The Daily Mail article from March 21, 2025, titled "Scientists say They've Discovered 'Vast City' UNDERNEATH Egypt's Giza Pyramids... but Experts Raise Concerns,"
reports on a claim by Italian researchers, led by Corrado Malanga of the University of Pisa and Filippo Biondi of the University of Strathclyde, that a sprawling underground complex lies beneath the Pyramids of Giza.
The team asserts they've uncovered a "vast underground city" stretching over 4,000 feet (some reports say 6,500 feet) beneath the Giza complex, potentially making the pyramids' subsurface footprint ten times larger than their surface structures. The focus is on the Khafre Pyramid, one of three at Giza (alongside Khufu and Menkaure), built around 4,500 years ago.
Using Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) tomography—combining satellite radar pulses with seismic vibrations—they generated high-resolution 3D images of the subsurface without digging. This echoes sonar mapping techniques used for ocean floors.
The study identifies eight vertical, cylinder-shaped shafts (33-39 feet in diameter) descending over 2,100 feet below Khafre's base, with spiral pathways likened to staircases. Deeper still, at 4,000+ feet, they found a limestone platform with two massive chambers (260 feet per side) and pipeline-like channels, plus a water system. The team suggests these could be foundational supports or access points to a broader network.
Described as "groundbreaking" in a press release, the discovery could challenge the view of the pyramids as mere tombs, hinting at a lost civilisation or the mythical "Hall of Records." It builds on the team's 2022 peer-reviewed paper in Remote Sensing, which found hidden rooms and ramps in Khafre.
Experts like Professor Lawrence Conyers of the University of Denver question the radar's ability to penetrate such depths through dense limestone, calling it "a huge exaggeration." Egyptologist Dr. Zahi Hawass dismissed it as "fake news," citing decades of prior studies (e.g., muon tomography) showing no such city. The paper awaits peer review.
Assuming the structures exist, how could ancient Egyptians, around 2600-2500 BC during the Fourth Dynasty, have constructed such a subterranean complex with their known technology?
The Egyptians used copper tools (chisels, drills), stone hammers, and wooden levers—hardly primitive by ancient standards. Evidence from quarry sites like Aswan shows they quarried granite with precision, using dolerite pounders and abrasive sand. For the pyramids, they moved 2.3 million limestone blocks (averaging 2.5 tons each) using sledges, ramps, and lubricated sand, as per the 2014 Wadi al-Jarf papyri detailing logistics.
Digging deep shafts and chambers aligns with known skills—think of the rock-cut tombs in the Valley of the Kings or the 100-foot deep Osiris Shaft near Giza, both carved with similar tools. The "cylinder shafts" could be vertical quarries or wells, widened with chisels and shored with timber or stone. Spiral pathways might be ramps, a technique they mastered for pyramid construction, adapted underground.
The reported water system could tie to Nile flooding or aquifers, managed via channels dug with picks and baskets—methods seen in early irrigation. Limestone platforms and chambers might be natural caverns (common in Giza's plateau) expanded and reinforced, a feat within their scope given the 480-foot Great Pyramid's precision.
The workforce—tens of thousands of skilled labourers, not slaves, per archaeological consensus—had the manpower. The Merer Diary (c. 2550 BC) shows a state-organized system moving stone over 500 miles. A subterranean project could've been a parallel effort, perhaps for storage, ritual, or structural stability, planned by architects like Imhotep's successors.
If real, this might've supported pyramid construction (e.g., stabilising foundations under Khafre's 400,000-ton weight) or served ceremonial ends, like pre-pyramid sacred sites later built over, as Conyers suggests about Mesoamerican parallels.
This fits the era's tech— no extraterrestrial aliens needed. The Egyptians' engineering prowess, from Djoser's Step Pyramid to Khufu's masterpiece, shows they could scale up incrementally complex projects over centuries.
Erich von Däniken's 1968 book Chariots of the Gods posits that extraterrestrials built the pyramids, citing their scale and precision as beyond human capability. This discovery, if valid, might fuel such speculation—but the alien case crumbles under scrutiny:
Tools (copper chisels, sledges), worker camps (e.g., Giza's "Lost City" with bakeries and dorms), and texts (Merer's logs) prove human construction. Skeletons from Giza tombs show labourers with worn joints from heavy lifting—no ET DNA here. The subsurface "city" aligns with known tomb and shaft patterns, not alien blueprints.
Von Däniken underestimates ancient ingenuity. The Egyptians aligned the Great Pyramid to true north within 1/15th of a degree using stellar observations, not sci-fi tech. Shafts and chambers match Old Kingdom methods—see Saqqara's stepped pyramid or Khufu's internal passages, mapped by muon scans in 2017. No "impossible" tech is required.
The pyramids reflect Egyptian cosmology—tombs for pharaohs as gods, linked to the afterlife via Orion's belt. A subterranean complex could extend this, perhaps as a ritual "underworld" or practical base, not an alien landing pad. Hieroglyphs and art lack spaceship motifs but abound with human labour scenes.
Radar anomalies don't need extraterrestrial hands. Pre-pyramid structures (caves, shafts) could've been repurposed, a human practice seen globally. Hawass's muon and gravimetry studies since the 1990s found voids but no "city"—and certainly no ET signatures. The Italian team's data, even if overstated, fits earthly engineering.
Why invoke aliens when humans, with 4th Dynasty tools and a centralised state, demonstrably built the surface pyramids? Adding a subsurface layer doesn't leap beyond that capacity—it's just deeper digging. Von Däniken's theory thrives on mystery, not evidence; this discovery, if real, demystifies more than it alienates.
The alien hypothesis is a fun yarn, but it's a house of cards against the mountain of dirt-stained, human-hewn proof. The Egyptians didn't need "chariots of the gods"—they had sledges, sweat, and a knack for turning limestone into legacy.
https://www.amazon.com.au/Crash-Go-Chariots-Clifford-Wilson/dp/B000OUK1P0