He stays within the utterly debunked orthodox story of the pyramids so no he isn’t. He’s a historian with one eye closed. Which is why all his videos struggle to make sense of observable evidence . They do not fit the story he is forced to support
Damn, this channel is great. For a couple of years I’ve been on and off obsessed with this subject and it’s so hard to avoid all the woo woo theories. These are so well produced, evidence based theories, with no BS….I love it. Thanks for making these!
its refreshing to get some good videos on pyramids that avoid all that nonsense. have been interested for a while and was put off videos on pyramids for that reason. happy to find this channel.
Wow. You're blowing my mind with this stuff. I've never seen 1/4 of the pictures and videos and shots of the pyramids that you show and I am absolutely hooked. This is the glimpse into the pyramids that I've always wanted to see.
9:44 You could totally slide a block down from above to block it off. The bottom of the block does not need to be square like that since it is obscured by the rest of the floor. It only needs to be flat against whatever it's sitting on. It could have had rounded or chamfered off bottom edges and they could have pulled on the top of the stone and wedged it into the slot holding it upright with ropes. Maybe the chamfered bottom edge was actually visible or damaged after they set it and that's why robbers were able to identify that it was covering something up?
When the ancient architects concur we can be safer in a consensus of opinion. Matt having a geological education brings added gravitas to an already cogent explanation.
i work for a company that does internal laserscans. its like 5 points per centimerer, super accurate 3d information with colors and everything. It annoys the shit out of me that those monuments are not scanned for everyone to virtually explore. I would take not a day for a single person to scan the internel space of a pyramid... (without the well, that would be probably a bit harder)
Great video. I've always been fascinated by the well shaft, and surprised that it seems to get almost no attention at all. One of the things that I find interesting about it is that it seems to be simultaneously both very deliberately constructed and roughly constructed. So it's unlikely to be the work of some robber trying to break in. But it also lacks the smooth finish of the other passageways, including the recently explored "air shafts." So it's an outlier. I've also heard conflicting stories about whether the above-the-bedrock parts of it were carved after-the-fact out of the limestone blocks, or whether it was in the original original construction. I really wish someone would do a modern exploration of it, so that we can all get a good read on what it looks like.
65 years ago I saw a picture of the Pyramids for the first time on fine milled semi gloss pages of an encyclopedia that my older cousin had just received from her parents to help with school work. It has been a fascination ever since . Up to the present time I have listened to, heard , and read about many theories from the over simplistic to the most outlandish relative to their intended purpose .What they could be , how they were breeched for the first time . You analysis is well structured , concise and imbued of the commonsense that too often is missing from the multitude of theories that litter about . I retired in 2016 from a multi disciplined engineering career, and had planned to finally visit them in 2018 person but deferred to go in 2019, hoping to test my opinion and theory about them through on site observation such as non archeologists are allowed . My bad luck , the worldwide plague that is COVID , hit humanity , resembling a more manageable version of the middle ages bubonic plague... perhaps I will get my wish as soon as this insanity is yesterday`s news .
I wanted my own set of encyclopedias very badly when I was a kid in the 80s. They sold them door to door and they were outrageous! I guess I got my wish with the internet. I hope you get to visit the pyramids, I'd love to do the same sometime.
I really believe that we are in a golden age of discovery. Whether it's about the Giza pyramids, or Egypt in general, or esoterica, or alchemy, or history in general, or whatever, I feel that we are breaking through centuries of stasis and are now advancing more than we have for an age. It's truly an exciting time to be alive.
Your videos make clear why it is important to receive information from teachers who have properly evaluated the evidence before drawing conclusions. Thank you for you line of inquiry!
Another fantastic video! As an aside, it never ceases to amaze me that persons visiting an ancient monument would leave so much trash and litter lying about, and that the authorities ’protecting’ these places seem to do little to ensure that it is promptly removed! That’s Egypt I guess.
It’s so much more interesting watching videos explaining parts of the pyramids and their discovery in detail with actual reference material instead of just 20 drone shots and a voiceover saying trite things we all know “very old, very mysterious, built with x amount blocks yada yada”. Great work. This is a great digestion of actual material regarding that pyramids that can otherwise be a bit dry for the lay person. This is what asking questions actually looks like, not like the rhetorical questions asks by people like Hancock.
In the Sumerian text they tell the story of Marduk being trapped down there by Enlil or a son of Enlil, and was rescued by his father Enki by opening this tunnel to bypass the blockage.
🙂 Thank you for the amount of work you put into preparing your concise, picture assisted findings. You have certainly added to my being able to visualise your analysis of what was, and is. With deep thanks, Ray ! 🙂
Again a good video. We do know in the new kingdom that the priests themselves organised some tomb robberies as they have found written evidence to this effect. It also strikes me that ‘the Kings chamber was designed to be re entered as it is closed off by a portcullis system.This is a system designed to be raised as well as lowered. It would have been far easier to use a massive blocking plug if you wanted a one off seal..
The only thing that makes sense is that the well shaft was for water to drain. It was purposely aimed toward the grotto, which was almost certainly a natural feature of the plateau. I would guess that water condensing on the plateau tended to drain into this depression, and it was preserved because the water that collected there percolated down into the ground. The Egyptians knew that water would condense between the stones of the construction and find its way to the foundation, and since the ground surface naturally drained to this low point of the grotto, they left it and protected it from silting up. The shaft allowed debris and sand to drop down the shaft, but water could seep thru the masonry into the grotto. The rest of the shaft was cut after the fact when it became apparent that water was backing up the grotto shaft as the pyramid was built. This would likely be due to any infrequent rain, but mostly to the fact that water was being used during the contruction to lubricate saws and drills and finish sanding stones to fit. Since the subterranean chamber had likely been abandoned by this point, the decision was made to cut an extension to the grotto shaft to drain the water into the lowest chamber of the pyramid where it would have a lot more surface area to percolate thru. They had to use their limited surveying skills to try and intercept the descending corridor, and I suspect they changed the planned angle toward the end of the project when they were suspicious that they had tunneled far enough and still not hit it. But the gentler angle argues a basic sense of plumbing. That you want the shaft angled gently enough that debris that falls down the shaft will be carried by the water, and tend to deposit on the bottom of the shaft and leave the top clear so the shaft does not readily get plugged. And you make it large enough for a man because it MIGHT get plugged and you have to send a man to unplug it. In any event, once construction was complete, the water in the subterranean chamber would eventually have percolated away allowing it to be used for grave goods or what have you, if they had chosen.
