The Mysteries That Surround The Pyramids & Ancient Egyptians | Ancient History

built as gargantuan tombs of shining white Limestone the pyramids were designed to hide Dark Secrets of the Dead For Eternity for thousands of years they have prompted fantastic myths and legends as well as real and baffling scientific riddles how were these mausoleums constructed hundreds of feet high true to within inches why was a nation devoted to housing its dead who were the men who hauled billions of tons of stone now science is beating down the pyramid's defenses shattering ancient myths and revealing the [Music] truth the pyramids of ancient Egypt stand like giant Sentinels watching over

the City of Cairo built more than 2,000 years before the birth of Christ these stone giants continue to mystify and Captivate archaeologists seeking to understand their Origins and purpose I think Egypt has such a grip on us because because they had access to Stone and with that stone they built the world's first skyscrapers there's something about us that we see in that the pyramid Builders left no record of how they erected these massive superstructures and thousands of years of myth and Legend have hidden their real purpose the only Clues are the pyramids themselves scientists must

study the stones to discover how these extraordinary buildings were constructed and to learn who built them using simple primitive Technologies these are very sophisticated monuments the Great Pyramid is the Hightech of antiquity the scale of the achievement is astonishing the Great Pyramid is 481 ft tall and is made up of 2.3 million blocks some weighing as much as 50 tons the whole structure weighs almost 6 million tons that's the equivalent of 16 empire state buildings for 38 centuries it was the tallest building on earth what's more it's an incredibly precise piece of engineering the 755

ft sides vary in length by less than 2 in it's not just the exterior building that's extraordinary inside is is a complex of passageways and Chambers built from one of Nature's hardest rocks the stonework is so precise that even a credit card cannot slip between the blocks all constructed by a people who hadn't discovered the wheel the accuracy of the Great Pyramid is something that makes me stand in awe the first egyptologists tried to blast their way to the truth with dynamite they force their way into the pyramid secret Chambers but they may have destroyed

more than they uncovered Dynamite especially might have obliterated Clues left behind by the ancient Egyptians telling us more about the pyramids or how they were built now archaeologists are using the latest technology to search for wonders hidden deep within the stones I really actually believe that the perial Chamber of that King is still hidden inside the pyramid but for other archaeologists it's the buildings themselves that are the true Wonder the greatest mystery about the pyramids is not secret Chambers it's how the Egyptians managed to build them with the technology they had the ancient Egyptians didn't

Master pyramid building in one Leap it took long years of trial and error and one near disaster for them to evolve from building simple mud constructions to the great pyramid at Giza the first pyramids were built on the West Bank of the River Nile around 2,600 BCE the earliest design was the step pyramid at Sakara possibly the oldest Stone building on earth Rising 204 ft from the Desert Sands this was a breakthrough in the history of construction it didn't have smooth sloping sides but instead Rose in a series of levels or steps the first flat-sided

true pyramids were built 60 years later by the Pharaoh snefru his son kufu built the Great Pyramid the first and largest of the three pyramids at Giza and then a series of smaller highly decorated pyramids were built at [Music] Sakara how the Egyptians built these giant super structures using the simple technology of the time is an ancient mystery the first challenge was to survey the site and Mark out the pyramid in the correct alignment they chose the site with care to ensure that the Bedrock was capable of supporting many millions of tons of limestone the

ancient Architects then marked out the building so that each side was aligned to the points of the compass north south east and west today we would use digital compasses and Laser sighing equipment but the ancient Egyptians had none of this technology ology instead some experts think they look to the skies by observing where the polar Stars rise and set it's possible to calculate true north first The Architects built a semicircular wall to act as a flat Horizon on this wall they could Mark the rising and setting points of a particular Star as it rotated around

