Lost Egyptian pyramids found?

Friday, August 31, 2012 by: J. D. Heyes
Tags: Egyptian pyramids, lost history, Nile River

(NaturalNews) Have we discovered all of the pyramids built by ancient Egyptians? Perhaps not, according to Google Earth imagery currently under examination by archeologists.

Two sites, located about 90 miles apart, contain unfamiliar groupings of mounds with mysterious features and odd orientations, says Angela Micol of Maiden, N.C., a satellite archaeology researcher.

One site is located in Upper Egypt, Discovery News reported, only a dozen or so miles from the city of Abu Sidhum, located along the Nile River. There, satellite researchers have identified four mounds, each with an ever-larger triangular-shaped plateau (see photos here and here).

Experts say the two larger mounds at this site are about 250 feet wide. They are accompanied by two smaller mounds 100 feet or so wide.

The site appears to be arranged in a distinct manner, with the largest mound extending out to a width of nearly 620 feet - nearly three times the size of Egypt's Great Pyramid.

"Upon closer examination of the formation, this mound appears to have a very flat top and a curiously symmetrical triangular shape that has been heavily eroded with time," Micol wrote in her website, Google Earth Anomalies.

When they zoomed in on the top of the triangle formation, researchers noticed a pair of circular features that are about 20 feet in diameter and which appear almost at the very center of the triangle.

Egypt - Rich in ancient history

The second site lies 90 miles north, near the Fayoum oasis. This possible pyramid site contains a four-sided mound that is about 150 feet wide.

"It has a distinct square center which is very unusual for a mound of this size and it almost seems pyramidal when seen from above," wrote Micol.

The site is located about 1.5 miles southeast of the ancient town of Dimai. Besides the truncated squared mound, researchers have identified three smaller mounds represented in a very clear formation, "similar to the diagonal alignment of the Giza Plateau pyramids," said Micol, in a press release.

"The color of the mounds is dark and similar to the material composition of Dimai's walls which are made of mudbrick and stone," she said.

Dimai, built atop an earlier settlement dating back to the Neolithic period (the New Stone Age, around 7,000 B.C. in Egypt), was founded in the third century B.C. during the reign of Ptolemaic king Ptolemy II Philadelphus (309 B.C. - 246 B.C.)

Satellites, NASA and infrared technology

"The images speak for themselves. It's very obvious what the sites may contain, but field research is needed to verify they are, in fact, pyramids," Micol said in an interview with Sky News.

Egyptologists, along with other archeologists and dig experts will now have to physically travel to the sites and excavate them to see if they truly are new pyramid finds. That could take years and could also become expensive.

The find is significant because all of the known pyramids discovered thus far were built around Cairo. Researchers, so far, have discovered 138 known pyramids.

Pyramids were first constructed in Egypt in the 28th century B.C. as tombs for Pharaohs, the title taken by the god-like leader of successive Egyptian empires. The most famous of these are located at Giza, on the outskirts of Cairo.

They are vast, complex and elaborate structures that required as many as 100,000 workers and took many years to build. They have been held up as engineering and construction marvels, given the technology of the time and sheer size of the structures.

NASA satellite technology has also been used to locate 17 additional, previously unknown pyramids, more than 1,000 tombs and as many as 3,000 settlements using the satellites' infrared technology.

Sources:

http://news.discovery.com

http://www.dailymail.co.uk

http://news.discovery.com