Tag Archives: Giza Plateau

Ancient Aliens, Egypt’s Giza Plateau

The Sphinx

5 Comments

Ancient Egypt has always fascinated me and especially the Spinx. Is there an ancient library of gold tablet or what under it? They have found a chamber underneath it so something is definitely there…

The Sphinx

There has never been a satisfactory answer to what the Sphinx actually is or was. Anyone who goes to Giza can see for himself or herself that there is something ‘wrong’ with the Sphinx. It only takes an instant. The body is gigantic and the head is just a pimple. The Egyptians never did anything like that, they were always meticulous about proportions in their art. So how is it that we have this monster with a tiny head sitting there in the sand, then?

There are several other things wrong with the Sphinx. They are:

The back is flat. Who ever saw a lion with a flat back, no big chest, and no mane?

The Sphinx is sitting in a deep hole in the ground. Why is that? Why is it not sitting somewhere high up so that it can show off?

There is a ruined temple right in front of the Sphinx, with a wall practically up against its nose, and no door in that wall. Why obstruct the view of the Sphinx from the front like that? And if the temple was for worshipping the Sphinx, why is there no access from the temple to the Sphinx, so that you can’t even get to it?

The pit in which the Sphinx sits seems to be deeply eroded, as if by flows of water. What caused all that? It looks as if water has poured down the sides. On the other hand, there are no such vertical erosion patterns on the Sphinx itself, which instead has clear horizontal erosion patterns. How can these two different patterns at right angles to each other be reconciled? And what could possibly have caused either of them?

None of this makes any sense if you think about it. Of course, many people don’t think. They just gawp and move on, their brains in neutral.

But when my wife and I first saw the Sphinx many years ago, we just stood there in astonishment and both agreed that the whole thing was wrong, wrong, wrong.

So now after many years of work, we think we have found some answers. Naturally, any new idea about anything that ‘everybody knows’ makes conventionally thinking people enraged, and makes anti-establishment people delighted. No prizes for guessing which side I’m on.

Let me first declare my position on what has become something of an entrenched notion amongst my fellow anti-Establishmentarians. I do not believe that the Sphinx is 12,500 years old. Nor do I believe in ‘ancient rain’.

I do believe that the Sphinx is older than conventionally believed. But I do not believe it is thousands of years older, or anything of that kind.

I do believe there is water erosion at the Sphinx site, but I do not believe it had anything to do with ‘ancient rain’, nor do I believe there was anything there to be eroded at the time any ‘ancient rain’ fell.

So what is the answer, then?

The water of the Nile in those days, at the time of inundation once a year (which no longer happens because of the Aswan dam), came right up to the edge of the Sphinx Temple, where there are even quays in front. So what I believe happened was that the water of the Nile was let into the Sphinx Pit, which I now call the Sphinx Moat, by some simple water-raising devices, led along the narrow channel between the Sphinx Temple and the Valley Temple (the two structures in front of the Sphinx), and its flow was controlled by a series of sluices and water gates.

The signs of these sluices and gates, with their many bolt holes and so forth, no longer exist, because new stones and cement have been laid over them. But not to worry! I took plenty of photographs of them before they disappeared, and those are all reproduced in our book. Everyone can then see it all very clearly. The reason why the temple wall is in front of the Sphinx is to act as the fourth barrier to the water. The reason why there is no door in the wall is that it would have let the water out.

The horizontal erosion on the side of the Sphinx (where it is not covered by ‘restoration stones’) is because the Sphinx was sitting in the middle of a moat filled with water. The vertical erosion on the sides of the pit, especially the south side, is because of the continual dredging of the Moat due to the windblown sand accumulating there. Every time the Moat was dredged, water poured down in torrents onto the sides, leading to vertical erosion, accentuated by the natural cavities in the limestone bedrock.

So I think the Sphinx was, amongst other things, an island!

This immediately solves the puzzle of the evidence recorded by the fifth century BCE Greek historian Herodotus, who said that King Cheops let water in from the Nile to surround an island at Giza. Here it is!

Whose Head is on the Sphinx?

So we have got an island. Now what do we do with it? And why is King Cheops’s head the size of a pimple on the front of this large flat-backed lion, surrounded by water? What’s going on?

But wait! Who says that is King Cheops’s head? Some say it is King Chephren’s head, but if you have ever seen Chephren’s head on that huge statue in the Cairo Museum, you know they look nothing alike at all, since Chephren has a long face and the Sphinx has a round face, just for starters, and there’s plenty else that’s not the same too.

At this point of my wonderings, I began to feel really uncomfortable. I generally know when something doesn’t fit. I may not know what does fit, but I more often know what does not.

And that face is neither Cheops (not that we know what he really looked like anyway, as the only likeness of him that survives is a three inch-high ivory statuette, which could be your Uncle Tony or even your Auntie Madge for that matter) nor old Chephren Long-Face. So who is it?