North in the night sky a line drawn exactly midway between these marks would point due north using just this low Tech method the Great Pyramid was aligned with breathtaking accuracy it is off True North by less than a 20th of a [Music] degree engineer and pyramid Rider Robert boval has aligned modern buildings himself he is astounded by the accuracy achieved by the ancient Egyptians it beats me how they did it and I I've set out buildings with Optical instruments uh with the with the aid of cranes to place the stones and I sometimes I don't

get them that accurate having calculated due north The Architects plotted out an alignment line that forms one side of the pyramid's footprint they then marked out the remaining three sides using measuring rods and cords with the plan of the pyramid Now set the engineers then carved a level base out of the Bedrock to support the giant structure a perfectly horizontal Foundation was needed for a precise and stable pyramid British engineer Dennis stocks is an expert in ancient Egyptian construction techniques his work has unraveled many of the histories of pyramid building modern foundations are leveled with

lasers and spirit levels stocks believes that the Egyptians used water in order to get the pyramid base nice and flat and level the ancient Egyptians used a channel it's like this one here only it would stretch all the way along 755 ft the whole side of the pyramid and then they would put put some water in and it would act as a kind of spirit level all he has to do is follow the line of the water along it and then he can be sure that the pyramid base will be truly level and truly horizontal

stocks believes that such a water trench could have been built on a massive scale along the whole edge of the pyramid in this way the engineers could Ensure sure the whole base was level but to check that all 2.3 million blocks were kept level as the pyramid grew upwards the Egyptians used another ingenious device the tool I'm using is made of wood and it's called the A-frame all it is is two uh pieces of wood joined together at 90° at the top with a cross bar and a hanging Plum line uh to calibrate it for

use it is placed on a flat surface of water and then a line which you can see there is marked right behind the hanging Plum line so that you know when you test it on a surface and the hanging Plum line coincides with the Mark we know that it is showing a truly horizontal flat surface with the design laid out and the sight level construction could now begin for this the Egyptians needed Stone millions of tons of stone but how did they Quarry such incredible amounts without the aid of dynamite jackhammers or even iron tools

during the ancient Egyptian Old Kingdom 18 major pyramids were completed in a 500-year period they contain a third of a billion cubic feet of stone stone that had to be quarried cut and Tra transported to the sites even for modern engineering companies with modern technology this would be a daunting task yet the ancient Egyptians Managed IT with the most rudimentary tools Dennis stocks is traveling to Tura near Cairo where much of the highquality Limestone used in the pyramids was quarried he believes the Egyptians cut this Stone using a soft metal copper stocks has built replica

copper chisels based on ancient artifacts found in Egypt by using those I feel that I am as close as I can get within the mind of ancient Egyptian workers and how they felt but copper is a soft malleable metal which bends and blunts easily how can it be used to cut Limestone now the tools that I have in my hand at the moment are the first ones that the ancient Craftsman would use and this one is a mallet which is used to strike this copper tool which is shaped into a chisel and in order to

do this you lay the Chisel against the stone at an angle position the Mallet and then strike quite hard blows and you will see big ch of stone coming away that's all right for rough working but we have another copper chisel which can be used for more finer working in order to get much less Stone off at a time but will bring the surface closer towards a surface which is totally flat stocks research shows that it's possible to carve Limestone blocks using soft copper chisels and it turns out that the Egyptians were the unwitting recipients

of some good fortune detailed chemical analysis of ancient tools shows that Egyptian copper wasn't pure it contained small traces of arsenic by a lucky chance this impurity holds the copper crystals together and actually makes this copper tougher than its pure form this fluke of chemistry helped the Egyptian stone masons Quarry most of the 2.3 million Limestone blocks in the Great Pyramid the pyramids are mostly made of the relatively soft rock Limestone but the Egyptians also used a much tougher kind of Stone Granite they use this hard beautifully colored stone for the most important sections of

the design such as the king's chamber within the the Great Pyramid and copper chisels have absolutely no effect on this rock sophisticated modern quarrying tools can cut through granite but the Egyptians had not even learned how to forge iron generations of archaeologists could not solve the puzzle of exactly how they cut these 50 ton granet blocks but now experimental Archaeology is beginning to explain the technological [Music] mystery Dennis doc thinks he has the answer he believes the Egyptians did use copper copper saws and not just ordinary saws they didn't even have teeth this material here

