Archaeologists left stunned by mysterious ‘anomaly’ found buried under pyramids of Giza

The magnificent Pyramids of Giza in Egypt had all the attention on the internet this year due to something mysterious discovered at the location. An L-shaped bizarre "anomaly" was found by archaeologists buried in the Western Cemetery, as per Live Science. The pair of underground structures, one shallow and one deep, was found underground using ERT (electrical resistivity tomography) and GPR (ground-penetrating radar). These techniques are used to detect the presence of remains and locate their positions underground.

Scientists believe that the structures found lead to a deeper area, reported The Archaeological Prospection. The area has no feature above the ground other than gravel and sand. It is close to the mastaba or rectangular structures where royals were buried. Being a flat structure with no construction and a graveyard for the most part, it was left out of the investigation, as per Newsweek. The Giza pyramids are an archaeological site that is one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. However, the spot where the structures have been discovered never had any noteworthy excavations. 

Peter Dan Manuelian, a professor of Egyptology at Harvard, told Live Science in a conversation via mail, “It's an interesting area, one that has avoided exploration due to the absence of superstructures." He added that L-shaped structures closely resembled chapels in the pyramids. However, there could be something utterly different. "I'm not sure just what this anomaly represents yet, but it is certainly worthy of further exploration." An energetic team of archaeologists from Higashi Nippon International University, Tohoku University, and Egypt's National Research Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics joined the study to help with further interpretations and findings.

While the GPR has only provided a basic image of the structure, researchers haven’t been able to figure out what exactly it might be. So far, archaeologists have made findings of possible dimensions of the structure. It is 10 meters wide, 15 meters long, and less than under 2 meters deep. Moreover, the high resistance from the ERT points to the fact that there is a great presence of sand, gravel or similar material within the structure which is yet to be investigated. "It seems to have been filled with sand, which means it was backfilled after it was constructed. It may have been an entrance to the deeper structure," said the researchers.

In conclusion, the study mentioned, “At the same location, but at a deeper depth, ERT shows a highly resistive anomaly, which may be a highly resistive material such as sand, or a void. This anomaly extends to 3.5–10 m in depth and over a horizontal area of 10 m by 10 m.” The researchers also added that the continuation of the shallow structure leading to the larger one is of importance and must be considered for further investigation. Moreover, the suspected sand or highly resistant material, though unidentifiable, “might be a large subsurface archaeological structure."