Giza pyramid hiding pockets with nothing but air hints at a secret entrance

The pyramid of Menkaure, the third-largest in Giza, has been found hiding air in two pockets. Archaeologists were surprised when scans revealed these pockets, which they say are an anomaly. Their shape, size, and layout hint that the pyramid had a very different construction history and was built for a very different purpose compared to the other two pyramids - The Great Pyramid of Khufu and the Pyramid of Khafre. Earlier, a huge internal void was discovered in the Great Pyramid of Khufu, along with a corridor near its northern entrance. But the one in Menkaure is evidently different from Khufu. "The images revealed two anomalies directly behind the polished granite blocks, which would indicate the presence of air-filled voids," the team wrote in the research published in NDT & E International.

Led by Khalid Helal and Mohamed Elkarmoty of Cairo University, the researchers used a combination of three different scanning techniques to see what lay behind the granite cladding on the lower portion of Menkaure. The pyramid of Menkaure has an unfinished facade of reddish granite over the limestone structure. It hasn't been studied as much as the Great Pyramid, and so this team decided to peer into what it could be hiding. Also Read: Radical new theory claims Great Pyramid was a machine that built itself from inside out

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What do the pockets of air in the pyramid suggest?

Using Electrical resistivity tomography (ERT), Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and ultrasonic testing (UT), the team discovered two small anomalies on the eastern face. They found that these two points were different from the surrounding limestone and were most likely pockets of air, not joints between the blocks. "The first one was found 4.6 feet below the granite, and measured around 1.5 meters wide and 1 meter high. The second, roughly 1.1 meters under the granite, measured 0.9 by 0.7 meters," the study states.

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They ran further simulations to understand the signals. "It was concluded that both anomalies likely represent air-filled voids within a limestone medium, beginning directly behind the outer granite casing of the eastern face," the researchers wrote. Helal and his teams noted that the configuration of the granite blocks covering the Menkaure voids is very similar to the blocks around the pyramid's north entrance. In 2019, independent researcher Stijn van den Hoven suggested that the pyramid might have a second entrance on its eastern side. The depth of these pockets is not known, and cosmic-ray muography could be used to determine the same, the researchers suggested. They further suggested that Egyptologists should discuss these anomalies.