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CHAPTER NINE
However, having covered all solution to the mystery of the Great of the evidence in chapter 8, J was faced with a challenge which I could not ignore. Linking the Pyramid geographically to a flight path for the shems of the Gods is all very well, but how does it explain such a huge and complex construction, when a simple Heliopolis-type pillar would have sufficed as a landing beacon?
How can we explain the awe-inspiring Grand Gallery, the huge niche
in
the Queen’s Chamber, the smaller damaged niches along the Grand
Gallery and the series of portcullises outside the King’s Chamber.
All of
these features suggested to me some mysterious purpose, not symbolic
but purely functional.
Texts dealing with the war of the Gods state that the Enkiites retreated inside the Ekur, which was allegedly impenetrable to the attacking forces. The texts appear to describe a protective shield, which is curious, because the Mesopotamian name for Egypt was “Magan”, which indeed meant the “Land of the Shield ”.
According to another intriguing reference,
the God Ninurta claimed that the Pyramid’s powers had been used
during the war “to grab me to kill me, with a tracking which kills
to seize me”. And finally there are texts which, on a close reading,
suggest that the Pyramid may also have included a communications
facility to the planet Nibiru.
We must dismiss all notions
of tombs and suggestions of Khufu’s statue being placed in the
Queen’s Chamber Niche. We must ignore the naive theory that the
Pyramid is a symbolic representation of the Sun’s rays descending to
Earth. And we must discount romantic speculations of hidden
treasures or secret repositories of information. What we are about
to discover is far more exciting.
If the texts are correct, we should
find inside the Great Pyramid a beacon and radar system, a
communications system and a powerful source of energy which can
translate into an offensive capability. If we think of the Great
Pyramid as a machine or factory, then its energy system should break
down into a source of raw material or fuel, a processing system, an
output-directing system and a control system. Let us now take an
objective look at the evidence.
Many events have left their marks over thousands of years, creating numerous red herrings which have led other researchers astray. In order to eliminate these features, it is necessary to have a knowledge of the Pyramid’s history.
Many researchers, for instance, comment that the Great Pyramid is extremely hot and humid, forgetting that it was originally encased in polished white limestone blocks which would have reflected away the heat of the Sun. Similarly, much is made of the alignment of shafts which run from the King’s Chamber to the outside of the Pyramid - yet no-one knows whether these shafts would originally have penetrated through the outer casing blocks which were removed by the Arabs.
Another red herring is the abundant amount of salt found within the Great Pyramid, particularly in the Queen’s Chamber and in the limestone gable above the King’s Chamber. Some very interesting theories have been put forward regarding this salt, but, in my view, it has simply come from rainwater - the same rainwater that has over thousands of years caused so much erosion near the Sphinx.
My suggestion is based on a literal acceptance of the ancient texts which record the removal of the Pyramid’ s capstone, following Ninurta’ s victory over the Enkiite Gods. Ninurta’s action exposed the Pyramid’s inner core to the elements and therefore the salt would have been washed out of the Pyramid’s chemically impure limestone blocks. At the same time as the capstone was lifted off, many other items in the Great Pyramid were either destroyed or removed by Ninurta, as described in detail in chapter 8.
In order to understand the functions of the Pyramid, it is necessary to mentally reinstall all of these items in their proper places. It is a matter of record that the God Ninurta dismantled a “stone” from inside the Queen’s Chamber, and destroyed or removed "stones” within the Grand Gallery - hence the niches which are empty today.
The tale of the imprisonment, and subsequent escape, of Marduk from a mountain tomb has always been studied in a mythological context.’ No-one seriously believed that it represented a historic event - until the tale was connected by Zecharia Sitchin to another epic Sumerian tragedy, and the mountain tomb conclusively identified as the Great Pyramid.
The Sumerian tragedy has been compared to that of Romeo and Juliet, the major parts being played by Inanna, an Enlilite Goddess, and Dumuzi, an Enkiite God. These two lovers were the subject of numerous Sumerian love poems. As discussed in chapter 6, Dumuzi had transgressed the laws of the Gods by raping his own half-sister in an over-zealous attempt to obtain a male heir. His brother, Ra, may have regarded this as a threat towards the future sovereignty of his own offspring in Egypt, and took the fated decision to arrest Dumuzi.
As Zecharia
Sitchin has demonstrated at length, the Egyptian God Ra can be
definitively identified with the Babylonian God Marduk. It was
Ra/Marduk who was therefore responsible for the accidental death of
Dumuzi, which occurred during his arrest. Thereafter, Inanna became
the bitter enemy of Marduk, whom she personally blamed for the death
of her husband.
The grieving Inanna cries out:
Eventually Inanna was persuaded to allow the Great Serpent (clearly identified by Babylonian texts as Marduk) to come out from the Ekur and stand trial. It would seem that Marduk was indeed held responsible for the death of Dumuzi, perhaps for improperly authorizing his arrest.
Another Babylonian text, records the guilty verdict, and a most severe sentence to imprison Marduk:
How was this imprisonment achieved? Having identified the prison with the Mountain, E.KUR or Great Pyramid, the answer would seem to lie in the granite blocks which once prevented access to the Pyramid’s upper chambers. One of these granite blocks can clearly be seen on the left hand side as one enters the Pyramid through its modern entrance. It is one of three blocks of red granite which are commonly referred to as the “Granite Plug”.