is very hard granite and to cut this you need a special tool and this is a copper saw but it's toothless it's got no teeth at all and you say well what's going to do the cutting well it's sand but it's the quartz crystals within the sand which embed themselves into the softer copper and because the soes dragging those crystals backward and forth within the slot that actually does the cutting and slowly bit by bit the stone is cut right the way through quartz crystals in the sand are so hard that they gradually grind through

the solid Granite but using these saws the ancient Egyptians could only have cut Granite at a rate of 2 cubic in an hour it still would have taken four months to carve out the sarcophagus inside the Great Pyramid with soft copper and a Cutting Edge provided by Arsenic and sand the Egyptians cut vast quantities of rock they had to then assemble these blocks into a monument that could stand the test of time but what made the Egyptians decide to build a pyramid in the first place why did they choose this now iconic shape they were

looking for a stable form like a mound of gravel the pyramid is supported by a wide base and low center of gravity more than 2/3 of the weight is in the bottom third of its height but the design wasn't just about engineering it was also influenced by their beliefs when people want to go up to do so and have stability a mound is very stable but of course there is a symbology in all of this there may be several mystical influences behind the pyramid shape one explanation looks at the worship of a mystical Stone known

as the Ben Ben Stone nobody knows where this legendary Stone originated some think it was a meteorite it has long since vanished but the pyramidan or capstones that form the very top of the pyramids are modeled on the original pyramid-shaped Ben Ben Stone could this be the reason why pyramids are built in their distinctive form but with the sun playing such a key role in Egyptian religion at the time there is another possibility maybe the sun itself was the key the pyramid can be seen as a stone representation of a Sunray coming down from the

heavens when the sun emerges from behind clouds the beam created can sometimes resemble a pyramid so a stone representation of a Sunbeam is a possibility but perhaps it was simply the pure geometrical form of a pyramid that appealed to the Egyptians ironically the first pyramid the step pyramid didn't have smooth sloping sides it Rose in six separate layers it was Pharaoh snefru the pioneer of pyramids 60 years after the step pyramid was built who created the first smooth sided true pyramid this was a radical New Concept and its success would rest on a critical engineering

decision at what angle should the sides rise the steeper the angle the taller and heavier the pyramid would be if they made it too steep it might be too heavy for the [Music] foundations snr's Architects settled on an angle of 55° at first things went well but halfway through construction cracks began to appear in the pyramid's internal Chambers according to a survey by Italian archaeologists marolio and ronaldi the pyramid is built on soft slady clay only the edges rest on a solid stone foundation as the pyramid Rose this soft core sank under the weight The

Architects had to come up with an answer or the pyramid might collapse construction stopped eventually their dramatic solution changed the whole direction of the build the Architects decreased the angle of slope from 55° to 43° this reduced the height of the pyramid by 100 ft and the weight by more than 400,000 tons the engineer's mistake probably angered the Pharaoh but their solution was a success 4 and a half thousand years later the bent pyramid as it's now known still stands though with its slightly unusual shape major pyramids would never again be built at such a

steep angle for his next pyramid snr's Architects were understandably cautious they built the Red Pyramid at just 45° it has the shallowest angle of any of the Egyptian pyramids and it's still standing it's the oldest true smooth-sided Pyramid in Egypt today after this success The Architects grew more confident they now built steeper and steeper culminating in the angle of the Great Pyramid its sides climb at an angle of of slightly less than 52° rising to a summit of 480 ft but how did they manage to maneuver 2 and 1/2 ton blocks to such an incredible

height without the crane or the block and tackle it was a challenge to the ancient Egyptians and Still Remains a mystery to Modern archaeologists egyptologist mark laner has spent 30 years studying the pyramids handson my approach to the question was where are the quaries what kind of a ramp can you get from the Quarry to the pyramid in a functional slope laner and almost all egyptologists believe that some kind of ramp was used to raise the stone blocks the type of ramp remains a mystery did they approach the pyramid straight on zigzag up one side

