Pyramids of the Giza Plateau Pyramid Complexes of Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure Charles Rigano AuthorHouse™ 1663 Liberty Drive Bloomington, IN 47403 www.authorhouse.com Phone: 1-800-839-8640 © 2014 Charles Rigano. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author. Published by AuthorHouse 05/14/2015 ISBN: 978-1-4969-5249-3 (sc) ISBN: 978-1-4969-5248-6 (e) Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only. Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock. Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them. Front Cover: - Khufu’s Great Pyramid at dusk as seen from near the Sphinx. Photo by the author. Back Cover: Top - The three Giza Pyramids from close to far: Menkaure and subsidiary pyramids, Khafre, and Khufu. Photo by author. Bottom - Author Charles Rigano with Menkaure’s Pyramid in the background. Author’s photo. Contents Preface The Gizeh Plateau Area Surrounding the Giza Plateau Giza Plateau Pyramid Complexes Chapter 1: The Giza Plateau Chapter 2: Khufu’s Pyramid Exterior Chapter 3: Khufu’s Pyramid Interior Chapter 4: Khufu’s Mortuary Complex Chapter 5: Khufu’s Pyramid – Designing, Closing, and Opening Chapter 6: Khafre’s Pyramid Site Chapter 7: Khafre’s Pyramid Interior Chapter 8: Khafre’s Mortuary Complex Chapter 9: The Sphinx Complex Chapter 10: Menkaure’s Pyramid Exterior Chapter 11: Menkaure’s Pyramid Interior Chapter 12: Menkaure’s Mortuary Complex Appendix: The Tuthmosis IV Stele Between the Sphinx Paws Photo Credits Suggested Reading and References Preface I remember the moment in 1970 that my fascination for Ancient Egypt started. At work, someone left a book on the Great Pyramid sitting on a desk. I casually picked it up and leafed through the pages. I was immediately absorbed by the subject. I borrowed the book and studied it closely; then I read every book the library had on Ancient Egypt. I wanted to discuss what I was learning with someone, but there was no one around who shared my passion for the subject …until the internet took hold. Then there were many others with the common interest, all eager to “talk”. Over the next 15 years, people who started as just words on a computer screen took on personalities and became friends. They possessed a wealth of knowledge and provided an opportunity to discuss and “argue” over Egyptian subjects – something we did daily. During these early years, my interest was in general ancient Egyptian subjects, but I soon found myself gravitating towards the Old Kingdom and my passion for the period developed and solidified. I soon progressed beyond the popular books on the subject and began digging into the professional literature. Many of these books were rare and hard to obtain, but curiosity and the need to know more of the detail drove me onwards. The original reports from excavators along with those of early amateur travelers provided a fresh appreciation for the monuments and never failed to raise questions that spurred additional research. I was puzzled by differences among the published reports, intrigued by the alternative hypotheses proposed, and challenged by the unresolved mysteries. It was 25 years before my first trip to Egypt and the start of my in-person discovery. The aftermath of each trip only raised more questions and the need for additional trips and on-site answers. Each trip was self-directed, comprising only two or three of us, a driver, a trained Egyptologist, and sometimes the excavators themselves. People have been writing about the monuments of the Giza Plateau for over 2000 years. Herodotus, a Greek historian who visited Giza in 450 BC, was probably the earliest whose original work remains. His report has to be carefully evaluated, only his eyewitness accounts believed, and the stories told him by the locals discarded. The reports by medieval Arabs and early European travelers require equal skepticism since few of them were trained observers of archaeological detail. Only in 1800 AD with the work of Napoleon’s trained “savants” do we begin to see reliable information. Their careful drawings are invaluable in showing details that have since disappeared. Similarly, the publications by Howard Vyse and John Perring following their work at Giza from 1837-40 contain important information. Vyse, a British army officer has been severely criticized for using gunpowder rather than a trowel as an excavation tool. But he made important discoveries documented daily in his diary-like book. Perring was a trained civil engineer, and his plans and drawings were based on careful measurements. Pyramid-measuring became something of a fad in the 19th century as theories