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The Great Pyramid of Giza, famed for its record-setting
size and precision in alignment, is full of peculiarities inside.
One of the most vexing and confusing inner-structures is the well-shaft,
and by extension the small grotto that it intersects on the way down.
What I find most frustrating about the well-shaft isn’t so much its confounding design, but
rather how it serves as a ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ card for so many poorly considered pyramid
theories.
For example, how did the builders seal the ascending corridor with granite plugs?
Maybe they climbed down the well-shaft.
How did looters know where to tunnel in?
Maybe they climbed up the well-shaft.
How do we know Giants didn’t build the pyramids?
They probably couldn’t fit through the well-shaft.
But it all seriousness, the well-shaft does lend itself as an excuse to stop reasonable
inquiry about a fascinating subject.
How was the pyramid was sealed and how was it plundered later on?
Compounding my frustration is that there is scant physical evidence for us to examine,
because imagery within the well-shaft is extremely rare and always poor in quality due to the
absence of light and it being a constrained space.
Despite these limitations, I think we can reach some reasonable conclusions about the
well-shaft, even if we can’t yet satisfy every answer for its ultimate purpose and
design.
Let’s start with a brief overview of its layout, which is quite interesting because
there are several sections and they all differ from each other quite a bit.
Starting from the top, the upper well mouth is cut into the western bench at the bottom
of the Grand Gallery.
Interestingly, the well mouth does not take up the entire space of this lowest block in
the bench, instead being only 68 centimeters long North to South, leaving an additional
57 centimeters of bench remaining on the northern side at the lowest point in the Grand Gallery.
It’s generally accepted that the original bench block here was standard for the Grand
Gallery, making up the length of both the well mouth and the 57 centimeters of remaining
bench below it.
You can’t infer too much from this design, however, because the builders may have found
it easier and more structurally sound to install a standard large block for the western bench
and then cut into it for the well mouth.
Leaving a gap for the mouth with a smaller stone supporting the bottom of the Grand Gallery
might have been perceived as less ideal.
The well-mouth is the full width of the bench at 52 centimeters, plus another 15 centimeters
of width into the wall of the Grand Gallery making it nearly square.
The well goes down less than a meter then travels horizontally westward for another
1.4 meters before it opens to a square 68-centimeter aperture which marks the point of its real
descent.
From this point the well plunges vertically downward for 8 meters through the pyramid
masonry.
Then, the well makes about a 20-degree southward bend so it is no longer vertical for another
8 meters of distance before it reaches the foundation of the pyramid where it meets the
bedrock.
The well-shaft then sharpens its angle back to vertical for the first 5.2 meters of depth
into the Giza plateau.
The upper-half of this vertical section is not solid bedrock but instead 10 small courses
of brick-sized masonry that wall off a small grotto.
The Grotto’s walls and ceiling are made of compacted small rubble which suggests the
10 courses of masonry in the well-shaft are put in place to protect the well from becoming
clogged up from loose debris.
The well-shaft bricks being smooth and neat on the inner section but rough and coarse
on the Grotto-facing side add to the evidence that the well is the priority and that this
masonry was set in place from the interior.
Two meters below the Grotto masonry, the well shaft once again bends horizontally to the
south, this time at an even gentler slope.
I can only estimate its angle from available diagrams at about 40 degrees less than vertical.
After traveling another 26.5 meters down and to the south, the shaft then steepens its
angle once again to be only 15 degrees less than vertical.
It then continues downward for a final 9.5 meters to its lowest depth.
The lowest point of the well shaft is slightly deeper than the adjacent descending corridor,
and it travels slightly upward and about two meters horizontally to the southeast to intersect
the corridor.
The lower mouth of the well shaft is smaller than the corridor itself, and was originally
well-squared with sides measuring 79 centimeters.
It has been pointed out by many observers that the well-shaft would have intersected
the descending corridor at the very bottom where it becomes horizontal if the well-shaft’s
lower section had not changed to a steeper angle.
So, what to make of this curious and winding path from the near-bottom of the pyramid’s
substructure to its busiest intersection at the base of the Grand Gallery?
Many potential uses have been suggested, including as a reference line to help control the pyramid’s
alignment as it grew and increased air circulation for the excavation of the subterranean chamber.
