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Egypt
Egyptology NEWS
The
Total Eclipse of the sun in Egypt, March 2006
Cairo
Museum basement to be opened to visitors
A
statue of Egypt's King Neferhotep I found in Thebes
Egypt
is to recover more than a 100 stolen antiquities
Egypt's
stolen antiquities might be returned.
Archeologists
uncovered a 5,000-year-old chamber
New
discovery at the valley of the whales
Newly
discovered mummies include one from powerful clan
Excavators
discover 20 mummies in Egypt
King
Tut Exhibit Could Prove to Be Gold Mine
Canadian
dig unearths Sinai desert fortress
Ancient
Egyptians enjoyed humour
New
Museum for North Sinai
Spanish
mission excavates 11 ancient tombs in Ahansia
Merit
Amon colossus installed at Tel Basta Museum
Mummy
specialists uncover secrets of ancient Egyptian queen
Mummy
of Pharaoh Khufu found............... Or has it?
The Total Eclipse of the sun in Egypt, March 2006
Next March 2006, Egypt will witness a total eclipse of
the sun at its north west coast.
The Total eclipse of the sun is one of the very
important phenomena in astronomy and geophysics. It is
also a very rare phenomena, and often happens in the
same place every 200 years. This the last recorded
eclipse in Egypt goes back to the year 1798.
Full story
http://www.ask-aladdin.com/egypt_eclipse_2006.htm
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Cairo Museum basement to be opened to visitors
Zahi Hawass, head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities,
declared that a contract has been signed with a
state-owned company to insure and reorganize the
Egyptian Museum’s basement before making it accessible
to visitors. The decision comes after several items from
the basement storage area have been “lost” or stolen in
the past year, to the embarrassment of those
responsible.
Cairo Magazine
http://www.cairomagazine.com/?module=displaystory&story_id=1514&format=html
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A statue of Egypt's King Neferhotep I found in Thebes
Buried for nearly 3600 years, a rare statue of Egypt's
King Neferhotep I has been brought to light in the ruins
of Thebes by a team of French archaeologists.
Officials said on Saturday that the statue was unusual
in that the king is depicted holding hands with a double
of himself, although the second part of the carving
remains under the sand and its form has been determined
by the use of imaging equipment.
Archaeologists unearthed the 1.8m-tall statue as they
were carrying out repairs around Karnak Temple in the
southern city of Luxor, Egypt's antiquities chief Zahi
Hawass said.
Limestone statue
Francois Larche, one of the team that found the
limestone statue of the king, whose name means beautiful
and good, said it was lying about 1.6m below ground near
an obelisk of Queen Hatshepsut, the only woman to have
reigned as a pharaoh in Egypt, ruling from 1504-1484
BCE.
Karnak, now in the heart of Luxor, was built on the
ruins of Thebes, the capital of ancient Egypt. The huge
temple, dedicated to the god Amon, lies in the centre of
a vast complex of religious buildings in the city, 700km
south of Cairo.
The statue shows the king wearing a funeral mask and
royal head cloth or nemes, said Larche.
The forehead bears an emblem of a cobra, which ancient
Egyptians used as a symbol on the crown of the pharaohs.
They believed that the cobra would spit fire at
approaching enemies.
Second time
Larche said this was only the second time such a statue
had been found in Egypt. A similar one was dug up during
the excavations of the hidden treasures of Karnak from
1898 to 1904.
But it is not clear when or whether the statue will be
completely unearthed. It is blocked by the remnants of
an ancient structure, possibly a gate.
"In order to pull it out, a structure on top of the
statue has to be dismantled and then restored," said
Larche, adding that permission from the Egyptian
antiquities authorities was needed before the team could
go ahead with plans to raise the statue.
King Neferhotep
"It's up to the Higher Council of Egyptian Antiquities
to decide on the fate of the statue of Neferhotep I and
whether it will be brought to light or left buried where
it was found," Larche added.
