Authorities claimed on Thursday that scientists have uncovered a hidden corridor inside Egypt’s Great Pyramid as part of a seven-year multinational study initiative.
According to the antiquities ministry, the passage is nine metres (30 feet) long and more than two metres wide.
The “gabled corridor” with a triangular roof “was discovered on the northern face of the Great Pyramid of King Khufu,” Egypt’s Tourism and Antiquities Minister Ahmed Issa told reporters at the ancient monument in Giza, also known as the Khufu, or Cheops, pyramid.
The find was made as part of the ScanPyramids initiative, which began in 2015 as a collaboration involving major universities in France, Germany, Canada, and Japan, as well as a group of Egyptian experts.
Egypt’s former antiquities minister, archaeologist Zahi Hawass, heads the committee overseeing the project, which uses advanced technology to visualize hidden areas of the pyramid’s interior without excavating it.
The system combines infrared thermography, muon radiography imaging, and 3D reconstruction, all of which are non-invasive and non-destructive procedures, according to the researchers.
The Great Pyramid is the tallest structure in Giza, reaching 146 meters tall, and the sole remaining edifice of the ancient world’s seven wonders.
It was built some 4,500 years ago and, like other pyramids in Egypt, was designed as a pharaoh’s tomb.
On Thursday, Hawass informed reporters at the pyramid that “There’s a good chance… the tunnel is guarding something. It is, in my opinion, guarding King Khufu’s genuine burial chamber.”
ScanPyramids announced the finding of a passenger plane-sized void inside the Great Pyramid in 2017, the first large structure discovered inside the Great Pyramid since the nineteenth century.
