Pyramid Quest by Robert M. Schoch

Pyramid at Dahshur. Although the body of this pyramid is dated confidently to the reign of the Third Dynasty pharaoh Sneferu, the pyramid appears to be built around a room or chamber composed of very ancient (older than the Third Dynasty), weathered megalithic stonework. Completely enclosed within the pyramid, this chamber should not have weathered appreciably since the pyramid was built. Indeed, other Red Pyramid chambers, and even the more recent roof of this chamber, do not show the same weathering. I believe the Red Pyramid of Dahshur was constructed to enclose, house, and protect a much older, highly sacred structure.
    The same pattern extends to Giza. My research suggests that the lowest layers of the Khafre Pyramid may well predate the Old Kingdom. Close examination shows that the courses close to the pyramid’s base differ distinctly in style from the upper tiers. Furthermore, the Second Pyramid’s base or foundation is faced with red granite, which appears to date to no later than the Fourth Dynasty. The rest of the pyramid, however, was faced with fine white limestone, so that in Khafre’s time a horizontal red stripe ran around the base of the otherwise-white pyramid. Why this difference in color and material? The answer may come from the ancient Egyptians’ preference for granite to renew or refurbish older structures. Possibly the Fourth Dynasty Egyptians were rebuilding and adding to a much older, preexisting structure, with the red granite demarcating the older, refurbished from the newer, white-limestone pyramid above.
    Likewise, the Menkaure Pyramid has a surviving outer casing of granite on its lower courses. Was it, too, refurbished, either by generations after the Fourth Dynasty (during the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, c. 600 B.C., according to one suggestion) or possibly by Fourth Dynasty Egyptians working on a site and structure that predated their own time? Furthermore, after studying the Tomb of Queen Khentkaus at Giza (late Fourth Dynasty), I believe that this tomb is built on and incorporates an older structure dating from very early dynastic or predynastic times.
    Robert Bauval, the author of The Orion Mystery and a serious scholar of Giza, is of the opinion that the same pattern holds true of the Great Pyramid, an idea he shared with me when I spoke with him in Cairo in May 2004.
    It has long been known that the Great Pyramid was erected around and atop a mound of bedrock. Egyptologists argue that the strategy of incorporating the mound into the pyramid’s structure served purely practical reasons—saving the Fourth Dynasty builders the work and expense of filling in that portion of the monument with courses of stone. An engineer by training, Bauval scoffs at the idea. From an engineering point of view, a flat, level site is far easier to build on, because it distributes weight evenly and allows clear lines of sight for surveying—no small issue with the Great Pyramid because of its precise orientation to the cardinal directions. Bauval told me that it would have made much better engineering sense to excavate the mound, level the site, and then build the pyramid.
    According to Bauval, the builders of the Great Pyramid built around and atop the mound—and the Descending Passage and Subterranean Chamber that lie within and beneath it—because the complex was an already existing holy site. The Fourth Dynasty builders wanted to incorporate it into their structure; for the same reason, they located the Great Pyramid dangerously close to the cliff that marks the northern edge of the Giza plateau. Moving the site 100 meters south would have made the pyramid a less risky building project, but then incorporating the mound and placing the Subterranean Chamber directly under the pyramid’s apex would have been impossible. Putting the pyramid where it is makes better sense, though, if for religious purposes it needed to be located over an already existing sacred spot.
    Bauval’s ideas make sense,