Scientists have discovered a large ‘anomaly’ beneath a royal graveyard buried under the Giza pyramids in Egypt.
Archaeologists found a pair of underground structures using new ground-penetrating radar tools under the Western Cemetery when searching for undiscovered areas of interest.
The researchers found a shallow and deep structure under the 4,500-year-old Great Pyramid.
It’s been described as an anomaly because their density differs from the surrounding area. Believed to be man-made due to their shape, the team believe they were filled in after construction.
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In the findings, archaeologists said: “The Western Cemetery at Giza is known as an important burial place of members of the royal family and high-class officers.
“The area of the anomaly could be established approximately, but the structure and the location were unclear.”
An initial survey be electrical resistivity tomography and ground-penetrating radar revealed the anomaly in the north of the survey site.
The shallow structure is 10m wide, 15m long and 2m deep, and the larger one is 5m at its shallowest point but 10m at the deepest.
The team think the smaller structure was built to support the larger.
They added: “We believe that the continuity of the shallow structure and the deep large structure is important. From the survey results, we cannot determine the material causing the anomaly, but it may be a large subsurface archaeological structure.”
Researchers hope an excavation of the site could help understand the nature of the findings.
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