Update: The Secret Door Inside The Queen’s Chamber to be Finally Opened!
After many years of waiting, the 2nd sealed door inside of a shaft in the Queen’s chamber in the Great Pyramid will be finally opened. A small team from National Geographic along with the Egyptian Antiquities Department and Zahi Hawass are planning on re-attempting to find out exactly what is hidden behind these two small doors. The first door was drilled through a few years ago and it revealed another door blocking the shaft. The researchers will again attempt to drill through this second door and then position a small camera inside to determine what lies behind the blocked shaft.
Is a secret area inside of the Great Pyramid going to be finally revealed after thousands of years of being sealed off? Does a small shaft leading upwards from the Queen’s Chamber contain any big treasures? One thing is certain and that is there are no shortages of legends telling of secret rooms and shafts inside of the Great Pyramid but after years of careful research, most Egyptologists are fairly certain that there are no large areas inside of the pyramid that are still hidden. This is not the case with a shaft leading upwards from the Queen’s Chamber though. The shaft is very small in size and is completely blocked by two small doors with copper handles attached to them. Egyptologists have multiple reasons of what this shaft could have been used for. Among them are ventilation shafts, some kind of astronomical function, or a path for the King’s soul to ascend to the stars and therefore the afterlife. Of course, the real reason could very well not even be among these three possibilities and might never be fully understood.
In 2002, a team led by Zahi Hawass and the Egyptian Antiquities Department along with the National Geographic Channel started a research experiment to explore what lay hidden behind the stone doors inside of the shaft. A robot nicknamed the “pyramid rover” was constructed to make its way up the shaft until it reached the stone door obstructing the rest of the tunnel. At that point, the robot would drill out a small opening on the stone door and place a small camera inside of the hole to see what lay hidden on the other side. On September 17, 2002, on live television throughout the world, the drilling was completed and the camera was inserted to reveal ……….. another stone door. This second door was a complete mystery to all the researchers and Egyptologists and continues to remain a puzzle. There is huge excitement over what may lie hidden behind this second door as one researcher said “It (the 2nd door) is not similar to the first in that it looks as if it is screening or covering something. There were also cracks all over the surface.”
Feb. 13, 2011