Neferhotep was the 22nd king of the 13th Dynasty. The
son of a temple priest in Abydos, he ruled Egypt from
1696-1686 BCE.
Experts believe his father's position helped him to
ascend the throne, as there was no royal blood in his
family.
Neferhotep was one of the few pharaohs whose name did
not invoke the sun god, Re. It is written on a number of
stones, including a document on his reign found in
Aswan.
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Egypt is to recover more than a 100 stolen antiquities,
Egypt is to recover more than a 100 stolen antiquities,
smuggled out by a massive trafficking ring, from the
United States, Canada and Germany.
Some of the antiquities were located after Egypt's
largest-ever trafficking trial in August, which led to
heavy prison sentences for seven people, antiquities
chief Zahi Hawwas told the official Mena news agency on
Thursday.
He said members of his Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA)
had found some of the missing pieces on the websites of
several auctioneers across the world.
Hawwas explained that the pieces to be recovered from
Germany has been seized by police as they were being
sold to a buyer in the United States.
Some stolen pharaonic antiquities were intercepted upon
arrival in the United States at a San Francisco airport,
while others were seized from an auction room in Canada,
he added.
Hawwas did not elaborate on the nature of the stolen
pieces nor did he specify when they would be returned.
He explained that the pieces to be recovered were
smuggled out through a major trafficking operation
masterminded by two Egyptian antiquities dealers.
Mohammed al-Shaer was sentenced to 55 years in jail for
trafficking antiquities, corruption and encouraging SCA
officials to forge documents.
A relative, Faruq al-Shaer, was sentenced to 42 years
for illegal possession and trafficking of antiquities.
Source :http://egyptelection.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=846
Some of Egypt's stolen antiquities might be returned.
*Some of Egypt's stolen antiquities might be returned.
Switzerland has recently become party to an
international agreement on the prevention of antiquity
smuggling. The agreement would give the Egyptians a
carte blanche to demand a return of their country's
monuments which had been smuggled to Switzerland in the
past. Local antiquities' experts are blithe.
"The Swiss signing the agreement would of course benefit
Egypt," says Chairman of the Supreme Council of
Antiquities (SCA) Dr Zahi Hawass. "There are big
antiquities' smugglers in that country."
Hawass explains that in the course of the next few weeks
the Egyptian government is due to take measures to
retrieve Egyptian antiquities that had been smuggled to
Switzerland in the past. He also refers to a problem in
relation to unregistered relics. Because they are
unregistered, the authorities might find it difficult to
trace them.
Away from Hawass' euphoria, a question might be asked
now: how exactly did the antiquities get out of Egypt in
the first place? How did they reach the hands of the
smugglers thousands of miles away in Switzerland and
other parts of Europe? Can't we protect our own heritage
regardless of whether other countries sign an agreement
or not?
"An end to the smuggling of antiquities must start in
Egypt itself," suggests antiquities' expert, Dr Mohamed
Ibrahim Bakr. "The retribution for smugglers must be
very big in a way to scare them away from such actions.
"We've been waiting for a long time for the Swiss to
sign the agreement on the prevention of antiquities'
smuggling," Bakr says. "The agreement would put an end
to antiquities' smuggling to this country," he adds in a
recent interview with Rose el-Youssef magazine.
"Switzerland is famous for smuggled antiquities
auctions," says Dr Ibrahim al-Nawawi, an adviser to the
SCA. "The government there has previously devised plans
with the aim of legalizing this kind of activity, which
turned into a huge source of national income.
"The signing of the agreement is a severe slap on the
face of antiquities smugglers and money launderers in
this country," al-Nawawi adds. "Egypt must act swiftly
to retain its stolen monuments."
Egypt has recently decided not to cooperate with
archaeological expeditions from museums or universities
that have in the past smuggled antiquities from Egypt.
