ANCIENT EGYPTIAN SCARAB AMULETS ARE REPRESENTING THE WOODEN BEETLE OF THE GRAND GALLERY THAT WAS GIVING LIFE TO THE GREAT PYRAMID OF KHUFU ©2021

The grand gallery of the Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza. Please note on the central gutter, the presence of traces, possibly of ancient wooden caisson that, with water, would have allowed the moving caisson to slide on it like it was ice covered.

 

 

The visible part of the Great Pyramid of pharaoh Khufu was an evaporative cooling unit designed to cool down ammonia soda-ash Solvay towers for the chemical synthesis of Sodium Carbonate Na2CO3, the pure mineral form of natron. About 500 liters of water could have been injected into the evaporative horizontal passage every 20 minutes or so for the cooling process.

That mist of micro-droplets is the Dendera Light and it was produced by a multi-needle fog nozzle very similar to modern firefighter spray nozzles (for access to the Dendera Light post, please click here).

 

Ancient Egyptian scarab amulets showing on their lower part the 3 ropes that were operated by the Hauling Beetle, the wooden gantry that the amulets are referring to.

 

1/ The first key element about the scarab is backwards : it is moving the dung ball backwards

The Great Pyramid of Giza was a master piece of engineering and it would have make a lot of noise and would have appear like a living animal. And what gave life to it, was the working crew inside the Grand Gallery, operating the Hauling Beetle.

To pull the impactor upwards, the Hauling Beetle crewmembers had to move backwards, because it is the position where you can give the maximum power, like you do when you are playing with a tug of war rope.

Because the Beetle gave life to the pyramid, and because the crewmembers were moving backwards, the whole thing would have look like a giant scarab moving his dung ball, backwards, the crew members looking like the scarab legs.

The important thing here, with the scarab, is not the dung ball he is rolling, but the fact that he is rolling it backwards. To my knowledge, the scarab is the only living animal moving backwards.

If you want to compare the operating of the wooden gantry to an animal, then you have no other choice than use the scarab.

 

2/ The second key element about the amulet are the 3 little parallel brown segments

If you look attentively to some of the scarab amulets, the complete ones, we can see 3 short and parallel brown lines on the lower part of the amulets. They are representing the 3 ropes that were attached to the wooden gantry Hauling Beetle. What is very interesting to point out is the color used for the 3 short segments, because in pretty much every scarab amulet, the colors are golden or vivid yellows, blues, greens and reds, but these segments are in a dull brownish color. That doesn't fit at all with the prettiness of the entire amulet.

But of course, if these 3 lines are representations of 3 natural fiber ropes, then it works. The brown color of the 3 short segments is exactly the color of a natural fiber rope.

 

4/ The real meaning of the scarab wings

We can try to give an explanation to these deployed wings, but maybe there are more than just one right.

If we look at the hauling process from the impactor point of view, nobody was touching it and it would have looked like it was flying. Thus, it would explain why some scarab amulets are represented with fully deployed wings.

Of course it could also be a reference to the Sokar falcon representations : then the wings would be referring to the latch bolts.

 

 

8 crewmembers inside the wooden beetle and a total team of 11 members

I originally thought that the beetle was operated by 10 crewmen and a crew leader, based on 2 indirect clues.

The first clue was that inside the grand gallery, only 2 pairs of niches on the walls were found empty, perfectly cleaned ; whereas all the other ones (23 pairs) were found filled up with a low quality mortar. The 2 pairs completely cleaned are the 7th and 11th.

What we really need to understand is that the Great Pyramid was an incredible functional machinery that would have made a lot of noise and a lot of smoke : if my theory is correct, the complete set up of the Red Pyramid is also implemented on top of the known structures we know today, probably at the level of the Lady Arbuthnot's chamber where the granite beams aren't laid out onto granite blocks, but limestone blocks.

That means that on top of the noises coming from the operating of the beetle inside the grand gallery, the explosion sounds coming from the inclined well (the ascending passage) when hit by the moving caisson (granite block + float), and amplified by the resonating properties of the huge volume of the gallery, we have also to imagine the visual and sound impacts of a working limestone kiln associated with 2 counterflow chemical reaction towers for the sodium carbonate manufacturing by a Solvay-like process.

