Then two more teams associated with ScanPyramids, one from France and another from Japan, also confirmed the anomaly with muon tomography, even from outside the pyramid. The first measurements were made by researchers from Nagoya University in Japan who were a part of the project. But if they detected more muons, it suggests the particles were passing through empty space or less dense material. As the muons pass through matter they lose energy and decay, so if the team detected a small number of muons, that means they were passing through matter. The fallout from the collisions creates a constant bombardment of harmless particles that can penetrate deep into the planet. Instead of X-rays, the team used muons, the heavy cousins of electrons that form when cosmic rays from outer space collide with particles in Earth’s atmosphere. “We tried to do for the pyramid what a doctor can do with X-rays,” Dr. Tayoubi and his colleagues, now consisting of three separate teams of physicists and engineers, have investigated the pyramid using a particle physics technique known as muon tomography to see through to its core. The site at Giza where his pyramid was built also contains two other major pyramids and the Sphinx.

Very little is known about him, so his pyramid offers one of the few looks into his life and reign. Though he constructed the largest pyramid Egypt has ever seen, the only intact three-dimensional figure of him that archaeologists have found measures a mere three inches tall. to 2483 B.C., during Egypt’s fourth dynasty. Khufu, also known by his Greek name Cheops, is thought to have ruled from 2509 B.C. They said the so-called void was probably empty space designed by the pyramid’s architects to lessen the weight on its chambers and prevent them from collapsing, an example of features that were already documented in the construction of the ancient monuments. Many archaeologists questioned whether the study offered any new information about the ancient Egyptians, and were quick to note that the team had most likely not found a hidden room filled with the pharaoh’s riches.

“We have chosen the word ‘void’ and nothing else because we don’t know what this void is.” “We don’t know if it’s a chamber, a tunnel, a big gallery or things like that,” said Mehdi Tayoubi, co-director of the ScanPyramids project, which published the finding Thursday in the journal Nature. Now, using a technique from the field of particle physics, an international team of researchers has harnessed cosmic-ray collisions to peek inside and uncover a hidden “void” within the pyramid’s stones that is roughly 100 feet long, similar to the Statue of Liberty from her heel to her head. Built during the reign of Pharaoh Khufu, the monument was a testament to the ruler’s architectural prowess and is thought to have been a home for his mummified remains.įor centuries, archaeologists have ventured into the Pyramid of Khufu, as it is also known, and marveled at the King’s chamber, the Queen’s chamber and the Grand Gallery. The Great Pyramid of Giza has towered over Egypt for more than 4,500 years.

Human japanese pyramid collapse