"It is time the government approves the new Antiquities
Law," demands al- Nawawi. "We must tighten the grip on
our monuments internally. Internal laws must precede the
search for the stolen antiquities outside our own
country."
Antiquities' expert Ibrahim Abdel Magid is overjoyed.
The signing of the agreement on the prevention of the
smuggling of antiquities is to him of special
importance.
"Most of the big antiquities' smuggling cases are
related to Switzerland," says Abdel Magid.
Abdel Magid tells that when he was in Switzerland
recently, he came across a booklet for a Swiss special
monument fair. Turning the pages of the booklet, which
contained the photos and information about the relics
displayed in the fair, he discovered that the contents
included around 500 original Egyptian relics including
pure gold ones.
"Egypt can recover thousands of its stolen antiquities
in the light of the new agreement," says Abdel Magid.
Source: The Egyptian Gazette, Egypt,
http://www.algomhuria.net.eg/gazette/2/1.asp
Archeologists uncovered a 5,000-year-old chamber
*CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - Archeologists uncovered a
5,000-year-old chamber believed to have been used in the
burial rituals of Egypt's first major pharaoh, and found
a cache of 200 rough ceramic beer and wine jars,
Egyptian authorities said Thursday.
The mortuary enclosure of King Hur-Aha, the founder of
Egypt's First Dynasty, also included a chapel stained by
what are likely the remains of sacrificial animals,
Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities said. "It is a
very important discovery because it would provide us
with new information about the First Dynasty," said Zahi
Hawass, head of the council.
The beer and wine jars were found in excavations along
the walls of the mortuary enclosure of King Khasekhemwy,
a Second Dynasty pharaoh who ruled around 2700 BC.
The mud-brick enclosure was discovered by a joint
American excavation from Yale University, the
Pennsylvania University Museum and New York University
at Shunet El-Zebib, near Abydos. Many of Egypt's earlier
pharaohs are buried in Abydos, a holy city 400
kilometres south of Cairo.
The enclosure is believed to be where the body of King
Hur-Aha was kept during burial rituals. His tomb is
nearby in Abydos, though it's not known whether he was
buried there.
The enclosure also included three rectangular tombs with
wooden ceilings covered with reed matting - one with a
well-preserved skeleton of a woman and another tomb with
remains of human bones. Hawass said experts were trying
to identify the remains. The enclosure also contained
pots with hieroglyphs indicating they were made during
the reign of Hur-Aha.
Hur-Aha, who ruled around 3100 BC - some 500 years
before the pyramids were built - is considered the first
pharaoh of the First Dynasty, the first royal family to
control both Upper and Lower Egypt in a unified kingdom.
But little is known of the era.
Later Egyptian dynasties came to identify Abydos as the
burial site of the god Osiris.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Science/
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New discovery Valley at the Whales (Zeuglodon Valley)
An Expedition from University of Michigan was digging in
wadi EL-Hitan and had discovered a large petrified whale
that was 44 million years old, the whales in this area
once had feet and walked on the shore before getting
into the water.
My trip to the valley was great adventure, It was
amazing experience, you will all hear about this
discovery in the news papers very soon.
check this page on my site to read more about it
and see more pictures and details.
Full story http://www.ask-aladdin.com/wadi.htm
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Press Releases
Newly discovered mummies include one from powerful clan
An Egyptian antiquity worker cleans the newly discovered
sarcophagus of Badi-Herkhib, a member of a powerful
family that ruled part of western Egypt. The sarcophagus
was discovered last week.
Amr Nabil / the Associated Press
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Excavators discover 20 mummies in Egypt
Bahariya, Egypt — Archaeologists unveiled the tomb of a
member of a powerful family that governed a swath of
western Egypt about 2,500 years ago, along with a dozen
recently discovered mummies from Roman times.
The mummies are among 400-500 located thus far in what
Egypt has dubbed the Valley of the Golden Mummies —
grounds where thousands were believed entombed.