 

The Great Pyramid of Khufu was a profound Change of Civilization Event

It would appear like the pyramid was a living beast. 4500 years ago, no wonder such a sight changed forever the identity of the Egyptian people and was at the origin of many symbolic or mythological scenes, figures, gods and artifacts.

The Great Pyramid was designed during the 4th Dynasty, around 2600 BCE (Before Current Era), and for what I know, nobody talks about Osiris before 2500 BCE, or the Egyptian goddess Isis and the Eye of Horus before 2400 BCE. There is even no evidence of any scarab amulet before the 6th Dynasty.

I think the Egyptian tarot game, either was invented or profoundly modified by the Great Pyramid. One of its forms has 25 cards, the same number that the niches in the walls of the grand gallery. In my theory, each of these wall niches are progression steps for the wooden gantry beetle, that allows it to get to the bottom of the gallery, while lifting up the moving caisson with the granite block.

What is interesting is this 25 cards Egyptian tarot, is that the 7th card is the pyramid card, and the 11th card is the Sekhmet card. Sekhmet is a warrior goddess as well as goddess of healing, in other words, she would have been the perfect team leader inside the gallery.

If the 7th and 11th pairs of the grand gallery's wall niches were kept cleaned and pure, it probably is a proof of devotion to the pharaoh and a proof of respect to the leader of the grand gallery work team.

 

Group of Egyptian scarab amulet carvings. Thanks to AuctionZip.com

 

Why so many scarab amulets have a complete longitudinal drilled hole.

Most ancient Egyptian scarabs were suspended from string, and wires or mounted in swivel rings ; so they were drilled along their longitudinal axis.

This feature is probably unique among traditional Egyptian amulets : the hole, most of the time half drilled from the top and half drilled from the bottom, crosses the entire length of the amulet and replicate the original scarab operation of the Great Pyramid that was passing over the central gutter of the grand gallery.

 

The academic explanation of the dung ball representing the Sun God Khepri

It will always baffle me that any people would accept the idea that a god, Sun god Ra Khepri, would be please to know that he is compared to a dung ball, like many people claim the meaning of the scarab is. I wouldn't like to be compared to a dung ball and you certainly wouldn't like it as well. Chances are Ra wouldn't have liked it very much.

 

The symbolism of the scarab amulets : giving life back

The scarab amulets are referring to the operating of the Grand Gallery of the Great Pyramid of Khufu, the same way that the Dendera Light bulbs are referring to the horizontal cooling passage of that same pyramid.

The wooden gantry Hauling Beetle of the Grand Gallery looked like and behaved like a scarab because it was moving backwards. It made the Great Pyramid alive, and so the scarab amulets, that refer to that Hauling Beetle, would give life back to the deceased persons.

The Hauling Beetle was the heart of the Great Pyramid, and the scarab amulets had to be placed where the heart would be for the afterlife to be possible in order to make the mummification process successful.

 

Image on the left and center : Funerary Figure of Duamutef. 400–30 B.C. Late Period–Ptolemaic Period. From a series of 4 figurines representing the Four Sons of Horus, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New-York. On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 133.

 

The Four Sons of Horus real meaning : the scarab team

Inside the grand gallery of the Great Pyramid, it was not 1, but 2 beetle scarabs that were operated. The question of knowing if they would be physically connected or not, is not so easy to answer, but I think they were.

Anyway, many or most of representations of scarab amulets, are showing 4 or 8 elements, and I think that the Four Sons of Horus are representing the team of the scarab beetle unit. That is the reason why the complete layout of the grand gallery is depicted on these Four Sons of Horus figures visible at the Metropolitan Museum.

 

Special gratitude to Kameron, from downunderpharaoh.com for the use of his photographs of the squared scarab amulet. In the center, the "plan of passage mouth", from the "trial passages" tunnels of the Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza.

 

The scarab amulet in a squared shape set replica of the grand gallery

That particular squared shape make this scarab amulet very special, because it probably puts the scarab within the exact layout of the grand gallery of the Great Pyramid of Khufu.

The 2 lateral ramps of the grand gallery are 1 cubit width and the central gutter is 2 cubits width ; and these proportions are exactly the same as the ones we find on this squared amulet.

The scarab is most probably represented at the bottom of the grand gallery. There are of course 2 exceptions to the realistic design of this amulet : the wooden scarab wasn't inside the gutter but on both sides of it, moving onto the 2 lateral ramps ; and there was no block in the middle of the gutter either.

