Page 292 - Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

Bottlenecks in the well-shaft

There was another way in.
Farther down the descending corridor, more than 200 feet beyond the
point where the plugged end of the ascending corridor had been found,
lies the concealed entrance to another secret passageway, deep within
the subterranean bedrock of the Giza plateau. If Ma’mun had discovered
this passageway, he could have saved himself a great deal of trouble,
since it provided a readymade route around the plugs blocking the
ascending corridor. His attention, however, had been distracted by the
challenge of tunnelling past those plugs, and he made no effort to
investigate the lower reaches of the descending corridor (which he ended
up using as a dump for the tons of stone his diggers removed from the
core of the pyramid).
12
The full extent of the descending corridor was, however, well-known
and explored in classical times. The Graeco-Roman geographer Strabo
left quite a clear description of the large subterranean chamber it
debouched into (at a depth of almost 600 feet below the apex of the
pyramid). Graffiti from the period of the Roman occupation of Egypt was
13
also found inside this underground chamber, confirming that it had once
been regularly visited. Yet, because it had been so cunningly hidden in
the beginning, the secret doorway leading off to one side about two-
thirds of the way down the western wall of the descending corridor,
remained sealed and undiscovered until the nineteenth century.
14
What the doorway led to was a narrow well-shaft, about 160 feet in
extent, which rose almost vertically through the bedrock and then
through more than twenty complete courses of the Great Pyramid’s
limestone core blocks, until it joined up with the main internal corridor
system at the base of the Grand Gallery. There is no evidence to indicate
what the purpose of this strange architectural feature might have been
(although several scholars have hazarded guesses). Indeed the only
15
thing that is clear is that it was engineered at the time of the construction
of the pyramid and was not the result of an intrusion by tunnelling tomb-
robbers. The question remains open, however, as to whether tomb-
16
robbers might have discovered the hidden entrance to the shaft, and
made use of it to siphon off the treasures from the King’s and Queen’s
Chambers.
Such a possibility cannot be ruled out. Nevertheless, a review of the

12 Secrets of the Great Pyramid, p. 58.
13 The Geography of Strabo, (trans. H. L. Jones), Wm. Heinemann, London, 1982, volume
VIII, pp. 91-3.
14 Secrets of the Great Pyramid, p. 58.
15 In general, it is assumed to have been used as an escape route by workers sealed
within the pyramid above the plugging blocks in the ascending passage.
16 Because, over a distance of several hundred feet through solid masonry, it joins two
narrow corridors. This could not have been achieved by accident.

290