Hello Warwick,
You write, ‘again I ask..by whom??’
Well, if – as you and others suggest – Djedfre, Khafre, Menkaure et al were concerned about the security of not only their own pyramids but also those of their predecessors, then it is reasonable to assume that somebody kept an eye on the structures.
As to who that somebody was… who knows…
Anyway, I don’t see how identifying “whodunit” can be achieved without first establishing how it was done.
You write, ‘and you are completely forgetting Nighttime. ‘
I am?
We are dealing with the largest stone structure in the world that initially had only one way in or out – a small sealed doorway 55 feet or so vertically above ground and set in a smooth-faced and very steep slope.
Now, unless the tomb robbers could elevate themselves up to this entrance/exit and hover above ground whilst they silently prised open and removed the entrance block (do you think they put it back in place?), we are looking at the employment of ladders.
If the raid on this Pyramid was carried out under the cover of a darkness deep enough to make the robbers travels up and down ladders resting against the white face of the Pyramid near invisible, then how could the robbers see what they were doing?
Burning torches would have been required, and, well, you see where this is going…
Now ask yourself, could the whole operation been carried out in one night’s darkness?
Then there’s the question of how the robbers coped with the lack of air inside the Pyramid – particularly as the burning torches they carried would have been burning up a lot of the available breathable air.
It was bad enough in the 1800s let alone before the excavation of the tunnel and the clearance of the Well Shaft, etc. – see: accounts by Howard Vyse, Caviglia, Piazzi Smyth, Petrie, J & M Edgar et al.
You write, ‘work with me here a little man. Obviously if I believe the tomb was robbed. I believe they got away with it.’
And this tells us what exactly?
You write, ‘a number of people have offered scenarios that allow for some people's greed to have outweighed the sacriledge. My only defence for this notion is the variables of the human race .’
But motive is not the issue here.
The immediate questions are not why and by whom was it robbed (I would have thought the answer to the former blindingly obvious) but
how and
when was it robbed.
You write, ‘to my thinking the idea that the tomb was robbed by the Powers that be is far more unlikely than it being robbed by anyone else.’
Caliph Al Mamun was a ‘Power that be’.
You write, ‘tho 2100 BC works for me either way. as you point out..by that time most of the security would be focused on more recent tombs.
which brings up another point..at the time of Khufu there were allready COUNTLESS Royal Tombs. Just how much security can we expect them to have had?’
There are 17 pyramids from Khufu to Pepi II.
The pyramid is supposed to have been essential to the continued well-being, etc., of its king for generations after his physical demise.
I find it hard to believe that given this the pyramids were not protected against tomb robbers.
Anyway, and to try and put the whole thing in proper perspective:
It is an assumption that Khufu was interred in one of the three known Chambers.
It is an assumption that Khufu’s grave goods, etc. were placed in any of the three known Chambers.
It is an assumption that the Ascending Passage was blocked after Khufu’s funeral
It is an assumption that the workers who ‘sealed’ the Ascending Passage egressed via the Well Shaft.
It is an assumption that the King’s Chamber was sealed off with blocks of granite in the Antechamber.
It is an assumption that the Well Shaft was blocked with blocks and debris after the excavation of ‘Al Mamun’s Tunnel’
It is an assumption that the Pyramid was robbed before the excavation of ‘Al Mamun’s Tunnel’
And so on, and so on, and so on...
MJ