Egyptologists Go High Tech

Sunday, August 6, 2017 11 Egyptologists go high tech Inside Passage Of The Egyptian Pyramid Cairo chemical testing to date Japan’s University of Nagoya, Politecnico team nor the rom the Giza pyramids artefacts. electronic sensors from the antiquities ministry has been to the pharaonic tombs Chemical testing still KEK Japanese Research inclined to discuss the fresh Fof Luxor, Egypt’s ancient requires small samples, but Laboratory, and muon attempt, possibly put off by monuments are holding onto advanced techniques coming telescopes from the French the anticlimactic media mysteries which researchers into use are meant to be non- Atomic Energy Commission. frenzy over the previous now aim to unravel with invasive so as not to damage The results are then bid. cutting edge technology. the ancient relics. compared with infrared Elsewhere, For more than 200 years ScanPyramids is among the and 3D images. Egyptologists are since Napoleon Bonaparte most ambitious of the projects Some archaeologists undertaking a project landed in Egypt with a to demystify the Khufu have pinned hopes on the to nail down the retinue of scholars who laid Pyramid near Cairo, the only sophisticated technology chronology of Egypt’s the groundwork for modern surviving monument from to locate the burial place ancient dynasties more Egyptology, experts have used the ancient Seven Wonders of the legendary queen precisely. science to unlock the secrets of the World.It has employed Nefertiti. The French Institute of the country’s ancient infrared thermography and The wife of King of Eastern Archaeology treasures. muography -- a technique Akhenaten, who initiated a (IFAO) in Cairo has a In the 21st century, the that records images using monotheistic cult in ancient dating laboratory that the scientists have been using muon particles -- in its quest. Egypt, Nefertiti remains an researchers are putting to electronic devices and The project had announced enigma, best known for a bust use for the project. last October that the massive depicting her that is now on “The chronology of ancient pyramid may contain exhibition in Berlin’s Neues Egypt is not clearly defined. Some archae- undiscovered recesses. Museum. Egypt’s former antiquities We use a relative chronology,” “All the devices we put in A British Egyptologist, minister Zahi Hawass buried said Anita Quiles, head of ologists have place are designed to find Nicholas Reeves, believed Tutankhamun, in the research at the IFAO. where the cavity is located. her remains were hidden in in the southern Valley of the “We refer to reigns and pinned hopes We know there is one, but a secret chamber in the Valley of the Kings. Kings. dynasties but we do not know we’re trying to find out tomb of In 2015, archaeologists exactly the dates,” she said. on the sophisti- where,” said Mehdi Tayoubi, scanned the tomb with radar Mapping out ancient The investigation, which cated technol- president of the HIP Institute hoping for clues. dynasties involves chemical testing, is heading the ScanPyramids Both Reeves’s theory and The excitement over the expected to take several years. ogy to locate project. the inconclusive results have possible discovery has died But Egyptologists say The muon devices been dismissed by other down since the inconclusive that science cannot replace the burial include chemical Egyptologists. results, but a team from archaeologists and their emulsion instruments One of them, former Politecnico University in work on the ground. “It is place of the from antiquities minister Zahi Turin, Italy, intends to give it important to have science in Hawass, said that another shot. archaeology,” said Hawass. legendary an adept of the This time they will “But it is very important queen sun god Aton employ tomography -- a not to let scientists announce would never method used in medical any details about what they Nefertiti. have been scans -- and magnetometry, found unless it has been seen allowed which measures magnetic by Egyptologists.” (AFP) to be fields. Neither the Inside a tomb dating back to the age of the Pyramids in Egypt was this image, an embrace between a priestess and her hus- band, a singer in the pharaoh’s palace. The image has been recorded by researchers in full colour. 8.

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