The rare limestone sarcophagus that covered Badi-Herkhib
— the elder brother of a governor of Bahariya who lived
around 500 B.C. — was discovered last week, allowing
archaeologists to more closely study a family that ruled
this part of Egypt.
"This family was so powerful, so wealthy, that they
could import the limestone from about 100 kilometers (62
miles) away," said Mansour Boraik, a senior
archaeologist overseeing the Bahariya site. The large
sarcophagus was several inches thick and weighed an
estimated 15 tons.
The cemetery, covering about 2 square miles, is located
235 miles southwest of Cairo. Egypt's chief
archaeologist, Zahi Hawass, said the discovery of
Badi-Herkhib's tomb was unexpected.
"As a matter of fact, the family tree did not mention
the person we found," Hawass, said. He said the tomb was
robbed during the Roman era.
The mummies, most of them in a deteriorated condition,
were found in three burial chambers, lying in neat rows.
Boraik estimated the cemetery holds 15,000 mummies.
Source Antonio Castaneda The Associated Press
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Press Release
Excavators discover 20 mummies in Egypt
CAIRO-Egypt — Excavators discovered 20 gilded mummies
in the Bahariya oasis in western Egypt, the government's
council of antiquities said earlier this week .
The find brings the total number of gilded mummies
recovered in the 2000-year-old cemetery to 234. The
site, known as the Valley of the Golden Mummies, was
discovered in 1996.
Zahi Hawass, head of antiquities council, said
excavators also discovered the tomb of Badiherkhib, the
grandson of former Bahariya Gov. Jed-Khunsu. Jed-Khunsu's
tomb already has been found.
Fifty bronze coins were found with the mummies, the
statement said. Survivors were believed to leave the
money for the deceased to pay for the trip to the
afterlife.
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King Tut Exhibit Could Prove to Be Gold Mine
The gilded treasures of King Tutankhamun are on their
way back to the United States in what could prove a gold
rush for Egypt and big business.
"Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs" starts
a 27-month tour of the United States in June 2005 that
will mark the first return here in more than two decades
of the precious artifacts buried with the mysterious boy
king.
The exhibit is twice the size of the late-1970s King Tut
global tour, which launched an era of "blockbuster"
museum exhibitions. "It is a new business model. It
seems like a lot of museums have trouble financially in
organizing major exhibits. The costs are getting really
exorbitant," said John Norman, president of Arts and
Exhibitions International, one of the companies
providing the funding.
AEI is joined by Anschutz Entertainment Group, which
operates sports stadiums, promotes pop concerts and
theatrical productions, and National Geographic
magazine.
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Press Release
Canadian dig unearths Sinai desert fortress
A Canadian archeological expedition in Egypt has
uncovered the remains of a 4,200-year-old fortress near
the Red Sea coast in the Sinai Desert, a discovery that
sheds some light on life at the time when the Great
Pyramids were built.
Details of the discovery will be published soon in the
Bulletin of the American School of Oriental Research,
and archeologists say it offers important clues on what
was going on during the last years of the period in
Egypt called the Old Kingdom (2700-2200 BC).
The team first learned of the site two years ago -- and
returned this past summer -- while mapping archeological
sites in the Sinai Desert. Led by a brief report of
ruins in the area of Ras Budran and information from
local Bedouin, they went south along the Red Sea coast
to the remains of the fort.
Project director Gregory Mumford recalls shrieking:
"Wow, this is massive!'' when the team first surveyed
what was on the surface.
They did not have time to conduct a formal excavation
and left after doing a survey of the surface remains
with the belief that the ruins dated from no earlier
than 1500 BC. But this past summer, the team returned to
Ras Budran and excavated the site.
They found that the fortress walls were seven metres
thick and had an unusual circular shape that gave the
fort a diameter of 44 meters. And the walls were not
built with the more commonly used mud brick but with
limestone blocks.
