A previously unknown area of emptiness has been found in the Cheops pyramid, which may be a secret tomb or a passage into it, says an article published in the journal Nature.
“When we saw this area of emptiness, we realized that we had come across something very interesting and big, we abandoned all other projects and concentrated on studying this area, located directly above the corridor to the tomb of Cheops. Now we are sure that it really exists, and this "This is the first discovery of its kind in the Cheops pyramid since the Middle Ages, when it was opened by Caliph Al-Mamun in the 9th century," said Mehdi Tayoubi from the HIP Institute in Paris (France).
Secrets of the Pharaohs
The Pyramid of Cheops, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, was built in the middle of the third millennium BC, during the time of Pharaoh Khufu (Cheops), a representative of the fourth dynasty of the Old Kingdom, at the same time as all the “great pyramids” of Ancient Egypt. This structure, 145 meters high and 230 meters wide and long, remains one of the tallest and largest buildings ever created by mankind.
Over the past two centuries, scientists have discovered three rooms in the pyramid, in one of which the pharaoh himself was supposedly buried, in the other his wife, and the third was considered a bait or trap for robbers. In the walls of the corridors that lead to Khufu's tomb, unusual channels and structures were found, which scientists believe are elements of the “security system” that protected the pharaoh from defilers.
The mummies of the pharaoh and his wife were never discovered, which is why many archaeologists believe that in fact their tombs are still hidden in the thickness of the pyramid. Two years ago, scientists from the universities of Nagoya, Paris and Cairo began searching for these secret rooms, studying the pyramid using cosmic particle detectors and telescopes as part of the ScanPyramids project.
Breath of space
Every second, millions of muons are formed in the upper layers of the Earth's atmosphere - charged particles resulting from the collision of cosmic rays with gas molecules in the air. These collisions accelerate muons to near-light speeds, thanks to which they penetrate tens and hundreds of meters deep into the surface of the planet. Scientists' measurements show that every square meter of the Earth's surface absorbs about 10 thousand of these particles.
French archaeologists and physicists, together with Japanese scientists, have adapted telescopes that can “see” muons to search for voids and hidden rooms in ancient architectural monuments.
This technique works very simply - the flux of muons decreases in the air and in empty space much more slowly than when passing through rock or earth, which makes it possible to search for secret rooms by bursts in the muon background.
Last October, participants in the ScanPyramids project announced a sensational discovery - they managed to find several previously unknown voids in the pyramid, which could be the secret tombs of the “lord of two houses” and his wife. This discovery caused sharp rejection among archaeologists and Egyptologists, who accused physicists of incorrectly interpreting the data obtained.
Physics and lyrics
These accusations forced scientists to take repeated measurements using three different muon telescopes. This time, as Tayubi emphasized, the observations were carried out according to the same rules and principles by which the Higgs boson and other particles unknown to science were searched for at the LHC and other accelerators.
“Our measurements absolutely rule out that this void area could have arisen due to differences in the properties of the stones or due to errors in construction,” says Zahi Hawass. Voids of this size and configuration could not have appeared between the blocks by chance, neither with engineering nor any other technology. "The Egyptians were too good builders to screw up the pyramid, leave a hole in it and create a room or corridor somewhere else," said Hany Helal of Cairo University in Cairo.
Checking whether this is true or not, scientists installed a set of films sensitive to the action of muons in the supposed tomb of Cheops’s wife, and placed semiconductor particle detectors at the bottom of the pyramid. After a few months, they collected the data, processed it and compared it with how muons should move through the pyramid if there were no other voids in it, except for the already known corridors and rooms.
If the initial results of scanning the Cheops pyramid were erroneous, then, as Elal notes, the “pictures” obtained by different muon telescopes would not match. In fact, they turned out to be the same, which confirmed the assumptions of physicists and refuted the insinuations of archaeologists.
The images showed that above the main corridor of the pyramid there is a zone of emptiness thirty meters long, eight meters high and about two meters wide. As Tayubi noted, it can be either a solid corridor running parallel to the ground, up or down, or a suite of rooms. So far, physicists do not have enough data to rule out the first or second option.
Scientists emphasize that they do not interpret their discovery in any way and do not claim that they managed to find a secret room - this task, according to them, should be carried out by Egyptologists.
Jean-Baptiste Mouret, a physicist at the University of Paris, hopes his team's discovery will convince Egyptian historians that they were wrong in their assessments and will open the door to debate whether it is worth trying to penetrate this void zone. if yes, how to do it.
A new round of history
In the near future, as scientists noted, they plan to continue studying the void zone, as well as other sections of the Cheops pyramid, including the tomb of the pharaoh himself, and will begin to scan other pyramids that may hide secret rooms and unknown voids.
These data, physicists hope, will help us understand exactly how the pyramids were built and whether we can trust the descriptions of their construction, which have come down to our time in the works of Herodotus.
At the same time, as scientists noted, muon scanners can not reveal all the secrets. ancient history. For example, according to Tayubi, they cannot be used to search for the secret tomb of Nefertiti in the tomb of Tutankhamun, the existence of which was recently announced by the famous British Egyptologist Nicholas Reeves.
“Muon scanners cannot be used to study the tomb of Tutankhamun and other burials in the Valley of the Kings for the reason that we do not know how the voids are distributed in the rocks located above them,” the scientist explained, answering a question from RIA Novosti.
Such research, added Sebastien Procureur, a colleague of Moret, is further complicated by the fact that man-made particle accelerators cannot be used to scan pyramids and other ancient buildings, since delivering them to Giza or the Valley of the Kings would entail unacceptably high costs.
"In short, this is simply not feasible. Muons cannot be created directly - they arise from the decays of kaons and pions, and there are too few particle accelerators in the world capable of accelerating them to the required speeds. In addition, they are all very large - at least 700 meters in length. It would be easier for us to transport the pyramid to such an installation than to try to build it in Giza or other parts of Egypt. Therefore, we have to rely on space in such observations,” the agency’s interlocutor concluded.
MOSCOW, November 3 – RIA Novosti. Physicists have found a previously unknown void area in the Cheops pyramid that may be a secret tomb or a passage into it, according to a paper published in the journal Nature.
“When we saw this area of emptiness, we realized that we had come across something very interesting and big, we abandoned all other projects and concentrated on studying this area, located directly above the corridor to the tomb of Cheops. Now we are sure that it really exists, and this "This is the first discovery of its kind in the Cheops pyramid since the Middle Ages, when it was opened by Caliph Al-Mamun in the 9th century," said Mehdi Tayoubi from the HIP Institute in Paris (France).
The Pyramid of Cheops, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, was built in the middle of the third millennium BC, during the time of Pharaoh Khufu (Cheops), a representative of the fourth dynasty of the Old Kingdom, at the same time as all the “great pyramids” Ancient Egypt. This structure, 145 meters high and 230 meters wide and long, remains one of the tallest and largest buildings ever created by mankind.
How did you search?
Every second, millions of muons are formed in the upper layers of the Earth's atmosphere - charged particles resulting from the collision of cosmic rays with gas molecules in the air. These collisions accelerate muons to near-light speeds, thanks to which they penetrate tens and hundreds of meters deep into the surface of the planet. Scientists' measurements show that every square meter of the Earth's surface absorbs about 10 thousand of these particles.
French archaeologists and physicists, together with Japanese scientists, have adapted telescopes that can “see” muons to search for voids and hidden rooms in ancient architectural monuments.
"Previously Unknown Voids"
At the end of October, it reported that archaeologists and physicists had discovered inside the Cheops pyramid two, as they put it, “previously unknown voids,” which could be secret rooms where the remains of Pharaoh Khufu rest.
“Having successfully tested the muon scanner on the Sneferu pyramid, we used it to check two suspicious zigzag masonry on the slopes of the Cheops pyramid. In June 2016, we installed plates with photographic emulsion in the corridor under these “chevrons” and 67 days later we sent them for analysis to Nagoya University ", say archaeologists.
Both suspicious structures in the Cheops pyramid, as shown by analysis of photographic plates, contain significant voids that are clearly visible in muon “photographs”, and there is no doubt about their existence. One of these "previously unknown voids" is located on the northern wall of the pyramid, and it, according to archaeologists, may be a corridor that goes deeper into the pyramid. The second, smaller void is located in the northeastern part of the pyramid.
Protection from robbers from the Cheops pyramid
Egyptologists from the AERA collaboration previously found out how the passages in the Cheops pyramid were arranged and restored the security system that protected the pharaoh's tomb from tomb robbers, Live Science reported in July.
According to scientists, the tomb of Cheops was protected from robbers by two levels of protection. The first of them was located at the entrance to the pharaoh’s tomb itself - it was closed by three monolithic stone slabs, which were raised above its entrance using systems of grooves and blocks, and were probably held in place by some kind of supports.
The second obstacle for thieves was installed in the so-called inner sanctuary, inside which was the entrance to the tomb of Cheops. The entrance to it was closed in a similar way, using stone slabs that were lowered down through grooves and channels in the walls of the pyramid.
Previously unknown ancient Egyptian tomb
Egyptian archaeologists in early October began clearing the entrance to a previously unknown tomb, which was discovered on the west bank of the Nile near the city of Luxor, the Youm 7 news portal reported, citing the words of the head of the department of antiquities of Luxor, Talaat Abdel Aziz.
“The front door has been damaged by time and work is underway to clear the entrance to get into the tomb to determine its age and the name of the person for whom it was built,” he said.
Some time ago, scientists discovered in the same area the tomb of an ancient Egyptian gold merchant, which is about 3.5 thousand years old, as well as mass grave poor era of Ancient Egypt.
Ancient monastic city
Scientists at the end of August discovered a huge monastic complex near the city of El Minya; the find dates back to the 5th century AD, reports Ahram Online.
Archaeologists have found many burial chambers, the total area of which is 3500 square meters. In addition, scientists have excavated the remains of monastic houses made of clay.
“This fact suggests that the archaeological site next to the (monastic) necropolis of Al-Nassar was a complex of monks,” said Gamal El-Semestwy, head of the Egyptian Antiquities Authority.
It is believed that Christian monasticism appeared in Egypt around the beginning of the 4th century AD. The Church recognizes him as the ancestor of St. Anthony the Great.
MOSCOW, November 2 – RIA Novosti. Physicists have found a previously unknown void area in the Cheops pyramid that may be a secret tomb or a passage into it, according to a paper published in the journal Nature.
“When we saw this area of emptiness, we realized that we had come across something very interesting and big, we abandoned all other projects and concentrated on studying this area, located directly above the corridor to the tomb of Cheops. Now we are sure that it really exists, and this "This is the first discovery of its kind in the Cheops pyramid since the Middle Ages, when it was opened by Caliph Al-Mamun in the 9th century," said Mehdi Tayoubi from the HIP Institute in Paris (France).
Physicists have found two “unknown voids” in the Cheops pyramidArchaeologists and physicists have discovered two, as they put it, “previously unknown voids” inside the Cheops pyramid, which may be secret rooms where the remains of Pharaoh Khufu rest.Secrets of the Pharaohs
The Pyramid of Cheops, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, was built in the middle of the third millennium BC, during the time of Pharaoh Khufu (Cheops), a representative of the fourth dynasty of the Old Kingdom, at the same time as all the “great pyramids” of Ancient Egypt. This structure, 145 meters high and 230 meters wide and long, remains one of the tallest and largest buildings ever created by mankind.
Over the past two centuries, scientists have discovered three rooms in the pyramid, in one of which the pharaoh himself was supposedly buried, in the other his wife, and the third was considered a bait or trap for robbers. In the walls of the corridors that lead to Khufu's tomb, unusual channels and structures were found, which scientists believe are elements of the “security system” that protected the pharaoh from defilers.
The mummies of the pharaoh and his wife were never discovered, which is why many archaeologists believe that in fact their tombs are still hidden in the thickness of the pyramid. Two years ago, scientists from the universities of Nagoya, Paris and Cairo began searching for these secret rooms, studying the pyramid using cosmic particle detectors and telescopes as part of the ScanPyramids project.
Breath of space
Every second, millions of muons are formed in the upper layers of the Earth's atmosphere - charged particles resulting from the collision of cosmic rays with gas molecules in the air. These collisions accelerate muons to near-light speeds, thanks to which they penetrate tens and hundreds of meters deep into the surface of the planet. Scientists' measurements show that every square meter of the Earth's surface absorbs about 10 thousand of these particles.
French archaeologists and physicists, together with Japanese scientists, have adapted telescopes that can “see” muons to search for voids and hidden rooms in ancient architectural monuments.
© ScanPyramids mission
© ScanPyramids mission
This technique works very simply - the flux of muons decreases in the air and in empty space much more slowly than when passing through rock or earth, which makes it possible to search for secret rooms by bursts in the muon background.
Last October, participants in the ScanPyramids project announced a sensational discovery - they managed to find several previously unknown voids in the pyramid, which could be the secret tombs of the “lord of two houses” and his wife. This discovery caused sharp rejection among archaeologists and Egyptologists, who accused physicists of incorrectly interpreting the data obtained.
Physics and lyrics
These accusations forced scientists to take repeated measurements using three different muon telescopes. This time, as Tayubi emphasized, the observations were carried out according to the same rules and principles by which the Higgs boson and other particles unknown to science were searched for at the LHC and other accelerators.
“Our measurements absolutely rule out that this void area could have arisen due to differences in the properties of the stones or due to errors in construction,” says Zahi Hawass. Voids of this size and configuration could not have appeared between the blocks by chance, neither with engineering nor any other technology. "The Egyptians were too good builders to screw up the pyramid, leave a hole in it and create a room or corridor somewhere else," said Hany Helal of Cairo University.
Checking whether this is true or not, scientists installed a set of films sensitive to the action of muons in the supposed tomb of Cheops’s wife, and placed semiconductor particle detectors at the bottom of the pyramid. After a few months, they collected the data, processed it and compared it with how muons should move through the pyramid if there were no other voids in it, except for the already known corridors and rooms.
© Illustration by RIA Novosti. Alina Polyanina
© Illustration by RIA Novosti. Alina Polyanina
If the initial results of scanning the Cheops pyramid were erroneous, then, as Elal notes, the “pictures” obtained by different muon telescopes would not match. In fact, they turned out to be the same, which confirmed the assumptions of physicists and refuted the insinuations of archaeologists.
The images showed that above the main corridor of the pyramid there is a zone of emptiness thirty meters long, eight meters high and about two meters wide. As Tayubi noted, it can be either a solid corridor running parallel to the ground, up or down, or a suite of rooms. So far, physicists do not have enough data to rule out the first or second option.
Scientists emphasize that they are not interpreting their discovery in any way and do not claim that they managed to find a secret room - this task, according to them, should be carried out by Egyptologists.
Jean-Baptiste Mouret, a physicist at the University of Paris, hopes his team's discovery will convince Egyptian historians that they were wrong in their assessments and will open the door to debate whether it is worth trying to penetrate this void zone. if yes, how to do it.
A new round of history
In the near future, as scientists noted, they plan to continue studying the void zone, as well as other sections of the Cheops pyramid, including the tomb of the pharaoh himself, and will begin to scan other pyramids that may hide secret rooms and unknown voids.
These data, physicists hope, will help us understand exactly how the pyramids were built and whether we can trust the descriptions of their construction, which have come down to our time in the works of Herodotus.
At the same time, as scientists noted, muon scanners can not reveal all the secrets of ancient history. For example, according to Tayubi, they cannot be used to search for the secret tomb of Nefertiti in the tomb of Tutankhamun, the existence of which was recently announced by the famous British Egyptologist Nicholas Reeves.
© ScanPyramids mission
© ScanPyramids mission
“Muon scanners cannot be used to study the tomb of Tutankhamun and other burials in the Valley of the Kings for the reason that we do not know how the voids are distributed in the rocks located above them,” the scientist explained, answering a question from RIA Novosti.
Such research, added Sebastien Procureur, a colleague of Moret, is further complicated by the fact that man-made particle accelerators cannot be used to scan pyramids and other ancient buildings, since delivering them to Giza or the Valley of the Kings would entail unacceptably high costs.
“In short, this is simply not feasible. Muons cannot be created directly - they arise from the decays of kaons and pions, and there are too few particle accelerators in the world capable of accelerating them to the required speeds. In addition, they are all very large - at least 700 meters in length. It would be easier for us to transport the pyramid to such an installation than to try to build it in Giza or other parts of Egypt. Therefore, we have to rely on space in such observations,” the agency’s interlocutor concluded.
The 30-meter-long void discovered during scanning of the famous pyramid last fall could not have been the result of a mistake by the builders. It also does not have any construction function, such as reducing the load on the main corridor of the structure, says Italian scientist Giulio Magli.
ON THIS TOPIC
"There must be a good reason for their existence. And this reason must be deeply connected with the Egyptian funerary religion, which states that after death the pharaoh must sit on a throne of iron, after which he must pass through the gates of heaven and ascend to the stars in the north." - said the astrophysicist.
According to Magli, there are four “air ducts” in the pyramid through which the spirit of the deceased ruler could “get out.” In this case, the passage leading north ends in a sealed door. It is behind it that the found voids are located, which most likely represent a chamber with a throne, writes Eurekalert. The Italian scientist recalled that not long ago the throne of Cheops’ mother Hetepheres, made of cedar and covered with gold and faience, was discovered in the pyramid, the Izvestia newspaper writes.
The Pyramid of Cheops is one of the tallest and largest buildings created by people. Its height is 145 meters, width and length are 230 meters. The pyramid was built in the middle of the third millennium BC, during the time of the representative of the fourth dynasty of the Old Kingdom.
At the end of October, reports emerged that archaeologists and physicists had discovered two “previously unknown voids” inside the Cheops pyramid, which could be secret rooms containing the remains of Pharaoh Khufu (Cheops).