It was at this point that I discovered one of those forgotten sources which keep falling into my lap, and in this case it was an article written by a German archaeologist named Ludwig Borchardt long before the Sphinx was excavated, when only its head and neck were sticking above the sand. Borchardt used to go and stand there and look at it. In those days, you could look the Sphinx in the eye and he wouldn’t even flinch, in fact he smiled back. Nowadays, he’s very stuck up, with his head high above us if we stand at his feet, so you can’t make out the details of his head all that well.

Borchardt got to thinking. He noticed that the Sphinx was wearing eye-paint stripes (no comment, pharaohs have the right to do what they like as consenting adults in the privacy of their own Sphinx Pits), and he knew that those were not worn in the period known as the Old Kingdom, when Cheops and Chephren lived. He noticed the details of the stripe patterns in the strange headdress worn by the Sphinx. The face had to be that of a pharaoh, since this headdress was the sacred religious headdress of the pharaoh known as a nemes. But Borchardt, who was head of the German Institute at Cairo and therefore knew a thing or two, realised that those stripe patterns were also not used in the Old Kingdom.

He started to do some research on nemes headdresses, and he discovered that those particular stripe patterns were only used in the Middle Kingdom period, hundreds of years later than Cheops and Chephren. He wrote this all up in technical form and published it in a distinguished scholarly periodical (in German of course, but I have translated it and it appears as an appendix to our book), and concluded that the Sphinx had been carved in the Middle Kingdom Period, not in the Old Kingdom period.

But everybody laughed at poor old Borchardt. Who ever heard of such a thing? The Middle Kingdom! Borchardt must have gone crazy! And then the Sphinx was excavated in 1926, and finally completely excavated in 1936, and it was perfectly clear to everyone that the Sphinx was much older than the Middle Kingdom. But everybody forgot that Borchardt had never seen the Sphinx’s body at the time he wrote the article, he was only talking about the head.

So I have reopened the case and concluded that the head was recarved in the Middle Kingdom, just as Borchardt said, and what is more, I believe I can even identify precisely which pharaoh’s face that is. Of course, to find that out, you really need to see the book.

However, it is all very well identifying the face on the Sphinx. Some people might be satisfied just doing that. But no, it’s like watching a film noir without knowing the ending. Even if you know whodunnit, you still want to know the motive.

“Everybody knows” Herd Mentality

So what was the Sphinx before it had that guy’s face carved on it? Well, to figure that one out you have to try to figure out what the Sphinx was before that pharaoh got his chisels on it. This draws one’s attention to the flat back. “Everybody knows” that the Sphinx has the body of a lion. As soon as I hear that “everybody knows” something, I know that it must be wrong. I have a pathologically anti-herd mentality. All you have to do is tell me “everybody knows” something, and I will instantly disbelieve it. That is because crowds are always wrong. Crowds have about as much sense as a mollusc.

I started from the premise that the Sphinx was not a lion at all. Millions of people see it every year, from all over the world, and they all “know” that it is a lion. So that means that it cannot possibly be one. They “know” it is a lion because they have been told that it is a lion. The Germans were told that Hitler was their saviour and so they “knew” it, the Russians all “knew” that Stalin was like a gentle father, who would look after them. Yes, everybody, or at least everybody they knew, “knew” these things. And people also all once “knew” that the Earth was flat, and that the Sun went round the Earth. Those things were all “known.” But were they true?

If it wasn’t a lion, what was it? Well, it had to be an animal with a straight back, with no huge chest, and no mane. It also had to be an animal that crouched like that with its legs stuck out in front of it. (There is no use looking too closely at the paws, as they are completely covered in restoration stones, and have been shaped to look like “what everybody knows,” in order to re-confirm the consensus falsehood which everybody has agreed to believe in.)

Anubis – Guardian of the Necropolis

The Sphinx is crouching there at the entrance to the Necropolis like a guardian. Well, there it is! It is a guard dog! The ancient Egyptians had a god called Anubis, who was a crouching wild dog, generally referred to as a jackal (although strictly speaking there were no jackals in Egypt, and Anubis was really a wild dog species which is now extinct). Anubis was the guardian of the Necropolis, the guardian of the dead, and he was often depicted in the precise position of the Sphinx – and famously in a statue found in the Tomb of Tutankhamun as well – so that his image is familiar to almost anyone who has ever had an interest in ancient Egypt.

In the comments i have posted a picture which shows how the recarved head of the Sphinx was carved out of the neck stump which remained on the Sphinx after the original statue was mutilated by the rampaging mobs who smashed up everything they could on the Giza Plateau during the period of chaos known as the First Intermediate Period, between 2200 and 2000 BCE.

It was the easiest thing in the world to knock the ears and nose off the Sphinx when the Sphinx was Anubis. You couldn’t put them back because the Sphinx was carved out of the solid bedrock, and the pieces must have been smashed to bits anyway. So the later exhibitionist pharaoh could even tell himself he was doing a pious act and ‘restoring’ the statue by flaunting himself, just as, say, Madonna helps the world, doesn’t she? Tom Cruise is also saving the world, remember? Yes, we all know that all celebrities are getting their pictures in the papers only for noble causes, and it has nothing to do with wanting people to look at them, or with such a low thing as vanity.