I love your videos, glad I found them, too often these types of videos leave me rolling my eyes, this is a huge W. I think you should do a video on tooling and quarrying methods
Fantastic channel, fascinated with the pyramids and the level of research and detail you present. Ancient Architects brought me here, another great channel.
Other thoughts: perhaps the Grotto was a repository for ritual objects or items used for mummification. We saw this in the latest discovery in the Valley of the Kings. A ritual object storage chamber. Also, plausibly the lower granite plugged corridor in the pyramid was an extension of whatever mechanical system was used in the Grand Gallery to hoist people and materials upwards into the pyramid, such as a counterweight chamber for a heavy wooden flat ascending and descending platform, like a warehouse elevator, moving up and down the Grand Gallery and carrying cargo and people from the now plugged entry tunnel at the north end of the Grand Gallery up to the King's Chamber platform, and then from that upper platform back down again to the base of the Grand Gallery. The lower counter diagonal corridor leading to the sloping corridor below has the same slope as the Grand Gallery and exists perhaps because it was part of the whole elevating system, and incidentally this corridor is of a similar length as the Gallery sloping above. I admit I haven't worked out completely how this mechanism worked, but it was surely not as Mr. Houdin has described, who must be credited in any case for highlighting the basic idea. In the meantime, where did these blocks and others come from in the first place, if not in the pyramid front door above? So perhaps Al-Ma'mun's workers broke into the elevator counterweight system when they tunneled past the granite blocks (and by the way discovered a long-time empty pyramid inside). Another thought I can't help thinking. Egyptologists say the Old Kingdom possessed no knowledge of the wheel. But the reconstruction of the mechanism used to lower the portcullises at the King's Chamber shows rolling cylinders as part of the mechanism. I am probably never going to argue the point exhaustively on such a broad issue, but even despite the ancient depictions of statuary being moved by sled and the presence of a sled in the Cairo museum, did it never occurred to any of these very bright people to use a wheel or rolling logs over the course of centuries to move objects? Scott Zema BA MA Architecture and Art History
But if the main corridore was already sealed, how did they have light to work? Torches or other burning would have left soot on the ceilings, but there is no soot.
@@Rusty_Gold85 Mirrors were my first thought but they were quite valued by those people so they would have taken good care of them and preserved them but we haven't found any in the sizes or quantities required to get light clear into the deepest grottos and chambers. You would think that people who worshipped a sun god would have wanted actual sun rays so mirrors would be logical yet there are no artifacts or records of something like this that had deep religious significance.
A lot of egyptologists (professional, not amateur) are stuck in their thinking so badly, they can never see any other possibility for something, as what was thought to them. Or they have a finacial stake in keeping it this way. Most of them I dont listen to, so it would be very possible they had some kind of wheel.
The well shaft was likely part of original construction. The subterranean chambers were usually dug first, so the descending passage and well shaft existed before blocks were made. As they laid courses of blocks they were able to extend the well shaft to the bottom of the grand gallery. It likely served as a secondary entrance for workers digging the subterranean chamber or a design change was made once they started digging and the descending passage was the finished route.
Looking at the sheer angles of descent and length of the well shaft, it strikes me that this shaft was not dug from the bottom up. To wield hammers and chisels UPWARDS for that whole length of shaft would entail absolutely unimaginable hard work and a very, very long time to accomplish. Even assuming that the fittest strongest men around dug it, how long would they swing a heavy hammer upwards into the stone, only achieving tiny amounts before they were tired beyond endurance? The very task would destroy the heart of any worker almost immediately. Even working in continuous rotation upwards would entail a crowd of workers all being down there at once, constantly stopping to change- and one worker coming down a ladder and one going up it, to do his tiny little part until he is knackered, and so on. For literally years. I would love to see anyone try and replicate a group of workers digging a shaft upwards through the stone work. Even the fittest of people wouldn’t get much done at all before they were too fatigued to carry on. The difference between digging a shaft from the top down, and digging one from the bottom up, must be immense.
Not to mention the digger getting hit by every chunk of rock he managed to dislodge if digging above the head. And remember that the 'unfinished' chamber and likely most (if not all) of the digging in the bedrock was finished before they built the pyramid above it.
@@recoilrob324 yeah imagine the stuff going into a persons eyes? I worked with a builder and I was chiselling concrete and I got a bit lodged into my cornea. A few hours later it was absolute agony. Any kind of light was agony. The doctor put a numbing solution into my eye but couldn’t dig it out with a needle. I had to go into a hospital in Edinburgh and have an operation to remove the tiny piece of concrete. Doctor said if it’s went through into my eye I would’ve lost my eye. He said he gets people in with metal filings in the eye from angle grinders, they use a strong magnet to pull those out, but concrete? Completely different. That tunnel would’ve blinded thousands of men. Unless they worked with a cloth over their eyes blind! In which case it would take double the time to hack it out. It has to have been done from the top down surely.
Even digging down with simple hand tools would be a monumental task, it would need a work crew on constant rotation with all waste being removed from the tunnel ,how long would it have taken? Maybe a year ? And how does ventilation work when they had to use lamps to see what they are doing. Also if this is a robbers tunnel how did they gain access to the pyramid in order to excavate this tunnel? I thought the pyramid was sealed until the entrance was blown up with dynamite ?
@@johnnycash3117 yeah that too. There couldn’t have been ANY air to breathe deep inside there digging upwards with a hammer and chisel breathing in oil lamp smoke the whole time! Blindfolded against stone chips! Would take a team of men so long that they’d still be building it today and we could just ask them what it’s for!
I am very excited for your video on the robbers tunnel. To me it seems that the diggers of the tunnel knew the internal layout of the pyramid, which means it was probably dug during the old kingdom, not thousands of years later like some claim.
Who said there was anything of monetary,or other acquisition? They did. not find any evidence of any king,queen, puppy,bird anything buried inside...Makes ya wonder right ? I always found that to be fascinating.
4:00 I think this is FIRST step of building this pyramid. The loose sand was there to level under the first layer of stones. The granite boulder had to stop there and the thieves made a hole and made a "grotto" to unlock their way.
