Hall of the Ancestors

by
Scott Creighton

The recent discovery of a massive ‘void’ within the Great Pyramid of Giza has been
hailed as something of a triumph for the modern muon technology that discovered it,
the first major discovery within the Great Pyramid since Colonel Richard Howard
Vyse discovered the ‘Chambers of Construction’ in the nineteenth century (although
the Italian explorer, Giovanni Caviglia, disputes this and lays claim to the discovery
of the first of these chambers).

This ‘void’ is believed to have similar proportions to the Grand Gallery (157 x 28
feet) that sits some way below it (figure 1) although, at present, scientists are
uncertain as to whether or not the space is also inclined like the Grand Gallery.

Figure 1. The Chambers of the Great Pyramid showing the ‘Void’

The discovery of this void has mainstream Egyptologists scratching their heads as to
why such a massive ‘space’ should exist at all high above the Grand Gallery of the
Great Pyramid. While Egyptologists such as Mark Lehner and Zahi Hawass of the
ScanPyramids project team advise caution in declaring this space a new chamber, it
seems perfectly clear from the data that this massive void is not like many of the
much smaller sand and mortar filled voids that the Great Pyramid is peppered with but
is something altogether different; a void that is highly likely, after further
investigation, to be found to be the 5th major chamber within the pyramid.

One of the reasons why Egyptologists are cautious about pronouncing this void as a
new pyramid chamber is that there is no obvious entry to it. No passageways or
connecting tunnels have been detected. If it is indeed a purposely built chamber then
it appears entirely isolated and apparently without any obvious means of access. Why
would Khufu build his pyramid with a totally inaccessible chamber?

Some speculators have proposed that Khufu would have built this chamber to store
his treasure to take with him to the Afterlife. This scenario seems highly unlikely
since, in accordance with ancient Egyptian burial rituals, it was the job of the ancient
Egyptian priests to place these items within the pyramid only after the king’s death by
which time the pyramid would have long since been completed. How then would it
have been possible for the priests to place Khufu’s afterlife goods into a chamber
which has no access; a chamber that was entirely sealed off as the pyramid was built
upwards and over it?

Others have proposed that the ‘void’ may have been built to protect the Grand Gallery
below from the immense weight of the pyramid above pressing down upon it. Again,
this proposal seems quite unlikely as a result of the corbelled design of the Grand
Gallery which effectively means the Grand Gallery itself already works as a type of
arch carrying the load above (figure 2).

Figure 2. Corbelled walls of the Grand Gallery with the 2 ‘’pavements’ on either side.
(Image: Scott Creighton)

It would seem somewhat excessive to build a stress-relieving void above the Grand
Gallery when the gallery itself seems to have been specifically designed as a stress-
relieving ‘arch’ and more than able to carry the load of the pyramid above.
Furthermore, as we can see in figure 1, the simple vaulted roof of the Queen’s
Chamber is perfectly capable of carrying much more weight pressing down upon it
(as a result of this chamber being lower down within the pyramid’s superstructure).

That there is no easy answer to any of these questions is the conundrum that is
presently perplexing mainstream Egyptology and why a discovery of this magnitude
seems to have taken them totally by surprise.

So what’s going on?

It seems that the mainstream narrative with regards to the pyramids being the ‘tomb of
the king’ needs a serious rethink because, quite simply, the tomb paradigm cannot
adequately explain this ‘anomaly’ and especially so if this void is found to be a
purposely built chamber that truly is inaccessible. It seems that while everyone is
focused on the ‘void’ and the modern science that went into discovering it, no one is
looking at what the ancient Egyptians themselves have said with regards to the
building of the pyramids and if there is any clue in those ancient texts which might
help shed a light upon this discovery.

I have long argued over the years that the first, giant pyramids of ancient Egypt were
conceived and constructed not as the ‘tomb of the king’ but rather as the ‘womb of the
kingdom’; that the first 16 or so pyramids of ancient Egypt, the giant pyramids,
represented the allegorical ‘body of Osiris’ (which was said to have been cut into 16
pieces and scattered across the land of Egypt), and that they were built to act as
‘Recovery Vaults’ for the kingdom in lieu of the impending deluge which the ancient
Egyptians believed would overwhelm their kingdom.

This idea of a ‘Recovery Vault’ is not unlike our modern-day seed vault on Svalbaard
in the Arctic Circle which opened in 2008. I did not, however, arrive at this ‘Recovery
Vault’ conclusion of my own accord—I took my cue from what the ancient Egyptians
themselves actually tell us and which was later written down by various Arabic
scholars. Alas, these ancient texts from the Coptic-Egyptian tradition are pretty much
dismissed by modern Egyptology as nothing more than myth and legend.

