MJ Thomas Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hello Anthony,
>
> You write, 'Either way, we are in very close
> agreement about what happened here. We're off by a
> single block of stone being popped out. I say
> before. You suggest after.
>
> The consequences of the difference are immaterial,
> really. Agreed?'
>
> Well, I've more or less convinced myself that Al
> Mamun discovered the start of the Ascending
> Passage before he started his tunnel.
> I think he realised that the two floor joints
> signalled something different about that
> particular part of the Descending Passage and set
> about probing the surrounding floor, walls, and
> ceiling.
> He discovered the block in the roof was somehow
> different to its companions (a touch of vagueness
> here) and had it broken out (which explains the
> block on the floor being a fragment).
> Seeing the granite plug and realising that
> tunnelling upward by the side of it was tantamount
> to suicide, he opted for a tunnel coming in from
> the side.
>


All of which is, as we say, "close enough for government work".


> What I'm still unsure about is why he elected to
> start his tunnel where he did.

Your observation about the centerline on the pavement may be right. He may have noticed a pattern between the lines in the passage revealing another passage and hoped the line on the pavement did the same.

Although, what he failed to realize, was that nobody would EVER have intentionally MARKED the passage in the first place. The outer one was just a coincidence. The inner ones... well, I'm not so sure yet.



>
> Where you and I continue to disagree is over
> whether the Ascending Passage plugs and their
> covering block were put in place before or after
> Khufu's death.

You can't hold the "before" idea tenable unless you find another tomb for Khufu. Period.

And that is in addition to overcoming a mountain of evidence that clearly demonstrates why Khufu built this pyramid exactly the way he did.

For example, if he wasn't intending to put his body in the KC burial chamber, why put in shafts to flood and revivify a body in the KC burial chamber?

You'll argue against them being built for that purpose, but the number of people holding the contra position is shrinking, I assure you. I get my email.



> I am certain that the plugs and covering block
> were built in place, and therefore Khufu's remains
> and his funerary paraphenalia were not taken into
> the upper chambers of his pyramid via the
> Ascending Passage (or the Well Shaft).

Then why build it to be the perfect chamber to hold a body and funerary equipment, and why build the stones so that they exactly wedge ONLY into the bottom of said passage? If they were going to build them in place, as you suggest, why not simply build the lower end of the passage to be the same size, and put in blocks that simply fit perfectly? Why go through the trouble of making the entire passage perfectly wedge-shaped, if indeed they didn't intend to slide these plugstones down and get them wedged at the bottom after they were through using the passage?

The idea is untenable. You can hold it, but I think you'll find few who are intimately familiar with the pyramid and the culture who built it that will agree with you.

Anthony

You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him think.