Hi Ralph

I thoroughly enjoyed your joint article with Mark Foster, a good contribution and interesting new theory. You may be aware that in G:TT we went into a lot of detail examining the possibility that the upper reaches of the GP had been breached well before Mamun's time (see pp. 135-144 and Appendix III), and concluded that there was strong evidence that it had. Nevertheless the "coincidence" of whoever dug the intrusive tunnel "hitting gold", and the reasoning behind them not using the original entrance which could not logically have been obscured, always bothered me as it clearly has you two. The hinging door idea is an interesting one which we also discuss, but my view is that if it existed it was not an original feature, mainly because of the likelihood that the descending passage would have originally been sealed off for some distance with plugging blocks just as the ascending one was - there is strong evidence that this was the case with the multiple descending passages in the Second and Third Pyramids, and it is something alternative researchers usually overlook.

As a result I think it highly unlikely that the two main upper chambers were originally empty save for the KC coffer - for example the full Edrisi extract I recently posted on my web site suggests there may have been a coffer in the QC as well, till well after Mamun's time. However none of this alters the fact that your suggestion that whoever dug the intrusive tunnel did it to remove large booty rather than to get in is a cracking one.

The next question is was it only a lid that was removed - all the indications being that the KC coffer lid would not have been particularly ornate - or something more interesting? Perhaps a magnificent gold inner coffer which contained Khufu's mummified body, and was far too precious to break up? Who can say?

I was going to suggest that your theory could be tested by inspecting the walls of the intrusive tunnel to see whether the chisel marks tend to work outwards rather than inwards, but it occurs to me that they could have easily used simple geometry to still dig it accurately from the outside, and your theory that its main purpose was removal would still hold true.

As to the "trial passage", this was something we were aware of but didn't give a great deal of exposure to in G:TT. Of course if you are right about the additional vertical passage at the junction of the other two, this would be BIG BIG BIG.

I wish you both great success if you are going to try to follow up on this latter aspect on site. Hope you're well

All the best, Ian