This ancient Egyptian ‘mythology’ tells us that everything in creation came out from
within the pyramids; that the pyramids gave (re)birth to the entire world. As stated,
many of these myths were preserved and passed down in the oral tradition by the
Coptic-Egyptians, the descendants of the original ancient Egyptian people and these
accounts were subsequently committed to the written form in the 10th century AD by
the Arabic scholar, al-Mas’udi. As briefly stated, this ancient tradition informs us that
the ancient Egyptian kingdom anticipated a great deluge that would destroy their
entire civilization. In anticipation of this disaster and in order to mitigate its worst
effects, the ancient Egyptian king at that time, Surid Ben Shaluk, ordered the
construction of pyramids into which everything would be placed (seeds, tools,
knowledge of their sciences and other civilizing knowledge etc) in order that the
kingdom might be reborn after the flood waters had abated.

"...The king then directed the astrologers to ascertain by taking the altitude
whether the stars foretold any great catastrophe, and the result announced an
approaching deluge. The king ordered them to inquire whether or not this
calamity would befal Egypt; and they answered, yes, the flood will overwhelm
the land, and destroy a large portion of it for some years.

...upon which the king ordered the Pyramids to be built, and the predictions of
the priests to be Inscribed upon columns, and upon the large stones belonging
to them; and he placed within them his treasures, and all his valuable
property, together with the bodies of his ancestors. – al-Mas’udi (author’s
emphasis) 1
As a consequence of their religious beliefs, the ancient Egyptians had great reverence
for their ancestors and would go to quite extraordinary lengths to protect their long
dead bodies, often removing them from their original tombs to new, safer tomb
locations when it seemed their original tomb was in danger of some kind (usually
from tomb raiders). An example of this practice comes to us from the famous tomb,
DB320, located in the Theban cliffs of Deir el-Bahri.

When first discovered in 1871 (by a tomb robber by the name of Ahmed Abd el-
Rassul), the tomb was found to contain the mummified remains of no less than 50
ancient Egyptian kings, queens and other members of the royal court. Included among
the kings discovered were the mummies of Amosis, Ramesses I-III, Ramesses IX,
Seti I, Tuthmosis I-III, Amenhotep I and his mother, Queen Ahmose Nefertari. Over
the next ten years the el-Rassul family pillaged this royal cache, selling countless
numbers of precious ancient artefacts on the illegal antiquities market. Eventually the
Egyptian authorities became suspicious and soon caught up with the el-Rassul family
‘business’.

Émile Brugsch, assistant to the great French Egyptologist, Gaston Maspero, described
the scene when he became the first person outside the el-Rassul family to enter this
tomb:

“Soon we came upon cases of porcelain funerary offerings, metal and

alabaster vessels, draperies and trinkets, until, reaching the turn in the
passage, a cluster of mummy cases came into view in such numbers as to
stagger me.

Collecting my senses, I made the best examination of them I could by the light
of my torch and at once saw that they contained the mummies of royal
personages of both sexes; and yet that was not all. Plunging on ahead of my
guide, I came to the [end] chamber..., and there standing against the walls or
here lying on the floor, I found even a greater number of mummy-cases of
stupendous size and weight.”

Their gold coverings and their polished surfaces so plainly reflected my own
excited visage that it seemed like I was looking into the faces of my own
ancestors.”2

That all of these king and queens were discovered together in a single tomb was
apparently the result of a collapse of the Egyptian State; a collapse which led to a
decrease in the protection of sacred sites and a consequential increase in tomb
robbery. To protect the kings and queens from this danger, the Egyptian priests
gathered together the kings and queens from their various original tombs and removed
them to what they believed would be a much safer location.

What we must keep sight of here is that to the ancient Egyptians the deceased kings of
former times continued to serve an important role for the living kingdom. As gods in
the heavenly realm they would assist the living king to ensure the sun would rise, the
Nile would flow, the crops would grow and the kingdom would continue to flourish.
 "The servicing of the ancestors' tombs by the king generated a virtuous circle
of creative energy. By rejuvenating the bodies of the ancestors, the king
enables their spirits to make the circuit of the cosmos... He was then able to
draw on this power to service the tombs of the ancestors... By supporting each
other, across the threshold of death, the [living] Horus-king and the
[deceased] Osiris-kings ensured that the repetitions of creation - of the death
and rebirth of the world - could be performed in perpetuity..." 3

Given this example of this protective practice of the kings and queens of ancient
Egypt at the end of the New Kingdom period, it would not, therefore, be at all
surprising to find that the ancient Egyptians of much earlier times, believing that their
entire kingdom was in peril from a future deluge that would destroy the entire country
(as stated in the Coptic / Arabic texts), would also have taken such a precautionary
measure; gathering together the bodies of all the ancestor kings and queens from
around the country and re-burying them together in a single massive chamber in the
heart of the Great Pyramid—a way to protect and preserve their ancestors for all time
and, specifically, from the destruction of the foretold deluge from which they would
be called upon to assist the king in bringing about the rebirth/recovery of the
kingdom. By gathering up and securing the bodies of the ancestor kings within an
inaccessible chamber of the Great Pyramid, the ancient Egyptians were effectively
ensuring the preservation and continuation of this union between the Horus and
Osirian kings in order to bring about the rebirth of the kingdom after its anticipated
demise.

