The mysteries of the Great Pyramid, page 1

When confronted by mysterious shafts like these in the GP one has to wonder to what category do these belong? Are they:

1. Religious & Spiritual
2. Engineering
3. Utilitarian

Religious
They certainly weren't religious as they were never adorned as such. As NCM pointed out, they aren't strought lines to points in the heavens, which casts all the astroarcheology theories into doubt - at least the ones that used the alignment of the shafts to points of the night sky as they may have been seen by Egyptians thousands of years ago.

Engineering
Were they part of the engineering - perhaps a control system used by the GP architects to keep their structure level or square? How, for instance, would they know if a tier of stone coursing was level completely around the structure? Could shafts filled with water determine that opposite sides of the GP were indeed level (and if not, by how much they were not level)? Modern masons use water filled rubber tubes to check for level over a large distance, even Romans and medieval masons used this technique by filling trenches or ditches with water to ensure their footers were perfectly level before embarking on a massive building program. For something as large as the pyramid you would need to periodically check the courses of blocks were level at opposite corners of the pyramid since they were not utilizing a consistent size. If any of the sides "grew" larger than another side it would create problems from an engineering standpoint. How else could they check for level accurately over a large distance, given that hand held levels tend to introduce a build-up of errors? I do doubt these shafts ever were used as a water-leveling tool as that presents far more problems than it solves. Perhaps they served another engineering function?

Could they have been used as air pressure relief shafts, or as some means to adjust air pressure inside the pyramidal chambers? They are too undersized to adequately supply fresh air to any occupants, unless the air was forced in (like a modern HVAC system, we use smaller ducts under higher air pressure to move the same volume of air as a larger duct under lower pressure). However the AE didn't have a means to create a high velocity air system. The angle of the shafts also make no sense from an air supply shaft perspective. If all they needed was to supply air to the interior of the GP they could have used the main passageway, or run air shafts in alignment with the stone blocking - why go to all the trouble of cutting at a steep angle across dozens of course of stone?

The theories that sand was used to settle massive stone blocks into place, by allowing the sand to escape beneath said weight, might be another consideration for these shafts. If the sand was pulled from the chambers of the GP, such as the main passageway, with its massive stone blocks corbeled above it, would air shafts need to be utilized to prevent a vacuum above the sand and chamber?

Utility
What about a utilitarian function? Were these shafts simply "chases" for some utility that ran into or out of the pyramid, or as some sites suggest to supply food to buried attendants? What sort of utility could the AE posses? Plumbing (water)? Electricity? Neither seem likely. Then again, what about the hook that was discovered in one of the shafts? Assuming the hook wasn't dropped in there by a later explorer attempting to plumb their depths, the hook would seem an important clue as to the uses for the shafts, which might well be as a chase for lengths of rope used to pull objects through it, or to remotely operate a "switch" or lever for something left in the chamber they lead to. Could that "thing" have been plundered ages ago, leaving us only with mysterious shafts seemingly serving no purpose? Was the hook used to pull through other objects, such as food for attendants buried in the GP?

Finally, what of the doors that block the shafts? Did the doors get set in place as the height of the pyramid rose, meaning the shafts only served a function during construction and were then sealed as the new coursing of stone buried them? If that were the case then why not seal the ends of the shafts as well, so that they did not mar the appearance of the chambers they lead to? Given the narrowness of the shafts and the angles they use, it seems unlikely you could pull much through them. I suppose the mystery will remain entrenched until the doors are removed and the ends of the shafts are revealed. It would be exciting to see new chambers or passages revealed.