Lost artefact from Great Pyramid of Giza found in Aberdeen cigar box

A long-lost artefact from the Great Pyramid of Giza, one of only three objects ever recovered from inside the last remaining wonder of the ancient world, has been found in a chance discovery Aberdeen, a city in Scotland. 

The chance discovery was made by a member of staff at the University of Aberdeen during a collection review.

The small fragment of 5,000-year-old wood is one of a trio of items discovered by engineer Waynman Dixon inside the pyramid’s Queens Chamber in 1872.

The piece of cedar -- which is believed may have been used during the pyramid's construction -- was donated to the university in 1946 but then could not be located.

Curatorial assistant Abeer Eladany, originally from Egypt, found it while conducting a review of items housed in the university's Asia collection.

Known as the ‘Dixon relics’, two of them – a ball and hook – are housed in the British Museum, but the wood was missing.

Covid restrictions intially delayed the dating of the rediscovered cedar fragment.

Results have recently been returned and show that the wood can be dated to somewhere in the period 3341-3094 BC.

The cedar fragment originally belonged to a much larger piece of wood, which was most recently seen in a 1993 exploration of the interior of the pyramid.