Dr. Bob Brier
Egyptologist, Long Island University
Jean-Pierre is an architect, not an Egyptologist, and when I first met him he had no idea of how difficult it was to work in Egypt. What he needed was evidence for his theory, but he didn't know that obtaining permissions and then carrying out the work isn't easy. The Great Pyramid is a tourist attraction. Three hundred and sixty-five days a year tourists trek through the pyramid and if we were going to do our research we would have to do it when they weren't there -- at night. To complicate matters, when National Geographic heard of our search for a mile-long ramp hidden inside the pyramid, they wanted to film it and that complicated things as we would work with an entourage of producers, cameramen, and others, but there were advantages also. They would pay for the permissions to open the pyramid at night, fly us over, and supply support systems. We formed a team.

There are chambers inside the Great Pyramid that tourists never see, and some that few even know about. Cut into the bedrock beneath the pyramid is a burial chamber that was abandoned, unfinished, when it was decided to bury the pharaoh high up inside the Pyramid. To reach it you go down a narrow passageway cut through the masonry of the pyramid and into the bedrock. It is not for the claustrophobic. For more that 100 feet you are hunched over, walking like a duck down a dark tunnel; it was never intended for human traffic and was cut just large enough for the pharaoh's sarcophagus to be slid down. But studying the underground burial chamber is a piece of cake compared to what lies above.

About half way up the pyramid is King Khufu's final resting place, The Burial Chamber. This is the final destination of tourists visiting the interior of the pyramid. Few of them realize that hidden directly above the Burial Chamber are five tiny rooms called Relieving Chambers. These rooms and the rafters above them were intended to take the weight of the pyramid above off the ceiling of the burial chamber and distribute it into the body of the pyramid. (See field drawing.) Even with this precaution, the 50-ton ceiling beams cracked while the pyramid was being built. For Jean-Pierre and me to inspect the relieving chambers, Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities provided us with a 30-foot ladder so we could climb to the very top of the wall just outside the Burial Chamber.