New evidence for hidden chambers beyond Tutankhamun's tomb
nature.com129 points by rndsignals 3 days ago
129 points by rndsignals 3 days ago
The 10 year old inside me is so incredibly excited. My actual 10 year old self was obsessed with tombs and ancient Egypt. I remember a whole summer I couldn't stop thinking about and talking about the "Sphinx on the face of Mars". Thankfully these days I have friends, but I have been rewatching all of Stargate so this is very timely.
I've also been watching Stargate (on season 2), it's fun getting to know the Vancouver area as Jack and friends explore the galaxy but always end up in the PNW ;)
Just found this list of filming locatiobs.
Stargate origins was not a great series, but talks about egypt and stargate :D
I don't understand the fond reminiscing. The face on Mars is an optical illusion, an example of Pareidolia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia
I sincerely hope that no one believes there are monuments or any such constructions on Mars.
You don’t understand fondly reminiscing about when the world seemed more magical? It has nothing to do with the truth of it, it has everything to do with how it felt.
No, I don't. Whenever I learn I've spent time believing something that turned out to be false I always feel a sense of regret.
Makes sense, the king dies unexpectedly, you need a tomb real quick. It probably takes years to dig these tombs and that's assuming you've found a suitable place to dig. You pick an existing tomb of a less popular ruler, wall of some sections (but maybe leave the artifacts?), renovate the new main chamber for him, and put a new name out front.
It's like those dilapidated buildings in NYC where the ground floor is some store but everything upstairs is basically uninhabitable decay. The store makes enough rental income to justify not renovating the upper floors into something actually usable.
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This has absolutely nothing to do with the subject at hand and detracts from the converstion.
Interesting, I read about excavations in beginning of 20th century on Wiki:
> In protest of the government's increasing restrictions, Carter and his associates stopped work in February 1924, beginning a legal dispute that lasted until January 1925. Under the agreement that resolved the dispute, the artefacts from the tomb would not be divided between the government and the dig's sponsors, as had been standard practice on previous Egyptological digs.
Why they did have a rule that private persons can take away the artifacts? It would be better not to dig anything.
So they're saying there's one tomb, that seems very real, that conceals a hidden entrance to another, larger tomb complex?
Okay, sure, explore away. But I'm not coming along, and if you find any jeweled skulls don't touch them.
Incidentally i always found the idea of an explorer grabbing the mysterious jewelled skull and getting cursed similar to the thought exercise of how we warn future cultures about the dangers of long term radioactive waste.
The warning needs to transcend language so you probably think a skull is pretty clear right? Put a big skull there, maybe make it light up or eye catching in some way just to really seal the deal? Surely they understand "don't go near this". Yet in a million years time you're probably going to get some explorer "finding the mysterious and cursed crystal skull" who will subsequently die of "the mysterious curse". It would have made a more interesting ending for that Indiana Jones movie that's for sure.
A somewhat timely SMBC has the correct solution: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/waste-2
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-term_nuclear_waste_warnin...
I kinda wish they had used
> This place is not a place of honor... no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here.
> What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger.
A skull might be a warning sign to some people, but it is in no way a universal warning for all people. One example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calavera
> The warning needs to transcend language so you probably think a skull is pretty clear right?
I feel that adorning the skull with jewels will puree the "No! No! NO!" message, in any epoch.
The skull needs to be encrusted with the specific rare gem that can only be used in temples to the deity of death. That'll be impossible to misunderstand.
I’m thinking they paint it in reflecto paint like safety vests which of course would make it a sparkly jewel
Probably even luminescent paint to be sure it can be seen in the dark. This is even more valuable than a sparkly gemstone, I suppose, that's almost magical!
Lol wasn't that the unexpected, quasi-hated part of that movie -- that it did end up being a technological thing rather than another religious artifact? Not criticising your main point, but that's a pretty funny coincidence
What happened to all that nutty looking "giant complex found under pyramids" stuff from last year that went mega-viral?
https://www.egypttoursportal.com/egypt-tourism-news/study-fi...
this would have been a fun headline 20 years ago but as technology has improved, it's getting more and more absurd that we don't just have multiple datasets from different imaging methods of the whole entire structure.
Look no further than the Supreme Council of Antiquities. Nothing is allowed to proceed or be published without their sign off.
For anyone doubting this, take a look at Zahi Hawass’s (former Minister of Tourism and Antiquities) response to the ScanPyramids project. From wikipedia,
> On November 2, 2017, the Egyptologist Zahi Hawass told the New York Times: "They found nothing...This paper offers nothing to Egyptology. Zero." Later, once the North Face Corridor was inspected with an Endoscope, Hawass conversely commented that ScanPyramids's work had provided a "major discovery" that would "enter houses and homes of people all over the world for the first time".
