The great pyramid passages and chambers

feet from the ground, and its size is, approximately, 34 feet from east to west, 17 feet from north to south, and 19 feet in height. The four walls are built of exactly one hundred stones varying in size, and the ceiling is formed of nine enormous granite beams, stretching from north to south, and extending five feet beyond each side wall. These granite beams are of greater depth than breadth, joist fashion, and constitute the largest stones in the whole Pyramid. One of them has a breadth of five feet, a depth of about seven feet, and a length of twenty-seven feet, and weighs about eighty tons. (How did the builders manage to get it into its position ?)

109 Above the King’s Chamber there are five shallow spaces called Chambers of Construction, into the lowest of which, known as ‘“ Davison’s Chamber” discoverer, access is gained by a small passage entering from the top south-east corner of the Grand Gallery. This small passage is rough, but is apparently original. It is about 24 feet in length, and only 32 inches in height by 28 inches in width. We did not get an opportunity to explore these upper chambers; and a visit to them is attended with danger. We were informed that there is only one guide (who lives at the Sakkara Pyramids, about seven miles further up the Nile) who will venture to ascend to the mouth of the small passage, in order to hold a rope for the venturesome visitor who desires to extend his investigations to these upper regions. This guide mounts the giddy height by means of notches cut in the walls at the south-east angle of the Grand Gallery. When we remember the limited area of the upper surface of the Step, the vast sloping depth of the Grand Gallery below, and the great height of the roof where the mouth of the small passage is situated, we can well understand that this guide will require, as the French say, to ‘take his courage in both hands.” Our Arab attendant essayed to ascend for us, but after climbing a third of the height, said he was afraid and came down again.

110 It was on the 8th of July in the year 1765 A.D., that Davison, accompanied by a few friends (who did not, however, go with him all the way), discovered and examined the lowermost Chamber of Construction. He ascended to the mouth of the small passage by a ladder: and had great difficulty in making his way along the confined passage because of the large amount of dirt and bat’s manure with which it was choked. He perceived that the floor of the chamber was composed of the reverse of the granite beams which form the ceiling of the King’s Chamber, and that the entire widths of their upper surfaces were exposed, thus making this low space about four feet longer than the chamber below, although the width from north to south is the same.

111 This comprised all that was known of the parts above the King’s Chamber until 1837, when, on the 14th of February of that year, Col. Howard Vyse instructed his workmen to commence an excavation from the inner end of the small passage in a vertical direction, in order to penetrate above the roof-beams of Davison’s Chamber. He states that his reason for pursuing this operation, was his belief that a sepulchral apartment lay above Davison’s Chamber, the latter being, as he thought, merely an entresol or low division between the two main apartments below and above. The work of excavating proved laborious and most dangerous, because of its being overhead work, and carried on in so confined a space. It was not until after six weeks of constant boring and blasting, that the workmen managed to make a small hole into the cavity above.

after its

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