KHUFU, The Great Pyramid, Was it built this way?

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To outwit tomb robbers, this Ascending Passage was blocked with granite plugs, and its entrance in the Descending Passage was disguised with a limestone facing identical to the surrounding stones. Exciting discoveries have been made in the so-called air shafts found in both these chambers, which lead up toward the pyramid's exterior. There is nothing, though, to show that the secret of the Ascending Passage was known to the Greeks or Romans.

It's here that it becomes necessary to look beyond the obvious. Most scholarly accounts state unequivocally that it was Ma'mun who first forced his way into the upper reaches of the pyramid, in the year A. By then, they say, the location of the real entrance had been long forgotten, and the caliph therefore chose what seemed to be a likely spot and set his men to forcing a new entry—a task they accomplished with the help of a large slice of luck. It was then, modern accounts continue, that Ma'mun's men realized that they had uncovered a secret entrance.

Tunneling around the impenetrable granite, they emerged in the Ascending Passage below the Grand Gallery. At that point, they had defeated most of Khufu's defenses, and the upper reaches of the pyramid lay open to them. That's the story, anyway, and—if accurate—it adds considerably to the mystery of the Great Pyramid. If the upper passages had remained hidden, what happened to Khufu's mummy and to the rich funerary ornaments so great a king would surely have been buried with? Only one alternate route into the upper vaults exists—a crude "well shaft" whose entrance was concealed next to the Queen's Chamber, and which exits far below in the Descending Passage.

This was apparently dug as an escape route for the workers who placed the granite plugs. But it is far too rough and narrow to allow large pieces of treasure to pass, which means the puzzle of the King's Chamber remains unresolved. Is it possible, though, that the Arab accounts that Egyptologists depend on so unquestioningly may not be all they seem?

Some elements ring true—for instance, it has been pointed out that later visitors to the Great Pyramid were frequently plagued by giant bats, which made their roosting places deep in its interior; if Ma'mun's men did not encounter them, that might suggest no prior entry. But other aspects of these early accounts are far less credible. Read in the original, the Arab histories paint a confused and contradictory picture of the pyramids; most were composed several centuries after Ma'mun's time, and none so much as mentions the vital date— A.

Indeed, the reliability of all these modern accounts is called into question by the fact that the chronology of Ma'mun's reign makes it clear he spent in his capital, Baghdad. The caliph visited Cairo only once, in If he did force entry into the Great Pyramid, it must have been in that year. How can the Egyptologists have got such a simple thing wrong? Almost certainly, the answer is that those who spend their lives studying ancient Egypt have no reason to know much about medieval Muslim history.

But this means they do not realize that the Arab chronicles they cite are collections of legends and traditions needing interpretation. Indeed, the earliest, written by the generally reliable al-Mas'udi and dating to no earlier than c. When, the chronicler writes, after weeks of labor Haroun's men finally forced their way in, they:. But other chroniclers of the same period tell different and more fantastical tales.

What, though, of the earliest accounts of the tunnel dug into the pyramid? Both men report that Ma'mun ordered his men to break into Khufu's monument using fire and sharpened iron stakes—first the stones of the pyramid were heated, then cooled with vinegar, and, as cracks appeared in them, hacked to pieces using sharpened iron staves. Ibn Battuta adds that a battering ram was used to smash open a passage.

The forced passage is located fairly logically, too, right in the middle of the north face, a little below and a little to the right of the real but then concealed entrance, which the cunning Egyptians of Khufu's day had placed 24 feet off center in an attempt to out-think would-be tomb robbers. Yet the fact remains that the Arab versions were written to years after Ma'mun's time; to expect them to be accurate summaries of what took place in the ninth century is the equivalent of asking today's casual visitor to Virginia to come up with a credible account of the lost colony of Roanoke.

