Mapping hidden corridors and chambers in the Great Pyramid of Giza | Hacker News Reader

Mapping hidden corridors and chambers in the Great Pyramid of Giza

arstechnica.com

78 pointsmfiguiere44 comments

Note: The clicky title says "secret hidden corridor". But the article uses phrases like "a void space shaped like a corridor".

Why? Unused, dead-end void spaces were a regular feature of large pyramids. If you pile rocks into a huge pyramid, with only ancient Egyptian engineering tech, then the weight of the higher layers concentrates in random places lower down - cracking some of the lower layers. Any cracking or ceiling collapses in parts of the pyramid that the pharaoh cared about could be unhealthy for the lead engineers. Well-placed void spaces helped re-distribute the stress, minimizing that risk.

This is nitpicking but it's good engineering practice even today.

Similarly, we don't have evidence that suggests lead engineers would be killed or anything if there were engineering problems.

My main point is just to deexoticize the work and work environment. They were engineers -- clearly good ones!

> Similarly, we don't have evidence that suggests lead engineers would be killed or anything if there were engineering problems.

Sure, but they might not get promoted to Senior Lead Engineer in their next Pharaoh Performance Review, which is almost as bad.

Or be fired, but with real fire.

The Pantheon in rome has a giant 150' diameter, unsupported concrete dome. It uses some density "hacks" as well. Turns out the top third of the dome uses concrete that's about 50% pumice (lightweight volcanic rock) by volume. Like ancient foam. Both structures are ancient at this point but the Panthon is particularly impressive in that the unsupported dome survives in a highly seismic area.

I read the original article about the muon imaging project and remember being surprised that there is actually a scientific endeavour that involves exotic elementary particles, advanced physics, cosmic rays from deep space and ancient Egyptian pyramids and which was not thought up by the Stargate SG1 writers.

The muon imaging idea originates with Luis Alvarez, who also flew on the mission that dropped the first atomic bomb, discovered what killed the dinosaurs, and won a Nobel Prize for contributions to particle physics. Truly the kind of mind that inspires science fiction.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Walter_Alvarez

Yeah. He’s has a certain kind of brilliance because dropping an atomic bomb on people would see me changing my interests. There was science and what the politicians chose for the science. But seems he was quite the active participant.

A very nice youtube channel is History for Granite:

https://www.youtube.com/@HistoryforGRANITE/videos

I've learned from this channel that there is 4500 year old wood is still in place in some of the pyramids. There has been carbon dating on it, and ash in the mortar.

Even crazier is that the structures in the Great Pyramid were built larger than what was needed, with empty/semi empty spaces in between that were later filled by smaller blocks [1].

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science-advance/20/12/...

Thrilled to see some love for History for Granite. That and Ancient Architects are fantastic if you’re a specific type of history nerd.

Another vote for History for Granite. Another great one is Scientists Against Myths (https://www.youtube.com/@ScientistsAgainstMyths) where they spend months of laborious effort to recreate ancient stone cutting methods.

Synthetic aperture radar doppler tomograpy of Giza pyramid paper (Prof. Malanga/ Prof. Biondi): https://arxiv.org/pdf/2208.00811.pdf

It is too bad Egypt does not try and restore the external layer the Pyramids had. From ancient text it said the Pyramids would glisten bright from the sun.

IIRC, they had a smooth limestone covering that was bright white.

And a gold capstone.

They are so old, even the damages are of historic value.

When I visited the pyramids, I was so blown away that they were stair-step - and decaying, since I have always seen depictions and imagined them to be smooth-sided. I had to learn that the outer layer was removed (pillaged?)

Because it's whole lot of effort to make the entire structure appear less authentic? The limestone being removed and used for other buildings around it is part of its history too. Makes most sense to just preserve it as-is as much as possible and stop it from deteriorating further.

Conservator restoring things to their original state take great pains and sometimes use the original methods. I imagine that to be infeasible for the pyramids. Doing it differently would be changing the original thing. On the other hand it could serve to protect what still remains of the pyramids.

I think "bright" is relative. There are plenty of limestone structures in the world, including some modern-built pyramids (of much less grand scale). Limestone is soft and porous and will never glisten the way marble does.

It would have been very impressive, to be sure. But I don't think it's going to match the experience you have in mind.

Since any such modern facing would completely hide all of the authentic material, you might as well just build a completely modern structure elsewhere. With modern building techniques it wouldn't take all that long.

That would actually be a pretty amazing thing to recreate the pyramids relatively close by as modern structures and replicate it so people could experience everything in it.

There's not really anything inside a pyramid. It's just a pile of rocks. There are a few chambers, but you don't need the entire pile of rocks for people to experience those.

If you want to stand inside a big pyramid shape made of modern materials, you can go to Las Vegas. From inside it looks like any other building, though I suppose the rooms with the slanting windows are faintly neat.

