Pyramid-like structures in Egypt spotted by an amateur satellite archaeologist using Google Earth last year are being examined further, after yielding cavities and shafts in the preliminary ground-proofing expedition.
The mysterious structures were first spotted by Angela Micol in North Carolina, some 5,000 miles from the site in the Egyptian desert, when Micol noticed
an unusual grouping of mounds, Discovery News reported.
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Micol hypothesized that the structures were once pyramids lost to time.
"The images speak for themselves," Micol said of the sighting last year. "It's very obvious what the sites may contain, but field research is needed to verify they are, in fact, pyramids."
Some authoritative geologists and geo-archaeologists were skeptical, however, and initially downplayed her findings, claiming the images were just "Google Earth anomalies" and nothing more than windswept natural rock formations, which are commonplace in Egypt.
Since her discovery, Micol said she was contacted by "an Egyptian couple who claimed to have important historical references for both sites."
The husband was a former ambassador to the Sultanate of Oman, Medhat Kamal El-Kady, and his wife, Haidy Farouk Abdel-Hamid, an attorney who had previously been a counsel for the Egyptian president. The couple also has an extensive collection of old maps, rare documents, and historical manuscripts.
In an interview with Discovery News, the Egyptian couple claimed multiple maps and documents label the structures in question as pyramids.
"For this case only, we have more than 34 maps and 12 old documents, mostly by scientists and senior officials of irrigation," El-Kady and Farouk said.
"They would be the greatest pyramids known to mankind," the couple added, referring to two buried pyramids near the known Lahoun and Hawara pyramid sites. "We would not exaggerate if we said the finding can overshadow the Pyramids of Giza."
Near the Abu Sidhum site, a preliminary on-the-ground expedition has already occurred.
"Those mounds are definitely hiding an ancient site below them," Mohamed Aly Soliman, who led the preliminary expedition near Abu Sidhum, told Discovery News.
"First of all, the land around them is just a normal flat land. It is just desert -- sand and stones," he said. "The mounds are different: You will find pottery everywhere, seashells and transported layers. These are different layers, not belonging to the place, and were used by the Egyptians to hide and protect their buried sites."
Unfortunately, due to Egypt's social and political unrest, Micol said she has found "no one from the Egyptian academic community who is interested in finding out about these sites at this time."
But Micol is hopeful.
"Now that we have ground proof and historical evidence," she said, "my goal is to go to Egypt with a team of U.S. scientists and videographers to help validate the evidence found by the expedition team and to prove if these sites are lost pyramid complexes."
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