The Giza Power Plant Page 23
buildup of salt crystals on the walls and ceiling of the Queen's Chamber, Horizontal Passage, and lower level of Grand Gallery. This buildup was likely the result of gaseous vapor passing over the limestone, reacting with the calcium in the limestone, and giving up water and impurities. This was a by-product from the drying of the gas.
Well Shaft bored from the juncture of the Grand Gallery and the Horizontal Passage down to the Grotto. This was probably either a waste removal shaft or an overflow shaft.
large granite block at the bottom of the Well Shaft at the level of the Grotto. Most likely this was put into place to catch the chemical overflow, thereby preventing erosion of the limestone.
FIGURE 66. Niche Inside the Queen's Chamber
It is unfortunate that such havoc was wreaked inside the Great Pyramid as early explorers bored and tore away barriers. The Descending Passage and the Well Shaft were recipients for much of the refuse from those expeditions. More recently another area of the pyramid has allegedly been used as a waste disposal site for limestone residue from tunneling. There are speculations that there is a clandestine effort to reach Gantenbrink's "door" by tunneling from one of the chambers above the King's Chamber. Tom Danley reported that the limestone chippings from this effort were being placed in burlap bags and taken to another chamber above in an effort to keep the project a secret. If this is true, we have reason to worry, for if the tunnelers ultimately reach their destination, who knows what damage they ill inflict in this area? In a manner similar to explorations of earlier times, valuable features may be destroyed—by the pickaxes and chisels of these modern treasure seekers—because they are unrecognizable within the context of a tomb.
Chapter Twelve
MELTDOWN
Much of the evidence that supports the theory that the Great Pyramid was a power plant is the result of a malfunction of the generation process. The hydrogen in the power center (King's Chamber) for some inexplicable reason exploded in an awesome ball of fire, and the power plant suffered a "meltdown." The King's Chamber was affected in a disastrous way. Its walls were pushed out nearly an inch and the ceiling beams cracked.
The operators of the power plant, noting that there was an interruption of the energy coming from the pyramid, had to enter the pyramid to make repairs. They spread plaster over cracks in the ceiling beams, apparently making no pretense to neatness, for the plaster was daubed on freely, almost as though they had used their fingers. The question we must ask is, Would the spreading of plaster on these giant monoliths improve the structural stability of the ceiling? Or was it for another reason that the Egyptians took the trouble to seal the cracks? It would seem that if the granite beams in the ceiling of the King's Chamber were suddenly to give way, a smear of plaster would do little to prevent them from smashing into the chamber. But if the Great Pyramid were a machine—a power plant—then the sealing of these cracks may make sense.
If the fuel that fed the operation of the power plant was hydrogen gas, it is conceivable that it was necessary for the operators to contain the gas as completely as possible—for an excessive leak might have decreased the efficiency of the power plant. Therefore, when the guardians entered the King's Chamber and found severe cracks in the ceiling, it may have made sense to them to seal the cracks while they were checking out the rest of the damage and making whatever repairs they thought necessary. Whether the sealing of the cracks was essential was probably a chance the guardians could not afford to take; after leaving the pyramid and resuming the operating cycle, they would not have wanted to reenter the pyramid in order to repair a simple leak.
The structural displacement of the King's Chamber is not the only clue that the heart of the Great Pyramid experienced a powerful release of energy. Another supporting clue which may have been the result of the same events that caused the disturbance in the King's Chamber, was found in one of the so-called "relieving" chambers above. As we recall, when Howard-Vyse's men blasted through tons of limestone and granite and discovered the four chambers above Davison's Chamber, the first part they went into had a strange effect on them. They crawled out of the air space covered from head to toe with a fine, thin black powder. The floor of the chamber was covered with it. Analysis of the powder showed it to be exuviae, the cast-off shells and skins of insects.
This discovery has remained a mystery. Where did the exuviae come from? None of the other chambers contained it. The space directly above the King's Chamber contained nothing but bat dung. There were no living insects found in the Great Pyramid, and it is doubtful that a group of insects would single out this one chamber and collectively, or repeatedly over a period of time, shed their skins.
My theory may account for this black powder. The anomalous creation of energy within the King's Chamber, which forced the granite walls away from their original position and cracked the granite beams above, also may have been responsible for the exuviae in the chamber above Davison's Chamber. Insect shells are comprised mainly of calcium carbonate, and if we look for a source for calcium carbonate in the area, we find it in the core limestone masonry itself. The core blocks of the pyramid are comprised mainly of nummulitic limestone made up of fossilized seashells and foraminifers. If there was an explosion inside the King's Chamber of sufficient magnitude to push aside hundreds of tons of granite, it is possible that with that explosion, and in the presence of elevated temperatures, the surface layers of limestone in close proximity would be affected too. The scenario may have gone like this: The initial explosion jolted the entire granite complex, pushing the walls out and lifting the ceiling beams up off their support blocks. As the ceiling beams came crashing back down, they cracked along the south end and, at the same time, some of the limestone core masonry in the spaces above the King's Chamber may have been impacted and crushed by their fall, causing limestone dust to fill the air. As the crushed limestone hung in the air it quite literally could have cooked in the elevated temperatures of the hydrogen explosion and the fire that followed. The black calcium carbonate dust would have settled finally onto the tops of the granite beams.
