CAIRO, EGYPT—Mamdouh Eldamaty, Egypt’s Minister of Antiquities, announced that researchers from Cairo University, Université Laval, and Nagoya University will use radiographic muons, infrared thermography, and photogrammetry to conduct a non-invasive survey of Egypt’s pyramids. “Their goal is to probe Egypt’s largest pyramids, without touching them or drilling the slightest opening,” Eldamaty told Ahram Online. The first phase of the Scan Pyramids Project will focus on the Bent and Red pyramids at the Dahshur necropolis, and Khufu and Khafre’s pyramids on the Giza plateau. “With this mission we, perhaps, will not be able to resolve the mystery of the pyramids, but we are making progress, testing new processes, and without a doubt we will have a better understanding of what these pyramids hide within their massive walls,” explained Hany Helal, head of the Faculty of Engineering at Cairo University. The technology will also be applied to the search for the possible burial of Queen Nefertiti in a hidden chamber in King Tutankhamun’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings, as proposed by British Egyptologist Nicholas Reeves. To read about a theory concerning the construction of the pyramids, go to “How to Build a Pyramid.”
