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Documented history of The Great Pyramid begins in 820 AD, when the Caliph of Baghdad, Abdullah Al Mamoun (786-833), forced his way through the north face in search of a fabled treasure of ancient documents and artifacts. Exactly what Mamoun expected to find inside the pyramid is difficult to say. He is reported to be an educated man who tried, without success, to calculate the true circumference of the Earth, and who sought to regain ancient navigational knowledge that had been lost when the library of Alexandria was destroyed.Some asshole a couple centuries ago or more cut a tunnel through the mofo because they didn’t find the door.
It’s not rubble on the inside, that’s fairly common knowledge..
Hacking blindly into the base of the pyramid, Mamoun eventually broke into the Descending Passage just below its carefully hidden junction with the Ascending Passage. From here he was free to explore everything in the pyramid’s lower interior, from the formally concealed entrance (ironically just a few feet from his forced tunnel) to the lower passages and Subterranean Chambers. Finding nothing that interested him in the lower part of the interior, Mamoun turned his attention to the foot of the Ascending Passage, which, after remaining concealed for thousands of years, had been exposed when its stone seal had been dislodged by his excavations.
Ordered to tunnel up and around what was eventually discovered to be three huge granite plugs (still wedged firmly in place today), Mamoun’s men smashed out core masonry and then broke up several smaller limestone plugs which had been placed behind the heavier, harder and more securely wedged granite. Having finally gained access to the Ascending Passage, Mamoun climbed into the heart of the pyramid, where he found the upper end of the Well Shaft, the Grand Gallery, the King & Queen’s Chambers and almost all other known features located in the upper body of the pyramid.
It is both interesting and important to note that Mamoun and his men, after tunneling horizontally for a hundred feet through solid stone, now went to almost unimaginable lengths to tunnel upward, around the granite plugs that blocked the Ascending Passage. This would seem to confirm, once again, that the bottom of the Well Shaft was effectively concealed at that time. If this had not been so, it would have been far easier for Mamoun’s men to remove the loose rubble that we know filled the Well Shaft, than to tunnel upward through solid stone.
One can only imagine Mamoun’s thoughts as he and his men explored the upper part of the pyramid. The disappointment of finding only cramped passages and empty chambers, and the confusion of staring into the empty coffer must have been heart breaking. Although the treasure Mamoun sought had, quite literally, been staring him in the face since before he’d broken into the pyramid, it remained concealed by his own greed, and he was eventually forced to pay his men from his own pocket. Aside from a few interesting but unsubstantiated rumors to the contrary, the interior features of the pyramid are all that were exposed at that time and, regrettably, both the pyramid and mankind failed to benefit from their discovery.
Despite his reputation as an educated and enlightened man, Mamoun shamelessly savaged the Great Pyramid and left without giving its size, orientation and curiously arranged passages & chambers another thought. Open to the elements for the first time since it was built, the battered and bruised pyramid quietly awaited a much more serious and deadly attack.