4,500 years on, Giza pyramid’s new secret

CURSES, hidden treasures and boy kings – ancient Egypt has thrown up many tantalising mysteries over the years.

The latest riddle is a hidden chamber in the Great Pyramid of Giza that could shed light on how the 4,500-year-old wonder was built.

Discovered using a scanning technique involving cosmic rays, the vast ‘void’ lying deep within the structure has been hailed as the biggest find there since the 19th century. The chamber is more than 67metres high and 30metres long, but there is no clue as to why it is there.

Egyptologists believe it may have been a ramp used by thousands of workmen to move the 80-tonne stone slabs which form the pyramid’s colossal burial chamber. But there is a smaller chance the mysterious void may be a ‘decoy’ burial chamber built to deter looters. Or it may once have contained jewels and statues buried with a pharaoh to take with him to the afterlife.

The Great Pyramid – the largest of the three at Giza, near Cairo – is the only one of the ancient Seven Wonders left standing. Using a newly developed technique, experts tracked the paths of particles known as muons – byproducts of cosmic rays – as they moved through the granite and limestone structure.

The pyramid, made during the reign of Pharaoh Khufu, was the world’s tallest man-made structure for thousands of years.

It is already known that the 146metre-high monument opens into a Grand Gallery, leading to Khufu’s burial chamber, and that there is also an unfinished ‘Queen’s chamber’. However, the reason behind the new void has baffled experts.

Dr Kate Spence, senior lecturer in Egyptian archaeology at Cam- bridge University, said: ‘The most likely explanation is that this was a ramp built to get the 80-tonne red granite slabs laid above the roof of the burial chamber and prevent it from collapsing onto Khufu’s body inside.

‘An internal ramp would have made life easier for the tens of thousands of men working on the pyramid as they dragged blocks high up onto it. It could have been an elegant solution to their building problems.’