Dan Rockwell
Joined: 10 Dec 2001
Posts: 1988
Location: Stamford, CT, USA |
Robot seeks answer to pyramid mystery
 Thu Aug 29, 2002 6:18 am
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Robot seeks answer to pyramid mystery
By Mark Henderson, Science Correspondent
A MYSTERIOUS passage in the Great Pyramid at Giza will be explored by a robot next month in an attempt to unravel one of the final secrets of the last remaining wonder of the Ancient World.
The Pyramid Rover will be sent to find out what lies beyond a blocked, 8in-square shaft that has puzzled researchers since its discovery in 1872.
The custom-built machine will climb 210ft along the channel, which leads upwards from an unusued and apparently unfinished room known as the Queen’s Chamber, until it reaches a stone plug with two copper handles which ended a previous attempt to chart the passage a decade ago.
On arrival, it will use the world’s smallest ground-penetrating radar antenna to look beyond the blockage for the first time since the pyramid, built to house the remains of the Pharaoh Cheops, or Khufu, was completed about 4,500 years ago.
If the radar reveals a structure of interest behind the seal, such as a third great chamber, Pyramid Rover will pass a fibre-optic camera through cracks to capture the first pictures.
The entire procedure, which is headed by Zahi Hawass, director of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, and Mark Lehner, director of the Giza Plateau Mapping Project, will be screened live on the National Geographic Channel, starting at 1am on Tuesday, September 17. It will be repeated at 7pm that night.
The Pyramid of Khufu contains two great rooms: the King’s Chamber, holding Khufu’s tomb, and the Queen’s Chamber, which is smaller and directly below it and which, despite its name, was probably not meant for his wife.
It is unique not only for its size, but also because it was built with two small shafts running diagonally upwards from the two chambers. The shafts running from the north and south wall of the Queen’s Chamber are especially curious because they are blocked at each end.
There are many theories as to their purpose.
It seems unlikely that they were for air or water, being blocked at both ends. Some experts believe that they are “star shafts” pointing to Sirius and the constellation Orion: it is widely thought that the layout of the three pyramids at Giza mimics the stars in Orion’s belt.
Another explanation is that they are “soul shafts”, built to allow a soul to escape to heaven.
Again, however, the passages are blocked, and archaeologists do not think that the Queen’s Chamber ever held a tomb. One popular theory is that the room was originally designed for Khufu before it was decided to build a larger chamber for the pharaoh and abandon the lower room.
Some experts even believe that the southern shaft, the longer of the two, leads to a third, undiscovered chamber. It ends 54ft from the outer face, leaving ample space for a room, and the seal is made of Tura limestone, a rock found only in the central chambers.
Kate Spence, of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at Cambridge University, said that Pyramid Rover’s mission ought to shed important new light on the mystery, even if all it does is to debunk some of the most outlandish theories.
“Opinion is very divided as to what the shafts are for,” she said. “It’s the only pyramid that has this sort of shaft so we have nothing to go on in terms of comparison.
The huge question is why they are blocked.
It is incredibly difficult to say. “My own expectation is that there won’t be anything behind the blockage, but we just don’t know. It’s possible they just stopped building, but if that’s the case, why did they plug it so elaborately? “The great thing is that whatever they find, even if they find there’s nothing there, that’s absolutely fascinating. You can’t lose. It’s going to be interesting whether there’s nothing there or a chamber full of treasure and statues.”
Pyramid Rover will build on the achievements of Rudolf Gantenbrink, a German scientist whose robot, Upuaut 2, explored the southern shaft and discovered the blockage in the early 1990s.
The new probe, based on models used to search for World Trade Centre survivors after September 11, is less than 5in high and wide and about 1ft long.
Its ground-penetrating radar has a range of more than 3ft through concrete and much farther through the more porous limestone of the pyramid. It also carries an ultrasonic transducer that can measure the thickness of the stones.
A force gauge will detect whether the blocking stone moves, and other tools will seek out cracks through which fibre-optic cameras can pass. A conductivity sensor will also be applied to the copper handles to determine whether they form an electrical circuit, which would show that they are linked on the other side.
Theories about monument's unknown heart
. Ventilation or water shafts: at first the obvious explanation, this is now rejected because the shafts are blocked.
. Star shafts: the top of the shafts appear to be aligned with Sirius and a star in Orion’s belt, mirrored in the layout of the pyramids. The shafts, however, have several bends, so do not point to any spot in the heavens.
. Numerology: the angles in the shafts conform to a numerological plan, the details of which remain obscure.
. Soul shafts: the shafts were built to allow the pharaoh’s soul to escape. They are blocked, however, and no pharaoh was buried in the Queen’s Chamber.
. Secret chamber: there is enough space to house another room. The passage, however, is just 8in square — too small for an access tunnel.
. Stairway to the stars: leading the “pyramaniac” fringe is Zecharia Sitchin, who believes that the pyramid was the work of aliens from a mythical twelfth planet. Sitchin claims these aliens created humans through genetic manipulation. Perhaps the aliens were small enough to use an 8in tunnel.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-395665,00.html |
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