Scientists Are Investigating a Puzzling Underground 'Anomaly' Near the Giza Pyramids

[Judi Lynn]

Last edited Thu May 16, 2024, 04:26 AM - Edit history (1)

Using remote-sensing technologies, researchers have discovered two connected structures in a previously unexplored area

Sonja Anderson
Daily Correspondent

May 14, 2024



Researchers used ground-penetrating radar and electrical resistivity tomography to scan the graveyard near the Great Pyramid of Khufu. Archaeological Prospection

Without breaking ground, archaeologists in Egypt have discovered an “anomaly” beneath a royal graveyard near Giza’s 4,500-year-old Great Pyramid. The pyramid, which is Egypt’s largest, was built to honor the pharaoh Khufu. Its neighboring ancient necropolis contains many aboveground monuments, or mastabas, dedicated to the pharaoh’s family members and high-ranking officials.

“A mastaba is a type of tomb, which has a flat roof and rectangular structure on the ground surface, constructed out of limestone or mudbricks,” according to a study published this month in the journal Archaeological Prospection.

These surface-level tombs have vertical shafts connected to underground chambers. Many of the site’s mastabas were excavated in the 20th century, but one vacant area without any noteworthy aboveground features had been left unexamined.

Between 2021 and 2023, researchers from Higashi Nippon International University and Tohoku University in Japan and the National Research Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics in Egypt analyzed this empty area. Instead of a traditional excavation, they employed several non-intrusive imaging technologies—ground-penetrating radar and electrical resistivity tomography—to study the site. The resulting scans revealed something strange.

“We believe we found an anomaly: a combination of a shallow structure connected to a deeper structure,” write the researchers in the study. The shallow structure is clearly L-shaped, and the scans indicate it was filled in with sand after construction. At one point, “it may have been an entrance to the deeper structure.”



Giza's Western Cemetery, as viewed from the Great Pyramid of Khufu The Giza Project at Harvard University

More:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/alongside-egypts-great-pyramid-archaeologists-find-unmarked-underground-structures-180984355/

[Oopsie Daisy]

1. All my life I've wanted to visit there. Now it's too late *

* I'm too old with mobility issues and honestly, I wouldn't feel entirely safe.

[ActRaiser]

2. I went when i was 25

Back in 1999. It was incredible- I went inside the smallest of the three Great Pyramids. The corridors were maybe 5 feet high; the ancient Egyptians were much smaller people than we are today!
I know they unearthed a fully intact river barge near the site, so maybe this discovery is another funerary offering of that sort. Or maybe it's something even cooler.

I hope you can find a way to go if you still really want to do it. It's a strangely humbling, even spiritual, experience. Though I must add that there is a Pizza Hut just down the road by the Sphinx- modernity does poke its crass face out, even in a place like that!

[dhol82]

3. In terms of safety

I was in Egypt last year and traveled from Cairo to Aswan and back. I was in airports, hotels and obscure places in the interior. I never felt overly alarmed. When I first arrived I did a food tour with a local agent - fabulous. We wandered around the back roads and alleys and had a great time. After that I joined my regular tour which contained fourteen people and a guide who happened to be a university trained Egyptologist. We had no problems anywhere.
I know there are problems in the world. Just try to listen to what’s happening and check the government travel advisories.
By the way, I’m sure there are travel agencies that deal with handicapped travel. That might be a good choice for you.