Great Pyramid

The Mystery of the Hidden Doors Inside the Great Pyramid 

March 22, 1993

The Great Pyramid of Khufu has fascinated people for millennia. It is the only one of the seven wonders of the ancient world still standing today, and its monumental size and the precision of its design astound thousands of visitors each day. I feel very privileged to have had the opportunity over the course of my career to come to know the pyramid in great depth, and to have discovered one of its greatest secrets - the hidden doors inside the shafts that lead from the so-called “Queen’s Chamber.”

Aerial view of the Giza Plateau. (Photo: Kenneth Garrett)

The story of the discovery of the hidden doors began in 1992, when I made the decision to close the Great Pyramid to visitors in order to begin a project to reduce the humidity inside and to correct the damage that was occurring from the accumulation of salt. Each visitor who enters the pyramid leaves behind about 20 grams of moisture from their breath and sweat. When it evaporates, this moisture leaves behind salt deposits, which erode the stone over time. In 1992, we found that the humidity inside the pyramid was hovering around 85%, and salt deposits covered the walls of the Grand Gallery. We cleaned the salt from the walls of the Grand Galley, but we knew that to save the pyramid from irreversible damage, we also had to find a way to reduce the humidity inside. I contacted Dr. Rainer Stadelmann of the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo, and he arranged for an engineer named Rudolf Gantenbrink to come to Egypt and assist the Supreme Council of Antiquities in installing a ventilation and humidity control system in the pyramid. The first step was to clear the two shafts, each about 20 cm wide and 14 cm high, that lead from the King’s Chamber to the exterior of the monument. We then installed ventilation equipment in the shafts. This project was very successful, allowing us to greatly reduce and stabilize the humidity inside the pyramid.
Peering into one of the mysterious shafts. (Photo: James Kegley)

The shafts themselves are a great mystery. In addition to the two that extend from the King’s Chamber, there are two in the Queen’s chamber as well - one in the northern wall, and one opposite it in the southern wall. No one knows why these shafts were included in the pyramid’s design. An important part of the work in the shafts in the King’s Chamber was sending a small robot inside with a camera attached, to inspect them along their entire lengths. The robot was named “Upuaut,” a different spelling of the name of the god Wepwawet, the “opener of ways.” We learned so much from this exercise about how the King’s Chamber shafts had been incorporated into the construction of the pyramid that we decided to use a robot to inspect the shafts in the Queen’s Chamber as well. Although we knew that the shafts in the King’s Chamber led to the exterior of the pyramid, no one had ever found the outlets for the shafts in the Queen’s chamber. We thought that we might finally be able to solve this puzzle, and perhaps even shed some light on why they were included in the pyramid’s design. The shafts in the Queen’s Chamber were first discovered in 1872 by a British engineer named Waynman Dixon. The ancient Egyptians had blocked them with stones, making it appear that the walls of the chamber were completely solid. Dixon, however, decided to probe all the joints in the masonry of the Queen’s Chamber with a wire to see if anything might be hidden behind them. When he discovered a hollow in the southern wall, he chiseled through to reveal the shaft. He realized that there was probably a corresponding shaft in the northern wall, and was indeed able to locate one. In the southern shaft, Dixon and his associate James Grant found a small, bronze hook. The northern shaft yielded a granite ball and a piece of cedar-like wood. These objects became known as the Dixon Relics. Both sets of artifacts lay in the rubble at the bottom of the sloping shafts. A report on the discovery of the relics was published in the journal “Nature” on December 26, 1872, including a drawing of the items. In 1993 a search led to the discovery of the ball and hook in the British Museum, where they remain today. The piece of cedar-like wood was missing until 2001, when it was traced to the Marischal Museum in Aberdeen, Scotland.
In 1992, we used Gantenbrink’s robot to take the first look inside the shafts in the Queen’s Chamber. After the solution of a number of technical difficulties, the robot was able to climb about 60 meters into the southern Queen’s Chamber shaft, where it encountered a barricade - a limestone “door” with two copper handles! No one had expected to see such a thing. After making this remarkable find, we sent the robot into the northern shaft. At 18 meters, the robot encountered a bend of about 45 degrees to the left, and was unable to go any further. Gantenbrink returned to Germany, and we were forced to wait until we could find another team to bring in a robot equipped to navigate this bend.

