinished continuation of the horizontal section of the Descending Corridor exiting through the south wall.  The purpose of the pit and the southern extension are unknown, however, it is worth observing that if Hemienu did make alterations to his plan, the subterranean section—not being part of the pyramid’s superstructure—was the only safe place to do so.

The Entrance

The double-gabled Entrance (Photo by Keith Payne)

Located at the opposite end of the Descending Corridor, the Entrance is pretty self explanatory—it was the original means of entrance into the Great Pyramid.  The Entrance is located seventeen meters above the base and is centered 6.82 meters east of the north/south axis.  This 6.82-meter offset has to do with the need to align the Grand Gallery with the eastern half of the King’s Chamber. 

We will sort out these details when we cover Phase Two, but the simple explanation is that the heavy beams of Aswan granite were unloaded on the eastern side then positioned to the west.

Speaking of heavy beams, the Entrance is supported by four 20-ton blocks of Tura limestone that would have been the first heavy test of the external ramp.  These huge blocks are situated in two pairs, one on top of the other, with the paired blocks resting against each other at a 120 degree angle.  The effect is an impressive double gable that has become one of the iconic images of the Great Pyramid.  These megalithic blocks are the same that are used to form the arched ceiling of the Queen’s Chamber and the roof of the relieving compartments above the King’s Chamber.

The Ascending Corridor

The junction where the Ascending Corridor branches up from the Descending Corridor (Photo by John & Morton Edgar)

The Ascending Corridor begins as an upward branch of the Descending Corridor at about 28 meters in from the Entrance.  This cramped passageway starts literally as a hole in the ceiling of the Descending Corridor, and shares the same dimensions (.96 by 1.04 meters) and slope (26.5 degrees).  At about 39 meters in length, the bottom of the Ascending Corridor is currently plugged by three large granite blocks, each 1.5 meters long.

We will be revisiting the Ascending Corridor when we cover Phase Two.  Jean-Pierre Houdin theorizes that this passage originally housed a ballast roller that was part of the counterweight machinery of the Grand Gallery, the floor of which is a continuation of the slope of the Ascending Corridor.  Like the Descending Corridor, the Ascending Corridor is housed in the strip of well-calibrated masonry that forms the interior foundation.  It is in perfect vertical alignment with the Entrance, sharing the same 6.82 meter offset.

The Queen’s Chamber

The entrance under the Grand Gallery to the Horizontal Corridor that leads to the Queen’s Chamber (Photo by Jon Bodsworth)

By Jean-Pierre’s analysis, the pyramid should have reached a height of 21 vertical meters around Year 8 of construction, which was an important milestone.  At this elevation the Ascending Corridor came to an end and the Grand Gallery began.  Also at this junction a horizontal passageway was constructed leading to the south.  With a length of 21 meters, this Horizontal Corridor led to the second provisional tomb, the misnamed “Queen’s Chamber.”  This was to be the temporary resting place of Khufu’s body, if needed, from Years 10 through 15.

Unlike the King’s and Subterranean Chambers, the Queen’s Chamber is longer from north to south, 5.75 meters, than it is east to west, 5.23 meters.  This may give the initial impression that, unlike the other burial chambers, the Queen’s Chamber is oriented north to south rather than east to west.  But the innovative ceiling of the Queen’s Chamber, a sort of trial run for the roof of the relieving compartments above the King’s Chamber, puts this notion to rest.

Unlike the corbelled ceilings of previous pyramid burial rooms, the ceiling of the Queen’s Chamber is formed by six arching pairs of 20-ton rafters of Tura limestone identical to the gables above the Entrance.  Leaning in at 120 degrees to rest against each other, these beams form a peaked ceiling 4.6 meters above the floor of the Queen’s Chamber. 

This apex not only runs east to west, it perfectly straddles the east/west axis of the pyramid, leaving no doubt that the Queen’s Chamber, like the King’s and Subterranean, is oriented east to west.

As mentioned above, the arching ceiling of the Queen’s Chamber probably served as a proving ground for Hemienu, as he would later use the same structure atop the relieving compartments of the final burial room.  The King’s Chamber is unique in that it has a flat ceiling, an innovation with possibly aesthetic and/or symbolic significance, but which required a good deal of compensation elsewhere in the pyramid’s structure.  In order for the King’s Chamber to have a flat ceiling, Hemienu needed to divert the weight above it elsewhere, and these powerful gabled ceilings were a key part of the solution.

Of course, the reinforcement of the narrow internal foundation was also an important factor in the stability of the inner structures, and like the rest of the Great Pyramid’s “plumbing,” the Queens Chamber was aligned along this runway of masonry. 

The corbelled niche inside the Queen’s Chamber (Photo by Jon Bodsworth)

There are other elements of the Queen’s Chamber which may have served structural or symbolic purposes, or possibly both.  Situated in the eastern wall is a corbelled niche nearly as tall as the room itself which Mark Lehner believes may have once held a statue of Khufu, making the Queen’s Chamber a serdab (Lehner, Mark. The Complete Pyramids. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1997, pp. 111-12). 

This theory, however, is not incompatible with the idea of a provisional burial chamber.  There is no reason why the room could not have been designed as a serdab, but used as a tomb if the king died during this time. 

Another interesting feature is the so-called air-shafts, two diagonal shafts leading out of the Queen’s Chamber through the north and south walls.  Jean-Pierre theorizes that these shafts were an intercom system that allowed the foremen working on the north side of the pyramid to communicate with those on the south side. 

This would have been particularly useful during Phase Two, when the noise level from the counterweight system and the need to coordinate would have been at their highest.  The fact that these shafts terminate at the same level that Phase Two ended seems rather telling. 

By Year 9 of construction the ceiling of the Queen’s Chamber was in place, with the tip of the rafters reaching about 24 meters above the base of the pyramid.  Although it was not used as a provisional tomb—Long Live the King!—the walls are even more polished than those of the King’s Chamber, which would have maximized the acoustics for the intercom system.  Meanwhile, even as the Queen’s Chamber was being constructed, the rest of the pyramid continued to rise, including the Grand Gallery, which also had its base at the 21 meter level.

The Grand Gallery

So to recap, by Year 10 there were three completed passageways.  One was the Descending Corridor leading from the Entrance down to the Subterranean Chamber, the first provisional tomb.  The second was the Ascending Corridor, branching up from the Descending Corridor and ending at the 21-meter level.  The third was the horizontal passageway that led due south from the top of the Ascending Corridor to the Queen’s Chamber, the second provisional tomb.  The junction at the 21-meter level is where the Ascending Corridor transitions into the Grand Gallery. 

Visualizing the junction at the top of the Ascending Corridor can be tricky business, as the Horizontal Corridor leading to the Queen’s Chamber is at the top of the Ascending Corridor and essentially tunnels under the Grand Gallery. 

The floor of the Ascending Corridor resumes at the same 26.5 degree incline opposite the gap formed by the beginning of the Horizontal Corridor.  This gap is flanked by two elevated sides, or “benches,” that run nearly the entire length of the Grand Gallery from the base to the top. 

The Grand Gallery—note the notches cut into the raised benches (Photo by Jon Bodsworth)

In total, the Grand Gallery is about 46 meters long and 8.6 meters high from floor to ceiling, with a total vertical height of 17.35 meters from the bottom (above the gap that allows access to the Horizontal Corridor) to the top of the Great Step.  The base width (including the benches) is 2.06 meters. 

The walls are corbelled with seven tiers, extending inward about 7.6 centimeters at each tier, giving the ceiling a width of 1.04 meters.  The benches are each about 51 centimeters wide and about 61 centimeters high, squeezing the floor of the Grand Gallery into a trench about 1.06 meters wide.

