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Scientists uncovered a hidden nine-meter long corridor near the main entrance to the Great Pyramid of Giza, officials said Thursday. The discovery was made as part of the Scan Pyramid project, which has been using non-invasive technology to study the structure since 2015, Reuters reported. Researchers used a mixture of infrared thermography, 3D simulations and endoscopes to explore inside of the structure, which is assumed to be 4,500-years-old (though the age of the Great Pyramid, and all others, is hotly contested). Mostafa Waziri, who heads Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, said the corridor was presumably created to help redistribute the...

Thanks to cosmic rays, secrets of the last remaining Wonder of the Ancient World are being revealed. The Great Pyramid of Giza, the largest of Egypt's famous landmarks, has stood tall for around 4,500 years. But the 2 million blocks that make up the tomb and fortress have not been impenetrable. Looters robbed the structure of its ancient treasures thousands of years ago and scientists have probed its interiors either by studying its corridors or with more advanced measuring techniques like thermal scanners. The structure still holds many secrets, but since 2015 an international team of scientists, the ScanPyramids team,...

...One of the earliest uses of nondestructive investigation was a joint US and Egyptian project to uncover chambers in the Second Pyramid at Giza belonging to Khafre. In 1965, a scientific proposal was submitted to a group of Egyptian physicists and archaeologists using cosmic-ray detectors (nuons technology). The American team, led by Dr. Luis Alvarez, suggested that, since there were two chambers in the superstructure of Khufu's Great Pyramid, and also two in the pyramid of his father, Sneferu, there should also be chambers located in the superstructure of Khafre's pyramid, who was Khufu's son...The Joint Pyramid Project was established...

Dr Chris Naunton believes, despite having felt quite optimistic about the discovery of the "big void" in Khufu's pyramid several years ago, the efforts at the site are being severely hampered by government restrictions and bureaucracy, which puts off quite a few Ancient Egypt enthusiasts working there... Five years ago, the ScanPyramids project was launched to provide several non-invasive and non-destructive techniques that would improve historians' understanding of how the pyramid was constructed over 4,500 years ago. Two years later, they solemnly announced the discovery of a "Big Void" -- an intriguing 30-metre cavity located above the Grand Gallery. However,...

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - A pair of French Egyptologists who suspect they have found a previously unknown chamber in the Great Pyramid urged Egypt's antiquities chief to reconsider letting them test their theory by drilling new holes in the 4,600-year-old structure. Jean Yves Verd'hurt and fellow Frenchman Gilles Dormion, who has studied pyramid construction for more than 20 years, are expected to raise their views during the ninth International Congress of Egyptologists in Grenoble, France, which starts Monday. They also published a book about their theory this week. Standing in their way is Zahi Hawass, the director of Egypt's Supreme...

Uncovering the secrets of the Great Pyramid August 29 2004 at 01:18PM By Annick Benoist Paris - Two French amateur archaelogists this week published a book in which they claim to have located the secret burial chamber of the Pyramid of Cheops near Cairo, the largest pyramid ever built. According to the study of the Great Pyramid, a fourth, undiscovered room lies underneath its so-called Queen's chamber, and is likely to have been the burial chamber for Cheops, an Egyptian pharaoh who ruled from 2560 to 2532 BC. Cheops' final resting place has never been found despite decades of investigation...

Archaeologists have long wondered exactly how the ancient Egyptians constructed the world's biggest pyramid, the Great Pyramid. Now, they may have discovered the system used to haul massive stone blocks into place some 4,500 years ago. They discovered the remains of this system at the site of Hatnub, an ancient quarry in the Eastern Desert of Egypt. The contraption would have been used to transport heavy alabaster stones up a steep ramp, according to the archaeologists working at the site, from the Institut français d'archéologie orientale (French Institute for Oriental Archaeology)in Cairo and from the University of Liverpool in England....

All of the current theories -- a long, straight ramp, a ramp that corkscrewed around the outside of the pyramid, or cranelike shadoufs (used in Egypt until recently for irrigating fields) -- have serious flaws... architect Jean-Pierre Houdin and I presented a radical new theory: that blocks of stone were raised to the very top of the pyramid on an internal ramp. We gave what we felt was strong evidence for the theory, which explains a French team's microgravemetric survey in the 1980s that recorded variations in the density of the pyramid... an image from the survey may show a...

Using cutting edge technology, Egyptologist Bob Brier of the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University delved into the only standing wonder of the ancient world, the Great Pyramid, and uncovered the mystery behind cracks in the massive Egyptian structure, unearthing a new room along the way. Brier, French architect Jean-Pierre Houdin and a team of software specialists from Dassault Systems in Paris used 3-D modeling software to determine that the burial chamber's stone support beams cracked as final construction of the Giza wonder was near completion 4,500 years ago. The team discovered that the cracks occurred when three...

A French architect said on Friday he had cracked a 4,500-year-old mystery surrounding Egypt's Great Pyramid, saying it was built from the inside out. Previous theories have suggested Pharaoh Khufu's tomb, the last surviving example of the seven great wonders of antiquity, was built using either a vast frontal ramp or a ramp in a corkscrew shape around the exterior to haul up the stonework. But flouting previous wisdom, Jean-Pierre Houdin said advanced 3D technology had shown the main ramp which was used to haul the massive stones to the apex was contained 10-15 meters beneath the outer skin, tracing...

