Forty-five centuries after its construction, the most majestic of the pyramids, that of King Cheops, has still not revealed all its secrets, in particular the location of the tomb of the ruler of the Fourth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom. Since October 2015, the ScanPyramids mission has begun, which aims to produce a kind of giant x-ray, that is to say by a non-invasive method, of the last of the Seven Wonders of the World.
For the first time, researchers have succeeded, thanks to new technologies, in bringing an eye inside a corridor that had not been visited for 4,500 years. For Zahi Hawass, the emblematic Egyptian archaeologist, there is no longer any doubt. This corridor protects “something. In my opinion, it is the funeral chamber of King Cheops”, he declared during a sensational press conference of which he has the secret… These works which have just made the subject of two publications in prestigious journals Nature And NDT&E (Nondestructive Testing and Evaluation) revive one of the greatest enigmas of pharaonic Egypt. Explanations with Mehdi Tayoubi, co-director of the ScanPyramids project.
L’Express: Since its inception, the ScanPyramids project has made several major discoveries including the corridor which has just given rise to two scientific publications. What new do they bring?
Mehdi Tayoubi: First, a photo that takes us back 4,500 years, to the time of the construction of the Cheops pyramid since the scientists, under the authority of the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities, passed a mini-camera – an endoscope of a diameter of 5 millimeters – between the joints of the stone blocks which made it possible to have this incredible shot. We had already located this corridor in 2016 but at the time we could only conclude that 99% of it existed.
There, after new campaigns, not only are we confirming its presence but we now know its size – 9 meters long and 2 wide – and above all its characteristic herringbone shape which undoubtedly allowed a man to stand up. All this was made possible because our instruments have refined the exact position of this tunnel to see that it is horizontal and that it is located at the north entrance of the building and especially very close to the surface. which made it possible to pass an endoscope. A team from the University of Munich (Germany) carried out this exploratory work using radar and ultrasound and wrote a first article in NDT & E.
On what leads to this tunnel?
A priori on a cul-de-sac. Zahi Hawass hinted that at the end there is a square area which is not of the same stone as the hallway and which makes him think there may be something underneath. He is an archaeologist and this is his interpretation. As an engineer I don’t have a very expert opinion on this question. I can only confirm as shown in the image that the rafters reveal an architectural gesture that is not insignificant and that this corridor is the first explored since the Middle Ages inside the pyramid of Cheops. Another certainty, we had discovered still within the framework of ScanPyramids another even larger structure, about thirty meters long in 2017 located above the large gallery and which had been baptized the “Great void” (“Big void”).
On the latter, we have no precise details. He had just had an archaeologist say that the pyramid was probably full of voids like “Swiss cheese”. On the other hand, we can think that the two structures are not connected. But it is possible that one or even small corridors of less than 1 meter exist between the two and are not detectable, for example, because they would have been filled (s). Finally, this precious photo taken by endoscope finally validates the effectiveness of our non-invasive and non-destructive methods which will allow us to continue the mission.
What are your new technologies?
When the project was launched, it was a question of taking an interest in the eleven largest pyramids of the Old Empire to better understand the construction technologies of the Egyptians, which still remain a mystery. We started with the rhomboid made for Pharaoh Snefrou in Dahshur, without much success. Then we focused on those of the Giza plateau, first that of Chephren, then that of Cheops. For this we use muons which are particles, generated in a natural way, at the level of the Earth’s atmosphere and which permanently bombard the Earth. If there is an analogy, it is a bit like an X-ray X-ray sent through the body which, depending on the density of the organs, makes it possible to obtain images of the interior by contrast. Muography therefore consists of comparing the flux of muons in the atmosphere and what remains of them after having crossed the pyramid. This technique is not necessarily new since Luis Walter Alvarez (Nobel Prize for Physics in 1968) had already tested it in 1967 with the pyramid of Chephren.
But in more than fifty years, we have made enormous progress in terms of instruments, more precisely thanks to a new generation of much more precise sensors which record the trajectories of muons. There are different types: the Japanese from the University of Nagoya, specializing in the study of volcanoes, have their own, which made it possible to discover this corridor in 2016. Ditto for the French from the Atomic Energy Commission (CEA ) who managed to identify the “Big void” the following year before refining the knowledge since it is now estimated that it has a length of 40 meters and not 30. The article just published by the journal Nature reports on the progress on the other, smaller tunnel, made using these two types of sensors. This makes two teams within the same consortium, which makes it possible to cross-reference the data.
What are the future goals?
The first will consist in carrying out a 3D reconstruction of the small corridor since we now have its photo. The Dassault Systèmes teams, specialized in 3D, will carry out this work. Then, we hope to soon complete the study of the “Big Void” and bring new revelations. The Egyptian authorities remain very cautious vis-à-vis the pyramids and endeavor to guarantee their integrity. But the image obtained by the endoscope could encourage them to imagine other miniaturized devices to explore the cavity in greater depth.
We can, for example, imagine a small robot that would go to the end of the small herringbone corridor. And verify the hypothesis put forward by Zahi Hawass. The tomb of Cheops remains untraceable to this day. And we understand that the pharaoh who had the largest of the pyramids of Gizeh built, raises many fantasies. The search for his burial has only just begun.