Looking up (south) from the base of the Grand Gallery—the regularity of the notches and the dimensions of the corridor are just a couple of the many clues suggestive of some sort of large mechanism (Photo by John & Morton Edgar)

 There are enigmatic particulars about the Grand Gallery, not the least of which are its unusual dimensions and topography, which suggest a purpose beyond a simple passageway. 

Mechanical details, such as the regular notches that run the length of the benches and the unusual wear pattern of the Great Step (now mortared over) provide clues that some sort of large-scale kinetic activity once took place in the Grand Gallery. 

The solid base provided by the internal foundation indicates that Hemienu planned for heavy bodies in motion.  Like the external ramp, the Grand Gallery was designed with durability in mind.

A close-up of one of the notches that score the benches along the Grand Gallery and the interesting wear pattern on the Great Step before it was “repaired” (Photos by Jon Bodsworth and John & Morton Edgar)

We will explore Jean-Pierre Houdin’s explanations for these details and a great many others as we unfold the mysteries of Phase Two:  the construction of the King’s Chamber.  With the external ramp completed and the fiftieth course of the Great Pyramid leveled off at a clean 43 meters, Hemienu was ready to plug the external ramp into its battery—the counterweight trolley that thundered along its tracks in the Grand Gallery.  This ancient machine, fully integrated into the structure of the pyramid itself, provided the extra muscle required to haul the great beams of granite into place above the King’s Chamber.

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

Copyright by Keith Payne, 2010.  All rights reserved.

Photographs “Mastaba-faraoun-3”, “descending corridor looking up toward original entrance”, “Entrance to Horizontal Corridor”, “Looking into the ascending corridor from the GG”, “the GG”, “slot in the bench of the GG”, “niche inside the QC”, and “Ceiling of the Queens Chamber” by Jon Bodsworth have been released into the public domain.  Photographs “East wall of the subterranean chamber”, “where the descending corridor levels off”, “junction of the ascending and descending corridors”,  “doorway of the Horizontal Passage in the north wall of the Queen’s Chamber”, “sketch of QC”, “GG from the base showing benches”, and “eroded great step” by John & Morton Edgar are in the public domain and are provided courtesy of Jon Bodsworth.  Graphics “burial chamber offsets”, “inner works layout”, “internal foundation”, “the goal”, “three burial chambers”, “completion of the subterranean chamber”, “intercom system”, “completion of the grand gallery”, and “phase one complete” are copyrighted by Jean-Pierre Houdin and are used with his permission, all rights reserved.

In Phase One, Part B, we will be taking a detailed look at how the alternating lanes functioned, and how Jean-Pierre thinks Hemienu would have changed his strategy once the ramp became too narrow to accommodate two lanes, while still maintaining uninterrupted work from level to level.  We will examine what “building from the inside out” means and why it is the only way Jean-Pierre believes the Great Pyramid could have been constructed.  Again, our goal is a clear and visual understanding of Jean-Pierre’s theory in preparation for the coming update and expansion based on his more recent work.

To facilitate our visual understanding of Jean-Pierre’s work we will be constructing a model of the construction of the first three levels of the pyramid, as well as a jump ahead to level 35.  But when looking at our model it is important to understand that, like many of the graphics in Phase One, Part A, our model is not to scale.  To be specific, it is a small model with large parts. 

Rather than a scale depiction of the actual pyramid, our pyramid will be used to demonstrate concepts and methods.  So while some objects, such as the facing blocks, are shown larger than they would actually appear, some areas, such as the core, are shown in much smaller perspective than they would appear in relation to the whole. 

Building a Great Pyramid—It’s not mere child’s play! (delightful photo by Ed Yourdon)

Our model will also differ from the actual pyramid in that the internal structures are not depicted.  The bottom third of the Great Pyramid contains the entrance, two provisional burial chambers, the Grand Gallery, and all connecting passageways.  We will get into the details of these structures in Phase One, Part C, but in our model pyramid we are focusing on the basic concepts of how the general structure was built according to Jean-Pierre Houdin’s theory.  

We should also clarify some of the terminology we will be using.  As in Phase One, Part A, the words level and layer will have specific technical meanings.  But as we get into the minutia of the levels of the pyramid, the layers of the ramp, and the facing and backing stones, it will be more important than ever to understand these distinctions, so let’s review:

When referring to the horizontal courses of blocks that make up the pyramid, we will use level, as in level one of the pyramid, or, construction of the King’s Chamber began at the fiftieth level.  The word course may also be used to refer to pyramid levels, but the word layer will never be used to describe a level/course of the pyramid.

When referring to layers of the ramp, the word layer will be used.  For example, we may refer to the first layer of Lane A, or we might say both lanes are of equal height at layer thirty-five.  The word tier may also be used in reference to layers of the ramp, but the word level will never be used to describe a layer/tier of the ramp.

With this in mind, a helpful equation to remember is:  The ramp at layer X is used to build pyramid level X + 1.  Thus, layer five (X = 5) of the ramp would be used to build level six (X + 1) of the pyramid.  

When referring to the layer of facing blocks or the 20-meter thick backing layer between the facing blocks and the core, the word layer will be used, but always with the facing or backing qualifiers.  In other words, when layer refers to facing and backing layers on the pyramid, the context will always make it clear that we are not talking about layers of the ramp.

Before going on to our model we will first take a look at what “building from the inside out” means within the context of Jean-Pierre Houdin’s theory. 

Building from the Inside Out

Another key concept of Jean-Pierre Houdin’s theory of how the Great Pyramid was constructed is “building from the inside out.”  Broadly speaking, this refers to the process of transporting materials within the perimeter of the pyramid and building inward from the surface to the core.  If you read Six Letters from Hemienu then you know that the pyramid was built in layers (in this case, we are obviously not talking about the layers of the ramp!).  When you are installing layers of blocks from the surface toward the center, you have to push them into place from behind, thus, building from the inside out. 

Building from the inside out—Pyramid workers installing backing stones behind the facing stones (Image courtesy of Jean-Pierre Houdin/Dassault Systemes)

So why does Jean-Pierre propose that Hemienu built the pyramid inward from the surface to the core? Why not build the layers by laying blocks at the far (northern) end and keep laying them row after row until the southern edge was reached?  Or why not start in the center of the level and work outward, like laying floor tiles?  Aren’t most theories a variation on these two themes? 

Yes, most theories incorporate one of these strategies, which is part of the reason why most theories can’t work.

The problem with building a pyramidal shape, a geometric form wherein four sides of a square are extended upward and inward so as to arrive at a perfect apex, is that if the angle of anything is off, the entire shape fails.  Jean-Pierre identified five parameters that Hemienu would have needed to keep under constant control to assure a true pyramid:  the faces, the edges, the diagonals (corner to opposite corner), the north/south axis, and the east/west axis.  The rudder by which he navigated these parameters was the level-by-level installation of the pyramid’s smooth facing blocks.

As described in Six Letters from Hemienu, the fine white limestone used to cover the outside of the pyramid had qualities that required it to be completely finished where it was quarried at Tura.  The limestone was easy to extract and work with, but as soon as the air hit it, it began to calcify and harden.  For this reason the masons had to immediately cut, shape, and polish the limestone on-site.  Once it reached Giza it could be patched or repaired if it had sustained light damage, but it couldn’t be reshaped.  It either fit, or it didn’t—no alterations!

Some of the few remaining Tura limestone facing blocks at the base of Khufu’s Pyramid (Photo courtesy of Jean-Pierre Houdin)

As part of the finishing process, each facing stone was placed next to the stones that would surround it on the pyramid and then further shaped for a precise fit.  In this manner, every course of facing blocks was first preassembled at Tura and numbered for reassembly prior to transport.  In essence, level-by-level the entire shell of the pyramid was built onsite at Tura and then shipped off to the worksite.  It is easy to overlook the implications of this prefabrication of the pyramid’s surface. 

