An Ancient Egyptian mystery has been unearthed as a huge new structure is found in Giza.

       A structure has been identified in northeast Egypt using ground-penetrating technology, according to a new study.

       Researchers from Higashi Nippon International University, Tohoku University, and Egypt’s National Research Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics, scanned below the sand’s surface in a “blank area” of Giza’s Western Cemetery alongside the Great Pyramid of Khufu.

       The Western Cemetery is “an important burial place of members of the royal family and high-class officers” and densely populated with mastabas - a type of tomb.

       No noteworthy excavations have been conducted on the “blank space” in the centre of the cemetery which has no aboveground structures.

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       From 2021 to 2023, the team conducted a geophysical survey using ground-penetrating radar and electrical resistivity tomography to see beneath the sand.

       The surveys revealed anomalies researchers believe “could be vertical walls of limestone or shafts leading to a tomb structure”.

       The team then carried out further surveys using another kind of ground-penetrating radar to determine the shape of the large anomaly.

       The results indicated an L-shaped structure, roughly a metre by 15 metres (33 feet by 49 feet), that lay two metres (6.5 feet) below the ground.

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       The researchers are still unsure of its purpose but it is approximately 4,500 years old. It may have served as a tomb entrance or a construction site later backfilled with sand.

       However, it seems to be connected to another one-metre squared (33 by 33 feet) structure up to a metre (33 feet) beneath the ground. Without further excavation, its function remains unclear.

       The team added in the report: “We believe that the continuity of the shallow structure and the deep large structure is important.”. In order to ascertain the true significance, they recommend that a more comprehensive excavation takes place as soon as possible.

       Lonely Planet said of the Western Cemetery: “Private cemeteries are tucked into the hill alongside the causeways, as well as arrayed in neat rows around the Pyramids in a grid pattern. At the northern end, the Tomb of Senegemib-Inti contains interesting inscriptions, including a rather vicious-looking hippo rippling with muscle.”