Researchers Plan to Scan Great Pyramid of Giza Using Muon Detectors

Nearly five millennia after its construction, the Great Pyramid of Giza continues to yield new mysteries. While historians and engineers have debated how ancient Egyptians built the final surviving wonder of the ancient world for centuries, modern physicists and archaeologists are now turning their attention inward, preparing to deploy ultra-powerful scanning technology to peer deep into the stone monument.

Cosmic Rays and Muon Telemetry at the Giza Plateau

Between 2015 and 2017, the Scan Pyramids project deployed cosmic-ray detectors that revealed the existence of two previously unknown voids inside the massive structure according to findings published in Nature. The largest of these cavities sits directly above the grand gallery—a passageway leading toward what may be the burial chamber of Pharaoh Khufu—and spans roughly 98 feet in length and 20 feet in height. A second, smaller void sits just beyond the north face of the pyramid.

To determine whether these spaces are empty rooms, construction cavities, or hidden burial chambers, a new scientific team is planning an advanced survey. The researchers intend to utilize high-sensitivity muon telescopes to map the interior with unprecedented resolution.

Because cosmic-ray muons—negatively charged elementary particles generated when cosmic rays collide with atoms in Earth’s atmosphere—pass through stone and air differently, super-sensitive detectors can map areas that remain physically inaccessible.

Logistical Challenges of Scanning the Pyramid Base

Placing equipment inside the massive monument is not feasible due to the sheer scale of the required detectors. Instead, researchers outline a mobile exterior approach.

The study authors stated via Live Science that because the proposed detectors are very large, they cannot be placed inside the pyramid, and therefore their approach is to put them outside and move them along the base.

Study authors, via Live Science

The technical ambition of the project extends beyond merely locating empty space. According to Alan Bross, a scientist at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and co-author of the preprint paper, the equipment may achieve enough resolution to detect material artifacts resting inside the cavities. If a few cubic meters are filled with material such as pottery, metals, stone, or wood, the sensitive arrays should distinguish those objects from open air.

Funding Hurdles and the Timeline for Deployment

Although the research team has secured official approval from the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, the project currently lacks the capital required to manufacture the full-scale telescope array.

Alan Bross from the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory stated via Live Science that they are looking for sponsors for the full project.

Alan Bross, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, via Live Science