The shape of the prefabricated facing blocks formed the mould into which the rest of the pyramid would be poured, and which controlled all five of the parameters.  The outward slope of each block controlled the shape of the face, the angles of the cornerstones assured the edges, and the degree to which the entire assemblage was squared established the diagonals and axes.  This is why the facing blocks were the rudder that steered the construction—the stonecutters at Tura were not just quarrying blocks, they were creating the pieces of a 3D jigsaw puzzle that gave the pyramid its perfect shape.

The fact that the facing blocks were prefabricated and had to be inserted into specific locations is also why they had to be installed first.  Theories that depict the facing blocks being installed last could not have worked because the facing blocks could not be reshaped to fit the backing layer, the backing layer had to be custom made to fit behind the facing blocks.  So the facing blocks had to be levered into place first, then came  an immediate backing layer of custom-fit local limestone followed by the 20-meter thick layer of mass produced and well-cut two-ton backing stones, also locally quarried.

No Climbing! The well-calibrated backing layer (Photo by Jay Bergeson)

It is this well-calibrated layer of backing stones that greet us from the pyramid’s face today.  The gleaming Tura limestone that once covered the pyramid in a smooth layer from the foundation to the apex has disappeared, having been stripped away centuries ago for other uses.  The yellow-brown limestone of the blocks we see now may not be as aesthetically appealing as the facing blocks must have been, but it has some excellent qualities of its own. 

Nummulitic limestone quarried from the Giza Plateau

The Giza Plateau is made up of a kind of limestone called nummulitic, so-called because of the fossilized shells of ancient marine life called nummulites frozen within it.  These small coin-shaped (Latin nummulus = “little coins”) life forms were the largest single-celled organisms ever to exist (Source:  “Pyramids, forams, and Red Sea reefs:  Field notes from Lorraine Casazza”).  This peculiar biological quality makes them extremely durable as fossils, and this makes the limestone in which they are encased very dense and capable of supporting an enormous amount of weight—such as a pyramid.

Hemienu knew that the durable limestone from the local quarry was perfect for building the inner part of the pyramid, but it was not suitable for the smooth surface.  The nummulitic fossils are much like gravel in modern concrete—they add hardness and strength.  But this compound also makes the local limestone ill-suited for creating the perfectly smooth surfaces that were needed to maintain the constant angle of the pyramid’s faces and edges.  The easily worked Tura limestone was necessary for these precise shapes.  Thus, the selection of the Tura limestone was both cosmetic and functional.

A view of Khufu’s Pyramid from the quarry from which its blocks were culled, now known as the Central Mastaba Field (Photo by John Bodsworth)

So the nummulitic limestone native to the Giza Plateau wasn’t good for facing blocks, but the large, precisely cut blocks of the pyramid’s current surface made an ideal supporting layer that could bear the weight above it for, obviously, a very long time.  And as with the facing blocks, these two-ton blocks had to be transported with the perimeter of the level under construction and shoved into place from behind. 

Another way in which Jean-Pierre’s theory varies from many of the others is in his rejection of the idea that, behind the facing blocks, the pyramid was constructed mostly of these well-calibrated blocks.  Structurally speaking, the supporting layer of well-cut two-ton backing stones only needed to be about 20 meters thick (thus the oft-cited 20-meter thick backing layer!).  Most of the core of the pyramid could be made of much more roughly cut limestone blocks.

A depiction of the different types of pyramid blocks—the facing, backing, and core (By Charles Piazzi Smyth, courtesy of Jon Bodsworth)

In fact, Jean-Pierre believes about seventy percent of the Great Pyramid’s total mass consists of hastily quarried rough nummulitic blocks packed in with limestone chips and gypsum mortar.  The result was a cruder but much quicker building process, and one which was perfectly suited to Hemienu’s needs.  Khufu’s Master Builder was also a master of striking a balance between speed and precision.  Never settle for less than needed, never do more than required.

The well-shaped blocks of local limestone formed the backing layer as well as a central reinforced foundation that served to support all the internal structures (Image courtesy of Jean-Pierre Houdin)

There are, of course, undoubtedly parts of the core that are more carefully designed than the rest.  The internal structures would have required a solid foundation and Jean-Pierre contends that there would have been a section of the core near the southern face that would have been more solid in order to support the large granite slabs while they were being stored during construction of the King’s Chamber.  Both of these reinforced areas would have been formed by the well-calibrated blocks used in the backing layer.  But for the most part the interior of the pyramid is rough core. 

By the way, if the above process sounds familiar that is because it was foreshadowed in Phase One, Part A, when we discussed how the external ramp was constructed.  The outer sides and central lane were constructed of the same well-calibrated blocks as the pyramid’s backing layer, the core of the side lanes was made the same way as the core of the pyramid, and the smooth final surface of the central lane was paved with the same Tura limestone as the pyramid’s face.  Another of Hemienu’s axioms seems to have been when you find something that works keep doing it until it doesn’t work anymore.

So now that we have had this primer in how to build the pyramid from the inside out, and what to build it out of, let’s take a look at the model to see the whole scheme in action.

The First Two Levels

Figure 01 represents the very first stage of constructing the pyramid.  The corner facing blocks would have been installed and then teams of workers would extend these “walls” along the perimeter, meeting somewhere near the center of each face.  This image also depicts the facing blocks where the junction between the ramp and the pyramid would meet.  This line of blocks would be among the first installed on any level (from the fiftieth down) because they form the backing for the ramp and establish the height for that layer.

Facing blocks arriving from Tura at the quay, the artificial harbor, at the foot of the Giza Plateau (Image courtesy of Jean-Pierre Houdin/Dassault Systemes)

More of the facing blocks are now in place as the “shell” for the first level continues to be installed.  Construction of Lane A has also begun.  Starting at the junction of the ramp and the pyramid’s face, this horizontal tier would have been built toward the southwestern slope.   Building from the pyramid toward the slope was a means for controlling the height of the ramp’s horizontal layers—if the ramp builders started at the foot and built toward the pyramid it would have been difficult to maintain the correct height for the junction.  By starting at the pyramid the correct height is set from the beginning.

In Figure 03 we see that the facing and backing layers have been nearly completed, with the perimeter left open in the southeast to allow building materials to be transported within.  About a third of the core has been filled in as well.  We will take a more detailed look at the interior when we cover “building from the inside out.”  Meanwhile, Lane A continues to be extended toward the southwestern slope.  Recall that there will be no inclining foot for the first six layers of the ramp—they will simply be horizontal tiers extending straight across to the slope where the plateau rises toward the southwest.

The first course of the pyramid is now finished.  In a more literal depiction you would see that much of the western interior would actually be filled with a seven-meter high mound of limestone that was left in place to save time and effort.  After all, why excavate the natural limestone just to replace it with limestone blocks?  Another example of how Hemienu shaped the terrain to his advantage, this hill would have filled much of the core for the first six levels.  In fact, this hill forms about one tenth of the total core of the pyramid.

These long blocks at the base of the pyramid are in reality an exposed section of the limestone hill Hemienu shaped but left intact inside the perimeter of the western part of the pyramid (Photo by Jon Bodsworth)

Figure 05 shows the beginning of the second pyramid level, as well as the beginning of the first layer of Lane B.  Work on Lane B would in no way impede the pyramid workers because Lane A provides clear access to level two.  The genius of the alternating-lanes ramp is that it always delivers unobstructed passage to the worksite without any interruptions in the building of the pyramid.  When the builders are finished with the pyramid level they are working on, the ramp to the next layer is waiting for them.  The key to a project as large as the Great Pyramid is always staying a step ahead of the next stage of work.

