Chris Tedder Wrote:
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> This unique arrangement that no other pyramid has,
> may have necessitated a ventilation system - fresh
> air for the funerary cortege to prevent the
> participants fainting with heat exhaustion and
> lack of oxygen from the burning of oil-lamps and
> to enable the masons to finish the chamber after
> the ceiling blocks were installed.

Why wouldn't the masons have finished the chamber while it was still visible and open to the sky? Surely that makes more sense -- the light's better, there's better access to tools, more people can work there. It's not an underground pit.

> The shafts may also have provided a way for the
> smoke of incense used in the funerary rituals to
> vent out of the chamber. The Pyramid Texts mention
> the deceased king ascending to the sky on the
> smoke of incense with the assistance of his
> celestial relatives.

Khufu had a mortuary temple and a valley temple. He must have had a very important-looking funeral with hundreds of participants. The burial party that descended with his sarcophagus probably didn't stay for any length of time. And the air shafts were blocked, so the incense smoke could not have risen to the sky from inside the pyramid... a detail that surely the architects and everyone else knew.

> Underlying the design, is an elegant geometry
> based on a circle within a square that defined the
> height of the sarcophagus chamber high above the
> base and the height of the upper shafts openings
> in the casing above the base.

There's no evidence that they knew any geometry nor any reason for them to use a circle within a square. That said, you can construct any square you like and then draw a circle around it... but it's a pretty meaningless exercise.

>
> Hermione: “However, if Khufu died in 2483 BC
> [www.maatforum.com] (a date about which there is
> considerable dispute), what would be the
> significance of the Al Nilam alignment date? If
> it's some 70 or 90 years before his death, might
> it have had some connection with his birth ... ??”
>
>
> Thought provoking question!

This would be more likely if there was good evidence that the Egyptians of that time were using stellar alignments in other structures, because in order to record a position some 100 years before his birth they would have had to be recording this information since a time prior to his birth and using it. No one could truly predict which prince would survive to become pharaoh or how long he would live. So in order for this to be right there has to be other solid evidence of use of astronomical alignments from that period.

-- Byrd
Moderator, Hall of Ma'at