about the esoteric knowledge supposedly enshrined in the Great Pyramid became popular, but only with the arrival of Flinders Petrie at Giza in 1880 do we have reports that we feel can be relied on. Petrie went to Egypt with an “agenda,” namely to verify and extend the work of Piazzi Smyth who was convinced of the sacred origin of the pyramids and the revelations contained within the Great Pyramid. But Petrie was an experienced surveyor and with the best instruments available, soon realized the errors in Smyth’s ideas. Petrie, along with other trained archaeologists who studied the Giza Plateau such as George Reisner and Hermann Junker, are important as much for their rigorous scientific approach as for their first- hand experience with practical excavation methods. I depended on their work and later investigators Selim Hassan, Mark Lehner, and Zahi Hawass for the basic data that went into this book. However, I owe the greatest debt to the Italian team of Vito Maragioglio and Celeste Rinaldi. They were artillery officer and architect, respectively. They accomplished a detailed architectural study of the Old Kingdom pyramids between 1963 and 1977 and published the results in seven volumes entitled, “L’Architettura della Piramidi Menfite.” Early in my research I found their work frequently referenced, but it was only on stumbling on a complete set that I discovered their texts were in English as well as Italian and that they contained exceptional descriptions and over 100 large and incredibly detailed drawings. While the Giza Plateau is possibly the most excavated site in Egypt, the most popular tourist destination, and the most debated location, the focus in generally available books is on the Great Pyramid. These books usually treat the Great Pyramid as a single achievement removed from the flow of history and to which amazing theories are attached. Little is written about the rest of Khufu’s Mortuary Complex or the rest of the Plateau. And there are limited photographs available. I wanted, but could not find, a single readily available book which would provide a “feeling” for and a detail understanding of the three primary constructions of the Giza Plateau – Khufu’s, Khafre’s, and Menkaure’s Mortuary Complexes. That situation led me to this book. I have tried to provide that “feeling” and understanding by filling this book with descriptions of what the early archaeologists found, what the later Egyptologists discovered, my own on-site observations, and ideas and theories, some of which are new. To give meaning to the text I have added many pictures and diagrams. To make the book more readable and for those who want more detail, I have placed dimensions and angles inside tables. The book can be read with or without the information in the tables. As you will soon discover, this is not just a book about pyramids. The Great Pyramid at Giza built by Khufu has often been described and discussed in isolation, instead of as one element of Khufu’s Mortuary Complex and separate from the other Giza mortuary complexes of Khafre and Menkaure. And these three complexes have also been separated from the flow of ancient Egyptian history and architectural developments. This isolation and separation have resulted in many misinterpretations. In this book the individual Giza complexes are set in context. In addition to enthusiasm for the subject, I applied skills in analysis, synthesis, and critical evaluation that have been honed during a long professional career. I attempted to bring together scraps of information, some of them conflicting, to arrive at conclusions supported by a weight of evidence. I have also attempted to apply a critical eye to the evidence both for commonly accepted conclusions and those of a more speculative, even controversial, nature. I hope the reader who already has a general grasp of the topics treated here will enjoy knowing more about these issues. There are many photographs in the book; most are mine. To provide scale, photographs often include a one foot black ruler; others purposely have people in them. Many times I asked a traveling companion to stand in my photograph explaining I was not taking a picture on them, they are just providing a useful relative measuring device. For the spelling of Egyptian place names I have relied on “The Atlas of Ancient Egypt” by John Baines and Jaromir Malek and used “The Chronicle of the Pharaohs” by Peter Clayton as a standard for names and dates. All other sources are identified in Endnotes and the Bibliography. For consistency I have used the dimensions provided by Maragioglio and Rinaldi, except where other sources are indicated.