The first of door in the northern Queen's Chamber shaft. (Photo: National Geographic)

The National Geographic Society agreed to collaborate with the SCA on developing a new robot to explore the shafts in the Great Pyramid. They brought in a firm from Boston, USA, called iRobot to design the machine. Finally, in 2002, we were able to send this robot into the southern shaft and drill a small hole in the limestone blocking. Everyone was amazed when a small camera inserted into the hole revealed a second stone “door” blocking the passage about 20 centimeters beyond the first one! The second door is unlike the first. It looks as if it is screening or covering something, and there are cracks all over its surface. I was so happy to see it, but I couldn’t understand why we had found another door.   The world watched this discovery unfold live on Fox TV, in a special broadcast. One of the main goals of the documentary was to show the public the evidence left behind by the people who built the pyramids. I talked about the Tombs of the Pyramid Builders, and showed graffiti which names the work gangs that built the pyramids. I even entered the tunnels below the Step Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara for the first time - I believe that I was the only living archaeologist at that time to have done this, and that it was the first time in history that a television crew had seen the more than 3 miles of winding tunnels below the Step Pyramid.

The second door in the southern Queen's Chamber shaft. (Photo: National Geographic)

The television program aired on September 17. Before the show, I went to Hong Kong and Singapore to publicize it, and my friend and colleague Mark Lehner went to Australia, India, and Spain right after the show to discuss the results of our research. Before the show, no one - not even Mark and I - knew what we would find behind the door. One day before the show, we had found out by ultrasound that the door in the southern shaft of the Great Pyramid was about six centimeters thick, which implied that there was something behind it, but no one knew what it might be. We and my National Geographic colleagues wanted to be honest. We prepared ourselves mentally for whatever find (or lack thereof) that we might make. The show was well received by the public all over the world, and was rated “great” by Fox Television in the United States. Half a billion people in China watched the show. Newspapers all over the world covered it on a level that had never before been seen for a television program. A few days after the Fox broadcast that revealed the second door in the southern shaft, the robot was also able to explore the northern Queen’s Chamber shaft, navigating the sharp bend to the left. It discovered two further, smaller bends to the right at about 23 and 25 meters. We realized that the reason for all of the turns in the northern shaft was that if it had been made straight, it would have crossed paths with the Grand Gallery. The builders had to add the bends to avoid this. Finally, at a distance of about 65 meters from the Queen’s Chamber, the robot found a door very similar to the first one in the southern shaft! The copper handles in the first doors in both the north and south shafts are similar to those on the canopic box of Tutankhamun in the Egyptian Museum Cairo, which were used to pull the box. The doors themselves are made of fine white limestone from Tura, and it seems as thought the handles might have been used to pull them into place.

National Geographic video still of the robot exploring the northern Queen's Chamber shaft. (Photo: National Geographic)

No one is sure why the builders of the Great Pyramid incorporated the four shafts into the design of Khufu’s monument. Since the shafts in the King’s Chamber open outside of the pyramid, I believe that Khufu’s soul was meant to travel through them. The southern King’s Chamber shaft was intended for Khufu to use as the sun god Ra. It opens exactly between the two boat pits to the south of the Pyramid. Khufu would take the two boats and use them as solar boats for his journey as the sun god through the daytime and nighttime skies – one for the day trip, one for the evening trip. The northern shaft was made for the soul of Khufu as Horus to travel to the eternal circumpolar stars. As for the Queen’s Chamber shafts, I cannot imagine that they had a religious function, as they do not seem to open to the outside of the pyramid - their outlets, if such exist, have never been found in spite of our careful searching. The presence of the doors inside them raises many questions. One idea is that the doors are a challenge that the king must face before he can travel into the afterlife. It is written in the Pyramid Texts that the king will face bolted doors before beginning his journey - perhaps this reference explains the doors’ copper handles. Yet if this is true, why is Khufu’s pyramid the only one with the doors? Also, why are there no doors in the shafts in the King’s Chamber? Logically, we would expect to find them in the shafts that extend from the room where the king’s body was buried. Could it be possible that these doors are evidence that Khufu’s burial chamber might still be hidden somewhere inside his pyramid? The mystery of the doors is one of the most exciting puzzles in Egyptology today. Finding out what lies beyond the second door in the southern shaft poses great technical challenges - to do this, we will need a robot that can breach the 20 centimeter space behind the first door, and then drill through the second door without causing unnecessary damage to it. I am happy to announce that 2009-2010 will be the year when we finally move forward with this adventure. We have spent many years searching for a team that could help us to develop the equipment needed to carry out this project, but we have finally selected a group that we feel is perfectly qualified to do so. The team is affiliated with Leeds University in the UK. In July of this year, they will bring a new robot to Egypt for final testing, and we expect to be able to go ahead with our work to answer the question of why the mysterious shafts were incorporated into the design of the pyramid, and what lies behind the secret doors!

