The only evidence linking Djedefra to Abu Roash were the remains of a king’s head carved in dark purple quartzite found in some rubble near the site. A cartouche found with the head had the title Djedefra, so it was then assumed this was an individual who had the pyramid constructed for his tomb. Egyptologists state the style of the structure is a throwback to the 3rd Dynasty pyramids and is quite inferior compared to the Great Pyramid. The pyramid was built on a small hill and would only have been 190 feet tall if it had been completed, and is estimated to have been 348 feet to a side. When compared to the Great Pyramid which is 484 feet high (with capstone added, 454 feet high as it stands today) and 755 feet to a side, this pyramid would appear minuscule. Why would the son, having become king and with the same resource, material and manpower available to him as his father, have chosen to build such an inferior monument to himself?4
Two of three quartzite heads found during an excavation at the site in the early 1900s are in the Louvre Museum in Paris, and the third is in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. All of the heads were assigned to Djedefra.
In 2006, I had the opportunity to visit Abu Roash after the Magical Egypt Tour with John Anthony West. Instead of traveling home after the tour, I checked into the Mövenpick Hotel to meet up with David Childress, Jennifer Childress, and Steve Zagata, who were visiting Cairo at the time. They were also intrigued by Abu Roash, and because David was the publisher of Stephen Mehler’s book, he was aware of the site through Stephen’s writings. On February 21, 2006, we hired a taxi and headed north on the Alexandria road to a mysterious place I had never visited before but was going to see merely out of curiosity, without any expectations of finding anything of significance.
After traveling a few miles along the road to Alexandria, our driver’s Peugeot veered suddenly off the road and darted through a gap in a fence. This was not quite what I was expecting, but I hung onto my hat as the driver gunned the engine and the car started a rough and meandering climb up a hill with no sign of anything to indicate that this was a well-traveled road. Our driver had a talent for dodging the boulders that occasionally appeared on the path, and he had an air of confidence about him that indicated he had been here many times before.
As the taxi climbed the hill, we became level with a Ghaffir’s hut that was perched on the hillside. Running from the direction of the shack was a man wearing a galabeya and a smile. He approached the car and chatted with the taxi driver who told us that he was the guard for the site and would be expecting some baksheesh when we left. That seemed reasonable, so we went on and finally arrived at the summit to the north of what appeared to be a rough collection of blocks that resembled a mastaba. Surrounding the truncated and partially built—or partially destroyed—pyramid was a rough stone wall that was similar in construction to the Giza workers’ village. The stones were made of very rough blocks that were arranged like crazy paving.
My first impression was that compared to Giza, it was as unimpressive a site as I had seen, and I didn’t wonder why it was not on the list of sites that most tourists visit. This may change, however: the place has just recently received a revival of sorts and is being proclaimed “the Lost Pyramid” by Zahi Hawass. In walking around the pyramid, we came to the descending passageway (see figure 10.2), which eventually reaches a level where a large swath of material had been scooped out of the bedrock. Other passages, such as the descending passage in the Great Pyramid as well as the one in Khafre’s pyramid at Giza and Sneferu’s pyramids at Dahshur and Meidum, also lead to bedrock. The passage in the pyramid at Abu Roash is much wider—approximately 14 feet wider—than what is found in a finished pyramid (the Great Pyramid passageways being only 41 inches). This gives rise to the speculation that it was designed to allow passage of very large blocks that would be used in the construction of the chamber below where enough finished limestone to provide dimensions similar to those of other pyramids would be installed. The pit is open to the sky, so it could also be argued that the masonry could have been lowered from the top when the downward passage was completed. These are the conundrums that pyramids evoke—with no satisfying answers for those who may ruminate on them.
After I searched this planned bedrock chamber for significant evidence of stone cutting, I climbed to what served as the top of the pyramid in order to take in the view of the area. I was careful to stay away from the open pit because of the uneven surface, an abundance of loose rubble, and trip hazards. Also, from the top of the pyramid is an uninterrupted view of the three major pyramids at Giza, which is always an attention grabber, no matter where you are located within sight. While it is tempting to look around and feast your eyes on your surroundings, in Egypt it is always recommended that you keep your eyes on the ground while walking in elevated places.
Figure 10.2. The descending passageway inside the pyramid at Abu Roash
Figure 10.3. Looking up to the top of the pyramid from the bottom of the pit
Figure 10.4. Starting the climb to the top of the pyramid
Figure 10.5. The pit from the top of the pyramid at Abu Roash
When I moved to the east side of the pyramid, I could see below some of the structures that are claimed to be associated with mortuary ceremonies. Unlike those at Giza, these are not constructed of megalithic blocks of stone, such as those in Khafre’s temple, the Valley Temple, and the Sphinx Temple at Giza. Instead, they are cobbled together with small, rough blocks that could have been the tailings or chips from a limestone quarry, and they were plastered over with mud brick. It seemed clear to me that these structures were the product of a later culture and not the one that was responsible for building the pyramids at Giza or the one building the pyramid at Abu Roash.
