Upuaut-2 The Upuaut-2 bot was used in an earlier exploration of the Queen's Chamber. Michael Studt via Heritage Key

Egyptologists are hoping some 21st-century tech will help them unlock secrets from 4,500 years ago. They’re using a robot to explore the Great Pyramid of Giza.

The robot will traverse two unexplored shafts leading from the Queen's Chamber in the pyramid. Nobody knows where the shafts, which were discovered in 1872, lead.

Known as the Djedi project, after the magician whom the Egyptian king Khufu consulted when planning his pyramid, the robot will be able to drill through a secret door in the pyramid’s innards to see what lies beyond.

A robotics team from Leeds University in the UK is working with Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities to design the tomb bot, which is a follow-up to an earlier robotic mission that found the secret door in the first place.

The Pyramid of Khufu, after the king who built it around 2,560 BC, is the last remaining wonder of the ancient world. It involves a series of passageways and two rooms at its center, called the King’s Chamber and the Queen’s Chamber. Two shafts rise from the King’s Chamber at 45-degree angles toward the sky -- as the Independent reports, they’re thought to be a passageway to the heavens.

The Queen’s Chamber has two shafts too, but they don’t lead to the outside of the pyramid.

In 1992, researchers sent a camera up the shaft and found it was blocked by a limestone door with copper handles. Ten years later, researchers drilled through the door, hoping to unlock a treasure trove of artifacts -- but they found yet another door about 8 inches away. The Djedi project will drill through the second door and, researchers hope, follow the shaft to its end.

The team hopes to send the robot through the door by the end of the year, the Independent reports.

Robert Richardson, of the Leeds University School of Mechanical Engineering, says the team will continue the expedition until they reach the end of the shafts, and that they have no preconceptions about what they’ll find.

One can only hope it will be something out of this world.

[Independent]

33 Comments

Zombie robots, ghosts, aliens, doom plague, or black hole generator. Take your pick.

Nifty little bot couldn't have pulled open the 4000 year old limestone door? lol

@Thor: I know huh? Hope its something really worth the wait. I remember watching that '92 deal (or something really similar) on Discovery when I was no more than 10, had an interest ever since.

"There are those that believe life here, began out there." Lorne Greene from original Battlestar Gallactica

i think it's going to be a disappointing find.
my take on the shafts is that they were initially built to allow the soul of the departed to escape, and were subsequently sealed some time after to prevent either the soul from returning, or to keep the elements and insects out.

that new show on tv is pretty crazy, the guy flipped out when the follower said "some people think aliens built it" haha. isnt there a hole somewhere that like an underground pyramid thought to hold the holy grail or something? anywho, its probably just some mummy or maybe some riches? :D of course im a sci-fi fan and hope its something weve never seen before.

oh and.... why dont they use those new little quad-copters, the ones that land on walls, to do a google earth kinda sweep through the place so you can have a digital layout of the inards of this place?

OH, i bet there are a bunch of immortal aliens playing cards, just waiting for someone to finally get them out of there

if its at a 45 degree angle, i feel like from the description it wouldnt really have anything worth looking at - just a means of the soul traveling in and out of it's eternal home. if they do find something though, that would be really cool!

Just got done watching Stargate SG-1 for the second time, would be nice if it was somewhere along those lines, I just wish they would have called the robot a "Toomba"

find me a Stargate robot!

@Snozzie

lol Toomba would have been awesome!

pretty cool stuff.... I bet there's another door lol

wormhole im sure of it

I vote for Toomba as well:)

@vivoo7:
It might be that the Toomba will meet another Toomba exploring from the other side of the wormhole:)

Or they find..... another door!!

one goes to the heavens, and one to the netherworld? Blocking only one of the shafts and leaving one open might indicate they leave their souls only one option, the path to the heavens?

They will find a deactivated Bending Unit known as Bender. Some Zombie Corpses and possibly some riches.

Or just a room of regular Slave corpses that they sealed up and left for dead after the tomb was built.

It's quite simple. It will have some hieroglyphics of what the true nature of the sphinx is. Then they will let people go under the sphinx to find out what's really under it and it will be a library for Atlantis and will show its hidden location.

So his door to heaven was wide open, and hers was shut. Sounds like he was tired of listening to her and couldn't bear the thought of an eternity of nagging.

... Jimmy Hoffa's body ...

The doors lead to a wormhole and we'll be sucked into a black hole. Remember that 2012 is supposed to be the end of days...

Another vote for "Toomba".

They will find a 'Daddy' since they already found the 'Mummy'.

Another door.
And behind that all of the missing left socks.

+1 "Toomba"

Robert M. Smith, MD, PhD

I like "Toomba". Maybe when they go through the door they'll find the bot coming back out of the door it just entered. Or not!

I bet PaulAdams is right, guy really didn't like his wife :)

"let's put the soul passage in but then *BAM* a door! buahahahaha"

"but pharaoh, what if someone opens the door?"

"Crap, better put TWO doors"

The Queen had two shafts in her chamber that didnt lead out...well...thats ok cause the one shaft led to pool boy's chamber and the other led to the lav just above Pheeeyroooos chamber...theyll find a skeleton with its skull bashed and a ancient murder mystery awaits

Why not the solution described in 2012: Phoenix Burning - it's as credible as any. Zahi Hawass has been hyping this subject for years now. We all know what the shafts are NOT, so it's about time some answers were found. Hope they stream this live as it should be really interesting.

yes, another door, of course.
and Thoth's spaceship.
oh yeah that's under the sphinx(and filled with that library distance4life mentioned), or did they find a boat under there instead?
perhaps.. shake, meatwad and frylock. dead cats maybe.. but i'm wondering what this robot is running on if it is going to drill through a stone door unless it is coming out to recharge or has power cables. and what about the stolen capstone filled with all that antique-chnology that was really removed because it was attracting aliens, or screwing with our technology or something like that. maybe its one of those helicopters they drew. or something else that came back from the future.. which reminds me of when doc brown stashed his DeLorean in that cave for like 200 years so marty could repair it..

It's a space ship.

A tomb bot seems like a great solution.

Pretty sure they are going to find Elvis and Tupac down there working a new album

They're going to find Jimmy Hoffa !

i bet behind that door Micheal Jackson's clone.



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