PARIS - A French architect claimed Friday to have uncovered the mystery about how Egypt's Great Pyramid of Khufu was built — with use of a spiral ramp to hoist huge stone blocks into place. The construction of the Great Pyramid 4,500 years ago by Khufu, a ruler also known as Cheops, has long befuddled scientists as to how its 3 million stone blocks weighing 2.5 tons each were lifted into place. Ending eight years of study on the subject, architect Jean-Pierre Houdin released his findings and a computerized 3-D mockup showing how workers would have erected the pyramid at...

A huge void discovered inside the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt late last year may hold an iron throne carved from meteorites, according to new analysis of ancient religious texts. Giulio Magli, Director of the Department of Mathematics and Professor of Archaeoastronomy at the Politecnico di Milano, studied the Pyramid Texts, religious writings carved into pyramid walls around 2400 BC. Based on his studies, Magli proposes that it’s possible the throne of Pharaoh Khufu – or ‘Cheops’ – lies inside the chamber. ================================================================================================================================ “Of course it would not be melted iron but meteoritic iron, that is, fallen from the...

Jean-Pierre Houdin -- who was rebuffed three years ago by Egypt in his appeal for a probe into how the Pyramid was built -- said 3-D simulation and data from a U.S. egyptologist, Bob Brier, pointed to two secret chambers in the heart of the structure. The rooms would have housed furniture for use in the afterlife by the pharaoh Khufu, also known as Cheops in Greek, he told a press conference. "I am convinced there are antechambers in this pyramid. What I want is to find them," he said. In March 2007, Houdin advanced the theory that the Great...

New scans revealed unprecedented details about the internal structure of the Great Pyramid of Giza. The so-called Big Void inside the Pyramid is now measured at 40 meters in length. Its contents remain a profound mystery.ScanPyramids, as the project is called, is a cross-disciplinary multinational archeological mission that uses state-of-the-art, non-destructive methods to scan various monuments for hidden cavities, chambers, or structures. This is achieved by using infra-red thermography and muons tomography.Muon tomography essentially uses cosmic ray muons to produce three-dimensional images of volumes using information stored in the Coulomb scattering of the muons. Muons can penetrate much more deeply...

Subatomic particles paint pictures of inner worlds of pyramids, volcanoes and more illustration of muon particles raining down on the Great Pyramid of Giza - An invisible rain of the subatomic particles called muons pierces structures on Earth’s surface, including the Great Pyramid of Giza. Those muons can help map out the chambers within the pyramid and have even revealed an unexplained hidden void. Inside Egypt’s Great Pyramid of Giza lies a mysterious cavity, its void unseen by any living human, its surface untouched by modern hands. But luckily, scientists are no longer limited by human senses. To feel out...

The largest of the two voids is located just above the grand gallery — a passageway that leads to what may be the chamber of the pharaoh Khufu — and is about 98 feet (30 meters) long and 20 feet (6 m) in height, according to previous pyramid scans. Archaeologists are uncertain as to what they will find in the void, which could be one large area or several small rooms, they said. They also hope to find out the function of that void; the most fantastic possibility is that the opening is the hidden burial chamber of Khufu. A...

Physicists explore subatomic particle strategy for revealing archaeological secrets At its most glamorous, the life of an experimental high-energy physicist consists of smashing obscure subatomic particles with futuristic-sounding names into each other to uncover truths about the universe—using science's biggest, most expensive toys in exciting locations such as Switzerland or Illinois. But it takes a decade or two to plan and build multibillion-dollar atom smashers. While waiting, what's a thrill-seeking physicist to do? How about using some of the perfectly good, and completely free, subatomic particles that rain down on Earth from space every day to peek inside something really...

Muons Meet the MayaPhysicists explore subatomic particle strategy for revealing archaeological secrets Betsy Mason At its most glamorous, the life of an experimental high-energy physicist consists of smashing obscure subatomic particles with futuristic-sounding names into each other to uncover truths about the universe—using science's biggest, most expensive toys in exciting locations such as Switzerland or Illinois. But it takes a decade or two to plan and build multibillion-dollar atom smashers. While waiting, what's a thrill-seeking physicist to do? SUBATOMIC ARCHAEOLOGY. Physicists plan to use muons generated by cosmic rays to probe the interior of the Pyramid of the Sun at...

Muons May Unlock Secrets of Teotihuacan If tombs are discovered in the Pyramid of the Sun, they could shed light on the governing style in the ancient city of Teotihuacan, Mexico. Does the Pyramid of the Sun harbor any tombs? What might such tombs reveal about the society that two millennia ago built one of Mesoamerica's largest pyramids? In an experiment à la Luis Alvarez, who in the late 1960s concluded that there are no tombs in Egypt's Chephren pyramid, a collaboration of physicists and archaeologists hopes to glean answers to these questions by monitoring the passage of muons through...

Space dust to unlock Mexican pyramid secrets Muon detector could point scientists to hidden burial chambersTwo vendors sit near the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan, where physicists are using a muon detector to look for hidden burial chambers. TEOTIHUACAN, Mexico - Remnants of space dust that constantly shower the world are helping unlock the secrets of a 2,000-year-old Mexican pyramid where the rulers of a mysterious civilization may lie buried. Deep under the huge Pyramid of the Sun, north of Mexico City, physicists are installing a device to detect muons, subatomic particles that are left over when cosmic...