An international seminar about the recently discovered gap in the Great Pyramid of Giza will be held in the upcoming period, according to Minister of Antiquities Khaled Anani.
In a statement on Sunday (November 5th 2017), Anani said many archaeologists and Egyptologists will review different explanations for the newly-discovered gap.
Discovered by the international Pyramid’s Scan project, the pyramid’s gap was found by a team consisting of a number of archaeologists from the U.S., Germany and the Czech Republic as well as Egyptian experts.
The prominent Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawas is leading the committee to commence its long-term experiments in the pyramids.
This news announcement is the best example of a double-edged sword that the Archive has seen in quite some time. It is the reason we did not simply post it as a standalone news article on the archive website.
The official news announcement cited earlier would lead one to believe that the Pyramid’s Scan project is lead only by archaeologists that form the international team. And indeed the consortium does include a number of archaeologists. But, there are many more players involved and the project is primarily a scientific one.
The project of “ScanPyramids” is conducted by a consortium composed of:
The Faculty of Engineering, at Cairo University and the Heritage Innovation and Preservation Institute (HIP.Institute), based in France.
While the project is held under the supervision and in partnership with the Ministry of Antiquities in Egypt, it has been primarily conducted by a team of SCIENTISTS using non-destructive high technologies. Infrared thermography was used to identify if there are any voids behind the faces of the pyramids. Muons radiography was then used to verify and accurately visualize the presence of unknown structures within the monument.
These techniques were developed in Japan by the teams of KEK (High Energy Accelerator Research Organization) and Nagoya University.
“Many theories have been proposed, either explaining their construction or their structural anomalies, but we are physicists and engineers, not archaeologists”, insists Hany Helal, Professor and former Minister of Research and the higher education, head of mission for the Faculty of Engineering of Cairo.
“Our goal is to use techniques to get concrete results. Then the Egyptologists will interpret them.”