Speaking of movie stars, the Sphinx is now so botoxed and has had so much plastic surgery from crazy ‘restoration’ (which is all shown in great detail in our book) that he could easily get a lead part in a blockbuster. But his ‘nose job’ didn’t go so well, as it is still missing. It was hacked off in the 13th century by a fanatical imam named Sheikh Mohammed, who wished to purge Egypt of non-Islamic influences. He got as far as the nose, at least. (The story that the nose was shot off by Napoleon’s soldiers is false.)

So now we have a crouching Anubis as an island, surrounded by a little lake. And at last we have something which students of the ancient texts can suddenly recognise. For the most ancient surviving Egyptian texts, known as the Pyramid Texts, often speak of a sacred place associated with the Giza Necropolis called Jackal Lake. And here it is!

Now we are getting somewhere. It is all beginning to make sense. In our book we gather together the many ancient texts which refer to Anubis guarding the Necropolis, situated at Giza, being beside a causeway, and being very large. We also reproduce Fourth Dynasty Giza tomb reliefs showing a giant Anubis, which may be intended as actual depictions of the Sphinx.

Secret Chamber Beneath the Sphinx

Most people who are intrigued by Egyptian mysteries have been wondering for a long time whether there might be any secret chamber beneath the Sphinx. I have crawled around inside the Sphinx, and I describe the tunnel which exists in the rear portion of the Sphinx’s body, as well as the vertical tunnel carved out of the bedrock beneath the Sphinx’s rump, and reproduce photos of these.

Then an amazing thing happened. I came across a passage in one of the old books which I collect, in this case one published in 1715, which described a chamber beneath the Sphinx and gave an eyewitness account of it! I was astounded. The book referred to earlier accounts of this chamber, but neglected to say who had written them or when they had been published. Slight problem! How was I to find these books?

If you went into the British Library and told a librarian you needed a book published before 1715 which described a chamber beneath the Sphinx, you would be told to come back when you had the author’s name or the title of the book. All I had to go on was ‘a book mentioning the Sphinx before 1715’, so how did I do it?

That is where my special abilities come in…

I was eventually able to find 281 years’ worth of published eyewitness accounts of the chamber beneath the Sphinx, including detailed information about exactly where it was, its size, and the fact that it contained the remains of a wooden coffin. Because the chamber was described as having hieroglyphics on the walls, I am certain that it was what archaeologists call ‘an intruded burial’, but it must have been a royal one, as a shaft was carefully constructed and a chamber cut in one of the most important monuments in Egypt, within the sacred precincts of the royal Necropolis. The shaft was sealed with cement by Émile Baraize in 1926.

A century earlier, Henry Salt also sealed some openings and passages elsewhere at the Sphinx, and was sharply criticised for it by the French Count de Forbin. All of this is described in full detail in our book. So, yes, there is a ‘secret chamber’ beneath the Sphinx. And the information in our book proves this beyond all possibility of doubt. But no, it is not original and does not date from the time of the Sphinx’s carving. Also, it is empty, so there is no gold or treasure. But if we could just read what it says on the walls!

Another thing I was able to demonstrate is that the Sphinx and the three Giza pyramids were part of a single unified design concept of the Giza Plateau. The position and size of the Sphinx is determined precisely in relation to the three pyramids, in a manner never before noticed. This is shown and explained at great length in the book, and it is not really possible to summarise that material, as it is too lengthy and detailed for a brief description. I can say, however, that it was part of a resurrection cult. In the process of explaining this in detail, I even have occasion to explain the true nature of those bizarre reliefs in a crypt at Denderah which have excited a great deal of speculation, the ones with the ‘lightbulbs’, although they are 2,500 years more recent, and their only connection is through the symbolism.

I hope everybody will get a lot out of looking through our book, and, who knows, maybe even reading it. Stranger things have happened.

Oh yes, I almost forgot: ‘Woof! Woof!’

Award winning documentary on the sphinx.

Source

Read more from Auricmedia:

[carousel-horizontal-posts-content-slider]
Ancient Aliens, Egypt’s Giza Plateau

Egypt’s Giza Plateau

Leave a comment

Fascinating place this Giza Plateau and I think, that it was not humans who built it. There are numerous remote viewers, which have remote viewed this place and it has always alien elements in it. Here’s something about the place:

There is no other place on Earth like Egypt’s Giza Plateau. Anyone with even a slight interest in history and civilisation is aware of this fact. For on this plateau there stands the Great Pyramids and their sculpted guardian, the Great Sphinx.

Although there are plenty of theories, no one really knows who built the Giza Pyramids or carved the Sphinx, or when they were constructed. Any statement as to who built them, or when they were built, is pure theory. In light of all the various theories concerning these mysterious structures, I don’t think the theoretical nature of the pyramid builders can be emphasised enough.