Taking in more of the view, I saw a long gash in the ground running north to south between two rough stone walls, but, more important, an object in the forecourt closer to the pyramid below caught my eye (see plate 19). Though all around the site there are blocks of granite without any semblance of finish, unlike what we found at Giza, this lone block at Abu Roash was very different. As it turns out, it was different in a highly significant way.
A trip to the top of the Abu Roash pyramid is a brief excursion, for there is little to see once you have visited all four sides, and there are only a few steps between them. As I made my way down to the base of the pyramid, I was anxious to examine more closely what appeared from the top to be a finely finished surface on a block of granite—yet this block was unique beyond being the sole finished piece on the site. Upon approaching it, I could see that someone before had also seen some significance in it, because they had raised it up and placed it on rough blocks of stone. This was convenient for me, because it meant I didn’t have to stoop as far to see it or wonder how thick the piece was if sand had gathered around it.
Figure 10.6 Chris Dunn and David Childress examine the granite block at Abu Roash.
Figure 10.7. Concave surface of the granite block at Abu Roash
As it turns out, the finished surface I saw from the top of the pyramid was indeed a very smooth, seemingly machined surface—but it did not have the flatness of other machined blocks of granite I had inspected. The surface was actually concave. It was totally unexpected to find a machined concave surface on a block of granite. After visiting numerous sites around Egypt, from Saqqara to Aswan, and measuring perfectly flat surfaces on granite artifacts, coming across one with a concave surface (see plate 20) that was fully exposed made me sit up and take notice, because it provided opportunities for examination that were not offered by the curved paving blocks near Khephren’s pyramid.
Knowing that someone must have had knowledge of this stone in the past, it was imperative that I find out who may have taken note of these inexplicable features of the granite. I found the following obscure reference that while lacking in detail, may have been addressing this particular stone: “When Petrie investigated he found a curved fragment thought to be from a pink granite sarcophagus in the burial chamber and the French-Swiss team have r
ecently found a copper axe blade which was part of a foundation deposit.”5
We can see another inexplicable feature of this stone. The smooth concave surface (figure 10.8) ends in another concave radius where this block had evidently broken away from another block. I took some other photographs during my visit this day, but after looking closely at what I had when I arrived home, I realized that I needed better photographs in order to analyze the artifact properly. Nonetheless, the implications of the piece amazed me while at the same time giving me a better understanding of the ancient Egyptians’ mastery of their craft than what is conveyed in tomb drawings, such as those shown in figures 10.9 and 10.10.
Nothing on this planet compares to ancient Egyptian stonework. It must be studied in the way that Dr. Peter Lu, of Yale University, studied ancient China. He concluded that the ancient Chinese must have used compound machines three thousand years ago. His research, published in Science,6 is systematic, logical, and hard to refute.
He made this groundbreaking discovery while studying jade burial rings M1:7 from Tomb 1 of the Chu minister at Henan Xichuan Xiasi (552 BCE) that had been carefully inscribed with what appeared to be equally spaced spiral grooves. A simple camera and computer-aided design program were the tools with which Dr. Lu was able to draw his inference. Replication of the spirals was accomplished experimentally by a mechanical scribing tool guided by precise linear and rotational motions.
Figure 10.8. Radial features of the granite block at Abu Roash
If we apply the same methods as those of Dr. Lu, what would the stone at Abu Roash tell us about its origins and the tools that were employed to make it? After my visit in February 2006, I tried to imagine the kind of tool that created this piece and how it was applied. Because of the radial features, it became clear that only a large circular saw would have been able to create the two radii on this block. The question that nagged me, though, was what was the size of the saw? My photographs were not taken along the same axis as the radius, so any dimensions calculated from them would be wrong. A better set of photographs was necessary to accurately calculate the radius. Here again, I was affected by the same tantalizing and passionate need that was similar to how I felt after examining my photographs from Luxor and other sites: I had to gather more data.
Figures 10.9 (top) and 10.10 (below). Tomb drawings of Egyptian stoneworkers
Judd Peck and I traveled the same route to Abu Roash on May 4, 2006, that I had traveled in February—though this time with a different taxi driver. The routine, however, was the same: the friendly fellow from the shack came to us, we agreed to baksheesh, and we had the site to ourselves. This time, I packed a good tripod, a right-angle viewer, a remote shutter release, and a more versatile lens. Though I don’t claim to be a professional photographer, I listened to their advice, which was to get good optics and electronics. The EOS Canon Digital Rebel was not the best camera on the market, but for what I was doing, it was good enough, and better lenses and electronics meant I didn’t have to suffer the anomalies of a cheap digital camera.
Figure 10.11. Drawing of the Abu Roash stone depicting the x, y, and z axes
I set up my tripod on top of the stone, and I was able to get a photograph close enough to the axis of the radius that ended the machined surface (plate 21 B and C), which I have identified as the z axis in figure 10.11. Then I took a photograph along the length of the block to get as close as I could to parallel the axis of the surface radius (plate 21 E), which I have identified as the y axis in figure 10.11. The concave surface radius rotates around the y axis and the concave radius where the cut terminates rotates around the z axis. Except for two surface irregularities at 12 inches and 37 inches, as seen in plate 21 B, the surface is true to the segment of a cylinder.
