An Anti-Indiana Jones is Solving the Pyramids’ Secrets
Using 3-D models, one archaeologist is recording the structures’ exact measurements.
Picture of Yukinori Kawae standing on top of a pyramid for the best view
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Kawae builds precise 3-D models of the pyramids using photographs and videos. Here, he stands on the top of a pyramid for the best view.
Photograph by Momen Badr
By Nina Strochlic
This story appears in the November 2016 issue of National Geographic magazine.
YUKINORI KAWAE Nat Geo explorer
When Yukinori Kawae explores the Great Pyramids at Giza, he isn’t after treasure or lost chambers—he’s looking for dimensions. For all that the pyramids have been dug, scanned, and photographed, the exact measurements of many are still unknown.
Kawae first saw the pyramids in 1992 as a 19-year-old traveling from Japan to study them. He was disappointed: They were much smaller than he’d imagined. Today, as an archaeologist, he values every inch of the pyramids in his mission to preserve their unique stone construction.
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2016/11/field-notes-egypt-pyramids-3-d-models/