The Red Pyramid

The Red (or North) Pyramid at Dashur was King Sneferu’s third attempt at building a massive pyramid. He had already built at Meidum, near the Faiyum Oasis, and at Dashur, resulting in the Bent Pyramid. This time he would get it right from the start, and pave the way for his son Khufu to build the Great Pyramid of Giza.

The entrance to the Red Pyramid (Photo: Julie Patenaude)

The pyramid builders had learnt a lot from their previous construction attempts at Meidum and Dashur. This time the king’s pyramid would be built at a gentler slope than that of the Bent Pyramid or the pyramid at Meidum; this would make it less likely to collapse. Having made their plans, Sneferu’s engineers began construction of the new pyramid in around the 30^th year of the king’s reign. By this time work had been abandoned on the Bent Pyramid, although Sneferu’s workmen would return there later to finish the job. Sneferu also had a small mortuary temple built on the east side of the pyramid, as well as a Valley temple, but this has not yet been excavated. His causeway, which normally links the mortuary and valley temples, appears never to have been built. These elements would become standard in pyramid complexes as time progressed.

The entrance to the Red Pyramid can be found twenty-eight meters up its northern wall; from here a narrow shaft descends for 62m through the body of the pyramid until ground level is reached. Here a horizontal shaft leads into a large chamber with a corbelled roof, just over twelve meters high. A further horizontal tunnel leads into a similar chamber, again with a corbelled roof. The major difference between these two chambers is that in the second chamber the tunnel leading to the next room is not at ground level, but eight meters above the floor. Today visitors can climb a wooden staircase to this short passage; crouching down and passing through they reach the king’s burial chamber. This room also has a corbelled roof, but the floor has been ripped apart by people in antiquity looking for treasure. Although some scholars believe that this was Sneferu’s final resting place, I believe that he was actually buried in the nearby Bent Pyramid, as it was here that his funerary cult continued after his death.

The corbelled ceiling within one of the chambers (Photo: SCA)

When I became the Head of Antiquities at Giza, I hoped that we could open the site of Dashur. We had to try very hard to make this wish come true because the site was closed for security reasons, however, after some time we were given permission to open the area to the public. After the area had been demilitarised, the first monument that I decided to open was the Red Pyramid. I was fascinated with this pyramid because of Rainer Stadelmann’s excavations there, so I began to have its entrance and interior cleaned. It was very important work. When the project was complete we held a grand opening. It was a good day, all the press were really amazed at what they saw, and I remember that a famous TV presenter, who was a very tall man, could not even walk when he came out of the pyramid because of all the bending down and crouching that he had to do in the narrow shafts. Entering the Red Pyramid is an adventure; pain with pleasure.

The Black Pyramid

The pyramid of Amenemhat III at Dashur is known as the Black Pyramid because of its dark colour. The Black Pyramid is not as well known as the Bent or Red Pyramids at Dashur, as it has been closed to tourists due to its collapsed condition.

Amenemhat III was the 6^th king of Dynasty 12, the son of Senusret III. He reigned for 46 years (1859 – 1813 BC), and his reign was known as a very peaceful and prosperous time in Egypt. Amenemhat III built two pyramids during his long reign. He began construction on his first pyramid at Dashur early in his reign. He wanted to be close to the monuments of his forefathers, so he built his pyramid at the south of Dashur, near to the Bent Pyramid of Sneferu.

An aerial view of the Black Pyramid of Amenemhat III at Dashur. Due to structural faults and the removal of the outer limestone casing, the pyramid has fallen into ruin. (photo: SCA)

The Black Pyramid belongs to a different era of pyramid building than Sneferu’s monuments at Dashur, which were built 800 years before. In the Middle Kingdom, there was a resurgence of pyramid building. Middle Kingdom pyramids were much more complex in design than their Old Kingdom counterparts; they incorporated numerous corridors, staircases and chambers in order to deter thieves. Architects at this time also began to construct the pyramid out of mudbrick and then case the outside with white limestone. The Black Pyramid was also built in this way, but the limestone was taken from the site in the Middle Ages. Without the hard outer casing of limestone, the pyramid began to 

crumble, and today it appears without its original glory.

The design of the Black Pyramid was very ambitious, with several passageways and chambers for two queens in addition to the king. The pyramid has two entrances on the south end of the east and west sides, with staircases leading into the interior. The eastern stairway leads to the king’s burial chamber through a series of corridors, small chambers and anterooms that spread out underneath the entire southeast section. The western stairway divides into two sets of passages and chambers under the southwest section, one set for each queen.

