The Ministry of Culture made a new announcement earlier this morning, informing the public about the progress of the excavations. Below you can see the most important points of the announcement:
As the removal of the soil from the third chamber is being continued, the foundations of the side walls were revealed. The wall sits on artificial embankment of well compacted gravel with clay, thickness about 0.40 m. The embankment was standing on the bedrock of the Kasta hill (not the artificial part), which appears as a surface of fragmented slate (or shale).
It is also confirmed that they have found a diaphragmatic floor made of limestone blocks. Parts of this artificial floor, mainly those closest to the side walls, still remain at their initial state, while at the western side of the chamber the blocks have subsided, due to sedimentation of the soil beneath. Now they are trying to remove the limestone blocks from the western side.
They have also found an artificial trench in the shale floor (below the level of the diaphragmatic floor). This trench is filled with silty sand, like the rest of the tomb. The excavators have reached a depth of approximately 1.40 meters inside the trench and they have found a second, well preserved marble door leaf that weighs about 1.5 tones and its dimensions are 2x0.9x0.15. Today they will attempt its removal from the excavation site.
The last part of the announcement informs us about the technical work that has been done to ensure the stability of the construction, the most noticeable activity being the positioning of some sensors inside the third chamber that evaluete the load being imposed on the metallic support beams.