side or spiral around it it's not a problem that's been totally solved and um you know I've given my suggestions I've tried to base them in the landscape but um you know a lot of it is still inference because the ramps were dismantled once the pyramid was complete only fragments of evidence are available to archaeologists but it was ramps and sheer muscle power that allowed millions of blocks to reach the summit once in position the builders faced a new task the blocks had to be fitted together surprisingly in such a precise build a large proportion

of the internal Stones were just roughly finished the gaps between them were filled with rubble and gypsum mortar in between the blocks were stuff lots of limestone chippings mixed with a huge dollops of mortar and it set just like modern concrete but every stone that would be visible when the build was completed was placed with amazing Precision in the Great Pyramid the blocks of the burial chamber fit precisely the sides of these blocks had to be almost perfectly flat to make these astonishing joins this Precision Engineering was achieved using the most rudimentary of tools yes

we'll use this rods and string tool in order to find out whether the surface is truly flat and by using a third Rod which is the same length as the other two rods joined by the string which is now pulled very Tau we can see if it just slips under now we've got a bit of a high spot there now in ancient times they would Mark that simply by putting some red oak on just to remind the workers where to go to and check along the length of the string the ancient Mason would use the

rods and string to spot imperfections and then Mark them with red ochre to show where more work was needed using two further tools this one being a flint scraper and this one being a Sandstone rubber now we can use the marks as a guide to scrape away the high point like so and it's obvious that as you scrape the mark disappears and with it of course the high spot this same technique was also used in the fin fin stage of construction the rough internal blocks were covered with an outer casing of perfectly smooth Stone this

was carved from the highest grade Limestone and had to be carried across the Nile to the pyramid site with this polished casing the pyramid would have shown dazzling white in the Egyptian sun but when the pyramids were newly encased in this special Limestone they must have been blinding in the sun like newly fallen snow to achieve this every casing Stone was cut to sit perfectly with its neighbors when complete the Great Pyramid of Giza was covered with thousands of these facing Stones sadly they have long vanished taken to build the mosques and castles of Cairo

but facing Stones can still be seen on the cap of cfr's pyramid even with all the Egyptian skills and tools building the pyramids was still an incredibly hard task requiring millions of man-hours to complete Legend has long suggested that the pyramids were built by armies of slaves the Legends are wrong forensic archaeological discoveries are now putting a face on the people who really built the pyramids the building of the pyramids was an enormous construction project requiring incredible Manpower resources ancient histories tell of 100,000 men laboring on the Great Pyramid for 20 years modern experts believe

25,000 workers is a more realistic estimate the job was completed during Pharaoh kufu 23-year Reign the workers were would have put in over a quarter of a billion manh hours ancient Egypt was a rich land but for such a MTH undertaking the builders would have had to Source materials from across the whole country the vast Granite blocks had to be floated 600 M down the Nile from the quaries at Aswan keeping a pyramid build on track was a logistical nightmare that would test even a modern engineering firm engineer Craig Smith has overseen vast construction sites

and has analyzed how a pyramid build might operate you don't have cell phones you don't have pagers you don't have laptop computers you have millions of pieces of material that have to arrive at the right point in time Egyptian Communications depended upon Papyrus and foot Messengers yet they kept track of thousands of workers and countless millions of pieces of raw material a present-day pyramid Builder would have all the benefits of modern technology available to them where the Egyptians probably relied on the Stars to align the pyramids we would use lasers where the Egyptians use Simple

ramps we would use giant Tower cranes to raise the blocks today motorized vehicles would transport building materials to the site all the Egyptians had was muscle power and slow moving boats Craig Smith has calculated the cost of building a Great Pyramid in today's money if you did it with Limestone it'd be about $4 billion and would take uh about 4 years that's considerably less than the 23 years it's estimated it took to build the Great Pyramid but we should not underestimate the scale of their achievement the ancient Egyptian Craftsman would have had to place a

