ANCIENT EGYPT Quarterly
1922.

86 Annales du Service des Antiquitds, XXI.

Fasc. 3.

Baraize, Emile. Rapport sur les travaux exicuUs a la grande Pyramide.
The flow of visitors to the pyramids during the war led to an official wish to render
the interior of Khufu's pyramid an easier show place. Accordingly the fragments
of broken casing were removed from the north face to clear the way to Al Mamun's
forced hole, which runs horizontal to the start of the ascending passage. Steps
have been provided to divide the course-heights so as to walk up to it easily.
The passage has been enlarged where needful. To rise to the ascending passage
steps are provided. A wooden gangway is placed up the ramp, past the entrance
to the Queen's Chamber, which is guarded at the end of the gallery floor. A
wooden gangway is placed all up the gallery with a handrail ; steps up over the
big granite step are provided. It was proposed to build up the old hollows in
the entrance passage floor, into a tidy staircase ; but this seems to be omitted,
and both entrance and exit are to be by the forced hole. Next the interior is to
have electric hghting. The old interest of scrambhng in and out, alone, and
without even a light sometimes, has vanished. Tourisme triumphs, and every-
thing is smoothed down to the capacities of those who do not think it worth any
trouble. Handrails, iron cramps and steps, and wooden flooring, are a contradiction
to a pyramid.

Current Fallacies about History. 83

Recently there was a dispute whether proportions
of the pyramid of Khufu were based on the area of the face being equal to that
of the height squared, or some of the many properties which were really identical
with this ; all of these being statements of the same form, the only question is
which of them has analogy to any other coincidence elsewhere. The only safe
test for the reality of intentional connections is their being part of a system.
Thus the proportion of a radius to a circle, in the height and circuit of Khufu's
pyramid, is supported by a similar proportion in the King's chamber and in the
sarcophagus ; and this being practically laid otit as 7 : 44 is proved by Khufu's
pyramid being 7 and 44 times a unit of 40 cubits, and Snefru's pyramid 7 and 44
times a unit of 25 cubits, for height and circuit.

Beside such coincidences there is a large field of geometrical hypotheses
about buildings ; theorists are fond of drawing triangles and rectangles all over a
plan or section, but when one looks into the detail they seldom really coincide
with the structure, and often seem purely arbitrary.



C. Wayne Taylor
Richmond, Virginia USA