by Cairo — A team of archaeologists and other scientists in Egypt has used advanced technology that relies on beams of radiation from space to get a clear view of a 9-meter-long corridor in the Great Pyramid of Giza, which remains hidden behind a grand entrance to the old structure. The announcement Thursday was a result of the “ScanPyramids” project, launched in 2015, which uses cosmic-ray muon radiography to peer inside sealed structures.
In this case, that structure was King Khufu’s pyramid, built more than 4,500 years ago.
The team behind the research, which was published in the journal on Thursday Nature communicationfirst announced the discovery of a long, mysterious open space and a distinct “great void” within the pyramid’s internal structure in 2017but they left Egyptologists guessing as to what exactly they were or what they looked like.
Using the advanced technique, which “detects cosmic rays passing through the pyramid, allowing the authors to determine the size of the corridor because a massive pyramid would allow less radiation to reach the detectors compared to empty space,” they found that the gabled corridor was about 10 meters long and almost 2 meters wide, and they got clear images of it.
But the 150-meter-high pyramid has far from revealed all its mysteries. The new information revealed on Thursday still leaves the door wide open for speculation.
“I believe this is a very important discovery because on the north side of this corridor there is an area that has no limestone, it’s empty,” famous Egyptian archaeologist Dr. Zahi Hawass to CBS News. “I really think there is something important under the corridor, it could be Khufu’s real burial chamber.”
However, the head of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, Mostafa Waziri, told CBS News it remained unclear what the purpose of the empty corridor might be, or what might be discovered at the other end, deep inside the pyramid.
He said the hallway was most likely created to ease the structural load on the pyramid, but “we’re not sure yet what’s underneath. Are there more hallways? Will there be rooms? It must have a function, but we don’t know .” yet and we cannot predict.”
Waziri said the researchers would continue to work and they also hoped to uncover some of the treasures likely buried with King Khufu, a fourth-dynasty pharaoh of ancient Egypt’s “Old Kingdom” period.
Struggling with skyrocketing inflation, the Egyptian government probably hoped that the discoveries and the publicity surrounding them would boost the revival of the country’s tourism industry, which has taken a huge blow from the corona pandemic and the Ukraine war.
The closing arguments continue in the double murder trial of Alex Murdaugh
The youngest black professor at the University of Cambridge talks about role and teaching struggles
Tesla announces plans to build “gigafactory” in Mexico