The top block of these
three is unusual in having a roughly-shaped top, as if the stone had
been fractured by a powerful force. Conventional Egyptology
attributes the Granite Plug to a safety measure to protect the
pharaoh’s tomb. Others commentators believe it was built into the
Pyramid from the beginning and may have had a symbolic purpose. The
rather more practical answer is that the granite blocks were slid
into place to imprison the God Marduk. But what was the original
purpose of the Plug?
One Pyramid expert, Peter Lemesurier, helps us to resolve the issue.
He states that the Passage suddenly narrows from an upper width of just over 41 inches to 38 inches at the bottom, and that the granite plug is tapered precisely to fit into the lowest section of the passage. The fact that they are now embedded in the bottom of the Ascending Passage would thus not be fortuitous.
Furthermore, the broken upper part of the Plug suggests that it must have been forcefully lowered into the passage from somewhere above it in the Pyramid. Where was the Plug originally situated? The Plug’s width of 41 inches (2 “royal cubits”) is identical to the width of the Queen’s Chamber Passage and the King’s Chamber Passage, perhaps suggesting them as a likely source.
On the other hand, the floor of
the Grand Gallery, between the ramps either side, is also 2 royal
cubits. It is difficult to see why the Granite Plug would have been
used to seal the entrance to the Queen’s Chamber - why use granite
when that chamber is otherwise constructed of limestone? Could it
have therefore been located so as to block access to the King’s
Chamber? Even though the King’s Chamber is made entirely of granite,
its entrance was already equipped with a series of granite
portcullises, so this location made little sense.
By a process of elimination, I arrived at a location for the Plug on the Grand Gallery floor. It would thus follow that it was moved up and down to either allow or prevent access to the Gallery from the Ascending Passage. Connecting the physical evidence with the ancient texts, I deduced that the upper Plug was probably designed with a protruding lip in order to seat it at the top of the Ascending Passage.
The imprisonment of Marduk was achieved by exploding the Plug, probably by use of a short fuse, to send it crashing all the way down from near the top of the Gallery into the Ascending Passage. The explosion had broken off the protruding lip of the Plug and blown a dozen cubic feet of limestone out of the Great Step (minor damage to the Antechamber entrance behind the Step and to the roof at the top of the Ascending Passage supports this proposition).
As we shall see later, the Plug
may well have been designed in two separate parts - one to seal the
top of the Passage and one to seal the bottom. The two parts of the
Plug would originally have been connected with a strong cable.
Peter Lemesurier’s
book refers to this groove as being used for a “sliding floor”,
and it is clearly a major embarrassment to those who see symbolism
rather than functionality within the Great Pyramid’s design. My more
practical suggestion is that this pair of grooves supported a travelling overhead gantry crane, as is commonly used in modern
engineering factories. Exactly when this equipment was removed from
the Pyramid, we do not know, but in all probability it was among the
items destroyed or removed by Ninurta.
Within the gap, where the floor is missing, there are five pairs of holes or “wall sockets”, perfectly aligned from the Ascending Passage to the Gallery floor, as seen in Figure 28.
There is even a supporting step carved out where the floor commences.
Detailed descriptions of the Great Pyramid have therefore surmised that there once existed an 8-inch thick “bridging slab” of limestone, which once completed the floor of the Gallery.
In summary, there was no problem with sliding the Granite Plug from
the top of the Grand Gallery down to the bottom of the Ascending
Passage.
Marduk’s sister-wife Sarpanit and his son Nabu appeared on the scene and a plan was hatched to release him. It was decided that they would bore a shaft and release Marduk through a SA.BAD -a “chiselled upper opening”.
At the vortex of the hollowing, into
the insides, a doorway they shall twistingly bore. Getting near,
into its midst they will break through.
The second crucial piece of evidence is the so-called Well Shaft - unfortunately not accessible to tourists - but fortunately documented in great detail. The Well Shaft, so named by the Arabs, is actually a series of vertical shafts which connect the upper and lower parts of the Great Pyramid - see Figure 13.
It comprises seven sections:
It has been conclusively proved that the straight sections of the Well Shaft were an integral part of the Pyramid’s original design.
The only unaccounted for section is therefore the rough tunnel, the origin of which cannot be conventionally explained. This tunnel fits the description of the “doorway they shall twistingly bore”. The odds against two pieces of physical evidence - the tunnel and the exploded ramp stone - agreeing by pure chance with an ancient Babylonian text are astronomical. There seems little doubt that the ancient text describes a genuine attempt to rescue Marduk from within the Great Pyramid.
When the Arabs, led by Mamoon, broke into
the upper chambers of the Pyramid in the ninth century, they
encountered an unspecified amount of limestone rubble above the
Granite Plug; they also found a layer of white dust inside the Grand
Gallery, which made their ascent somewhat slippery. These
observations can now be explained. The limestone rubble and the dust
were caused first by damage to the Great Step, pieces of which
followed the Plug into the passage; secondly by the explosion of the
missing ramp stone to rescue Marduk; and thirdly by the probable
destruction of the bridging slab at the same time.