Both suspicious structures in the Cheops pyramid, as shown by muon scanning, contain significant voids; there is no doubt about their existence. One of these “previously unknown voids” is located on the northern wall and, according to archaeologists, may be a corridor that goes deeper into the pyramid. The second, smaller void is located in the northeastern part of the structure.
MOSCOW, November 3 – RIA Novosti. Physicists have found a previously unknown void area in the Cheops pyramid that may be a secret tomb or a passage into it, according to a paper published in the journal Nature.
“When we saw this area of emptiness, we realized that we had come across something very interesting and big, we abandoned all other projects and concentrated on studying this area, located directly above the corridor to the tomb of Cheops. Now we are sure that it really exists, and this "This is the first discovery of its kind in the Cheops pyramid since the Middle Ages, when it was opened by Caliph Al-Mamun in the 9th century," said Mehdi Tayoubi from the HIP Institute in Paris (France).
The Pyramid of Cheops, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, was built in the middle of the third millennium BC, during the time of Pharaoh Khufu (Cheops), a representative of the fourth dynasty of the Old Kingdom, at the same time as all the “great pyramids” of Ancient Egypt. This structure, 145 meters high and 230 meters wide and long, remains one of the tallest and largest buildings ever created by mankind.
How did you search?
Every second, millions of muons are formed in the upper layers of the Earth's atmosphere - charged particles resulting from the collision of cosmic rays with gas molecules in the air. These collisions accelerate muons to near-light speeds, thanks to which they penetrate tens and hundreds of meters deep into the surface of the planet. Scientists' measurements show that every square meter of the Earth's surface absorbs about 10 thousand of these particles.
French archaeologists and physicists, together with Japanese scientists, have adapted telescopes that can “see” muons to search for voids and hidden rooms in ancient architectural monuments.
"Previously Unknown Voids"
At the end of October, it reported that archaeologists and physicists had discovered inside the Cheops pyramid two, as they put it, “previously unknown voids,” which could be secret rooms where the remains of Pharaoh Khufu rest.
“Having successfully tested the muon scanner on the Sneferu pyramid, we used it to check two suspicious zigzag masonry on the slopes of the Cheops pyramid. In June 2016, we installed plates with photographic emulsion in the corridor under these “chevrons” and 67 days later we sent them for analysis to Nagoya University ", say archaeologists.
Both suspicious structures in the Cheops pyramid, as shown by analysis of photographic plates, contain significant voids that are clearly visible in muon “photographs”, and there is no doubt about their existence. One of these "previously unknown voids" is located on the northern wall of the pyramid, and it, according to archaeologists, may be a corridor that goes deeper into the pyramid. The second, smaller void is located in the northeastern part of the pyramid.
Protection from robbers from the Cheops pyramid
Egyptologists from the AERA collaboration previously found out how the passages in the Cheops pyramid were arranged and restored the security system that protected the pharaoh's tomb from tomb robbers, Live Science reported in July.
According to scientists, the tomb of Cheops was protected from robbers by two levels of protection. The first of them was located at the entrance to the pharaoh’s tomb itself - it was closed by three monolithic stone slabs, which were raised above its entrance using systems of grooves and blocks, and were probably held in place by some kind of supports.
The second obstacle for thieves was installed in the so-called inner sanctuary, inside which was the entrance to the tomb of Cheops. The entrance to it was closed in a similar way, using stone slabs that were lowered down through grooves and channels in the walls of the pyramid.
Previously unknown ancient Egyptian tomb
Egyptian archaeologists in early October began clearing the entrance to a previously unknown tomb, which was discovered on the west bank of the Nile near the city of Luxor, the Youm 7 news portal reported, citing the words of the head of the department of antiquities of Luxor, Talaat Abdel Aziz.
“The front door has been damaged by time and work is underway to clear the entrance to get into the tomb to determine its age and the name of the person for whom it was built,” he said.
Some time ago, scientists discovered in the same area the tomb of an ancient Egyptian gold merchant, which is about 3.5 thousand years old, as well as a mass grave of the poor from the era of Ancient Egypt.
Ancient monastic city
Scientists at the end of August discovered a huge monastic complex near the city of El Minya; the find dates back to the 5th century AD, reports Ahram Online.
Archaeologists have found many burial chambers, the total area of which is 3,500 square meters. In addition, scientists have excavated the remains of monastic houses made of clay.
“This fact suggests that the archaeological site next to the (monastic) necropolis of Al-Nassar was a complex of monks,” said Gamal El-Semestwy, head of the Egyptian Antiquities Authority.
It is believed that Christian monasticism appeared in Egypt around the beginning of the 4th century AD. The Church recognizes him as the ancestor of St. Anthony the Great.