In Figure 06 the first layer of Lane B is now finished.  Although not fully depicted in the graphic, both lanes extend from the face of the pyramid across the terrain to the incline formed by the southwestern slope.  Both lanes now form a single horizontal tier the same height as pyramid level one, but the workers would still only be using Lane A to transport blocks because construction would immediately begin on the second layer of Lane B.  All of the level two facing blocks (except the gate at the junction) are shown in place, along with a large part of the 20-meter thick backing layer. 

Installing the facing blocks at the junction between the ramp and the pyramid—the next layer of the ramp will rest against these blocks (Image courtesy of Jean-Pierre Houdin/Dassault Systemes)

Here the second layer of Lane B is being constructed in preparation for building the third level of the pyramid.  Keep in mind that the ramp at layer X is used to build pyramid level X + 1.  In other words, Lane B at layer two (X=2) will be used to build pyramid level 3 (X +1).  Layer two of Lane B is at the same height as the level two facing blocks, and will maintain this height all the way across to the southwestern slope.  Most of the 20-meter thick backing layer is shown in place, and the filling of the core is underway.

In Figure 08 we see that the second level of the pyramid is nearly complete—all that remains is to “plug the gate.”  The builders would continue filling the core with rough-cut blocks and limestone chips until they came to the threshold where the smoother blocks of the backing layer should resume.  Once the gate in the backing layer was plugged, the builders would install the last section of facing blocks for this level, which would close the junction between Lane A and pyramid level two.  The builders would now switch to Lane B and work on level three of the pyramid would begin.

Facing blocks and backing blocks from a different perspective (Photo by Ian McKellar)

Building Level Three from the Inside Out

In Figure 09 we resume with the second level of the pyramid completely finished.  Lane A, which is still at layer one, comes to a dead end against the facing blocks of level two and will now have to be raised two layers in preparation for building pyramid level four.  But level four is still a little while in the future.  The current project is pyramid level three, and Lane B (which is at layer two) is ready for action.  So to summarize, Lane B is the active lane in the construction of pyramid level three, while Lane A will be elevated in preparation for building pyramid level four.

Figure 10 shows the beginning of work on Lane A, with the second horizontal layer being built on top of the first.  The facing blocks that will form the junction between the pyramid and the third layer of Lane A are already in place, along with the level three cornerstones.  At this point teams of workers will have been assigned the sections of facing blocks they will be responsible for installing.  Competition would be on the rise as the team leaders (and their bosses!) would undoubtedly have placed wagers on who would finish their section first.  Perhaps scores from this phase of level two will now be settled.

The installation of the facing blocks for level three continues.  Although not depicted in Figure 11, there would have been multiple sites along the perimeter where the builders would be levering blocks into place.  Lanes A and B are shown at equal height, but the workers would only be using Lane B to transport building materials.  Even if the second layer of Lane A was complete, there would be no time to make use of it before work began on layer three.  Besides, the gap at the junction was only wide enough to accommodate traffic from a single lane. 

But the ramp’s design assured that a single lane would always be sufficient for the job at hand.  The ramp was very wide at these lower levels, with the side lanes being 35 to 40 meters in width.  This would have accommodated many sled teams on the ramp at once.  Although the ramp will grow narrower with each layer, successive levels of the pyramid are also getting smaller, so while the number of workers able to fit on the ramp shrinks with each layer, the rate of work remains fairly consistent—it takes fewer workers at each level to keep up the pace.

Figure 12 shows the third layer of Lane A under construction, its top flush with the top of the level three facing blocks.  With the exception of the junction, the entire facing layer of Tura limestone has been installed, and the workers have begun work on the corners of the 20-meter thick backing layer.  Although most of the pyramid’s mass consists of the rough-cut stones that fill the core, this supporting layer of precisely-cut two-ton blocks forms the true skeleton of the Great Pyramid that has enabled it to withstand the millennia, resisting everything from earthquakes to cannon fire.

Lane A is flush with the top of the facing blocks in preparation for building the next pyramid level (Image courtesy of Jean-Pierre Houdin/Dassault Systemes)

Figure 13 depicts the construction of the 20-meter thick backing layer in progress, with a little over half of the 2-ton blocks in place.  As stated above with regard to the installation of the facing blocks, there would actually have been numerous teams along the perimeter installing sections of backing stones, with block-laden sleds being rushed from the quarry to these points of labor.  Graffiti discovered within the pyramid and other structures indicates that the competitiveness of these teams generated an esprit de corps that is wholly incompatible with the notion that the pyramid was built by slave labor.

Sled teams hastily depart from the main quarry to finish their sections before their rivals (Image courtesy of Jean-Pierre Houdin/Dassault Systemes)

With the exception of the gate at the junction of Lane B, the entire level three backing layer is now complete, along with about half of the core.  The quarrying and installation of the core material went more quickly because it did not have to be cut as precisely as the blocks that constitute the backing layer.  Rough cut stones, still weighing an average of two tons each, were shoved into place as tightly as possible.  Chips of limestone would have been poured into the cracks between the rough blocks and then pounded into tight, dense filler, supplemented with gypsum mortar.  

Figure 15 shows the core of level three completed, along with the junction now sealed off by the backing layer.  In reality, the core would not have been leveled off quite as neatly with the facing blocks and backing layer as depicted here.  Jean-Pierre theorizes that the core was not always perfectly flush at each level, but was instead periodically leveled off as needed.  The first such leveling occurred at level 23 (about 20 meters), which is the base of the Queen’s Chamber.  Another occurred at level 37 (about 32 meters), and a third at level fifty (43 meters), where the external ramp ends and Phase 2 begins.

And another level is complete!  Figure 16 is now an inverse image of Figure 09, only one level taller.  Now it is Lane B that comes to a dead end against the facing blocks of level three, and Lane A that is ready for action.  The pyramid builders would now switch lanes again as work on elevating Lane B would commence and teams dragging sleds loaded with the gleaming Tura facing blocks would begin racing up Lane A to start construction of pyramid level four. 

We have examined how the external ramp was used in the construction of the first three levels of the Great Pyramid, but now it is time to turn our attention to a required change in strategy.  Once the ramp reached layer 35 it was too narrow to continue the two lane strategy.  Hemienu knew he would have to start building the ramp with a single lane, but how could he do this without resorting to the go/stop strategy?  How could he avoid work stoppages with a single lane ramp? 

Fortunately, just as the ramp was getting narrower, each new section was also getting shorter and each level of the pyramid smaller.  This gave Hemienu a little extra time at each level to invest in the pyramid itself, and Jean-Pierre proposes he made good use of it.  Of course, being a Master Planner, this extra time was not simply good fortune, Hemienu would have had foreseen this potential bottleneck and planned for it from the very beginning.

This aerial shot of the causeway to Hatshepsut’s temple at Deir el-Bahri provides a neat depiction of what Hemienu’s external ramp may have looked like, albeit much smaller! (Photo by Vyacheslav Argenberg)

The Ramp at Layer 35—a Combined Solution

In Figure 17 we resume our tale with level 35 of the pyramid complete.  Lane A is at layer 35 and is ready for use in building pyramid level 36.  Lane B is at layer 34 and comes to a dead end against the facing blocks of pyramid level 35.  Recall that one of the advantages of a ramp of horizontal tiers is that, unlike diagonal tiers, there is less to build with each successive layer.  As the layers stack higher, the sloping foot gets closer to the pyramid and the horizontal layers get shorter.  So raising Lane B to layer 35 will take considerably less time than in previous layers.  Hemienu was counting on this in his design.

As the ramp grew taller it became narrower—fortunately so did the pyramid! (Photo by Vyacheslav Argenberg)

Figure 18 shows all of the level 36 facing blocks installed, but note that the gate left open for the junction now spans both lanes.  This is because from now on the external ramp will only have a single, wide lane.   Technically there are still two lanes divided by the higher-quality central lane that will bear the 60+ ton granite slabs in Phase 2 (not shown), but there will no longer be different lanes at staggered heights.  In other words, the lanes at layer 35 will remain there until the time comes to raise the entire ramp (all three lanes) to layer 36.

Incidentally, with the raising of Lane B to layer 35, traffic on the ramp effectively doubled.  With the alternating lanes strategy abandoned, work on the ramp has stopped for now and both lanes (now one single wide lane) are open to traffic.  Without “Men at Work” causing obstructions on half of the ramp, twice the number of workers can use it at the same time.  This boost in productivity was also anticipated by Hemienu’s design.

We now get a hint of how Jean-Pierre believes Hemienu was able to keep work flowing on the pyramid, even when the ramp was closed due to construction.  Just as both lanes are now open for use, the entire ramp would have to be shut down when it came time to raise it a layer.  But work stoppages on the pyramid itself could still be prevented.  In Figure 19 we see that a small ramp has been constructed that connects the incomplete level 36 to level 37.  This ramp would only be a meter or so high, but it was the key to keeping the pyramid on schedule.

With pyramid level 36 still incomplete, Figure 20 shows building materials that have been stockpiled on level 37 via the mini-ramp.  Having calculated how long it will take to build layer 36 of the ramp, Hemienu has lain up enough materials to keep the workers busy on level 37 of the pyramid while the ramp is under construction.  The surge of extra labor and materials allowed by the single extra-wide lane, combined with a design that meant each successive layer of the ramp would take less time to build than the previous, meant no work stoppages on the pyramid.

Again drawing on the double-tiered causeway at Deir el-Bahri for inspiration—what the two ramps at levels 36 and 37 may have looked like (Photo by Vyacheslav Argenberg)

In figure 21 we see pyramid level 36 is complete and work on level 37 has begun, even though the ramp is also under construction.  Jean-Pierre Houdin’s theory shows that by planning well in advance Hemienu could have kept work moving on the Great Pyramid even when the ramp was not available.  It was a matter of being aware of the limitations of particular strategies and knowing how to adapt once these limits were met.  The architect Houdin shows how the architect Hemienu, like a masterful chess player, would have thought out his strategy many moves in advance, with every outcome predetermined.

With layer 36 of the ramp complete, the pace of work on the pyramid can again shift into high gear.  In Figure 22 we see that, as was the case in Figure 20, work on the current level is suspended while preparations for the following level are made.  With about half of the core packed into place, a mini-ramp has been erected between levels 37 and 38 and the stockpiling of materials for level 38 has begun.  Once sufficient building materials are stored to keep work on level 38 moving while the ramp is built up a layer, the workers will return their attention to finishing pyramid level 37.

With the alternating lane system now obsolete, Hemienu would have continued with this strategy until level 50 of the pyramid was finished and layer 50 of the external ramp was constructed.   These achievements, along with the leveling of the core at 43 meters, would signal the end of Phase One.  The external ramp would then be ready to transport the huge beams to be installed in Phase Two, the internal structures of the pyramid that would enable this feat would be complete, and the foundation for the King’s Chamber would be set. 

We have now laid out the basic concepts of how the external ramp worked with the pyramid, how this strategy was adapted when circumstances required a change of plan, and how and why the pyramid was built from the inside out.  In Phase One, Part 3, we will take a brief look at the internal structures of the bottom third of the pyramid (or two thirds, if you are considering mass instead of height).  After that we will be ready to proceed to Phase Two:  Building the King’s Chamber.

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

Copyright by Keith Payne, 2010.  All rights reserved.

The photograph “surviving khufu facing stones”, and the images “internal foundation” and “bottom two thirds structures” are copyrighted by Jean-Pierre Houdin and are used with his permission, all rights reserved.  The graphics “installing blocks from the inside”, “blocks from Tura”, “installing facing blocks junction”, “different teams different sections”, “ramp lanes at different layers”, “the main quarry” and “building pyramid level 8” are copyrighted by Jean-Pierre Houdin/Dassault Systems, and are used with their permission, all rights reserved.  The following photographs are used in accordance with the Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license:  “3118978318_ca15ef01cb_o.jpg” by Ed Yourdon; “3311903763_53d3cfa91b_o.jpg” by “4342225010_4635cd72f3_o.jpg” by Ian McKellar ; “1287145759_6712deb3c0_o.jpg”, “136550733_b73f77746f_o.jpg” and “1288005326_cc1a4e4d02_o” by  Vyacheslav Argenberg.  The following photographs and images are in the public domain:  “edgar bros facing blocks” from the John and Morton Edgar collection; “Nummulitic limestone forming the bedrock of the Great Pyramid” by WLU; “plateau_32.jpg” and “great_pyramid_04.jpg” by Jon Bodsworth; and “Piazzi-plate-1.jpg” by Charles Piazzi Smyth, also courtesy of Jon Bodsworth.

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.

But a French architect by the name of Jean-Pierre Houdin may be changing that.  He has put forth the first comprehensive explanation of how the Great Pyramid was built that stands the tests of physics and common sense, and his work continues to gain support from prominent architects, engineers, and Egyptologists.  

Jean-Pierre has kindly agreed to work with Em Hotep! to put his theory into terms that are accessible to those of us who may not be professional architects or engineers, but who may be amateur and professional Egyptologists of varying degrees.  In Part One we take a close look at the evolution of ramp theories, how they work and fail to work, and what was involved with building the only remaining Wonder of the Ancient World. 

Hemienu—the architect and builder of the Great Pyramid of Khufu (Photo by Einsamer Schütze)

 In the Introduction to Hemienu to Houdin:  Building a Great Pyramid we met the primary characters of our story.  Hemienu, who was vizier and Master of Works for Pharaoh Khufu, and who designed, planned, and built the Great Pyramid.  Henri Houdin, a French engineer who became enthralled with Khufu’s Pyramid and took up the task of reverse engineering its construction.  And the protagonist of our tale, Jean-Pierre Houdin, Henri’s architect son and heir to the Great Work of figuring out how Hemienu accomplished one of the greatest architectural and engineering feats of human history. 

We traced out a short biography of these three master builders and examined how the times they lived in, the circumstances of history, and even their family lives drove them toward their respective quests.  We were also introduced to some of the shortcomings of the many theories that have been offered by others regarding how the Great Pyramid was constructed, and touched on insights that set this father and son team on the trail of Hemienu’s secrets.    

I also proposed an outline and timetable for how I wanted to approach this project, namely, that this series of articles would be posted over the course of several weeks, and that Part One would get into the specifics of Jean-Pierre’s internal ramp, and Part Two would look at how he proposes the interior architecture of Khufu’s Pyramid was planned and carried out.  Now, more than a month later, it is obvious that the timetable is out the window, and for that I apologize. 

But after much correspondence with M. Houdin, I have decided that this subject deserves more than just a rush-through.  There are numerous short introductions available online and in print that can give you the basics of Jean-Pierre’s work, and for the full treatment you really must read his and Bob Brier’s book, The Secret of the Great Pyramid, which has just become available in paperback.  As for Em Hotep!, my goal is to provide news and reference articles about Egyptology for “the Curious Layperson and the Budding Scholar,” and that means being both comprehensive and comprehendible.  

So Part One:  How Do You Prefer Your Ramp? is going to be a detailed look at the primary theories that have preceded Jean-Pierre and exactly why they simply cannot work.  This will lay a good foundation for Part Two, which will deal with Jean-Pierre’s innovations on the various ramp theories, and as you will soon see, foundations are very important with this topic! 

