Tours

ENTER THE PYRAMID

Moments before we were ready to enter the Great pyramid of Cheops at Giza our tour guide Mr. Bassem Wagdey from the New Star Egypt tour agency delivered a grim warning.

“In side the pyramid”, he said, “It will be unbearably hot, you will have to crouch through the narrow passage and if you have any kind of heart problem or blood pressure or if you are claustrophobic then I suggest you do not go in.

The warning was coming a bit late, for we had already imagined ourselves inside the King’s chamber deep inside the pyramid during the planning stages of our tour of Egypt and had paid the special entrance fees of 60 American dollars for the three of us. We found it convenient to decide we were fit enough to go in.

Photography was strictly prohibited inside the pyramid and so Mr. Bassem took charge of our cameras and returned to the van. The restriction did not seem to apply to mobile phone cameras for on entering the pyramid I saw several people clicking away with impunity.

There are literally thousands of books and web sites on the Great pyramid of Cheops .The latest findings of the special robot called the pyramid rover sent into an air shaft that was too small for a human beings and the discovery within is very interesting reading C See attached links)but this blog is not about information on the great pyramid. It is an attempt to put on paper the experience of being inside it.

The passage immediately on entry was comfortably broad and was only a few feet long. This, we were told is not the original entry to the pyramid. It is the one dug up by Caliph al-Ma'moun 1200 years ago in search of the pharaoh’s treasure. The ascending passageway mentioned by Mr. Bassem was at the end of this corridor and it was indeed narrow with very little headroom. (I am told it is 3 feet six inches wide and about 4 feet high). I could see hundreds of tourists of all ages either going up or coming down through this narrow passageway in the dim light provided by the authorities. There were several kids and they had no problem in the passage

The temperature inside was soaring and people were sweating. The humidity level was very high. In contrast the air outside the pyramid had been hot but never humid.

I crouched upwards hugging the wall over the railing to let people descending. I found Saro and Arun too doing the same behind me. The narrow passageway was built up of solid granite and because the lighting level was low it was not possible to examine the workmanship in greater detail but the immense amount of effort that had gone into making just the passage way to the king’s chamber was impressive.

The entrance to the grand gallery was at the end of the main passage and here one could stand up. Faint shadowy people passed by like ghosts some going down and others going up. We took time to look up and around. The entire gallery was constructed out of solid granite and resembled a smoothly plastered and polished wall and roof. After pausing to admire the workmanship and take a quick rest we moved forward once again and were soon inside the King’s chamber. One had to bend low under heavy granite beams to enter the Kings chamber. The builders I presumed forced one to bow deeply before entering the royal tomb.

The chamber contained just the large granite sarcophagus believed to have held the mummified body of the pharaoh. There was no way this sarcophagus could have been transported through the ascending passage or through the grand gallery. This leads to the logical conclusion that the builders of the pyramid had placed it in the King’s chamber well before building the other parts of the pyramid including the approach pathway. A fan placed over the original ventilation shaft in king’s chamber provided some relief. There are several shafts in the pyramid two in the King’s chamber and two in the queen’s chamber. The Queen’s chamber was out of bounds to visitors now and it is located in another part of the pyramid It is in one these ventilation shafts too small for a human being to enter that the pyramid rover robots detected doors with copper handles.

As I stood in the King’s chamber images of forgotten times flashed through my imaginative mind. Even the great bard cannot possibly script the human drama that must have been staged in this very place over the past 4500 years.

The scene of the Master Architect directing his stone masons and the workers finishing the chamber was only the first act in this play. There were the high priests who came in with the king’s mummified body in a solemn procession, the funeral rites, The sealing of the pyramid and then the first intermission that could been any thing between a few day to several hundred years after which the noisy entry of the tomb robbers, the plundering of the possible treasures that were left with the Pharaoh’s body and then the second intermission for an other undefined period of time followed by the entry of the famous Caliph al-Ma'moun some time in AD 800 once again in search of the Pharaoh’s treasure.

The Caliph credited with the opening of the present entrance found the king’s chamber empty and it is my considered opinion that the sight of him when he found the anticipated coffers empty would have been a classic study in human countenance for a portrait painter.

In any case this is not the end of this 4500 year long play. There is a lot more to come beside the new breed of Egyptologists, and hoards of ignorant tourists like me and the robots. There is enough content and material for the play to last several hundred years

Far at the back of my mind lingered the frightening thought that should one of the sandstone plugs intended for sealing the passages fall in to it designated place this moment we would all be trapped inside. This would be an unexpected addition to the play. This unpleasant thought now began to surface with greater clarity. And prompted us to accelerate our return to open space and sunlight.

I have now come to believe that unless you are a scholar interested and qualified enough carry out research on the various aspects of the pyramid there is nothing much inside for an ordinary person like me except one’s imagination based on partial and unverified information. Yet a one-time visit is definitely recommended to all except to those - in the words of our friend philosopher and guide, Mr. Bassem – with a heart problem, who have blood pressure or who are prone to claustrophobia.

You may still try doing it if you had all these but then you might join the Pharaoh and all those actors mentioned above - again in the words of Mr. Bassem - prematurely.

The safer option of course is not to forget my English friend Dave Phelp’s categorical declaration. “Nothing at the other end of the shaft will persuade my first wife to undertake a trip through that shaft”,

The choice is yours

Some links of interest.

http://guardians.net/hawass/articles/secret_doors_inside_the_great_pyramid.htm

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/09/0910_020913_egypt_1.html