began slowly to circle the base. The eastern face of the pyramid was dazzling in the full morning sunlight, the southern face ablaze with slanting rays, and the western face entirely in shadow. Looking up, I watched the sun surmount the tip of the pyramid, where it seemed to hover like a ball of flame on its point.
“Who built such a marvel?” I exclaimed. “And how was it done?”
Kemsa opened his mouth to answer, but Antipater was quicker. “According to Herodotus, the pharaoh Kheops employed a hundred thousand men just to build the roadway to transport the stones from Arabia. That labor alone took ten years; another twenty years were needed to build the pyramid itself. First the structure was built up in tiers, like steps, and then the tiers were fitted from the top down with enormous finishing stones lifted into place by a series of ingenious levers, then the whole surface was polished to a bright luster.”
“Is Kheops buried inside?” I asked.
“Herodotus states that Kheops was laid to rest in a chamber deep beneath the pyramid, a sort of subterranean island surrounded by water channeled underground from the Nile.”
As I tried to visualize such a bizarre funeral chamber, Kemsa loudly cleared his throat. “Actually,” he said, “the stones of the pyramids were not raised into place by cranes or levers, but pulled up huge ramps of earth built especially for the purpose.”
“Nonsense!” said Antipater. “Such ramps would have needed to be enormous, larger in volume than the pyramid itself. If such massive earthworks were ever constructed, why do we see no remains of them?” It was true that there were no huge mounds of earth anywhere on the plateau. There were sand dunes here and there, including the large one amid the temples we had passed on our way, but even that mound was minuscule in comparison to the Great Pyramid.
“Those who built up the ramps disposed of them when they were done,” said the guide. “The earth was carted to the Nile, which carried it downstream to create the many islands of the Delta. And since you ask if Kheops is buried inside, young Roman, I will tell you that he is not. The Pharaoh so abused his people when he forced them to build this enormous tomb, that when he died they refused to put him in the pyramid and buried him elsewhere. The pyramid is empty.”
“How could you possibly know such a thing?” said Antipater.
The guide smiled. “Did I not tell you that I, Kemsa, am the best of all the guides? I know what others do not. Follow me.”
Kemsa led us back to the south face of the pyramid, where he gave a sign that brought all three camels to a halt. I would have sat there indefinitely, gaping at the pyramid, had my camel not folded its knees and pitched forward, making clear its desire to be rid of me. As the creature turned its head and prepared to spit, I hurriedly dismounted. Antipater did likewise, though with more dignity.
“Shall we go inside?” said our guide.
“Is it possible to do so?” Antipater’s eyes grew wide.
“With Kemsa as your guide, all things are possible. Follow me!”
The face of the pyramid must once have been as smooth as glass—impossible to climb—but time had worn and pitted the stones, making it possible to clamber up by staying low and gaining purchase amid tiny cracks and fissures. I worried that Antipater would find the effort too strenuous, but, as he had done so often before on our journey, my old tutor displayed amazing dexterity and stamina for a man of his years. Antipater would complain of having to climb a few stairs to our room at the inn, but nothing could stop him from scrambling up the pyramid!
Perhaps two-thirds of the way to the top, Kemsa showed us a spot where a flat slab of stone could be lifted on a pivot. The hidden doorway was so expertly fitted that it was practically invisible. Antipater and I would never have found it on our own.
“Astonishing! Herodotus makes no mention of an entrance to the Great Pyramid,” said Antipater.
“No?” said Kemsa. “That’s because this fellow Herodotus did not have me for a guide. Watch your head!”
Kemsa held the door up while Antipater and I stepped inside. Using his shoulder to keep the door open, Kemsa produced three torches, one for each of us, and used a flint to ignite them. Once the torches were lit, he allowed the door to fall shut.
The narrow, steeply sloping shaft before us plunged into utter darkness. I noted with some relief that there was a rope that could be used to steady one’s descent.
“Do you wish to go on?” said Kemsa.
Antipater looked pale in the firelight. He swallowed hard. “I haven’t come this far to forego an opportunity that even Herodotus missed.” He held his torch in one hand and gripped the rope with the other. “Lead on!”
The guide went first. Antipater and I followed.
“But if there’s no tomb at the bottom, what is there to see?” I said. Even though I spoke quietly, my voice echoed up and down the shaft.
“To know that, you must see for yourself,” said Kemsa.
I suddenly felt uneasy. What if the pyramid was a tomb after all—not of kings but of common fools like myself, led to their death and waylaid by Egyptian bandits posing as guides? Would there be a chamber full of skeletons at the bottom, with my own soon to be added? What an irony, if the Great Pyramid should turn out to be the resting place not of Kheops, but of Gordianus of Rome!
I told myself there was nothing to fear; it was only the darkness, the weird echoes, and the cramped space of the descending shaft that unnerved me. Clutching our torches and the rope, we continued our slow, steady descent.
At last the surface became level. After passing through a short hallway we entered a chamber of considerable size. By the flickering torchlight I discerned a flat roof perhaps twenty feet above our heads. The walls appeared to be made of solid granite, finely fitted and polished but without any sort of decoration. The chamber was empty except for a massive sarcophagus hewn from a solid block of granite. The sarcophagus had no lid. Nor was there any decoration or carving on its surface.
“Can this be the sarcophagus of the great Kheops?” I whispered. Within such a fabulous monument, I had
