◆◆◆
“It’s incredible Lydia. Did you know that out of millions of discovered artifacts, only two were related to the Pharaoh and the people who built the Great Pyramid?
“A representation of himself as a small ivory figurine discovered by accident and the remainder of a sledge that could have been used by workers to carry the massive stones because they didn’t have any wheels back then,” Neo informed her.
“The Pharaoh was Khufu, who had many names (Chuefui-Chnum or Khnum-Khuf, Cheops in Greek) representing the old kingdom’s symbol of the 4th dynasty.”
“This titanic work could have lasted more than twenty-three years, expanding beyond the duration of his reign, which started in 2551 BC until he died in 2528 BC.”
“Ancient historians mention that the architect, who is believed to have been Khufu’s vizier, Hemiunu needed ten years of preparation and twenty years for the actual building, laying down more than 2.5 million stones with 2.5 tons being the average weight for each block,” Neo continued.
Lydia skidded past the noisy tourists and the local trinket sellers. And now she was climbing a set of stone blocks with incredible agility.
“I personally believe that the pyramid could be much older; even more than five thousand years,” Lydia said with great conviction.
“It could even predate the Great Flood being more than ten thousand years old.”
“And this is why there are no hieroglyphs inside.”
Lydia was seventeen meters above ground. After climbing the stones towards the right, she managed to pass by two tired and sweaty security guards in front of a metallic door entrance, which was placed to block any nighttime visitors.
“Lady, no photos and the telephone camera is forbidden,” one of the guards barked in broken English.
In front of her, she heard a voice speaking English to some people, and she quickly approached them.
“Do not forget to keep some distance between yourselves.”
“Do not take out your breathing masks until the tour has finished, and you are outside.”
“Don’t forget that you are in a closed environment and that the air circulation is more difficult inside the pyramid.”
“There is a long one hundred five-meter descending passage dug through the stonework of the pyramid and then into the rock layers beneath it, which will take you to down to a partially finished lower chamber.”
“There one can find an extension of the passage in the south wall, that has a pit dug into the floor of the spacious room, potentially to set a trap in the style of Indiana Jones.”
“Robbers would have fallen into a trap full of spikes impaling any who dared to awaken the eternal sleep of the Pharaoh,” a tall blond, handsome man said, closing the tour.
Apparently, he was the guide, and for a moment, he and Lydia exchanged a passionate look.
The guide, while fixating his gaze on Lydia, continued: “Theories say that the Pharaoh changed his mind and wanted to be buried not underground but in the middle of the pyramid above his beloved queen.”
“Nobody knows what happened to their bodies. Have robbers stolen them and emptied the chambers and their treasure gone forever?” While pausing, smiled and winked at Lydia.
Lydia, while listening carefully to the story, noticed that the group was only made of young British students who came for a study abroad trip. She felt rather guilty for what was about to happen, destroying their journey while inside the Great Pyramid.
“Why is the entrance to the passage so rough?”
“It’s like they were drunk when they dug this passage,” a witty redheaded young girl said, likely a bit under the influence of alcohol from a long night of partying.
The guide chuckled and continued his tour:
“In present-day tourists enter the Great Pyramid via the Robbers’ Tunnel, which was allegedly dug around 820 AC by the Caliph al-Ma’mun’s workers using a battering ram.”
“The tunnel is cut straight into the masonry of the pyramid for more than twenty-seven meters and then turns abruptly left to meet the obstructing stones leading to the Ascending Passage.”
“It is believed that vibrations caused by their attempt to drill through the pyramid, dislocated the slab fitted into the ceiling of the Descending Passage to hide the entrance to the Ascending Passage.”
“Actually, it was the noise of that stone slabs dropping and then gliding down the Descending Passage, which gave them a clue in which direction to dig. Following that, the Caliph’s workmen tunneled up encountering less resistance through the softer limestone of the pyramid until they reached the Ascending Passage.”
Suddenly, a jarring noise made the students cover their ears. It was the sound of an alarm. The narrow space made it even worse as the stone wall was reflecting the noise and amplifying it like a megaphone. “Exit the pyramid. Everybody needs to exit the pyramid, this is not a drill. Be careful at the steps. You need to come down towards the exit.” This message was continuously being repeated, clearly pre-recorded to be used in case of need.
§CHAPTER 49§
“LYDIA, NOW is the moment. You should use the general frenzy inside the pyramid to quickly make your way up.”
“If someone asks where you are going, simply mention that you are looking for your missing child,” Neo instructed.
Lydia moved swiftly ahead, trying to avoid the panicked tourists who were struggling to make their way to the exit.
After thirty meters from the entrance, Lydia noticed a square-shaped hole in the roof of the Descending Passage. Initially concealed with a slab of stone, this represented the start of the Ascending Passage.
The wind was howling, making its way through the labyrinth of various tunnels, each having a religious or functional role, either for the soul to ascend into the gods’ realm or as an intricate aeration system.
“Lydia, you need to hurry up. I am sure the guards will understand this was a false alarm,” Neo said worriedly.