What stands out at Giza more than anything else is not only the magnitude of the construction of the pyramids, but the internal design of the Great Pyramid; three chambers, of which one is subterranean, and their connecting passageways. The passageway that leads to the so-called King’s Chamber rises to a height of thirty-six feet! On the other hand, all other passageways were not built tall enough to accommodate the average man or woman.

There is also the unique configuration of the King’s Chamber as well as the Queen’s Chamber. Both of these contain two shafts, one on each side of the chamber. The Queen’s Chamber contains a corbelled niche built into its east wall, and the King’s Chamber’s ceiling is composed of five granite slabs stacked one atop the other. Why these chambers were constructed in this manner is unknown.

The official theory is that the pyramids were tombs, and that King Khufu kept changing his mind where his burial chamber was to be placed; thus, the reason for three chambers in the Great Pyramid. However, in comparison to typical Egyptian burial methods (the mastaba and the tombs in the Valley of the Kings), the Giza pyramids, and particularly the Great Pyramid, do not fare well within the Egyptian concept of a tomb.

The Egyptians believed in an afterlife, and the tomb was an important part of that belief. As the tomb of King Tutankhamun testifies, the deceased’s chamber of internment was to be decorated with art and filled with that person’s possessions. Why they practiced this ritual was not for superstitious reasons, as one might suspect. It was practical, according to their beliefs, and aimed at preventing that person’s energy (spirit) from being re-absorbed into Nature’s spiritual force.

For the ancient Egyptians, Ba animated a living person, whereas Ka was the energy emanating from that person. Although not an exact analogy, the Ka and the Ba are what traditional Western thought might refer as spirit and soul. Another important aspect of Egyptian belief represented immortality, the ankh, depicted as the crested ibis.

The Ka, represented in art by up-stretched arms, was believed to be the part of man’s consciousness and energy (man’s spirit or inner quality) that related to the immediate world. It is the part of us connected to the physical body; where it lived, its possessions, as well as the people he or she was acquainted with. The Ka can be likened to one’s personality, which upon death is separated from the body, and naturally seeks a way to once again take form. The Ba, represented by a winged human head, or sometimes a human-faced bird, represented the part of consciousness that is immortal.

When someone passed away, it was their goal as well as the hope of the family, that the deceased’s Ka would seek a way to remain united with their Ba. To help accomplish this eternal union, the possessions of the deceased were gathered together by the family and placed in the tomb with the mummified body. Mummification prevented the body from decomposing and returning to the soil of the Earth, whereas the tomb, with the deceased’s possessions, served as a ‘home’ for the Ka. As a result, the Ka maintained its identity in the spiritual world and could seek out its Ba in order to achieve ankh, which resulted in the resurrected and glorified form of the deceased beyond the limits of an earthly realm.

Like the pharaonic tombs carved into the Valley of the Kings, royal mastabas built during the early dynasties – some as early as 3000 BCE – were also designed with ‘home’ in mind, as that home relates to a person’s Ka. Case in point: from the sixth dynasty, Mereruka’s mastaba was crafted in mansion-like proportion with thirty-two rooms and adorned with statues and art depicting, for example, scenes of wildlife along the Nile River.

The traits of Egyptian domestic life, so beautifully incorporated into the design of their tombs, are not found in the Giza pyramids. The Giza pyramids contain no art or hieroglyphics of any kind, very uncharacteristic of Egyptian tombs. So why is it the case that the Giza pyramids are generally considered to be tombs of fourth dynasty Pharaohs? The reason is because of an association of the Giza complex with another development ten miles south at Sakkara where the Egyptians really did build tombs as pyramids.

At Sakkara in 1881, the French Egyptologist, Gaston Maspero (1846–1916) discovered that the subterranean chamber of the Pepi I Pyramid (second ruler of the sixth dynasty) was engraved with hieroglyphics. Over the course of subsequent explorations, it was discovered that a total of five pyramids at Sakkara also contained inscriptions, from the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth dynasties of the Old Kingdom. In 1952, Dr. Samuel A.B. Mercer (1879–1969), Professor of Semitic Languages and Egyptology at the University of Toronto, published a complete English translation of “The Pyramid Texts” in a volume of the same name. According to Mercer, The Pyramid Texts contained ‘words to be spoken’ concerning funerary ritual, magical formulae, and religious hymns, as well as prayers and petitions on behalf of the deceased king.1

With the pyramids at Sakkara being confirmed as tombs the associative logic came to be that all pyramids must be tombs. Furthermore, since there are two cemeteries (mastaba fields) to the east and west of the northernmost Giza pyramid, assuming that all pyramids are tombs was a likely conclusion. However, the condition of the Sakkara pyramids – most of which are believed constructed after the Giza pyramids – poses serious problems in this logical association. Of the pyramids at Sakkara only Djoser’s ‘Step Pyramid’ is in good condition, although not really a true pyramid. (The Step Pyramid was originally a mastaba that was modified into a pyramid.) All other pyramids at Sakkara, most of which belong to the fifth and sixth dynasties are in ruins today and resemble mounds of rubble.