But is that damage in fact caused by other events? The King’s Chamber has suffered what the experts call “subsidence”, which has caused minute cracks to appear in the granite beams. Explosive force seems a more likely explanation than subsidence, but this need not have arisen through a rescue of Marduk.
A more likely explanation is that
this damage was caused when the top of the Granite Plug was exploded
close to the King’s Chamber passage, in order to imprison Marduk.
Alternatively, it may have been caused in much later times by
explorers such as Vyse, who is known to have blasted his way crudely
around the Pyramid with liberal amounts of explosives, and is known
to have explored
above the King’s Chamber in 1837.
At the furthermost southern end of this Antechamber there is noticeable damage at the top of the passage to the King’s Chamber, as shown in Figure 29.
It is very likely that this was caused by Ninurta’s removal of the largest granite slab which, due to its size, required explosive force to loosen it from its position.
In the light of the above, plus the earlier explanations
for the damage to the Great Step and the mouth of the Antechamber,
there is little evidence to suggest that Marduk’s imprisonment was
confined to the King’s Chamber. The only possible evidence is the
damage to one corner of the King’s Chamber coffer, but it is likely
that this was another act of vandalism by Ninurta.
After Marduk’s escape, he fled Egypt, becoming a legendary God who was remembered by the name Amen-Ra, “the Hidden One".
He subsequently became the God of the Babylonians, whose New Year rituals described his exile and made great play of his innocence. However, one anomaly of Marduk’ s escape still remains to be explained. Why did his rescuers choose a route which required them to climb up the Well Shaft and bore through 32 feet of limestone when they could have achieved their aims much more directly using the “Mamoon method”?
A tunnel through the limestone around the
granite plug would have halved the distance and more than halved the
time.
Marduk was surely not an exiled God, as the Babylonians were led to believe, but a God who was regarded as a criminal on the run!
Gantenbrink’s Breakthrough The so-called “airshafts” of the Great Pyramid have in recent years become the focus of much research, and hence become the basis for several revisionist theories on the significance of the Pyramid itself.
In 1994, Robert Bauval and Adrjan Gilbert put forward a theory that the shafts were aligned to certain stars when the Pyramid was built.
I will discuss their findings in due course, in the context of the Pyramid’s construction date.
Bauval and
Gilbert’s theory is replete with mystic symbolism of the pharaoh’s
soul ascending to heaven, and thus follows what is becoming a fairly
conventional way of thinking. However, if we leave all the symbolic
suggestions to one side, what do the physical features of these
shafts actually tell us?
These shafts exited the chamber to the north and south, but unlike those of the King’s Chamber they did not pierce the outer masonry of the Pyramid. Thus the theory that these shafts were airshafts was finally disproved. This conclusion was highly embarrassing since it meant that the real purpose of the shafts was totally obscure.
The term “airshafts” has stuck only because no-one has a clue why they exist. Another major breakthrough in our knowledge of the shafts occurred in April 1993, when it was announced that a mysterious doorway had been found within the southern shaft of the Queen’s Chamber.
A team from the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo, led by the engineer Rudolf Gantenbrink, had been tasked with improving the ventilation inside the Great Pyramid.
Their work had
initially concentrated on improving airflow by clearing the northern
shaft inside the King’s Chamber. This had involved the design and
construction of a miniature robot which could be sent up inside the
tiny shafts which are only 8 inches square. Their work was most
successful - the blockage was cleared, a fan installed and humidity
duly fell from a stifling 90 per cent to 60 per cent.
After travelling the 84-inch long horizontal section, his robot UPUAUT 2 (“Opener of the Ways” in ancient Egyptian) began to ascend at an angle of almost 40 degrees.
After travelling around 130 feet, it crossed a mysterious metal plate. Finally, after 210 feet, a sensation - UPUAUT 2 was forced to a stop by a limestone slab with two metal handles (Figure 30) “airshafts” has stuck only.
The robot was able to aim a laser beam under the doorway, indicating that it was not firmly resting on the floor.
At the bottom right hand corner of the doorway, a small piece appeared to have been drilled through, and a stream of black dust or sand could be seen along the edge of the shaft.
Bauval and Gilbert were as excited
about this strange doorway as they were about their star
correlation’s, but in reality the find cast significant doubt on
their theory of symbolic alignments. Instead, the stone doorway
suggested a much more fundamental and functional purpose. Its
position, approximately 80 feet from the outer masonry of the
Pyramid, and 64 feet higher than the level of the King’s Chamber,
inevitably suggested the existence of a hidden chamber.
The physical evidence revealed by the robot includes the following: a change in the last 16 feet from rough-hewn limestone to highly polished white limestone (not found in any other 590 feet of shafts so far explored); signs of some structural damage (found nowhere else), suggesting internal stress, possibly due to the presence of a cavity; and the presence of stress relieving techniques, using vertically-laid blocks in the walls of the passage near the door.
Even more curious is the fact that the walls of the southern shaft
appear to comprise mortared blocks, despite the tightly-fitted
stones. Why would the Pyramid builders go to such lengths to seal
the walls of this shaft? What could the shaft possibly have carried
which required such a sealant? It was a major clue which would soon
enable me to solve the mystery of the Great Pyramid.