And on top of that, neither Abd al-Latif nor Ibn Battuta says anything about how Ma'mun decided where to dig, or mentions the story of the falling capstone guiding the exhausted tunnelers. Given all this, it is legitimate to ask why anyone believes it was Ma'mun who entered the Great Pyramid, and to wonder how the capstone story entered circulation.

According to Egyptologists, the findings of both the and David H. Koch Pyramids Radiocarbon Projects [8] [9] may suggest that Egypt had to strip its forest and scrap every bit of wood it had to build the pyramids of Giza and other even earlier 4th Dynasty pyramids. Carbon dating samples from core blocks and other materials revealed that dates from the study averaged years earlier than currently accepted and the dating averaging — years. As suggested by team members, "We thought that it was unlikely that the pyramid builders consistently used centuries-old wood as fuel in preparing mortar.

The results left us with too little data to conclude that the historical chronology of the Old Kingdom was wrong by nearly years, but we considered this at least a possibility". To explain this discrepancy, Egyptologists proposed the "old wood" theory claiming the earlier dates were possibly derived from recycling large amounts of centuries old wood and other earlier materials.

There is good information concerning the location of the quarries, some of the tools used to cut stone in the quarries, transportation of the stone to the monument, leveling the foundation, and leveling the subsequent tiers of the developing superstructure. Workmen probably used copper chisels, drills, and saws to cut softer stone, such as most of the limestone. The harder stones, such as granite, granodiorite, syenite, and basalt, cannot be cut with copper tools alone; instead they were worked with time-consuming methods like pounding with dolerite , drilling, and sawing with the aid of an abrasive, such as quartz sand.

Edwards or through the use of a crude square level and experienced surveyors. The unknowns of pyramid construction chiefly center on the question of how the blocks were moved up the superstructure. There is no known accurate historical or archaeological evidence that definitively resolves the question. Therefore, most discussion on construction methods involves functional possibilities that are supported by limited historical and archaeological evidence. Historical accounts for the construction of the Egyptian pyramids do little to point definitively to methods to lift the blocks; yet most Egyptologists refer to these accounts when discussing this portion of pyramid construction.

Thales , according to the philosopher Hieronymus 3rd century BC [19] visited the Egyptian pyramids during the 7th century BC and by using the intercept theorem , also known as Thales's theorem, measured their height and thus their volume. The first historical accounts of the construction of these monuments came centuries after the era of pyramid construction, by Herodotus in the 5th century BC and Diodorus Siculus in the 1st century BC. This pyramid was made like stairs, which some call steps and others, tiers.

When this, its first form, was completed, the workmen used short wooden logs as levers to raise the rest of the stones; they heaved up the blocks from the ground onto the first tier of steps; when the stone had been raised, it was set on another lever that stood on the first tier, and the lever again used to lift it from this tier to the next. It may be that there was a new lever on each tier of steps, or perhaps there was only one lever, quite portable, which they carried up to each tier in turn; I leave this uncertain, as both possibilities were mentioned.

But this is certain, that the upper part of the pyramid was finished off first, then the next below it, and last of all the base and the lowest part.

Diodorus Siculus's account states: And 'tis said the stone was transported a great distance from Arabia, and that the edifices were raised by means of earthen ramps, since machines for lifting had not yet been invented in those days; and most surprising it is, that although such large structures were raised in an area surrounded by sand, no trace remains of either ramps or the dressing of the stones, so that it seems not the result of the patient labor of men, but rather as if the whole complex were set down entire upon the surrounding sand by some god.

Now Egyptians try to make a marvel of these things, alleging that the ramps were made of salt and natron and that, when the river was turned against them, it melted them clean away and obliterated their every trace without the use of human labor. But in truth, it most certainly was not done this way! Rather, the same multitude of workmen who raised the mounds returned the entire mass again to its original place; for they say that three hundred and sixty thousand men were constantly employed in the prosecution of their work, yet the entire edifice was hardly finished at the end of twenty years.

