I wrote, ‘All that is needed is for the wooden beams to be located at every other hole.

You reply, ‘You don't see the problem with that?’

Nope.


I wrote, ‘If blocks were stored on the floor of the Gallery, then something was needed to keep them in place, and what better than a thick beam of wood fixed across the width of the Gallery from wall to wall and resting on the top of the ramps?’

You reply, ‘No problem at all... except why carve 27 holes on each side when only 13 on each side were needed?’

I would suggest that if these holes were for the purpose Borchardt and others have suggested and we are discussing here, then it is quite possible that the initial plan was for several blocks, not just three, to be stored and later slid down the Ascending Passage, thus requiring more than 13 holes down each side.
Alternatively, the architect might have felt that having holes along the full length of the Gallery was more pleasing to the eye than having them only up to halfway.


You ask, ‘And why, pray tell, put one at the very bottom of the ramps, where it intersects the north wall?’

Why does everything about the Pyramid have to be strictly practical and mundane?
Could it not just be that we are looking at a blending of the practical with the aesthetically/arithmetically/geometrically pleasing?


You ask, ‘And why, pray tell, put one up on the top of the Great Step, just outside the portcullis?’

Ah ha, I know the answer to this one.
Unfortunately, I am not able to say what it is.
Suffice to say that like the rest of my hypothesis on the designing of this Pyramid the solution is stunningly simple.
What I can and will tell you now is that it has nothing to do with anything practical.
Here’s a clue: initially, the Great Step was designed as 82.5” wide (E-W), 11.2” deep (N-S), and 5.6” high, and the ramps at the base of the Grand Gallery’s side walls were made 5.6” high vertically.


You write, ‘The idea falls apart on close inspection... which is why I'm puzzled that others who have closely examined the Grand Gallery didn't realize this sooner.’

I think “falls apart” is something of an exaggeration.
To me it’s more “a bit shaky”.

For what it is worth, my own view is essentially that the Grand Gallery and the Ascending Passage together is a stylised portcullis system, and thus was never intended to actually function.

MJ