Following an article which I had written on the Great Pyramid’s shafts, I received a most interesting package from Canada. The author, Bernd Hartmann, claimed to have solved the mystery of the Pyramid by taking an engineering approach.
His unpublished theory suggested that the Pyramid was a giant limestone sponge which somehow sucked water from the Nile and then converted it into hydrogen and oxygen; the purpose was to burn the hydrogen gas to create energy in the form of heat. Hartmann’s theory hinged on an unknown “gasification” process in the Grand Gallery, based on the special “crystal” powers of the Pyramid.
The theory seemed unscientific, left several
features of the Pyramid unexplained, and did not fit the evidence
from the Mesopotamian records. Nevertheless, there was something
disturbingly perceptive about Hartmann’s claim. I had a feeling that
he might be close, and I was particularly intrigued by his
interpretation of the King’s Chamber.
Hartmann concluded from this that the King’s Chamber was an enormous oven. An especially convincing aspect of his theory was his claim that the five so-called Construction Chambers, situated above the King’s Chamber, were designed as a chimney to reduce the heat to a level which could be accepted by the surrounding limestone.
The five granite beams forming the Construction Chambers are the largest and heaviest stones in the entire structure, weighing up to 70 tons. They possess smooth polished bottoms and rough tops. It seems inconceivable that the Pyramid’s builders would not have finished off one side of these granite beams.
On the other hand, could it have been a deliberate design? As pointed out by Hartmann, granite is an excellent heat conductor, and the combination of a smooth bottom and rough top would enable each beam to give off more heat than it absorbed. The gradually reducing size of the beams was a perfect mechanism for dissipating the heat, assisted by four air spaces, with an average height of around two and a half feet, in between the beams.
Whilst not accepting Bernd Hartmann’s overall theory, I felt he was on to something with the King’s Chamber. No-one had come up with a better theory as to why it was necessary to build the Construction Chambers. For example, if, as is generally believed, the Construction Chambers were designed for strength, why were they not also placed above the Queen’s Chamber, lower in the Pyramid? The Queen’s Chamber has just one roof - a limestone gable, formed of twelve blocks but has not suffered any ill.
And above all, why use granite above the King’s surely one would have sufficed?
Water is the Solution! As I sat contemplating the possibilities of hydrogen fires and shafts that may have been mortared for the transport of gas, fate intervened in the form of Channel 4’s Equinox program to give me the final clue.
On 17th December 1995, Equinox reviewed the work of various researchers around the world who were trying to produce a super-efficient energy device - a machine that would produce more energy output than input, and hence be more than 100 per cent efficient.
This is of course contrary to the accepted laws of physics, particularly that of the “conservation of energy”. Nevertheless, several researchers were claiming to have made important breakthroughs. Among these researchers is an American inventor, Stan Mayer, who has designed what he calls a “water fuel cell”.
Mayer claims that his device splits water into its hydrogen
and oxygen components. The heat energy created by burning the
hydrogen gas has been measured at more than 100 per cent of the
energy which was input to stimulate the splitting of the water.
Mayer’s machine comprises a strange assembly of alloy rods immersed
in water inside a Perspex container. The chemical reaction is
stimulated by the passing of electronic pulses through the water.
Mayer’s water fuel cell would not only revolutionize the space programme, but would also create almost unlimited energy on tap. Needless to say, the threat to Multi-billion dollar petrochemical investments and the potential threat arising from terrorist access to unlimited energy have caused the veil of national security to fall over Mayer and NASA’s research. Could a similar water fuel cell have once existed inside the Great Pyramid, thus accounting for its awesome capabilities?
It
was an exciting possibility that tied in with the theory of burning
hydrogen gas in the King’s Chamber. My mind turned to the southern
shaft of the Queen’s Chamber where Gantenbrink’s robot had revealed
the unusual mortared finish. Was this a clue to the location of the
gas production?
The first clue is found in the text dealing with the siege of the Ekur, when it is reported that Nergal, a brother of Ra/Marduk, attempted to boost the Ekur’s defenses.
The partly damaged tablet states:
In addition to the above reference to a Water-Stone, it is highly significant that the siege was ended only when the attacker Ninurta ordered Utu/Shamash to cut off the Pyramids water supply, a watery stream that ran near the Pyramid’s foundations.
In all other details, the Mesopotamian texts have been quite accurate and here too the suggestion of a water supply is highly plausible, for the level of the River Nile is only marginally below the site of the Giza pyramids. In a poem to Ninharsag, I found another tantalizing clue to the importance of water beneath the Pyramid.
The text, illegible in places, referred to the Great Pyramid, with which Ninharsag was originally associated, and stated:
Finally, I found another vital clue in the text dealing with the sentencing of Marduk, as cited earlier:
As we have already identified, the “envelope” was the Pyramid’s upper chambers and Grand Gallery. Why would the Gods record a decision to cut off a water-source from Marduk unless there definitely was a water-source in that upper area of the Pyramid? Was it possible that water was being pumped from the watery stream, an offshoot of the Nile, up inside the Pyramid? And where was the location of the Water-Stone which Nergal had increased in strength?