When construction of the pyramid was nearly complete, the architects of Amenemhat III became aware of structural problems. The pyramid was being crushed under its own weight– walls and ceilings were being pushed down and doorframes began to buckle, so the workers quickly reinforced it with mudbrick and cedar beams. While their quick thinking saved the pyramid from immediate collapse, it had to be abandoned as the burial place of the king. Amenemhat III chose the site of Hawara, south of Cairo in the Fayum region, as the location of his new pyramid.

The pyramidion of the Black Pyramid of Amenemhat III, now on display at the Egyptian Museum, Cairo. Originally intended to sit on top of the pyramid, it fell to the ground in antiquity, and during the Amarna Period, the name of Amun was chiselled out. (photo: SCA)

The site of Dashur gained much attention from Egyptologists during the 19^th century. In 1837, John Shae Perring surveyed both of Sneferu’s pyramids. In 1894 – 1895, Jacques de Morgan explored the Middle Kingdom pyramids, and discovered a cache of beautiful jewellery overlooked by ancient thieves. Modern scientific excavation began in 1951 when Ahmed Fakry investigated the Bent Pyramid. Work at the site continued through the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

I would like to open the Black Pyramid to the public, but much conservation and restoration work needs to be done, as it is still problematic to enter. I remember a time I visited Dieter Arnold’s excavations there in 1975. Before I entered the pyramid, I had the workmen tie my legs with rope so that I would not get lost inside. The interior of the pyramid is complex, and it is very easy to lose your way in the many passages and corridors.   I believe these Middle Kingdom pyramids were so complex in design not only to deter thieves, but perhaps as a reflection of the belief that Osiris resided in the burial chamber. The many chambers and corridors could symbolize an entrance to the other world. It is my hope that soon the public will be able to experience the wonder of entering this fascinating pyramid. 

The Bent Pyramid

King Sneferu of the Fourth Dynasty built three monumental pyramids during his lifetime, and a fourth smaller step pyramid at Seila in the Faiyum. Having left behind his pyramid at Meidum, he moved the royal court to the site of Dashur, just south of Saqqara, to start a new project - the monument that would become known in modern times as the Bent Pyramid, but to the ancient Egyptians was called ‘Sneferu Shines - South.’

The Bent Pyramid at Dashur (Photo: SCA)

Sneferu was the father of Khufu, builder of the Great Pyramid, and he was married to Queen Hetepheres, whose beautiful funerary equipment was found in a shaft at Giza. It was subsequently restored and can now be seen in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo. We know of many important events during his reign due to an inscription on a stone block known as the Palermo stone. From this we learn about his wars in the west and trading missions for wood in Lebanon.

During the initial stages of constructing the Bent Pyramid the blocks were laid sloping inwards, just as had been done with the earlier step pyramids, although this pyramid was planned from the start to be a true, smooth-sided pyramid. Then, roughly half-way up the pyramid the decision was taken to lay the blocks horizontally and to lessen the angle of slope for the second time. This reduced the stress on the interior chambers of the pyramid and led to its distinctive bend. It also reduced the amount of masonry needed to complete the pyramid. The ground below the pyramid was unstable and so these drastic measures had to be taken to save the monument from collapsing.

The Bent Pyramid's northern entrance (Photo: SCA)

The interior of the pyramid is also unusual. There are two entrances: one on the north side and another on the west side. The northern entrance is about 11.8 metres high off the ground, from here you descend down a long thin shaft for about 80 metres. You then enter a corbelled room. Then, in order to reach the lower burial chamber 6.25 metres up the south wall, you must now climb a wooden set of stairs.

The western shaft is gentler in slope than the northern one, heading down about 65 metres to another burial chamber, higher up in the body of the pyramid than that from the northern entrance. Ancient cedar wood can be seen in this chamber, placed there to help relieve the stress on the chambers.

I once came here with a group of my students from the American University in Cairo, and introduced them to my good friend Dr. Rainer Stadelmann, who has dedicated his life to the study of pyramids and was excavating at Dashur at the time. When we entered the pyramid we had an odd experience that is unique to the Bent Pyramid, and something that had been noted by earlier explorers. Standing within the pyramid you can sometimes feel cool air flowing from inside the pyramid to the exit. This means that one of the chambers could be connected to the outside, indicating that there could still be more secret chambers left to discover.

In about the 30^th year of his reign Sneferu stopped work on the Bent Pyramid and began the construction of a new pyramid in the north of Dashur. We will learn about this important pyramid.