The entrance to Khufu’s Pyramid, with the Thieves’ Entrance in the lower right corner. The people entering the Thieves’ Entrance give an indication of the size of the blocks involved. Note the large blocks and beams of the Main Entrance—there are larger blocks deeper within and much higher up. (Photo by Keith Payne)

The first section of this article will deal with the straight ramp theories, which really serve as a sort of negative benchmark against which all others are measured.  This may sound a bit harsh, but an understanding of what these theories attempt to accomplish and why they fail is vital to following their evolution and how each theory moves us closer to the answer.  In order to make 100% certain I got this rather important aspect of our discussion right, the first section takes the form of a dialogue with Jean-Pierre. 

The next section will take a look at external spiraling ramp theories.  These theories suggest that the Great Pyramid was constructed by use of a ramp that corkscrews up the outside surface.  They resolve a number of the problems that make the straight ramp theories impossible, but leave several major issues unresolved, and come with their own set of issues. 

The third section will take a closer look at Henri Houdin’s eureka moment—Hemienu constructed the Great Pyramid by building from the inside out, and he accomplished this by using internal ramps.  Henri’s epiphany resolved nearly all of the remaining problems with the previous theories, but as his son realized, a couple of snags remained.  

The External Straight Ramp:  A Dialogue with Jean-Pierre Houdin

Egyptologist Ludwig Borchardt

The straight ramp theory was first worked out by Ludwig Borchardt and completed by Jean-Philippe Lauer.  The basic idea was that a straight ramp constructed of mudbrick and filler would be used to haul the blocks into place.  As each level of the pyramid is completed, work on the pyramid stops so the ramp can be built up to the next level.  The base had to be fairly wide, about 50 meters, so that its top surface would still be both wide enough and stable enough as it rises.  Keep in mind that as the pyramid grows narrower, so must the ramp. 

As the ramp reaches the 35 meter level, where construction on the King’s Chamber begins, Lauer believed his and Borchardt’s ramp would be short enough and shallow enough in terms of its slope to enable men to pull the large blocks, some of them weighing in excess of 60 tons, up to the construction site of the King’s Chamber where machines using sacks of sand for counterweights and smaller ramps cut into the core masonry to maneuver the huge blocks and stone beams into place. 

For the top of the pyramid, Lauer’s ramp would increase in gradient as the width decreased.  He believed that blocks weighing a ton could still be moved to a height of 112 meters on a 14 degree incline, and that the last stretch could be as steep as 18 degrees to reach the final 146 meters.  Lauer postulates that to compensate for the very steep gradients smaller blocks would be used to complete the pyramid. 

Egyptologist Jean-Philippe Lauer

A couple of problems present themselves right away with the Borchardt-Lauer ramp.  First, contrary to Lauer’s assumption, the blocks do not grow progressively smaller higher up the pyramid.  The thickness of layers continues to alternate pretty much from the bottom to the top, and blocks weighing as much as 2.5 tons are used at least as high as 90 meters.  

Then there is the pyramidion.  The pyramidion was the capstone of the pyramid, a sort of small solid pyramid itself.  Constructed of limestone and covered in electrum, the pyramidion would have weighed at the very least 5.5 tons, and possibly as much as fifteen tons!  Plus, although the top layers of stone are now missing, as is the pyramidion itself, they would have been especially thick to support the pyramidion.  Several layers of smaller blocks would have been crushed over time.  It is simply implausible that a 5.5-15 ton pyramidion, plus its supporting masonry, could have been moved up an 18 percent incline. 

Jean-Pierre:   In fact human strength falls very quickly above 10% grade.  You must keep an optimum ratio of force-to-grade: 7-8% grade is the highest figure to consider. 

So forget the gradually increasing incline.  To build the pyramid using a straight ramp you have to maintain a 7-8% grade from bottom to top.  In The Secret of the Great Pyramid, Jean-Pierre Houdin and Bob Brier talk about the straight ramp being a mile long.  But in order for the ramp to reach the top of the pyramid, about 146 meters, while maintaining a 7-8% grade, it seems the ramp would have to be even longer. 

Jean-Pierre:  Discussions of a straight external ramp always talk about reaching the summit.  That is wrong.  No ramp can go above the 130-135 meter level—the ramp would be wider than the pyramid.  So to reach a level of 130-135 meters at a 7% grade, a frontal ramp has to be 1,860 meters long, about 1.15 miles.  To build the same ramp with an 8% grade it would be 1,625 meters long, about one mile, which is why I always talk about a mile long ramp. 

This means that, in order to maintain a manageable 8% slope, the straight external ramp has to be about a mile long, and comes about eleven meters (about 36 feet) short of the estimated apex of the pyramid.  So, where could Hemienu have built such a ramp?  

The terrain has a lot to say about that.  The Great Pyramid was built on a bluff, and there is a steep drop to the north, so no ramp there.  To the east and west there are cemeteries contemporary with the pyramid, so no ramps there either.  That leaves the south, which is far from ideal for such a construction.  

Jean Pierre:  Absolutely.  A single frontal ramp has to be perpendicular to the south face of the pyramid which puts it cutting through the quarry before filling the wadi on the other side!  The topography speaks for itself. 

So the ramp would not only overshoot the quarry, it would have to account for the rise and fall of the terrain, which would mean filling in the wadi, a sort of canyon made by a dry river bed, which would add even more material and labor to the ramp project.  Keep in mind that the further you have to build the ramp downward to account for the dip created by the wadi the wider the base has to be in that section. 

The Straight Ramp—Ninth Wonder of the Ancient World? Not only would it have been as large a project as the pyramid itself, where did it go? (Courtesy of Jean-Pierre Houdin and Dassault Systèmes)

Everywhere you look in the Great Pyramid you see signs not only of Hemienu’s architectural genius, but of the economy of his methods.  Nothing is wasted in terms of time or materials.  A ramp that requires the workers to drag the blocks in the opposite direction of the pyramid before mounting the ramp just doesn’t seem to make sense. 

The volume of material and man-hours required in making such a ramp raise their own set of questions.  Building a mile-long ramp that reaches 135 meters on its high end would require a huge amount of material and labor even if it was built on a flat surface, which it wasn’t.  And where did all the millions of tons of stone go?  

When you account for the terrain you are talking about a project similar in scope to the pyramid itself, just to build the ramp.  Even allowing for filler material, a significant portion of such a ramp would have to be solid masonry.  Remember, some of the blocks it would have to support weighed more than sixty tons.  Think about it.  If the ramp was, say, two-thirds the mass of the pyramid, then where would you dispose of two-thirds of the Great Pyramid, without a trace? 

Another nagging problem with all external ramp theories, from Lauer onward, is the notion of stopping work on the pyramid while constructing the next layer of the ramp.  Hemienu built the Great Pyramid in about 21-23 years.  This task simply could not be accomplished in the time frame if practically all work on the pyramid had to stop every time the ramp had to be raised another level.  

Jean-Pierre:  Nor was it.  Up to now, “rampists” have always talked about a ramp being raised and lengthened as the pyramid rises, which means that you have to stop the construction to enlarge the ramp. My theory, which you will see does include an external ramp along with an internal ramp, is the first to describe an external ramp that is being built as the pyramid rises. 

 The ramp was built at its maximum length, about a quarter of a mile, but with two parts, or lanes, built horizontally, layer by layer, following a 7-8% slope.  While one lane is used to pull the blocks, the other is raised by 2 layers to be ready for the next step.  The ramp is always rising with the pyramid and so there is no need for work on the pyramid to stop. 

Lastly, with regard to the “rampists” theories, there is the issue of logistics.  The higher you go, the less workspace you have on both the ramp and the top surface of the pyramid.  And the logistics involved with moving the 60 ton blocks to the top of the King’s Chamber and maneuvering them into place.. 

