Rivalry between Hong Kong and Singaporean engineers in a bid to design a robotic device to explore hidden air shafts inside the 4,500-year-old Great Pyramid of Giza has apparently led to the intervention of Egypt's top antiquities official.
Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said on his website this month that he had received a mission proposal and a robotic prototype from Hong Kong researcher Ng Tze-chuen, who is working with British engineers on the project. Dr Hawass hinted that the Asian teams should work together, which they had been doing until recently.
'I received a proposal for the collection of the pins and debris sampling inside the shafts leading from the so-called queen's chamber inside the great pyramid from Dr T.C. Ng, an independent researcher from Hong Kong,' he wrote.
'As many know, we received a proposal for a robotic exploration of the shafts from the National University in Singapore [NUS]. But [Dr Ng's] proposal describes devices that can be added to the NUS robot with resistible impact. [This] will significantly enhance the upcoming robotic exploration, by reliably collecting the pins as well as other small artifacts.'
He also praised the Hong Kong designs.
'The Hong Kong robots are totally self-contained and require no resources,' wrote Dr Hawass, who is one of the world's leading archaeologists.