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."

Comments

Be careful!

[Anonymous Coward]

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!

Unfortunately...

[keiferb]

It's behind a small door, so the robot can't get in.

How did they measure in the first place?

[macz]

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?

Good Point

[Undefined Parameter]

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.]

Re:Archaeologist... Grave robber....

[RsG]

"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.