Jean Pierre:  On a 7% grade ramp, 600 men are needed to pull a 60 ton block.  Can you imagine 600 guys?  With six hauling lines, that gives a 100 meter-long line for each..  It is impossible to coordinate such numbers.  And at the 60+ meters level you have only 50 meters of work space left on the north side to work around the King’s Chamber. 

A single straight mile-long ramp just seems to create more problems than it solves.  Not only would it have required as much work and material as the pyramid itself, there is no evidence for such a huge ramp.  Where did it go?  And how was the pyramid completed in time if work had to stop in order to build up the ramp at each level.  Jean-Pierre’s two-lane ramp works fine up to the level of the King’s Chamber, but what about twice that height, about 135 meters?  The ramp would be far too narrow at that height. 

Perhaps a straight ramp may have worked on other pyramids, but Hemienu wasn’t building just any pyramid.  He knew he was facing multiple challenges that would require complex answers, all of which had to be worked out before hand. 

The External Spiraling Ramp:  The Corkscrew Solution

For several very good reasons the long, straight ramp theory doesn’t seem to work.  One can imagine that Hemienu might have figured this out pretty quickly.  A fast survey of the landscape, lining up the only feasible approach for the ramp to the pyramid’s south face, calculating the amount of material it would take to keep the grade constant even as the ramp spans the wadi, the ratio of the width of the base to the width of the top, the length of the ramp—It would have been obvious from the outset to Hemienu that the long single ramp wouldn’t work. 

It was probably an early lunch for Hemienu and his crew after a morning walk around the building site, checking surveying points, taking mental notes.  As the architect and his crew sat around the table sipping karkade and brainstorming while the servants cleared the tableware, someone might have proposed what seemed to be the perfect solution. 

“Think about a length of papyrus,” he might have said.  “Stretched out it would cover this entire table, and spill over each end.  But if you roll it up, it can fit into your robe.  What if we fold the ramp to fit into the usable terrain and onto the surface of the pyramid itself?” 

Hemienu would have pondered this idea.  With his chin resting in his palm, he probably considered the advantages.  What problems would a spiraling ramp address? 

Advantages 

Several advantages of a spiraling ramp are immediately apparent.  Terrain is no longer an issue, as the terrain would be the pyramid itself.  Using the surface of the pyramid to support the ramp would mean a constant 7-8% grade could be easily maintained and the supporting surface would be a constant—no wadi to span and no 50-meter wide base to support a ramp 135 meters high.  As it winds up the pyramid, the ramp itself would maintain a fairly regular height, except at the top, where it would actually grow shorter.  This would also reduce the amount of material and man-hours required to build the ramp. 

Hemienu’s assistant would have been pleased with his epiphany.  The problem of the ramp, which was turning into as large a project as the pyramid itself, had been solved.  Perhaps Vizier Hemienu, Master of Works for Pharaoh Khufu, would honor him with a memorial stela praising his genius?  But his exaltation would have been short lived.   

“What about the blocks for the King’s Chamber?” the Master Architect would have asked.  “How do we navigate those, or any of the other blocks, for that matter, around the corners of your folded papyrus?” 

The Spiraling Collapse of the Corkscrew Theory  

Hemienu would have seen right away that for all its advantages, and there were admittedly several, there were also some flaws with the spiraling ramp, and they were deal breakers.  The most obvious, and perhaps most vexing, would be how to handle the corners.  The most common blocks used in the building of the pyramid weighed 1.5 to 2.5 tons and were moved on a type of sled.  Wheels would not work because they would have sunk in the sand, and besides, there is no evidence of the wheel in use in Egypt this early.  So turning the sled 90 degrees to face the next course of the ramp at the corners was an issue—simply spinning it on its rails would have destroyed the sleds. 

There is also the issue of time.  Keep in mind that every time you stop the production line to reorient a sled at the corner, the entire chain below you has to stop as well.  Hemienu is believed to have completed the pyramid in about 21-23 years, which means that a block was being put into place during every minute of construction.  How were the workers moving the sleds around in less than one minute on the tight corners of the corkscrew ramp?   

Even if the problem of orienting the standard blocks at the corners of an external winding ramp was solved, there was still the problem of the huge blocks used to construct the King’ Chamber.  The largest of these slabs weighed in excess of 60 tons and were over eight meters (a little over 26 feet) in length.  

If you can picture trying to maneuver such a block around a corner, even if there was someplace where the workmen could stand while pushing/pulling (which there would not be), at around 45 degrees into the turn the full weight of these blocks would be balanced entirely on the corner of the ramp.  Given that the corner of the ramp, obviously, would be built on the corner of the pyramid, we are talking about a tiny segment of the ramp pressed between a wedge below (the edge of the pyramid) and 60 tons of weight from above!  This isn’t a model for supporting a weight, it’s a model for splitting something in half! 

Another issue Hemienu would have realized was that you just wouldn’t be able to build a winding ramp against the surface of the pyramid that would be stable enough.  Again, ignoring the problem of the 60 ton blocks, if you were to build a ramp wide enough and sturdy enough to move the average block up the pyramid, then the external ramp would obscure the corners of the pyramid, and that is another big problem. 

The Narrow External Spiral Ramp—while the sight lines remain visible in this model, there is simply no way to secure such a ramp to the surface of the pyramid with any stability. (Courtesy of Jean-Pierre Houdin and Dassault Systèmes)

In order to ensure that the four corners of the pyramid were rising at the same constant angle, Hemienu would have needed to take regular measurements.  If the slope of one side of the pyramid was off by as much as a fraction of a degree, then the shape of the entire pyramid would be off and the four edges would not meet at a single point at the top.   In order to make these exact measurements the corners and edges of the pyramid had to be visible, and a sturdy ramp corkscrewing around the pyramid would make this impossible.  

The Wide External Spiral Ramp—this is how a stable external ramp would have appeared, but there is no way to survey the sides of the pyramid and control its shape during construction. (Courtesy of Jean-Pierre Houdin and Dassault Systèmes)

It seems that for every problem the external corkscrew ramp solves, another is uncovered.  You can’t build a ramp that allows the corners to be surveyed that will also be stable enough to bear the load of the blocks.  Such a ramp would entail trying to build a pyramid consisting of four perfectly equal triangles, with exactly the same slope on each side, without being able to survey the slopes and angles as construction proceeds.   If you build a ramp narrow enough to allow the measurements to be made, then it will be too unstable for the 1.5 to 2.5 ton blocks.  Keep in mind that at any given time there will be multiple blocks on each stretch of the ramp. 

The external corkscrew ramp could not work, not for the standard blocks, and certainly not for the huge blocks required for building the King’s Chamber, or for that matter, the Queen’s Chamber.  Of course, other models have been offered—multiple ramps, zigzagging ramps, and some ramps that seem to have leapt from an M. C. Escher drawing.  But down through the ages the long single ramp and the external spiral ramp have stood the test of time. 

And failed the tests of physics and engineering. 

The Internal Spiraling Ramp:  Now We’re Getting Somewhere!

As we learned in the Introduction, the question of how the Great Pyramid was built caught the attention of an engineer named Henri Houdin back in 1999 after he viewed a television program called The Mystery of the Pyramid.  Henri was one of the many French youth who inherited a post-WWII France, with all of the reconstruction that went with it.  Soon after receiving his Ph. D. from École des Arts et Metiers, 24-year-old Henri found himself in charge of rebuilding the Conflans Bridge outside of Paris (Brier and Houdin, pp. 2, 38).  The year was 1947, and a long and impressive career lay before young Henri. 

In 1999, Henri was retired, but far from tired.  He needed something to occupy his mind, which was as sharp and hungry for activity as ever.  He approached the problem of Khufu’s Pyramid the same way he approached any other engineering problem he had ever taken on—How do I build this?   