 

Probably, this transversal block with the hieroglyphs in front of the scarab beetle, stands for the north wall of the gallery, where the wooden beetle would have to rest after its descent in order to get ready to climb up again the slope.

Another thing is that this amulet could confirm the idea I got from the Tutankhamun Senet game table, that the wooden scarab of the gallery wasn't just a unique structure with 2 sledge runners, one against each wall, but 2 narrow structures like the Senet game table. These 2 beetles wouldn't even have to be linked together, they would have been completely independent.

Is this configuration realistic in regards to the necessary team coordination between the 2 beetles? Would it be the main reason for a team leader that would have stayed permanently on the top platform of the grand gallery ?

Nethertheless, on that squared scarab, we can notice that the 2 lateral parts are marked with 2 vertical and parallel straight lines, framing the hieroglyphs and that the hieroglyphs of the top horizontal part have no line at all to frame them.

These 4 vertical lines could be a reference to the 4 hollow-section rails of the grand gallery.

 

Please note the presence of 9 elements aligned and marked with a yellow arrow on the photograph above. They look like snakes in a bubble, with a disc other their heads. The 9 elements are gonna be crucial, just a little further in this post.

These snakes in a bubble, look very similar to the Dendera Light Bulb (read the Dendera Light post, here)

 

The trial passages of the Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza : a scale model of the main passages of the pyramid, carved into the bedrock, less than 100 meters off the eastern base of the pyramid itself. Source : W.M. Flinders Petrie.

The blue arrow points to the beginning of the horizontal passage opening. Side view of the opening on top and top view just below.

 

 

The Senet Game Table of Tutankhamun and the sledge runners of the grand gallery's beetle

The beetle of the grand gallery is nothing else than a sledge, mounted on wood or metal runners that were inserted inside hollow-section rails that were constantly humidified with water to reduce friction to the minimum.

And we know exactly what it would have look like, because we have a perfect example of it in one of the Senet game tables found in the tomb of Tutankhamun.

 

Image on the left : © Copyright Griffith Institute, University of Oxford. Carter No.: 345. Handlist description: Games-box (ebony and ivory). Burton photograph: p1569. Tutankhamun: Anatomy of an Excavation.

 

2 remarks about the Senet game table found inside the tomb of Tutankhamun

1/ The narrowness of the sled. Of course, it is because of the narrowness of the table, but it could also be a reference to the grand gallery's beetle. What if instead of 1 large beetle, there were 2 narrow beetles, one on each ramp? These 2 beetles could have been completely independent or linked together to form a unique beetle, with 4 sled runners.

 

2/ The golden cylinders between the sledge runners and the paws of the sledge.

Their presence here on this game table looks weird, and it looks like they don't have any purpose that comes to mind, but if it is a faithful copy of the original beetle of the Great Pyramid, it makes perfectly sense.

In my theory, each time the beetle reaches another of the 25 steps of progression towards the bottom of the grand gallery, it pushes a pair of latch-bolts into its walls that automatically pop back up to secure each step.

The golden cylinder parts at the bottom of the animal paws of the game table, could have been the parts that were in contact with the latch-bolts.

The fact that these cylinders were golden painted could totally be a simple reference to their importance on the original beetle, but it could also point out that these parts were in metal, or metal covered, so that their action on the latch bolts would have been in the most efficient way possible.

 

The beetle of the Great Pyramid, hypothesis with 2 narrow beetle structures and 4 sledges, based on the shape of the Senet Game Table of Tutankhamun.

 

 

The wooden hollow-section rails of the grand gallery

These rails were all the same, with a 3.198 cubits length.

The hollow-section rails had certainly received an additional treatment to reduce even more the friction. What really makes wood extremely slippery outdoors, isn't just the fact that the wood is wet, but the presence of a bio-film at its surface. This bio-film is made of cyanobacteria colonies living on its surface and I have no doubt that this kind of bio-film was mandatory for the rails.

 

 

The beetle operating procedure in the grand gallery.

1/ The beetle is on top of the grand gallery. The 2 ropes it is  attached to are 100% rolled up around the winding beam and the piston is simply floating inside the well, its rope 100% unrolled and resting on the wooden floor of the platform at the top of the gallery.

2/ We need to get the piston back. So the first thing to do, is to drop its unrolled rope, inside the fixed casing. Now, we can reattach the end of the rope to the piston.

