thinkitover Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> First, in Treasures of the Pyramids in the
> chapter on pyramidia, Zahi Hawass states
>
> "Many people believed that the pyramid of
> Khafre never had a pyramidion because they thought
> that the casing of white limestone continued to
> the top of the pyramid, However, Italian scholars
> Maragioglio and Rinaldi surveyed the top of this
> pyramid and pointed out that the summit of the
> pyramid had been destroyed and now ended in a
> small platform. Another Italian expedition
> recently surveyed this pyramid to assess damage
> from an earthquake. They discovered that the
> casing stone of the top is only five centimeters
> thick, which is different from all the other
> pyramids at Giza."

Thanks again everyone for the interesting links and info. I thought I'd come back to this since I think what Hawass is talking about here must be what's published in The Structural Behavior of the Chephren Pyramid by G. Croci and M. Biritognolo [isida-project.org]

Unfortunately I don't think it's quite what I'd hoped for from Hawass' description and context. I was hoping he meant there was an intact five centimeter layer on the platform that might have indicated a transition to a pyramidion and whose width would describe the pyramidion's base width, but it sounds like Croci and Biritognolo were talking about the casing on the sides.

Apparently there may be a misprint in Croci and Britognolo's text?

"The original very top part (about 7 meters in height) of the Pyramid is now missing and the monument ends at the actual top in a platform of about 4 meters of size"

Conserving a perimeter/height ratio of 6, a missing section would have a width of 42 meters rather than 4, and 4 meters width would give a height of about 2.6666 m; 4 meters wide and 7 meters high would give a perimeter/height ratio of only about 2.2857 rather than 6.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11-Oct-19 11:00 by thinkitover.