A gravity tractor moved up and down in the large gallery, helping to carry heavy blocks uphill for the construction of the chamber. The tractor was loaded at the top and the load was removed at the bottom. How efficiently could this be done? Workers could load small stones or bags and carry them up for further use (the question is where). Another idea is to use sand, ideally loose, liquid. At the bottom, you just turn over or open the tank on the tractor and the sand will go away, somewhere down. The tractor can work quickly up and down and does not delay. But then you have to carry the sand back up to the upper end of the gallery. The ideal medium is water. It is easily drained from the containers on the tractor and flows down. Below is an underground chamber with a well, the water flows there and seeps into the bedrock. Use water, drain the tractor's ballast tank and forget about it. The cavern could have been washed away by the water released during operation. The cavern was repaired (it may have been originally completely filled) and work continued. Draining the water into the descending corridor was not ideal, the counterweight for the tractor moved here and would have damaged the limestone of the corridor. Only a vertical shaft straight down would have been simpler, but it means that the water would then have to flow through the entire descending corridor and destroy the limestone, or dig the entire lower chamber (in the volume necessary to accommodate the volume of water before it is absorbed) with the drainage pipe again. The water would also gain great speed and destroy the place of impact. An oblique passage is safer. The change in the angle of the shaft route was probably due to the unsuitable softer subsoil. How did the water get up to the top of the gallery? People could have carried it out in a bag, used some kind of mechanical conveyor, or it rained on the top of the building and was led into tanks (in the place of the royal chamber, filled perhaps through air shafts). At the time of construction, the climate was more humid, not desert, there were savannas and palm groves, regular seasonal rains, at the top of the construction, on the large platform, there must have been a lot of mud and a problem with where to get the rainwater...
TY for clearing this up. For a long time i thought the well shaft was part of the original construction of the pyramid, but with these pictures you showed us it seems obvious it was an improvised yet very well calculated descending gallery made by intrepid tomb robbers.
I hope that when you create your next video on the Robbers' Tunnel, you explore the possibility that the only "treasure" they left with was the lid of the "King's Chamber" sarcophagus, which explains why the "turn" in the tunnel was so much wider than needed for individuals. You might also want to investigate the mysterious looting that took place in a single night during the Arab Spring in 2010, when a well-financed group, supported with armed mercenaries in black and using heavy equipment, located a rectangular item not far from the Great Pyramid onto a flat bed truck, and disappeared from site.
Securing of the well shaft. The form the stone has to plug, its shape with having less stone on top, would be the shape for sliding in. Lay it on its side and the less weight on one side helps it fall without flipping over. Leverage is the key ingredient. Not saying thats how it was made here, but it would be possible.
It’s so nice to see someone use actual logic and known facts instead of crazy conjecture about aliens and gods forming the pyramids. I’ve loved Egyptology my whole life and at last a well laid out fact driven video series has arrived.
Great video! To me it seems plausible that the well shaft was already there when the pyramid was built. Many buildings have been built over old wells or old storage rooms, which have therefore been concealed. There could be hundreds if not thousands of years between the construction of the different parts of the pyramids. Even the well shaft itself could have been extended in the process of building the pyramid. Are there any more clues to what could be the case?
The fact that the upper entrance stones have ben crudely broken open may be evidence that the entire shaft was made by tomb raiders. Then again the perfecty vertical shaft that leads to the "cavern" chamber could have been part of the original design. Hard to know unless we can get some new HD pics of the entire shaft. However i think that the part below the "grotto" looks very rough in schematics so it is probably made by robbers trying to access the secret underground chambers that they had learned from in legends. Because of multiple great floods, pyramids were cluttered with debris and sand in the lower levels, but there were in antiquity, as we have today, ancient texts that spoke of the lower tunnels and chambers. I think that the robbers found one of these stories and made a monumental effort to get to the underground chamber. Imagine how many tonnes of earth they had to dig out and lift to the surface in a 50m vertical shaft, just to reach an underground chamber that was also empty. XD Poor bastards. Still i would love to see that movie. These pyramids were ancient industrial structures, so they never had anything of value to rob until the pharaos repurposed them and started using them as burial "mounds". But in reality, most of the megalithic pyramids never had anything in them. They once held some machines which eroded away many thousands of years before even the first pharaos started to excavate them.
I think the well shaft is the key to unlock the misteries of the Great Pyramid. If it wasn't for Al Mamun's tunnel I would say the pyramyd was never finished. But the need to open a tunnel to get anything out dismantle this idea.
One of the most obvious things to me since I was much younger looking at prints of the interior of the pyramid is how the discovered interior spaces are almost certainly auxiliary ones. At this point, I think the biggest obstacle to further discovery is propaganda and/or state obfuscation due to reliance on tourism & merchandise.
They went to a lot of trouble to fake going to the moon and still try to hold on to those lies, nothing is out of the question and answers are still wanting.
@@frostedpanda Unfortunately we live in world where questions are asked, but no answers are given ...those who do know some of the answers have too much too much to lose if they give them up . It is refreshing to know that drinking KOOL AID does not appeal to more than just myself , its a small club , I was 16 in 1969 when that HOAX was perpetrated for the first time on the whole of humanity . I have a TH-cam running bet with a moron who claimed to be a NASA engineer , " he lost it " while disagreeing with me about comments I made about returning to the moon by 2024 , since my position cited photographic evidence that proves not having gotten there during the Apollo program . I sincerely hope that this whomever it was has the gonads to contact me in 2024, I am looking forward to it .It will be a fine year, BIDEN THE REPROBATE will be out the WHITE HOUSE door as one termer, turned nursing home resident , and the moon... well in 2024 ...it will still be only just for the man on the moon .
Could it simply be for communication? Like the whisper galleries in gloucester cathedral. Where you can hear a whisper from one end to the other almost like the person at the other end is whispering in you ear.
Really love this channel, am always waiting for the next video. Well presented clear concise explanations. One question I have is, I have read that the the chamber in the well shaft is a natural spring and is always damp. Do you think there was a construction around this spring before the pyramid was even built and they built on top of it and incorporated it into it? Really strange layout and construction so many bends and linings etc. maybe it was drainage of the spring water which was more active when they were built.
Surely there would be a puddle or a pool in the subterranean chamber or somewhere else if there was a spring. It seems bone dry in the pyramid and it's underground structures.
@@ThunderboltWisdom apparently it’s not bone dry, can’t remember where I read or seen it but the walls and floor are damp to the touch and never fully dry out as though it’s a spring probably not as active now but in the past it might of been 🤷♂️
Well, that's one of the Great Pyramid's mysteries. Was the Grotto a natural spring? Supposedly it was very wet in there when the early explorers got to it. Some people have made the case that it ties into the ancient Egyptians' creation myth of a mound rising from the waters for the sun god Re to rest on (the pyramid being a representation of the primeval mound).
I know that Matt from AA has proposed this. It's an interesting idea, but I feel that the pyramid being so large that the quality/size of the foundation was the real determining factor. Any moisture that is now inside is certainly from visitor perspiration getting trapped.
