THE SECRETS of the Great Pyramid of Giza might soon be revealed, as a robotics team from England is sending a state-of-the-art machine to unlock its 4,500 year old  mysteries, according to the Independent.

The Pyramid of Khufu was built around 2,560BC, and contains two main rooms: the King’s Chamber and the Queen’s Chamber.

The King’s Chamber has two shafts leading from it, which rise at 45 degree angles and emerge from the pyramid’s edifice. It is believed the shafts were fashioned to allow the king’s soul to escape into the skies.

The Queen’s Chamber contains two similar shafts, which were discovered in 1872. However, in contrast to the passageways in the King’s Chamber, these shafts do not exit out of the side of the building.

In 1992, explorers sent a camera up one of the shafts leading from the south wall of the Queen’s Chamber. It discovered a blockage after 60 metres: a limestone door with two copper handles.

After a later expedition drilled through the limestone door, in 1992, a second door was revealed to exist – 20 centimetres behind the first limestone door.

There has been no consensus on what these shafts might be for – or why two doors would be placed over one of them.

The third robot expedition is led by Dr. Robert Richardson, of the Leeds University of Mechanical Engineering. The preparation for this mission has taken five years, the exploration must be painstakingly careful.

Richardson said:

“We have been working on the project for five years,” he said. “We have no preconceptions. We are trying to gain evidence for other people to draw conclusions. There are two shafts. The north shaft is blocked by a limestone door and nothing has penetrated that door. With the south shaft a previous team has measured the thickness of the stone, drilled through it and put a camera through it and found there was another surface. We are going to determine how thick that is and we could drill through it. We are preparing the robot now and expect to send it up before the end of the year. It’s a big question, and it’s very important not to cause unnecessary damage. We will carry on until we find the answer. We hope to get all the data possible which will be sufficient to answer the questions.”