3/ The 10 men crew can then start to move the beetle down the gallery. The descent of the beetle allowed to raise the moving piston up to the top of the grand gallery, in 25 very demanding steps. They were going backwards, because this is in that position that you can deliver maximum pulling force, using your legs and your back. Every step was secured by 2 latch-bolts, one on each ramp, that were inserted inside the wall niches (2 x 25 niches, 50 niches total).

The latch-bolt is what you have on every single door you have at home. With this latch-bolt, you can slam the door closed just by pushing it, and it won't move again, unless you move the handle down. The 2 crewmembers at the top of the beetle were certainly the most experienced and were working with their eyes permanently turned to the latches, checking that it would correctly pop-up again once it had been pushed inside the wall by the passage of the beetle's slider.

 

 

4/ As the beetle is moving down the gallery, its 2 ropes unwind from the beam and the piston's rope winds up at the same time.

5/ The beetle is now secured at the bottom of the gallery by the last latch-bolt. Its ropes 100% unrolled on the ramp. The piston is secured at the top of the gallery, its rope is 100% rolled up on the beam.

6/ At the bottom of the gallery, a blocking slab shim is inserted between the beetle and the wall and it can now be released from the last latch-bolt.

7/ Before the release of the piston, the beetle first needs to be pushed up at the top of the gallery by

4 men, using the transversal beams of the beetle (2 on each side). 2 other men stay behind the beetle and secure the climbing with the safety pins they insert inside de safety mortises. 2 other men pull the ropes of the ramps from the top platform (1 on each side) and these 2 ropes then wind up automatically when the last 2 men of the crew unroll the piston rope on the wooden floor of the platform. The climbing of the beetle though, wasn't very challenging (there was nothing else to lift than the gantry itself), so the safety precautions were limited to one out of two steps. And this is why we have the long mortises : every two steps, a safety pin of 6.8 centimeters had to be inserted in it.

Of course, in order to push the beetle up to the top of the gallery, the latch-bolts had to be forced inside the wall. This could be done manually but I would say it was certainly fully automatic. Probably, the groove that had been made that runs through the entire gallery, was implicated in that process of forcing the latch-bolts inside the walls, and then back again out of the wall, ready for the next operating cycle.

8/ Both the beetle and the piston are now secured on top of the grand gallery. The beetle ropes are rolled around the beam. The piston rope is neatly resting on the floor.

9/ Everything is ready for the next cycle, the piston can now be unhooked from its rope and ready to be released.

 

The wooden beetle entirely secured at the bottom of the grand gallery by the last pair of latch-bolts on top of the mortises n°3 . The moving caisson containing the granite block has been lifted up to the top of the gallery. The mortise #2 with its safety pin blocking mortise of 0.13 cubit, will be the first step for lifting up again the "free of the caisson weight" beetle towards the top of the gallery.

 

The 9 prisoners scarab amulet, thanks to the Walters Art Museum, 1330-1213 BCE (New Kingdom, Dynasty 18). Wonderful site, where you can zoom as much as you want on any photograph.

 

The scarab amulet with 9 captives prisoners and the jackal, from the Walters Art Museum

From this point, I started to think the wooden gantry beetle was operated by 10 crewmembers that took place inside the gantry and that there was a 11th person : the team leader who was staying onto the top platform of the grand gallery.

So I started to look for clues that would confirm this 10 crewmembers hypothesis. But wherever I looked, I kept seeing the numbers 4 and 9; like in the scarab amulet with 9 prisoners (picture above), from the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland.

 

Scarab amulets pictured above, thanks to the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore USA.

 

The backrest / handrails of the wooden beetle

This amulet does show 9 persons, but I disagree with the drawing interpretation that has been made regarding the 9 elements appearing in front of the character's shoulders : none of them is connected to the character's bodies.

You can verify that by yourself, using the zoom application directly at the Walters Art Museum site, here : https://art.thewalters.org/detail/3485/

 

In fact, we surely can assume that these 9 elements had been originally drawn with a perfectly neat sharp-edged shape, like the one shown on the second photograph above, with the red pointing arrow, next to the third character.

In my view, these 9 characters are referring to the team that was operating the beetle inside the grand gallery, and the elements in front of their shoulders, perfectly detached from their bodies and with a perfectly geometrical sharp-edged shape, are the backrest / handrails they got in front of them, just a few centimeters from their heads when they were operating the wooden beetle.