Geo-archeologist Dr. Lawrence Pavlish, who was part of
the survey team in the summer of 2003, said it made a
"good checkpoint'' for anyone travelling down the Red
Sea coast of the Sinai Peninsula in the ancient world.
The pottery found at the site indicated that it was
older than originally thought, dating to around 2250 BC,
in the sixth dynasty of Old Kingdom Egypt.
The Sinai expedition was staffed almost entirely by
Canadians with support from the Egyptian Supreme Council
of Antiquities. It was funded by the Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council of Canada, the American
Research Centre in Egypt and private donors.
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NEW FOR GOLFERS IN EGYPT: TABA HEIGHTS GOLF RESORT
The 18-hole layout centerpiece of the Taba Heights Golf
Resort is the newest addition to golf courses in Egypt.
Located under the table mountain of Taba Heights at the
northern point of the Gulf of Aqaba near the border of
Egypt.
The resort covers 900 acres with a three-mile-long
secluded beach on a private bay. Golf course architect
John Sanford is back in Egypt this summer as work
resumes on a pair of golf courses he designed and plan
to open in the near future.” They restarted the project
due to the economic recovery in the region,” Sanford
says. “Construction is underway and should be completed
in about a year.”
Farther down the Red Sea coast, south of Cairo, is
Makadi Bay Golf Resort near Hurghada. Sanford’s 18-hole
design will be part of an existing five-hotel resort in
Makadi Bay, a fashionable destination area. Three new
hotels and 200 villas are planned around the course,
which will include a comprehensive golf academy
featuring a 20-acre practice range, nine-hole
pitch-and-putt, and three practice holes. The 18-hole
championship course will have six sets of tees and reach
almost 7,500 yards from the tips. The layout works its
way through existing sand dunes, with elevation changes
of 170 feet affording views of the hotels, Red Sea and
mountains. It will also be planted with paspalum turf
grass Construction is scheduled to begin in two months,
with the golf academy opening in a year and the full
course in two years. The sandy topography will require
minimal earth moving. Water will come from a deep well
located in the mountains and be delivered to an
irrigation pond located on the 7th and 8th holes. The
course will be planted with paspalum grasses, which
should thrive even with irrigation water containing
4,000 parts per million of salt.
Sanford is well known in Egypt as designer of the
18-hole layout at The Jolie Ville Movenpick Golf &
Resort located between the Sinai Desert Mountains and
Red Sea on the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula. The
course is planted in Bermuda grass and features six
lakes, excellent practice facilities and a par-3 course.
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Ancient Egyptians enjoyed humour
A recent series of lectures on ancient Egyptian humour
given by a leading historian reveals that people
thousands of years ago enjoyed jokes, political satire,
parodies and cartoon-like art.
Related evidence found in texts, sketches, paintings,
and even in temples and tombs, suggests that humour
provided a social outlet and comic relief for the
ancient Egyptians, particularly commoners who laboured
in the working classes.
The evidence was presented by Carol Andrews, a lecturer
in Egyptology at Birbeck College, University of London,
and former assistant keeper and senior research
assistant in the Department of Egyptian Antiquities at
the British Museum.
Scott Noegel, and president of the American Research
Center in Egypt's (ARCE) Northwest Chapter and is an
associate professor in the Department of New Eastern
Languages and Civilizations at the University of
Washington, told Discovery News that ancient Egyptian
humour consisted of at least five basic categories.
For satire, Noegel explained that commoners would make
fun of leaders by showing pharaohs in an unflattering
manner. For example, some leaders were depicted unshaven
or "especially effeminate."
Slapstick comedy included drawings that showed people
suffering unfortunate accidents, such as hammers falling
on heads, or passengers tipping out of boats.
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New Museum for North Sinai
Al-Arish National Museum for North Sinai history will be
opened by the Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni, next
month.
The museum occupies 2km square and will contain over 300
antiquities taken from eight other national museums, the
Head of the Museum Sector, Mahmoud Mabrouk, said.
