The picture shows the shallow shafts cut into the north and south walls of Khafre's tomb.
The shafts are about 1 foot square and over one foot deep.
The height of them is about 13 feet above the floor.
This height is significant in that it is just above the rock cut pit made for the chamber. In other words the shafts penetrate the walls of the pyramid above ground rather than the walls of the pit.
The shafts were plastered meaning that they were for use after the chamber was completed.
What was their purpose ? Below is an explanation that provides an answer.
The shafts in Khufu’s pyramid have received so much discussion. This has focused on the overall direction of Khufu’s shafts to near Thuban, the pole star, for the north shaft, and Orion’s Belt for the south shaft.
But how do Khufu's long shafts relate to Khafre’s tiny shafts ?
The weakness of the Orion Correlation Theory is that it does not answer the cultural question - Why would a King want his pyramid to mimic a star in Orion's Belt ?
To arrive at any cultural context for the theory one needs to look at other pyramids.
The best starting place is Djoser's complex at Saqqara.
The overall theme was the afterlife Heb Sed Festival for the dead king.
Its rituals were designed to create perpetual afterlife for the king.
There were two tombs, a north one under the Step Pyramid, and a small south tomb at the southern end of the Heb Sed field.
Each had a canopy of stars over the burial chamber.
The large canopy at the base of the pit of the Step Pyramid was smashed by falling masonry, but fragments remain.
I propose that the canopies were there to 'bring the two skies down' one into each burial chamber to perform the Heb Sed.
Alongside each tomb was a row of three reliefs showing the king performing his Heb Sed King's run.
The two sets of three reliefs were separate but continuous in a straight line north to south.
It is generally agreed that the king was running across the skies holding the titles to them.
First the northern sky and then the southern sky, which were depicted on the reliefs as two half sky glyphs.
The king ran between sets of markers at each end of the sky.
Three markers are shown at the north end and three at the south end.
It seems logical to assume that in the sky the only markers are stars !
A few generations later Khufu designed his pyramid with small shafts from the two halves of the sky.
A shaft from Orion's belt in the Southern half of the sky and a shaft from the Circumpolar Stars in the Northern half of the sky.
In this way he too was able to 'bring the two skies down' into the burial chamber.
He was thus able to perform his Heb Sed run right there in the King's Chamber.
Further it seems that the markers at the end of South sky were the three Belt stars.
Correspondingly the markers for the north sky were Kocab - Thuban - Mizar in Ursa Major and Ursa Minor.
This means that the shafts did not target precise stars but were directed from specific REGIONS of the sky.
We now come to Khafre. How was he able to perform his Heb Sed rituals ?
In his burial chamber what looked like the start of shafts were found similar to Khufu - but they had little depth, less than one block.
By creating a three in a row pattern of pyramids on the ground that mimicked Orion’s Belt and SIMULTANEOUSLY mimicked the three northern stars Kocab/Thuban/Mizar, Khafre had in this way brought both skies down to the complex.
The two skies were there already in the buildings - the tiny shafts into the walls of the pyramid were all that was needed !
Khafre too was then able to take part in Heb Sed rituals forever in his pyramid.
The idea of having the two skies present in the burial chamber was continued in later dynasties.
But in these cases the two skies were painted on the northern and southern halves of the ceiling.
This was a lot more efficient than constructing star shafts !
The Senenmut ceiling showed the northern sky with the circumpolar stars at the centre. The southern half showed Orion at the centre.
Later, similar images were painted on coffin lids.
On the ground at Giza the three pyramids were laid out with an apex angle of 169 degrees and the orientation to east-west for the G1 to G3 apexes of a bit less than 52.5 degrees.
In the sky Orion’s Belt has an apex angle of 173 degrees and lies at 15 degrees to east-west at culmination due south in Khafre’s time.
The stars Kocab/Thuban/Mizar looking north at culmination have an apex angle of 165 degrees and an angle to east-west of 90 degrees around Khafre's time.
If Giza represented BOTH asterisms on the ground, a midway (average) of their angles has been used.
169 degrees is midway between 173 and 165
52.5 degrees is midway between 90 and 15
This is an explanation for the Giza pyramids’ orientation on the ground.