Diodorus Siculus's description of the shipment of the stone from Arabia is correct since the term "Arabia" those days implied the land between the Nile and the Red Sea [22] where the limestone blocks have been transported from quarries across the river Nile. Both Herodotus's and Diodorus Siculus's writings are known to contain gross errors of fact, and Siculus is routinely accused of borrowing from Herodotus.

Most Egyptologists acknowledge that ramps are the most tenable of the methods to raise the blocks, yet they acknowledge that it is an incomplete method that must be supplemented by another device.

Archaeological evidence for the use of ramps has been found at the Great Pyramid of Giza [23] and other pyramids. The method most accepted for assisting ramps is levering [24] Lehner The archaeological record gives evidence of only small ramps and inclined causeways, not something that could have been used to construct even a majority of the monument. To add to the uncertainty, there is considerable evidence demonstrating that non-standardized or ad hoc construction methods were used in pyramid construction Arnold Therefore, there are many proposed ramps and there is a considerable amount of discrepancy regarding what type of ramp was used to build the pyramids.

Other ramps serve to correct these problems of ramp size, yet either run into critiques of functionality and limited archaeological evidence. There are zig-zagging ramps, straight ramps using the incomplete part of the superstructure Arnold , spiraling ramps supported by the superstructure and spiraling ramps leaning on the monument as a large accretion are proposed. Mark Lehner speculated that a spiraling ramp, beginning in the stone quarry to the southeast and continuing around the exterior of the pyramid, may have been used.

The stone blocks may have been drawn on sleds along the ramps lubricated by water or milk. Levering methods are considered to be the most tenable solution to complement ramping methods, partially due to Herodotus's description; and partially to the Shadoof ; an irrigation device first depicted in Egypt during the New Kingdom, and found concomitantly with the Old Kingdom in Mesopotamia.

In other words, in Lehner's view, levers should be employed to lift a small amount of material and a great deal of vertical height of the monument. In the milieu of levering methods, there are those that lift the block incrementally, as in repeatedly prying up alternating sides of the block and inserting a wooden or stone shims to gradually move the stone up one course; and there are other methods that use a larger lever to move the block up one course in one lifting procedure.

Since the discussion of construction techniques to lift the blocks attempts to resolve a gap in the archaeological and historical record with a plausible functional explanation, the following examples by Isler, Keable, and Hussey-Pailos [29] list experimentally tested methods. Isler's method , is an incremental method and, in the Nova experiment , used wooden shims or cribbing. Isler [30] was able to lift a block up one tier in approximately one hour and 30 minutes. Keable was able to perform his method in approximately 2 minutes. Scott Hussey-Pailos's method [29] uses a simple levering device to lift a block up a course in one movement.

This method was tested with materials of less strength than historical analogs tested with materials weaker than those available in ancient Egypt , a factor of safety of 2, and lifted a pound block up one course in under a minute. This method is presented as a levering device to work complementary with Mark Lehner's idea of a combined ramp and levering techniques. Houdin's father was an architect who, in , thought of a construction method that, it seemed to him, made more sense than any existing method proposed for building pyramids. To develop this hypothesis, Jean-Pierre Houdin, also an architect, gave up his job and set about drawing the first fully functional CAD architectural model of the Great Pyramid.

After 4 years working alone, Houdin was joined by a team of engineers from the French 3D software company Dassault Systemes , who used the most modern computer-aided design technology available to further refine and test the hypothesis, making it according to Houdin the only one proven to be a viable technique. The Secret of the Great Pyramid [36]. In Houdin's method, each ramp inside the pyramid ended at an open space, a notch temporarily left open in the edge of the construction.

There is a notch of sorts in one of the right places, and in Houdin's co-author Bob Brier, with a National Geographic film crew, entered a previously unremarked chamber that could be the start of one of these internal ramps. Houdin's thesis remains unproven and in , UCL Egyptologist David Jeffreys described the internal spiral hypothesis as "far-fetched and horribly complicated" , while Oxford University's John Baines , declared he was "suspicious of any theory that seeks to explain only how the Great Pyramid was built". Houdin has another hypothesis developed from his architectural model, one that could finally explain the internal "Grand Gallery" chamber that otherwise appears to have little purpose.

