The Egyptian pyramids are ancient pyramid-shaped masonry structures located in Egypt. As of November 2008, there are sources citing both 118 and 138 as the number of identified Egyptian pyramids. Most were built as tombs for the country's pharaohs and their consorts during the Old and Middle Kingdom periods. The earliest known Egyptian pyramids are found at Saqqara, northwest of Memphis. The earliest among these is the Pyramid of Djoser (constructed 2630 BC–2611 BC) which was built during the third dynasty. This pyramid and its surrounding complex were designed by the architect Imhotep, and are generally considered to be the world's oldest monumental structures constructed of dressed masonry. The most famous Egyptian pyramids are those found at Giza, on the outskirts of Cairo. Several of the Giza pyramids are counted among the largest structures ever built. The Pyramid of Khufu at Giza is the largest Egyptian pyramid. It is the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World still in existence. The mystery surrounding the Pyramids of Giza continues after an international team of archaeologists discovered "thermal anomalies" at the base of the Great Pyramid. The group of scientists and archaeologists used infrared thermal cameras and found three stones that had higher temperatures at the bottom of Egypt's most famous pyramid. The team, who were looking for possible hidden passages within the 4,500-year-old structures, theorise that the higher temperatures could be due to air currents inside the monument, different building materials being used or possible vacant spaces within the pyramid. Matthew Klein, from the Laval University, Canada, had previously explained the infrared thermography allows scientists to find out what is happening inside a monument from the outside. Materials emit infrared waves that can be measured to generate images to identify areas that are losing heat. A cold air current would allow the team to find previously unknown cavities – such as rooms or tunnels. This technique could possibly lead them to the lost burial place of thought to be located in a secret chamber in Tutkenkhamun's tomb. A statement from the team, which consists of scientists from Egypt, France, Canada and Japan, read: "The teams have concluded the existence of several thermal anomalies that were observed on all monuments during the heating up or the cooling down phases. To explain such anomalies a lot of hypothesis and possibilities could be drawn up: presence of voids behind the surface, internal air currents. "This area should be the subject of further investigation during the subsequent phases of the project," the statement continued, with the project ongoing until 2016. Antiquities Minister Mamdouh Eldamaty told reporters: "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." The Great Pyramid, also known as the Pyramid of Khufu is Egypt's oldest and biggest pyramid. It is thought that work on this pyramid was finished in 2560BC as the tomb for Pharaoh Khufu – a king of Egypt's fourth Dynasty. "Khufu will offer us today one of its secrets," Eldamaty added.


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The mystery surrounding the Pyramids of Giza continues after an international team of archaeologists discovered "thermal anomalies" at the base of the Great Pyramid. The group of scientists and archaeologists used infrared thermal cameras and found three stones that had higher temperatures at the bottom of Egypt's most famous pyramid. The team, who were looking for possible hidden passages within the 4,500-year-old structures, theorise that the higher temperatures could be due to air currents inside the monument, different building materials being used or possible vacant spaces within the pyramid. Matthew Klein, from the Laval University, Canada, had previously explained the infrared thermography allows scientists to find out what is happening inside a monument from the outside. Materials emit infrared waves that can be measured to generate images to identify areas that are losing heat. A cold air current would allow the team to find previously unknown cavities – such as rooms or tunnels. This technique could possibly lead them to the lost burial place of thought to be located in a secret chamber in Tutkenkhamun's tomb. A statement from the team, which consists of scientists from Egypt, France, Canada and Japan, read: "The teams have concluded the existence of several thermal anomalies that were observed on all monuments during the heating up or the cooling down phases. To explain such anomalies a lot of hypothesis and possibilities could be drawn up: presence of voids behind the surface, internal air currents. "This area should be the subject of further investigation during the subsequent phases of the project," the statement continued, with the project ongoing until 2016. Antiquities Minister Mamdouh Eldamaty told reporters: "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." The Great Pyramid, also known as the Pyramid of Khufu is Egypt's oldest and biggest pyramid. It is thought that work on this pyramid was finished in 2560BC as the tomb for Pharaoh Khufu – a king of Egypt's fourth Dynasty. "Khufu will offer us today one of its secrets," Eldamaty added. Built more than 4,500 years ago, during Egypt’s 4th Dynasty of pharaohs, the pyramids at Giza are some of the most celebrated manmade monuments in history. Yet no one really knows how these magnificent ancient structures were built, on such a massive scale, in a relatively short period of time. The recently launched Operation Scan the Pyramids project aims to probe this enduring mystery by using high-tech but non-invasive methods to examine the pyramids. Using one of these methods—infrared thermography—an international team of scientists and architects recently detected a mysterious thermal anomaly, or hot spot, on the eastern wall of the Great Pyramid of Giza, which may hint at some kind of passageway or chamber inside. In recent months, experts have been searching for hidden chambers located within the Egyptian pyramids, as well as for additional insight into how these amazing structures could have been built. Organized by the Faculty of Engineering of Cairo and the Paris-based Heritage Innovation Preservation Institute, the Operation Scan the Pyramids project aims to conduct in-depth examinations of the pyramids using non-invasive methods such as thermal imaging and muon radiography, a Japanese technique that has been used to peek inside active volcanoes as well as the nuclear reactors of Fukushima. Last week, an initial infrared temperature scan of the famous tomb belonging to the pharaoh Tutankhamen, better known as King Tut, turned up promising results: a temperature difference in the tomb’s northern wall, which may indicate a hidden cavity behind the wall’s surface. Their work follows up on claims made earlier this year by Egyptologist Nicholas Reeve of the University of Arizona, who proposed that ultra high-resolution images of Tut’s tomb showed hidden doorways leading to previously unexplored burial chambers, possibly including the final resting place of the legendary Queen Nefertiti, who was married to Tut’s father. Now, Egypt’s Antiquities Ministry has announced that a thermal scan of the three ancient pyramids built on the Giza plateau, some 20 km from Cairo, during the 4th dynasty (between 2613-2494 B.C.), has identified some intriguing anomalies. In particular, a scan of the largest of the three pyramids—known locally as Khufu and internationally as Cheops, but often referred to simply as the Great Pyramid—revealed higher temperatures in three of the stones at the bottom of the eastern wall. Though the authorities cannot say definitively what this anomaly means, they speculate that such differences in temperature could indicate empty areas inside the structure, internal air currents or the use of different building materials. An international team—including scientists and architects from Egypt, Canada, Japan and France—conducted the thermal scanning at different times of the day and night. They focused particularly on sunrise, when the sun heats the limestone of the pyramids from the outside, and on sunset, when the structures were cooling down. In the case of the Khufu pyramid, they found that while much of the wall heats up and cools down uniformly (with a typical difference of only 0.1 to 0.5 degrees Celsius between adjacent stones), a three-stone spot on the eastern wall acted differently. When compared with surrounding stones, this area showed a difference in temperature of 11 degrees Fahrenheit (6 degrees Celsius), appearing as a bloom of red on the thermal scans. By the time Operation Scan the Pyramids concludes, at the end of 2016, researchers will have scanned the Great Pyramid and the second-largest of the Giza pyramids, built for Khufu’s son Khafre, as well as the Bent Pyramid and the Red Pyramid, both built at Dahshur (about 15 km south of Saqqara) by Snefru, Khufu’s father and the founder of the 4th Dynasty. The goal of the scanning project is to find more anomalies, each of which will provide another clue for Egyptologists to investigate in their attempts to solve the enduring mysteries of the pyramids.