Nexus - 0704 - New Times Magazine-pages

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THE TWILIGHT ZONE led to another large room that contained three mummies. Artifacts found in the room appeared to be a combination of Egyptian and American Indian design. The most amazing thing about the mum- mies, though, was the fact that they were more than eight feet tall. Dr Russell and a group of investors formed Amazing Explorations, Inc. to han- dle the release and profit from this remark- able find. But, as stories of this type usual- ly go, Russell disappeared and the investi- gators were never able to find the caverns and tunnels again, even though Russell had personally taken them there. The desert can be very deceptive to anyone not used to travelling in it. Months later, Russell's car was found abandoned, its radiator burst, in a remote area of Death Valley. Russell's suitcase was still in the car. The old TV series Death Valley Days once ran a short story about western pio- neers finding mummies in the desert. Since one of the scriptwriters stated that "there had never been a script without a solid basis in fact", it would be interesting to find out what their source had been. For now, these stories will have to be shrouded in mystery, along with the account of the 21,000-year-old bones found in California's Imperial Valley, which were also rumoured to have been spirited off by the Smithsonian. (Source: www.geocities.com/TheTropics/ Lagoon/1345/valley.html) encased in a smooth shell to create one of the first true pyramids. Situated 90 kilo- metres (56 miles) south of Cairo, it rises nearly 100 meters (330 feet). Quite likely it was unstable from the beginning, and it seems never to have been used as a tomb. between building blocks. What they saw through the scope was another tunnel directly above the first. And this one had a "corbelled" roof—a top built of overlap- ping blocks that rise progressively to a point. Such a roof would distribute the overlying weight and relieve pressure on the open corridor below it. The new shaft does not open onto the outside of the pyra- mid, but it does head down towards the two troublesome recesses. Last year, the team used the endoscope to explore beyond the end of the tunnel and above the recesses. What they found were two identical corbelled chambers, one above each recess and the same width. This rather clever, weight-distributing con- struction likely explains how the flat- roofed recesses were made possible. Gaballah notes that the exact purpose of the complex recesses, chambers and twin shafts is not clear: "The work is still in progress and we don't know what to expect." In addition to Gaballah, the team includ- ed Mustafa El-Zeiri of Egypt and Gilles Dormion and Jean-Yves Verd'hurt of France. (Source: By Robert Locke, 12 April 2000, http://foxnews.com/science/egypt/egypt_ meidum.sml) Archaeologists have discovered two previously unknown chambers and a tunnel that stretches nearly 40 metres (131 feet) into the heart of the enigmatic pyramid. pyramid. A tunnel shaft leads from the outside of the mostly collapsed pyramid to the burial chamber deep inside. But, as Gaballah Ali Gaballah told the Eighth International Congress of Egyptologists in Cairo on Thursday 30 March, two recesses near the bottom of the shaft have confused archae- ologists. (Gaballah is head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities.) Each recess is about 1.7 metres (5.7 feet) high and 2.1 metres (6.9 feet) across. An unreinforced span of that size should be too great to sup- port the enor- mous weight of the stone blocks above it. But the Franco- Egyptian team thinks it has solved the mys- tae “This aspi The only “This aspirin is @ exte tle \ The ss sid@ e Mt. _eccastonal ht headacles | ~ ates J | - =r 7 AS SPAT eee aad ale = OS, | SBA NEW ARCHAEOLOGICAL FINDS IN MEIDUM PYRAMID Ts pyramid of Meidum, one of Egypt's earliest pyramids, is a com- plicated structure, even by ancient Egyptian standards. It was built about 2600 BC, but its designers apparently couldn't make up their minds on what it should look like. And now, French and Egyptian archaeol- ogists, armed with a fibre-optic endoscope (like those which doctors use to peer inside the human body), have discovered two pre- viously unknown chambers and a tunnel that stretches nearly 40 metres (131 feet) into the heart of the enigmatic pyramid. The structure began as a step pyramid, with stair-step sides like a giant wedding cake, in the style of the famous "first pyra- mid" built at Saqqara for Pharaoh Djoser. Then the steps were expanded by adding another layer. Finally, its steps were tery. Examination of the masonry along the top of the shaft revealed what looked like a carefully con- cealed window. In May 1998, the researchers slipped an endo- scope—"a device like a long, flexible telescope about the diameter of a human finger"— through a joint JUNE — JULY 2000 NEXUS - 69