It enabled the raising of the five ton granite beams that roof the King's Chamber. Houdin and Brier and the Dassault team are already credited with proving for the first time that cracks in beams appeared during construction, were examined and tested at the time and declared relatively harmless. As a consequence, the king connected Khnum's name with his own. Khufu's name means "Khnum protect me" [11]. The pharaoh officially used two versions of his birth name: The first complete version clearly exhibits Khufu's religious loyalty to Khnum, the second shorter version does not.

It is unknown as to why the king would use a shortened name version since it hides the name of Khnum and the king's name connection to this god. It might be possible though, that the short name wasn't meant to be connected to any god at all. The royal family of Khufu was quite large. It is uncertain if Khufu was actually the biological son of Sneferu. Mainstream Egyptologists believe Sneferu was Khufu's father, but only because it was handed down by later historians that the eldest son or a selected descendant would inherit the throne.

It contained many precious grave goods, and several inscriptions give her the title Mut-nesut meaning "mother of a king" , together with the name of king Sneferu. Therefore, it seemed clear at first that Hetepheres was the wife of Sneferu, and that they were Khufu's parents. More recently, however, some have doubted this theory, because Hetepheres is not known to have borne the title Hemet-nesut meaning "king's wife" , a title indispensable to confirm a queen's royal status.

By apotheosizing his mother as the daughter of a living god, Khufu's new rank was secured. This theory may be supported by the circumstance that Khufu's mother was buried close to her son and not in the necropolis of her husband, as it was to be expected. The following list presents family members, which can be assigned to Khufu with certainty. It is still unclear how long Khufu ruled over Egypt, because historically later documents contradict each other and contemporary sources are scarce. The Royal Canon of Turin from the 19th dynasty however, gives 23 years of rulership for Khufu.

These figures are now considered an exaggeration or a misinterpretation of antiquated sources. Sources contemporary to Khufu's time give three key pieces of information: One of them was found at the Dakhla Oasis in the Libyan Desert.

Khufu's serekh name is carved in a rock inscription reporting the " Mefat -travelling in the year after the 13th cattle count under Hor-Medjedu". One of these inscriptions mentions a workmen's crew named "friends of Khufu" alongside the note "in the year of the 17th cattle count", but it is questioned if the number of years points to a biennial cattle count, or if the number must be taken verbatim.

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Several papyrus fragments contain handwritten reports from a royal harbour at modern-day Wadi al-Jarf. The inscriptions describe the arrival of royal boats with precious ore and turquoise in the "year after the 13th cattle count under Hor-Medjedw". In an attempt to solve the riddle around Khufu's true length of rulership, modern Egyptologists point to Sneferu's reign, when the cattle count was held every second year of a king's rulership.

The cattle count as an economic event served the tax collection in the whole of Egypt. Newer evaluation of contemporary documents and the Palermo stone inscription strengthen the theory that the cattle count under Khufu was still performed biennially, not annually, as thought earlier. Egyptologists such as Thomas Schneider, Michael Haase, and Rainer Stadelmann wonder if the compiler of the Turin Canon actually took into account that the cattle count was performed biennially during the first half of the Old Kingdom period, whilst tax collection during the 19th dynasty was held every year.

In sum, all these documents would prove that Khufu ruled for at least 26 or 27 years, and possibly for over 34 years, if the inscription in the relieving chambers points to a biennial cattle count. Indeed, if the compiler of the Turin Canon did not take into account a biennial cattle count, it could even mean that Khufu ruled for 46 years.

There are only few hints about Khufu's political activities within and outside Egypt. Within Egypt, Khufu is documented in several building inscriptions and statues. Khufu's name appears in inscriptions at Elkab and Elephantine and in local quarries at Hatnub and Wadi Hammamat. At Saqqara two terracotta figures of the goddess Bastet were found, on which, at their bases, the horus name of Khufu is incised. They were deposited at Saqqara during the Middle Kingdom , but their creation can be dated back to Khufu's reign.

