ELI5: Why haven’t we fully explored the pyramids yet?
I was watching a documentary where they were talking about a void within the great pyramid and how we don’t know what’s inside it! How come we haven’t we been in and had a nose around?
The void isn't like a room we simply haven't entered, it's more like the equivalent to an empty space inside the walls of your home. It's there, but there are no passages leading to it. About 75-80% of the interior volume of the pyramids is solid stone as far as we know so it's much less like a modern building and more of a huge pile of stones that happens to have a few open spaces with passages leading to them.
Because why? The pyramids are not a fun park or escape room, they are a piece of art. How would you feel if we'd tear Mona Lisa apart to check if there's some older painting below the outside layer and the canvas?
So I just learned this recently, but apparently after the whole Victorian "smash and grab" thing where Britain stole all the art that was or wasn't nailed down (there's a lot of feet and footless statues lol), archeologists went to sites and realized how much knowledge was destroyed by their predecessors who only cared about impressive finds they could show off
Technology and techniques are always improving, so now when they find an archeological site, they excavate only a fraction, leaving the rest for future generations who will have better tools.
Obviously, non-destructive methods are still on the table, but I found that pretty interesting
Not sure how old the program was OP watched but they found one void in 2017 using cosmic rays. I'm guessing the pyramids are way too solid for ultrasound or x-ray to work.