I fully anticipate that future, more detailed scans of this feature within the Great
Pyramid will reveal that there are no access tunnels anywhere leading to this
‘chamber’. I suspect the bodies of the ancestor kings of Surid would have been
lowered into this 'burial vault' when the roof of the vault was still open providing the
only access to the cavity and once all the ancestor kings were interred therein, the
‘chamber’ would be sealed over as the pyramid was built upwards to its completion.

If this is indeed the true function of this ‘void’—as a ‘safe haven’ for the ancestor
kings, protecting them from being destroyed by the coming deluge—just how many
kings should we expect to find within it? While we cannot know this, of course, with
any degree of certainty, there may, in fact, be a clue to this number within the known
chambers of the Great Pyramid, specifically the 27 (perhaps 28) pairs of enigmatic
notches or holes cut into the two ‘pavements’ of the Grand Gallery.

“…a series of 27 holes ….occurring in pairs on either side, and alternating

between longer ones of about 23.3 inches and shorter ones of about 20.5
inches. They are about 6¼ inches wide and cut to varying depths, usually 8 to
11 inches. In the walls above these holes are vertically arranged inset stones,
each about 18 inches high and 13 inches wide, with a groove cut across
each.” 4

In his book, ‘Mysteries of the Great Pyramids’ (1978), the physicist and Egyptology
enthusiast, André Pcchan, proposed that these holes or niches of the Grand Gallery
(figure 3a-b) were slots into which statues of Khufu's ancestors would be inserted.
 Figure 3a. The notches in the left Figure 3b. The Gallery of Ancestors.
‘pavement’ of the Grand Gallery. (Image: André Pochan)
(Image: Scott Creighton)

In support of his hypothesis, Pochan writes:

“That the Grand Gallery is simply the gallery of the ancestors is corroborated
by two ancient Arab authors. Muhamed ibn Ishaq Ibn al-Nadim, quoted by
Ahmad ibn Ali al-Maqrizi, writes “…A passage pierces this pavement…; the
arch is made of stone and one sees there portraits and statues standing or
resting and a quantity of other things, the meaning of which we do not
understand.” And Ibrahim Wassif Shah writes: “…In the eastern pyramid
[Great Pyramid], chambers had been built in which the stars and heavens
were depicted, and in which was amassed what Surid’s forebears had
Accomplished in the way of statues.” (Undoubtedly, the manuscript’s text has
been misreported; it should read: “…in which were amassed the statues that
were done of Surid’s forebears.”). 5

But if the Coptic-Egyptian texts are right and Surid had planned to gather up and
place the actual bodies of his ancestors within an inaccessible chamber high up in the
Great Pyramid, why then would he also have placed statues of these ancestors in the
Grand Gallery as proposed by Pochan?

The answer to this may be that these Grand Gallery statues of the ancestor kings and
queens weren’t simple ‘profane statues’ but that they rather served a very specific and
important religious function to the actual mummified kings’ bodies in the ‘void
chamber’ and that this function related to the ancient Egyptian concept of the ‘ka
double’.

“The ka was a kind of astral double or spiritual duplicate of the deceased that
was necessary for existence in the next world. When a person died, the ka
continued to dwell in the body, and one reason for mummification was to
ensure the ka a dwelling place. In case the mummy was damaged or
 destroyed, many Egyptians were buried with a ka statue. The statue was a
portrait of the deceased that the ka could recognize and was meant to be an
alternative dwelling for the ka if the mummy was not suitable.” (author’s
emphasis). 6

If this newly discovered void or vault above the Grand Gallery really does contain
the actual bodies of these ancestors then this would make perfect sense as each of the
ancestor statues believed by Pochan to have once stood in the Grand Gallery would
have effectively served as each ancestor king’s ‘Ka double’ i.e. to the actual mummy
in the hidden vault above the Grand Gallery. Indeed, by counting the number of these
notches in the 2 'pavements' of the Grand Gallery, we may have an idea of how many
ancestor kings and queens may have been interred in the hidden vault above: 27 pairs
= 54 ka statues = 54 ancestor kings (possibly 56 if 28 x 2 pavement notches) perhaps
residing in this hidden space.

The question now for Egyptology is how to determine the true nature and content of
this newly discovered area within the Great Pyramid. This could easily be achieved by
drilling a small hole through the roof of the Grand Gallery and feeding an endoscopic
camera through the hole up and into the ‘void’ area. The more difficult question is
whether Egyptology has the ‘political’ will to perform such an investigation (they did,
afterall, have little problem in drilling holes through ‘Gantenbrink’s Door’) and
discover a truth that could have them overturning just about everything they have told
us for the best part of 200 years.

______________________________________
1
Vyse, Colonel R. W. Howard, Operations Carried out at the Pyramids of Gizeh in
1837, Vol II, (1840)
2
Heath, Julian, Archaeology Hotspot Egypt: Unearthing the Past for Armchair
Archaeologists, (2015).
3
Alford, Alan F., The Midnight Sun, (2004).
4
Schoch, Robert M., McNally, Robert Aquinas, Pyramid Quest: Secrets of the
Great Pyramid and the Dawn of Civilization, (2005).
5
Pochan, André, The Mysteries of the Great Pyramids, (1978).
6
Remler, Pat, Egyptian Mythology, A to Z, (2010).