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Dec 28, 2010
Led by a Hong Kong dentist known for his love of science exploration, a team of international scientists is gearing up for the third attempt at probing into a secret chamber in the Great Pyramid of Giza built to house the body of the Pharaoh Khufu.
The Egyptian government has authorised the team of seven Hong Kong, British and Canadian scientists to use a robot to find out the purpose and structure of two mysterious shafts near the Queen's Chamber deep inside the world landmark.
No date has been set for the mission, but they estimate preparatory work will begin in the spring.
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.
The avid Egyptologist has long been tantalised by the pyramid and its "transcendental ambience" - a fascination that through history has snared the likes of Alexander the Great and Napoleon I.
"During naps inside the chamber, I dreamed of having dinner with them, Barack Obama and [British engineer-Egyptologist] Waynman Dixon," Ng said.
Ng agrees with archaeologists' guesses that the secret chamber might contain valuable artefacts - papyrus, builders' tools, maybe even a statue of Khufu.
"But I wouldn't be surprised or saddened to find there's nothing at all," the 58-year-old said, despite the work he has put into the mission since 2002. "I'd be satisfied if I could help show the world what is behind the second door."
Two previous expeditions into the shafts in 1992 and 2003, by German and American scientists, respectively, literally hit brick walls when their robots were blocked on their way up the southern shaft.
The first phase of the mission - called Djedi, after the magician said in a tale to have been consulted by Khufu about the planning of the pyramid - will attempt to gain a better picture of the task.
A miniature ultrasonic device, part of a bigger robot, will tap on the stone walls to determine their thickness and condition. The device will bounce balls off the wall and calculate its thickness from the frequencies given by the impacts.
This will help the team to gauge the length of drill needed on the robot to penetrate the second door in the shaft.
The robot will also include a miniature beetle - Ng's idea - which weighs only 70 grams and has tiny movable arms and a micro "snake camera" that can pass through small gaps and see in all directions.
Djedi gained the chance to explore the shafts after defeating a team of scientists from the National University of Singapore in a head-to-head competition in 2007 arranged by Zahi Hawass, Egypt's vice-minister of culture and a world-renowned Egyptologist.
Ng said the competition gave him a "funny feeling" because he was initially a founder of the Singaporean team, but left after they fell out.
For the test, Hawass set up a shaft mimicking the real one. Six top engineering professors from Cairo University were the judges.
"While our team's rover was doing the test and we were sweating like Indiana Jones under the Egyptian sun, a dozen disciplined Singaporean engineers marched in like soldiers with identical T-shirts. They seemed good," Ng said.
"Their robot was brilliant and exceptionally well made. But it was very destructive on the walls of the shafts, like two previous attempts. It would make non-erasable scratches on the ancient wonder.
"Ours, on the other hand, ensured the pyramid would be protected, even if it took a day to climb up the shaft."
However, it was not until June this year that Hawass approved Djedi.
Ng said he got the idea from his previous experience with space robotics, especially a tethered mole subsoil sampling device he designed for the ill-fated Beagle 2 Mars mission in 2003. Ng is also part of ExoMars, a two-mission endeavour scheduled to go to Mars in 2016 and 2018.
His collaborator on Djedi, Shaun Whitehead, is another veteran of Beagle 2; he was the chief engineer responsible for the rover's robotic arm.
Whitehead said the machinery for pyramid exploration is "very like designing instrumentation for space".
"It has to be lightweight and very highly engineered and once it is deployed you can't get to it to fix it, so it has to be right first time," he said.
The team has made several visits to the pyramid for tests.
"It's a fantastic project," said Whitehead, speaking from the University of Leeds in England. "When we leave the Cairo hotel in the morning I look at the pyramid, I think, `How many people get up in the morning and go to an office like that?'"
Ng's obsession with the pyramid started in late 2002 when he watched a live television National Geographic broadcast of an expedition that used a robot to explore behind the first door, only to discover a second, rougher-hewn door behind it.
"It wasn't the right way to do it," he said. "It wasn't well-lit. It couldn't turn around the camera and see what's behind. It could have given it a better shot by using what I made for Beagle 2, I was thinking."
Two months later, he cancelled all his appointments and flew to Boston, Massachusetts, to meet Egyptian scientist Farouk El-Baz, known for his work in the Apollo and Shuttle programmes. El-Baz, intrigued, wrote him a recommendation letter to Hawass, who oversees Egypt's rich ancient heritage.
Ng flew to Cairo and tried to meet Hawass without an appointment. "I waited a long time outside his office. And he invited me into his study, shook my hand and asked his assistant to take care of me."
The assistant asked, "So, why are you here?" He responded, "I think I can help your country." But he failed to meet Hawass that time.
After a few more trips to Egypt and more failures, one long day proved fruitful. "I waited for six hours and melted the hearts of the people. I was allowed to speak for five minutes in front of members of the Supreme Council of Antiquities," Ng said.
Since then, he has made more than 30 trips, mainly to Egypt and Britain, and spent more than HK$500,000 for the project.
"I never count money," he said. "I need to show the world the doors may hide the secrets of the greatest civilisation on Earth," he said. "Filling cavities is boring, but I love it because it supports my hobby."
His wife, Amanda, feared he would suffer the curse of the pharaohs, which was supposedly responsible for the unusual deaths of several members of the team led by Howard Carter, who opened the tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922.
Lord Carnarvon, an English aristocrat who financed the search, was one of those who died.
"My wife is afraid my fate will be like Lord Carnarvon's. But I don't care. I have to find out what's behind that door," he said. "But I will go and see Wong Tai Sin [a popular Chinese deity] before I leave. At her advice."
Pharoah's tomb teases with missing key to doors
The Great Pyramid of Giza is the oldest and largest in a family of three pyramids on the Giza plateau near Cairo and a must-see attraction for every tourist in the Egyptian capital.
The only one of the seven wonders of the ancient world to remain largely intact, it is believed to have been built as a tomb for fourth-dynasty Egyptian pharaoh Khufu over 20 years around 2560BC. But it is uncertain how exactly it was built, given its colossal scale.
Each of the king's and queen's chambers is fitted with two shafts, each about 20cm wide and 14cm wide. Their purpose is unknown, but one theory is that Khufu designed them as conduits for his soul to reach the stars after he died.
While the shafts in the king's chamber have always been known to exist, those from the queen's chamber were not discovered until 1872, when British engineer Waynman Dixon figured that if the king's chamber had them, so would the queen's.
In 1993, German engineer Rudolf Gantenbrink sent a small robotic probe into the queen's northern shaft armed with a fibre-optic camera. It travelled for about 60 metres before it hit a thick limestone door - since pierced - with two copper handles.
Several scientists called the discovery of the handles very important, believing that something amazing might be hidden behind the door. "Maybe something belonging to Khufu is hidden behind ... Maybe there is nothing," Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass said at the time.
Fellow Egyptologist Dr Ng Tze-chuen, of Hong Kong, remembered: "The entire world was intrigued." The metallic composition of the 4,500-year-old handles could reveal a lot about the metallurgy of the Bronze Age. The percentage of tin, for example, would indicate the advancement in weaponry, Ng said.
In 2002, with millions watching live on National Geographic television, a US miniature robot dubbed the Pyramid Rover crawled about 65 metres up the shaft, and when it got to the door, drilled a hole and inserted a fibre-optic camera to film what lay beyond, only to find another door behind. Copyright (c) 2010. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.