Hidden corridor found in 4500-year-old Great Pyramid, discovery ‘will lead to…’

Cairo, Egypt: A hidden passage has been discovered in the 4,500-year-old Great Pyramid of Giza, the Khufu Pyramid. The corridor is 9 metres in length and 2.10 metres in width. The discovery “will lead to further findings”, the Egyptian government has said.

The discovery was made possible by “international `ScanPyramids` project” which was launched back in 2015 to “study the structure of the pyramids without using harmful drilling methods,” Egyptian Minister of Tourism and Antiquities Ahmed Issa was quoted as saying. He added that the discovery will “lead to further findings.”

The corridor behind the pyramid’s north face was first discovered in 2016. A team comprising experts from Egypt, France, Germany, Canada and Japan have been analysing it. The unfinished corridor may have been built to redistribute the pyramid’s weight around.

“We’re going to continue our scanning so we will see what we can do ... to figure out what we can find out beneath it, or just by the end of this corridor,” one official said. The Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt is among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the last one still standing today.

The magnificent structure was built in 2560 BC as a monumental tomb during the reign of the Pharaoh Khufu or Cheops. It is currently 139 metres tall, down from being 146 metres tall at once. Until the construction of the Eiffel Tower in Paris in 1889, it was the tallest man-made structure. 

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(Inputs from IANS)