The Great Pyramid of Giza, the largest in all of Egypt, was built more than 4500 years ago as the last resting place of the 4th Dynasty pharaoh Khufu (aka Cheops), who ruled from 2509 to 2483 BCE. Modern Egyptologists have been digging and studying it for over a hundred years, but it is still full of unsolved mysteries. The latest discovery, explained in a new paper in the journal Nature, revealing a hidden latent gap with the help of grain physics. This is the first time a new internal structure has been installed in the 19th century pyramid.
The ScanPyramids project, an international effort launched in 2015, has been using noninvasive scanning technology such as laser imaging to understand the pyramids of the Ancient Kingdom of Egypt. This discovery was made using muon tomography, a method that generates 3D images from muons, a by-product of cosmic rays that can pass through stone better than similar x-ray-based technology, such as CT scans. (Muon tomography is currently used to scan shipping vessels for smuggled goods and images of nuclear reactor cores.)
The newly discovered gap is at least 100 feet long and resembles a structure similar to the area below: The Great Pyramid Gallery, a long interior, 26 feet high of the pyramid that feels like a “huge cathedral at the center of the monument,” ScanPyramids engineer and co-founder Mehdi Tayoubi said in a press release. Its size and shape were determined by three different muon tomography techniques.
They are not sure why it would still be used or why it exists, or even if it is a single structure or multiple structures together. It could be a flat structure, or it could be a slope. In short, there is a lot more to learn about it.
In the last few years, technology has allowed researchers access to unprecedented parts of the Great Pyramid. Several robots that have been drilled into the tunnels since the 90s have brought back images of previously unseen areas. Almost immediately after beginning to study the Great Pyramid with thermal imaging in 2015, the researchers found that some of the limestone structure was hotter than other parts, revealing air currents that interior moving through hidden rooms. In 2016, muon images showed at least one previously unknown empty space near the north face of the Khufu pyramid, although researchers were unable to identify exactly where it was or what it looked like. Now, we know its basic structure.
“These results are a breakthrough for understanding the Khufu Pyramid and its internal structure,” the ScanPyramids team writes. Nature. “While there is currently no information on the location of this gap, these findings show how the physics of modern materials can shed new light on the world’s archaeological heritage. “