As we stand in awe at the masonry now exposed surrounding the entrance to the Great Pyramid questions begin to stir within our minds. Why and for what purpose? What was the architect thinking when he designed the entrance to the pyramid in the particular way in which he did? For as you recall at one time the pyramid entrance was completely covered in beautifully fitted and cut white casing stones with a door so perfectly concealed that for quite some time its location had apparently become lost, and yet for some reason unbeknownst to us the architect had likewise taken the time to construct an elaborately fashioned entrance way hidden beneath these casing stones. Why for what reason? If this interior masonry was intended to be hidden by the casing stones why go through all the trouble to construct such an elaborate entrance? Why not just construct a simple entrance tunnel protruding through the appropriate masonry course and leave it at that, after all it was never to be seen hidden beneath the beautiful white casing, or was it?

Could it have been possibly that his intention all along was that what we see here now before us is what he had intended for us to see all along, that he had foreknown that the casing stones would eventually be removed in time?

The mystery grows even more mysteries when we start to take a closer look at the actual construction of this entrance area that is prior to the destructive work which has left it as we see it today.

At one time the masonry surrounding the entrance to the Great Pyramid resembled something similar to what we see here in the our illustration above with its beautiful white casing still in place, but soon the ruthless hands of the spoiler stripped this casing away leaving the core masonry exposed. Once this casing was stripped from the pyramid it likewise exposed the elaborately designed masonry surrounding the entrance passage. The illustration below is a facsimile of what the masonry surrounding the entrance looked like prior to it’s having been stripped and damaged; this of course minis the various courses of stone which all but hid the upper section from view.

Note that in this particular illustration we are looking straight at the entrance following the 26 degree angle of the Entrance Passage that is why the upper masonry appears to be leaning forward.

The illustrations below show roughly just how much masonry was eventually removed from around the entrance, the second illustration a view often seen in most Pyramid books.

 

Now it is understandable why thieves would strip the casing from the pyramid, but what would have possessed them to remove the masonry surrounding the entrance passage itself, and this all the way back to great angular stones we now see residing over the entrance passage today? The surrounding masonry was not constructed of the same highly prized beautiful white Tura lime stone which surrounded the exterior of the pyramid but was similar in nature to that of the rest of the core of the pyramid, the typical Grey-yellow nummulite lime stone (Mokattam limestone), so there was no real practical value in removing these stones. (Note: In our illustration above we purposely showed these stones in white merely to differentiate them from the stones which remain.) Even if there were some need of this particular type of lime stone it would have proven much easier to just simply remove some of the stones from the lower courses, not to mention the fact that some of these stones surrounding the entrance passage especially those which made up the ceiling over the entrance must have average at the very least some 20 tons a piece, that and the combination of their being placed on a 26 degree decline following the path of the Descending Passage would have made their removal very near impossible. So why remove them?

Perhaps we’re not looking at this correctly; perhaps the architect purposely designed this elaborate work so as to appeal to our curiosity. Once the casing was removed and the masonry surrounding the entrance exposed the natural inclination of man would be to question why? and for what purpose is this? Why was it constructed thusly, especially so in regards to the upper most masonry, why were these stones laid as they were, slopping backward, staggered at different levels one behind the next, was there something yet unseen hidden behind them?

What were found were the great angular stones we now see residing over the entrance, (plus one other unique item which we will take a look at shortly).

“These angular stones are much like a slice of the side of a casing stone in their angle; but their breadth and length are about half as large again as any of the casing stones. Their mean angle from 12 measures is 50º 28′ ± 5′. The thickness of these blocks is only 33 inches, and there are no others exactly behind them, as the horizontal joints of the stones running on behind them are visible for several inches.”

 

“On the faces of the angular blocks are many traces of the mortaring which joined to the sloping blocks next in front of them. These were placed some 70 inches lower at the top, and were not so deep vertically. By the fragment left on the east side (A), the faces of these blocks were vertical (there apparently were two sets of these vertical blocks the northern most being cut at a slight angle where they joined each other).

In front of these came the third pair, similar, but leaning some 7½º or 8º inwards on the face (approximately 84º), judging by a remaining fragment. Probably a fourth and fifth pair were also placed here; the abutment of the fifth pair shows an angle of 70½º or 73º in place of 50º (I believe in reference to the overall angle of the pyramid itself). The successive lowering of the tops, leaning the faces in, and flattening the angle of slope of the stones as they approach the outside, being apparently to prevent their coming too close to the casing.

These sloping blocks were probably not all stripped away, as at present, until more recently, as there is a graffito, dated 1476 A.D. (half destroyed by the mock-antique Prussian inscription) on the face of the remaining block where it is now inaccessible, but just above where the next pair of blocks were placed. The sloping blocks are of remarkably soft fine-grained limestone, about the best that I have seen, much like that of the roofing of the chamber in Pepi’s Pyramid; and it is peculiar for weathering very quickly to the brown tint, proper to the fine Mokattam limestone, darkening completely in about twenty years, to judge by the modern-dated graffiti.” (The Pyramids and Temples of Giza by W. M. Flinders Petrie)

Continued with next post.