A hidden interior corridor above the Great Pyramid of Giza’s main entrance, according to Egyptian antiquities officials, is real, as reported by BBC.
Another chamber
Video from an endoscope showed the inside of the corridor, which is 9m (30ft) long and 2.1m (7ft) wide.
According to the authorities, it might have been built to rebalance the weight of the pyramid around the entrance or another chamber that has not yet been found.
Using the imaging method of muography, it was initially discovered in 2016.
The non-invasive method discovered a vacant spot behind the Great Pyramid’s northern face, around 7 metres above the entrance, in a place where there is a stone chevron building.
Before a 6mm-wide (0.24in) endoscope was inserted via a small joint between the stones that make up the chevrons, additional tests using radar and ultrasound were conducted.
Great discovery
On Thursday, the camera’s video was revealed at a press conference next to the pyramid. It displayed an empty corridor with rough-hewn stone block walls and a stone ceiling.
“We’re going to continue our scanning so we will see what we can do… to figure out what we can find out beneath it, or just by the end of this corridor,” said Mostafa Waziri, president of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities.
The 146-meter-tall Great Pyramid was constructed on the Giza plateau during the fourth dynasty by Pharaoh Khufu, also known as Cheops, who ruled from 2609 BC to 2584 BC.
Despite being one of the biggest and oldest structures on the planet, there is no consensus about how it was built.
The tunnel is a “great discovery” that will “access households and homes of people all over the world for the first time,” according to Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass.
He added that it might show whether King Khufu’s burial chamber was still present inside the pyramid.
“I’m confident in a few months from now we can see if what I’m saying is right or not,” he said after speculating that there might be “something major” in the area underneath the route.
Using muography, a second, bigger vacuum inside the pyramid was found in 2017. It is situated directly above the Grand Gallery and is thought to be 30m long and several metres tall.
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Source: BBC