As for the walls being damp, that is something I've never heard, but I have heard that they have a layer of salt and minerals on them and that is supposedly something to do with moisture being wicked up from below at some time in the ancient past. So I suppose there may have been a spring at some point in the past as springs do change over time due to underground geological changes. I was of the understanding that the moisture may have come from the Nile, picking up the minerals on the way and depositing them on the inside of the structure. But, again, that is part of the mystery of the Giza plateau. The fact that the Nile has dropped so much away from the site may have stopped all this at some point though.
Great analysis! If you believe in the royal circuit theory, the mouth of the well shaft at the base of the grand gallery could be a secondary access point to the royal circuit, running parallel to the existing corridor to the queen's chamber. The eastern wall of the queen's chamber has non-load-bearing stones just north of the known entrance, which may open the lower arm of the royal circuit.
at 9:47 couldn't the block slide down the bench from above, if, at the angled part of the illustrated (red) block there was a divot, where a log could be arranged to stop the sliding, thus allowing the bottom of the block to pivot the required 30 degrees or so, to allow it to slide down and plug the hole? Especially if it was already sliding and let gravity do the work?
Persons travelling down the descending path carrying wide reed screens to induce airflow would force air up the vertical channel to clear torch smoke and cool. Having bends in the shaft would allow water poured in there to more effectively cover the shafts walls and cool air better that's passing through the shaft. Smoke exiting with celestial alignment :)
Two ideas come to mind. I wonder if the lower entrance to the well shaft was found by someone using a hammer on the walls in the descending corridor and listening for a hollow sound. Secondly, is there any merit in the idea that the passage was a drain until the area was roofed over?
Just a thought (and maybe influenced by the movie "Land of the Pharohs" when I was a kid) but what would have happened if the shaft were sealed at the bottom, filled with sand and then unsealed when everything was done? Would the side chamber compensate for the extra sand required by the change of direction at the end?
Hi, concerning the well shaft changing directions downwards. Just a thought: If you extent the upper slanted part is it possible that it would end up at the exact same place, I mean : suppose the grotto was an unexpected find during the dig and they would have going down intentionally at the same angle, Only interrupted by the grotto and now had to go around. I haven’t have the information to find out if this is correct but I am confident you have the right resources for checking that. ( or maybe it has been suggested already a zillion times !)
i think the fact that the well was forced open from above does potentially indicate it was closed and hidden at the bottom. a raiding party would have the time and knowledge to survey the accessible workings and realize that the well shaft rises to equal in height to the entrance, and the blocking stone would be an obvious point of investigation. with access to the bottom of the well shaft, they wouldn't need to excavate several meters of core stones to gain access to the grand gallery, they'd only need to break through a meter of stone at the top of the well. and since both tasks can only be worked on by one worker at a time, they'd at least have attempted to explore the top of the gallery. any small items can be taken out through there, and the robber's tunnel can be planned from there for larger items. so if access to the well would have made raiding the the pyramid quite a bit easier, why wouldn't they have used it to gain further access if not for it being closed off at the time? as for the question of plugging the top from behind: lowering a 3000lbs block into place really wouldn't have been that great a challenge. the average man can move an object of that weight with levers and wedges, and an arrangement of box cribbing or similar would allow it to be lowered a significant distance. here's how i see it: a team of workers helps to seal the accending coridor by working from above. they have a prearanged well plug set up on cribbing, allowing esscape via the wellshaft. after the accending corridor is sealed, all but 1 or 2 of the workers climb down the well. the remaining couple of workers then lower the well plug a final foot or so, and the block wedges itself under the cut in on the wall of the grand gallery. once plugged, the team exits the bottom, where it can be blocked in as well, and then a layer of mortar and paint is the quickly forgotten final seal on Khufu's tomb, for centuries to come.
Hands down, this here is the best channel for people actually interested in the Egyptian pyramids. Thank you for your well researched videos
What, no aliens? LOL
I'm stiff for it.
OOOOOOhhhOhohhoHOHoHhoOHHOHAHAHA
He stays within the utterly debunked orthodox story of the pyramids so no he isn’t. He’s a historian with one eye closed. Which is why all his videos struggle to make sense of observable evidence . They do not fit the story he is forced to support
AGREED 100%
Damn, this channel is great. For a couple of years I’ve been on and off obsessed with this subject and it’s so hard to avoid all the woo woo theories.
These are so well produced, evidence based theories, with no BS….I love it.
Thanks for making these!
its refreshing to get some good videos on pyramids that avoid all that nonsense. have been interested for a while and was put off videos on pyramids for that reason. happy to find this channel.
Wow. You're blowing my mind with this stuff. I've never seen 1/4 of the pictures and videos and shots of the pyramids that you show and I am absolutely hooked. This is the glimpse into the pyramids that I've always wanted to see.
9:44 You could totally slide a block down from above to block it off. The bottom of the block does not need to be square like that since it is obscured by the rest of the floor. It only needs to be flat against whatever it's sitting on. It could have had rounded or chamfered off bottom edges and they could have pulled on the top of the stone and wedged it into the slot holding it upright with ropes. Maybe the chamfered bottom edge was actually visible or damaged after they set it and that's why robbers were able to identify that it was covering something up?
I completely agree. You’ve made total sense - as always!
Hey, Matt! ^_^
When the ancient architects concur we can be safer in a consensus of opinion.
Matt having a geological education brings added gravitas to an already cogent explanation.
the way you speak in your videos is annoying
i work for a company that does internal laserscans. its like 5 points per centimerer, super accurate 3d information with colors and everything.
It annoys the shit out of me that those monuments are not scanned for everyone to virtually explore.
I would take not a day for a single person to scan the internel space of a pyramid... (without the well, that would be probably a bit harder)
Great video. I've always been fascinated by the well shaft, and surprised that it seems to get almost no attention at all. One of the things that I find interesting about it is that it seems to be simultaneously both very deliberately constructed and roughly constructed. So it's unlikely to be the work of some robber trying to break in. But it also lacks the smooth finish of the other passageways, including the recently explored "air shafts." So it's an outlier. I've also heard conflicting stories about whether the above-the-bedrock parts of it were carved after-the-fact out of the limestone blocks, or whether it was in the original original construction. I really wish someone would do a modern exploration of it, so that we can all get a good read on what it looks like.
