For the first time, a previously hidden and buried corridor deep inside the 4,500-year-old Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt has been mapped in detail, and researchers have also taken a look inside using an endoscopic camera.
The 9-meter-long corridor was first discovered in 2016. However, the researchers did not want to damage the monument to access it. The pyramid is the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World still standing, and for millennia, it was the world’s tallest human-made structure at 146 meters. It was built around 2560 BC, during the reign of the Pharaoh Khufu.
Using a technique called cosmic ray muon radiography, developed by academics at Nagoya University in Japan, an international team of researchers was able to confirm that the corridor was 9 meters long and had a cross-sectional area of approximately two by two meters.
Cosmic ray muon radiography tracks the level of muons that pass through the pyramid. These particles are a natural form of radiation from cosmic rays and constantly bombard the Earth’s surface. In this technique, researchers use muon detectors placed at various points around the monument. Muons are partially absorbed by the stone used to build the pyramids, so the method allows researchers to identify cavities inside the structure.
This Method has Been Used in the Past
This method has been used to map the internal structures of pyramids since 1971 when it was first used in Giza.
Using their precise map of the corridor, the researchers identified an opportunity. “We realized that it was so close to the surface that it was possible to perform an endoscopy,” explains Sébastien Procureur from the University of Paris-Saclay (France). They inserted a small camera similar to those used in medical procedures to obtain the first view of the corridor in thousands of years.
“We knew the cavity was there, but of course, it’s totally different when you see it,’ says Procureur. ‘We felt strange when we saw it.”
Still, Procureur was glad about one thing: “It’s a controversial opinion, but I’m relieved that the cavity was empty. I wouldn’t have liked to participate in the opening of a tomb.”
Story originally written in Spanish by Carla Rodríguez in Ecoosfera.