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Together we’ll uncover secrets that only stones from antiquity can reveal.
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The Great Pyramid of Giza is always a favorite topic because there are so many unanswered
questions about many of its design features.
These anomalies range from the enormously significant to the somewhat obscure, and this
video is going to focus on an interesting section of the pyramid that just about everyone
seems to ignore.
The layout of the Great Pyramid is well known, the entrance opens to a descending passageway
that penetrates below ground to an unfinished subterranean chamber.
A short distance down the passage, the ceiling which is now blocked with three enormous granite
plugs, opens to an ascending corridor.
Beyond the plugs, the corridor leads upwards to the so-called Queen’s Chamber, Grand
Gallery, and King’s Chamber.
Most visitors scurry through the ascending corridor as fast as they can, because there
doesn’t appear anything within the corridor that is worth noticing.
But in fact, the ascending corridor is one of the most mysterious parts of the pyramid
because its construction is so uniquely bizarre.
The first key point about the ascending corridor, is that it’s the most deteriorated section
of limestone within the substructure of the Great Pyramid.
While tourism from the past few hundred years has taken its toll on the pyramid, written
accounts suggest this damage is not modern.
Both Prospero Alpini in 1591 and Benoit de Maillet in 1692 write that the passage appeared
rounded and had a ruined appearance.
Looking at the passage today, it’s almost impossible to make out individual joints in
the walls, floor and ceiling.
Because of this, we will need to rely upon historical accounts of the masonry design.
We’re very lucky that brothers John and Morton Edgar took the time and effort to make
a diagram of the ascending corridor blocks and joints for their 1910 book, ‘The Great
Pyramid Passages Volume 1”.
A quick note about the Edgar brothers, is that their work was examining the pyramid
from a mystical and theological perspective, and they would very much fall into the category
of ‘alternative history’.
But that doesn’t mean their observations and measurements weren’t accurate or rigorous.
In fact, much of the best documentation done on the Great Pyramid in the last 400 years
has been carried out by people that I lovingly refer to as ‘cranks’.
Anyone who takes the time to actually examine and document the evidence is worth listening
to, even if their conclusions are wildly speculative.
In that spirit, I don’t take sides in the culture wars of Egyptology or ancient history.
Any person with a passion for the subject that puts in the work can be a colleague.
It’s important to study all perspectives grounded in evidence.
Circling back to the ascending corridor, we are only left to rely upon the Edgar Brothers
to understand its layout.
But other explorers such as Flinders Petrie give less detailed descriptions that match
the Edgar Brothers diagram precisely, so we can be confident that they are mostly correct
with this depiction.
The most notable feature of the ascending corridor masonry design, is the presence of
what are called ‘girdle-stones’.
Unlike other passages that use separate blocks for the floors, walls, and ceiling – these
girdle-stones are in fact single monoliths that have been hollowed out in the middle
to form the ascending corridor.
Additionally, there are sections of the ascending corridor that use partial girdle-stones, meaning
the ceiling and upper walls are cut from one stone, and the floor and remaining lower portions
of the walls are cut from another single block.
As if that wasn’t complicated enough, the complete girdle stones are aligned vertically
with respect to the base of the pyramid, whereas the surrounding masonry is aligned perpendicular
to the ascending corridor.
Adding to this confusion is the masonry in the lowest section of the ascending corridor,
where the condition of the stones is the worst.
Here as the corridor begins, there appear to be additional girdle-stones designed in
a more haphazard arrangement.
These lower girdle-stones are also vertically oriented with respect to the pyramid, and
above them the masonry follows the angled slope of the corridor.
And finally, below each of the 3 upper girdle-stones are what the Edgar Brothers called ‘pointer’
cuts on the walls, that seem to be directed to cross over the upper girdle-stones.
It’s a lot to take in, but let’s break it down one concept at a time.
The most apparent purpose of the girdle-stones is to increase the stability of the ascending
corridor, so that there are no cracks or slippage of joints that might compromise its alignment.
The three enormous granite plugs needed to slide through the corridor, and displaced
joints or cracks might have prevented the plugs from sliding properly.
Another benefit of the girdle-stones would be to help bond the ascending corridor to
the surrounding inner masonry, so as to avoid putting excess pressure in the direction of
the descending corridor junction.
This seems like a straightforward explanation, but problems quickly arise.
First off, why don’t other corridors have girdle-stones?
The corridors in the Red Pyramid and the Bent Pyramid are much longer and prone to accumulated
pressure, yet no girdle-stones or any vertically aligned blocks are found within them.
The lower girdle-stones of the ascending corridor have caused a lot of controversy in Egyptology,
because their haphazard arrangement raises the question of whether the ascending corridor
itself was a change of plan.
