fmetrol Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Those tricky Egyptians had always planned to drop
> those granite plugs on anyone interfering with the
> ascending passageway (reference trial site which
> has just been noted). The entire passageway was
> narrowed at the beginning so both granite and
> limestone were held back (you mention it but don't
> illustrate it). More likely everything was put in
> place during construction. The limestone was
> supposed to make the entrance to the ascending
> invisible but of course at that stage every
> architect knew that the average tomb robber was
> smarter than Re ... and he was.

Hello fmetrol,

For many years I have been of the opinion that the granite plugs in the Ascending Passage were built in place.
The sticking point with this is it means that Khufu's mummy and funerary paraphernalia could not have been taken into the Pyramid's upper chambers via the Ascending Passage.
And when you look at the narrow, roughly hewn and tortuous route of the Well Shaft (which starts near the bottom of the Descending Passage), it is self-evident that it is is extremely unlikely that the funeral entourage, etc. reached the upper chambers via this route.

Being a bit slow (), it is only in the last couple of days that it occurred to me that the block of stone (which according to legend 'fell' from the Descending Passage roof and revealed the start of the Ascending Passage and the first of the granite plugs) that it was probably held in place by the same width-wise narrowing of the Ascending Passage that holds the grantite plugs in place; and therefore was, like the granite plugs, built into place.

> I don't see how the limestone plug could have
> possibly been dislodged if it hadn't have been
> interfered with first or do we accept that it
> gradually deteriorated and slipped out by itself.

I have never been comfortable with the story that this block was dislodged by the tunnelling being carried out by Al Mamun's men (Could they really have heard through some 15 to 20 feet of limestone blocks a block fall a few feet)?
And as I mention to Cladking above, AFAIK there is no trace of cement/mortar in the space in the Descending Passage roof or on the block itself (I repeat that this is not to say that there never was any cement/mortar).

I do, however, have one problem with the idea that this block was forcibly removed from its location in the roof.
As can be seen in the photos I give links to above, the north and south edges of the space in the ceiling are much broken away.
But drawings by Piazzi Smyth and later the Edgar brothers give the impression that these edges were undamaged.
I am minded that these drawings show the north and south edges as they were presumed to have been before being damaged, but I need confirmation one way or the other.


> My main man Petrie.

I have great admiration for Petrie, and he is my main source for data on Khufu's pyramid.

Regards,

MJ