Categories: News

Scientists Find Mysterious Heat Spots at Egyptian Pyramids

In the pyramids of Giza, scientists have observed a number of “thermal anomalies” that they are yet to explain, reports the BBC.

Scientists from Egypt, Canada, France and Japan set up infrared cameras for their Operation Scan Pyramids project at the Great Pyramid to see whether they can locate hidden chambers.

Infrared cameras detect thermal hotspots

And while they are yet to locate any hidden chambers in the tombs of Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure — all built between 2613 and 2494 BC — they have noticed that as the sun heats up and cools down the limestone structures at sunrise and sunset, respectively, three adjacent stones at the bottom of the pyramids consistently have higher temperatures (pictured) than the rest of the structure.

The upper half of the Great Pyramid was also found to have these “thermal anomalies.”

In a statement this week, the Egyptian Antiquities Ministry theorized that the thermal anomalies could be due to the “presence of voids behind the surface [or] internal air currents.”

And Antiquities Minister Mamdouh al-Damati (pictured) explained about the Pyramid of Khufu (a.k.a. the Great Pyramid) during his presentation on Monday, “The first row of the pyramid’s stones are all uniform, then we come here and find that there’s a difference in the formation.”

Scientists plan to continue investigating these pyramids for the next year.

Abena Agyeman-Fisher

Abena Agyeman-Fisher is the Editor-in-Chief of Face2Face Africa. Most recently, she worked for Interactive One as the Senior Editor of NewsOne, she worked for AOL as the News Programming Manager of Black Voices, which later became HuffPo Black Voices, and for the New York Times Company as an Associate Health Editor. Abena, a Spelman College graduate, has been published in Al Jazeera, the Daily Beast, New Jersey’s The Star-Ledger, the Grio, BlackVoices, West Orange Patch, About.com, the Source, Vibe, Vibe Vixen, Jane, and Upscale Magazines. She has interviewed top celebrities, icons, and politicians, such as First Lady Michelle Obama, Senior Advisor to the President Valerie Jarrett, Civil Rights activist and diplomat Andrew Young, comedian Bill Cosby, Grammy Award-winning singer Jill Scott, actress and singer Queen Latifah, Olympic Gold winner Cullen Jones, international supermodel Alek Wek, and five-division world champion boxer Floyd Mayweather. Most recently, she served as the First Lady’s press reporter during President Barack Obama’s U.S.-Africa Summit, Young African Leaders Institute event, and the 2013 presidential trip to Senegal, Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Tanzania. Abena is also a 2015 International Women's Media Foundation Africa Great Lakes Fellow, where she reported on women candidates and Chinese sweatshops in Tanzania for CNN and Refinery29.