An early survey of the pyramid by Charles Piazzi Smyth contains a surveying error that was forced upon him by the building's architects' clever design of the plug blocks. William Petrie inherited this error in his survey work by using Smyth's results without re-measuring the horizontal distances across the plug blocks, and only surveying the vertical distances using a levelling pole and theodolites. Click the next button to show the explanation of this surveying error.

Correct the survey error on the architecture drawing by using the two selectors below.

The upper and lower sections of the plug blocks do not line up when the error is corrected and, surprisingly, this is exactly how the pyramid is constructed.

Rudolf Gantenbrink surveyed the upper northern shaft of the Great Pyramid using the Upuaut robot in 1992 and encountered the second of the deceptive features in the pyramid's architecture.

Correct the survey error on the architecture drawing by using the two selectors below.

Gantenbrink's surveying was accurate and can be correctly positioned by drawing the upper north shaft starting from its position on the outer stones of the pyramid on the 101st course of core masonry.

The relieving chambers above the upper chamber of the pyramid cannot be surveyed because they are accessed by a third tunnel system, and all surveys of the pyramid have assumed that they are vertically above the main chamber simply because they have the same length and width.

Correct the survey error on the architecture drawing by using the two selectors below.

The correct position of the relieving chambers in a N-S direction can be determined from the red builders' marks located in each level and which are provided specifically for that task.

Because the architects have forced the surveying errors on the surveyors, there are two survey drawings of the Great Pyramid. The first is the incorrect one from Smyth, Petrie and Gantenbrink, which is the drawing currently considered to be correct. The second corrected drawing is the accurate drawing of the building. The architects were aware of both these formats, because it was they who forced the errors.

The features displayed using the checkboxes below require the architecture to be in its uncorrected position.

The features displayed using the checkboxes below require the architecture to be in its uncorrected position.

All surveying errors must be corrected in the Architecture tab before using this section.

The static geometry must also be moved up by pi/10 metres, which is the vertical offset of the plug block severance, so that the lower south shaft line correctly terminates at the end of the lower south shaft. The hieratic number 221, which is painted at the end of this shaft, is what forces the vertical shift in the geometry, because the shaft line angle in radians multiplied by 221 gives the shaft's length in cubits. The exact same vertical shift is required in the advanced dynamic astronomy geometry.

The advanced dynamic geometry of the building's design is available in the Astronomy tab on the left of the screen. The advanced dynamic geometry uses the correct internal architecture of the pyramid and uses a CAD drawing of the building as its background, which will be loaded when that tab is opened. The CAD drawing has been checked against William Petrie's work 'The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh' using an AI system to compare the points on the drawing to the text in the book, and the maximum error that it found in the drawing was 3mm.