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Secret Chamber In The Great Pyramid?
ferkelparade writes "The Guardian reports that two French amateur archaeologists believe they have located a secret chamber in the Cheops pyramid using microgravimetry and radar. The team believes that this might be the pharaoh's burial chamber - as the chamber seems to be unopened, it might still house the complete burial treasure. More coverage from abc."
I saw a documentary just a few weeks ago about the hidden dangers of secret pyramid chambers. Walls can start shifting around for no reason and for God's sake stay the hell away from any pod-shaped living structures attached to the ground!
It's behind a small door, so the robot can't get in.
Is it the Ark of the Covenants?
Is it the Holy Grail?
No; they find an even rarer, more legendary, and more precious treasure.
If, as the story says, they are being denied access to the site on the grounds that they are not professional Egyptologists, how did they find out all of the information they base their theory on?
Did they use some Star Trek Sensor array from high above the surface of the earth?
...But I digress. TREMBLE PUNY HUMANS!ONE DAY MY SPECIES WILL DESTROY YOU ALL!
For what it's worth, a grave robber wants to loot the objects in the grave to make money.
An archaeologist seeks knowledge. Now, yes, his actions can lead to fame and fortune, but that isn't (shouldn't) be his primary goal (and it almost always isn't.)
And I think that that's worth a lot.
This is the NFL, which stands for "Not For Long" if you keep making those bulls*** calls.
But the French researchers are being denied access to the pyramid to test their theory.
Well, given that numerous cultural sites have been desecrated and priceless Egyptian artifacts have been stolen from Egypt by European and Egyptian "researchers" over the last couple centuries (and millenia), can you blame the Egyptian officals?
If the French researchers really want access to the pyramids, maybe they can petition the French, British and other governments to return some of the artifacts as a sign of good will.
Hey, scientific progress is great, but so is maintaining your cultural heritage.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
And I'd like to add to it, if only a little. The knowledge that an archaeologist seeks is not simply for himself, but for the greater interest and good of mankind. It sounds high-handed and trite, I know, but it's the truth. In fact, most archaeologists (and historians in general) act much like the Open Source community does: They share information as if it were a responsibility to do so, and make their goal the discovery of new information to be shared and/or the reinterpretation of old information which would reveal new information. (I hope that wasn't too confusing.)
For what it's worth, most archeological artifacts end up in museums and the protective-but-publicly-accessable vaults (though you sometimes need a reason better than "I just wanted to find out if any Joanne Schmoe can look at ancient pottery shards"), rather than in private collections and on the auction block. For the archaeologist (and, again, historians in general), knowledge alone is its own treasure.
~UP
[Note: To establish my own credibility on this subject, I submit that I am a student and History Major at a university noted within academic circles for its history department; just as an example of this, we had a visiting professor, last year, who was one of the top five asian-history historians on the planet.]
Eat the Path.
"We know as much as we're going to"? That, my friend is a logical fallacy. With any sort of scientific investigation, there is no convienient last page to tell you that you've reached the end. Now, granted, we certainly are looking at diminishing returns; I doubt that there are revolutionary breakthroughs in our understanding of ancient Eqypt waiting behind that door. The _important_ discoveries have _probably_ already been made. But we don't know for sure.
Now I will grant that there is a fine line between grave robbery and exploration. But ask yourself: do you object to grave robbery because it's vandalism and theft, do you object becasue it's disrespectful of the dead, or do you object on religious grounds? If it's the first reason, then really any expediton mounted for scientific gain doesn't merit objection. If you think it's disrespectful, bear in mind that these tombs are _ancient_. You have to draw the line somewhere, and these dead are long forgotton. If it's a religious objection then thats another matter, but not everyone will agree with you on this one.
Anyway which is worse: letting ancient Egypt be forgotton, or studying what remains of it? I'm sure that we wouldn't mind our graveyards being studied by future generations in three thousand years time, in fact we'd probably want to be remembered.
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
I was not familiar with microgravimetry. The Federal Highway Administration has an article on using it to find old mines
It looks like basicaly you use Newton's law of gravatation to measure the local density of the earth, and just look around for a dip.
Microgravimetry is also used in the study of thin films
Sola Deo Gloria!