French architect Jean Pierre Houdin and his co-researcher Bob Brier are seeking permission from Egyptian authorities to use an infrared camera in order to find confirming evidence for his theory that the Great Pyramid was built using an internal ramp. He has already had some confirmation via a 1986 investigation that used microgravimetry, which seemed to show a spiraling structure within the pyramid, as well as a new interpretation of a strange ‘chamber’ two thirds of the way up one of the edges of the Great Pyramid:
At about the 300-foot (90-meter) mark on the northeastern edge lies an open notch. On a recent expedition with a National Geographic film crew, Brier — aided by a videographer with mountain-climbing experience — scaled perilous crumbling rocks to reach the notch. Ducking inside the notch, Brier entered a small L-shaped room.
He wasn’t the first to visit the space, but until now Egyptologists had taken little notice of it. Houdin, the architect, said the feature figures perfectly with his theory. For the interior tunnel to work, it would have required open areas at the Great Pyramid’s four corners, Houdin says. Otherwise the blocks wouldn’t have been able to clear the 90-degree turns.
Like railroad roundhouses, these open corners would have given workers room to pivot the blocks—perhaps using wooden cranes—so the stones could be pushed into the next tunnel. The notch and room are remnants of one such opening, Houdin claims. They are located at one of the spots where Houdin’s 3-D computer models suggest they should be.
Inside the corner space, which was apparently walled in as the pyramid was completed, there should be two tunnel entrances at right angles to one another—each leading to a section of the internal ramp, Houdin believes. Perhaps all that stands between him and the solution to the mystery are massive blocks that thousands of years ago sealed the tunnel, Houdin said.
Houdin and Brier are seeking “authorization, by the Egyptian authorities, to stay around for 18 hours, close to the pyramid, with a cooled infrared camera based on an SUV and to take images of three [pyramid] faces every hour during this period…A green light from Cairo and the Great Pyramid mystery is over.” Sounds simple, but we know that our old friend Dr Zahi Hawass isn’t so amenable…remember the name Gantenbrink, by any chance? Last year Dr Hawass was quoted as saying (in regards to the Houdin theory):
It makes sense, but not great sense. Everybody can have a theory, you have 300 people and 99 percent of them are non-specialists, I cannot let them all go onto the site… I cannot allow these people to check their theories unless they have a well-known institution backing them.
Or at least without letting Zahi take some credit for the discovery…
Previously on TDG:
