MORE ABOUT THE PYRAMIDS OF GIZA AND THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES OF EGYPT

WRITTEN BY PAMELA HELLER-STERN

To read the first essay on the pyramid of Giza, click here.

Much has happened in the world of archaeology in the last few years.  The development of technology, advanced and ground-breaking penetrating radar and ultra-sonic testing have given access to new worlds, undreamed of up till now.

In Egypt, scientists have discovered a hidden tunnel running underneath the Great Pyramid of Giza, built as the tomb of Pharaoh Khufu, which is the largest stone structure ever found.  It is also the oldest of the Seven Great Wonders of the Ancient World. This corridor measures 9 metres in length, is 2.10 metres wide and 2 metres high.  Located near the main entrance on the northern side of the Great Pyramid, its function has not as yet been established.  Nevertheless, it is regarded by archaeologists as the most important find of the 21^st century.

In 2015 a cross-continental investigation spearheaded by Scan Pyramids started to investigate the Pyramid of Giza, using the safe non-invasive technique of ground-penetrating radar and ultrasonic testing.  This was approved by the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities.  About two years later in 2017, the Scan Pyramid team, using cosmic ray muon radiology picked up a huge empty space or void above the Grand Gallery.

They then inserted a telescope at the opening of one of the entrances to the Grand Pyramid and picked up a rectangular cuboid structure: this was no random empty space but a remarkable architectural structure, a tunnel in stone, consisting of a gabled roof following the slope of the pyramid’s chevrons.  The tunnel or corridor was hidden inside large blocks of stone, arranged in the shape of an inverted “V” on the north face of the pyramid.

They estimated the corridor was constructed round 2560BCE, during which time two to three million huge blocks of stone were used to build it.  They were quarried at the time of Pharaoh Khufu.  He was a powerful and noteworthy ruler whose family, wives and court members were buried in smaller pyramids and mortuary temples in the area.

The Khufu pyramid was the tallest man-made structure on earth, measuring nearly 146 metres until the Eiffel Tower was built in 1889 to a height of 330 metres.

In modern times the three known chambers are the King’s Chamber, Queen’s Chamber and an unfinished room cut into the structure’s bedrock.

In looking for an explanation to the use of the extraordinary tunnel, Mostafa Waziri, head of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Archaeology, has put forward the theory that the tunnel was dug to redistribute the weight of the pyramid, namely to relieve the pressure of the load, based on the theory that the five rooms in Khufu’s burial chamber served the same purpose.  The tunnel could also have led to other still unknown chambers.  And so the scans continue in order to discover what lies beneath the corridor or just at the end of it.

World interest in modern times as regards Egyptology and the Pharaohs really began about a hundred years ago when Howard Carter discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun in November 1922.  A rural young English photographer with a keen eye for artefacts, he arrived in Egypt in 1899 and came to be appointed as one of the two chief inspectors of antiquities in the Egyptian Antiquities Service.

The young Pharaoh’s crypt had been sealed for three thousand years and was packed with about five thousand treasures, which included ancient chariots, gold coffins and in particular Tutankhamun’s solid gold death mask, weighing 10.89kg.

A few months later in February 1923, Carter found Tutankhamun’s burial chamber with three mummy-shaped coffins, which fitted together, one nestled within the other.  He realised it was essential to photograph the crypt together with the artefacts found, for which task he used another young country-bred Englishman, Harry Burton.  Burton was trained as an art photographer who had already successfully photographed various ancient tombs and discoveries in Egypt.

As a result of Carter’s intervention, Burton remained for almost ten years, photographing  Tutankhamun’s tomb and its artefacts by means of over three thousand four hundred photographs still preserved with  detailed images.  Over time, he also used the early colour and autochrome plates and even learned how to operate a motion picture camera, loaned to him by Samuel Goldwyn Productions. He used this camera to record the opening of Tutankhamun’s sarcophagus in February 1922 and showed the objects being removed from the tomb.  He supported Carter right through to 1932 when the Pharaoh’s tomb was completely cleared and he remained on good terms with him.  In fact, he was appointed as Carter’s executor when Carter died in 1939.

Regrettably Carter’s sponsor, Lord Carnarvon died not long after the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb, but Carter continued with the excavation until the Egyptian authorities intervened and indicated that they wanted to take a more active role in the explorations.  Up till then they had been content with, even welcomed the intervention of French and British archaeologists or interested parties, which together had established a brokered system of partage, whereby the foreign excavators were allowed to retain a share of the new discoveries after they had been evaluated by the Antiquities Service.

However, following the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in November 1922, the Egyptian government, supported by Pierre Lacau, the then Director-General of Excavations and Antiquities of Egypt, revoked the partage practice:  they wanted the entire collection of findings to remain in Egypt.

Carter stopped work for a year in protest of the Egyptian government ruling.  At this point, he was banned from the site but allowed to return after he and his new patroness, the Dowager Countess Almina Carnarvon gave up any claim to Tutankhamun’s burial items.

Delving into the history of the young Tutankhaten, Carter established that the young pharaoh took the throne at the age of nine and ruled for ten years before he died mysteriously of an unknown cause at the age of nineteen.  He was physically deformed in some way, probably with a club foot since many walking sticks were found in his tomb.  Born during the reign of his father Pharaoh Akhenaten, he did not share his father’s unpopular religious beliefs, namely his worship of one god only, being the god Ahten.