“Yes, I am almost at the beginning of the Ascending Passage.”
She remembered all the questions she asked her university ancient civilizations professor, who, by chance, was also of Egyptian origin, Mister Sharaff.
Back then, she knew the Great Pyramid structure, like the back of her hand. A small plastic panel with almost washed away painting indicated: The Ascending Passage.
Lydia quickly found herself squeezed into the narrow passage through the staircase, which had small protrusions to avoid slipping, which allowed her to climb.
She was not claustrophobic, but the simple thought that something might go wrong with the illuminating system plunging her in the dark made her skin crawl.
“I am almost there at the beginning of a large open space; the Grand Gallery,” Lydia said.
At this moment, Lydia sensed she was being followed.
Maybe it was an illusion, or the assassin has followed me here, and he wants to catch me.
She felt a strange energy coursing through her body while continuing her upward climb at the same slope as the Ascending Passage.
The walls rose in seven courses of polished limestone, each arched several centimeters toward the center, giving a strange symmetry to the upper part engulfed into darkness.
A squeaking noise made her look upwards, and she seemed to spot a moving shadow, could it be a big hungry bat?
Her gaze then fell upon the two left and right narrow ramps with slots, probably a part of an ancient mechanism used by the constructors to lift the stones.
“Lydia, you need to gather your strength; there is still a lot of climbing left,” Neo said, worried by her accelerated pulse.
“I was always fascinated by the geometric precision of the Grand Gallery. I would have never believed that one day I’d explore its secrets.”
Compared to the Ascending Passage, it was nine meters tall high and forty-seven meters long. An inverted pyramid structure in a pyramid with seven steps.
Lydia noticed it had a roof made of st
one slabs fixed at a specific floor angle for each stone to fit into a slot cut inside the gallery’s top, like the teeth of a cog.
“Neo, do you see this? Egyptians were incredibly inventive. I guess this design was made to have each block supported by the wall of the gallery, instead of being held by the block beneath it,” Lydia said, mesmerized.
“All this intricate design, to prevent pressure from making everything collapse while reinforcing the space’s integrity in case of a tectonic movement,” Neo confirmed, trying to pay attention to each detail.
Lydia continued her climb, still with the feeling she was being watched.
She finally reached the top of the Grand Gallery, where a giant step led to a horizontal passage some meters long and very narrow.
She thought that this was specially placed by the ancient Egyptians to scare and discourage the modern visitors from jumping it.
At this time, there were no tourists left; only some distant voices sounded alarmed and were shouting in Arabic.
The great step was, in fact, a one-piece granite slab that looked rather damaged and chiseled in several areas. The marks seemed to have been left by a giant creature with enormous claws trying to make its way inside the tiny tunnel.
Looking above, while crawling inside the tunnel narrow, Lydia noticed four slots which, in the past, apparently held the granite blocking doors, cleverly protecting it from any intruders.
She remembered the guide mentioning they were found in the Descending Passage.
Lydia could only imagine the surprise of the first robbers squashed under the weight of the collapsing stones.
Lydia had to catch her breath as all the rapid climbing consumed most of her energy.
Lydia was almost at the end of the corridor, which started to rise and widen in an anteroom, with walls no longer made of limestone but granite.
Passing what was once the closing mechanism before entering the room, she realized it was made of rose granite; a clear sign that this chamber was for a special person.
She had to duck one more time and pass under the Granite Leaf.
“That’s it, Lydia, just go under the suspended stone slab of two blocks, which are on top of each other.”
“No worries, they are fitted into the grooves inside the wall.”
“Lydia, you entered the so-called King’s chamber made of tough red granite.”
“It’s fascinating how this material reflects the light. It seems as if it’s pulsating with life.”
“This type of granite must have been exceedingly difficult to extract as it is only found in horizontal beds, which lie between thin sheets of sinter or quartz.”
“The bedrock from which this tough granite stone was extracted, must have been split all the way down to the next sheet.”
“How were they extracted? It’s still a mystery because they weighed between forty and fifty tons,” Neo explained clearly, fascinated by the topic.
§CHAPTER 50§
THE KING’S CHAMBER has fascinated so many historians and archaeologists. Above its floor, there were two narrow shafts in the south and north whose purpose was still unknown.
The only plausible explanation was that they were oriented towards sacred constellations of stars or areas of the northern and southern skies.
They were long considered by Egyptologists to be air shafts for aeration.
However, the most recently discovered tombs and collected data showed that the shafts fulfilled a more sacred objective linked with the ascent of the Pharaoh King’s essence to the afterlife.
“Neo, do we know what we are looking for?”
“In the Berlaymont cave, the ruby was pulsating where the chamber is located, but it didn’t give any specific instructions,” Lydia asked, feeling a little unnerved.
She quickly started to look at the King’s chamber walls, which were made entirely of red granite.
Professor Sharaff once told her that it was probably extracted from the quarries of Aswan, one thousand kilometers away from Giza.