>It's just a pile of rocks

So the outer sides of the pyramid are these very precise steps with amazing accurancy, and it's just filled in (where there aren't chambers) with... piles of rocks?

I don't think that's correct. They are filled with rough-cut core blocks that are backfilled with small amounts of rubble.

I've wondered if you could build a stone pyramid -- using modern machinery -- financed as a time capsule.

For $X dollars, you can pay to have a cubic foot of stuff interred in the pyramid, for future historians to find. If a pyramid-sized pyramid can hold Y such lots, can you sell enough to pay for the construction?

It doesn't have to be anywhere specific, just pick a spot that's relatively dry and has appropriate stone nearby. Run it as a tourist trap afterwards to pay for whatever ongoing costs are needed to keep people from disassembling it for raw materials.

> Limestone is soft and porous and will never glisten the way marble does.

It was polished fine limestone, though. Maybe it wouldn't have had the same optical qualities as polished marble, but it could [in theory] easily have been incredibly bright with a high reflectance. Modern polished limestone can have a strong gloss almost indistinguishable from polished marble, but maybe that's from modern sealants, polishers, or power tools?

They don't know what tools were used... or really much else. The pyramids and most ancient architecture is what you see is what you get. How or why can't be answered. Much less what the result looked like.

I was coincidentally thinking about this last night, that I remember growing up there would be live television events based on Egyptian discoveries, etc on network television. They don't even really do that on History or Discovery now. I still remember some of those segments, one even sent a camera down a shaft on live TV and they ran into a wooden block or something similar and couldn't go any further. Those were the days.

If anyone knows such shows (or other sources - YouTube, etc) I'd be interested too.

The closest "modern" thing I can think of is Ancient Aliens, but honestly that one cranks up the pseudoscience right up to 11 and appears to be rehashing the same things over and over again to where it's just outright boring.

These were definitely based in history, but they definitely played some things up for TV entertainment. Like suspense of finding something, then cutting to commercial. The closest I can think of in modern times might be Expedition Unknown (on Discovery), but if that were live and on NBC. I wish I could think of what they might have been called, this was early 90s.

The UnchartedX YouTube channel [1] has excellent in-depth analysis of possible tools and construction methods used for ancient megalithic structures, including the Great Pyramid. He hasn't released a video yet of the new discovery, but he's talked about the possibility of this chamber before it was officially confirmed.

I particularly like his video [2] on the scoop marks around a partially quarried obelisk, and how the evidence might point to the use of yet to be discovered machinery. Not crazy stuff like alien tech or electrical power tools, but advanced engineering. Perhaps some sort of circular saw or device on a crane.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/@UnchartedX

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tnrkahCLHw

UnchartedX is a kook channel. History for GRANITE and Scientists Against Myths are not.

Paper: Synthetic aperture radar doppler tomograpy of Giza pyramid by prof.Malanga & prof.Biondi at https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/14/20/5231

This other article [1] currently on the front page actually has a large photo of the inside of the chamber. The Ars Technica article linked here sadly does not.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35007448

I don't think that picture is about the new chamber they're referencing in the article. Note the caption "showing an empty corridor" (emphasis mine).

I was hoping to see a picture, too.

From seeing links elsewhere on the internet, I believe the picture in this article: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-64825526 is the correct one.

I have been hearing about this chamber for years? Do we not have the technology to drill a small hole to it and stick some kind of endoscope like robot in?

The article states it has been imaged by endoscope/borescope. Here's another source;

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2362300-hidden-corridor...

I'm not sure it's the same chamber. It's certainly not any of the spaces that the Upuaut bots explored.

You also seriously underestimate the political landscape about the archaeology of the Pyramids.

As the article states, this space was discovered in 2016 and it took them until now to drill a small hole in it and explore it. Certainly not because of not having the technology back then.

It's a smaller chamber under the chevrons in the sort of gaping hole one can see about a quarter way up. Not a larger void that is also imaged by muons.

> You also seriously underestimate the political landscape about the archaeology of the Pyramids.

Are you perhaps referring to the famous Zahi Hawass?

I read that he claimed the 2016 study "did not discover anything new" but now that he's in charge of it, he predicts that treasures might be found.

Did they actually drill?

I skim-read multiple sources about this and it isn't clear whether they drilled or whether there was an existing gap in between the chevron blocks to insert a borescope.

If it's the former then it makes sense to make 100% sure before drilling into a one-of-a-kind historical artifact, but if it's the latter, why so much effort instead of just trying the borescope approach to begin with at the earliest suspicion of a void?

> An engineer named E.P. George used them to make measurements of an Australian tunnel in the 1950s.

Seems true, but no confirmation if worked at all -

https://trove.nla.gov.au/search/category/newspapers?keyword=...

Where are the ancient alien proponents when you need them (they can tell you what and where these corridors without expensive equipment).

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