block every 2 minutes 270 blocks every single day for 23 years and on top of its sheer scale the pyramid was built to last for all eternity we haven't built anything of that scale in recent times that probably has any likelihood of lasting 4,500 years the Great Pyramid alone was a Triumph of human Ingenuity but amazingly the Egyptians built another 17 major pyramids this pyramid building epic spanned five centuries and was perhaps the greatest construction project of all time these pyramids are known by the names of the Pharaohs who commissioned them but the identity of

the actual people who built them has long remained a mystery until now it was thought that the Pharaoh would never have forced his own people to toil for year after year constructing the [Music] pyramids instead it was believed that they were built using slave labor possibly the Israelites in recent years archaeologists have excavated the areas around the Giza Pyramids their finds have radically changed the theories on who built the pyramids renowned egyptologist Dr zahi Haas has discovered the tombs of the actual pyramid Builders Dr hawas was surprised at the elaborate nature of these tombs they

do not look like humble burial grounds for slaves if the people who built the pyramids were slaves they will never never be buried in the shadow of the pyramid if they were slaves they will never prepare their tombs for eternity like kings and queens Dr haas's work is finally letting us see pyramid construction from the workers perspective before our Discovery you know a lot about kings and queens but you know nothing about the people who really worked in building the pyramid but who were the actual workers the answer comes from the new science of forensic

Egypt egyptology egyptologist Rosalie David works with biologists and artists who reconstruct the lives of the men who built the pyramids CAT scans and 3D imaging resurrects faces of the ancient Egyptians from mummified skulls this is the reconstructed face of an Egyptian who lived thousands of years ago you do get a sense of the character of the person um they ceased to be a wizened mummy or a dry skeleton and there they are with the flesh the eyes the hair you're looking at somebody who could be alive today forensic analysis of workers bones provides conclusive evidence

that the pyramid laborers were not foreign slaves the idea that the pyramids were built by slaves is totally wrong um this has been proved really by the archaeological evidence so all the studies on the bodies uh show that they are Egyptians they're not from overseas the bones also show clear evidence of medical treatment broken limbs have been reset one skull even shows signs of early brain surgery foreign slaves would never have been granted such high quality medical attention but where was this Native Workforce housed to Mark laner the pyramid Builder Town must have been near

the Giza Plateau if there were 20,000 people out there to say nothing of 30,000 it would have been one of the largest cities in the world in the third millennium BC so where was it and where was all the infrastructure Lan's breakthrough came when he excavated a site to the southeast of the pyramids next to the workers tomb Toms everywhere we put down an excavation trench we find large substantial mud brick walls evidence of an ancient settlement the layout of this long hidden town exposes more and more about the lives of the pyramid Builders well

the footprint of this lost city tells us something about how they organized their society in this very early period when they built pyramids feeding the workers may have been the biggest organizational Challenge and Lan's team has found evidence that the Craftsmen were well catered For from remains found on the site it's clear that the pyramid Builders received generous rations including beer Meat and Fish they were very well organized they were well fed they were looked after because they were very important but it appears that the middle management may have been even better looked after they

were eating a a lot of meat uh sheep goat but especially cattle they ate very well but we're seeing that some people on the site ate better than others Mark laner believes that this core of professional Craftsmen and officials were kept on site but the hauling of the blocks was carried out by villagers who came to work on the site for a few months or years for these unskilled workers pyramid building was a bit like military service this was an Army mobilized from the length of Egypt but they came to build rather than to fight

what really fascinates me about the pyramids is not so much the king or the little man in the trenches but the whole human Network that could create something like the Great Pyramid of kufu but what drove the ancient Egyptians to dedicate so much energy and manpower to the pyramids why were thousands of men brought from across the country to labor on this site these questions have intrigued archaeologists as they try to solve the third great mystery of the pyramids what were they for back in medieval times it was thought that the pyramids were the giant