I’ve really been enjoying this channel. You have taught me so much that other Egypt videos never talk about. Keep up the great work mate
This tuff is just so awesome. I'm a big fan of the no nonsense style and presentation. Thanks
65 years ago I saw a picture of the Pyramids for the first time on fine milled semi gloss pages of an encyclopedia that my older cousin had just received from her parents to help with school work.
It has been a fascination ever since . Up to the present time I have listened to, heard , and read about many theories from the over simplistic to the most outlandish relative to their intended purpose .What they could be , how they were breeched for the first time . You analysis is well structured , concise and imbued of the commonsense that too often is missing from the multitude of theories that litter about .
I retired in 2016 from a multi disciplined engineering career, and had planned to finally visit them in 2018 person but deferred to go in 2019, hoping to test my opinion and theory about them through on site observation such as non archeologists are allowed . My bad luck , the worldwide plague that is
COVID , hit humanity , resembling a more manageable version of the middle ages bubonic plague... perhaps I will get my wish as soon as this insanity is yesterday`s news .
I wanted my own set of encyclopedias very badly when I was a kid in the 80s. They sold them door to door and they were outrageous! I guess I got my wish with the internet. I hope you get to visit the pyramids, I'd love to do the same sometime.
I really believe that we are in a golden age of discovery. Whether it's about the Giza pyramids, or Egypt in general, or esoterica, or alchemy, or history in general, or whatever, I feel that we are breaking through centuries of stasis and are now advancing more than we have for an age. It's truly an exciting time to be alive.
Really LOVE this channel! Thanks for doing this! Subscribed, Liked, Shared!
Me too subscribed liked and sharted!
Your videos make clear why it is important to receive information from teachers who have properly evaluated the evidence before drawing conclusions. Thank you for you line of inquiry!
There are thousands of Pyramid videos on youtube - both conservative and woo-woo. Yours are by far the best of them all. Thank you!
The only other sensible one is Ancient Architects.
Another fantastic video! As an aside, it never ceases to amaze me that persons visiting an ancient monument would leave so much trash and litter lying about, and that the authorities ’protecting’ these places seem to do little to ensure that it is promptly removed! That’s Egypt I guess.
It’s so much more interesting watching videos explaining parts of the pyramids and their discovery in detail with actual reference material instead of just 20 drone shots and a voiceover saying trite things we all know “very old, very mysterious, built with x amount blocks yada yada”. Great work. This is a great digestion of actual material regarding that pyramids that can otherwise be a bit dry for the lay person. This is what asking questions actually looks like, not like the rhetorical questions asks by people like Hancock.
I agree!! That the robbers entrance was too perfect. The Caliph knew where he was going from the start!!
Another excellent, well-reasoned and presented video. Thank you for making these. They really are fascinating, informative and entertaining.
In the Sumerian text they tell the story of Marduk being trapped down there by Enlil or a son of Enlil, and was rescued by his father Enki by opening this tunnel to bypass the blockage.
Yeah I read that too. If robbers were aware of that story they could've used that knowing there was a tunnel made to bypass into the grand gallery.
🙂 Thank you for the amount of work you put into preparing your concise, picture assisted findings. You have certainly added to my being able to visualise your analysis of what was, and is. With deep thanks, Ray ! 🙂
Again a good video.
We do know in the new kingdom that the priests themselves organised some tomb robberies as they have found written evidence to this effect.
It also strikes me that ‘the Kings chamber was designed to be re entered as it is closed off by a portcullis system.This is a system designed to be raised as well as lowered.
It would have been far easier to use a massive blocking plug if you wanted a one off seal..
yea a mechanism long disappeared. imagine moving walls in a temple - so much "easier" -
The only thing that makes sense is that the well shaft was for water to drain. It was purposely aimed toward the grotto, which was almost certainly a natural feature of the plateau. I would guess that water condensing on the plateau tended to drain into this depression, and it was preserved because the water that collected there percolated down into the ground. The Egyptians knew that water would condense between the stones of the construction and find its way to the foundation, and since the ground surface naturally drained to this low point of the grotto, they left it and protected it from silting up. The shaft allowed debris and sand to drop down the shaft, but water could seep thru the masonry into the grotto. The rest of the shaft was cut after the fact when it became apparent that water was backing up the grotto shaft as the pyramid was built. This would likely be due to any infrequent rain, but mostly to the fact that water was being used during the contruction to lubricate saws and drills and finish sanding stones to fit. Since the subterranean chamber had likely been abandoned by this point, the decision was made to cut an extension to the grotto shaft to drain the water into the lowest chamber of the pyramid where it would have a lot more surface area to percolate thru.
They had to use their limited surveying skills to try and intercept the descending corridor, and I suspect they changed the planned angle toward the end of the project when they were suspicious that they had tunneled far enough and still not hit it.
But the gentler angle argues a basic sense of plumbing. That you want the shaft angled gently enough that debris that falls down the shaft will be carried by the water, and tend to deposit on the bottom of the shaft and leave the top clear so the shaft does not readily get plugged. And you make it large enough for a man because it MIGHT get plugged and you have to send a man to unplug it. In any event, once construction was complete, the water in the subterranean chamber would eventually have percolated away allowing it to be used for grave goods or what have you, if they had chosen.
Just finished the video, anxiously awaiting for the next one. Just love it, keep them coming!
I love your videos, glad I found them, too often these types of videos leave me rolling my eyes, this is a huge W. I think you should do a video on tooling and quarrying methods
Great timing again!! Just sitting down to relax and BOOM there's your video :) Thanks dude, I really enjoy your content!!
Love how you show us vids and pics and explain it. You definitely deserve way more subs.
Thank you for all your hard work. 👏👏
Fantastic channel, fascinated with the pyramids and the level of research and detail you present. Ancient Architects brought me here, another great channel.
Another great video man and I can’t wait for the next one, love what you are doing and wish you all the best moving forward. 🍻
Well thought out and articulated. Common sense and an open mind are powerful tools in deciphering what has taken place here. Nice work.
Other thoughts: perhaps the Grotto was a repository for ritual objects or items used for mummification. We saw this in the latest discovery in the Valley of the Kings. A ritual object storage chamber.
Also, plausibly the lower granite plugged corridor in the pyramid was an extension of whatever mechanical system was used in the Grand Gallery to hoist people and materials upwards into the pyramid, such as a counterweight chamber for a heavy wooden flat ascending and descending platform, like a warehouse elevator, moving up and down the Grand Gallery and carrying cargo and people from the now plugged entry tunnel at the north end of the Grand Gallery up to the King's Chamber platform, and then from that upper platform back down again to the base of the Grand Gallery.