The museum will include a number of valuable engravings
found in different areas of the North Sinai governorate,
the Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of
Antiquities (SCA), Zahi Hawass, said.
Al-Arish Museum is part of a larger SCA plan to
establish a number of regional museums all over the
Republic
Source: The Egypt State Information Service
Spanish mission excavates 11 ancient tombs in Ahansia
Te Spanish archaeological mission under the National
Antiquities Museum in Madrid has unearthed about eleven
tombs built with unburnt bricks inside a cemetery dating
back to 2061- 2190 BC. The mission found fake gates,
religious paintings and courban tables.
The mission has unearthed 12 chambers built with unburnt
bricks with arch ceilings.
The mission also found chains and necklaces made of
precious stones with the shape of sea shells.
Source: State Information Service, Egypt.
http://www.sis.gov.eg/online/html12/o310125m.htm
Pharaoh's Signs
of the Zodiac
Merit Amon colossus installed at Tel Basta Museum
Source: Egyptian Gazette
The colossus of Queen Merit Amon, the wife of Ramses II,
was discovered last year by an Egyptian-German team at
Tel Basta in Sharqia. Since then it has been restored
and placed on a concrete base in Tel Basta's open
museum.
The colossus is three metres high, weighs seven tonnes
and bears inscriptions on its back revealing the name of
the queen and some aspects of her life.
Tel Basta lies about 80 kilometres northeast of Cairo
and is one of the Delta's richest archaeological sites.
It was of great significance in the Old Kingdom,
flourishing from the 5th dynasty until the end of the
Roman period. Its primary monument is the red granite
temple of the cat-goddess Bastet, which was documented
by the Greek historian Herodotus in the fifth century
BC. The site also includes the temples of the 6th
dynasty pharaohs Teti and Pepi I; a pair of jubilee
chapels built by Amnemhat III and Amenhotep III; as well
as temples dedicated to the gods Atum and Mihos.
Mummy specialists uncover secrets of ancient Egyptian
queen.
Source: The Herald, Scotland, UK, March 22 2005, via Archaeologica.
By Martin Williams
SKELETAL remains held by the National Museum of Scotland
have been identified as a lost Egyptian queen and her
child.
The discovery has been made by scientists who used
forensic investigative techniques to attempt to solve
the mystery of the remains.
The bodies were acquired for the collection a year after
being discovered by Sir Flinders Petrie in 1909 at Qurna,
a village on the west bank of the Nile, which has been
the focus of illegal excavations.
The burial discovery, displayed at the Royal Museum for
decades, consisted of two coffins containing the
skeletal remains with jewellery, a ceremonial fly whisk,
a Syrian oil horn, furniture, pottery, and food.
While Sir Flinders published an account of the burial
soon after excavation, relatively little was known about
who the mother and child were.
However, experts from NMS joined those working for
Atlantic Productions, which was producing a television
documentary for the Discovery channel, and found that
the remains were likely to belong to a queen and her
child.
The lost queen is believed to be a Nubian princess who
joined the Egyptian royal family through an ancient
dynastic marriage.
Using strontium isotope analysis, which examines the
composition of tooth enamel, and carbon dating, the team
was able to prove the remains were of Egyptians and
dated to around 1650BC.
Infra-red technology was used to read damaged
inscriptions and, through collaboration with
hieroglyphic experts, they were also able to establish
that the adult remains were likely to be of a lost
queen.
Examination of the bones has also revealed that the
adult was a slender woman, about five feet tall and in
her late teens or early 20s when she died.
Skeletal reconstruction using 3D laser technology,
completed by Caroline Wilkinson, a facial anthropologist
from Manchester University, enabled the team to map the
skull and helped to conclude that it was the lost
queen's child.
Studies of the child's skeleton suggests an age at death
of two to three years.
It is believed the child may have died of
gastro-enteritis, which was a common cause of death at
this age, but would not be evident in the bones.