According to a consensus of Egyptologists, Djoser’s Step Pyramid at Sakkara was constructed during the third dynasty and was the forerunner to the fourth dynasty pyramids on the Giza Plateau. After pyramid development at Giza, for whatever reason, the focus of pyramid building shifted back to Sakkara.

The easily observable and obvious differences in the Giza pyramids and the Sakkara pyramids, which were all supposed to have been built during the same era, are a problem. Clearly, the construction techniques, as well as materials, for the Giza pyramids were different than those at Sakkara, or else we would expect pyramids at both sites to have stood the test of time in a similar manner. They did not. The important point is why. Did the engineers and construction workers of the Old Kingdom not pass along their methods from the fourth to the fifth dynasty? It seems they did not, which is a very curious occurrence given the stability of Egyptian civilisation. It may also be the case that the fourth dynasty Egyptians did not build the Giza pyramids.

No other pyramid in Egypt (the world for that matter) is like the Giza pyramids, and in particular the Great Pyramid. Additionally, there is no direct evidence to support the claim that the Great Pyramid, or the other Giza pyramids were tombs. Nor is there any record left by its builders as to what it was for or when it was built. This creates a problem of explanation. If the Great Pyramid was not a tomb, then what was it? A mystical temple for initiation ritual, or a public works project designed to unify the country? Or, was it something else entirely? Theories are abundant, but the only theory I am aware of that covers all aspects of the Great Pyramid’s interior design, is Christopher Dunn’s theory that it was a device. According to Dunn, the Great Pyramid was a machine for producing power by converting tectonic vibration into electricity.

There are a number of reasons to accept Dunn analysis. First, he explains the interior design and all other evidence within the Great Pyramid in a cohesive manner. Second, he demonstrates the technical skills required to accomplish precision construction. Third, Dunn’s expertise and career is in the precision fabrication and manufacturing industry, which makes him uniquely qualified to express a professional opinion on the techniques and tools of the Giza pyramid builders.

The fact is, modern construction companies could not build the Great Pyramid today without first inventing specialised tools and techniques in order to deal with blocks of stone that vary in weight from ten to fifty tons. Such an endeavour would be on a magnitude equivalent to building a hydroelectric dam or a nuclear power station requiring tens of billions of dollars in resources.

Although our modern economy is different than that of the ancient world, the resource required now as compared to then is the same! The stone must be quarried and moved and the workers must be paid. The fact that an extremely large amount of resources were dedicated to Giza pyramid development over a long period of time demands, in my opinion, that pyramid building was utilitarian, and not for any fourth dynasty pharaonic vanity of having the largest headstone in the world.

For me, the evidence clearly tells a very different story of early dynastic Egypt. Sometime around 3000 BCE, the establishment and growth of permanent settlements in the Lower Nile Valley led to the development of civilisation. Why Giza and the surrounding area were chosen as the focal point for early Dynastic Egypt was because ‘civilisation’ had been there before, as the three pyramids and the Great Sphinx testify. Without knowing what the pyramids were designed for, the early Egyptians also assumed they must have been tombs.

As a result, they rejuvenated the Giza Plateau and turned it into a Necropolis, then expanded to Sakkara where they built tombs in pyramid form, albeit of lesser quality and not brandishing the skills the original builders of the Giza pyramids demonstrated. Pyramid building, even the smaller ones at Sakkara, was resource intense, so the Egyptians reverted to burying their nobility in the traditional mastaba.

This scenario, which calls for an earlier civilisation with advanced technical skills, poses another problem. It does not fit the standard model of history. However, the notion that an earlier civilisation existed does not rest on the Giza pyramids alone. There is also the Sphinx, which in 1991 was geologically dated to between 7,000 and 9,000 years old by the team of John Anthony West and geologist Dr. Robert Schoch. Add to that the megaliths of Nabta Playa in southwestern Egypt, which is believed to have been a star viewing diagram, according to astrophysicist Dr. Thomas Brophy, that relates not only the distance from Earth to the belt stars of Orion, but their radial velocities as well. Another ‘head scratching’ discovery is the 1260-ton foundation stones of the Baalbek temple, west of Beirut in Lebanon, one of which was left in its quarry.

Clearly history has its secrets, but there is enough evidence to validate, as theory, that civilisation is much older than we have previously believed. History, according to the ancient Egyptians themselves, confirms this. According to the Papyrus of Turin, which is a complete list of kings up to the New Kingdom, before Menes (before 3000 BCE) the:

…venerables Shemsu-Hor, [reigned] 13,420 years

Reigns up to Shemsu-Hor, 23,200 years2

These two lines in the king’s list are explicit. According to their documents, the total years of Egyptian history goes back 36,620 years. The argument that the years in the king’s list do not represent actual years, but some other, shorter, measurement of time seems more of an attempt to explain away than to explain. The ancient Egyptians employed a sophisticated calendar system that involved a 365-day year, which was periodically corrected through the predictable and cyclical nature of the star Sirius. Every 1,461 years, the heliacal rising of Sirius marked the beginning of the new year.

