- CAIRO (Reuters) - A mysterious
door has been found in a previously unexplored shaft inside Egypt's biggest
pyramid, only days after a similar stone slab was found in another shaft,
antiquities chief Zahi Hawass said on Monday.
-
- Last week, in front of television cameras, a specially
designed robot climbed about 215 feet up one of two narrow passages stretching
from a chamber inside the pyramid of Cheops to peer through a hole drilled
into a stone door, only to find another door behind it.
-
- Away from the cameras, the robot was sent up the second
shaft, only partially examined in the past. It found another door, which
had copper handles like the one in the first shaft and was at the same
distance of 65 meters, Hawass said.
-
- "I think we'll find another door behind it,"
Hawass, head of Egypt's Supreme Antiquities Council, told reporters.
-
- Both shafts emanate from a room below the pyramid's main
chamber -- the burial crypt of the Pharaoh Cheops, who presided over the
world's most advanced civilization 4,500 years ago.
-
- His mummy has never been found, adding to the mystery
of the great pyramid -- one of the seven wonders of the ancient world whose
construction secrets have defied experts to this day.
-
- The pyramid, which sits on the Giza plateau overlooking
Cairo, has not yielded treasures like those found in other tombs. Theories
on what could lie behind the strange doors include statues, workers' tools
or ancient scrolls.
-
- Hawass told the news conference a team of Egyptologists
would need time to study the new finds before proceeding.
-
- "Everything now needs a careful look. We will ask
the National Geographic Society to cooperate to reveal more mysteries,"
Hawass said. The U.S. group helped sponsor the expedition shown live on
television last week.
-
- Hawass said the passage had bends and turns in an apparent
attempt by builders to avoid the main chamber. This could indicate the
unexplained passageways were built after the pyramids were completed and
were not part of the original design.
-
- Hawass speculated the passages could be connected to
an attempt by Cheops to promote himself as Egypt's sun god. Belief at the
time said kings became the god in death.
-
- Hawass believes the shafts, which have been chiseled
out of the pyramid's stone structure, are "passages the king will
face before he travels to the afterlife."
-
- Recent excavations at Dakhla oasis in Egypt's Western
Desert have shown Cheops may have reigned longer than the previously thought
23 years. Two larger passages also emanate from Cheop's burial chamber,
but unlike the shafts recently explored, they open out on to the surface
of the huge 480 feet edifice.
-
- Copyright © 2002 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited
without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable
for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance
thereon.
|