As I searched every recorded nook and cranny of the Pyramid, one solution presented itself - the empty niche in the east wall of the Queen’s Chamber. The Queen’s Chamber Niche (Plate 30) is an astonishing 15 feet in height and 3.5 feet deep. Its shape is best described as a corbelled telescopic cavity, with five sections, each smaller than the one below it. Its purpose has always mystified the experts. To my mind, however, there are two significant factors which immediately suggest this empty niche to be the home of the Water Fuel Cell.
First, its size. If such a cell is going to produce the kind of power that this 6 million-ton structure was allegedly capable of, then there has to be a powerful engine, and there is no substitute for cubic capacity.
Secondly, this niche is the most easterly feature which has yet been discovered in the entire Pyramid (Figure 31) and east is the direction of-the waters of the Nile.
Furthermore, a line drawn directly downward from the niche arrives just a short distance to the north-east of the well in the Great Subterranean Chamber - a well which was dug in search of water!
Without further excavations inside the Great Pyramid, we can only speculate as to how the water was pumped up to the Water Fuel Cell in the Queen’s Chamber, but many possibilities spring to mind.
As to the pipe which must have delivered the water, it seems highly significant that the rear of the Queen’s Chamber niche has been subjected to a determined excavation, resulting in a rough-hewn hole about 3 feet square and 30 feet deep (Plate 30).
This excavation is
attributed to “unknown treasure seekers” at an unknown time. The
question is, what prompted them to start digging in this precise
location, and in an easterly direction?
Before we proceed, however, it is essential to establish a few brief facts about these two gases.
Oxygen is a colourless, odourless gas with an atomic structure larger and more complicated than the simple hydrogen atom. It is highly reactive and essential for almost all known forms of combustion. Hydrogen is a flammable colourless gas, the lightest known element in the universe and 14.4 times lighter than air.
When
burned, it produces a very high temperature flame, and is commonly
used in industry for welding and cutting metals. Experimental car
engines have been made which burn pure hydrogen gas, the exhaust is
pure water and nitrous oxide (laughing gas), the latter produced
from the nitrogen content of the air.
When these two gases are first produced in the Queen’s Chamber, the much lighter hydrogen gas will generally rise above the oxygen, but the turbulence of the process will result in a mixing of the two gases. As we now know, the southern shaft in the Chamber is mortared and leads upwards to a doorway and, the evidence suggests, a hidden chamber. It would thus seem that one of the gases is to be transported and stored. Is it possible to fill with gas a chamber 64 feet higher than the King’s Chamber?
This would have
created no problem, since the original bridging slab in the Grand
Gallery could have been used as a valve to seal off the Chamber and
its passage. This would have created sufficient back-pressure to
force the gases upwards along the Queen’s Chamber shafts. The small
doorway discovered by Rudolf Gantenbrink could have been opened and
closed by remote control, thus acting as another valve in the
system. The handles of this door would have been used for emergency
over-ride in the case of electronic failure.
The opening of this valve would be achieved by lifting the upper Granite Plug clear of the slab. The lower Granite Plug, to which it was connected by a wire rope, would have continued to seal the bottom of the Ascending Passage in order to achieve operating pressure of the gas in the Grand Gallery.
Beneath the
bridging slab, as I mentioned earlier, there are five pairs of
holes, which would have held supporting cross-beams. The pair of
holes in the centre of the bridging slab were significantly larger
than the others. This backs up my theory, since it would have been
necessary to support the slab at its weakest point to carry a heavy
granite plug, acting as a valve.
Assuming that this was the case, the Grand Gallery would require sufficient clearance to pull both plugs, connected by the wire rope, above the Passage. to permit access for repair or maintenance.
The measurements do indeed allow this as a
possibility, since the total length of the Grand Gallery in 153 feet
compared to 124 feet in the Ascending Passage.
The Antechamber is around 9.5 feet long and 12.5 feet high. Most attention is usually focussed on the portcullis system which once existed there (Figure 32).
Nowadays, only the first part, “the Granite Leaf’, can he seen.
Its top has been broken off but its other dimensions are 15.75 inches thick and 41.2 inches wide. Curiously. it was never designed to descend to the floor. The position of the other three portcullises is marked by three large retaining grooves in the granite side walls, which extend 3 inches below the floor level.
These were designed to hold granite slabs,
each measuring 21.5 inches thick by 41.2 inches wide, with their
respective heights unknown.
These four rounded grooves, 4 inches wide and 2.8 inches in depth, are not in any position to form part of the portcullis system. When combined with a tightly fitting granite slab in front of the wall, they would effectively form a series of pipes which would squirt the hydrogen gas into the King s Chamber.
The slab which stood here
would thus have remained fixed in position, except where access was
required for maintenance purposes. Its function tallies with the SAG.KAL stone (“Sturdy Stone which is in Front”) which
Ninurta
removed only with great difficulty (see chapter 8).
In order to enter the King’s Chamber, the gas would then have to pass through the small pipes at the top of the far wall of the Antechamber. By the same principle, this would cause another vast increase in velocity.
It is no coincidence that, in between the pipes and the passage entrance, we find four granite slabs or portcullises which could be raised to narrow the access; in this way the velocity of the gas could be varied, with five different speeds for any given pressure.