The lower counter diagonal corridor leading to the sloping corridor below has the same slope as the Grand Gallery and exists perhaps because it was part of the whole elevating system, and incidentally this corridor is of a similar length as the Gallery sloping above. I admit I haven't worked out completely how this mechanism worked, but it was surely not as Mr. Houdin has described, who must be credited in any case for highlighting the basic idea. In the meantime, where did these blocks and others come from in the first place, if not in the pyramid front door above? So perhaps Al-Ma'mun's workers broke into the elevator counterweight system when they tunneled past the granite blocks (and by the way discovered a long-time empty pyramid inside).
Another thought I can't help thinking. Egyptologists say the Old Kingdom possessed no knowledge of the wheel. But the reconstruction of the mechanism used to lower the portcullises at the King's Chamber shows rolling cylinders as part of the mechanism. I am probably never going to argue the point exhaustively on such a broad issue, but even despite the ancient depictions of statuary being moved by sled and the presence of a sled in the Cairo museum, did it never occurred to any of these very bright people to use a wheel or rolling logs over the course of centuries to move objects? Scott Zema BA MA Architecture and Art History
Well, you pointed to some interessting points here
But if the main corridore was already sealed, how did they have light to work?
Torches or other burning would have left soot on the ceilings, but there is no soot.
@@MichaelClark-uw7ex would they have known a way to reflect light internally ?
@@Rusty_Gold85 Mirrors were my first thought but they were quite valued by those people so they would have taken good care of them and preserved them but we haven't found any in the sizes or quantities required to get light clear into the deepest grottos and chambers.
You would think that people who worshipped a sun god would have wanted actual sun rays so mirrors would be logical yet there are no artifacts or records of something like this that had deep religious significance.
A lot of egyptologists (professional, not amateur) are stuck in their thinking so badly, they can never see any other possibility for something, as what was thought to them. Or they have a finacial stake in keeping it this way. Most of them I dont listen to, so it would be very possible they had some kind of wheel.
The well shaft was likely part of original construction. The subterranean chambers were usually dug first, so the descending passage and well shaft existed before blocks were made. As they laid courses of blocks they were able to extend the well shaft to the bottom of the grand gallery. It likely served as a secondary entrance for workers digging the subterranean chamber or a design change was made once they started digging and the descending passage was the finished route.
Looking at the sheer angles of descent and length of the well shaft, it strikes me that this shaft was not dug from the bottom up. To wield hammers and chisels UPWARDS for that whole length of shaft would entail absolutely unimaginable hard work and a very, very long time to accomplish. Even assuming that the fittest strongest men around dug it, how long would they swing a heavy hammer upwards into the stone, only achieving tiny amounts before they were tired beyond endurance? The very task would destroy the heart of any worker almost immediately.
Even working in continuous rotation upwards would entail a crowd of workers all being down there at once, constantly stopping to change- and one worker coming down a ladder and one going up it, to do his tiny little part until he is knackered, and so on. For literally years. I would love to see anyone try and replicate a group of workers digging a shaft upwards through the stone work. Even the fittest of people wouldn’t get much done at all before they were too fatigued to carry on. The difference between digging a shaft from the top down, and digging one from the bottom up, must be immense.
Not to mention the digger getting hit by every chunk of rock he managed to dislodge if digging above the head. And remember that the 'unfinished' chamber and likely most (if not all) of the digging in the bedrock was finished before they built the pyramid above it.
@@recoilrob324 yeah imagine the stuff going into a persons eyes? I worked with a builder and I was chiselling concrete and I got a bit lodged into my cornea. A few hours later it was absolute agony. Any kind of light was agony. The doctor put a numbing solution into my eye but couldn’t dig it out with a needle. I had to go into a hospital in Edinburgh and have an operation to remove the tiny piece of concrete. Doctor said if it’s went through into my eye I would’ve lost my eye. He said he gets people in with metal filings in the eye from angle grinders, they use a strong magnet to pull those out, but concrete? Completely different. That tunnel would’ve blinded thousands of men. Unless they worked with a cloth over their eyes blind! In which case it would take double the time to hack it out. It has to have been done from the top down surely.
Even digging down with simple hand tools would be a monumental task, it would need a work crew on constant rotation with all waste being removed from the tunnel ,how long would it have taken? Maybe a year ? And how does ventilation work when they had to use lamps to see what they are doing.
Also if this is a robbers tunnel how did they gain access to the pyramid in order to excavate this tunnel? I thought the pyramid was sealed until the entrance was blown up with dynamite ?
let us all not forget . how did they do all this work in the darkness? torches ?
@@johnnycash3117 yeah that too. There couldn’t have been ANY air to breathe deep inside there digging upwards with a hammer and chisel breathing in oil lamp smoke the whole time! Blindfolded against stone chips! Would take a team of men so long that they’d still be building it today and we could just ask them what it’s for!
That quote at the end was just brilliant man, thanks.
Can't wait to see this channel hit the subs it deserves.
Great video packed with unusual photos and info/insight.
Yet again another insightful video.. Brilliantly done
I am very excited for your video on the robbers tunnel. To me it seems that the diggers of the tunnel knew the internal layout of the pyramid, which means it was probably dug during the old kingdom, not thousands of years later like some claim.
Who said there was anything of monetary,or other acquisition? They did. not find any evidence of any king,queen, puppy,bird anything buried inside...Makes ya wonder right ? I always found that to be fascinating.
@@CarsCatAliensAncient trolling ... "yeah boss, theres got to be good loot in here" *finally gets to empty chamber* .. "🗿"
4:00 I think this is FIRST step of building this pyramid.
The loose sand was there to level under the first layer of stones.
The granite boulder had to stop there and the thieves made a hole and made a "grotto" to unlock their way.
I hope you and your workers have no claustrophobia as I could not do this! Amazing!
Another excellent video! Thanks for all your hard work and research on one of my favourite subjects!
Great detail on everything. Very thorough!
It's good to see the actual forensics of stone fracturing included in an analysis of the pyramids.
Fine logic and presentation. Thank you. 5 stars.
This is seriously insightful. Great videos
This is becoming my fav channel..!!
A gravity tractor moved up and down in the large gallery, helping to carry heavy blocks uphill for the construction of the chamber. The tractor was loaded at the top and the load was removed at the bottom. How efficiently could this be done? Workers could load small stones or bags and carry them up for further use (the question is where). Another idea is to use sand, ideally loose, liquid. At the bottom, you just turn over or open the tank on the tractor and the sand will go away, somewhere down. The tractor can work quickly up and down and does not delay. But then you have to carry the sand back up to the upper end of the gallery. The ideal medium is water. It is easily drained from the containers on the tractor and flows down. Below is an underground chamber with a well, the water flows there and seeps into the bedrock. Use water, drain the tractor's ballast tank and forget about it.
