Forbidden History: Prehistoric Technologies, Extraterrestrial Intervention, and the Suppressed Origins of Civilization

37 Behind the Pyramid’s Secret Doors

What Does Astonishing New Evidence Reveal about the Great Pyramid’s True Purpose?

Christopher Dunn

On Monday, September 16, 2002, at 8:00 P.M. Eastern Standard time, Fox television in the United States broadcast live from the Giza plateau in Egypt an exploration of the southern shaft in the Queen’s Chamber in the Great Pyramid. Since 1993, when German robotics engineer Rudolph Gantenbrink made his initial exploration of this 8-eight-inch-square, 220-foot long shaft, millions of Egypt-watchers around the world have been waiting for the day when additional explorations would take place and another tantalizing barrier to greater knowledge might be removed.

The two-hour Fox/National Geographic extravaganza provided a torturous prelude to the moment when iRobot’s masonry drill bit finally broke through into the space beyond and the endoscopic camera was inserted into the hole to take a peek at what lay beyond Gantenbrink’s door.

The buildup to the production explored several ideas on what lies behind this so-called door.

Before the show aired, Dr. Zahi Hawass, chairman of Egypt’s Supreme Council of the Antiquities (SCA), expressed a belief that a book about Khufu would be discovered: “What this door might hide is very important to know, that Khufu wrote a sacred book and maybe this book is hidden behind this door, or maybe a papyrus roll telling us about building the pyramids.”

Hawass’s comments were taken further by the Egyptian State Information Service: “Hawass stated that such doors were constructed for religious purposes due to the books found there, such as the gateways, the cavities, and the road which guided the dead to the hereafter and warned them against the dangers they might face.”

The German Egyptologist Ranier Stadelman, who directed the work of Rudolph Gantenbrink in 1993, expressed a belief that the so-called door was a false door for the king’s soul to pass through on its way to Osiris, represented by the star Sirius. He believed that the copper fittings were handles that the king would use to lift the door.

Robert Bauval, author with Adrian Gilbert of The Orion Mystery: Unlocking the Secrets of the Pyramids, predicted that a statue would be discovered and that the end of the shaft served as a serdab (a narrow chamber commemorating the dead) from which the ancient Egyptians viewed the stars.

John Anthony West, the author of Serpent in the Sky, thought there would be nothing but core masonry behind this door. A caller to the Art Bell show during an interview I had with George Noory on September 15 identified herself as an Egyptologist and claimed to know what was behind the door. Dismissing my hypothesis on what would be behind the door, she claimed that they would find a space thirty feet long that contained sacred sand.

My own hypothesis, which we will discuss in a moment, has changed little since the publication of my book, The Giza Power Plant, in 1998. I resurrected it on my Web site and discussed it in interviews both prior to and after September 16.

The confidence in Chairman Hawass became noticeably muted as the program drew to a close. He cautioned the viewers that there might be nothing behind the door at all. His prophetic comments became a sickening reality to all of us as the endoscopic camera with its fish-eye lens pushed through the hole and a distorted image came into view. There appeared to be nothing there but a rough-looking block a short distance away.

With inimitable style and gusto, Dr. Hawass could hardly contain his excitement at the dismal image sent back by the camera. “It’s another door!” he said with glowing enthusiasm. “With a crack!” (The old Peggy Lee song played with melancholy in my head . . . “Is That All There Is?”)

Hawass’s pre-broadcast predictions were downgraded a week later to “Everything now needs a careful look. We will ask the National Geographic Society to cooperate to reveal more mysteries. After this broadcast, can we expect them to reveal anything but mysteries? After all, it’s the mysteries that keep the viewers coming back for more.”

On September 23, 2002, news came out of Egypt that the Pyramid Rover team had successfully explored the northern shaft in the Great Pyramid. This shaft, opposite the southern shaft, posed problems forGantenbrink in 1993. Upuaut II was unable to navigate around earlier explorers’ rods that were jammed in the passage as they attempted to push the rods around a bend in the shaft.