Looking above, she noticed a neatly polished roof made of nine slabs of stone, which he also mentioned weighed an impressive four hundred tons.
“Lydia, did you know there are precisely one hundred blocks making up the walls of the King’s chamber.”
“Why would they be so precise?” Neo asked, puzzled.
“I remember that in one of his clairvoyance sessions, the American healer Edgar Cayce stated that the Great Pyramid took one hundred years to be finalized, also alleging that under the Sphinx there exists a similar Hall of Records that Atlantis had…but nobody believed him.”
“Over the decades, many tried to dig and check the space underneath the Sphinx but without any conclusionary evidence.”
“It could be that this fabled Hall was buried so deep, much like the labyrinth under Berlaymont, so nobody could find it at such a depth,” Lydia hastily explained.”
“I never understood why this room was empty as well as the five compartments above it; the so-called Relieving Chambers.”
“There are no hieroglyphs nor other inscriptions or marks to accompany the Pharaoh. This is so unusual.”
“Several theories state that, in fact, the Great Pyramid was a giant battery with the air shafts used to pump different chemicals producing some kind of a complex reaction.”
“Scientists also thought that the builders’ purpose was to harness that energy,” Lydia said to a distracted Neo who was trying to find a way out of this conundrum.
The only object in the King’s chamber was a rectangular sarcophagus with one damaged corner made of a different type of granite that had a higher density than the one used for the walls of the chamber.
Lydia remembered from Professor Shariff’s classes that the sarcophagus was larger compared to the Ascending Passage, clearly indicating to researchers that it should have been laid down at the beginning of the construction before the walls and roof were built around it.
This was even more proof of the advanced planning skills and technology of the Egyptian civilization five thousand years ago. Unfortunately, most of it was mysteriously lost or simply taken away.
Many famous people said they had an epiphanal experience while lying inside the sarcophagus, including Napoleon, who, even on his deathbed, did not want to divulge what happened to him in the King’s chamber.
Unlike the walls’ masterful stonework inside the chamber, the sarcophagus was roughly cut, with saw-marks visible all over.
“It could be that this was just a snare sarcophagus intended for the robbers with the real one well hidden in a secret place,” Lydia said while touching the surface of the sarcophagus.
“Yes, they tried unsuccessfully to explore below the so-called Queen’s chamber, and then the so-called Big Void theory came about,” Neo informed with excitement in his voice.
“I remember, scientists tried to apply cosmic radiation, a technique which the Japanese first used to assess the insides of volcanoes by bombarding them with particles called muons in order to perform muon radiography.”
“Using this technique, different teams scanned the interior of the pyramid, and they detected a void on the right side, above where we are.”
“Indeed, the void is at least thirty meters. There must be a clue hidden somewhere. I just hope you won’t find the same black substance.”
“Black substance? What are you referring to?” Lydia asked puzzled.
“You know there are five chambers above the roof of this one.”
“When entering the second chamber, explorers were turned back by a powder which was discovered only in that chamber.”
“Later, it was analyzed and determined to be the dust from the cast-off skins and chitin shells of insects,” Neo said with disgust.
“Horrible Neo. Why did you have to share this with me now I am so much more confident?”
Approaching the right side of the sarcophagus, she felt a tremor in her pocket; the magnetic pyramidion shard started to vibrate.
/>
She took it out, and when directing it towards the right side of the wall, which held the narrow entrance to the chamber, the vibration started to increase.
“Neo, I think this is a key and a compass at the same time. It points towards something. I have to guide myself by the level of vibrations,” Lydia said excited. She grimaced at the thought of additional traps she might have to face.
Looking carefully at the layout of the granite blocks, Lydia noticed it formed a doorway that supported their weight, creating granite ceiling beams.
On the left side of the wall, the blocks were so cleverly aligned that they didn’t place any weight on the central block at the bottom.
“Neo, look at this; it must be the secret entrance.”
“This block could move backward unobstructed, precisely like the one that sealed the first entrance.”
The more Lydia leaned towards it, the more the vibration increased.
Once she touched the bottom stone with the vibrating shard, a wave of energy crossed her entire body, like a pleasant tingling.
At the same time, it was like someone was zapping her of her energy.
A vampire stone, that’s a first, it must be a channeling device of biomolecular energy, Lydia muttered to herself not wanting to worry Neo.
“It’s moving Neo, that’s it,” Lydia said with excitement.
The stone was vibrating and moving backward, with a passage opening in front of her.
“Neo, this is unbelievable. The stone is acting as a catalyst, moving or splitting the blocks behind it into two, creating an upward passage,” Lydia said.
“This could only be Atlantean technology. I cannot believe it created an upward path.”
“The researchers were right. It must take you towards a big void. I am sure we’ll discover another important artifact.” From Neo’s voice, one could feel deep worry because he knew the path ahead was treacherous.
◆◆◆
§CHAPTER 51§
THE ASSASSIN was closely following Lydia, assessing his options.
The Jesus Christ Cypher Page 12