The guardians, alarmed at the sudden malfunction within the power plant, then gained access to the inner chambers of the pyramid by climbing down the Descending Passage and up the Well Shaft to the level of the Grand Gallery. They cut through to what is now known as Davison's Chamber, where they inspected the next layer of granite. While in this chamber they could have cleaned away the limestone dust (exuviae) from the top of the beams, which is why the exuviae was not discovered until an opening was made by Howard-Vyse into the chamber above.
Another feature inside the granite complex known as the King's Chamber that is left unexplained by orthodox theories is the so-called sarcophagus. We have already discussed a purpose for this box, but we really have not addressed why the pyramid builders selected a type of granite for the box that was a different color than the granite with which they constructed the chamber. The box is chocolate colored, and there is no granite like that to be found in Egypt! It has been speculated that it came from the Americas or the mythical Atlantis. If this is true, why would the pyramid builders find it necessary to import a single, large block of chocolate-colored granite from across the world to construct a sarcophagus when they could have used red granite, of which there was plenty available in their own country?
Well, perhaps they did not.
Again my theory of the Giza power plant provides a reasonable answer. Perhaps the coffer was originally red, quarried at the same time, in the same place, as the rest of the granite used to construct the King's Chamber. If an object like this box was subjected to excessive energy levels, what would be the effects? Depending on other elements that were present at the time of the malfunction of the power plant, it is conceivable that certain changes would be recorded in any object fortunate enough to survive the accident. The comparatively thin sides and base of the coffer would naturally be more susceptible to excessive energy levels than would be the huge granite blocks comprising the
walls and ceiling of the King's Chamber. It is possible, therefore, that the granite box, because of its thinner construction, did not have the ability to conduct the heat to which it was subjected and so it simply overcooked, causing the color change. Architect Jim Hagan, who is an expert in the application of stonework in construction, explained to me that the interior chambers of the Great Pyramid have the appearance of being subjected to extreme temperatures; and he claimed that the broken corner on the granite box shows signs of being melted, rather than simply being chipped away.
The awesome force unleashed inside the King's Chamber—of such magnitude that it melted granite—also would have consumed other susceptible materials. If the resonators in the Grand Gallery were made of combustible material, such as wood, they most likely would have been destroyed at the same time. Evidence to support this speculation comes from reports that the limestone walls in the Grand Gallery were subjected to heat and, as a result, the limestone blocks calcinated or burned. The disaster that struck the King's Chamber, therefore, may have been responsible for destroying the resonators.
After shuddering to a stillness that they had not experienced for years, or even decades, the inner chambers of the Giza power plant lay in smoking ruins. Not knowing to what extent their machine was damaged, the operators would choose a route that would leave the interior chambers intact, in case they were able to make repairs and put the power plant back in service. The most obvious route would have been the Well Shaft. As we now turn our attention to the Well Shaft, a feature around which much debate has swirled, its existence begins to make sense in the context of my theory. Many Egyptologists credit the guardians of the Great Pyramid with carving an access tunnel—the Well Shaft—to the inside of the Great Pyramid to inspect damage from an "earthquake." This is a reasonable assumption because only those with knowledge of the internal passageways of the Great Pyramid would know where to dig their tunnel. However, considering the meandering and tortuous path of the Well Shaft, it was either a remarkable stroke of luck that their bore came out where it did, or they were in possession of some fairly advanced instruments for detecting the location of the Grand Gallery, or a connection between the Well Shaft and Grand Gallery already existed.
Petrie presented evidence that showed the Well Shaft, from the Grand Gallery to the level of the Grotto, to be part of the original structure of the Great Pyramid. Therefore, instead of having to carve out the entire length, the guardians only had to carve their hole to the level of the Grotto. When the pyramid was being built, the portion of the well that was bored through the bedrock down to the Grotto would have been accessible to the workers. Once the work was accomplished, however, the constructed portion from the bedrock up to the level of the Grand Gallery would only need to be large enough to allow passage of the chemical overflow from the Queen's Chamber. And this is exactly what we find when we examine the Well Shaft dimensions. Petrie described the constructed portion of the Well Shaft as being rather shoddy work. Furthermore, he could not understand why a block that was used in its construction was positioned a mere 5.3 inches from the Grand Gallery wall. He wrote:
On examining the shaft, it is found to be irregularly tortuous through the masonry, and without any arrangement of the blocks to suit it; while in more than one place a corner of a block may be seen left in their regular curved side of the shaft, all the rest of the block having disappeared in cutting the shaft. This is a conclusive point, since it would never have been so built at first. A similar feature is at the mouth of the passage, in the gallery. Here the sides of the mouth are very well cut, quite as good work as the dressing of the gallery walls; but on the s. side there is a vertical joint in the gallery side, only 5.3 inches from the mouth. Now, great care is always taken in the Pyramid to put large stones at a corner, and it is quite inconceivable that a Pyramid builder would put a mere slip 5.3 thick beside the opening to a passage. It evidently shows that the passage mouth was cut out after the building was finished in that part. It is clear, then, that the whole of this shaft is an additional feature to the first plan.1
Based on all the evidence, the only explanation for the constructed portion of the Well Shaft near the Grand Gallery is that it was enlarged to allow the guardians access to the Grand Gallery after the explosion in the King's Chamber, and this excavation resulted in the thin block of limestone on the south side (see Figure 67).
