Posted on 09/24/2002 7:40:58 AM PDT by Thinkin' Gal
Mon Sep 23,11:40 AM ET
By DONNA BRYSON, Associated Press Writer
CAIRO, Egypt - Scientists using a robot have discovered yet another door deep inside the Great Pyramid, Egypt's head archaeologist said Monday.
Friday's discovery followed the robotic revelation on live, international television Sept. 17 of a chamber behind a similar stone door in another shaft in the pyramid the pharaoh Khufu built more than 4,000 years ago.
"This find in the northern shaft, coupled with last week's discovery ... in the southern shaft, represents the first major new information about the Great Pyramid in more than a century," Zahi Hawass, director of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities and supervisor of the pyramid exploration project, said Monday.
The pyramid, made of 2.3 million stone blocks rising to 137 meters (452 feet) and measuring 227 meters (756 feet) along its base, is the largest of three that form a group with the Sphinx in the desert outside Cairo.
"This is not `Raiders of the Lost Ark,'" Hawass said, scoffing at the idea hidden treasure — or even a conclusive answer about the intentions of the pyramid builders — would be found behind the north shaft's door. A camera thrust through the south shaft's door revealed what appeared to be another door on the other side of a small chamber, for a total of three so far in the pyramid.
Hawass said he would consult with other experts to try to determine whether the doors have symbolic or structural roles, and use those theories to map out further exploration. Both shafts start from a chamber at the heart of the pyramid that measures about 5-by-5-6 meters (yards).
The latest find is "an exciting thing," said Dieter Arnold, an expert on ancient Egyptian architecture. "We are all waiting for the continuation of Dr. Zahi's project."
Arnold, reached by telephone at a site he is studying in the desert near Cairo, said the shafts and doors could have symbolic meaning related to ancient Egyptians' religion. Their texts, Hawass said, speak of the pharaoh's soul encountering a series of doors before reaching the rewards of afterlife.
"Don't expect that I can tell you what's behind the stone" door, Arnold said. "We're all stunned. We have no parallel."
Researchers have been aware of the shafts, found in no other pyramids, for decades. The first door — in the south shaft — was found by a team using another robot in 1993. That door and the north shaft's door were each adorned with an identical pair of brass handles. What may be a second door in the south shaft had no handles.
One puzzle researchers are trying to crack is how the pyramid's engineers, using ancient tools, carved shafts just eight inches (20 centimeters) on each side — no bigger than the spine of a paperback book — that explorers today have been able to follow only with the help of high technology.
National Geographic ( news - web sites) had commissioned the Boston firm iRobot to design and build Pyramid Rover, a small robot that moves on two sets of treads, to explore the southern shaft.
A day after the Rover performed in the south shaft on live television, technicians sent it into the north shaft, this time away from the cameras. The south shaft rose at a 40-degree angle. The north shaft was an even greater engineering feat, turning sharply four times to skirt a second chamber in the pyramid.
The robot's second trip was more difficult because of the shaft's zigzagging path. It took several days to reach its door, Hawass said. He said the south shaft's first door and the door just discovered in the north shaft were the same distance — 64 meters (211 feet) — from the central chamber.
db
Did he do this before or after his San Francisco speech?
Or maybe they weren't quite the design geniuses we've thought they were.
"You put the door where? You idiot! Well, we'll never get it out now. Just leave it and we'll put one here where it's supposed to go. At least nobody'll ever see the screw-up."
http://www.guardians.net/egypt/news/egypt_team_finds_new_mystery_door.htm
They have an opportunity to take a sample of the copper handles, run (or disclose) results of an electrical conductivity test between the handle pieces, and take a sample of the wooden shaft in the northern Queen's shaft for dating purposes (if I have it correctly, there were the remains of a wooden shaft discovered there and it was only partially removed). There seems to be a lot of politics and ego associated with current research, and it unfortunately appears from a distance to lead to delays and a diminishment of scientific professionalism in dealing with the archaeological treasures involved; this has made it a bit difficult to follow progress in recent years without wincing...
In a post to an earlier thread on the subject I suggested that Gantenbrink's hypotheses could be extended to include the possibility that the shafts could be used for a pulley system to bring heavy objects into the main chambers and galleries. However, if there is a 45 degree bend in one of the shafts without a pulley at the bend, that would probably be precluded due to friction. Perhaps the shafts *really* *were* just simple thermal-rise ventilation devices (Gantenbrink's first listed hypothesis) which were blocked off in later phases of construction. I know it's very hot and stuffy in those chambers in the daytime (at least it was when I had a chance to visit them). They could and would have been protected from the elements (animals, sand, debris) by some sort of loose cloth or even metal screens. The presence of the wooden stick would under this scenario be due to a simple goof by one of the workers during construction.
I do find some of the Chris Dunn manufacturing-related observations interesting, but do not find his electrical generator theory of the shafts and the copper handles convincing enough to go with it. I think the handles are in the line of "one-way" functional, since they are offset from center which I would guess would make the doors perhaps a bit easier to lower, but very difficult to raise again once in position (hmm, a relatively straightforward experiment on a mockup model might be the optimal way to determine the viability of this notion).
Back to futures, I would guess if we are lucky we might get periodic bulletins of ongoing investigation results as time goes on.
Were these carved into the structure after the structure was complete, or were they carved while the blocks were being laid? Drilling a straight, rectangular shaft 200 feet through rock wouldn't be easy.
Greeblie
Google found it!
theres' your answer, fishbulb.
I'm guessing it's a gift shop.
this is what eyewitnesses who spied on scallion said he did. either way, someone needs to explain how this little dude did all this on his own, and then moved the whole damn site to another location, alone.
I don't know why the article is trying to make *that* issue sound like such a mystery, because the answer is already well-known.
During construction, the bottom "floor" of the shafts were laid as using flat blocks laid end to end (like a tiled sidewalk), then the sides and "roof" of the shafts were made by carving a "U" shaped groove into other blocks which were then simply laid "U" side down on top of the "sidewalk". See here
The *real* mystery is why, since laying such diagonal structures cutting across horizontal layers of the pyramid would have added immensely to the difficulty of building the pyramid (versus simply piling horizontal layers one on top of another with no criss-crossing shafts). It wasn't just done on a whim. See this
If you have the time, browse the rest of the that website, it's absolutely fascinating and very well researched.
Now that I've examined the drawings, things are starting to clear up for me.
I never knew before about the pits beneath the pyramids. That combined with the shafts, makes their purpose clear.
It's obvious to me now and should be to everyone.
The pyramids are...
...the Porta-Potties of the Gods!
It seems very likely they are just plugs in a shaft.
The shaft could have been to allow people inside to view certain stars, or to allow people inside to have fresh air, or one of a hundred other things.
Then when the pyramid was sealed, they would have plugged the shafts multiple times.
Calling these 'doors' is only for hype, in my opinion.
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