granaries of the biblical character Joseph but most modern egyptologists believe that they are tombs for the Pharaohs the largest and grandest tombs ever built although centuries of Tomb ing means that no remains of a pharaoh have ever been discovered inside a pyramid and no mummy was ever found in the so-called burial chamber of the Great Pyramid of kufu Dr Haas however is convinced that there is enough written evidence to prove the pyramids were built as tombs for the Pharaohs there is lots of evidence in incription in literature that telling us that this is a tomb

for the king but a tomb for a pharaoh was more than just a resting place for his [Music] body deep within some pyramids is evidence of another more magical function these tombs were built as gateways to the Stars the ancient Egyptians poured resources and Manpower into building the py pids the greatest Stone monuments on the planet it's believed that they were built as tombs but their true importance to both the Pharaoh and Egypt itself remained hidden for centuries these silent Giants kept their secrets until a discovery made by pure chance in 1879 a Workman was

passing one of the later Sakara pyramids at dawn when he saw a jackal the Beast seemed to be taunting the Workman almost asking to be chased the Workman Then followed the animal into a hole near the pyramid to his surprise he found himself in a chamber lifting his Lantern he saw that the walls were covered with hieroglyphs the these ancient sacred writings had been hidden for thousands of [Music] years Jim Allen is a world expert on these hieroglyphs or pyramid texts he believes they give us a unique insight into the intentions of the pyramid Builders

they are the oldest religious texts known from Egypt which makes them one of the oldest bodies of religious texts in the world the texts revealed nothing about how the buildings were built but they do reveal the pyramid's ultimate purpose the pyramids were not created as simple resting places for the Pharaohs they were built as giant machines for turning men into Gods the pyramid is like a cosmic engine it is designed to transform the Dead being beneath it into a Living spirit when the king died the ancient Egyptians believed that Egypt and existence itself was plunged

into mortal [Music] danger even after death the ruler had to protect his country from drought famine and the forces of chaos the mummified pharaoh was carried into his giant tomb along with with food clothes jewels and treasures everything he would need in the afterlife in the Stars Sala ikram has studied ancient Egyptian beliefs about the afterlife the basic thing is it's very much like this life except better so everything you wanted in this life if you have managed to put it into your tomb you can have it in the [Music] afterworld the pyramid texts leave

a record of the rituals that were performed over the mummified body of the Pharaoh to ensure that he survived his journey to the afterlife they also included spells and prayers to protect him we tend to think of magic as Abracadabra uh Wizards um witches Harry Potter to the ancient Egyptians magic was a part of the universe for the Egyptians this was the science of survival there is no superstitious mumbo jumbo in ancient Egypt everything has a meaning everything has a purpose once the rituals were completed the pyramid was sealed hopefully for all eternity the Pharaoh

was then free to make his journey to the afterlife to be reborn as an eternal star but Robert Bal who has written extensively on the pyramids believes that there is a further connection between the stars and the pyramids for years he has been intrigued by the links between Egyptian religion and astronomy it all started with an aerial photograph of the Giza Pyramids Bal noticed a very distinctive pattern I was looking at monuments that had been laid according to a plan there were two large pair pids set along a diagonal but what bugged me what really

got me was there was a third smaller one offset from the diagonal this faulty diagonal reminded him of the stars of Orion's Belt it has two bright stars and one dimmer star offset the relative sizes and positions of the three Giza Pyramids seemed to match those of the three stars for some Egypt ologists bal's theory is just a coincidence if you look at the stars in the Orion constellations you'll find that they do not fit with all the all Kingdom pyramids at all you'll find maybe very few with computer you can really match this Dr