 

Were the crewmembers of the beetle prisoners?

The conventional interpretation of these 9 characters, is that they are prisoners, with their hands tied up behind their backs and they are on their knees.

I also disagree with this interpretation. I firmly believe that the scarab amulets refer to the beetle of the gallery, and I can't imagine that ancient Egyptians would have carved prisoner drawings onto so important amulets that would have honor and worship them.

The characters or any kind of drawings on the back of the scarab amulets, just couldn't have been about any captive prisoners.

Nevertheless, the temptation to do so is high, very high. Because if the goal was to cool the temperature of the Queen's chamber, down to 5°C or 10°C (41°F or 50°F) and maintain this low temperature, that means that the grand gallery and the beetle would have to work night and day, for weeks, maybe months, without ever stopping. The effort would have been excruciating.

The only thing I can think of that would make possible the idea of a team of prisoners working inside the grand gallery, would be the possibility for these prisoners to get freedom by their work inside the pyramid ; and that this tremendous effort (maybe sacrifice for some of them), would have been worth rewarding them with freedom.

 

 

The Sekhmet team leader / captive crewmen hypothesis

If the crewmembers were indeed captive prisoners, it would nevertheless reinforce the idea that a team leader was absolutely necessary.

In this manner, it would also reinforce the Sekhmet hypothesis, because she was the warrior goddess. Depicted as a lioness, she was seen as the protector of the pharaohs and led them in warfare. Upon death, Sekhmet continued to protect them, bearing them to the afterlife.

This double Sekhmet identity could originate from the double responsibility of the team leader of the grand gallery : manage the prisoners team and participate in the pharaoh's after life by bringing the Great Pyramid into life.

 

Like the beetle, its crewmembers were moving backwards

Another possibility that could explain the position of the arms on their backs, could be to show that they were moving backwards : their heads looking in one direction and their hands on the opposite direction, mean that they were moving backwards. The same reason that explains why this amulet display a scarab form : the scarab is used to move backwards when it is rolling its dung ball.

 

The grand gallery's slope induced squat down position of the crewmembers

The 9 characters are not on their knees, but they are in a squat down position like shown on the third image above, because that was the position they were in when they were operating the beetle because of the steep slope of the grand gallery.

 

 

Many of the scarab amulets with drawings underneath show 9 dots, 9 circles or 9 buckles, but contrary to the 9 prisoners scarab amulet from the Walters Art Museum, they are not arranged in 3 lines of 3 characters, but in 2 columns of 4 and a central one, whether it is clearly marked by a dot and circle like on the 2 scarabs above on the left; or it is simply suggested by interlacing buckles or curls, like the 2 scarabs on the right (blue arrows).

Not only the crewmembers are drawn, but the ropes also are represented with the intertwined lines. The last amulet does even display 3 lines, exactly like the 3 ropes of the grand gallery.

I think these 9 elements, 8 + 1, are the 8 crewmembers that took place inside the wooden scarab in 2 columns of 4 men, and their team leader represented in the center.

In my opinion, the 9 crewmembers represented 3 x 3 of the prisoners scarab amulet has to be considered to an artistic variant, but it is hard to say if there was or not, a real intention to hide the real original 2 columns layout.

 

So now, we have a team of 8 crewmen that were positioned inside the beetle and the team leader that was on the top platform of the grand gallery, that is 9 persons total.

Do we have to forget the 2 other crewmen that would be needed to get to the 11 crewmen total, suggested by the Egyptian 25 cards tarot?

Well, maybe not. Because if you look attentively to the last 3 scarabs on the photograph above, you can see 2 strokes (red arrows) that could be interpreted as the 2 missing crewmembers.

These 2 men were not positioned inside the beetle, but behind the beetle, I guess probably essentially to deal with the latch bolts operating process when the beetle was going down to the bottom of the gallery, and then secure the beetle when it was lifted back to the top of the gallery (after being cutted-out from the piston) using the safety pin system provided by the long mortises.

These 2 men were the "flying" men of the team.

They would also manage the operating of the ropes on the top platform and assured the reattachment of the moving caisson to the central rope, after the caisson had been released in the slope from the top of the gallery.