At the Wadi Maghareh in Sinai a rock inscription depicts Khufu with the double crown. Khufu sent several expeditions in an attempt to find turquoise and copper mines. Like other kings, such as Sekhemkhet , Sneferu and Sahure , which are also depicted in impressive reliefs there, he was looking for those two precious materials.

Egypt’s Oldest Papyri Detail Great Pyramid Construction

He sent several expeditions to Byblos in an attempt to trade copper tools and weapons for precious Lebanese Cedar wood. This kind of wood was essential for building large and stable funerary boats and indeed the boats discovered at the Great Pyramid were made of it. New evidence regarding political activities under Khufu's reign has recently been found at the site of the ancient port of Wadi al-Jarf on the Red Sea coast east of Egypt. First traces of such a harbour were already excavated in by John Gardner Wilkinson and James Burton , but the site was quickly abandoned and then forgotten in time.

Among other material, a collection of hundreds of papyrus fragments were found. Ten of these papyri are very well preserved.

Inside the Great Pyramid

The majority of these documents date to the 27th year of Khufu's reign and describe how the central administration sent food and supplies to the sailors and wharf workers. The dating of these important documents is secured by phrases typical for the Old Kingdom period, as well as the fact that the letters are addressed to the king himself, using his Horus name.

This was typical when an addressed king was still alive; when the ruler was already dead he was addressed by his cartouche name or birth name. One document is of special interest: Using the diary, researchers were able to reconstruct three months of his life, providing new insight into the everyday lives of people of the Fourth Dynasty. These papyri are the earliest examples of imprinted papyri ever found in Egypt.

Another inscription, found on the limestone walls of the harbor, mentions the head of the royal scribes controlling the exchange of goods: Khufu's cartouche name is also inscribed on some of the heavy limestone blocks at the site. The harbor was of strategic and economic importance to Khufu because ships brought precious materials, such as turquoise, copper and ore from the southern tip of the Sinai peninsula.

The papyri fragments show several storage lists naming the delivered goods.

Egyptian pyramid construction techniques

The papyri also mention a certain harbour at the opposite coast of Wadi al-Jarf, on the western shore of the Sinai Peninsula, where the ancient fortress Tell Ras Budran was excavated in by Gregory Mumford. The papyri and the fortress together reveal an explicit sailing route across the Red Sea for the very first time in history. It is the oldest archaeologically detected sailing route of Ancient Egypt. According to Tallet, the harbor could also have been one of the legendary high sea harbours of Ancient Egypt, from where expeditions to the infamous gold land Punt had started.

The only three-dimensional depiction of Khufu that has survived time nearly completely is a small and well restored ivory figurine known as Khufu Statuette. It shows the king with the Red Crown of Lower Egypt. Khufu holds a flail in his left hand and his right hand rests together with his lower arm on his right upper leg.

The figurine was found headless; according to Petrie, it was caused by an accident while digging. When Petrie recognized the importance of the find, he stopped all other work and offered a reward to any workman who could find the head. Three weeks later the head was found after intense sifting in a deeper level of the room rubble. He argues that no building that clearly dates to the Fourth Dynasty was ever excavated at Kom el-Sultan or Abydos. Furthermore, he points out that the face of Khufu is unusually squat and chubby and shows no emotional expression. Hawass compared the facial stylistics with statues of contemporary kings, such as Sneferu, Khaefra and Menkaura.

The faces of these three kings are of even beauty, slender and with a kindly expression — the clear result of idealistic motivations; they are not based on reality. The appearance of Khufu on the ivory statue instead looks like the artist did not care very much about professionalism or diligence. He believes Khufu himself would never have allowed the display of such a comparatively sloppy work. And finally, Hawass also argues that the sort of throne the figurine sits on does not match the artistic styles of any Old Kingdom artifact. Old Kingdom thrones had a backrest that reached up to the neck of the king.

