Page 61 - آثار مصر الفرعونية الجزء الأول

more interested in his Egyptological studies than comfort, set up
his headquarters in one of the nearby rock-cut tombs, and slept
on a layer of sand, using a kerosene stove for cooking. The
account of his investigations, The Pyramids and Temples of
Gizeh, remains even today one of the most important studies on
the pyramids.

Borchardt also worked on the famous monument. He first
concentrated on explaining the method originally used to
measure and orient the ground plan, and on reconstructing the
stages in which the pyramid was built.

In 1954, The Egyptian archaeologists Kamal Mallakh and
Zaki Iskander and their colleagues discovered on the south side
of the Great Pyramid, two pits that contained intact burial boats.
Later, in the second half of the 1980s, the French architects, Jean-
Ptrice Dormion and Gilles Goidin made precise geophysical
measurements of its inner core, which was later confirmed by a
Japanese team.

Finally, Zahi Hawass, a longtime investigator at Giza and
now the Chairman of the SCA (Egypt's Supreme Council of
Antiquities), focused on the grounds of the presumed valley
temple, the causeway and the mortuary temple. It was he who,
not so long ago, discovered the cult pyramid as well as its
pyramidion. Though he has now moved on to head Egypt's
antiquity community, work nevertheless continues.

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