Obviously HAZMAT work will be required. All that tobacco smoke in there on the walls could be the cause of cancer throughout Egypt to this day.
Now the truth can be told.
Kidding aside, I’m surprised this sort of scan work wasn’t done before now. Then again a couple years WERE a writeoff thanks to Obama. Does anyone know if that jackass they had running antiquities over there stopped it earlier?
I’m not sure about the science of these scans. That is, if the science has existed for a long time and, if so, why it hasn’t been done before now.
I do know that, for the longest time, all of these antiquities in Egypt were under the supervision of this Master Archaeologist whose name eludes me at the moment, but you couldn’t turn on a TV program about Egyptian ruins without seeing him lecturing. I’m sure you’ve see him on TV. In fact, I’m sure pretty much everyone on the planet has seen him on TV.
Dr. Hawass, or something like that...?
Anyway, I have no idea why this wasn’t done earlier. Did the technology exist before now?
About 45-50 years ago, the now-late Luis Alvarez built a detector (cosmic rays I think it was) inside the Khafre pyramid, and based on the data collected concluded that there were no large unknown chambers in that pyramid. He’d have missed a ramp though.
The radiograhic muons thing might be new. All that other stuff - not so much. And it is just looking at the surface - so not sure what they expect to see. I’m guessing the big mysteries will be discovered in their “3D Reconstruction” - whatever that means. Although it will probably be in color and on a computer - so it must be right!