Purpose Unknown for Areas Within Tomb of Khufu : Mystery Spaces Found in Egyptian Pyramid

French experts surveying the interior of the Pyramid of Khufu outside Cairo have detected three previously unknown spaces within the monument, antiquities officials said Tuesday.

The officials said the experts were carrying out measurements inside the structure, largest of the three Great Pyramids, when their equipment detected gaps close to a corridor leading to a royal burial chamber.

They told a reporter that the measurements were originally intended to determine the size and seriousness of cracks within the pyramid’s stones in preparation for restoration work on the monument, built in the 27th Century BC.

Data to Be Analyzed

Ahmed Moussa, chief antiquities inspector at the pyramids area, said the team has returned to France, where data will be fed into a computer to confirm the existence of the spaces.

The French experts finished their work inside the Khufu pyramid on May 15, Moussa said, adding that he was personally skeptical of the existence of the spaces. “Even if they do exist, I don’t think they will reveal anything that we don’t already know,” he added.

Khufu, also known as Cheops, founded Egypt’s 4th Dynasty and flourished around 2650 BC. The pyramid that constituted his tomb, a 441-foot-high granite structure with eight known chambers, is the largest of what are known as the Great Pyramids of Giza. Standing in close proximity to the Sphinx of Giza, it once was 29 feet higher than it is now.

10 Feet by 6.5 Feet

Ahmed Kadri, chief of the Antiquities Department, said this week that preliminary information indicated that each space was 10 feet long, 6.5 feet wide and 6.5 feet high.

He said confirmation of their existence would bring the Khufu pyramid in line with the smaller pyramids of Chephren and Mycerinus, where storage chambers had earlier been discovered. The spaces detected in the largest pyramid could contain funerary objects, Kadri added.

He said the French experts had already established that the three spaces had not previously been opened.

Drawings or objects found inside the spaces could yield fresh information on how the Khufu pyramid was built and the history of the period.