Great Pyramid Artefact Found In Scotland

Great Pyramid artefact found in Scotland

Why in News?

• One of only three artefacts ever recovered from inside Egypt’s Great Pyramid has been found in a misplaced cigar tin in a Scottish university collection.
• The fragment of cedar wood, which has been found to date back 5,000 years to the building of the pyramid at Giza, was first discovered in the late 19th century but had been missing for more than 70 years.
• A record discovered in 2001 appeared to show the fragment — found alongside a ball and a bronze hook thought to be used for construction — had been donated to the University of Aberdeen.
• The fragment — initially measuring five inches or around 13 centimetres but now in several pieces — was first discovered in the Great Pyramid’s Queen’s Chamber in 1872 by engineer Waynman Dixon.
• It made its way to the Scottish city because of a link between Dixon and a medical doctor named James Grant who studied in Aberdeen and went to Egypt to treat cholera in the mid-1860s.
• Carbon dating results, placed the wood at somewhere between 3341 and 3094 BC, long before the construction of the pyramid. This supports the theory the items were left behind by builders rather than by later explorers.