Authorities announced on Thursday that scientists had discovered a hidden passage inside Egypt’s Giza Pyramid as part of a seven-year international research project.
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 ceiling “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 site of the Giza pyramid.
The find was made as part of the ScanPyramids project, which began in 2015 as a collaboration between 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 project’s oversight committee, which uses advanced technology to visualise hidden parts of the pyramid’s interior without excavating it.
The technology combines infrared thermography, muon radiography imaging, and 3D reconstruction, all of which are non-invasive and non-destructive techniques, according to the researchers.
The Great Pyramid is the tallest structure in Giza, standing 146 metres tall, and the only surviving structure of the ancient world’s seven wonders.
Built some 4,500 years ago, it has three known chambers, and like other pyramids in Egypt was intended as a pharaoh’s tomb.
Hawass told reporters at the pyramid on Thursday that “there is a great possibility… the tunnel is protecting something. In my opinion, it is protecting the actual burial chamber of King Khufu.”
In 2017, ScanPyramids announced the discovery of a passenger plane-sized cavity, the first major structure found inside the Great Pyramid since the 19th century.