As Pharaoh, Tutankhaten reverted to the old polytheistic religion:  as a result, he changed his name to Pharaoh Tutankhamun.  His mummy was provided according to his religious beliefs with clothing, jewels, games, weapons, furniture, food, wine and cosmetics among the five thousand items tightly packed into the fore-room of his burial crypt.  And at this point, it was already becoming impossible to display all the treasures discovered so far.

With considerable foresight, the current President of Egypt, Abdel Fattah el Sisi spearheaded a move away from Cairo when he came to power in 2015.  Born himself in the city of Cairo, he recognized that it was already overpopulated and could no longer accommodate its twenty-million inhabitants.  He began to relocate the seat of government including embassies as well as the financial district and the Nile Valey, about forty-eight km east of Cairo into desert territory.  And then also relocating agricultural land to the Nile Delta and as far as the Mediterranean Coast, more than 241 km involving the Mediterranean Sea and involving a population of 106 million people.  (The move was no novelty since it had occurred eighteen times in Egyptian history.)

After that, in a masterly show of national pride, he arranged in 2021 for a unique display of mummies, which included eighteen kings and four queens brought from the National Museum in central Cairo through the street of the city in a grand procession, known as the Pharoah’s Golden Parade.  The event evoked in every Egyptian a strong sense of national pride.

It was the climax to a whole string of isolated discoveries made at various times.  These included temples, pyramids, artefacts and curiosities, among which were the Luxor Temple built by the Pharaoh Amenhotep 111 and Ramesses 11, the ancient Temple of Horus built between 237 and 57BC.  The Bent Pyramid discovered in Dahshur outside Cairo was supposedly 4600 years old, built for the pharaoh known as King Sneferu and containing mummies dating back to the period between 664 and 332 BC.  Sometimes called the Red Pyramid, it was built from rust-coloured limestone bricks.

A significant discovery made in 1799 by soldiers from Napoleon’s army was the Rosetta Stone.  After Napoleon was defeated by the British, the stone became British property and is on display in modern times in the British Museum.  It has been the key to deciphering hieroglyphics, which are regarded as the earliest form of writing.  Another milestone in man’s history was the Egyptian calendar, based on the journey of the sun and resulting in our division of the year into 365 days, the time taken by the earth to revolve round the sun.

The list of archaeological discoveries was seemingly endless and included ancient tools such as battle-axes and bronze-tipped spears to stone polishers and chisels.  These are also displayed in the British Museum.  The experts also found mummified cats, crocodiles, leopards and beetles, canopic jars, amulets and jewellery as well as the Book of the Dead, drawn up on papyrus in hieroglyphics.

As a result of these ongoing discoveries, the old National Museum of Egyptian Civilization became hopelessly inadequate.  A new Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) was planned and has taken more than twenty years to complete.  It will only open towards the end of 2023 and will present the many thousands upon thousands, estimated currently at 100,000 unique Egyptian archaeological finds, including antiquities of Pharaonic and Graeco-Roman times.

Built in the desert outside Cairo on the plateau of the pyramids of Giza, the GEM will be connected by means of an extremely long pedestrian walkway with the pyramids.  The size of the museum itself is gigantic, totalling about 45,000sq metres, consisting of twelve exhibition halls as well as the ground floor, dedicated to colossal statues and massive, heavy objets d’art, including a statue of Ramesses the Great, which is 3.35 metres high.  Most important, too are the state-of-the art conservation laboratories where the treasures are first cleaned and restored by various Egyptian experts.  Many are women who seem to be particularly adept in this field.  But, regardless of gender, young and old experts feel honoured to be involved in their heritage.

Imbued with national pride, Egyptian archaeologists, too, continue to explore and excavate, even in the sweltering summers of Upper Egypt where the temperature soars in the morning from 38C (100F).  Paradoxically, projects have increased through the negative of the covid pandemic, when populations were grounded in their home country, unable to travel and when foreign archaeologists, in turn, were unable to access airflights to Egypt.

Local excavations have already made finds in Luxor, near Minya, at Tuna el Gebel, with mummies examined by a team of geneticists, which reveal links with ancestors, including genetic malformations.   Remarkable discoveries have been made in Saqqara, much to the delight of Zahi Hawass, former minister of antiquities.  He has been working since 2002 on the diggings at the 5000-year-old Pyramid of Djoser, almost destroyed and badly needing restoration and conservation.  Excavation leaders have recently uncovered hundreds of bronze statuettes, painted wooden sarcophagi, mummies and statues of various animals including ibises, cats, crocodiles and mongooses.

Egyptian citizens, still fired up by the thousands after the Pharaoh’s Golden Parade through the streets of Cairo in 2021, will be able to access their ancestors and learn more about their history once the GEM opens.  The project is in the capable hands of the museum director, Major-General Atef Moftah, trained engineer, dedicated to the task of completing this massive task by the end of 2023.

References made to National Geographic 11.2022 Articles as follows:

The Boy King p. 34, The Explorer p. 54, The Mummy p. 68, The Museum p.96.