Dixon Relics artifact from the Great Pyramid of Giza discovered

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Late last year, assistant curator Abeer Eladany was looking at items in the University of Aberdeen’s museum collections when she came across an item that didn’t seem to belong.

Eladany, who is originally from Egypt and had worked at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo for ten years, noted that of the country former flag on a modest cigar box. She opened it to look for small pieces of wood inside – and, after checking it with museum documents, she realized she had come across a lost artifact from the Great Pyramid of Giza, the center of an enduring archaeological mystery.

Only three objects have ever been recovered from the Great Pyramid – a triad of items known as the “Dixon Relics” said the University of Aberdeen.

Two of them, a ball and a hook, are now housed in the British Museum. But the third object, fragments belonging to a much larger piece of cedar wood, had been missing for more than 70 years, the university added.
Abeer Eladany with the cigar box and pieces of wood.

Abeer Eladany with the cigar box and pieces of wood. Credit: University of Aberdeen

“Once I looked at the numbers in our Egyptian archives, I immediately knew what it was, and that it was in fact clearly visible in the wrong collection,” Eladeny said in a university press release.

“I am an archaeologist and have worked on excavations in Egypt, but I never thought it would be here in North East Scotland that I would find something so important to the heritage of my own country.”

The Great Pyramid is 139 meters (about 455 feet) high and was built about 4,500 years ago. It is the largest of the group of pyramids at Giza, the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and a major tourist attraction.
The pyramid consists of narrow, tight tunnels, which are difficult for people to climb through. In the 18th and 19th centuries, archaeologists and researchers tried to work their way into interior chambers. To prevent further damage to the ancient structures, modern archaeologists now use technology such as robots and remote cameras to explore its interior; in the Great Pyramid, they have so far only been given access to three known rooms.

The relics were first discovered in 1872 in the Pyramid’s Queen’s Chamber by engineer Waynman Dixon. He was assisted by his friend James Grant, a graduate of the University of Aberdeen; their discovery of the relics, according to the release, was widely reported at the time.

The Pyramids of Giza in Egypt, photographed March 13, 2020.

The Pyramids of Giza in Egypt, photographed March 13, 2020. Credit: Mohamed el-Shahed / AFP / Getty Images

Dixon took the ball and the hook, and Grant took the piece of wood, the university said. After Grant’s death in 1895, his collections were bequeathed to the university, and his daughter donated a “five inch piece of cedar” in 1946.

But because the piece was never correctly classified, it remained hidden for decades despite an ‘extensive search’, until Eladany accidentally discovered it in the Asia collection.

“The university’s collections are huge – they amount to hundreds of thousands of items – so looking for them was like finding a needle in a haystack,” she said. “I couldn’t believe it when I realized what was in this innocent-looking cigar can.”

There are several theories about the purpose and date of the wood of origin – some researchers believe it is part of a larger measuring instrument, which they believe may provide clues as to how the towering pyramids were built.

The cigar box with wooden fragments was added to the museum's Asia collection, but actually housed the Egyptian relics.

The cigar box with wooden fragments was added to the museum’s Asia collection, but actually housed the Egyptian relics. Credit: University of Aberdeen

The radiocarbon dating process has revealed that the fragments date back to approximately 3341-3094 BC. – centuries before the construction of the Great Pyramid. Covid-19 restrictions had delayed the dating of the ‘lost’ cedar fragment, the university said. The larger piece of wood it came from, still in the Great Pyramid, was last seen by a robotic camera in 1993 and is now inaccessible.

This suggests that the relics were original to the pyramid’s construction, rather than being left by those in the completed pyramid later.

“It is even older than we imagined. This may be because the date refers to the age of the wood, perhaps from the center of a long-lived tree,” said Neil Curtis, head of museums and special collections at the University of London. Aberdeen, in the release. “Alternatively, it may be because of the rarity of trees in ancient Egypt, which meant that wood was scarce, cherished and recycled or maintained for many years.” He added that the discovery could “revive” interest in the relics.

“It is now up to scholars to debate its use and whether it was deliberately deposed, as happened later during the New Kingdom, when Pharaohs tried to emphasize continuity with the past by including antiquities.

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