Into the Void: Scientists Have Discovered a Secret Room in the Great Pyramid of Giza
The intriguing void measures 100 feet long.
Sarah Cascone, November 9, 2017
Khufu, the Great Pyramid of Giza. Courtesy of ScanPyramids mission.
Khufu, the Great Pyramid of Giza. Courtesy of ScanPyramids mission.
Thousands of years after it was built, the Great Pyramid of Giza continues to captivate the imagination of people the world over, and we’re still uncovering its mysteries. Now, thanks to advances in particle physics, scientists have discovered a massive void hidden inside the famed structure.
Also called Khufu’s Pyramid, Egypt’s Great Pyramid was erected around 2500 BC, and is the last of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It’s been closely studied by archaeologists for centuries, but scientific advances in cosmic-ray collisions are making new breakthroughs possible. Using that technology, an international team of researchers from the ScanPyramids project detected a 100-foot-long empty space inside the pyramid. (ScanPyramids was established by the Egyptian Ministry of Antiques in 2015 to study the ancient structures utilizing non-invasive technologies.)
A rendering shows the newly discovered void and known structures in the Great Pyramid of Giza. Courtesy of ScanPyramids.
A rendering shows the newly discovered void and known structures in the Great Pyramid of Giza. Courtesy of ScanPyramids.
The discovery was first announced in 2016, with the team publishing their findings this week in the journal Nature after additional testing confirmed initial results.
The purpose of the 100-foot-long concealed space, which may or may not have been built intentionally, remains a mystery. “We don’t know if it’s a chamber, a tunnel, a big gallery or things like that,” Mehdi Tayoubi, co-director of ScanPyramids, told the New York Times. “We have chosen the word ‘void’ and nothing else because we don’t know what this void is.”
“The romantic interpretation and what everyone wants to hear is that this is a hidden room and the king’s body is inside or there’s grave goods we didn’t know about or we’re going to learn more about history… and none of that is responsible speculation at the moment,” Harvard University Egyptologist Peter Der Manuelian told NPR, discouraging such exciting notions. A burial chamber would surely have had an entrance, experts point out.
More likely, the empty space served an engineering purpose for the architects. It could have been an internal ramp during construction or intended as a means of lessening the load born by the three known chambers—the King’s Chamber, the Queen’s Chamber, and the Grand Gallery. No new interior spaces have been discovered in the pyramid since the 19th century.
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