On Sept.17th, at three A.M Cairo
time, an attempt was made to unveil a new mystery of the Great Pyramid at
Giza. The pyramid is the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the World and is
also the only one that still exists. It was built to serve as a tomb for the
Egyptian pharaoh Khufu of the Fourth Dynasty around the year 2560 BC.
The
attempt on Tuesday to discover the nature of a newly discovered chamber in
the Great Pyramid was made using a miniature robot- nicknamed the Pyramid
Rover- which traveled 65 meters up a narrow 25 centimeter wide shaft which
runs from the Queen’s Chamber up to another mysterious chamber of unknown
content. The robot drilled through the thick limestone door at the end of
the 4,500-year-old tunnel and inserted a fiber-optic camera into the hole it
made, only to discover another stone that could possibly be another door.
The
search for further information concerning this mystery chamber will continue
and may take up to 12 months according to Dr. Zahi Hawass, the director of
Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA). "What we have seen
tonight is totally unique within the world of Egyptology," Dr. Hawass
said. "There is nothing to compare it to, as these passages are not in
any other pyramids, with or without doors. The presence of a second door
only deepens the intrigue surrounding the Great Pyramid."
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The
step pyramid of Saqqara. |
The practice of building tombs for the Egyptian pharaoh kings in the form of
pyramids began as an evolution of the idea of a Mastaba or “platform”
covering the royal tomb. One mastaba was stacked on top of the other to form
the pyramid. The first pyramid built in Egypt was the step pyramid in
Saqqara built by the famous Egyptian architect Imhoteb. The structure of
this pyramid clearly demonstrates this relation.
The
Khufu pyramid is the largest of the three pyramids; it is thought to have
been built over a 20-year period using 2 million blocks of stone, each
weighing over two tons. A remarkable feature of all three of the Giza
pyramids is that each of the four faces of the pyramids is directed either
north, south, east or west. The three pyramids are aligned with great
precision. It is thought that the ancient Egyptians used the polar stars as
their guide to north and south and this would explain the slight deviation
from due north of the base of several pyramids. This can be explained by the
fact that these stars have deviated from their positions a few years after
the pyramids were built. The lengths of the four sides of the base of the
Great Pyramid are remarkably equivalent, with the difference between the
longest and shortest sides, which each measure an average 755.5 feet, being
only seven inches.
The
Interior of the Great Pyramid
The
Khufu pyramid contains four chambers; the King’s Chamber lies at the heart
of the pyramid and can be reached only through the northern face through a
narrow passage. This leads up to the wide Grand Gallery that leads to the
entrance of the chamber.
From
the lowest part of the Grand Gallery another narrow passage leads to the so
called Queen’s Chamber which is an inaccurate naming as this room was most
probably never used and is of unknown function. There is a third chamber 30
meters below the pyramid, this chamber is incomplete and is thought to have
been the original burial place for the king before he decided to change its
position to a higher one within the pyramid itself.
The
last of the four chambers is the recently discovered mystery chamber that
lies at the end of the 65-meter shaft running from the Queen’s Chamber.
There are two shafts arising from the King’s Chamber, a northern shaft and
a southern one. The purpose of these shafts is unclear. It is not known if
their purpose is to allow the entry of air or sun, or perhaps they were
meant as a passageway for the pharaoh’s soul after his death.
The
“Lost City”
An
even more remarkable discovery is that of the so-called ‘lost city of
workers’, which was recently discovered by American archaeologist Mark
Lehner. This is thought to be the lodging place of the 20,000 or so workers
believed to have built the pyramids. It is a complex village structure that
lies 1.6 kilometers from the Great Pyramid, a few hundred yards south of the
Sphinx near the workers' cemetery. This incredible new discovery is of
extreme significance as it gives a great deal of information about the
people who built the pyramids and also gives some insight into the effect
the pyramids themselves might have had on the Old-Kingdom Egyptian society.
The
excavations, which began in the fall of 1999, uncovered a large complex that
included several bakeries, copper working facilities and long galleries. One
of the most interesting discoveries is Egypt’s oldest hypostyle hall (so
called due to its column supported roof), three roads (including Egypt’s
oldest paved road) and even a corner of a large double walled buttressed
building which is believed to be part of a palace or the residence of some
other authoritative figure.
It
is believed that the workers’ homes lie somewhere beneath the soccer field
adjacent to the excavation site or under a highly populated town to the
east. The bell-shaped clay pottery used by the ancient Egyptians to
bake the large bread that was made to feed the multitudes was also found.
Animal bones recovered from the site indicate that the workers were fed lots
of prime beef. Fish bones were also recovered. There was highly professional
medical treatment available to the workers as shown by examinations of
skeletal remains that showed healed fractures and amputations.
All
this contrasts with the previous belief that the builders of the pyramids
were slaves. Lehner believes that the pyramids were built by temporary
workers from various parts of Egypt who worked in rotation rather than by
slaves. The work was obligatory but was not slave labor. These workers in
Old-Kingdom Egypt had a sense of obligation to their society that many
modern day people may find hard to understand. It is this bringing together
of the people from all over Egypt that Lehner believes had a unifying effect
on the whole of Egypt. This unification could only have occurred under such
an immense project such as the building of the pyramids and in this way the
pharaoh established a stable central government.
Lehner
believes that just south of the pyramids there laid a man made harbor from
which needed materials that were brought in were then unloaded from the
boats that carried them down the Nile. Granite rocks that weighed 60 tons
were brought in from places as far away as Aswan. They also brought in large
amounts of casing stone, wood, cattle and grain. The huge stones were carved
and then pushed or pulled using mud to decrease the friction with the
ground. A straight or perhaps a spiral ramp is thought to have been built
around the pyramid to allow the stones to be raised to their intended
position. The ramp was raised as the pyramid grew. After the pyramid was
constructed, it was encased in a white outer covering to smooth the surface.
This casing was lost through the years, however a small portion of it can
still be seen at the top of Khafre’s pyramid.
The
pyramids will always be a place of wonder and great mystery, it is amazing
that after 4,500 years they still have more mysteries to offer and we still
find much to discover of their secrets.
Sources:
Dr.
Aisha El-Awady is an Instructor of Parasitology, Faculty of
Medicine, Cairo University.
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