 

The 10 crewmen scarab amulets

Like shown on the last 2 photographs below, scarab amulets showing 10 and 11 crewmembers, also exist. But it is noticeable that they seem to be very rare.

Photographs thanks to the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore USA.

 

We also have to discuss about the large variety of amulet designs, showing different numbers of crewmembers. I personally think that a vast amount of wooden beetles were used for the pyramids construction.

Some of them would be operated inside the pyramids, some of them outside ; and with a varying number of crewmembers.

If the beetle of the grand gallery was really designed in 2 parts, 2 narrow independent beetles of 4 crewmembers, linked together, then probably this kind of unit could have been used in the descending passage of the Great Pyramid and others.

Probably single, double or even triple units of this kind could have been used outside the pyramids in particular for the Great Pyramid in order to operate the natron production unit, starting with the limestone supply of the kiln.

Maybe the 3 x 3 design of the 9 prisoners scarab amulet depict precisely this particular approach.

 

The Colossus of Djehutihotep. Image on the right thanks to the Griffith Institute, University of Oxford. "The huge scene depicting the transportation of Djehutihotep's Colossus fills the top five registers of the central section of the left hand wall of the Inner Chamber. This coloured detail by Howard Carter comes from the fifth register just under the Colossus and shows three men carrying a large block of wood, with a strangely jagged upper outline, on their left shoulders. They wear short, white, plain kilts. The text describes the block as "logs of conveyance", so it is presumably connected with the actual movement of the Colossus." © Copyright Griffith Institute, Oxford.

 

 

The heavy load handling in ancient Egypt

The way that the grand gallery was equipped and the beetle was operated is certainly a good clue on how the ancient Egyptians were handling the blocks and very heavy load transport in general.

 

The scene depicting the transportation of the Colossus of Djehutihotep

If my theory is correct, the beetle of the Great Pyramid was equipped with wood or metal sledge runners that were inserted inside hollow-section rails, constantly humidified to reduce the friction.

Sledge, water and rails, are exactly what is described in the scene depicting the transportation of the Colossus of Djehutihotep.

 

The watering of the sand foolish concept

The idea that the character who is pouring water in front of the Colossus, is pouring it directly onto the sand has no sense at all. You wouldn't need small or medium size jars to do the job, but hundreds or thousands of huge water containers.

In the Great Pyramid, the same water, stored inside the King's chamber, was used at least 3 times : one for lubrication of all the moving parts of the grand gallery ; one for keeping the inclined well flooded ; and finally one for the evaporating cooling process in the horizontal passage.

I'm sorry but the idea of throwing away all that water on the ground, like they were trying to water the desert, is ridiculous. Unfortunately, this idea could only have originated from a modern western society, used to discard disposable and single-use items as a way of living.

There is no chance that anyone at the time of the pharaohs would engage in such irresponsible behavior at a time when it is possible that everyone could already see that the climate was changing and their beloved country was getting dryer and dryer every year or every decade.

In that Djehutihotep's Colossus mural, the character isn't pouring water onto the ground ; he is pouring water onto the hollow-section rails.

One of these rails is depicted at the bottom of the mural and is showed upside down. The part that would have been into the ground is cut into notches that would act as studs and maintain the rail in place when the sledge would pass through the rail.

 

Why the ancient Egyptians didn't have to invent the wheel

If the ancient Egyptians were able to build as many pyramids and move as many heavy or extremely heavy loads as they did in the short period of time we think they got, and without ever use the wheel, it is because they did have another system, very cost-effective, reliable and efficient.

 

If ancient Egyptians didn't invent the wheel, it is because they didn't need to : they had a system based on the sledges and humidified hollow-section rails. 

That system was even better than the wheel because they didn't have to deal with the major problem of the wheel when you want to move very heavy loads : the axle resistance.

 

The 40 ships of Sneferu Lebanon cedar

We know that Sneferu sent 40 ships to Lebanon to get cedar and fir trees. These trees are very resistant to humidity and I think most of them were intended to manufacture the rails of this unique transport system.

 

The additional cyanobacteria treatment for friction reducing

The hollow-section rails had certainly received an additional treatment to reduce even more the friction. What really makes wood extremely slippery outdoors, isn't just the fact that the wood is wet, but the presence of a bio-film at its surface. This bio-film is made of cyanobacteria colonies living on its surface and I have no doubt that this kind of bio-film was mandatory for the rails.

