Kneeling statue of Ramesses IV making an offering of wine.
New Kingdom, 20th Dynasty, reign of Ramesses IV, ca. 1155-1149 BC. Now in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo.
The Secret Doors Inside The Great Pyramid of Khufu
The interior of The Great Pyramid of Khufu has always fascinated people due to its complexity. Back in the early 90s (1993 to be exact) Khufu was closed off for a year for scientific research and conservation.
A robotics expert, Rudolf Gantenbrink, was brought in to help the conservation clean/lower the humidity of the pyramid and reach areas that were not accessible by humans. Secret “air shafts” were discovered in the Queen’s chamber back in 1872 and at first it was thought that they were there to regulate air flow but it was later discovered that they lead to a secret door. Since the shafts are 21x21cm (8.2x8.2in) large, it was impossible for humans to fit inside and investigate where they led to.
Once Gantenbrink sent his robot (Webwawat) inside the ducts to investigate and reach what people back in 1872 couldn’t they made two very interesting discoveries.
1) They found a small door with two bronze handles which they eventually drilled through.
2) After the robot sent its probe through the 1st handled slab (door) it found another, more roughly hewn limestone slab, containing visible cracks.
No one knows that these doors are there for. The ventilation theory went out the door because air couldn’t get through. One theory is that they have an astronomical function; the southern shaft connected to the star Sirius, and the northern shaft linked to Minoris, Ursa, and Beta. Stadelmann believes that these shafts are not for ventilation, but are tunnels through which the king’s soul will rise to the stars that never darken.
I’m gonna go with that absolutely classic Archaeological hit song:
“Ritual purposes, but in the sense that we know it’s definitely some sort of ritual but not what the fuck the ritual was but likely the act of ‘bringing’ since feet indicate movement in later hieroglyphs for the word ‘to bring’ which also incidentally is a pot on two legs, but this cannot be considered a direct correlation. *20 second instrumental* So yeah, ritual purposes because none of us know what the fuck Pre Dynastic Egypt was doing but it was definitely ritualistic in the same sense that some people having a preferred coffee mug is ritualistic. It’s not spooky we just don’t quite know why they did it.”
Sometimes you just don’t know why, and that’s history for you.
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