Dan Oliver, of the Atlantic Productions team, said:
"What we have done is to put flesh on bones.
"In terms of our understanding of the ancient dead, it
is extremely important.
"The evidence suggests that this was a queen of Egypt
and the child was an heir.
"It is pretty clear that the adult was one of the most
important people of her time.
"It has been thought for a long time that this woman may
have been a Nubian princess, but we have discovered
through our analysis that she grew up and spent her life
in Egypt.
"We believe it is very likely that she is one of a very
small number of queens.
"But it is a very murky period of history and to get
even vaguely close to putting a name on a body that old
would be difficult. The facial reconstruction helped
create a picture of the child so that people can decide
whether the mother and child are related."
Hannah Dolby, a spokeswoman for the national museum said
that research such as this adds to the debate and
mystery surrounding the Qurna burial. "It is exciting
that such an important collection can be seen here in
Edinburgh," she said.
The documentary, A Lost Queen? will be broadcast on the
Discovery Channel on April 8.It is part of a series
called Mummy Autopsy, which looks at how mummy
specialists investigate and solve cases across the
world.
Source
http://www.theherald.co.uk
Press release:
Mummy of Pharaoh Khufu found............... Or has it?
Source: The Guardian.
Egypt's Great Pyramid may be about to reveal its biggest
secret, reports Laura Spinney.
The mummified remains of King Cheops, or Khufu, have
never been found, and are presumed to have been stolen
from the Great Pyramid. Now, two amateur French
Egyptologists claim the pharaoh may still be resting in
an undiscovered chamber of the semi-mythical structure.
Using architectural analysis and ground-penetrating
radar, architect Gilles Dormion and retired property
agent Jean-Yves Verd'hurt claim to have discovered a
corridor inside the pyramid. They believe it leads
directly to Khufu's burial chamber, a room which - if it
exists - is unlikely ever to have been violated, and
probably still contains the king's remains.
But Dormion and Verd'hurt have so far been refused
permission by the Egyptian Supreme Council of
Antiquities to follow up their findings and, they hope,
prove the room's existence.
Until permission is given, the two are at pains to
stress that the room has not actually been discovered.
However, they have been working in the pyramids for 20
years, and their radar analyses in another pyramid led
in 2000 to the discovery of two previously undetected
rooms.
One respected Egyptologist, Jean-Pierre Corteggiani, of
the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology in Cairo,
said the location of the room would place it at "the
absolute heart of the pyramid", a possibly symbolic
resting place for Khufu.
Corteggiani brought Dormion and Verd'hurt's ideas to the
attention of Nicolas Grimal, who holds the chair in
Egyptology at the College de France.
Grimal was sufficiently impressed to write in his
preface to Dormion's book, La Chambre de Cheops, which
will be published in France today, that if the findings
were confirmed, they represented "without doubt, one of
the greatest discoveries in Egyptology".
However, when the two present their conclusions to an
international congress of Egyptologists in Grenoble in a
week, they are likely to meet with more scepticism.
The pyramid contains three known chambers: a
subterranean cavity, clearly never used, the confusingly
named queen's chamber, which was never intended as a
burial chamber for the queen, but possibly to hold the
king's funeral gifts, and higher up, the king's chamber,
which contains an empty granite sarcophagus. This
sarcophagus is thought to have contained Khufu's mummy.
But Dormion and Verd'hurt argue that the pyramid evolved
by trial and error, as the architects saw that rooms
initially conceived as burial chambers would not take
the weight placed on top of them, and went back to the
drawing-board.
Dormion said: "The entire problem of the Great Pyramid
can be summed up by this theory: Khufu had three funeral
chambers built for himself.
"The first remained unfinished, the second was available
and the third cracked. Khufu was therefore interred in
the second."
Or rather beneath the second, because the queen's
chamber was not equipped to receive a dead king -
lacking an entrance wide enough to accommodate the stone
sarcophagus Khufu ordered for himself.