The Great Pyramid of Egypt is a breath-taking wonder of the ancient world, the mindboggling craftsmanship, the sheer size and scale of the project and the fact it’s been standing for more than four and a half thousand years.
But what I’m looking at today though is not related to the masonry, but something beneath the stonework, a natural or man-made cavity in the top of the natural limestone hill that the pyramid is built over.
It’s called ‘the grotto’ and even today, in 2022, it remains the most poorly understood part of the Great Pyramid. It’s a place that so few people have been inside, a chamber that has never been properly excavated or documented and the only pictures we have are a few old grainy photographs.
For this reason, doing research into the grotto is difficult to say the least and no researcher can truly draw any definitive conclusions on its origins and nature. In the past I’ve speculated it could have been the location of an ancient natural spring and most recently, I’ve been exploring the idea it could be a Pre-Dynastic semi-subterranean structure, dug long before the dynastic era of Egyptian history.
In this video I’m going to take a look at what we know about the Grotto, drawing on sources, sometimes hundreds of years old, to find out what we actually know about this enigmatic part of the Great Pyramid.
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It's not exactly the Maadi culture that dug the holes, it's the Beersheba culture….
جميل جدا كل فيديوهاتك رائعه
لو تترجم الى العربيه ستكون خدمه ممتازه لعشاق الحضاره المصريه لان فيديوهاتك فريده في طرحها وبحثها
وكما شرحت لنا حكاية باب المامون وفكيت لغزه بجداره
ارجو منم فك لغز جبيئة الدير البحري لانه الى الان لم يكتب عنها بحث كيف اكتشافها فقط الروايه الغبيه بسقوط عنزه
اشكرك على امتاعنا باسلوبك الجميل
We are just pondering over decades old research. Why aren't new researchers being permitted? Maybe they're hiding something.
Grotto is as scary as its mysterious.
So your saying there's a hole in what we know about this grotto 😁😆😄😄😆
What stops the granite block falling in to the deep hole? It looks like it's floating.
{:o:O:}
why is it called the grotto??..strange name.
At 08:14 looking into the well shaft it looks like a larger granite block in the corner or the top of the limestone bedrock cut. In any case it’s evidence that the diagrams of the grotto seemingly aren’t as thorough as other parts of the pyramid when it comes to this vertical section?
I went down there in the 90s I broke off from a tourist group , finally I got to the sub terrain chamber , it's no way a nothing it was half full of water , the vibe was intense, what happened to the coffin in the water in the sub terrain chamber? Please do an episode on this! ….
I was just wondering if the well shaft bends north/south as well as easy/west, just as the "air shafts" do. It could reveal the likelihood of the grotto being a deliberate interception point.
I'm surprised how little work has been done on the grotto. How many times do we need to learn that often, it's the less interesting subjects that provide the best answers?
well, if the grotto was actually an ancient well the groundwater must have been quite high back then. Such a well inside the growing pyramid construction site would have been a practical feature. As it sits inside/ under the natural bedrock/hill basement it would not have been a structural problem. Maybe it was a well in the upper part and then for whatever reason extended down later, into the descending passage and then in the end filled up. But why then this strange steep angle? or did they dig UP? all very strange.
If the builders put the gravel in to the grotto for stability, maybe we think twice about removing it. 😛
Hellooooo, Welcome to ancient architeeeeeeeeeectsssssssssss
The brothers may have missed a disguised/hidden passage ? to more tunnels or rooms ?
Hi, Matt; I think the largest problem with understanding the reason for the pyramid is we keep using the terms given to the different chambers, (ie: King's Chamber, Queen's Chamber, well shaft, etc…) which prejudices us to particular mindsets as to their function. Remove all those terms and then take a new look at the pyramid with new eyes and see what presents itself. Maybe it is a funerary memorial. I don't believe it is. I personally believe that the pyramids were constructed first, with the subsequent pyramid construction by the Dynastic Egyptians merely copies of what they found at Giza when they migrated to the site. The fact that all the other pyramids were mudbrick with stone facades, that they continued using underground burial chambers, and the techniques used in the Great pyramids were much more sophisticated than later constructions, all point to the pyramids being 'legacy' constructs. Who, or why, I don't know. Weather we ever will know is an open question. Great video!
When people dig/carve weird shapes like that it's likely to get rid of cracks. Following cracks you come across fishers.
Its similar in wood/metal working
Hey, I just realized I haven’t seen one of your videos in my feed in like 2 years until just now.
Love the guy’s shoes at the intro. Onitsuka (Aisics) Mexico 66.
The .
Thank you Matt! Good discussion. Well, one point I'm sure we can all agree on, it wasn't dug by aliens! Cheers!
Well done, Sibs!
The grotto is far and away my single favorite part of the Great Pyramid.
Maybe it was a valve and it’s just caked with hardened mud. Whatever it is, it’s the last place in the pyramid I want to explore.
It sounds like the grotto could be an older tomb as you suggest. On thing is certain and that is that the capped shaft from the Grand Gallery confirms that the builders believe that the grotto could be a tomb or that it was worth special pains to memorialize. It's not an accident or an aberration. The shaft to the Grotto was built from the top down and was possibly even in existence prior to Khufu's time. But after that, when the tomb was robbed after Khufu died, a shaft was carved upwards from the descending passage to the Grotto by the robbers who built the tomb, who rifled then this tomb or at least used it as a point of entry to the upper works of the pyramid and later as a means of escape with Khufu's loot. Now I don't think any miner of the day in his right mind is going to drive a shaft straight up into rock for practical reasons, unless he wants a face full of chips and constantly having to work above his head. Miners would generally want to work at an angle and not straight up. We must always bring things down to practicalities when considering ancient construction or mining techniques. Always! I also think its possible that the Kalif or the Ptolemies or late dynastic rulers simply walled off the Grotto later and continued the shaft up through it. I read where the Ptolemies were trying to discourage cultists from using the Grotto space and may have closed it off. BTW the Kalif did terrible damage to the pyramid, including: stripping the ancient fascia off the so-called abandoned (actually the real) north entry, boring a hole in the Roman repairs to make a new entry into the pyramid from the descending shaft, sorry not having ANY idea where to excavate except that pyramids were always entered on the north sides, and blowing out the Grotto in search of treasure and dumping the spoils down the robber's shaft. Scott Zema BA MA Architecture and Art History UW
this is where workers made toilet
Amazing that someone knew the mathematics and how to survey, in order to dig the well shaft so it intersects with the grotto. Further, and on down to the lower tunnel. That’s a serious undertaking.
Cool episode, Matt. To me, it looks like the guy on the left is the guy on the right and the photo on the left was likely taken by the other guy in the photo on the right, who is wearing a fairly modern pair of running shoe, Asics , I believe, although a real shoe guy can tell you exactly. That makes the photos from the seventies or later. I'm still wondering about the volume of the shaft and grotto and do they match? How did diggers of the shaft know to find the grotto behind? It seems more likely that the grotto predated the well shaft. Courses of blocks to seal off a potential sink hole.
Could it be a water basin?
Thanks for the hard work.
Okay tomber.
Thank you for your video Matt 🙂
Hope we can see your hypotheses proven right or wrong someday Matt: Grotto and Proto Sphinx made by de Maadi! You've done an incredible job explaining this culture. Thank you!
Great video! Very interesting as always!
Another intriguing but well thought out video, thanks Matt!
Worn out check valve
What’s more interests is the well shaft
What is it?
What can you do when you've got nothing to do ?