The great pyramid passages and chambers

106 At the head of the Grand Gallery (the south end), there is a great Step, thirtysix inches in height, which, though broken to a considerable extent in the middle, we found difficult to surmount, not only on account of its height, but also because of the sloping floor on which our feet rested ; but we found that the Ramps, which terminate against the front of the Step, proved of assistance, for by carefully placing a foot on top of one of them, we gained sufficient purchase to enable us to spring to the upper surface of the Step. This upper surface is a level platform, measuring seven feet from side to side, and five feet from front to back. We always had a feeling of rest when we reached the top of the Step, after our laborious and somewhat dangerous climb up the long steep Gallery. Most visitors to the interior of the Pyramid, when they reach the lower end of the Grand Gallery, hesitate to proceed further. The absence of the floor at this part, the long inclined walls and the high receding roof disappearing into the deep gloom above, gives them a feeling of awe and makes them afraid to go on. It is only on the repeated assurances of their voluble Arab guides that some of them are induced to make the attempt. Indeed, many of the visitors do not penetrate even to the lower north end of the Grand Gallery, the high south-east wall in Al Mamoun’s cavity, and the steep and very slippery floor of the First Ascending Passage, deter them from proceeding further than the junction of the First Ascending Passage ; and very many more will not even venture inside the Pyramid at all, the low narrow Entrance, and above all the smooth glossy white floor which slopes away so suddenly from them, proves too much for their nerves. Those, therefore, who reach the top of the Step at the head of the Grand Gallery, and pass through the low horizontal passages to the King’s Chamber, are comparatively a very small and select company indeed!

107 Our inspection of the lofty tapering wall which forms the south terminus of the Grand Gallery, showed us that, like the two side-walls, it has seven overlappings, each of which projects about three inches. The topmost overlap near the roof, therefore, projects about twenty-one inches beyond the base of the wall. The north end-wall at the foot of the Gallery has only six overlappings. As the two passages, the first from the Grand Gallery into the Ante-Chamber, and the second from the Ante-Chamber into the King’s Chamber, are each only three and a half feet high, we found it necessary to stoop considerably when going through them. Special care required to be exercised on emerging from the first low passage into the Ante-Chamber ; for at a short distance (21 inches) from the north wall of the chamber, two thick plates of granite, one above the other, forming together what is called the Granite Leaf, are fixed between the side walls in such a way, that the bottom of the lower one is on the same level as the roof of the low passage into the Ante-Chamber—Plate XV.

108 The King’s Chamber, constructed entirely of immense beautifully squared and levelled blocks of dark polished granite, is the chief apartment in the Great Pyramid, the one ‘‘to which, and for which, and toward which, the whole Great Pyramid was originally built.” The Granite Coffer is near the west side of the chamber, and is the only movable article of furniture in the building. Though named the Sarcophagus by those who hold to the tombic theory of the Great Pyramid, it exhibits none of the hieroglyphics nor other markings which are usually found on the sarcophagi in Egypt, nor is there any record of a mummy ever having been discovered in it. The King’s Chamber is situated on the 50th course of the Pyramid masonry at a height of about 150

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