I have long asked myself: from which documents did this huge construction, involving thousands of people for 20 years on an area of 1,000 km, is based on?

My experience in the industry, based on paper documentation and printing plans, misled me. For some time, this documentation system has been replaced by a digitized one, completely virtual, that is not historically stable. Another system could have existed before it.

No need to remind you that the ancient Egyptians became masters in the art of cutting into stones, even the toughest of all, all sorts of objects of complex forms with absolute precision.

I therefore propose that the pyramid’s “construction file” would never have been in “papyrus” form but in 3D model form, as we do today, but not digitized and transformed into electromagnetic impulses on a microscopic device, accessible only with a well-defined type of computer, and all of which could disappear effortlessly and completely instantly.

No, the 3D model I’m thinking about would have been in the form of carved stone objects representing the same objects in the pyramid on a reduced scale and serving as a model for the stonemasons, who had only to make what they had on hand on a 1:1 scale.

For example, the upper chamber, entirely made of granite, could have had two identical scale models, one on the construction site at Giza and another at the quarry of Aswan, 1,000 km to the south.

The one at Aswan served as a model to cut the blocks, and the one at Giza was used to check them and guide the construction project.

These model scales are precise and solid; rain cannot destroy them, only clear them; wind cannot blow them away. There is no need to know how to write, read or even speak the same language; only how to measure and reproduce suffices. Each approved piece wore the project manager’s seal. They were probably made of granite, diorite, or some other very hard stone that only specially equipped workshops could produce.

This system could not be counterfeited and slowed well-known trends of the design office for constantly changing the plans to “improve” the finished product because the decision to do so was in the hands of the modeling workshop that guaranteed the pyramid’s integrity and was placed under the watchful authority of the project manager.

Moreover, there was immediate technical validation since a design error would be immediately visible and verifiable by all authorized parties examining the new model before approving it.

The “design office” was in the fresh air; the hammer and the chisel were the pencil, the stone was the paper, and the eraser was a blow of the hammer, and here we go again!

I think that only the crafted part of the pyramid was represented this way, i.e., the chambers, the galleries and the siding—less than 1 % of the pyramid volume. As for the 99 % of the volume left, the pyramid siding, the workers built the courses more or less like dry-stone walls builders did, which have almost disappeared and whose work can still be admired.

The difference was that the stone could not be held in the hand and could weigh several tons. The observation of the course 201 of the Great Pyramid would discourage protesters from using such an analogy.

Besides, laying out as you go along requires solid logistical organization for handling a flow of 400 very heavy blocks a day. No documents were needed; a routine was established.

Only some of the filling blocks needed to be re-cut, probably on the bedding where it had been laid, to fit the masonry and siding dimensions, but no documentation was produced; the stonemason’s skill was sufficient.

Quarry men worked to cut a small wall whose thickness was equal to the course “of the day” and as wide as the bedrock from which it was cut.

Instructions about the width were given daily, with no precision requirement, and depended on the flaws of the cutting bench. For the rest, a “giant battering ram” broke the small wall into smaller pieces, like we would break sugar.

The model, once assembled, showed all the inner parts connected to each other and their support, the central masonry. Each of these parts could be pulled out to be examined and served as a model for the stonemason.

A mini-pyramid cut exactly along its north-south axis was placed next to the model of the inner volumes; this explains why the axial plan of the inner galleries shifted 14 cubits to the east of the pyramid’s north-south axis. This plan allowed the east-west positioning dimensions of all the objects to be placed in the pyramid.

Only the upper and lower chambers, the grotto and the mortuary complex could be cut in two by this plan; the western part was embedded in the central plan, displaying the interior of both the east and west sides.

This 14-cubit shifting suggests that the reduction ratio had to be 14/1, leaving a one-cubit space to move between the central plan and the masonry to take measures. This model would have been 20 cubits high and 31 cubits and 12 fingers (or a big claw) on the sides, leaving a significant inner volume to hold, in the shadows, the office of the architect on site!

The bigger pieces, like the beams closing the ceiling of the upper chamber, would have weighed just 10 kg for about one cubit long. They could easily be manipulated and serve as a model of reference for both the production and the preparation of the handling.

This mini pyramid had to be placed to the south of the pyramid under construction so that the sun, the point of reference, would not be blocked by the pyramid. This way, the very precise orientation towards the south could be adjusted, which allowed geometricians to practice using the edges and faces of the pyramid in the sun’s shadow at certain times of the day, on certain days of the year, to check the alignments.