People have always sought to construct conceptual models of the earth and heavens, in order to locate themselves in space and time. They could also reveal previously unknown artifacts that might help us better understand the civilization that Khufu presided over.Peter Apian’s Heart Map: This Renaissance fantasy – the globe transformed into the human heart – is also an attempt to represent a known world enlarged from old Ptolemaic maps / British Library, Public Domain “We plan to have eight in place at one time and move them around as needed,” creating a fairly flexible system for its size, Dukes said.ĭukes believes the resulting images will offer never-before-seen clues into the pyramid’s interior and its construction. Because the Great Pyramid is five times taller and four times wider than El Castillo in Chichén Itzá, the project will require multiple large detectors to be placed in refrigerated shipping containers on the four sides of the pyramid. This team hopes to confirm the void discovered by the Scan Pyramids project and develop more detailed images of the pyramid’s interior. From Maya Cities to Egyptian Pyramidsĭukes is also part of a group working to scan the Great Pyramid of Giza, the burial place of the ancient Egyptian monarch Khufu. Next year, the team hopes to put the full-size, complete detector into the tunnels at the base of El Castillo and begin scanning the interior. This data will help the team simulate how the detector will work, determine what resolution is needed to see inside the pyramid effectively, and identify the variables needed for the detector’s algorithms. They scanned the exterior and interior of the pyramid with a laser to create a detailed CAD model of the structure, and they also took drone photos and videos of El Castillo and other structures. On the spring break trip, Dukes, Roberts and their colleagues took preliminary cosmic-ray muon flux data with a simplified detector at seven locations, on- and off-site. Members of the research team gather outside the pyramid that they would explore physically and with the use of particles called “muons” that could help reveal hidden internal secrets. It will scan both external and internal structures and create a tomographic, or three-dimensional, image. Eventually, the team hopes to place detectors at the base of the Great Pyramid and others in Egypt. Now, Dukes and his team hope to build on that work by creating an even more powerful detector with greater resolution to place inside El Castillo. It does not damage the structure in any way.”Ī similar project called Scan Pyramids discovered a previously unknown chamber in the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt. “It is effectively like taking a very detailed X-ray of the pyramid,” Dukes said. That means they can easily pass through large masses and penetrate roughly 100 feet of limestone. The detector will harness the power of cosmic-ray muons, which Dukes said are particularly suitable because they are very energetic. Their goal was to complete a series of preliminary measurements needed to construct the detector. That funding was approved in early 2022 and Roberts and Dukes traveled to Mexico over spring break. Together, the two applied for a grant from the Jefferson Trust – a donor-led initiative of the UVA Alumni Association – to work on the project in Chichén Itzá, once one of the largest Maya cities. Physics professor Craig Dukes leads UVA’s involvement in a project developing and using technology to noninvasively explore ancient pyramids. “I had prior experience fabricating, testing and analyzing data for cosmic-ray detectors through UVA’s High Energy Physics Laboratory, so I was excited to accept Professor Dukes’ offer to join this interesting project,” Roberts said. The prototype will first be tested at Fermilab, a particle physics and accelerator laboratory in Batavia, Illinois.ĭukes invited Roberts to work on the pyramid project after he heard about her work as an undergraduate researcher on other Fermilab projects. Researchers have been working on the detector’s design since 2016 and are now in the process of raising funds for the Exploring the Great Pyramids project and building a prototype for El Castillo. The UVA portion of the project, led by physics professor Craig Dukes, is particularly focused on designing a detector to record cosmic-ray muons passing through the pyramid to scan the interior for hidden voids. It’s an international partnership between a half-dozen universities, including UVA, and the Exploring the Great Pyramids project. That’s the science behind the Non-invasive Archaeometry Using Muons project. Third-year physics student Sydney Roberts stands before the Maya temple of El Castillo in Mexico.
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