I was watching a documentary where they were talking about a void within the great pyramid and how we don’t know what’s inside it! How come we haven’t we been in and had a nose around?

  • Tangent@lemmy.worldEnglish
    12·
    1 year ago

    The void isn’t like a room we simply haven’t entered, it’s more like the equivalent to an empty space inside the walls of your home. It’s there, but there are no passages leading to it. About 75-80% of the interior volume of the pyramids is solid stone as far as we know so it’s much less like a modern building and more of a huge pile of stones that happens to have a few open spaces with passages leading to them.

    Here’s an article that includes an illustration showing just how solid they are as well as the recently discovered void and more info on how they found it using cosmic rays of all things: https://www.science.org/content/article/cosmic-rays-reveal-unknown-void-great-pyramid-giza

    • howler@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      There is a great YT channel called “History For Granite” that discusses the pyramids. His (and many others)posit that Zahwi Hawas, who is (or was) the director of antiquities in Egpyt, is a roadblock to many studies because they may differ with theories that he has backed. Bascially the guy has extreme bias.

      There is technology that can use existing alterations that have been made to the pyramid (drilled holes) to explore the void you are speaking of… but Hawas wont allow it. He has denounced valid research as quack science, even when it has been vetted by other researchers… again due to his personal bias.

      While I agree somewhat with the supposition that Egypts ancient history was plundered by the west… Hawas, from what I can tell, just basically blocks research for no real reason, other than he doesnt want it to happen.

      I am sure there is more nuance to the situation than this… but this is what Ihave put together… However, I am about as far away as i can get from being a scholar on the topic.

  • FleaCatcher@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    1 year ago

    Because why? The pyramids are not a fun park or escape room, they are a piece of art. How would you feel if we’d tear Mona Lisa apart to check if there’s some older painting below the outside layer and the canvas?

      • FleaCatcher@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        Yeah, that’s what I was referring to. Is it worth it to destroy the Mona Lisa (the outer paint layer) just to see if there’s something underneath?

  • SterlingVapor@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    1 year ago

    So I just learned this recently, but apparently after the whole Victorian “smash and grab” thing where Britain stole all the art that was or wasn’t nailed down (there’s a lot of feet and footless statues lol), archeologists went to sites and realized how much knowledge was destroyed by their predecessors who only cared about impressive finds they could show off

    Technology and techniques are always improving, so now when they find an archeological site, they excavate only a fraction, leaving the rest for future generations who will have better tools.

    Obviously, non-destructive methods are still on the table, but I found that pretty interesting

  • DMmeYourNudes@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    1 year ago

    Simply, because that would involve disassembling them, potentially causing collapse and destroying more than we would find.

  • Zuberi@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Couldn’t they have found something like that ages ago?..

    How on earth is this just happening in 2023. Ultrasound, xrays, whatever. SOMETHING would have shown this cavity.