Why is there a void in the Great Pyramid?

Chris Smith asked Egyptologist, Meghan Strong, to fill in the gaps with this question from Gilad in Oxford.

Meghan - I think it’s a bit early to say. This comes from an article that was published last week in Nature. A Japanese team went into the Great Pyramid, the pyramid of Khufu which dates to about 2450 BC. They used muon particles, speaking cosmic rays and other kind of cool elements, but they used these in order to scan the interior of the pyramid to get a very accurate sense of where all the chambers are etc. In the midst of doing that they discovered this previously unknown void which rests above another vaulted space that was purposely put there called the Grand Gallery, which is a ramped vaulted structure that lead us to the burial chamber of the king, and this void is above that.

As for what it’s for? I think it’s still a bit too early to tell. There are other, what are called, “relieving chambers,” so spaces that were purposely built into the pyramid to sort of take of the weight from these smaller internal structures. It may be something along those lines. It could be the remains of construction… who knows.