Interior Passages
The Bent Pyramid has two entrances, one fairly low down on the north side, to which a substantial wooden stairway has been built for the convenience of tourists (though so far the pyramid is not open to the tourists, though plans have been proposed to open it). The second entrance is high on the west face of the pyramid. Each entrance leads to a chamber with a high, corbelled roof; the northern entrance leads to a chamber that is below ground level, the western to a chamber built in the body of the pyramid itself. A hole in the roof of the northern chamber (accessed today by a high and rickety ladder 50 feet (15 m) long) leads via a rough connecting passage to the passage from the western entrance.
The western entrance passage is blocked by two stone blocks which were not lowered vertically, as in other pyramids, but slid down 45° ramps to block the passage. One of these was lowered in antiquity and a hole has been cut through it, the other remains propped up by a piece of ancient cedar wood. The connecting passage referred to above enters the passage between the two portcullises.
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Famous quotes containing the words interior and/or passages:
“I am reminded by my journey how exceedingly new this country still is. You have only to travel for a few days into the interior and back parts even of many of the old States, to come to that very America which the Northmen, and Cabot, and Gosnold, and Smith, and Raleigh visited.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“You ever
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—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)