Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 1.djvu/312

 222 A History of Art in Ancient Egypt. meeting In a ridge, and giving the chamber a triangular section (see Fig. 152). Thanks to this succession of voids immediately over the main chamber, and to the pointed arch which surmounts them, the vertical pressure of the superstructure is discharged from the chamber itself and distributed over the lateral parts of the pyramid. These precautions have been quite effectual. Not a stone has been stirred either by the inward thrust or by the crushing of their substance ; not a block is out of place but those which have been disturbed by the violence of man ; and, moreover, the whole structure is so well bonded and so well balanced that even his violent attacks have led neither to dis- ruption nor settlement in the apartment of Cheops or in the galleries which lead to it.^ Fig. 153. — Longitudinal section through the hnver chambers ; perspective after Pening, The glory of the workmen who built the Great Pyramid is the masonry of the Grand Gallery, the gallery which opens immediately into the vestibule of the King's Chamber. As this corridor is 28 feet high and 7 feet wide, the visitor can breathe more freely than in the low and narrow passages which lead to ^ The discovery of these chambers Avas interesting from another point of view. The name of Choufou was found continually repeated upon the blocks of which they are formed. It was written in red ochre, and, in places, it was upside down, thus proving that it must have been written before the stones were put in place. It cannot therefore have been traced after the tradition which assigned the pyramid to Cheops, that is, to Khoufou, arose ; and so it affords conclusive corroboration of the statements of Herodotus.