Yeah they have no interest in fast revealing everything at once. Egypt's GDP largely depends on these Antiquities so you want to mine them as slow as possible.
Do you blame them for trying to protect and control things? It might be a little extreme, but we also need to remember that rich folks used to uncover mummies in their parties for fun.
Controlling physical artefacts is fine.
Stopping any science results that may be contrary to the Egyptian government's official view of history is awful!
> we also need to remember that rich folks used to uncover mummies in their parties for fun
And eat them, which... that's just like, really fucking weird.
Didn't they also crushed parts of them and snorted the powder at parties for fun?
And they made them into paint called "mummy brown." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mummy_brown
Both uses were immortalised in music by the Dave Brubeck Quartet in the mid(?) 1950s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Qs1J612nZs
I feel like I see this headline ever 2 months. it's like cancer research. lots of fluff, never any progress. then you get the alien people saying it's cuz they're hiding aliens. i'm exhausted.
There may well be a surfeit of articles, but at least in cancer research, we've had extraordinary progress recently. See, for example: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-02745-5
It’s hard to believe in 2026 someone would bemoan that nothing has progressed in cancer research. Cancer has no single cure, but survival durations are absurdly crazy for most common cancers compared to 30 years ago. Current treatments are like science fiction and are extraordinarily effective. The horizon is remarkable as well. It’s genuinely surprising to hear someone say “never any progress” re: cancer.
I’ve nothing to say about Egyptian tombs though.
While the popular press does bungle nearly all cancer research findings, the last 20 years have been unbelievably productive in cancer treatment. No, we haven't and aren't going to cure cancer any time soon.
The thing is that "cancer" is thousands of separate diseases with similar traits.
We'll never cure all of the at once, which is what "cure cancer" means, but we've been curing plenty of them lately!
If by “curing”, you mean, “extending some indirect measurement that doesn’t correlate with survival”, then sure. Lots of those, usually backed by tiny, poorly controlled trials.
Daraxonrasib was a rare exception. Most new cancer drugs are expensive and of dubious efficacy. Even daraxonrasib has a rather underwhelming life extension benefit, and huge side effects. But there’s no alternative, so people take what they can get.
Put your phone down, put your laptop down. Go to the park without your devices and lay on the grass under a tree.
Hear the sound of trees. The smell of nature. Feel the sun warming your face.
You mind will trick you, convince you "youre too busy for this", "youre hungry", "your back hurts you cant lie down", "you should be doing X", anything to not stay under the tree, dont resist those thoughts, just observe them as they fly by, but take no action on them.
Rest without guilt is a trait all masters must develop once they get past the adrenaline urgency phase of their skill mastery.
Dont take your devices, dont take a book, just sit, 3 hours minimum.
Go human, you are amazing!
Sounds amazing. Until the ants start crawling on me, my elbows itch from the grass, I hear planes flying overhead, an ambulance nearby, a souped out honda civic or some loud car in the distance, a freight train passing…that’s my backyard experience. It was a nice five minutes though :)
“Go to the park” the guy says, you complain about not going to the park, but just hanging out in your yard.
Yeah I laughed at that too - "I put in minimal effort and got poor results!"
In the related articles sidebar there is an article from 2020:
Is this Nefertiti’s tomb? Radar clues reignite debate over hidden chambers
A new survey hints at a previously unknown space beyond Tutankhamun’s burial chamber.
What is the physical limitation that prevents a very big metal detector from telling us if there’s gold or other signatures?
The balancing act between Egyptian tourism mystery golden goose eggs, and just cutting the pyramid in half.
This is a good question and there is a real practical answer. The tomb is not in a Pyramid but deep in a mountain reachable by a narrow stairway. You'd have to cut away or dig through the mountain to come close enough for a metal detector.
I genuinely wish there was a magical way to just disassemble the whole pyramid and put it back together without any damage.
I have fond memories of reading National Geographic magazine growing up. I remember they had memorable issues with King Tut. And Ancient Egypt in general. Made me fall in love with learning about Ancient Egypt.
Anyone else here have fond memories of reading those old National Geographic issues?
Yes, I do, although I noticed that I had a hard time reading the text, the images were so interesting.
The tomb, which was built in the fourteenth century bc and discovered in 1922
Discovered 104 years ago, and yet...
Ballard says he doesn’t yet have permission from the Egyptian authorities to release all of the data
Oh FFS... doesn't space-based ground-penetrating radar already exist?
How does this compare to the conspiracy theories floating around?
I’ve been hearing something like this from very disreputable sources.