Scientists find pyramid’s secret tunnel

A hidden passageway has emerged from the darkness of the Great Pyramid of Giza, astounding experts. With a span of nine metres, and measuring more than two metres across, this is only the second major structure to be found within the pyramid since the 19th century and Egyptologists are hopeful that it will give fuller insight into the long-lost secrets of this particular tomb.

Zahi Hawass heads the committee monitoring the project.

Zahi Hawass: "Today, major important secrets have been revealed by technology for the first time, the discovery of a nine metres tunnel, and two metres and 10 centimetres wide, found behind the main entrance of the Great Pyramid, and this discovery will reveal to us many important facts about Khufu and his Pyramid."

In sharp comparison with the excavation works conducted two centuries earlier, this startling revelation's come to pass without damaging the integrity of the ancient monument itself. The ScanPyramids programme is one in which university specialists from leading universities in France, Germany, Canada and Japan have collaborated with Egyptian experts. The team of scientists employed a range of state-of-the-art technologies, including thermography, muon radiography imaging and 3D reconstruction and as such, the explorations were orchestrated in a totally non-invasive and non-destructive fashion.

Erected some 4,500 years ago, the Great Pyramid is Egypt's most colossal, reaching an impressive 146 metres, and is the single surviving example of the world's seven ancient wonders.

For Hawass, this recently revealed corridor might pave the way to discovering King Khufu's actual burial chamber. His empty granite sarcophagus was found within the pyramid centuries ago, and looters were presumed to have removed the Pharaoh's mummified body.

Science is gradually uncovering millennia-old mysteries. Weniger anzeigen