{"id":1179,"date":"2026-06-11T13:25:21","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T13:25:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/bbc-sciencefocus\/?p=1179"},"modified":"2026-06-11T13:25:22","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T13:25:22","slug":"the-6-greatest-unsolved-mysteries-of-the-pyramids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/bbc-sciencefocus\/2026\/06\/11\/the-6-greatest-unsolved-mysteries-of-the-pyramids\/","title":{"rendered":"The 6 greatest unsolved mysteries of the pyramids"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The 6 greatest unsolved mysteries of the pyramids<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

From hidden chambers to lost civilisations, the world\u2019s most enigmatic landmarks are still, slowly, revealing their secrets<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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By Ian Taylor<\/p>\n\n\n\n

–<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

\"Pyramids
Picture credit: Getty<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

In around half an hour on social media, you can learn the most extraordinary things about the pyramids of the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019ll find out that they were not, in fact, tombs or monuments, but power generators designed to harness Earth\u2019s electromagnetic energy. You\u2019ll also discover that beneath the pyramids in Giza are immense structures stretching more than 600m (1,970ft), evidence of which is being covered up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, of course, these incredible landmarks weren\u2019t built by Egyptians or Mayans or any other ancient people. It was the aliens, silly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, none of this is true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speculation and conspiracy theories abound about the pyramids in Egypt and beyond. In some ways it\u2019s easy to understand why, says Dr Campbell Price, curator of Egypt and Sudan at Manchester Museum and author of Brief Histories of Ancient Egypt<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter how many times you see them, they are just amazing,\u201d he says. \u201cBut that acts as a lightning rod for crazy theories.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Very few armchair conspiracy theorists have been down in the dirt and actually studied the pyramids. Fewer still are qualified to. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you speak to people who are qualified and have done fieldwork in Egypt or Mexico or China, they usually offer a wry and patient smile, then proceed to tell you what\u2019s actually been discovered through decades of meticulous research and excavation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe know more than a lot of people think,\u201d says Egyptologist Mark Lehner, director of Ancient Egypt Research Associates. \u201cA lot of those theorists have never been to Egypt \u2013 they\u2019re just not seeing the marks of the human hand, which are everywhere on the pyramids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI could walk with you in Giza tomorrow, and I\u2019d show you tool marks. You can see where they were using chisels, where they\u2019re dumping globs of mortar between the stones of the interior of the Great Pyramid. Or graffiti with the names of the work gangs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lehner has been excavating in Giza since the late 1980s and for all that he and his colleagues have discovered, he says there is always more to learn, both in Egypt and at other pyramid sites around the world. Here are six of the biggest outstanding mysteries \u2013 not conspiracy theories \u2013 about these wonders of the ancient world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is the Great Void?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Great
The Great Void was found by looking for density changes in the rock. Picture credit: Alamy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In 2017, researchers working with the ScanPyramids<\/a> project announced the discovery of a previously unknown cavity inside the Great Pyramid of Khufu in Giza. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Using muon tomography \u2013 a technique that tracks cosmic rays passing through stone \u2013 they identified a large void above the Grand Gallery, at least 30m (100ft) long. Cue headlines about hidden chambers, lost treasures and ancient secrets waiting to be revealed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reality is both less dramatic and more interesting. \u201cThe void is very real. What it is for remains unknown,\u201d says Lehner. \u201cIs it level? Is it the same angle as the Grand Gallery? But there\u2019s some kind of void there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One possibility is that it served a structural purpose, helping distribute weight within the monument. Another is that it represents an architectural space connected to the pyramid\u2019s construction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think that the most likely explanation is it\u2019s a construction gap where they would purposefully make spaces above chambers and passageways,\u201d Lehner says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are other examples in other pyramids, not quite as grand, but where they would do that. I think it probably has something to do with the construction and their concern about the weight-bearing load of these passages and chambers. They often overengineered.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some researchers have suggested it could be a previously unknown chamber, but there is currently no evidence that it contains artefacts, burials or anything particularly cinematic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mystery persists largely because archaeologists are reluctant to drill holes into one of the world\u2019s most important monuments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For now, the Great Void sits in an unusual category: a genuinely unexplained feature inside one of the most studied buildings on Earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are there more pyramids hidden in the depths of the Amazon?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Twenty years ago, the idea of undiscovered monumental architecture hidden beneath the Amazon rainforest might have sounded like fiction. Today, it\u2019s mainstream archaeology. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Advances in lidar \u2013 a laser-scanning technology capable of penetrating forest canopy \u2013 have revealed vast networks of settlements, roads, earthworks and ceremonial platforms across parts of the Amazon Basin and beyond in South America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The emerging picture is of more intricate societies and landscapes that were far more densely populated than researchers once believed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As recently as 2022, researchers discovered<\/a> hidden pyramids, some as much as 22m (72ft) tall, hidden in densely forested areas of Bolivia and Ecuador. Other discoveries include the remains of a spiral-shaped temple in Peru.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Mayan
Mesoamerican pyramids tend to feature tiered steps, rather than the smooth sides of their Egyptian cousins. Picture credit: Getty<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But it\u2019s not just pyramids waiting to be found. \u201cI think we already know pretty much all the pyramids in the Maya area [which spans southeast Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras and El Salvador] and in Mesoamerican Mexico too. Pyramids are very visible,\u201d says Prof Takeshi Inomata, an archaeologist at the University of Arizona.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2020, Inomata discovered Aguada F\u00e9nix, believed to be the largest and oldest Mayan ceremonial site, using lidar. The site in modern-day Mexico is almost 1.4km (0.9 miles) long. \u201cYou cannot see its shape and size when you are on the ground. That\u2019s why we needed the lidar,\u201d Inomata says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So one of the lingering mysteries in South America is what else might lie waiting there. One 2023 study estimated the number of undiscovered buildings could be as high as 23,000. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The question is not whether there are more lost cities to be found \u2013 there almost certainly are. The question is just how big, how interconnected and how advanced they were.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How did ancient Egyptians move and manoeuvre the largest stones?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This is the granddaddy of pyramid mysteries, and one that has attracted more dubious explanations than almost any other archaeological question. If a stone weighs 100 tonnes or more, surely aliens, lost civilisations or antigravity technology must have been involved in moving them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, probably not. The uncomfortable truth is that ancient people were often far more capable than we give them credit for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Archaeologists have amassed substantial evidence for quarrying techniques, sledges, ropes, organised labour, waterways and ramps. The site where Lehner has worked since the 1980s is the \u2018Lost City\u2019, now believed to have housed some 20,000 workers who built the pyramid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s even a papyrus called the Diary of Merer, discovered in 2013. It\u2019s a 4,500-year-old logbook of a crew of workers transporting limestone through a series of canals during the time of Khufu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Read More:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n