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

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/