The cavern could have been washed away by the water released during operation. The cavern was repaired (it may have been originally completely filled) and work continued. Draining the water into the descending corridor was not ideal, the counterweight for the tractor moved here and would have damaged the limestone of the corridor. Only a vertical shaft straight down would have been simpler, but it means that the water would then have to flow through the entire descending corridor and destroy the limestone, or dig the entire lower chamber (in the volume necessary to accommodate the volume of water before it is absorbed) with the drainage pipe again. The water would also gain great speed and destroy the place of impact. An oblique passage is safer. The change in the angle of the shaft route was probably due to the unsuitable softer subsoil.
How did the water get up to the top of the gallery? People could have carried it out in a bag, used some kind of mechanical conveyor, or it rained on the top of the building and was led into tanks (in the place of the royal chamber, filled perhaps through air shafts). At the time of construction, the climate was more humid, not desert, there were savannas and palm groves, regular seasonal rains, at the top of the construction, on the large platform, there must have been a lot of mud and a problem with where to get the rainwater...
TY for clearing this up. For a long time i thought the well shaft was part of the original construction of the pyramid, but with these pictures you showed us it seems obvious it was an improvised yet very well calculated descending gallery made by intrepid tomb robbers.
does the well-shaft hold water? like could it have held water at some point?
I hope that when you create your next video on the Robbers' Tunnel, you explore the possibility that the only "treasure" they left with was the lid of the "King's Chamber" sarcophagus, which explains why the "turn" in the tunnel was so much wider than needed for individuals.
You might also want to investigate the mysterious looting that took place in a single night during the Arab Spring in 2010, when a well-financed group, supported with armed mercenaries in black and using heavy equipment, located a rectangular item not far from the Great Pyramid onto a flat bed truck, and disappeared from site.
Securing of the well shaft. The form the stone has to plug, its shape with having less stone on top, would be the shape for sliding in. Lay it on its side and the less weight on one side helps it fall without flipping over. Leverage is the key ingredient. Not saying thats how it was made here, but it would be possible.
Can't wait to hear/see the next chapter!
It’s so nice to see someone use actual logic and known facts instead of crazy conjecture about aliens and gods forming the pyramids. I’ve loved Egyptology my whole life and at last a well laid out fact driven video series has arrived.
Your videos are always so interesting!
Never underestimate the power of the Egyptologi$t$ and touri$m. 💰💰 Truth in archeology is a rare commodity.
Great video! To me it seems plausible that the well shaft was already there when the pyramid was built. Many buildings have been built over old wells or old storage rooms, which have therefore been concealed. There could be hundreds if not thousands of years between the construction of the different parts of the pyramids. Even the well shaft itself could have been extended in the process of building the pyramid. Are there any more clues to what could be the case?
The fact that the upper entrance stones have ben crudely broken open may be evidence that the entire shaft was made by tomb raiders. Then again the perfecty vertical shaft that leads to the "cavern" chamber could have been part of the original design. Hard to know unless we can get some new HD pics of the entire shaft. However i think that the part below the "grotto" looks very rough in schematics so it is probably made by robbers trying to access the secret underground chambers that they had learned from in legends.
Because of multiple great floods, pyramids were cluttered with debris and sand in the lower levels, but there were in antiquity, as we have today, ancient texts that spoke of the lower tunnels and chambers.
I think that the robbers found one of these stories and made a monumental effort to get to the underground chamber. Imagine how many tonnes of earth they had to dig out and lift to the surface in a 50m vertical shaft, just to reach an underground chamber that was also empty. XD
Poor bastards. Still i would love to see that movie.
These pyramids were ancient industrial structures, so they never had anything of value to rob until the pharaos repurposed them and started using them as burial "mounds". But in reality, most of the megalithic pyramids never had anything in them. They once held some machines which eroded away many thousands of years before even the first pharaos started to excavate them.
Your analysis and observations are terrific.
Excellent content...Great interest in the coming explanation concerning the robber's tunnel.
I think the well shaft is the key to unlock the misteries of the Great Pyramid. If it wasn't for Al Mamun's tunnel I would say the pyramyd was never finished. But the need to open a tunnel to get anything out dismantle this idea.
Thank you for this ! It is very very interesting to watch !
I came back ... again.
And again.
And each/every time I take away yet more good stuff ...
I'm also enjoying this channel, always an interesting subject for me.
Shout out from the UK 🇬🇧
One of the most obvious things to me since I was much younger looking at prints of the interior of the pyramid is how the discovered interior spaces are almost certainly auxiliary ones.
At this point, I think the biggest obstacle to further discovery is propaganda and/or state obfuscation due to reliance on tourism & merchandise.
They went to a lot of trouble to fake going to the moon and still try to hold on to those lies, nothing is out of the question and answers are still wanting.
@@frostedpanda
Unfortunately we live in world where questions are asked, but no answers are given ...those who do know some of the answers have too much too much to lose if they give them up .
It is refreshing to know that drinking KOOL AID does not appeal to more than just myself , its a small club ,
I was 16 in 1969 when that HOAX was perpetrated for the first time on the whole of humanity . I have a TH-cam running bet with a moron who claimed to be a NASA engineer , " he lost it " while disagreeing with me about comments I made about returning to the moon by 2024 , since my position cited photographic evidence that proves not having gotten there during the Apollo program . I sincerely hope that this whomever it was has the gonads to contact me in 2024, I am looking forward to it .It will be a fine year, BIDEN THE REPROBATE will be out the WHITE HOUSE door as one termer, turned nursing home resident , and the moon... well in 2024 ...it will still be only just for the man on the moon .
@@frostedpanda lol poe
@@UnitSe7en npc
@@UnitSe7en 🐑
Can you please do a video examining the kings and queens chambers and their lack of decoration
I have a special video planned for the Queen's Chamber.
My new favorite rabbit hole. Thank you.
Very interesting and well done. Another excellent video!
Your content is VERY interesting, also I LOVE your sideblows against Zahi Hawass in your videos!!! Sub earned!
Could it simply be for communication? Like the whisper galleries in gloucester cathedral. Where you can hear a whisper from one end to the other almost like the person at the other end is whispering in you ear.
Same in Liverpool anglican cathedral but I thought it was the archway what caused that.
Excellent presentation!