A single Sirius cycle corresponds to 1,461 years, where each year is equivalent to 365.25 days. In essence, the marking of the New Year at the heliacal rising of Sirius was the ancient Egyptian’s ‘leap year.’ Of course, determining the length of Sirius’ cyclical nature requires stellar observation over thousands of years which means the origins of pharaonic Egypt, or its source of knowledge, must originate in the remote past.

Late twentieth century Egyptologist Walter Emery seems to have agreed in principle that the origins of ancient Egypt date well into prehistory. Emery believed that ancient Egypt’s written language was beyond the use of pictorial symbols, even during the earliest dynasties, and that signs were also used to represent sounds, along with a numerical system. When hieroglyphics had been stylised and used in architecture, a cursive script was already in common use. His conclusion was that:

All this shows that the written language must have had a considerable period of development behind it, of which no trace has as yet been found in Egypt.3

Ancient Egyptian religion also testifies to a considerable period of development. Their religion, which is more of a philosophy of nature and life than it is a ‘religion,’ is based on a level of sophistication that, in all respects, appears more scientific than it does mythical.

From a modern Western perspective their religion has been billed as primitive and polytheistic, and appears as a mythological menagerie of gods. Nothing could be further from the truth. The source of this misunderstanding stems from the Egyptian word neter being translated into Greek as ‘god,’ which later took on the Westernised meaning of deity. The true meaning of neter was to describe an aspect of deity, not a deity to be worshipped. In essence, neters referred to principles of nature in a practical scientific way.

Yet, the meaning of a specific neter was communicated in a visually symbolic manner. When a human was depicted with an animal head, this signified the principle as it occurs in man. If the whole animal was depicted it was a reference to a principle in general. Alternatively, a human head depicted on an animal represented that principle as it relates to the divine essence within mankind, not any person in particular, but the archetypal; as the immortal Ba is represented by a human-faced bird.

Another example is Anubis (the jackal), who presided over the process of mummification. He did so as a representation of the decomposition or fermentation process. In nature, the jackal keeps its prey and allows it to decompose before consumption. Therefore, he who presided over the mummification ritual was depicted in art as a man with the head of the jackal, thereby representing man’s death as the digestive principle found in nature. From a universal perspective, the decomposition of a body is, to Nature, digestion. Hence, those organs associated with digestion, after being removed from the deceased, were placed in a Canopic jar with a lid shaped in the image of the jackal’s head.

The sudden emergence of Dynastic Egypt, at the beginning of the third millennium BCE, is one of civilisation’s greatest mysteries. How did this supposedly primitive North African culture organise itself into a civilisation of such magnificence? One aspect that I believe has been overlooked is that mankind – anatomically modern humans – has been around for a very long time. According to recent genetic studies, all people today are the descendants of a single African woman who walked the Earth 150,000 years ago. According to geneticists, her mitochondrial DNA exists in all of us.

This is a long time, 147,000 years, for our ancestors to have remained in a relatively primitive state. In my opinion, the evidence, some of which is incredibly anomalous (in particular the Great Pyramid) suggests they did not remain primitive. Given the evidence of ancient Egypt’s technical abilities (their monument, temples, and other crafted artifacts still exist), as well as their sophisticated symbolism in describing Nature, it appears that in establishing a dynastic society, the Egyptians of the third millennium BCE benefited from a legacy of knowledge.

Skeptics of this approach to history, of course, would want to know where the evidence of this technical and prehistoric civilisation is. If such a civilisation existed, surely there would be overwhelming evidence to support its existence. If an exclusively uniformitarian approach to geologic formation were generally accepted as fact, I would agree with the skeptic.

However, mass extinctions, as a result of environmental catastrophism because of volcanism, asteroid or comet impact, or stellar (gamma) radiation, now seems to be a reality.

According to geologists there have been five large mass extinctions in Earth’s history: the Ordovician (440–450 mya), Devonian (408–360 mya), Permian (286–248), Triassic (251–252 mya), and Cretaceous (144–65 mya). Although all of these cataclysms occurred well before the modern human form, there are two global disasters that occurred relatively recently.

Approximately 71,000 years ago Mount Toba, in Sumatra, erupted spewing an enormous amount of ash into the atmosphere. It was the largest volcanic eruption in the last two million years, nearly 10,000 times larger than the Mount St. Helen’s explosion in 1980. The resultant caldera formed a lake 100 kilometres long by 60 kilometres wide, with devastating and lasting climatic consequences. A six-year long volcanic winter followed, and in its wake an ice age that lasted for a thousand years. With its sulfuric haze, the volcanic winter lowered global temperatures, creating drought and famine decimating the human population.

According to geneticist’s estimates, the population was reduced to somewhere between 15,000 and 40,000 individuals. Professor of Human Genetics at the University of Utah, Lynn Jorde, believes it may have been as low as 5,000.4

Even closer to our time is the mysterious cataclysm at the end of the Ice Age, only 10,000 years ago. No one really knows if it was the result of natural phenomenon or an asteroid impact. What is known is that the climate drastically altered life for those who lived at that time. It is a known geologic fact that at the end of the Ice Age many North American species became extinct, including the mammoth, camel, horse, ground sloth, peccaries (pig-like hoofed mammals), antelope, American elephant, rhinoceros, giant armadillo, tapirs, saber-toothed tigers and giant bison. It also affected the climates of lower latitudes in Central and South America, as well as Europe in a similar way. Those lands have also revealed evidence of mass extinction. Yet, the mechanism that brought on this Ice Age ending cataclysm remains a mystery.

