Two cavities detected on the east side of Menkaure’s pyramid on Egypt’s Giza Plateau suggest a second hidden entrance to the pyramid, according to a new study.
The pyramids were built during the reign of Pharaoh Menkaure (c. 2490-2472 BC). It was the last and smallest of the three pyramids built on the Giza Plateau, and was originally approximately 213 feet (65 meters) high. The main gate to the pyramid is on the north face.
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In other words, it is strange that the pyramid has polished stones but apparently no door on its eastern side.
In 2019, independent scholar Stijn van den Hoven published articles on Academia.edu and YouTube suggesting that another entrance to Menkaure’s pyramid may be behind a polished block. The research team decided to test van den Hoven’s hypothesis, and over the past three years they have carried out electrical resistivity tests (which measure how much resistance there is to electrical current), ground-penetrating radar (which uses radio waves to see what lies beneath), and ultrasound tests (which use sound waves to examine the structure) on the eastern face of the pyramid.
By combining data from these three methods, the team was able to figure out what was behind the east face of the pyramid. The researchers said in a statement that they detected two cavities located in close proximity, one about 4.6 feet (1.4 meters) behind the eastern face and the other about 3.7 feet (1.13 meters) behind it.
The discovery supports the possibility of a second intrusion, but further testing needs to be done to gather more data about the anomaly, the researchers said in their findings published in the October issue of the journal NDT&E International.
“This is a very interesting discovery and shows that we still have much to learn about the pyramids of Giza,” Peter der Manuelian, a professor of Egyptology at Harvard University who was not involved in the study, said in an email.
He pointed out that, with a few exceptions, the entrance to Old Kingdom (c. 2649 B.C. to 2150 B.C.) pyramids was on the north face. “Further exploration is expected to tell us more about the significance of these cavities, whether they are construction anomalies, part of a second entrance, or something else,” added Del Manourian.
The study was carried out by a team from Cairo University and the Technical University of Munich as part of the Scan Pyramid project, which uses remote sensing to learn more about the Egyptian pyramids. Another scientific team involved in the Scan Pyramid project was conducting tests at the Great Pyramid of Giza and discovered two areas with cavities.
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