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Here’s what you’ll learn after reading this story:
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The Menkaure Pyramid, one of the three famous pyramids of Giza, has long been suspected of having another entrance that the robbers could never find.
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While exploring several non-invasive methods, researchers discovered two voids behind the eastern wall that suggest an alternative approach.
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Further research could determine the depth of these voids and confirm that they indeed indicate a hidden entrance.
In the shadow of the Great Pyramid of Khufu and the almost equally impressive pyramid of his son Khafre, stands the Pyramid of Menkaure, a funerary monument rising from the sands of Giza and forever reaching for the Sun. Enshrined in limestone and granite, this wonder of the Old Kingdom has existed for more than 4,000 years and even today whispers a secret.
The third largest pyramid on the Giza plateau was dismantled by harsh desert winds, looters survived a failed attempt to dismantle Sultan Al-Aziz Uthman, who ordered the pyramids to be destroyed in the 12th century.th age. Although this time-ravaged building has left an unsightly scratch on the northern face, that is not the only unusual thing about this pyramid. Its eastern facade was covered with slabs of polished granite, which are found only at the entrance, the reason for which remained unknown for a long time.
When a team of researchers from Cairo University and the Technical University of Munich investigated as part of the ScanPyramids research project (ScanPyramids is the same team that previously discovered a hidden passage in the Great Pyramid), they discovered anomalies under the granite, which turned out to be two air-filled voids, the presence of which was originally raised in the study. could represent a secret entrance to the pyramid that would have been overlooked by would-be robbers (although they certainly found other ways).
“Three non-destructive techniques (NDTs): electrical resistivity tomography (ERT), ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and ultrasonic testing (UST) were used to investigate the possible presence of voids behind the granite blocks on the eastern side of the Menkaure pyramid, which could support the hypothesis of a second entrance,” a recent journal article said. NDT&E International.
ERT enables the identification of hidden features of an archaeological site. By sending an electrical current through a material and measuring how well that material resists the currents, the method can reveal voids without invasive digging and digging. When GPR was used in the pyramid, it transmitted electromagnetic pulses to the wall where the void was suspected. The pulses would then be reflected in features behind the facade, and measuring the strength of these responses (and the delay between pulse and response) helps determine the depth of subsurface features. GPR also helps estimate the shapes and sizes of objects beneath it.
To find out the thickness of the wall and whether there is someone behind it, the researchers used UST by sending beams of sound waves into the wall with a transducer and comparing the returning ultrasound echoes. Both GPR and UST can accurately determine the boundaries between the stone walls of the pyramid and the voids between them.
Because the depression exposed the structure of the Menkaure pyramid beneath its facade, it was known that the limestone blocks used to build this pyramid did not fit together, and the builders filled the gaps with limestone fragments. But what the researchers found was more than just small gaps. The anomalies found by both teams were much larger than anything previously studied in the layers of the wall exposed by the indentation. The larger void could easily fit a person, further suggesting a secret entrance, but further research will be needed to confirm exactly how deep they are and allow Egyptologists to discuss and interpret their purpose.
“While the integrated approach was able to detect the approximate dimensions and initial depths of the two potential anomalies, it was difficult to determine how far the anomalies extend inside the pyramid due to limitations in the depth of penetration of the methods,” they said.
Why Menkaure built a smaller pyramid than his predecessors is also unknown. Allegedly, he had a dream in which the gods told him that his death would not come until a few years later, and that perhaps in a short time he could not match the greatness of Khufu or Khafre. For now, it seems his pyramid still hides a few secrets behind its weathered stone walls.
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