I'm so hyped for the next video ! :D
Really love this channel, am always waiting for the next video. Well presented clear concise explanations. One question I have is, I have read that the the chamber in the well shaft is a natural spring and is always damp. Do you think there was a construction around this spring before the pyramid was even built and they built on top of it and incorporated it into it? Really strange layout and construction so many bends and linings etc. maybe it was drainage of the spring water which was more active when they were built.
Surely there would be a puddle or a pool in the subterranean chamber or somewhere else if there was a spring. It seems bone dry in the pyramid and it's underground structures.
@@ThunderboltWisdom apparently it’s not bone dry, can’t remember where I read or seen it but the walls and floor are damp to the touch and never fully dry out as though it’s a spring probably not as active now but in the past it might of been 🤷♂️
Well, that's one of the Great Pyramid's mysteries. Was the Grotto a natural spring? Supposedly it was very wet in there when the early explorers got to it. Some people have made the case that it ties into the ancient Egyptians' creation myth of a mound rising from the waters for the sun god Re to rest on (the pyramid being a representation of the primeval mound).
I know that Matt from AA has proposed this. It's an interesting idea, but I feel that the pyramid being so large that the quality/size of the foundation was the real determining factor. Any moisture that is now inside is certainly from visitor perspiration getting trapped.
As for the walls being damp, that is something I've never heard, but I have heard that they have a layer of salt and minerals on them and that is supposedly something to do with moisture being wicked up from below at some time in the ancient past. So I suppose there may have been a spring at some point in the past as springs do change over time due to underground geological changes. I was of the understanding that the moisture may have come from the Nile, picking up the minerals on the way and depositing them on the inside of the structure. But, again, that is part of the mystery of the Giza plateau. The fact that the Nile has dropped so much away from the site may have stopped all this at some point though.
Excellent video as always. Well done sir.
One of a few channels I thumb up before I watch the entire video!!!
I just know it's going to be interesting.
Great analysis!
If you believe in the royal circuit theory, the mouth of the well shaft at the base of the grand gallery could be a secondary access point to the royal circuit, running parallel to the existing corridor to the queen's chamber.
The eastern wall of the queen's chamber has non-load-bearing stones just north of the known entrance, which may open the lower arm of the royal circuit.
I have a different theory for the chamber non-load-bearing stones that will be presented later!
@@HistoryforGRANITE can't wait! :)
Obsessed with this channel. Excellent ❤
Have you read the lost book of Enki.
They talk about that shaft and why it was cut into it..
Check it out
at 9:47 couldn't the block slide down the bench from above, if, at the angled part of the illustrated (red) block there was a divot, where a log could be arranged to stop the sliding, thus allowing the bottom of the block to pivot the required 30 degrees or so, to allow it to slide down and plug the hole? Especially if it was already sliding and let gravity do the work?
Persons travelling down the descending path carrying wide reed screens to induce airflow would force air up the vertical channel to clear torch smoke and cool. Having bends in the shaft would allow water poured in there to more effectively cover the shafts walls and cool air better that's passing through the shaft. Smoke exiting with celestial alignment :)
I read in a Sitchin book that one of the Annunaki gods was imprisoned in the great pyramid and tunneled his way out to escape, thus the “well-shaft”.
Great share sir! A backdoor hmmm... 🤔. Thanks!🙏
I can't believe how much I love this stuff
I love you videos and mostly the research you put in them.
This content is excellent well done another superb video 👍
Fascinating... loving these vids. Thank you
Another great video, plenty of solid info. Written in stone, I daresay... Keep going!
I've learned more about ancient Egypt from this channel than from the entirety of my public education.
Two ideas come to mind. I wonder if the lower entrance to the well shaft was found by someone using a hammer on the walls in the descending corridor and listening for a hollow sound. Secondly, is there any merit in the idea that the passage was a drain until the area was roofed over?
This is a very impressive film. Thanks.
Your vids are terrific. Thank you.
Looking forward to the next video!
You and Matt are keeping old crusty Egyptologist on their toes.
Just a thought (and maybe influenced by the movie "Land of the Pharohs" when I was a kid) but what would have happened if the shaft were sealed at the bottom, filled with sand and then unsealed when everything was done? Would the side chamber compensate for the extra sand required by the change of direction at the end?
Like first, watch video second. 😀Thank you for one more video to nourish our hunger for knowledge about the great pyramid.
Hurry up for the new video on the robbers tunnel! I'm fascinated to know how they got in and what they found. Thank you
I love the info you give.
I am always amazed by the trash. You would think Egyptian authorities would mandate no garbage or at least have people cleaning it up.
Another great video on a wonderful interesting topic!!! Thank you !!!
Thanks for making another great video!
Hi, concerning the well shaft changing directions downwards. Just a thought:
If you extent the upper slanted part is it possible that it would end up at the exact same place, I mean : suppose the grotto was an unexpected find during the dig and they would have going down intentionally at the same angle, Only interrupted by the grotto and now had to go around.
I haven’t have the information to find out if this is correct but I am confident you have the right resources for checking that. ( or maybe it has been suggested already a zillion times !)
Can't wait to see your analysis on looters entrance.
i think the fact that the well was forced open from above does potentially indicate it was closed and hidden at the bottom. a raiding party would have the time and knowledge to survey the accessible workings and realize that the well shaft rises to equal in height to the entrance, and the blocking stone would be an obvious point of investigation. with access to the bottom of the well shaft, they wouldn't need to excavate several meters of core stones to gain access to the grand gallery, they'd only need to break through a meter of stone at the top of the well. and since both tasks can only be worked on by one worker at a time, they'd at least have attempted to explore the top of the gallery. any small items can be taken out through there, and the robber's tunnel can be planned from there for larger items. so if access to the well would have made raiding the the pyramid quite a bit easier, why wouldn't they have used it to gain further access if not for it being closed off at the time?
as for the question of plugging the top from behind: lowering a 3000lbs block into place really wouldn't have been that great a challenge. the average man can move an object of that weight with levers and wedges, and an arrangement of box cribbing or similar would allow it to be lowered a significant distance.
here's how i see it: a team of workers helps to seal the accending coridor by working from above. they have a prearanged well plug set up on cribbing, allowing esscape via the wellshaft. after the accending corridor is sealed, all but 1 or 2 of the workers climb down the well. the remaining couple of workers then lower the well plug a final foot or so, and the block wedges itself under the cut in on the wall of the grand gallery. once plugged, the team exits the bottom, where it can be blocked in as well, and then a layer of mortar and paint is the quickly forgotten final seal on Khufu's tomb, for centuries to come.