The iRobot team had a cunning but simple solution to the problem that Gantenbrink was faced with. They turned the robot 90 degrees and sent it up the shaft gripping the walls, instead of the ceiling and floor. In this manner, it was able to ride over the top of the obstacles. Of the northern shaft, Hawass had an opinion that was beyond all reasonable demands of any craftsman living in any era.

Subject to the scrutiny and attention of the world press, the information coming from the chief of the SCA became increasingly unusual. It is an unfortunate position to be in to be considered an expert and explorer in residence for the National Geographic Society and not have any well-thought-out answers for a hungry press: “. . . the passage had bends and turns in an apparent attempt by builders to avoid the main chamber.”

This could indicate the unexplained passageways were built after the pyramids were completed and were not part of the original design. Hawass speculated that the passages could be connected to an attempt by Cheops to promote himself as Egypt’s sun god. Belief at the time said kings became the god in death. Hawass believes the shafts, which have been chiseled out of the pyramid’s stone structure, are passages the king will face before he travels to the afterlife.

Then, one week after going before the cameras in his Indiana Jones hat and predicting the discovery of a royal diary of Khufu, Dr. Hawass was again before the press:

“This find in the northern shaft, coupled with last week’s discovery . . . in the southern shaft, represents the first major, new information about the Great Pyramid in more than a century,” said Zahi Hawass, director of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities. “This is not Raiders of the Lost Ark,” Hawass said, scoffing at the idea that hidden treasure would be found.

Hawass proceeded to predict unabashedly that behind the stone block at the end of the northern shaft would be another door. (Cue Peggy Lee.) Actually, I believe Hawass is correct. Behind the block at the end of the northern shaft they will discover another space similar to the one at the end of the southern shaft. This time, I believe, they will find a shaft that is on the right side of the cavity, perhaps in the floor, but more than likely in the right wall.

Compared to Dr. Hawass as quoted above, I have used more of the Great Pyramid’s entire inner design to arrive at my prediction. I have discussed this subject with knowledgeable and staunch believers of the tomb theory, and they insist that it doesn’t matter what is found behind the door; it will still support the tomb theory. One conversant commented that even a vertical shaft that goes down into the bedrock would be incorporated into the tomb theory because if the Pharaoh wanted a vertical shaft, he could have one. His reason was that Egyptology is not a hard science and does not need to conform to the same standard.

In The Giza Power Plant theory, every architectural element in the Great Pyramid is integrally linked. Some features can be analyzed separately, but, for the most part, the Queen’s Chamber, the King’s Chamber, and the grand gallery are the principal features that work together in unison, and they cannot be separated from each other when considering a piece of evidence.

The features found in the King’s Chamber led me to propose the use of diluted hydrochloric acid in the southern shaft and hydrated zinc in the northern shaft of the Queen’s Chamber. The features in the grand gallery led me to understand the function of the King’s Chamber. The features in the Queen’s Chamber indicate that a chemical reaction was taking place there. The hypothesis rises or falls on the evidence found in these areas.

For the theory to hold, evidence that is discovered in the future has to support it. Some evidence, such as what will be found behind Gantenbrink’s door, can be predicted by what is found in the chamber, the southern shaft, and the northern shaft. The power plant will either be vindicated, severely challenged, or even dismissed, based on what is revealed.

Before the Pyramid Rover exploration, I went on record as being fully prepared to admit that I was wrong if a search of the southern shaft did not reveal another shaft, or shafts, that will be redirected and eventually lead to a point underneath the pyramid. I also predicted that, on the back side of the door, the copper fittings would have connections or would continue away from the door to a point underneath the Great Pyramid.

Unfortunately, as of now, there have not been any clear images of the back side of the so-called door, so this part of the prediction has not been verified. However, the illustration in my book predicted one of the attributes of the door and the evidence vindicated this prediction. In my illustration, the thickness of the block is given, by scale, as three inches thick. My measure was arbitrary and based on nothing more than the proposed function of the block. The ultrasonic thickness tester on the Pyramid Rover measured the actual thickness and found it to be three inches thick (see schematic above).