The poor condition of the lower girdle-stone masonry made it unclear if these blocks were
already part of the pyramid.
The idea is that the ascending corridor was excavated afterwards for a few meters as an
alteration to the initial design.
But when comparing the lower girdle-stones and the Robber’s Tunnel, the masonry joints
are very different.
So, it seems likely that the girdle-stones were laid and joined with the intention of
excavating the ascending corridor through them.
There’s also the question of the limestone itself that was used for the masonry in the
ascending corridor.
Unlike all the other passages and chambers within the pyramid, the ascending corridor
is not made of the higher quality Tura limestone that once made up the pyramid casing.
Hany Helal of Cairo University along with professors Hassan Imam and Taha Abdallah conducted
a study of the hardness of the limestone used within the Great Pyramid.
The hardness measurements revealed that high-quality limestone was used everywhere except the ascending
corridor.
The quality here was mediocre and highly inconsistent.
This poor-quality limestone might once again point to the ascending corridor being a change
of plan.
The unfinished subterranean chamber might also suggest that the ascending corridor was
not part of the original design.
Architect-researcher Gilles Dormion suggested in his 2004 book the Chamber of Cheops, that
the upper girdle-stones were originally designed as transverse portcullis mechanisms, similar
to what is seen in the Bent Pyramid of Dahshur.
I don’t find that explanation persuasive because Old Kingdom pyramids only use portcullis
devices on horizontal ground, and the builders had no problem leaving an unused one in the
Bent Pyramid without modifying it afterwards.
Furthermore, the ascending corridor was obviously designed to accommodate the granite plugs
from the very beginning, because the lowest point of the ascending corridor tapers narrower
to stop the plugs.
This is not a design that could have been carried out as a modification at a later time.
While the Edgar Brothers were able to assign a spiritual meaning to almost every measurement
of the Great Pyramid, they were initially left without an explanation for the upper
girdle-stones.
They could only observe that they were separated by exactly 10 cubits, with the uppermost girdle-stone
placed 20 cubits before the termination of the ascending corridor.
I can’t help but notice the ascending corridor layout begins with the lower haphazard girdle-stones
and progresses towards evenly-spaced and properly-aligned upper-girdle stones.
It suggests a progression of skill and technique in reinforcing the ascending corridor with
less effort.
Even the ‘Pointer’ carvings appear to simplify as you travel upward.
I can only guess these carvings were used to help align or set the girdle-stones in
place, but perhaps some of you viewers working in construction can share your ideas in the
comments.
One of the main reasons I started this channel was to engage the community in a collaborative
effort to work through these problems.
It might seem paradoxical that the most overbuilt corridor within the Great Pyramid used the
worst quality stone, but perhaps these anomalies are directly related.
When you see the completed Great Pyramid still standing today, it’s easy to think of the
ancient Egyptians as building it according to their exact specifications.
However, problems would have inevitably arisen and the builders would have needed to compensate
with whatever tools and resources they had available.
I can’t even imagine the difficulties of managing a Great Pyramid-sized supply-chain
4500 years ago.
Supposing that for whatever reason, during construction of the ascending corridor there
wasn’t enough quality Tura limestone available to use for it.
Maybe this was from a change of plans, or maybe the Nile River just didn’t flood enough
one year to float it to the valley harbor.
They wouldn’t stop construction of the whole pyramid because of a problem, they’d adapt
and find a solution.
The over-engineering of the ascending corridor using girdle-stones is evidence the builders
were compensating for their lower-quality stone.
Not trusting the lesser-quality limestone to be strong enough or cut precisely to form
good joints – they simply hollowed out over-sized blocks.
As the ascending corridor progressed, their skill working with this limestone increased,
and thus the masonry returned to a more conventional design.
This isn’t the type of solution you’re hoping to arrive at when looking at the Great
Pyramid, but not every anomaly leads to an enormous discovery.
The Edgar Brothers spent a huge amount of time and effort to document the layout of
the ascending corridor, but were left without a satisfying explanation.
And we’re talking about guys who could attribute a spiritual connection to almost every measurement
within the Great pyramid.
In later years Morton Edgar assigned the upper Girdle Stones some significance, probably
because he didn’t want any feature of the pyramid left out of his spiritual philosophy.
One of the most important lessons when studying these monuments, is not to over-think it.
The more you can simplify the logic of a feature, the better your chances are of being correct.
It’s easy to get carried away and imagine the endless possibilities that 2 million blocks
of stone might conceal.
If we’re going to get closer to the truth and reconcile all the anomalies within the
pyramid stonework, it’s good to remember that even the Edgar Brothers didn’t originally
assume every oddity was important.
We all have to do the best we can with the resources we have, and that includes the builders
of the last surviving wonder of the Ancient World.
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