by Cosmic rays and endoscope photos have revealed a “hidden” corridor inside the Great Pyramid of Gizaon its northern face, above the ancient entrance of the pyramid, new research discovers.
The Great Pyramid was built by order of Pharaoh Khufu (ruled ca. 2551 BC to 2528 BC) on the Giza Plateau and today stands about 456 feet (139 meters) tall. It is the only one that survives wonder of the ancient world and was the tallest building on Earth until 1311, when the 525-foot (160 m) central tower of Lincoln Cathedral, England, was completed.
A new study reveals that, directly above the ancient entrance to the pyramid, there is probably a horizontal chamber that is 30 feet (9 meters) long and 6.6 feet by 6.6 feet (2 by 2 meters) wide and high. It lies behind a ribbon-shaped structure visible outside the pyramid, according to the study published Thursday (March 2) in the journal Nature communications (opens in new tab).
To learn more about the void, scientists put an endoscope into the corridor to look inside on February 24, they announced in a statement. But so far, the team hasn’t found any objects inside the corridor, they told Live Science.
“The first pictures taken with the endoscope seem to show that there is nothing, but we can’t see the whole room precisely yet,” the study’s first author Sébastien Prosecutor (opens in new tab)a physicist at the French Commission for Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy (CEA), told Live Science in an email.
Related: What did the ancient Egyptian pyramids look like when they were built?
The Procureur also denied media reports that the team was near a hidden burial chamber of Khufu, saying the team found no evidence of a secret tomb.
Scientists discovered this corridor while analyzing so-called muon scans of the 4,500-year-old Great Pyramid. Muons are negatively charged elementary particles formed when cosmic rays collide individuals in the Earth’s atmosphere. These high-energy particles rain down on Earth all the time, but they interact differently with rock than they do with air. For the past decade, scientists have been using muon detectors to search for hidden chambers in the Great Pyramid.
“To our knowledge, this study is the first characterization of the location and dimensions of a gap detected by cosmic ray muons with a sensitivity of only a few centimeters,” the researchers wrote in the study.
In their statement, the scientists added that ground-penetrating radar was also used to gather information about the runway.
For several years, scientists knew that there was something hidden behind the north face of the pyramid. They announced her discovery of a “gap” behind the north face of the Great Pyramid in 2016, but it wasn’t until now that they were able to uncover this 30-foot-long corridor.
In 2017, scientists announced the discovery of a larger gap, about 98 feet (30 meters) longlocated above the pyramid’s “great gallery,” but a more precise analysis of this gap has yet to be completed.
Zahi Hawass (opens in new tab), Egypt’s former antiquities minister, said during a press conference on Thursday (March 2) that the 30-foot corridor was likely created to help relieve the weight of building materials on the Great Pyramid. It noted that it is behind a chevron-shaped structure that distributes the weight, the Egyptian newspaper Ahram Online reported (opens in new tab).
The supplier agreed that the corridor may be related to the construction of the chevron. “If I had to guess, I’d say it could have been a first test of the chevron structure” that was later used higher up the pyramid, Procureur said.
Reg Clarke (opens in new tab), an Egyptologist at Swansea University in the United Kingdom who is not associated with the study, told Live Science in an email that “I am of the opinion that the small gabled covered corridor was probably intended to function as a relief chamber over the pyramid’s original descending entrance passage ». It is unlikely that the discovery of the corridor will lead to a major find inside, he noted.
“I doubt the passage will lead to anything else significant. As with many of these structural innovations in the pyramids, which were developed for pragmatic reasons by the Egyptian tomb builders,” Clark said. “They often fall prey to ‘wishful thinking’ by those seeking ‘pyramid mysteries’ and so, unfortunately, are often the subject of wild speculation in the press and media.”
There is a plan to use more sensitive muon detectors who may be able to detect objects in this corridor and in the larger void above the great gallery. A multinational scientific team has received approval from the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities and is currently trying to secure funding.