Like everybody else in the United States, I was watching the video on Fox television. In the top left corner was LIVE and the bottom left carried the Fox symbol with Channel 27. There was really nothing for me to become excited about until a man in Germany uploaded to the Maat message board a high-resolution image that he had taken of the National Geographic program broadcast on Sky Television in Europe. This image seemed to indicate that there was more to be seen in the area that was occluded by the Fox logo.

I copied the image into a graphics program and auto-adjusted the levels, which lightened the dark areas. I stared at the screen—for what seemed to be eternity—at what was revealed.

I know that if you stare at something long enough, you might be able to see a face or some other shape, but the rectangular shape in the left corner of the new block became immediately apparent. I then adjusted the levels, curves, and colors to bring more definition to the image and created construction lines (1 and 2) using the bottom corners as guides in order to create a vanishing point. It was my intention to see if the geometry of the rectangular shape on the left side was indeed a true rectangle and parallel with the wall.

Striking a line from the vanishing point (3) and bringing it along the side of the rectangular shape, I became confident that I may have indeed discovered the vertical shaft that I had predicted would be there. Interestingly, the line in the floor (4) is also parallel to the walls, which indicates either that the floor is made of two blocks or that a groove is cut in the floor. In this enhanced image, the signs of staining on the floor lead from the vertical shaft end, which is also square with the walls. It appears that the second door is also notched in this area.

Because the chemical flowing into the Queen’s Chamber did not need to be a great torrent or even of the volume that a normal faucet would produce, replenishing the shaft with fluid would not require a large orifice. The notched corner as seen in the bottom right corner of the block would be all that was needed to maintain the fluid level. Moreover, if we look at the size of the vertical shaft behind the door by scale, it is only about one and a half inches wide and four inches long.

The exploration of the northern shaft and what was discovered at the end was predictable and, without any shadow of a doubt, vindicates the purpose for these shafts as outlined in The Giza Power Plant. The image of another door with copper fittings and the subtle difference between these fittings and those at the end of the northern shaft support the hypothesis regarding the chemicals used. The electrodes are affected by different chemicals a different way.

In the southern shaft, the action of the dilute hydrochloric acid eroded the copper over time. Because the upper part of the copper was covered with chemical for a shorter period of time than the lower part, as the fluid was always falling, the lower part of the copper was eroded more than the upper part. This resulted in a taper of the copper and the ultimate failure of the left electrode.

In the northern shaft we see a different effect. Because this shaft contained a hydrated metal, such as hydrated zinc, what we see is an electroplating of the left electrode. This is normal and predictable; considering that electricity flows from cathode (+) to anode (-), there would be a deposit of zinc on the anode. What we see in the photograph taken by the Pyramid Rover is a white substance on the left electrode only. There is no erosion on these electrodes, and the thickness of the metal is considerably less than on those in the southern shaft. The stained limestone is on the left and on top of the electrode. Studies on what causes this effect are still being made.

Though Egyptology is not considered to be a hard science, scientific standards should be employed when trying to explain this edifice. Arguments should follow the rules of evidence and conform to scientific principles. While Egyptologists may say the tomb theory is unassailable, my view has been that if the tomb theory cannot follow logical scientific arguments, and be subject to radical revision when new data emerges, then it fails.

These are the standards applied to alternate theorists, such as Hancock, Bauval, and myself, so we should expect no less from those who teach and support the accepted view. Moreover, the theory should be predictable. What was discovered behind Gantenbrink’s door, though not yet brought into full view, was not predicted by Egyptologists and does nothing to support the theory that this edifice was originally a tomb.

Scientific and social progress demands that we all be skeptics and question the accepted mores and theories that have been handed to us. Alternative views need to be discussed. Indeed, they should be welcomed by anyone who is serious about learning what flaws may exist with his or her own ideas. Egyptology should not be immune to these scientific precepts, though its orthodox protectors’ awkward attempt to force contradictory data to fit an unsupportable hypothesis gives little hope for change.