LEIPZIG: German Egyptologists poured cold water on Monday on highly publicized plans to send a robotic camera into a shaft in the Great Pyramid while millions of television viewers around the world watch.

And the man who invented the robotic technology behind the attempt says nothing sensational will be found when the robot drills a hole in a stone block at the end of the 20-cm-wide shaft to see what is beyond it.

Both dismissed speculation that the globally televised event, timed to air on prime-time television in America on the National Geographic, would turn up any glittering treasures.

“Nobody is going to peer inside and say he sees wonderful things,” said Dr Frank Steinmann, a leading German Egyptologist at Leipzig University.

Speculation has focussed on the possibility that the “door” could hide treasures or the coffin of King Cheops who built the Great Pyramid 4,500 years ago.

Or it could reveal mystical inscriptions including the legendary “Book of Thoth” containing the secrets of life and death - according to those New Age adherents.

But Steinmann said he doubts all of that, noting, “There are no inscriptions anywhere else inside the Great Pyramid.”

He said it is unlikely that portion of the shaft - a scant 16 metres from the south face of the pyramid - will contain anything.

The German engineer who first explored the shaft in 1993 was also doubtful.

“I don’t expect anything beyond that point except an extension of the shaft,” Rudolf Gantenbrink told German television.

Gantenbrink developed the miniature robot on treads which explored a total of four shaft inside the Great Pyramid in 1992 and 1993.

The slab, unique in that it was carved from lighter, more ornamental limestone than any other stones in the interior of the pyramid, was fitted with two copper handles which bore what appeared to be engraved seals.

In a two-hour live broadcast, a new custom-built robot fitted with fibre-optic lenses and high-resolution cameras will climb up the shaft and bore a hole through the slab to see what is beyond.

In case the robot fails in its task or reveals nothing of note, Dr Hawass will take viewers on a tour of the workers’ cemetery south of the pyramid complex. There he will open a sealed burial sarcophagus.

The sarcophagus belonged to an Old Kingdom official “who may have played a role in the construction of the pyramids” at the Giza Plateau, Hawass said.

If it contains a mummy, it could be the oldest intact embalmed Egyptian mummy ever found.—dpa