Even after 4,000 years, Egypt’s pyramids still exist in a shroud of mystery and fascination. A new study suggests that the Pyramid of Menkaure—the smallest of the three main pyramids at Giza—may be hiding a second entrance sealed inside its eastern wall.
Researchers from Cairo University and the Technical University of Munich spent three years scanning the monument using electrical resistivity, ground-penetrating radar, and ultrasonic testing. Their findings, published in NDT & E International, revealed two hollow spaces just a few feet behind the smooth limestone surface.
The eastern face has long stood out to archaeologists. Its blocks are unusually polished across an area roughly thirteen feet high and twenty feet wide, matching the finish seen at the pyramid’s known entrance on the north side.
“Such smooth stones are otherwise only found at what is currently the only entrance to the pyramid,” the researchers wrote.
Built around 2490 B.C. for Pharaoh Menkaure, the pyramid originally stood about 213 feet tall. While it’s the smallest of Giza’s trio—the Great Pyramid of Khufu and the Pyramid of Khafre tower beside it—it’s still an architectural marvel. The new scans suggest it may also hold a design feature no one expected, possibly one that reveals how ancient builders engineered their monuments so precisely.
Independent scholar Stijn van den Hoven first proposed the idea of a second entrance in 2019 after noticing the polished stones on the eastern wall. His theory gained little traction at the time, but the new evidence gives it credibility. One void lies roughly 4.6 feet behind the wall, the other about 3.7 feet, close enough to hint at intentional planning rather than random structural flaws.
Harvard Egyptologist Peter Der Manuelian, who was not involved in the study, told Live Science that the discovery “shows we still have more to learn about the Pyramids at Giza.” Entrances to Old Kingdom pyramids are typically found on the north face, he explained, so these anomalies could represent a new architectural experiment—or a literal doorway that’s been hidden for millennia.
If confirmed, it would mean one of the most studied monuments on Earth still has a secret waiting behind its walls. It only piques more curiosity as to what those Egyptians were doing, and how.
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