I even see potential for spiritual explanations when looking at the closest similar feature
in the Bent pyramid, the so-called ‘chimney’ that rises next to the lower chamber.
But let’s focus on the notion of the well-shaft as a potential escape-route for workers or
secret back-door entrance for looters.
Looking at the path the well-shaft takes, it quickly becomes obvious that connecting
a point above the granite plugs to the descending corridor was not its primary function.
If this was the case, the well-shaft would have connected to the descending corridor
below the plugs but not all the way down near the subterranean chamber.
The path it takes is unnecessarily long and its excavation must have been difficult.
There is no evidence that the descending corridor was plugged up, and so making the well-shaft
entrance farther down doesn’t add to its security.
Another observation is that the well-shaft isn’t designed so as to be overly difficult
to climb.
If the builders really wanted the well-shaft to be a one-way exit, it would have been designed
entirely vertical.
The last workers to leave could climb a rope down 40 meters of vertical shaft and then
set the rope on fire, leaving a formidable challenge to any potential climbers because
a fall would be fatal.
Instead, most of the well-shaft is reasonably accommodating to a fit person with a manageable
grade and plenty of footholds which are presumably original.
This suggests that the well-shaft would be a huge security flaw if not sealed up in some
way.
Many historians assume the lower entrance was closed and camouflaged based upon this
vulnerability.
In my video on the Prism Stone of the Great Pyramid I discuss how the lower well entrance
was probably disguised in later times after the pyramid had long been opened.
The addition of loose debris, sand and moisture filling up much of the descending corridor
would make hiding it much easier.
19th century explorer Giovanni Caviglia was the first known person to open up the well
since antiquity, and even he could not find the lower entrance until he had almost finished
excavating the descending corridor and the well-shaft from above.
But disguising the lower well entrance with the descending corridor in pristine condition
would have been much more difficult, and there’s no evidence to suggest it could or was done
effectively.
The only remaining method of securing the well-shaft is closing it from above, and there
is plenty of evidence to suggest this was accomplished.
The damage to the upper mouth of the well is quite conspicuous, and shows evidence of
destruction from above rather than from within.
The 57 centimeters of bench below the well-mouth are greatly damaged in its upper portion,
which would not have occurred from someone breaking in from below.
Furthermore, researchers Maragioglio and Rinaldi observe that the damage in this section shows
no sign of chiseling, in contrast to the chisel marks within the well-shaft leading to the
upper entrance.
The damage to the mouth of the well and its adjacent block are from hammering, demonstrating
the contrast between how the well was constructed versus how it was opened.
And what of the final possibility that the builders managed to close the upper well mouth
from below, still using the well-shaft as a final escape route?
Looking at the upper entrance, it seems designed as if to make this task as difficult as possible.
You can’t slide a block down from the bench itself because it would tip over before falling
into place.
The size of the block would be more than half a cubic meter, up to 1350 kilograms or 3000
pounds.
The only remaining option would be to pull it into place laterally, but the inner workspace
is so small that only 1 or 2 workers would be able to maneuver it.
This presents so many problems that I don’t think it’s necessary to mention them in
detail.
If you want to design an opening that can be closed from below, you’d do it just like
you see at the bottom of the ascending corridor with a nice smooth grade and a soft landing
for heavy plugging stones.
The Great Pyramid already does this, and so suggesting the builders couldn’t close a
well-designed corridor from below but were able to accomplish this for an awkward enclosed
space with sharp angles doesn’t make any sense.
The well-shaft was certainly sealed before the granite plugging stones were lowered into
place, and it did not serve as a final escape route for workers.
The damage to the upper well-mouth is evidence of breaking in from above, and so the well
couldn’t have been the first point of entry for plunderers to gain access to the upper
chambers of the pyramid.
I feel confident in these conclusions, and it’s important knowledge to possess when
examining the question of how the pyramid was first violated in the ancient past.
Retracing the steps and methods of the original robbers has been my fascination for a long
time.
With this examination of the well-shaft along with my previous video on the prism stone,
we are now ready to properly investigate the robber’s tunnel.
It will be my pleasure to show you exactly how I think the Great Pyramid was first entered,
why the robber’s tunnel is so accurately designed, and the logic of looting the pyramid
as quickly and effectively as possible.
And for those of you who think they already know these answers, I promise an entirely
new take on the robber’s tunnel with unexamined evidence written in stone.
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