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Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS
feet) the Third Pyramid was less than half the height and well under half
the mass of the Great Pyramid. Nevertheless, it possessed a stunning and
imposing majesty of its own. As we stepped out of the desert sunlight
and into its huge geometrical shadow, I remembered what the Iraqi writer
Abdul Latif had said about it when he had visited it in the twelfth century:
‘It appears small compared with the other two; but viewed at a short
distance and to the exclusion of these, it excites in the imagination a
singular oppression and cannot be contemplated without painfully
affecting the sight ...’ 3
The lower sixteen courses of the monument were still cased, as they
had been since the beginning, with facing blocks quarried out of red
granite (‘so extremely hard’, in Abdul Latif s words, ‘that iron takes a
long time, with difficulty, to make an impression on it’). 4 Some of the
blocks were very large; they were also closely and cunningly fitted
together in a complex interlocking jigsaw-puzzle pattern strongly
reminiscent of the cyclopean masonry at Cuzco, Machu Picchu and other
locations in far-off Peru.
As was normal, the entrance to the Third Pyramid was situated in its
northern face well above the ground. From here, at an angle of 26° 2’, a
descending corridor lanced arrow-straight down into the darkness. 5
Oriented exactly north to south, this corridor was rectangular in section
and so cramped that we had to bend almost double to fit into it. Where it
passed through the masonry of the monument its ceiling and walls
consisted of well-fitted granite blocks. More surprisingly, these continued
for some distance below ground level.
At about seventy feet from the entrance, the corridor levelled off and
opened out into a passageway where we could stand up. This led into a
small ante-chamber with carved panelling and grooves cut into its walls,
apparently to take portcullis slabs. Reaching the end of the chamber, we
had to crouch again to enter another corridor. Bent double, we proceeded
south for about forty feet before reaching the first of the three main
burial chambers—if burial chambers they were.
These sombre, soundless rooms were all hewn out of solid bedrock.
The one that we stood in was rectangular in plan and oriented east to
west. Measuring about 30 feet long x 15 wide x 15 high, it had a flat
ceiling and a complex internal structure with a large, irregular hole in its
western wall leading into a dark, cave-like space beyond. There was also
an opening near the centre of the floor which gave access to a ramp,
sloping westwards, leading down to even deeper levels. We descended
the ramp. It terminated in a short, horizontal passage to the right of
which, entered through a narrow doorway, lay a small empty chamber,
Six cells, like the sleeping quarters of medieval monks, had been hewn
3
Abdul Latif, The Eastern Key, cited in Traveller’s Key to Ancient Egypt, p. 126.
4
Ibid.
5
Blue Guide: Egypt, A & C Black, London, 1988, p. 433.
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