 

Photograph on the left : the 4 grooves south granite wall of the King's antechamber of the Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza. Please notice that the entire chamber is built with massive granite blocks, but surprisingly the top of this south wall is made of very worn out low-quality limestone. This limestone had been added after the pyramid shut-down, when this chamber didn't need to be connected to the exterior anymore.

 

The 3 natural fiber ropes of the grand gallery and their storage in permanent humid conditions

I am also at this point, gonna discuss a little bit of the ropes. Because they are in a natural fiber fabric, it is very vulnerable to humidity, and the grand gallery would have been very humid because it was completely surrounded by water sources (the King's chamber, the inclined well and the horizontal cooling passage).

Because a natural fiber rope will rot if stored in bad conditions, a special chamber had to be prepared for this role, and equipped with a very effective ventilation system.

And that special chamber is what we call today the antechamber, where should have been installed 3 portcullis, that have never been found.

The antechamber never had any portcullis, it was the 3 ropes storage chamber, with 3 independent compartments. The ventilation of this chamber came from a little opening that was located on the top part of the south granite wall and the granite ceiling, and that appears today filled with a limestone cement with 4 little grooves in the continuation of the south wall grooves.

In this granite grooves, were inserted 4 air pipes for a perfect ventilation of the chamber ; the air vent connected to the surface of the pyramid on its flat roof.

 

 

0.01  The Pyramids of the Cold - Very quick abstract of the study

Ancient Egyptian pharaohs used chemistry and physics to legitimate themselves as kings of Egypt, and they forged an entire religion for that matter : gods were self-glorification metaphors of their scientific accomplishments. The end game of this technological program was the Great Pyramid of Giza where evaporative cooling was engineered in the known part of the pyramid, using the power of water, most probably as suggested by the strong ammonia smell in the Red Pyramid, to cool down chemical manufacturing of sodium carbonate and sodium bicarbonate. At that time, sodium carbonate was called natron, and it was the salt used for the mummification of the pharaohs.

Ancient Egyptians were the first civilization to master a Solvay-like process for sodium carbonate manufacturing, long before it got reinvented in the 1800's in Europe. The key elements of that process is the temperature control of the chemical reactions (the cooling), and the dome shaped plate necessary for the counterflow chemical reactions to occur in an efficient way, and that plate is precisely what is the disc of Sabu.

If mastering the Solvay-process was important, it actually looks like the cold was the most magical phenomenon worshiped by ancient Egyptians, as suggested by Akhenaten and Nefertiti who represented themselves as Shu and Tefnut, the deities that combined together were creating the evaporative cold (Shu = dry warm air, and Tefnut = spat water).

The evaporative cold is what represents the ankh symbol that is given by Akhenaten to the heat of the Sunbeams.

Also, the very first pyramid complex, the Step Pyramid of Djoser, was called "the refreshment of the Gods".

 

0.02  The Pyramids of the Cold - Table of contents

Section 1 • The Evaporative Cooling Passage, Nefertem and the khepeshes

Section 2 • The Evaporative Cooling : the Dendera Light

Section 3 • The Evaporative Cooling : the Heka, Geb, Shu, Nut and Tefnut glorifying metaphors

Section 4 • The Inclined Well layout : the Girdle Stones and the interlocked blocks

Section 5 • The Inclined Well waters : the Apep metaphor of the pressurized waters

Section 6 • The Inclined Well : the Taweret Lady of the Well block

Section 7 • The Inclined Well : the Bes wedging block

Section 8 • The Inclined Well : the draining of the well

Section 9 • The Inclined Well : the Was Scepter, the Sa Symbol and the Isis Knot

Section 10 • The Impactor

Section 11 • The Grand Gallery : the Hidden Hauling Cavern of the Underworld

​Section 12 • The Grand Gallery : the Hauling Beetle designed for 8+2 crewmembers

​​Section 13 • The Grand Gallery : the Scarab Amulets

​Section 14 • Solvay process (natron manufacturing) : the Red Pyramid

​Section 15 • Solvay process (natron manufacturing) : the Disc of Sabu

​Section 16 • Solvay process : the cooling of the Eye of Horus

Section 17 • The Ankh symbol and the changes made by Akhenaten & Nefertiti

Section 18 • The Sarcophagus of the Great Pyramid