Note also
that a by-product of the Antechamber valve system would have been
heat - in the same way that the valve of a bicycle pump becomes hot
with vigorous use. This explains why even the outer slabs of the
King’s Chamber Antechamber were made of granite.
The only clue to the nature of the
apparatus once situated there is a series of three semi-circular
hollows on the western wall, each with a diameter of 17.25 inches
(see Figure 29).
One is a rectangular granite coffer, found lidless and empty. Its interior dimensions are approximately 78 by 27 by 34 inches, and its walls and base are 6-7 inches thick. It is generally believed that the coffer once had a lid, measuring approximately 90 by 39 inches.
The other interesting feature is the pair of shafts, which would have been at the same height as the coffer’ s missing lid. The experts state that these shafts penetrate the outside of the Pyramid, which indeed they do today, but they tend to forget that the Pyramid was once fitted with casing stones, so no-one knows for sure whether they truly vented to the atmosphere or not. Although the coffer is today situated at the far end of the Chamber, it is movable, and its original position in the Chamber is not known. What would we expect to find if we were burning pure hydrogen gas to generate energy?
First, we would need a receptacle to burn the gas under controlled conditions. Second, we would need a source of oxygen, without which combustion cannot occur. Thirdly, we would need a way of removing the energy output (heat). The coffer was clearly the location of the fire, but how did the gases enter the coffer under controlled conditions?
The squirting of hydrogen gas into the King’s Chamber can be compared to placing your thumb on the end of a hosepipe; the water accelerates but the same amount of water exits the hose. By the same principle, there would be no point in squirting hydrogen gas into the King’s Chamber unless it went directly into the coffer.
We must therefore suppose either that the coffer was positioned directly at the entrance to the King’s Chamber, or that some connection apparatus once existed and has since been dismantled. Is there any evidence that the coffer was once fitted with connections for entry of gases and exit of heat energy?
A major clue remains in the damage to one corner of the
coffer. It has been a mystery how this occurred, since granite is an
extremely hard stone. However, this feature is fully consistent with
the theory of the coffer as a receptacle for burning hydrogen gas.
The connection holes would have created a potential weak spot in one
corner
-a vulnerable target for vandalism. The damage which we see today
was not caused by tourists (as is sometimes suggested) but by the
angry God, Ninurta.
Whilst the upper shaft is a standard 9 by 9 inch rectangular section, its bottom entrance is an extraordinary dome shape, as can be seen in Figure 33. The depth of this “dome” is a massive 70 inches, its height varying from 12 to a maximum 28 inches, and its width varying from 6 to a maximum 18 inches!
It is thought that the badly mutilated opening may have originally been circular, with a 12 inch diameter.
This physical evidence strongly supports the notion of a large valve or filtration unit originally fitted in the southern shaft.
Its
purpose would have been to control the pressure of the oxygen, and
possibly to purify it. There would probably have been a physical
connection from this valve to the coffer, but any such pipework was
long ago removed.
He assumed, incorrectly, that it was some guidance equipment removed from the coffer. As we have seen, the coffer had a different purpose, and no “stones” were located inside it. The mystery is solved when we imagine Ninurta quizzing his advisers on the function of the mysterious valve in the wall. They might have said: “it directs the oxygen into the coffer”, and so it became known as the “Direction Determining Stone”.
How was the heat energy from the fire removed and how was it used? Although the lid of the coffer is now missing, it is reasonable to assume that it contained an outlet which carried the heat energy away from the coffer. Several surveys of the Pyramid’s King’s Chamber have commented on the blackened appearance of the northern shaft, suggesting that this shaft was used to transport the heat energy.
Somewhere above the northern shaft of the King’s Chamber, the heat energy from the hydrogen fire was converted by generator into a usable form of energy. We cannot be sure of the exact process, but it may not have been very far removed from late twentieth century technology. The generator may have been situated close to the outer face of the Pyramid, or it may have been located in the capstone.
We have no way of knowing the nature of the capstone (Apex Stone) which was removed by Ninurta - it may not have been made of stone at all.
All we can say is that the square summit platform has four base
sides of 48 feet and the missing capstone would have been
approximately 30 feet high. Its functional importance is indicated
by its removal.
The idea seemed plausible. Gantenbrink's robot found the entrance to the hidden chamber 64 feet above the King’s Chamber. Bauval and Gilbert, in their detailed study of the Pyramid’s shafts, commented that the Queen’s Chamber’s southern shaft ran almost parallel to the one emerging from the King’s Chamber. Coincidence?
It would not take a great feat of engineering to equip the gas tank with an exit, a pump, and a flapvalve connection to the King’s Chamber shaft, thus enabling gas to be routed into the King’s Chamber. Does such a connection and flap-valve exist in the King’s Chamber southern shaft? It is curious that this was the shaft which Gantenbrink was brought to Giza to unblock.
The nature of the blockage and its exact location have
never been revealed, but suffice to say that one would expect any
foreign matter falling into a smooth-sided shaft to fall straight to
the bottom where it could easily be removed. It is a fair bet that
the blockage was caused by the ancient valve.