Haas argues that many other stars in the Orion constellation do not match the layout of any pyramids on the ground but to Robert Bal the correspondence was clear evidence of an astronomical master plan explaining the layout and design of the major pyramids you cannot deny the fact that there are three stars that look like the plan of the pyramids two large ones small one offset two large pyramids small one offset that is a fact it's a fact what isn't a fact is whether it is a coincidence or not for Bal there is another piece of

compelling evidence within the overall design of the pyramids that backs his astronomical Theory there are four narrow shafts built into the structure of the Great Pyramid just 8 in wide they climb upwards through the solid stone interior from the king's and queen's Chambers toward the surface for over 200 ft they were carefully built into each layer of stones as the pyramid Rose these Stone shafts May hold Clues to some of the last remaining Mysteries of the pyramids originally it was thought that the shafts were designed as air vents to bring fresh air into the pyramid

for the workers toiling inside however for Bal these shafts are far more significant as he examined their orientation he felt he was cracking a secret code a code built into the very structure of the pyramid but it was exciting to realize that uh I was beginning to listen to the silent language of the [Music] pyramid boval believes each of the four shafts running through the Great Pyramid is built to point directly toward a major star what's more each of these stars is critically important in the ancient Egyptian religion one of the Southern shafts points towards

Sirius the counterpart of the Goddess Isis while the other points to alnitak one of the stars in Orion's Belt this constellation was the Heavenly equivalent of Osiris the Egyptian god of death and Resurrection the star shafts may be aligned this way to help the spirit of the Pharaoh Ascend to heaven to join the god Osiris and become a star alongside him for Bal this realization was like solving an ancient riddle so we have a kind of language if you like I call it asog the pyramid speaks through its architecture and through its symbolic astronomy although

bal's theory is totally rejected by some egyptologists other Mysteries and rumors still surround the shafts Dr hawas believes that they may lead to unseen treasure within the pyramid's core if I'm right this will be the most important Discovery in Egypt and in the [Music] world the great pyramid at Giza contains a complex of shafts and Chambers researchers have already discovered three possible AAL Chambers linked by corridors including the Magnificent Grand Gallery but in recent years interest has focused on four mysterious shafts that run from the King and queen's Chambers toward the surface these narrow channels

are surrounded by rumors of hidden Chambers and astrological links in the 1980s a French team studied the structure of the Great Pyramid using micro gravimetric techniques which detect variations in the density of objects their study identified several areas of differing density suggesting that there may be undiscovered Chambers near the top of the pyramid in 1993 Dr zahi Haas worked with a German robotics team to explore the shafts in the Queen's chamber what they discovered rocked egyptology after 200 ft exactly the robot was stopped in front of a door with two copper handles the southern shaft

was sealed by a solid Limestone slab which blocked the robot exploring further in 2002 a different team went back with a more advanced robot it carried drilling equipment designed to cut through the Limestone panel remote sensing techniques similar to those used to find earthquake survivors had revealed that the slab was only 3 in deep the robot climbed up the narrow shaft and drilled a small hole just big enough for a tiny camera to pass through what the camera revealed was totally unexpected another Limestone door across the shaft for some observers it was a bitter disappointment

but for Dr Haas this was still an important find we are not looking for the doors of Alibaba and the 40 thieves we are looking for archaeology than anything that you discover inside the pyramid it's a major Discovery behind this second door is a region of the pyramid unseen for over 4 and a half thousand years Dr Haas believes that a hidden chamber May lie behind the Limestone slab he is now ready to go back ins inside the Great Pyramid and believes he may find the ultimate archaeological prize I still believe that the burial chamber

of kufu is still hidden inside the pyramid that were going to go through the first door and the second door to find out what is the mystery behind them if Dr Haas uncovers the tomb it could be the greatest find ever greater even than the discovery of the tomb of King Tut here may lie the last mystery of the pyramids the final resting place of kufu one of the greatest of pharaohs sealed since the day when the pyramid was finally completed and stood gleaming in the Desert Sun the Great Pyramid is the only wonder of

the ancient world left standing its polished Stone casing has long gone and it has lost 30 ft in height since it was built but even at that rate it might take another 65,000 years before it disappears from the skyline the pyramids stand as a testament to the extraordinary skills of the people who built them they Tower over history itself truly among the greatest achievements of mankind past and present they stand there against all the odds after thousands of years and they they trumpet immortality as the ancient Arab proverb says man fears time yet time fears

the [Music] pyramids