When Jean-Pierre Houdin published his book and launched a media campaign to publicise his "Internal Ramps" theory for the building of the Great Pyramid it didn't really meet with much success. I have his book and find his suggestion a bit too complicated for my taste. I was intrigued though to come across this from 1944 which has some of the same ideas:

"A Suggestion regarding the Construction of the Pyramids
WHEN visiting the SociCtC Nationale du Papier at Aboukir near Alexandria recently, I saw several pyramids, 40 to jo feet high, constructed of bales of rice straw. Rice straw is one of the principal raw materials of this important factory and large amounts have to be stored ready for use in the manufacture of various grades of strawboard. As we passed these pyramids I noticed that there was an entrance, about 4 or 5 feet wide and 6 or 7 high, on one side of each pyramid. I asked the manager, Mr. Donald Parkin, if this was the entrance to a shelter in which the workmen rested, but was told that it was through these entrances that the bales were carried during the construction of the pyramids, which were built from the inside. I therefore made a closer examination and found that what looked like a small chamber was a sloping passage or tunnel leading right into the interior of the pyramid. Apparently, in constructing the base of the pyramid, an opening is left in one side and a sloping passage is made from this opening nearly to the other side of the pyramid. All the bales are carried up this internal ramp (which had a slope of about zoo) and the building of the pyramid is continued from the inside. When the structure has risen about 6 or 7 feet above the floor of the passage, a few lengths of timber or iron are placed across the passage, which is then roofed in with the bales which will form part of the next layer. The result is a sloping tunnel through the lower part of the pyramid. 'The passage is then made to turn on itself at an acute angle till the next layer of the pyramid has been built and is again roofed in. This goes on till the top of the pyramid is reached, all the construction having been carried out by taking the bales up this sloping, zigzag tunnel, which is like an internal staircase without any steps. Mr. Parkin informed me that this was the local Egyptian labourers' own method of construction; they had been told merely to stack the bales. Have they unwittingly adopted some hereditary, traditional method of construction, handed down through the centuries from the building of the Pyramids, and does this throw any light on one, at least, of the methods by which those enormous monuments were built? It will be seen that the method is much more economical in labour and materials than one based on external ramps, which must have reached enormous dimensions. I shall be interested to learn if this suggestion is new to Egyptian archaeologists.
J. E. G. HARRIS

The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 30. (Dec., 1944), p. 74."

Jon

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