If an ancient technical civilisation existed during the remote past, what would be the likelihood of that civilisation surviving a global catastrophe intact? Estimates from the Toba eruption are not encouraging. Neither are the scenarios that astronomers and climatologists build today for a theoretical asteroid impact.

According to the archeological evidence, anatomically modern man (Cro-Magnon) appeared in Western Europe 40,000 years ago. Where they came from has been a long-standing mystery. The logical deduction is that they migrated from Africa. However, such a migration requires a host culture, of which there is no evidence.

Nevertheless, a likely location for this host culture would have been along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, which were likely a series of fresh water lakes during the remote past.

If ancient civilisation existed in the region of the Mediterranean, it would not have survived the conflagration that turned those lakes into a salt-water sea.

If that were indeed the case, the remnants of those who lived on the perimeter of that civilisation would appear to us, today, as anomalies such as the Giza pyramids and the giant stones of Baalbek.

Cro-Magnon cultures of Western Europe, although once a part of a great Mediterranean civilisation, would also appear as an anomaly. For us, it would be as if they appeared from nowhere.

Source

Read more from Auricmedia:

[carousel-horizontal-posts-content-slider]
Ancient Aliens, Forbidden knowledge, Secret sites

Nassim Haramein – The Pyramids & Orion Belt

Leave a comment

I just love this guy and I have to post this update to Pyramid saga, because it’s just great.

Explore Orion’s Belt and the pyramids with physicist Nassim Haramein!

Nassim Haramein was born in Geneva, Switzerland in 1962. As early as 9 years old, Nassim was already developing the basis for a unified hyperdimensional theory of matter and energy, which he eventually called the ‘Holofractographic Universe.’

Haramein has spent most of his life researching the fundamental geometry of hyperspace, studying a variety of fields from theoretical physics, cosmology, quantum mechanics, biology and chemistry to anthropology and ancient civilizations. Combining this knowledge with a keen observation of the behavior of nature, he discovered a specific geometric array that he found to be fundamental to creation and from which the foundation for his Unified Field Theory emerged.

 

 

There you have again something to think about…

“I never saw any good that came of telling truth.”
JOHN DRYDEN, Amphitryon

Ancient Aliens, Mysteries

The Mystery of the Missing Pyramidion of Khufu

Leave a comment

I have many times wondered, that when you watch the Great Pyramid you notice that there is something missing on the top, the cap stone. Where is it and what was the purpose of it. Here’s a little article about that stone:

The Mystery of the Missing Pyramidion of Khufu

bauval5.jpg

One of the mysteries of Giza is the missing pyramidion or capstone of the Great Pyramid of Khufu. Since modern recorded history, the Great Pyramid has been topless, with several meters of its apex missing. Egyptologists have assumed that the pyramid was originally capped by a small pyramid called a pyramidion. If that is true, then what happened to it, and what could it have looked like?

It is possible, indeed highly probable, that the great Egyptian architect and royal vizier, Imhotep, was still alive when Khufu planned his pyramid. Imhotep was the High Priest of Heliopolis, where the sacred Benben Stone was kept, and on its shape and symbolism was modeled the gilded capstones of pyramid called ‘Benben-t’. Could Imhotep have advised Khufu to conceal the Benben in his pyramid? But where?

This article below is culled from a discussion in Appendix 1 of my latest book, co-written with Thomas Brophy, Ph.D., Imhotep The African: Architect of the Cosmos (Disinformation Books).

In October 1900 the guards of the Egyptian Antiquities Organisation (EAO) in the area of Dashur, a site on the western desert that is some 20 kilometers south of modern Cairo, were attacked by a group of armed brigands. A few days later, Gaston Maspero, the head of the EAO went to inspect the site. It was then that he was taken to see an amazing and rather unique artifacts that had been found embedded in the sand near a pyramid of the 12th Dynasty belonging to the pharaoh Amenemhet III. There, sticking partially out of the sand, was a magnificent pyramidion made of black granite. Maspero could hardly believe his eyes at the amazing preservation of this 4000 years old artifacts which, in his excitement, he described as “polished like a mirror”.  The pyramid, which measured 1.85 meters at the base and had a height of 1.40 meters, was decorated with wonderful inscriptions. On one face was a winged solar-disk flanked by two ureus (sacred cobras), and under the solar-disk were two large eyes. Under the eyes were three lutes with a large sun disk underneath. On each side of the sun-disk were the royal cartouches bearing the names of Amennemhet III, and  at the base of the triangular face were two lines of hieroglyphs. In an article published in the Annales Du Services Des Antiquités in 1902, Maspero gave this translation:

“May the face of the king be opened so that he may see the Lord of the Horizon when he crosses the sky; may he cause the king to rise as a god, lord of eternity and indestructible… Horakhti has said I have given to the king of Upper and Lower Egypt the beautiful horizon who takes the inheritance of the two lands…so that you may unit with the horizon…the horizon has said that you rest upon it, which pleases me.”

