What do we know of the tunnel found in the Great Pyramid of Giza? Why is it significant?

An exciting discovery has been made in the Great Pyramid of Giza. A secret passage nearly 30 feet long and over two metres wide has been found above the pyramid’s main entrance. The Great Pyramid, the only surviving structure of the seven wonders of the ancient world, was constructed as a monumental tomb around 2560 BC during the reign of Fourth Dynasty Pharaoh Khufu, or Cheops (2509 to 2483 BC). Built to a height of 479 feet, it now stands at 456 feet. One of three pyramids that make up the Great Pyramids at Giza complex, it was the tallest manmade structure until the construction of the Eiffel Tower in 1889. Like the other pyramids in Egypt, it has three known chambers, and was intended as a pharaoh’s tomb. Egypt’s tourism and antiquities Minister Ahmed Issa told reporters at the ancient site in Giza also known as the Khufu, or Cheops, pyramid, that the “gabled corridor” with a triangular ceiling “was found on the northern face of the Great Pyramid of King Khufu”. Let’s take a closer look at the tunnel and why it is significant: What happened? The corridor — on the northern side of the Pyramid of Khufu — was discovered using modern scanning technology.

The discovery was made under the Scan Pyramids project.

The project was launched in 2015 as a collaboration between major universities in France, Germany, Canada and Japan and a group of Egyptian experts. The technology is a mix of infrared thermography, muon radiography imaging and 3D reconstruction – all of which the researchers say are non-invasive and non-destructive techniques. As per NBC, muon radiography, created in by Japan’s Nagoya University and the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization, examines cosmic ray muon particles. These particles hit the Earth at nearly the speed of light and, when it comes to examining solid matter, are more efficient than X-rays. Scientists detected the corridor through cosmic-ray muon radiography, before retrieving images of it by feeding a 6mm-thick endoscope from Japan through a tiny joint in the pyramid’s stones. Scientists from the project — which began in 2015 — attended the unveiling.

According to Christian Grosse, Professor of Non-destructive Testing at the Technical University of Munich and a leading member of the project, various scanning techniques were deployed to locate the chamber, including ultrasound measurements and ground penetrating radars. He hopes these techniques will lead to further findings within the pyramid.

“There are two large limestones at the end chamber, and now the question is what’s behind these stones and below the chamber,” Grosse said. Experts previously discovered a king’s chamber (around the centre of the pyramid) as well as a queen’s chamber, NBC News reported. Why is this significant? Archaeologists do not yet know what the function was of the chamber, which is not accessible from the outside. “Discovering a hollow space in a pyramid is already something special. But the fact that this chamber is large enough to accommodate several people makes the discovery even more important,” Grosse told Interesting Engineering. [caption id=“attachment_12240482” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Policemen are silhouetted against the Great Pyramid in Giza. AP[/caption] However, an article published in the journal Nature on Thursday said the discovery could contribute to knowledge about the construction of the pyramid and the purpose of a gabled limestone structure that sits in front of the corridor. The unfinished corridor was likely created to redistribute the pyramid’s weight around either the main entrance now used by tourists, almost seven metres away, or around another as yet undiscovered chamber or space, said Mostafa Waziri, head of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities. “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,” he told reporters after a press conference in front of the pyramid. Five rooms atop the king’s burial chamber in another part of the pyramid are also thought to have been built to redistribute the weight of the massive structure. It was possible the pharaoh had more than one burial chamber, Waziri added. In 2017, Scan Pyramids researchers announced the discovery of a void at least 30 metres long inside the Great Pyramid, the first major inner structure found since the 19th Century. What do experts say? Experts remain divided over how the pyramids were constructed, so even relatively minor discoveries generate great interest. Archaeologist Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s former antiquities minister, heads the committee supervising the project, told NBC News, “This discovery, in my opinion, is the most important discovery of the 21st century.” Hawass further told AFP that “there is a great possibility… the tunnel is protecting something. In my opinion, it is protecting the actual burial chamber of King Khufu.” However, it is important to note that authorities in the cash-strapped West Asian nation often publicly tout discoveries to attract more tourists – a major source of foreign currency. Egypt’s tourism sector suffered a long downturn after the political turmoil and violence that followed the 2011 uprising that ousted the country’s long-time autocratic president Hosni Mubarak, and further setbacks following the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News , India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook ,  Twitter  and  Instagram .