A simpler and more direct system, on the other hand, would operate under low pressure, at a fixed slower speed, to keep things ticking over. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more essential such a system became. If I was designing it, that’s what I would have done. Under this scenario, we would create a tremendous pressure of gas in the Grand Gallery, and then store that energy as compressed hydrogen, just as a service station will store compressed air to quickly inflate motorists’ tyres.
On the occasions when a blast of
extra power was needed, the portcullises would be opened and the
huge pressure differential would cause a powerful surge of hydrogen
into the King’s Chamber’s coffer! As I reviewed the limited options
available for the rather less exciting low-pressure system, it became
clear that the hidden chamber must be a crucial aspect of what I was
looking for.
Since the hydrogen atom is much smaller than the
oxygen molecule, the first step would be to fit a filter over one
shaft to allow only hydrogen to pass through. The other shaft would
then carry oxygen, inevitably mixed with hydrogen due to the
turbulence of production. However, this oxygen mixture could be
purified by allowing the mixed gases to settle, and venting the
lighter gas (hydrogen) to the atmosphere. It is rather amusing to
think that one of the shafts may have been an “airshaft” after all!
The hidden chamber was used as a Gas Settlement Chamber, using the King’s Chamber southern shaft to vent the excess hydrogen. The remaining pure oxygen could then be passed down the same shaft into the King’s Chamber. In order to run this low-pressure system, the other shaft in the Queen’s Chamber had to carry the filtered hydrogen up to the King’s Chamber. Is there any evidence that this was the case?
It is
time to pay a visit to the mysterious northern shaft of the Queen’s
Chamber.
This, however, is a complete speculation, which has been repeated so often that it appears as fact. The truth is that this shaft has never been completely explored, and since it does not reach the Pyramid’s outer core, no-one knows where it really goes to. In 1993, Rudolf Gantenbrink made the first ever attempt to fully explore this shaft.
Sure enough, his robot began by proceeding upwards in a northerly direction. After a short distance, the shaft temporarily kinked to the west in order to avoid running straight into the Grand Gallery. But then UPUAUT 2 came across something very strange. Instead of reverting to its northward course, the shaft kinked backwards in the opposite direction, upwards and towards the south!
Due to an obstruction on the floor of the shaft, Gantenbrink was reluctant to allow the robot to continue, lest it become stuck.
The ultimate
destination of the Queen’s Chamber northern shaft therefore remains
a mystery, but all previous assumptions about this shaft have now
been thrown into confusion. It is a discovery which, whilst not as
dramatic as the southern shaft’s secret doorway, is equally as
intriguing.
The experts tell us that the Queen’s Chamber shafts were only discovered in 1872, and that the first 5 inches of shaft were not pierced through to the Chamber. Let us take a closer look at how these shafts were discovered.
Charles Piazzi Smyth, the Astronomer Royal of Scotland, explains:
I find it difficult to believe that a permanently closed shaft would have cracked and then been discovered in the above manner. It is much more likely, in my view, that these shafts were sealed as yet another act of vandalism by Ninurta who was determined to take the Pyramid out of service.
The discovery of the hidden chamber above the “sealed” shaft supports this interpretation, based on my functional approach. The sealing of the shafts is yet another red herring. As for a physical connection between the Queen’s and King’s Chambers, yes this is a controversial claim, and initially I, too, was skeptical.
But, instead of dismissing the possibility, T decided to revisit the evidence. I was immediately struck by something so obvious that it is habitually overlooked. In one corner of the King’s Chamber is an excavation in the floor which is attributed to Caliph Al Mamoon in AD 820.
A mutilated lump of granite from this excavation still remains in the chamber, whilst the hole in the floor is covered with a metal grille, as can be seen in Plate 31. This hole lies near the north-west corner of the King’s Chamber the exact location for a connection with the kinky shaft!.
As amazing as it seems, my quest for a functional explanation of the Great Pyramid has located two vitally important connecting shafts (or pipes) in the two precise locations where ancient “treasure hunters” have butchered the Pyramid.
The only loose end is an unusual feature in the Queen’s Chamber - its sunken floor, which lies 21 inches beneath the level of the approaching passage.
No-one has been able to explain why this floor appears rough and unfinished, in complete contrast to the rest of the Pyramid. My interpretation of this floor is that it was used to drain water, which occasionally recombined from oxygen and hydrogen eases at high temperatures.
The rough finish may have been designed to allow the water to soak down through the limestone floor, rather than flooding the passageway into the Grand Gallery. Let us now step back and take an overview of this chapter so far.
Figure 34 uses a schematic diagram to clearly demonstrate the flow of water and gases which constitute the Great Pyramid’s energy system.
Radio Waves and Electronics
So far we have identified water as the fuel, the passageways, chambers, shafts and gallery as the processing system, and the missing capstone as the likely output point.
We still need
to find the control system, as well as a communications system and a
directional beacon. Although the shape of the Grand Gallery may have
assisted in creating the high pressure hydrogen system, there are
other features of the Gallery which are not explained by the
energy-producing system. These features are the strange overlapping,
corbelled shape of the Gallery and its mysterious niches.
