Hello Anthony,

I wrote, ‘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 comment, ‘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.’

I disagree.
I am not disputing that Khufu had this Pyramid built as his tomb.
My view is that he was not interred in the King’s Chamber.


You continue, ‘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 completely neutral about your hypothesis on the purpose of the QC and KC shafts.
You have not made widely available – as far as I am aware – the full extent of your hypothesis and the evidence you have in support of it.
Until you do I am not in a position to comment on your hypothesis.


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

You reply, ‘Then why build it to be the perfect chamber to hold a body and funerary equipment, …’

Well, the obvious answer is: to fool everybody into thinking that the tomb had been robbed.
To that end the architect was, IMO, totally successful.


You ask, ‘… 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?’


They did not make “the entire passage perfectly wedge-shaped”
The tapering of the Passage (which is only in the width) begins at the upper end of the plugs and continues down to their lower end (a sloping distance of 16 feet; whether or not it continued a further 15 inches down to the start of the Passage floor is not known because of the extensive damage done to that part of the Passage.
The reason for this narrowing is self-evidently to stop the granite plugs shifting down the Passage and into the Descending Passage; it also allowed for the introduction of a limestone block to conceal the granite plugs and blend in with the other limestone blocks forming the roof of the Descending Passage.
This applies regardless of when the Ascending Passage was sealed.


You write, ‘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.’

But they may change their minds when they read the whole of my hypothesis on how the interior of Khufu’s pyramid was designed. 

People look at the interior of this Pyramid and almost automatically interpret what they see as evidence that Khufu’s funeral entourage, etc., entered the Pyramid via the Descending Passage, the Ascending Passage, the Grand Gallery (possibly stopping off at the Queen’s Chamber before it), the Antechamber, and into the King’s Chamber.
I used to do exactly the same.

Of course, we know that the King’s Chamber was Khufu’s burial place because the Chamber is beautifully finished and has a large but not quite perfect sarcophagus in it.

Of course, we know that the Antechamber was a portcullis system that sealed off the King’s Chamber after Khufu was laid to rest in it, but tomb robbers smashed through the portcullis stones.

Of course, we know that the only way into the Pyramid’s upper section was via the Ascending Passage; so it is patently obvious that the granite plugs sealing it were slid down into it from above and after Khufu’s funeral.

Of course, as we know the blocks were slid into the Passage from above, then it is glaringly obvious they were stored in the Grand Gallery.

Of course, we know that the Well Shaft was the escape route for the men who released the blocks down into the Ascending Passage.

Now, here’s a few things for you to ponder on:

The portcullis system known as the Antechamber would not have worked, and so the KC could not have been sealed off

The Antechamber was altered in length and the Granite Leaf was a late introduction to the scheme

The Ascending Passage is not steep enough for blocks to slide down it.

The Well Shaft was closed off above the Grotto, and built over for approx. 15 layers of core blocks because it was, apparently, no longer required, but it was later re-opened by tunnelling down through the 15 or so layers and building a shaft up as far as the north end of the Grand gallery.
This doesn’t fit the “workers post-sealing-the-Ascending-Passage escape route” scenario at all well.

The large block of granite that blocked the Well Shaft above the Grotto (and is now in the Grotto itself) it’s too big to have been introduced via the Well Shaft at the north end of the Grand Gallery.

I could go on but I shan’t.

There are problems, inconsistencies with the scenario you and others hold on to.
You need to step back and look at the whole interior afresh – and allow for the fact that simple arithmetic and geometry played a large part in how the interior came to be as it is.

MJ