Archaeologists have discovered a secret chamber at the base of the Great Pyramid of Giza, and they have no idea what it is.

• Archaeologists have discovered secret structures in Giza, Egypt, using high-tech methods penetrating the ground.

• The methods revealed an L-shaped structure and a deeper, larger anomaly hidden beneath the bare sand.

• The findings could explain why much of the densely populated Western Cemetery is empty.

Egypt holds many secrets from its ancient past, and archaeologists may have discovered a new one hidden beneath the sand of Giza’s Western Cemetery.

The Western Cemetery is home to hundreds of rectangular tombs called mastabas that line the base of the Great Pyramid of Giza. These mastabas belong to elite citizens and relatives of the Egyptian King Khufu, who ruled around 4,500 years ago.

However, unlike the many rows of graves, one area of ​​the cemetery is bare, without structures. Under the sand, it’s a different story, archaeologists recently discovered.

What appears to be a flat, sandy surface could hide long-forgotten structures built thousands of years ago. Just a few meters below the surface is what appears to be an L-shaped structure. Even deeper, there is another larger structure connected to the first.

The corners of the L-shaped structure are “too sharp” to be natural, researcher Motoyuki Sato, who helped find the anomaly, told Live Science.

This suggests humans built it and could explain why so much of the crowded necropolis remains empty above the sand, the researchers reported in a paper they recently published in the peer-reviewed journal Archaeological Prospecting.

Both features could be remains of an ancient tomb, researchers say. However, this discovery still leaves many questions unanswered.

High-tech archeology uses radar and other tools to uncover buried secrets

In the early days of archaeology, it took years of careful excavation to discover the shape and size of a structure. Now, newer technologies can help scientists map previously unknown buildings without even removing a shovelful of dirt.

This is how researchers from Higashi Nippon International University, Tohoku University and the National Research Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics in Egypt discovered this last hidden part of the story.

Between 2021 and 2023, the team studied the site using not one but two high-tech methods: ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and electrical resistivity tomography (ERT). GPR uses electromagnetic waves to map shallow underground features in high resolution. For deeper structures, ERT can locate walls, shafts, and other similar anomalies, but without as much detail.

Combining GPR, ERT and satellite data, researchers discovered an L-shaped structure measuring approximately 32 feet by 50 feet, buried between 1.6 feet and 6.5 feet beneath the sand. They also found evidence of a 1,000-square-foot structure between 11.5 and 33 feet underground, deeper than the L-shaped anomaly.

The next step is excavation

At one point, the shallower L-shaped structure was filled with sand, which could be a clue to its purpose. According to researchers, it could have served as a passage to a lower tomb. Ancient Egyptians often filled these wells to keep out the living.

Although GPR and ERT can offer a more complete picture of underground archaeological finds, these techniques can only take archaeologists so far. The researchers noted that the data from the two methods did not match exactly and that the techniques can sometimes make anomalies appear larger than they are.

Other mysteries also remain. They don’t know what, if anything, is in the deeper structure. It can be filled with sand or completely empty.

To answer some of these questions, archaeologists had to start digging, literally. They are currently excavating the site, Live Science reported.

Read the original article on Business Insider