FIGURE 67. Well Mouth
Evidence that the Well Shaft was part of the original design also was proposed by Celeste Maragioglio and Vito Rinaldi, who noted that the the walls upward from the Grotto to the Grand Gallery were lined with regular blocks of limestone. They argued that because a part of this lining was through the bedrock, it must have been a part of the original design and construction.2 The existence of a large block of granite wedged in the mouth of the Grotto provides other evidence that the Well Shaft was part of the original design. The granite, being more impervious to erosion than the limestone, may have served to catch the chemical flow from the Queen's Chamber and direct it into the deep hole to the side of the Well Shaft. If the Well Shaft did not exist until the guardians made their damage assessment inspection, then they must have taken the block of granite from somewhere inside the Great Pyramid's main passages or chambers and dropped it down the Well Shaft. It makes more sense that the granite was a part of the original design, already in place, and that the guardians, or any other theorized interlopers, only had to push it aside when they reached the level of the Grotto (see Figure 68).
FIGURE 68. Grotto in the Well
The technology utilized in the Giza power plant was unique, and its design features find no parallel in any other structure anywhere in the world. Nevertheless, new technology does not just spring into existence. It is logical to assume that, before being encased in a mountain of stone, critical technological "devices," such as the King's Chamber granite complex, Grand Gallery resonators, and Antechamber acoustic filter, were all fully developed and successfully tested to the point where building the Great Pyramid became feasible. If we were to look for evidence that the ancient Egyptians undertook such development and testing, we need look no further than one hundred yards to the east of the Great Pyramid, where the Trial Passages are located (refer to Figure 4).
These passages, discovered by Petrie and discussed earlier in the book, include features found inside the Great Pyramid suggesting that they were planned before the pyramid's construction. However, the ancient Egyptians did not excavate the Trial Passages out of solid bedrock just to demonstrate that they knew the Great Pyramid's interior design or for "practice," as many Egyptologists propose. They had a more practical purpose for their hard work. This purpose—indeed the very existence of the Trial Passages—becomes perfectly logical when considered within the context of the power plant theory. The Trial Passages on the Giza Plateau were most likely dug to accommodate the lower parts of the equipment being developed. As with many industrial and scientific research facilities around the world, the Trial Passages were dug to economize on the superstructure, which, in all probability would have been a research and development laboratory. Similarly today, industries installing large pieces of equipment save money by digging pits and lining them with concrete instead of raising the roof. Normally, the shape of these concrete pits is similar to the shape of the equipment they will accommodate. Therefore, when we look at the Trial Passages we see the same design, measurements, and angles of the Descending Passage, Ascending Passage, and the Grand Gallery. From this information we can extrapolate how the Giza power plant's development and testing took place:
The Grand Gallery Resonators. Instead of testing all twenty-seven resonators in an expensive building, they may have been developed and tested in groups of two or three in the Trial Grand Gallery. This testing may have been accomplished by simulating the vibrations from the Earth and directing sound up the Trial Ascending Passage.
The King's Chamber Granite Complex. The development and testing of the complex, including the A
ntechamber acoustic filter, may have been accomplished elsewhere and, for testing purposes, may not have needed to rely on the work being performed in the Trial Passages. Sound could have been simulated and focused through the acoustic filter to accomplish this. There are marks on the granite beams above the King's Chamber that establish their unique positions when being installed in the Great Pyramid. This is evidence that it was very important that each piece be installed in exactly the same position as when it was developed and tested.
The Queen's Chamber Reaction Chamber. There are no Trial Passages that correspond to this feature. There is a slight indication of a Horizontal Passage, but this was probably cut to test the slab that bridges the Grand Gallery and the Ascending Passage. Considering the function of the Queen's Chamber, the fact that this chamber was not included in the Trial Passages is perfectly logical. It would be a waste of time to dig a long tunnel with a chamber at the end of it to fulfill a purpose that could be handled easily in an above-ground laboratory. They could have generated hydrogen without digging the Horizontal Passage and the Queen's Chamber, so why bother digging them?
Considering the investment the ancient Egyptians made in building such a structure, and its intended purpose as a power plant, it would be nearly unthinkable for them not to have fully tested the machinery that would be put to use. The remarkable similarity in the dimensions of both the passages in the Great Pyramid and the Trial Passages supports my speculation that every piece of equipment critical to the operation of the power plant was first fully developed and tested prior to its installation. The power plant theory currently is the only one that provides a logical pattern of events to explain the purpose for the Trial Passages.