Looking closer at the surface of the block in figure 10.12, we can see striations that are spaced between approximately 0.030 inch (0.762 millimeter) to 0.06 inch (1.52 millimeters) apart. These are a common feature on many artifacts found in Egypt, including some holes and the cores that were extracted from the holes. With respect to the tools that created these marks, Petrie describes cutting with saws in his 1883 book, The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh, and he concludes that the ancient Egyptians must have had cutting materials harder than quartz and that the marks were created through the action of a single cutting point:
Figure 10.12. Close-up of surface showing saw-cut feed rate
We therefore need have no hesitation in allowing that the graving out of lines in hard stones by jewel points, was a well-known art. And when we find on the surfaces of the saw-cuts in diorite, grooves as deep as 1/100 inch, it appears far more likely that such were produced by fixed jewel points in the saw, than by any fortuitous rubbing about of a loose powder. And when, further, it is seen that these deep grooves are almost always regular and uniform in depth and equidistant, their production by the successive cuts of the jewel teeth of a saw appears to be beyond question. The best examples of equidistance are the specimens of basalt No. 4 (Pl. viii.), and of diorite No. 12; [see figure 10.13] in these the fluctuations are no more than such as always occur in the use of a saw by hand-power, whether worked in wood or in soft stone.7
The straight saws varied from .03 to 0.2 inch thick, according to the work; the largest were 8 feet or more in length, as the cuts run lengthways on the Great Pyramid coffer, which is 7 feet 6 in. long. The examples of saw cuts figured in Pl. xiv. [see figure 10.13] are as follow [sic]. No. 1, from the end of the Great Pyramid coffer of granite, showing where the saw cut was run too deep into the stuff twice over, and backed out again. No. 2, a piece of syenite, picked up at Memphis; showing cuts on four faces of it, and the breadth of the saw by a cut across the top of it. This probably was a waste piece from cutting out a statue in the rough. No. 3, a piece of basalt, showing a saw cut run askew, and abandoned, with the sawing dust and sand left in it; a fragment from the sawing of the great basalt pavement on the East of the Great Pyramid. No. 4, another piece from the same pavement, showing regular and well-defined lines. No. 5, a slice of basalt from the same place, sawn on both sides, and nearly sawn in two. No. 6, a slice of diorite bearing equidistant and regular grooves of circular arcs, parallel to one another; these grooves have been nearly polished out by crossed grinding, but still are visible. The only feasible explanation of this piece is that it was produced by a circular saw [author’s italicized emphasis]. The main examples of sawing at Gizeh are the blocks of the great basalt pavement, and the coffers of the Great, Second, and Third Pyramids, the latter, unhappily, now lost.8
Figure 10.13. Plate xiii from The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh
Because most of the literature discussing the sawing of blocks is centered on the Giza Plateau, we will leave Abu Roash for a while and travel to Giza to examine the basalt pavement to the east of the Great Pyramid that Petrie had examined. Taking an overall view of the pavement, we can see that many of the tool marks would not even be noticed if we were not looking for them or were not familiar with these types of surfaces. In fact, an afternoon spent studying the pavement will confirm the fact that most tourists who visit the pyramids pass it by without even a second look. The majority of the surfaces on the top and side are rough—presumed by some theorists to have been dressed with a hammer. The bottoms were not important to the builders, for they set the blocks like tiles in gypsum mortar, and we can see the rough contours of the underside of the paving blocks embedded in this material.
I had been able to take many photographs of this pavement, and while Petrie discusses three examples from the basalt pavement in his book, there are more than a dozen blocks in this pavement with all manner of saw marks. Some appear to be straight and others are curved, similar to those on the block at Abu Roash. The saw marks appear distinct and vary in pitch very little with each striation, for the most part, following a uniform path from one end to the other.
As we can see on figure 10.15 A, the width of the saw cuts on the basalt pavement are approximately 0.23 inch (6 millimeters)
. The striations in figure 10.15 B (seen with the northeast side of the Great Pyramid in the background) and C give photographic evidence of those that Petrie discussed in his book. Other blocks have more unusual features, and there is no easy conclusion as to how they were created. For instance, in figure 10.16, we see evidence of saw marks that appear to be radial, judging by the termination of the cut.
Figure 10.14. The basalt pavement east of the Great Pyramid
It appears that the piece was cut in two stages. As we can see in figures 10.16 A and B, there is a regular long cut across the piece with the evidence of a step where either the saw was moved or the piece moved—it is impossible to tell which as either scenario could cause this effect. Toward the end of the right side of the piece, however, it appears that a circular saw cut farther down from where the long cut (area L) would normally have ended, and figure 10.16 C shows the striations gradually changing their angle until the termination point is met—that termination point appearing to be a concave radius (area M). Yet figure 10.16 B does not indicate a radius at the termination point, and we might conclude that a view of the piece on an angle that sees a straight cut only on a curved face would produce this geometry. When we look down on the piece in figure 10.16 A, however—albeit this is not quite a vertical perspective—the curve of the face does not appear significant enough to create such an effect.
Lost Technologies of Ancient Egypt: Advanced Engineering in the Temples of the Pharaohs Page 23