But the ultimate proof that convinces Hawass about the statue being a reproduction of much later time is the Nehenekh flail in Khufu's left hand.

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Depictions of a king with such a flail as a ceremonial insignia appear no earlier than the Middle Kingdom. Zahi Hawass therefore concludes that the figurine was possibly made as an amulet or lucky charm to sell to pious citizens. It is often said that the small figurine is the only preserved statue of Khufu. This is not quite correct. Excavations at Saqqara in and revealed a pair of terracotta statues depicting a lion goddess possibly Bastet or Sakhmet.

On her feet two figures of childlike kings are preserved. While the right figurine can be identified as king Khufu by his Horus name, the left one depicts king Pepy I of 6th dynasty , called by his birth name. The figurines of Pepy were added to the statue groups in later times, because they were placed separately and at a distance from the deity. This is inconsistent with a typical statue group of the Old Kingdom — normally all statue groups were built as an artistic unit.

The two statue groups are similar to each other in size and scale but differ in that one lion goddess holds a scepter. The excavators point out that the statues were restored during the Middle Kingdom, after they were broken apart. However, it seems that the reason for the restoration lay more in an interest in the goddess, than in a royal cult around the king figures: The Palermo Stone reports on its fragment C-2 the creation of two oversize standing statues for the king; one is said to have been made of copper, the other of pure gold.

Furthermore, several alabaster and travertine fragments of seated statues, which were found by George Reisner during his excavations at Giza, were once inscribed with Khufu's full royal titulary. Today, the complete or partially preserved cartouches with the name Khufu or Khnum-Khuf remain.

One of the fragments, that of a small seated statue, shows the legs and feet of a sitting king from the knuckles downward. To the right of them the name Two further objects are on display at the Roemer- und Pelizaeus-Museum Hildesheim. These are also made of alabaster. One of them shows the head of a cat goddess most probably Bastet or Sakhmet. The position of her right arm suggests that the bust once belonged to a statue group similar to the well known triad of Mycerinus.

Several statue heads might have belonged to Khufu. Because of its chubby cheeks the head is assigned to Khufu as well as to king Huni. Khufu is depicted in several relief fragments found scattered in his necropolis and elsewhere. All reliefs were made of finely polished limestone. Some of them originate from the ruined pyramid temple and the destroyed causeway, where they once covered the walls completely. Others were found re-used in the pyramid necropolis of king Amenemhet I at Lisht and at Tanis and Bubastis. Another one shows a row of fat oxen decorated with flowers — they were obviously prepared as sacrifices during an offering procession.

The guiding inscription calls them "the surroundings of Tefef serve Khufu", "beautiful bulls of Khufu" and "bawling for Khufu". And a fourth example shows the king with the double crown impaling a hippopotamus. At the Wadi Maghareh in Sinai a rock inscription contains Khufu's names and titles and reports: The work-off of the relief is similar to that of king Snefru. In one scene king Khufu wears the double-crown; nearby, the depiction of the god Thoth is visible. In another scene, close by, Khufu wears the Atef -crown while smiting an enemy. In this scene the god Wepwawet is present.

None of the numerous relief fragments shows king Khufu offering to a god.

This is remarkable, since reliefs of Sneferu and those of all kings from Menkaura onward show the king offering to a deity. It is possible that the lack of this special depiction influenced later ancient Greek historians in their assumptions that Khufu could have actually closed all temples and prohibited any sacrifice. The pyramid necropolis of Khufu was erected in the northeastern section of the plateau of Giza. It is possible that the lack of building space, the lack of local limestone quarries and the loosened ground at Dahshur forced Khufu to move north, away from the necropolis of his predecessor Sneferu.

Khufu chose the high end of a natural plateau so that his future pyramid would be widely visible. Khufu decided to call his necropolis Akhet-Khufu meaning "horizon of Khufu".

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