Hidden corridor found in Great Pyramid of Giza, Egypt

The Great Pyramid was built around 2560 BC as a monumental tomb

Cairo:

A hidden corridor nine meters (30 feet) long has been discovered near the main entrance to the 4,500-year-old Great Pyramid of Giza, Egyptian antiquities officials said on Thursday, and it could lead to more findings.

The search inside the pyramid, the last of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World still standing, was carried out under the Scanned Pyramids project that since 2015 has been using non-invasive techniques including infrared thermography, 3D simulation and cosmic-ray imaging Is. frame.

An article published Thursday in the journal Nature said the discovery could contribute to knowledge about the construction of the pyramids and the purpose of a limestone structure located in front of the corridor.

The Great Pyramid was constructed around 2560 BCE during the reign of Pharaoh Khufu or Cheops as a monumental tomb. Built to a height of 146 meters (479 ft), it is now 139 meters and was the tallest structure built by humans until the Eiffel Tower in Paris in 1889.

Mustafa Waziri, head of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, said the unfinished corridor was probably built either to redistribute the pyramid’s weight around the main entrance, which is now used by tourists, by about seven meters. , or around an as yet undiscovered room or space.

“We’re going to continue our scanning to see what we can … to find out what we can find at the bottom of this or the end of this corridor,” he told reporters. of the pyramid.

It is believed that five rooms above the king’s tomb in another part of the pyramid were built to redistribute the weight of the massive structure. Vaziri said that it was possible that the pharaoh had more than one burial chamber.

Scientists explored the corridor through cosmic-ray muon radiography, before recovering images of it by feeding a 6-mm-thick endoscope from Japan through a small joint in the pyramid’s stones.

In 2017, researchers at Scan Pyramid announced the discovery of a void at least 30 meters long inside the Great Pyramid, the first major interior structure found since the 19th century.

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