Robot in the pyramids.

Does anybody remember watching that show years back on the Discovery Channel when they found a narrow shaft in one of the pyramids? They made a robot that could crawl through it, after like 300 feet they found a wall that was lowered complete with metal things on it keeping it from being lifted up. The archeologists said they would improve on rover to make it able to break through the wall…that’s all I ever saw on the robot or their efforts. Anybody know if they went through or anything else about this?
-Morgan
(it was a good show, too)

AH! I did it again…there are two of them on the message board. It’s bugging me on how it does that.

They drilled a hole through the wall (on Live TV! no less) and fed a tiny camera through.

Behind it was… another wall.

This is true. In fact that was just a recent development.

So now they’re going to build a new robot that can reach that other wall somehow, though I fear there’ll just be another block there.

I believe they also used the same robot (from the recent glitzy Fox broadcast) to explore one of the other tunnels, there are 4 in total. The two higher ones lead to the outside but the two lower ones lead to blocked doors. The reason they explored the one they did was because a 19th century exploration of the other tunnel used a long metal rod of which part was left in the tunnel making it difficult for the robot to explore that tunnel.

Anyway after the live broadcast found another door they put the robot in the other tunnel and tried again a few days later. The result, another door again.

Read about it. This one’s specifically on the seond shaft explored by robot

Also, if you’re interested in this sort of thing, www.cheops.org is a good site to visit. It contains extremely detailed schematics of the shafts, and an engineer’s point of view on some of the apparent structural anomalies within the Great Pyramid; he concludes that it’s possible there are several large chambers in there that are yet to be found.

Also, www.thehallofmaat.com (which at this very moment is experiencing a “Temporary Site Outage”, apparently) has a message board that’s kind of like the SDMB of archaeology. It’s a good site, but the proportion of posters with, uh, somewhat unconventional views is quite high. There’s been lots and lots AND LOTS of discussion there recently about the exploration of the shafts - do a search (when the board is back up) and you’ll see what I mean.

So what would happen if a new, large chamber containing artifacts was discovered deep within the pyramid? it seems unthinkable that they would cut a tunnel to it…

Regarding this tunnel in the Great Ptramid: was this just an airshaft? Isit reasonable to suppose that the workers painting and carving the walls in the King’s Chamber just needed some fresh air?
I have heard that people who enter the GP (Kings Chamber, Queen’s Chamber) report that they can feel a breeze-how does air circulate inside the p[yramid chambers?

I missed the thing on live TV. I bet it was a dissapointment.

I remember the broadcast.

These “air holes” are most likely sight lines that line up to specific stars or constellations at equinoxes or solstices or some other critical astronomic moment.

Being that the “locking mechanism” are visible from the inside of the pyramid, I’m sure once all the doors are breached, you’ll simply have an unobstructed view to the outside.

Not so on either point. The channels run horizontally for a couple of meters before changing direction to an upward angle. Nothing can be seen down any of them - neither doors nor starts.

Incidentally, if you check www.cheops.org, you’ll see that only the King’s Chamber shafts exit the pyramid, while both of the Queen’s Chamber shafts are blocked by very similar ‘doors’, the South shaft’s one recently having been penetrated, and the North shaft’s one discovered just a few days after that. No exit points for these lower two shafts have been found on the outside of the pyramid.

The idea that they’re symbolic ‘star-shafts’ (since they can’t be practical ones, as has been pointed out) hasn’t been entirely ruled out. At any rate, ventilation shafts probably would’t have been necessary.

Oh, and www.thehallofmaat.com is back up, for anyone who’s interested.

Does anybody remember the team or school that was leading the expedition?