Audio/Video
Hidden Hieroglyphs in the Great Pyramid: 3D Video Report Dassault Systèmes—an excellent video produced by the wizards of 3D animation at Dassault Systèmes (posted to YouTube May 30, 2011)
Websites and Journal Articles
I selected the Djedi team during a competition that I coordinated to pick the best possible robot to explore the shafts in the Great Pyramid. I decided on a team sponsored by Leeds University and supported by Dassault Systèmes in France.
The official website of Scoutek, the company founded by Shaun Whitehead, and which is providing management and systems engineering for the Djedi Project. “Scoutek is solidly based on over 40 years of experience in exploration and inspection technology, in the arenas of terrestrial, archaeological, space and subsea.”
But 3D is not only a tool for engineers and we believe that the best way to experience this adventure for yourself is through 3D experiences we are able to deliver. We spent this weekend capturing images in real-time, in a virtual 3D world, to help the public -all publics- understand what the robot has seen.
Pictures from inside the Great Pyramid of Khufu, gathered by a robot explorer designed by University of Leeds engineers, together with Scoutek, UK and Dassult Systèmes, France, have been published…The team has committed to completing the work by the end of 2011. Full results of the work will be published in due course. The next report is expected to be issued in early 2012 after completion of the work.
- Daily Grail: Pyramid graffiti in the Gantenbrink Shaft?—by Greg (no last name listed) (May 26, 2011)
For his part, Zahi Hawass has continued to mention the possibility of a hidden chamber in the pyramid, based on the myth of Djedi…
They might be ancient graffiti tags left by a worker or symbols of religious significance. A robot has sent back the first images of markings on the wall of a tiny chamber in the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt that have not been seen for 4500 years. It has also helped settle the controversy about the only metal known to exist in the pyramid, and shows a “door” that could lead to another hidden chamber.
- Luxor News: Zahi Hawass seeks secret chambers in the Pyramid of Cheops—by Jane Akshar (May 17, 2011)
Top secret mission on the Giza Plateau: Under the strictest of secrecy and on instruction of the controversial Egyptian minister for antiquities, Zahi Hawass, a new mini robot crept through the passageways of the Pyramid of Cheops on the 29th May 2010. Its aim: To search for previously undiscovered secret chambers of the Pharaoh.
A robotics team from the University of Leeds, working in conjunction with the Supreme Council and Dassault Systèmes in France, have already made two examinations and are currently waiting on the green light for a third.
- Projects Magazine: Djedi robot to enter the Great Pyramid of Khufu—by Adelle Kehoe (August 08, 2010)
A research team from the University of Leeds is set to discover secrets from Ancient Egypt using a specially designed robot. The tunnels the robot are set to explore have not been entered for over 4,500 years.
Fifteen years have gone by since Rudolf Gantenbrink’s robot unexpectedly revealed a copper-handled “door” in the southern shaft of the Queen’s Chamber during a routine survey of the Great Pyramid’s shafts in 1993.
News Articles
Because of the protests, Hawass has told the team to put off their exploration for safety reasons. But the Causeway Bay dentist for 30 years said he could not wait to get inside and resume work on the project of his dreams. “I’m not afraid of protesters .We’ll be working inside the very secure pyramid anyway,” he said. “We’ve been on the project for nine years and I really can’t wait to find out and show the world what’s behind it.”
“We believe that if these hieroglyphs could be deciphered they could help Egyptologists work out why these mysterious shafts were built,” Rob Richardson, the engineer who designed the robot at the University of Leeds, said. The study was sponsored by Mehdi Tayoubi and Richard Breitner of project partners Dassault Systèmes in France.
Team founder Dr Ng Tze-chuen – whose more than 30-year dental practice in Causeway Bay supports a passion for science that includes the designing of precision instruments for missions to Mars – is overjoyed at having the opportunity to help unlock the secrets of a section of the pyramid that, even at the time it was built, only very few could access.
- University of Leicester eBulletin: Space inspiration in quest to reveal enigma of pyramid: Former University of Leicester space researcher turns to exploring Egyptian mysteries—no author listed (August 18, 2010)
In the imaginations of millions of people across the world, the mysteries of space are only rivaled by the mysteries surrounding the Egyptian pyramids. Both tantalize with glimpses of little-understood worlds that never quite seem to be within reach, at least until now. In a surprising link between the two, a researcher has taken the principles he learned in the University of Leicester’s world renowned Space Research Centre and applied them to cross the divide, not of the Universe, but of more than 4,000 years of history.
Nobody knows where two unexplored air shafts leading from that ancient room lead. The hope is that the remote-controlled robotic tunnel explorer–which can fit through holes less than one inch in diameter–can drill through the secret door blocking the shafts and gather evidence that determines their purpose.
An attempt to explore a shaft in the Pyramid of Khufu, one of the ancient seven wonders of the world, has stymied archeologists and once again they turn to robots for help.
For 4,500 years, the Great Pyramid at Giza has enthralled, fascinated and ultimately frustrated everyone who has attempted to penetrate its secrets.
Some believe these doors have a symbolic meaning because it is written on the Pyramid Text that the Pharaoh must travel through a series of doors to reach the Netherworld. But, I feel from the shape of the second door that it has another function.
Copyright by Keith Payne, 2011. All rights reserved.
Tags: Dassault Systemes, Djedi Project, Leeds University, Mehdi Tayoubi, Ng Tze-chuen, Queens Chamber Shafts, Richard Breitner, Scoutek, Shaun Whitehead, Zahi Hawass
The Nefertiti Summit has passed by, leaving little more in its wake than a flurry of media reports which all say basically the same thing, summarized here for your convenience. 
The Nefertiti Summit has been moved back from December 8 to December 20, according to a recent article appearing on Qatar’s The Peninsula: “
King Tut is known as the Boy King for two reasons. The first is the young age at which he assumed the throne—around eight or nine. The second is that he died at around nineteen, so he never really reached adulthood. Why he died so young is a question that has been with us since his tomb was discovered by Howard Carter in 1922.
Zahi Hawass has never been terribly shy about sharing his opinion, and by now everyone with even a peripheral interest in either Egyptology or R&B music has heard about the Beyonce incident. But while most coverage has ranged from treating Dr. Hawass like an irascible uncle to bemoaning his lack of diplomacy, there is a larger story broiling beneath what otherwise appears to be a clash between a frustrated host and a spoiled Western Diva.
The Great Pyramid of Khufu has baffled professional Egyptologists and everyday people for millennia, but architect Jean-Pierre Houdin has proposed what many feel is the most likely, and certainly the most sensible, theory about the construction of Khufu’s Pyramid to date. This week France-5 of France Télévision aired a new documentary on Jean-Pierre Houdin’s work called Khéops Révélé.
Tutankhamun’s tomb lasted undisturbed for thousands of years, but after mere decades of constant visitors the most famous burial site in the world is on the endangered list. 
As the director of the Egyptian section of the Neues Museum in Berlin prepares to meet next month with Egyptian officials regarding the future of the bust of Nefertiti, both sides are beginning to hint at what evidence they may offer to support their respective positions. 
