The King’s Chamber is 34 feet 3 inches long, by 17 feet 1 inch wide, with a height of 19 feet 1 inch. It is one of the wonders of the Pyramid, lined with enormous slabs of highly polished granite which reach from floor to ceiling, slabs 19 feet 1 inch high. The ceiling itself is composed of the same granite, in giant slabs nearly 4 feet wide and 17 feet 1 inch long. There are nine of these mighty slabs of polished stone, reaching from wall to wall. Their weight must be enormous, and the difficulty of getting them into position must have been prodigious. So skilfully and accurately fitted were many of the stones in the passages, that even now the point of a needle cannot be inserted between the slabs where they join.
It seems incomprehensible at first sight why this King’s Chamber has not been crushed out of existence thousands of years ago by the weight of the masonry over it. It must be remembered that what amounts to a mountain of stone rears its peak 200 feet or more above. Investigation reveals that the builders were fully alive to this danger, and the steps they took to avoid it were not only very clever, but they have worked perfectly for thousands of years. Earthquakes have occurred from time to time and displaced some of the stones, but the King’s Chamber is still intact and uncrushed.
The methods adopted by these clever old builders to preserve the Chamber are very simple, yet anything more brilliantly successful it would be difficult to devise. Above the King’s Chamber four other chambers were built to take the weight off the roof, and over these chambers two mighty slabs of hard stone were placed astride, leaning together at the top edges, which were so accurately cut that they could not possibly become displaced. These two stones, with their tops resting against each other, just as children lean two cards together on a table, take the weight of all the masonry above them, and deflect the thrust of the weight outwards instead of downwards, so that the King’s Chamber is amply protected.
The Pyramid of Khafra or Chephren, slightly smaller than the Great Pyramid, is still a mighty monument of the past, and although the Egyptians were free from foreign wars when it was built, they groaned under the necessity of doing this work for the king at home. The building of the Pyramids was one of the hardships of the Egyptian nation.
When the Great Pyramid was finished, a pinnacle of hard limestone was set on the top, and all the steps were filled in from the peak downwards with the same stone, to make the surface of the Pyramid quite smooth from apex to foundation. But the facing blocks of stone have now all disappeared. Many of them have been carried off to put into new buildings, others lie shattered all about the base, where the debris rises for 40 feet or so. The point of the Great Pyramid has also gone, and there is now a platform about 36 feet square, on which visitors may stand and gaze on the wonders of the desert.
Only 500 yards away the head of the Great Sphinx emerges from the sands. Nobody knows what the Sphinx represents. The most learned investigators are uncertain of its origin and age. Some think it may have been carved by the sculptors of one of the great pyramid builders, but others regard it as very much older. Probably it represents the sun god Ra, but for centuries the Arabs have known it as the Father of Terrors.
From the tip of its paws to the end of its back it measures 190 feet. It is 65 feet high, and its neck is 69 feet round, while the tallest man could roll in between the lips, were they open, for they are 7 feet wide. The Sphinx is still joined to the mother rock which forms the floor of the desert hereabouts. It was carved out of the outcropping stone, which the sculptors chipped and fashioned with infinite labour into the shape of the Father of Terrors. The astounding thing is that in spite of the gigantic size of the figure, the proportions are faultless.
THE COLOSSI OF MEMNON, SET UP BY AMENHOTEP III., IN FRONT OF HIS TEMPLE AT THEBES. THE TEMPLE HAS DISAPPEARED, BUT THESE GIGANTIC FIGURES, WHICH ARE ABOUT 50 FEET HIGH, ARE AMONG THE MARVELS OF THE NILE
Between its paws was a temple, that gave up a statue of Khafra, the builder of the Second Pyramid, but temple and paws are now covered with sand. Indeed the Sphinx has spent the greater part of its existence under the sands of the desert. One of the first things Thothmes IV did when he came to the throne over three thousand years ago, was to set men to uncover the Sphinx, and dig the sand away from its 140-foot-long body. From time to time others have removed the sand, but always the sand comes back and quickly steals over the body and covers it, leaving the head emerging like some monster of the desert.