The Pyramid mystery
There is much speculation about the Great Pyramid and why its design followed such an elaborate pattern. Nevine El-Aref studies the options.
The Giza Pyramids: do they mirror the stars?
The Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza has been in the limelight again. This time attention is focusing on one of its lingering questions: why were small shafts built into its structure, and what is behind the so-called "blocking stone"?
While probing last month with a pint-sized robot inside the southern shaft leading from the Pyramid's Queen's Chamber -- broadcast live on television -- the National Geographic mission found a second sealed chamber behind the door discovered in an earlier probe in 1993. The discovery left archaeologists more perplexed than ever.
Less than a week after this journey, archaeologists dispatched the "Pyramid Rover" into the Queen's Chamber's northern shaft. They ascertained that both shafts were similar in terms of dimension and surface, which is lined with mortar and covered in salt crystals. And 65 metres from the opening of each shaft the passage was blocked by a door.
So the mystery of the shafts has still not been solved. Only one thing is sure: they were not designed for human passage. What, then, was their function? Were they intended for the passage of the spirit of the Pharaoh?
Theories about the Great Pyramid range from the sublime to the ridiculous. It has variously been described -- depending on interpretation -- as a stairway to heaven, as Joseph's granary, an enormous sign post, a sound machine, a sundial, a coded chart of the future of mankind, a symbolic representation of cosmic principles or a marker to help extra-terrestrials find their bearings.
An abundance of conflicting theories and unanswered questions has long surrounded these great monuments, and in spite of all our received knowledge -- that it was the tomb of the IVth- dynasty Pharaoh Khufu -- it is probably the greatest unsolved mystery of all time. This is due to the fact that not enough research been carried out on Pyramids, nor has all existing knowledge been properly collated. This leaves the field wide open for theories, each one of which gives rise to the next.
Back in 1994, for example, when The Orion Mystery was published, there was a flutter of commotion among Egyptologists. The theory put forward by engineer Robert Bauval, who co- authored the book with Adrian Gilbert, was that, far from being built as tombs for successive Pharaohs as claimed by Egyptologists, Pyramids were designed as part of a grandiose master plan to reconstruct the layout of the constellations.
Bauval used an astronomical computer to pinpoint the position of the stars 4,500 years ago, and found that seven of the IVth-dynasty Pyramids were arranged on the ground in the same position as seven key stars in the constellations of Orion and Hades. He sought to prove that three of them would have been aligned with sacred stars, while the position of the three Pyramids of Giza on the ground corresponded with the position and brightness of the stars in the sky.
When Gantenbrink sent his robot along one of the so-called air shafts leading from the Queen's Chamber -- previously thought to have been abandoned before completion -- and its path was blocked after 65 metres by a slab of limestone, some experts speculated that this was a small door. And this gave the authors of The Orion Mystery fuel to speculate on what lay behind the mystery "door". Bauval and Gilbert suggested that it concealed a statue of the Pharaoh staring out in the direction of Orion, the missing ben ben stone from the sacred site of Heliopolis, or even the lost records of Atlantis.
Scholars were disinclined to agree with Bauval. Most maintain that when the Pyramids were built, the sun cult of Re was in favour and that the Pyramids, reaching the skies, helped the Pharaoh's soul ascend to the sun. "Bauval's theories are total nonsense," Rudolf Stadelmann, then director of the German Archaeological Institute, announced, "The door is just a blocking stone; it doesn't block the entrance to something. It simply seals off a corridor." (Al-Ahram Weekly, 17-23 March 1994).
Supreme Council of Antiquities Director Zahi Hawass said last month that he believed the shaft may have played a symbolic role in Khufu's religious philosophy. Khufu proclaimed himself Sun- God during his lifetime -- Pharaohs before him believed they became Sun Gods only after death -- and he may have tried to reflect his ideas in the design of his Pyramid. Some other experts still believe they were air shafts, but since they were once closed at both ends air would not have been able to pass through. If they had been left open as air shafts they would have exposed the burial chamber to outside influences, which was certainly contrary to the usual method of protecting the remains of the Pharaoh.
It has even been suggested that the shafts were water channels. Another suggestion which -- compared with some of the others -- appears more likely is that the shafts were light or star shafts pointing directly to the stars Sirius (Isis -- from the Queen's chamber) and Orion (Osiris -- from the King's Chamber). This led to the suggestion that the shafts were escape routes for the soul to wing its way towards its respective star. It also linked the shafts to the theory that the entire layout of the three main stars corresponded to the belt in the constellation of Orion.
Some Egyptologists, however, argue that in 1993 Gantenbrink and his robot discovered that the shafts were bent, often several times, and did not point to any one star. "Since their lower ends begin with two- metre horizontal sections, even if the shafts were left open light could not penetrate the chamber from the outside," Hawass said.
The questions regarding the shafts and their use have long puzzled researchers, and may be destined to continue to do so.
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