Another mystery has been uncovered inside Egypt’s Great Pyramid, baffling researchers following its discovery. Using modern equipment, a 30-foot chamber has been found in the pyramid, which has been explored for hundreds of years.
According to Ahmed Issa, the Egyptian Minister of Tourism and Antiquities, at a Thursday press conference, the newfound chamber is considered 4,500 years old. The room is a corridor that is 30 feet long and six feet wide, and it stands just above the entrance to the pyramid.
According to Fox News, Issa credits the International Scan Pyramids Project for the find, saying that modern scanning equipment made this possible. Without the equipment, it would have likely taken destroying the pyramid to find this hidden chamber.
A professor of non-destructive testing at the Technical University of Munich spoke about the gravity of the find the possibility that this chamber is just the beginning of a more excellent uncovered mystery beyond two gigantic rocks inside the room. Here is what he said, according to Fox News.
‘’There are two large limestones at the end chamber, and now the question is what’s behind these stones and below the chamber.”
While some believe there to be some ritualistic purpose to the chamber, others think that its existence is purely logistical. Rooms like this may have been put in place to support the longevity of the structure. Egyptologist at Swansea University in Wales Reg Clark echoed this sentiment, according to the Smithsonian Magazine:
“Many of these structural innovations in the pyramids … were developed for pragmatic reasons by the Egyptian tomb builders.”
Also, according to the Smithsonian Magazine, this lack of understanding and total mystery surrounding the room is not entirely new to the pyramid. Questions and confusion have arisen abundantly since modern imagery has been used to find space inside the structure; they said:
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“The Great Pyramid was built around 2560 B.C.E. under Khufu, a pharaoh of Egypt’s Old Kingdom. Mysteries and intrigue have always surrounded his life and death. The Greek historian Herodotus’ portrait of an oppressive and cruel ruler clashes with Egyptian beliefs about his wisdom. Myths persist about Khufu’s funding and motivation for the creation of the Great Pyramid.
“As Mike Dash wrote for Smithsonian magazine in 2011, the reasons for the elaborate system of chambers and passageways, the most complex of any pyramid, remain unknown. The structure is the only one of its time built with tunnels high above ground level.”
The head of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, Mostafa Waziri told the press that this find would lead to an increased effort to unravel the secrets of the pyramid. BBC shared this quote from Waziri:
“We’re going to continue our scanning so we will see what we can do… to figure out what we can find out beneath it, or just by the end of this corridor.”
Whatever the outcome of the upcoming scans, it is clear that archeologists are coming excitingly close to uncovering the mystery of the past of the human race and how such magnificent were created in a time without advanced technology.