Hello RLH,
Anthony wrote, ‘No, it didn't happen that way at all. He carved in a tunnel to go around the granite plug stones without disturbing them. In order to do that, he had to know the plug stones were there. In order to know that, he had to have been in the descending passageway. Ergo, the DP was never "lost". ‘
You write, ‘I don't see the logic behind this! If the descending passage was open all along then why would they move 30 feet to the west to start tunnelling in?
If appears to me the passage was hidden and they chose the center line of the pyramid to start tunneling looking for the passage.’
I’ve been running through Anthony’s scenario (one which as of yesterday I whole-heartedly agreed with) again.
I now have doubts about it.
Part way down the Descending Passage is (was?) a block of limestone that from its size and shape once fitted into the gap between the roofline of the Descending Passage and the start of the granite plugs.
Clearly, this block was intended to fill in this space in the DP roof and at the same time conceal the Ascending Passage and its granite blocks.
Now, if Al Mamun (not sure about the spelling) first entered the Pyramid by the Descending Passage, how did he then discover the start of Ascending Passage in the Descending Passage roof ?
As I see it, either
a) the concealing block had already fallen out of its place in the Passage roof
b) somebody in his party noticed something different or odd about the block concealing the start of the Ascending Passage and this led to it being broken out
c) Al Mamun already knew its location in the Descending Passage roof and had it hacked out.
At this stage I am opting for b).
I imagine that nobody in their right mind would try and tunnel upward through a stack of stone blocks, and hazard that tunnelling into the area from the side would be comparatively safer.
At this point I run into your highly pertinent question: “If the descending passage was open all along then why would they move 30 feet to the west to start tunnelling in?” and come to an abrupt halt.
To try and get things into perspective I have just measured out a distance of 30 feet..
Hmmm. It does seem a trifle excessive.
Then we have to ask ourselves: is just coincidence that Al Mamun chose the mid-length of the north side to start his tunnel.
Could it just be that somebody in Al Mamun’s group really did hear (through tens of feet of limestone blocks) that block of stone fall from the roof of the Descending passage, and it actually was a sheer fluke that it led the tunnellers to the Ascending passage and its Plugs?
Er, HELP!
MJ