The romance of excavation

by David Masters

From inferences from papyri, the great Pyramids were looked upon by the Egyptians as one of their plagues, as a scourge to the land. Men were pressed into the work, were compelled to go on with it. What mattered it to Khufu if his subjects and slaves died, so long as he built a home that would last his shadow-self for ever? We are wont to marvel at the building of the Pyramids, but under it all there must have been great cruelty as well as an incredible skill. Those monuments which to-day are the glory of Egypt, were in the past one of the afflictions of the land.

The building of the Great Pyramid entailed the creation of a mighty sloping road, which Herodotus says took 100,000 men ten years to construct. Men swarmed over the desert like ants over a disturbed anthill, making this enormous slope up which to drag and push these gigantic blocks. The centre of the slope was paved with polished stone, so that the blocks would slide easily along, but in spite of this attempt to ease the burden, the moving of the stones must have been a heart-breaking task. As the Pyramid rose, so the road grew higher.

The blocks would be heaved out of the barges by dozens of men. Great wooden levers would be inserted under the stones to prise them up to allow the rollers to be slipped under; then hundreds of men would take hold of the long ropes, harnessing themselves like beasts of burden, and drag the stones along. Men with levers would help by thrusting behind; others would walk at the sides to attend to the rollers, and run to the front with new ones directly the last had passed underneath the stone at the back. We can imagine ropes breaking, and mighty stones plunging down the causeway, sweeping scores of poor victims to destruction. Blood and tears as well as labour went to the building of the Pyramids.

From first to last, so far as we are able to gather, about 100,000 men slaved for thirty years to build the tomb of Khufu. The site chosen was not exactly level. A little hillock of rock rose on one part of it, and this was cleverly squared off and incorporated into the Pyramid, saving the transport of so many hundreds of tons of rock.

The great aim of Khufu, or Cheops, as that of all the other Pharaohs, was to protect his mummy, and prevent thieves getting into his burial chamber. To this end were devised numerous secret passages, all of which show an extraordinary ingenuity in planning, and great engineering skill in execution. The entrance to the Great Pyramid is about 45 feet up on the north face. One of the blocks of stone was made to swing inward on a pivot, and when closed it was quite impossible to locate the entrance. The Pyramid looked quite solid, without a single breach in any one of its sides. So cleverly was the entrance contrived that it baffled men for thousands of years, although countless thieves went over the Pyramid seeking eagerly for a way in. Only a lucky accident could have led the discoverer to touch that particular stone in the right way to make it swing back and disclose the opening.

Even when he found the opening, he was not much nearer the burial chamber. An underground passage was driven for over 350 feet through the solid rock at an angle below the foundations of the Pyramid, until it opened out in a chamber immediately beneath the point of the Pyramid. The chamber is really a fine hall about 46 feet long by 27 feet wide, with a roof 11½ feet above the level of the floor. On the other side of the chamber the underground passage continues for over 50 feet, but we are quite at a loss to divine the reason for this extension. Maybe the engineers drove this gallery with the definite intention of misleading any one who should eventually break a way into this underground retreat. At any rate, it is, like the rest of the passage, driven through the solid rock, and finishes up against the rock wall. No other outlet from this passage has ever been discovered, so its object is a mystery. Perhaps the engineers’ plans were altered, or perhaps it was designed to baffle thieves, and compel them to waste time by searching for an opening where none exists.

Khufu did not underrate the skill of the plunderers of the tombs. He realized to the full their patience and cleverness, and did all in his power to outwit them. The passage is lined throughout with blocks of stone, and we can imagine the robbers searching anxiously up and down the dark passage, casting back and fore, tapping the stones to try to find the outlet leading to the King’s Chamber. All the blocks look exactly alike, and they may have sought for months before they found that block in the roof which pivoted in a similar manner to the stone covering the entrance. This passage branched upward to the Queen’s Chamber, and opened out to the Grand Gallery, which is very narrow and high, at the end of which comes another passage leading to the Chamber of King Khufu.

Before the robbers were able to reach these chambers, they had many difficulties to surmount and problems to solve. At various intervals the passage was sealed by four mighty blocks of very hard granite. These blocks must have been supported until after the funeral ceremonies were completed; then the priests withdrew, the supports were knocked away, and the blocks crashed down into position in the deep grooves that were cut for them in the passage.

When the intruders surmounted one block, they were confronted by another. Their labours on the second brought them to a full stop against the face of the third. No one knows how long it took for the thieves to break into the Pyramid, but it must have taken years from the time the first secret opening was discovered. So hard was the granite with which the passage leading to the King’s and Queen’s Chambers was closed, that in one case the thieves despaired of ever getting through it, so they laboriously cut a way through the roof of the passage and clambered over the top of the granite block. They must have reaped a very rich booty, of which every trace has long since vanished.

All that remains to-day is the red granite sarcophagus in the King’s Chamber. It is an enormous stone coffin, so big that its removal is an impossibility. It is too big to be taken through the passages. The size of it indicates that it must have been placed in position when the Pyramid was being built. It shows how carefully everything was planned.