Al-Ahram Weekly | Egypt | From one door to the next

		26 Sept. - 2 October 2002 Issue No. 605 Home news	Current issue Previous issue Site map
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875		Recommend this page

From one door to the next
The pint-sized robot whose exploration of a shaft of Khufu's Great Pyramid was recently broadcast live by National Geographic was at it again this week, wending its way to yet more discoveries. Nevine El-Aref reports

Less than a week following the journey of a small robot into the southern shaft of Khufu's Great Pyramid, just outside of Cairo, archaeologists dispatched the "Pyramid Rover" into the edifice's northern shaft.
When Egyptologists of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) and the National Geographic Association sent out the rover this week to probe the 20cm by 20cm shaft, it travelled a distance of 64 metres until it came to a door blocking its path.
"The door is similar to the first one discovered inside the southern shaft," said Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni, describing the slab of limestone that had two copper handles affixed to it.
Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of the SCA, said that through a camera on the toy-train-sized robot, Egyptologists were able to ascertain that the southern shaft is similar to the northern one in terms of its dimensions and surface, which is lined with mortar and covered by salt crystals.
Unlike the southern shaft, the northern one is sharply curved. It is straight for the first 4.8m and then makes a sharp turn to the right. It runs straight again for 2.7m before veering to the right. After this corner, the shaft is straight for 3.3m and then bends slightly to the left. The last 32.61m before the door proceeds straight.
With respect the shaft's somewhat irregular path, Hawass said, "The Egyptians put multiple curves in the shaft so that it would not intersect with the pyramid's Grand Gallery." He suggested that this fact implies that the shafts were carved after the completion of the pyramid's construction.
This week's exploration of the northern shaft was only the most recent attempt to reveal its mysteries. When the shaft was first discovered in 1872, Waymann Dixon found a small bronze hook and a granite ball inside it. In 1930, Morton Edger and in 1993 Rodelf Gantinbrink probed its first 19m.
Hawass suggests that the mysteries of both shafts, containing a combined total of three doors, can be explained with reference to Egyptian funerary literature written after the building of Khufu's Great Pyramid. Items like the Book of the Gates, the Book of the Two Ways, the Book of Caverns and the Pyramid Texts describe the journey of the deceased's soul, mentioning doors with bolts which the spirit must pass through on its ways to the afterlife. Consequently, Hawass said, "These doors could be the symbolic gateways."
Tim Kelly, president of National Geographic's television and film division, said his organisation would continue to work in tandem with the Egyptian government, adding that research and experimentation are underway to modify the robot for further probing of the northern shaft.
The exploration of the northern shaft is the second project that the SCA carried out with the National Geographic Association. Last week the custom-built robot probe explored the pyramid's southern shaft right through the a first copper-handled door to travel further until being halted at a second slab. The archaeological event was broadcast live on 17 September from the Giza plateau to 141 countries around the world, produced by National Geographic television.

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