Pyramid Mystery : L.A. Filmmaker and German Robotics Expert Plan to Look Behind What They Believe to Be a Door at End of a Long, Narrow Shaft

Exploring a passageway that has not seen a human presence for more than 4,000 years, a Los Angeles-based filmmaker and a German robotics engineer have discovered the door to what may be a hidden chamber in the Great Pyramid of Giza, final resting place of the Egyptian Pharaoh Khufu.

The door, which has copper fittings that could be locks or handles, has not been opened yet because it lies at the end of an 63-yard-long shaft that is only eight inches square, far too small for humans to pass through.

The researchers discovered the door while exploring the shaft with a miniature robot carrying lights and a television camera. Black dust just outside the door suggests that the chamber--if it exists--may contain organic material, such as the body of Khufu, who is better known in the modern world as Cheops, said producer-director Jochen Breitenstein. It might even contain treasures like those found in the tomb of Tutankhamen, he speculated.

No bodies or artifacts have ever been found in the pyramids of Giza because of centuries of looting, but Breitenstein believes the inaccessibility of the putative chamber could have preserved its contents from grave-robbers. The absence of a body has led to decades of speculation that it may be contained in an undiscovered chamber in the pyramid.

The robot is being fitted with a fiber-optic camera that will be slid through a narrow crack under the door in hopes of solving the newly discovered mystery, but that fitting will require two to three months.

Meanwhile, the discoverers and Egyptologists are speculating about what they might find.

“It’s a very important find, possibly a sensational one,” said archeologist Ivan Edwards, the retired curator of Egyptian antiquities at the British Museum. Edwards scoffed at the idea that the door hides treasure or the body of Khufu, but he said he believes that it could open onto a chamber with religious significance. He has arranged for the discoverers to present their results Thursday at the British Museum.

Others said they believe the find is not a door at all, but simply an unusual stone. The discovery of the stone is “important” because it provides new information about the process of building the pyramid, but “there is no way they will find anything behind it,” said archeologist Zahi Hawass, who is in charge of the Giza Plateau, where the pyramids are located.

The report of a possible hidden chamber “is very annoying,” added archeologist Rainer Stadelman, head of the German Archeological Institute in Cairo. “There is surely no other chamber.”

The discovery was made as part of a project to ventilate the interior of the Great Pyramid. Humidity released each day by hundreds of visitors has been degrading the tomb’s limestone interior, leading to fears that it will eventually be irrevocably damaged.

The highest room inside the pyramid is known as the King’s Chamber because it is generally assumed to be Khufu’s final burial site, and that the body was stolen. The room has two eight-inch-square shafts leading to the north and south faces of the pyramid. These so-called model shafts, which have long been plugged with debris, are believed to be passageways for the Pharaoh’s soul to reach the stars.

Robotocist Rudolf Gantenbrink, who owns an engineering company in Munich and who built his reputation designing remote-controlled submersible craft to explore the North Sea oil fields, was called in to help clear the shafts. Breitenstein filmed the work for a potential television program on discoveries at several sites in Egypt.

Disdaining his high-tech expertise, Gantenbrink used a simple expedient to clear the shafts: He attached a point to an old truck axle he had bought for $25 and dropped it down the shafts from the outside, breaking through the debris. His robot was used to study the insides of the shafts before fans were installed to remove the humidity.

Gantenbrink then asked permission from Stadelman, who was in charge of the ventilation project, to explore a similar but much shorter shaft in the lower or Queen’s Chamber. Turn-of-the-century archeologists had plumbed the depths of the shaft with pipes and concluded that it ended after about three yards.

Gantenbrink’s robot, which looks much like a miniature tank with treads on both the bottom and top, found that the shaft did not end after three yards, but instead veered upward at about a 45-degree angle. The passageway was composed of the same rough-hewn local limestone from which the entire pyramid is constructed.

But about five feet from the end of the shaft, the texture changed abruptly. The remainder of the shaft was composed of highly polished white tura limestone. Similar usage of the tura limestone has been observed in the entryways to chambers in other tombs, Breitenstein said, and coming upon it “was like a religious experience.”

At the end of the polished section is what appears to be a door made of the same tura limestone and with tongue-and-groove fittings on the side that suggest it can be raised and lowered. It has two corroded copper fittings in the center; a piece of one fitting had broken off and was found lying in front of the stone. A small gap exists at the bottom of the stone, but the camera could not peer through it.

But why is this “door” there when it is too small for humans? Edwards says he is hopeful that it contains religious statuary or similar items because the ancient Egyptians often built structures inside pyramids before walling them in. “Obviously, you do not have a stone blocking an entrance like that unless there is something behind it,” Edwards said.

Archeologist Mark Lehner of the University of Chicago noted that many pyramids were built in a stepwise fashion, with small pyramids being enclosed in larger ones until the final size was reached. He speculated that the tura limestone is part of the casing for such an inner pyramid.

But Hawass believes that the tunnel is an incomplete model shaft that was started when the pyramid’s designers originally intended to use the Queen’s Chamber to hold Khufu’s body. “When they decided to build a higher chamber, they simply abandoned it,” he said. The rock with copper fittings, he concludes, was a tool they were using to finish the shaft and they simply left it in place.

Gantenbrink hopes to solve the mystery by fitting the robot with a tiny fiber-optic television camera that will slip under the door. Meanwhile, he is lobbying Egyptian authorities for permission to explore a similar short shaft that extends in the opposite direction from the Queen’s Chamber. So far, however, he has gotten no response.

TREASURE TROVE? A recent find at one of the pyramids in Egypt has prompted researchers to speculate about the possible existence of a previously unknown chamber. THE LOCATION: A small shaft in the Great Pyramid of Giza, long thought to be only about 10 feet deep, actually extends 70 yards. THE FIND: Researchers, exploring the 8-inch-square shaft with a miniature robot, found that it ends at a polished stone slab, perhaps a door, with brass fittings that may be a lock. WHAT IT COULD MEAN: The researchers speculate that the door might conceal a previously unknown chamber containing treasures or perhaps even the embalmed body of Khefren (Cheops), the Pharaoh who built the pyramid.

The Great Pyramid Robot Size: Approx. 6 inches x 6 inches. Features: Fiber-optic TV camera, treads, lights. Make: Only one of its kind.