A team of Italian and Scottish archaeologists claimed to have discovered a "lost city" beneath the Giza pyramids, a revelation that could challenge the established history of these ancient monuments.

They were not, so the polemic went, the work of 'puny' man, but instead those 'giants of Mars'. Yes, the Pyramids of Giza - those monuments to god-like splendour that have stood for more than 4,000 ...