For 4,500 years, no one has known
what lies beyond two stone doors deep inside the
monument
By Andrew Johnson
For 4,500 years, the Great Pyramid at Giza has
enthralled, fascinated and ultimately frustrated everyone who has
attempted to penetrate its secrets.
Now a robotics team from Leeds University,
working with Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, is preparing a
machine which they hope will solve one of its enduring
mysteries.
The pyramid, known as the Pyramid of Khufu
after the king who built it around 2,560BC, is the only wonder of
the ancient world still standing. At its heart are two rooms known
as the King's Chamber and the Queen's Chamber. Two shafts rise from
the King's Chamber at 45-degree angles and lead to the exterior of
the monument. They are believed to be a passageway designed to fire
the king's spirit into the firmament so that he can take his place
among the stars.
In the Queen's Chamber, there are two further
shafts, discovered in 1872. Unlike those in the King's Chamber,
these do not lead to the outer face of the pyramid
No one knows what the shafts are for. In 1992,
a camera sent up the shaft leading from the south wall of the
Queen's Chamber discovered it was blocked after 60 metres by a
limestone door with two copper handles. In 2002, a further
expedition drilled through this door and revealed, 20 centimetres
behind it, a second door.
"The second door is unlike the first. It looks
as if it is screening or covering something," said Dr Zahi Hawass,
the head of the Supreme Council who is in charge of the expedition.
The north shaft bends by 45 degrees after 18 metres but, after 60
metres, is also blocked by a limestone door.
Now technicians at Leeds University are
putting the finishing touches to a robot which, they hope, will
follow the shaft to its end. Known as the Djedi project, after the
magician whom Khufu consulted when planning the pyramid, the robot
will be able to drill through the second set of doors to see what
lies beyond.
Dr Robert Richardson, of the Leeds University
School of Mechanical Engineering, said they would continue the
expedition until they reach the end of the shafts.
"We have been working on the project for five
years," he said. "We have no preconceptions. We are trying to gain
evidence for other people to draw conclusions. There are two
shafts. The north shaft is blocked by a limestone door and nothing
has penetrated that door. With the south shaft a previous team has
measured the thickness of the stone, drilled through it and put a
camera through it and found there was another surface. We are going
to determine how thick that is and we could drill through it. We
are preparing the robot now and expect to send it up before the end
of the year. It's a big question, and it's very important not to
cause unnecessary damage. We will carry on until we find the
answer. We hope to get all the data possible which will be
sufficient to answer the questions."
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