The Entrance of the Great Pyramid

Having we hope sufficiently outlined the basic construction of the Great Pyramid showing how its various passages and chambers symbolize the various features of the Divine Plan of the Ages we would now like to take a look at some of its time features as recorded by the measurements of these selfsame passages and chambers. However before we can begin this it will prove necessary first to establish a starting point from which to begin our measurements, and since having found from previous studies that the outside of the pyramid as well as its original entrance is in pretty bad shape having weathered both time and vandal we must first attempt to redefine the outside perimeters before we can proceed. Once again we will be following along the outline as taken from the Edgar bothers work, Great Pyramid Passages.

“The present Entrance to the interior of the Great Pyramid is very dilapidated, and it is clearly apparent that a large portion of the masonry at this part of the building has been removed. According to the ancient geographer, Strabo, who saw the Pyramid in its pristine beauty, the Entrance was closed by a pivoted stone door. Referring to the Pyramids of Gizeh, he wrote:

“The Greater [Pyramid], a little way up one side, has a stone that may be taken out, which being raised up, there is a sloping passage to the foundations”—i.e., to the Subterranean Chamber under the foundation of the building.

Other early writers bear record that the outer surfaces of the Pyramid were smoothly finished off with beautiful white, beveled casing-stones. This casing has long since been torn off by the Arabs for building mosques and houses, and the great mound of fragments which lies around the base was for many centuries the only visible evidence of the noble monument’s former splendor. But in 1837, Col. Howard Vyse excavated down through this rubbish at the middle of the northern side, and was rewarded by discovering several large, well-preserved casing-stones in situ.

As this remnant of casing furnishes the alignment and upward angle of the building’s original smooth exterior surface on the northern side, its situation on the Platform almost directly in line with the Entrance above, is most advantageous (See the drawing by K. Vaughan on page 113). Professor Flinders Petrie was thus enabled with the aid of his scientific measuring instruments, to accurately determine the former position of the ancient Entrance doorway, and also to compute the length of the now missing outer portion of the Descending Passage.

We have substituted this color photo in place of the drawing furnished by K. Vaughan which we believe shows the exact same thing. The gentleman in the black trousers at the bottom of the photo is standing in the same position as that of the man in the black and white photo above, right next to the remaining remnant of white casing stones. Notice how these stones gleam in the sun’s light, now picture in your mind what the Great Pyramid may have looked like when completely covered in these stones, what a blinding spectacle that must have been.

“Basement-sheet” of the Descending Passage

Although it is manifest that a large section of the masonry of the Descending Passage has been removed, Professor C. Piazzi Smyth was nevertheless of the opinion that the wide

“basement- sheet,” the central line of which forms the floor of the passage, did riot extend further north than at present. This “basement-sheet,” as Professor Smyth named it, is a large flat sheet of masonry extending at an angle from the Entrance, down to the junction of the First Ascending Passage, where (supposedly) the natural rock begins. It is 33 feet wide and 2 1/2 feet thick. Down the center of this broad sheet of stone, and at a distance of three and a half feet apart, the walls of the Descending Passage are carefully laid; and placed across the top of these walls are immense roof-stones. If Professor Smyth’s suggestion be correct, that this wide “basement- sheet ” did not originally extend further north than at present, then the Descending Passage must have continued out to the casing- stone surface with a narrower foundation for the floor, or by some other method of masonic construction; for it is certain that it was always possible for visitors to enter the Descending Passage directly from the exterior, provided they knew of the exact location of the pivoted stone door, referred to by Strabo. (See also Par. 337 in Vol. I.)

The results of our own investigation of this part of the building supports Professor Smyth’s opinion; for a large number of important time-measurements require to be computed from the present floor-beginning of the passage. At the same time it would appear that the Architect also intended the original Entrance doorway to form part of the symbolism of this great stone “Witness,” for calculations demonstrates that the doorway, and the north edge of the “basement-sheet,” bears a certain mathematical relationship to each other. The emplacement of each was fixed by the Master-Builder according to his usual symmetric system of corresponding proportions, examples of which we have already noticed in Sections VII and XIII, as well as in the 1st volume.

Professor Flinders Petrie reckoned the top level surface of the Platform as the base-line in all his measurements for heights and depths in the Pyramid. But this is not the only base-line employed by the Architect in the scientific design of his great building, for the rock-level under the Platform, and the four corner- socket levels (See Vol. I, Pars. 82, and 271-275), must also be recognized in connection with a number of the Pyramid’s corroborative time-features, and geometric proportions.

The corner-socket levels are lower than the levelled natural rock under the Platform, and Professor C. Piazzi Smyth shows that the scientific base-size of the Pyramid is founded upon these, and not upon either the levelled rock or Platform. He writes: “Ever since John Taylor’s happy identification of the verse in Job. 38:6 (aided by the marginal translation) with the building of the Great Pyramid in or upon the rock, the majority of explorers have been firm in maintaining that the actual and still socket-defined corners of the base, in the solid living foundational rock bearing the monument, are the ancient architect’s intended fiducial points for defining the true size or full base measure of his grand work of all the ages” (See New Measures of the Great Pyramid, page 23).