It may therefore have been involved in supplying electronic pulses to assist the water splitting process. As for the western niche on the Great Step, it is positioned exactly above a small cut-out in the western side of the Lesser Subterranean Chamber just outside the Great Subterranean Chamber at the bottom of the Pyramid.
We will return to this niche in a moment.
Below the Great Step, the Grand Gallery contains 27 further pairs of niches, cut vertically down against the base walls of the Gallery (Plate 32). Each niche consists of a hole measuring 6 inches wide, 10 inches deep and 20.6 inches long. Above the niches are cross-shaped features, each comprising a vertical mark crossed by a slanted depression running parallel to the ramp.
These marks strongly suggest that some
objects, once affixed to the wall, have been torn out. This damage,
we know from Mesopotamian texts, was inflicted by Ninurta.
It is evident from the vast radio-telescopes which are used in the SETI search for extraterrestrial signals that size matters. The reason for this is that radio waves are one million times longer than light waves. The size and shape of the Grand Gallery therefore suggest to me a powerful listening post for amplification of incoming signals.
The niches positioned along this
listening post would have contained apparatus (possibly crystals)
which resonated to different frequencies. The information would then
be transmitted electronically from the top of the Grand Gallery,
western side niche, to a relay device situated directly below in the
Lesser Subterranean Chamber.
This Chamber was originally sealed off at the bottom of the Descending Passage by a stone doorway; old drawings confirm the damage caused when someone blasted through long ago. The western side of the Great Subterranean Chamber consists of limestone bedrock, cut into strange grooves and protrusions, but disfigured by erosion, perhaps by rainwater passing through the Pyramid over thousands of years.
Although disfigured, the features are certainly not natural. It is thus likely that this was the location of the control room and its equipment. In addition to the central control room, other localized controls may also have existed. One of these may still be hidden inside the Pyramid today. For reasons that have rarely been questioned, the two-part Granite Leaf, mentioned earlier, has been cemented into the grooved walls in its lower position, and bears an irregular shape as if broken off from above.
Whilst the damage can be attributed to Ninurta, the cement is a mystery. It is also a mystery how the portcullis system was operated. Furthermore, the two-part Leaf is an anomaly, since it was never designed to descend to the floor, but instead rests in its lowered position at chest height. It also contains an inexplicable “boss” or “seal” on the upper part.
Putting all these clues
together, and considering them in the light of a functional
explanation of the Pyramid, the obvious conclusion is that these two
granite slabs contain a hidden control panel. It seems strange that
no-one has ever attempted to separate and open them...
Using Rudolf Gantenbrink's measurements of the slope of the shafts, they found that c. 2450 BC the southern shaft of the Queen’s Chamber had been aligned with Sirius, the northern shaft of the King’s Chamber had been aligned with Alpha Draconis and the southern shaft of the King’s Chamber had been aligned with the lowest star in Orion’s Belt.
The first point to note is that the date 2450 BC has no particular significance, since Khufu’s reign is generally accepted to be 2550 BC. More importantly, however, it must be recognized that 2450 BC is a convenient average adopted by Bauval and Gilbert; their precise results showed three different dates: 2400 BC for the alignment of the Queen’s Chamber and 2425 and 2475 BC for the alignments of the King’s Chamber.
This is not very convincing.
First, the lower Queen’s Chamber must have been constructed first
and should therefore align at the earlier date and not at the later
date! Secondly, the King’s Chamber shafts, which should have been
constructed simultaneously, aligned at two different dates, with an
unexplained 50 years difference!
Bauval and Gilbert’s discovery is in a different league, because what they found was a mirror image rather than a chance alignment.
The fact that they found that mirror image to be exact at 10450 BC is all the more convincing because they did not go looking for it (in contrast to a deliberate search for alignments around the time of Khufu).
Indeed, they have not been able to offer a satisfactory explanation of this remote date. According to Khufu, the alleged builder of the Pyramid, its owner was the Goddess Isis, whom he referred to as the “Mistress of the Pyramid”. The evidence concerning Isis is in the form of an inscription on a stele, found in the 1850s in the temple, or “House”, of Isis near to the Great Pyramid.
It has been translated as follows:
The stele on which this inscription was found came to be known as the “Inventory Stele”, and is today exhibited in the Cairo Museum.
Ironically, the experts have proclaimed it a forgery, because it contradicts the evidence from Vyse’s fraudulent inscription just over a decade earlier!
Whilst it is true that the writing style on the stele may indicate that it was produced some time after Khufu, it is perfectly possible that it was a copy of an earlier original. Scholars have been unable to suggest why such a forgery would have been made 4,000 years ago in a manner which praised Khufu and yet attributed the Pyramid to the ancient Goddess, Isis.
Whilst not constituting a chronological proof, the Inventory Stele has all the hallmarks of authenticity since Manetho’s history of Egypt dates the rule of Isis and Osiris in Egypt to around 10,000 BC.
Furthermore, it corroborates Bauval and Gilbert’s dating of the Giza pyramids to 10,450 BC, As we have seen in chapter 7, the Flood occurred c. 11,000 BC, shortly before the above dates for Isis and the Giza pyramids.
All of this evidence corresponds to the ancient
texts, as interpreted by Zecharia Sitchin, which link the pyramids
to a flight path built by the Gods as soon as practical following
the Flood.
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