Answer, no one really knows. The few tunnels that exist or have been carved into the tunnel account for very little of the total volume of the pyramid.
Of course, I’m not suggesting that it is mostly hollow — just that there must be more to discover. Thankfully, we have robots. Drilling robots:
In 1992, a camera sent up the shaft leading from the south wall of the Queen’s Chamber discovered it was blocked after 60 metres by a limestone door with two copper handles. In 2002, a further expedition drilled through this door and revealed, 20 centimetres behind it, a second door.
“The second door is unlike the first. It looks as if it is screening or covering something,” said Dr Zahi Hawass, the head of the Supreme Council who is in charge of the expedition. The north shaft bends by 45 degrees after 18 metres but, after 60 metres, is also blocked by a limestone door.
Now technicians at Leeds University are putting the finishing touches to a robot which, they hope, will follow the shaft to its end. Known as the Djedi project, after the magician whom Khufu consulted when planning the pyramid, the robot will be able to drill through the second set of doors to see what lies beyond.
The true question they will be answering is this: Do mummy’s curses affect robots?
(photo by Nina Aldin Thune, via Wikipedia)
