'In his memoirs, British consul general Henry Salt recounts how he investigated an underground system of "catacombs" at Giza in 1817 in the company of Italian explorer Giovanni Caviglia,' [Andrew] Collins said.
The document records that the two explored the caves for a distance of 'several hundred yards,' coming upon four large chambers from which stretched further cave passageways.
With the help of British Egyptologist Nigel Skinner-Simpson, Collins reconstructed Salt's exploration on the plateau, eventually locating the entrance to the lost catacombs in an apparently unrecorded tomb west of the Great Pyramid.
Meanwhile...
Zahi Hawass, chief of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, has dismissed the discovery.
'There are no new discoveries to be made at Giza. We know everything about the plateau,' he stated.
Those are just the sorts of words scientists should never utter, for no matter if it's biolgoy, history, or archaeology--someone's going to come along to prove you wrong. I'd be interested if Collins' claims will be borne out. If so, it's a significant discovery. If not, it will be yet another spurious claim about the mysteries of Aegypt.
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