According to the careful calculations of the Rev. H. G. Wood, of Sharon, Pa., U.S.A., which are approved and printed in full by Professor Smyth in his publication entitled “New Measures of the Great Pyramid”, the mean level of the four corner-socket floors is 29.7488 + Pyramid inches (roughly 30 inches) below the level of the upper surface of the Platform.

The Platform is fully illustrated by our photographs in Volume 1. Particular measuring during 1912 enables us to pronounce the true thickness of the Platform to be 20⅞ British, or  20.8560+ Pyramid, inches. This Platform, with a section of the pavement which lies in front of it, was first discovered by Col. Howard Vyse; and in his published work he gives the thickness in round figures as 21 inches. As we point out in Paragraphs 227 and 271 of Vol 1, the pavement is a distinct piece of masonry, and must not be confounded with the Platform, the front edge of which projects about 16.5 inches beyond the bottom edge of the casing-stones.

Although the top surface of the pavement is beautifully level and continuous with the Platform, the stones with which it is built vary considerably in thickness. The Platform stones, on the contrary, are of a uniform thickness throughout; the builders therefore spent much time in accurately levelling the natural rock preparatory to laying the Platform. At present this piece of masonry can be seen only along the northern side of the building; but there is no doubt whatever that it continues right round the Pyramid, for Professor Flinders Petrie reports having discovered portions of it in several places when digging down through the mounds of debris on the other three sides.

These three levels, namely (1) the upper surface of the Platform, (2) the levelled natural rock under the Platform, and (3) the mean level of the four corner-socket floors, are related to each other and to the doorway of the ancient Entrance, and also to the “basement-sheet” of the Descending Passage, by a connecting system of harmonious measurements. They are all required in the calculations of the time-features of the Pyramid.

Professor Flinders Petrie computed the direct vertical height of the lower north edge of the ancient and now missing doorway of the Entrance, above the level upper surface of the Platform, to be, as nearly as he could determine, 668.3 British inches. The theoretical height is only about ¼” more than this, or when expressed accurately in Pyramid inches the total vertical height is 667.8939+. The length of the missing outer portion of the Descending Passage we have already stated to be (See Par. ii), in Pyramid inches, 124.3980+.

With these Pyramid-inch measures, and the known angles of the casing-stone surface and passage-ways (See Section 2), we find that both the ancient, as well as the present, north- beginnings of the Descending Passage floor are definitely related to the Socket-level base, and the Platform-level base, by distances that agree with the precise dimensions of the King’s Chamber; and one of these distances contains, additionally, the exact length of the earth-commensurable Pyramid cubit:

The exact vertical distance between the Socket-level base, and the north edge of the Descending Passage “basement- sheet,” i.e., the north-commencement of the passage-floor as it is at present, is, according to the above-mentioned measures, 642.5203 + Pyramid inches.

This vertical distance is, therefore, equal to the sum of the length, and height, of the King’s Chamber (See page 43 for the dimensions of this Chamber). Thus:

King’s Chamber length— 412.1316+

King’s Chamber height (floor to ceiling)— 230.3886 +

Total Pyramid inches— 642.5203 +

As the vertical height of the floor-commencement of the Descending Passage, at the Ancient Entrance, is computed to be 667.8939+ Pyramid inches above the Platform-level base (as noted above), the inclined height up the face of the casing-stone covering of the building, measuring from the Platform level, is, therefore, 849.2633 + Pyramid inches.

The inclined height of 849.2633 + inches is equal to twice the length of the King’s Chamber (See page 43), plus a Pyramid cubit:

King’s Chamber length (412.1316+), multiplied by 2, equals— 824.2633+

One Pyramid cubit, of 25 Pyramid inches— 25.

Total Pyramid inches— 849.2633 +

It will be noticed that the inclined height of the ancient doorway above the upper surface of the Platform, distinctly indicates by the above characteristic Pyramid method the absolute length of the cubit used by the Architect (i.e. 25 cubits inches), and appropriately named by Professor C. Piazzi Smyth the “Sacred Pyramid Cubit ” (Compare No. 13, page 41). Other examples will be presented in Vol. III.

The odds that the dimensions of the Kings Chamber would so collaborate that of the entrance passage measurements right down to the decimal point is almost beyond belief, coincidence we think not, it is evident that the divine architect intended this correspondence not only as a confirmation to its authenticity, but to aid us in reestablishing the original measurements of the outside perimeter and entrance. Thus we believe we have a reliable starting point for our time measurements.

(Great Pyramid Passages, Page 111-119, par. 266-279)