Long-lost chambers discovered inside 4,400-year-old Egyptian pyramid

An Ancient Egyptian pyramid built around 4,400 years ago has spilled some extra secrets after a restoration project cleared the way to new chambers.

Some 4,400 years ago Egypt was ruled by the Pharaoh Sahure, who reigned for about 13 years before shuffling off this mortal coil to have his heart weighed against a feather by a guy with a dog's head.

As was customary at the time, he got a big pointy building for his body to be buried in and several thousand years later his pyramid is still revealing secrets.

According to IFL Science, Sahure's pyramid in the Abusir necropolis in northern Egypt has been undergoing restoration since 2019 to clean out the rooms inside and support the structure itself so it doesn't collapse.

That sounds pretty good, but what's really interesting is what the team restoring the pyramid found when they cleared away the rubble from a collapsed corridor.

Mohamed Khaled / Uni Würzburg

You've likely read the headline to this piece, so it's no secret that what they found were previously undiscovered chambers which had been blocked off from the rest of the world for a very long time indeed.

If this was a horror movie this would be the point where a monster burst out and cursed everyone working on the pyramid before unleashing itself upon the world.

However, as much as it may feel like it sometimes, life isn't a horror movie and what the team found were chambers which were most likely storage rooms for the pyramid.

Before you go thinking that's a huge let-down for not being the tomb of some kind of giant scarab-monster, researchers from the University of Würzburg have said the secret chambers help shed some light on the design of pyramids and what the builders intended 4,400 years ago when they put it all together.

Mohamed Khaled / Uni Würzburg

When the pyramid was first excavated in 1836, the tunnels were already collapsed and blocked off access which has only just now been gained almost two centuries on.

While they've been around for yonks the pyramids keep having more secrets for us to discover, with a hidden corridor recently found in the Great Pyramid of Giza.

As is often the case, we don't always know what these new bits of pyramids we keep discovering were actually for, but as greater technology develops we're more able to get an idea of the layout of pyramids.

We're even learning more about how they were built, including how Ancient Egyptians moved massive quantities of limestone around to build the pyramids.

Fortunately they sometimes built the pyramids right next to the limestone quarry to cut down on travel time.