The advantages of the spiraling ramp still held true.  A workable ramp that would maintain a 7-8% grade would have to be around a mile long, and the only way to do that with the terrain where Hemienu built the Great Pyramid was by wrapping the ramp around the pyramid itself.  Multiple straight ramps would not work because the only side where a straight ramp could be built was on the southern side, and the terrain there only allowed for one ramp to approach the pyramid. 

Making use of the artificial terrain of the pyramid itself would have the benefit of a regular surface free of obstacles, if there was only some way to construct a sturdy enough ramp that would also leave the site lines visible for surveying.  So how would the engineer Henri Houdin build this? 

Henri’s epiphany came as he pondered how he would deliver the building materials to the worksites.  In this sense, the worksites are different from the construction site.  The construction site was the entire project, but the construction site was made up of many worksites that were all over the structure, and many of which were in constant movement as the pyramid rose.  Henri’s epiphany was that if he were to build the pyramid using the tools available at the time he would build it from the inside out, and the ramp would likewise be located on the inside. 

An internal ramp would retain all of the benefits of the corkscrew ramp while solving many of the problems.  The pyramid would not only be the building surface, it would be the ramp itself.  The sight lines would remain visible because the ramp would be concealed within the pyramid.  This meant that there would be no need to trade off between visibility and stability, which became doubly moot because the ramp would be as sturdy as the pyramid itself. 

This solution also was in keeping with the economy Hemienu expressed throughout the rest of the pyramid.  There was no wasted material—the material would already be in place.  No wasted man-hours because virtually every block put in place for the ramp would have been required in the construction of the pyramid anyway.  And there would be no need to explain why there are no ruins of the ramp, or how its materials were disposed of.  The ramp is still there, within the core of the pyramid. 

Henri Houdin’s first drawing of this ramp looks even more like a corkscrew than the external corkscrew model did.  The external spiral ramp models follow the contour of the pyramid and are square in shape, with right-angle turns at the corners.  Henri’s first model was a curving spiral that started on the eastern corner of the southern face and curled its way up at an 8% grade.  

Henri revised his model to include four separate ramps, one entering on each face of the pyramid.  Each of these ramps would reach a different level of the pyramid, but also allowed for multiple ramps to be in use at different levels.  For instance, at the lowest levels, where most of the work took place and most of the material had to be transported, there would be four ramps in use at the same time.  As each ramp reached its maximum height, and thus usability, the pyramid also became smaller requiring less material and labor. 

The idea of building the pyramid from the inside out by using four spiraling internal ramps answered more problems than any model proposed so far.  Perhaps most importantly Henri had put the train on the right track by moving the works inside.  Building the pyramid layer by layer by use of an external ramp alone might make good sense to a layperson, but an engineer knows that the inner structures within the core of the pyramid would not only have to come first, but would dictate how the rest of the pyramid would have to be constructed.  

Henri had shared his ideas with his architect son, Jean-Pierre, who had taken up the task with a relish of his own.  But Jean-Pierre Houdin brought the skills of a seasoned architect to the table, and he saw problems even the engineer had missed.  Obviously the ramp would have to be inside the pyramid, that much had been settled.  But the circular spiral simply couldn’t work. 

The 1.5 to 2.5 ton blocks had to be pulled by teams of men, and this cannot be done from around a curve.  The men would have to be standing in a straight line in order to effectively pull the lines connected to the sleds, and the constant curve would place uneven pressure on the sleds that would lead to a rapid breakdown. 

Henri’s model also left the problem of the large 60+ ton blocks unresolved.  Even ignoring the weight, the length of these blocks would preclude them from fitting into the circular internal ramps.  Jean-Pierre knew that he was back to a square spiraling ramp, which brought him back to the question of how to navigate the right angles.  There was really only one answer—the sleds would have to be lifted and turned 90 degrees at each corner.  Easier said than done. 

And what about the masonry of the King’s Chamber?  No internal ramp could manage that.  Henri had set the train on the right track, but now it was up to Jean-Pierre to move it forward.  A straight ramp, perhaps one that was an internal/external combination, could reach the King’s Chamber worksite with a 7-8% grade, and would still be short enough to fit into the terrain.  But would it be long enough to accommodate enough men to pull the 60+ ton blocks?  Probably not.  And even if the blocks could be hauled to the worksite, how would they be maneuvered into place? 

Jean-Pierre Houdin signs copies of his first book about The Great Pyramid for Magdy El-Ghandour, Director for the foreign missions at the Supreme Council of Antiquities and Taha Abdallah, Dean of Shorouk University. (Photo courtesy of Jean-Pierre Houdin)

Jean-Pierre knew that the solution had to involve both an internal and an external ramp, and both straight and spiraling ramps, but how?  How were the blocks turned at the corners?  How were the giant slabs of the King’s Chamber pulled up the straight ramp and fitted into place with such precision?  

In Hemienu to Houdin:  Part Two we will get into the details of Jean-Pierre Houdin’s theory starting with his own ramp theory, and how it answers all of the above questions, and more. 

Photograph ”Statue-of-Hemiun.jpg” by Einsamer Schütze is 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.

Copyright by Keith Payne, 2009.  All rights reserved. 

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.

The title of the lecture was Mysteries of Tutankhamun Revealed.  I was in attendance, and among the most exciting revelations were promises to reveal more revelations in the very near future.

To be more specific, at a lecture on August 7^th, 2009, at Butler University’s Clowes Memorial Hall in Indianapolis, IN, Dr. Hawass assured the crowd that he knew the exact cause of Tutankhamun’s death, long thought (apparently incorrectly) to be murder, and that he would be revealing the cause at a press conference within a month.  (For a full review of the lecture see my analysis on Heritage Key:  Lecture Review: Zahi Hawass’ Mysteries of King Tut Revealed). 

The Boy King, Tutankhamun (courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Dr. Hawass also promised that other forensic results would be made public within the month.  For example, why did the boy king need to use a cane at such a young age?  He also announced that the results of a second paternity test confirming that Tutankhamun is the father of one of the fetuses found in his tomb by Howard Carter in 1922 would be subjected to publication for peer review this month.

It has been one month and one day since the lecture, so maybe what Dr. Hawass meant was that the cause of death would be announced sometime in September.  That effectively resets the clock to T-minus 30 24 days. 

The exhibition Tutankhamun the Golden King and the Great Pharaohs is due to open at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, Canada, on November 24th, 2009 (it is currently running at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, where it will remain until October 25th, 2009).  But there has been no announcement that Dr. Hawass will be speaking in Toronto to promote the exhibition, as he did in San Francisco and Indianapolis.  Besides, that would be two months from now.

The only up-coming speaking engagement for the Good Doctor that I am aware of is the Geotechnical Engineering Conference coming up on October 6^th, 2009, at Alexandria (Hawass to Speak at Geotechnical Engineering Conference), and that doesn’t sound like a very promising venue for a discussion of mummy forensics. 

But on the subject of Egypt and engineering, we have much excitement of our own planned for September here at Em Hotep!, including a multi-part very in-depth review of Jean-Pierre Houdin’s explanation of how the Pyramid of Khufu was constructed.  It’s much more complex than just an internal ramp, as you will see.

So in the meanwhile, stay tuned to Em Hotep! for more death and construction.

Photograph ”Tête de Toutânkhamon enfant (musée du Caire Egypte).jpg” by Wiki user dalbera, is provided courtesy of Wikimedia Commons  and is 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.  Photograph “hawass3.jpg” by Anne Houston Payne is courtesty of Heritage Key–All rights reserved.

ALL OTHER photographs and text are copyright 2009, all rights reserved.