Is there an underground city beneath the pyramids?
In March 2025, claims circulated that a vast underground city had long sat hidden under the Giza pyramids. What does the academic community at large think?
Image: A tunnel entrance to the Great Pyramid in Giza | Shutterstock.com
In March 2025, news broke that researchers had found evidence of an ‘underground city’ beneath Egypt’s Giza pyramid complex. This Giza site is home to the world-famous structures of the Great Pyramid and the Great Sphinx.
The concept of subterranean spaces beneath the pyramids isn’t new. In fact, some are already known to exist. As reported by Sky HISTORY series Ancient Aliens, it’s even theorised that a ‘Hall of Records’ lies under a paw of the Sphinx.
But has an entire city really long been hidden under the Giza Plateau? The claim has drawn more than a little scepticism from academic circles. Here at Sky HISTORY, we are eager to investigate the matter for ourselves.
What’s all this talk of an ‘underground city’?
In March 2025, Italian researchers made the sensational claim that they had confirmed the city’s existence. How? Reportedly, by sending radar pulses into the ground to detect approximate dimensions of structures lying under the surface.
According to a paper published by the researchers, the city extends over 4,000 feet directly below the pyramids. This includes eight vertical, cylinder-shaped columns more than 2,100 feet deep.
The study was led by Corrado Malanga from Italy’s University of Pisa and Filippo Biondi from Scotland’s University of Strathclyde.
A deeper dive into the research method
Radar pulses were beamed from two space satellites and towards the pyramid complex. The team subsequently analysed how these signals bounced back. The findings of this analysis were used to create 3D images of supposed underground structures.
These included staircase-like structures circling each of the eight columns, or what the researchers interpreted as wells. Indeed, the team claimed to have identified an underground water system.
Could researchers be closer to finding the ‘Hall of Records’?
The paper asserts that the hidden structures are about 38,000 years old. To put this into perspective, the Great Pyramid is widely regarded to be about 4,600 years old.
The research team has even suggested that the legendary ‘Hall of Records’ could lie somewhere within the city. In the 1930s, psychic Edgar Cayce claimed that this ancient library not only existed but was also built by refugees from Atlantis.
The researchers’ paper about the alleged ‘underground city’ at Giza has not officially been peer-reviewed - but academics have had their say on it…
How have academics reacted to the ‘discovery’?
Who better to discuss the study’s findings than an expert in both radar technology and archaeology? The University of Denver’s Professor Lawrence Conyers certainly fits this description.
Can radar pulses really penetrate more than 4,000 feet into the ground? Not according to Conyers, who told the Daily Mail that, as a result, the paper’s conclusions about an underground city are ‘a huge exaggeration’.
Dr Zahi Hawass, an Egyptologist and Egypt’s former minister of antiquities, has also criticised the researchers’ claims. ‘The claim of using radar inside the pyramid is false, and the techniques employed are neither scientifically approved nor validated,’ Dr Hawass told The National.
According to Professor Conyers, only ‘targeted excavations’ can confirm whether the findings are genuine. ‘They are using all kinds of fancy proprietary data analysis software,’ he observed, and admitted he could not tell how well it actually worked.
Was there already evidence of an underground city?
There was at least strong evidence of intriguing subterranean spaces at the Giza site. In 2019, historian Dr Bettany Hughes reported, ‘tantalising clues that the Sphinx sits right on top of a network of chambers and tunnels.’
She speculated that these tunnels could be linked with the nearby Great Pyramid. Dr Hughes also cited some researchers’ hopes that ‘these hidden tunnels may lead us to new, undiscovered treasures.’
Meanwhile, Professor Conyers has acknowledged that the Mayans ‘built pyramids on top of the entrances of caves or caverns that had ceremonial meaning to them.’ So, the idea of small structures like shafts and chambers lying under the pyramids certainly isn’t inconceivable.
A dispute that looks set to run and run…
All in all, then, is there really an underground city just waiting to be unearthed beneath the Giza pyramids? It could take some time — and many excavations — before the dispute is settled once and for all.
In the meantime, you can have fun exploring more about what historians do know about Ancient Egypt. A good start would be subscribing to the Sky HISTORY Newsletter. That way, you can get regular updates about new discoveries.