In view of the mention of Horakhti (Horus of the Horizon) who was regarded as the symbol of the rising sun in the east, Maspero concluded that this face with the winged sun-disk was the East face of the pyramidion. Maspero did not give a full translation of the other threes faces which also bore two lines of inscriptions each, but nonetheless adds that “the invocation is similarly addressed on the South face to Anubis; on the West face to Ptah-Sokar-Osiris; on the North face to Sah-Orion.”

The same view was later expressed by the American Egyptologist James Henry Breasted in 1912. Breasted wrote:

“On the side which undoubtedly faced the east appears a winged sun-disk, surmounted by a pair of eyes, beneath which are the words ‘Beauty of the Sun’, the eyes of course indicate the idea of beholding which is to be understood with the words, ‘beauty of the sun’. Below is an inscription of two lines beginning: ‘The face of king Amenemhet III is opened, that he may behold the Lord of the Horizon when he sails across the sky’…”

In 1964 the American Egyptologist Alexander Piankoff, renowed for his translation of the Pyramid Texts, gave the translation of part of the East face which mentioned the constellation of Orion:

The sou) of Amenemhet is higher than the heights of  Orion, and it unites itself with the Duat…”

Piankoff interpreted the above by writing that “here, as in the Pyramid Texts, Orion is the visible manifestation of Osiris who, like this constellation, descends to the Netherworld (Duat) and then appears again in the sky.”

In 1946 the British Egyptologist Sir I.E.S. Edwards, an authority on the pyramids of Egypt, gave his own translation of the East face:

“May the face of the king be opened so that he may see the Lord of the Horizon [i.e., Harakhte] when he crosses the sky; may he cause the king to shine as a god, lord of eternity and indestructible, (Harakhte replies that he has) given the beautiful horizon to the king”

Today Egyptologists agree that the pyramids of ancient Egypt represented the dead kings. Indeed, the pyramidwas regarded as an actually personification of the dead king.  Indeed the name given to the pyramids show clearly that these monuments were considered to be the afterlife form of the king himself. According to A. Piankoff, for example,

“The embalmed body of the king lay in or under the pyramid, which together with its entire compound, was considered his body.”

Yet Egyptologists also agree that in the Pyramid Texts, the afterlife form of the king is said to be a ‘star’ in the sky.

This, then, may explain why in the case of at least three pyramids, the monuments were given stellar names while also personifying the dead king, such as “Djedefre is a Star in the Sky”, “Nebka is a Star” and the pyramid of Djoser being called “Horus is the Star at the head of the Sky”.  All this leads us to conclude that the pyramidion on top of the king’s pyramid was regarded as the stellar-transfigured king or his star-soul. It is only when we view it as such that the inscriptions on the East side of the pyramidion of Amenemhet III makes any sense: “May the face of the king be opened so that he may see the Lord of the Horizon…”

But two questions now must be also considered. For if indeed the pyramidion represented the form of the king as a star, then what could possibly have given the ancient Egyptians the idea that a star had the physical shape of a ‘pyramid” and, furthermore, that it was composed of very hard “black stone” such as black granite?

Most Egyptologists agree that the shape of pyramids was inspired by the Benben Stone that was venerated in the ‘Mansion Of The Phoenix’ at the city of Heliopolis. Many scholars claim that the Benben was symbolic of the sun. In 1912 the eminent American Egyptologist James H. Breasted noted the similarity of the word ‘Benben’ with the word ‘Benbenet’ –the pyramid-shaped apex of an obelisk– and concluded that “an obelisk is simply a pyramid upon a lofty base which has become a shaft… the obelisk, as is commonly known, is a symbol sacred to the Sun-god…[it followed that] the king was buried under the very symbol of the Sun-god which stood in the holy of holies in the Sun-temple at Heliopolis” This conclusion by an authority of the caliber of Breasted was quickly embraced by other authorities such as Sir I.E.S. Edwards who also proposed that the occasional sight of an immaterial triangle formed by the sun’s rays striking downwards through low clouds at sunset could have been the inspiration for the Benben’s shape “and its architectural derivative, the true Pyramid”.  Edwards quoted several passages from the Pyramid Texts that seem to support this idea:

“I have laid down for myself this sunshine of yours as a stairway under my feet…”

“May the sky make the sunlight strong for you, may you rise up to the sky…”

According to Edwards “the temptation to regard the true Pyramid as a material representation of the sun’s rays and consequently as a means whereby the dead king could ascend to heaven seems irresistible.” Yet it is also true that the Pyramid Texts give many other means for the dead pharaoh to ascend to the sky: on a ladder ( “The king climbs to the sky on a ladder”); on the wind (“the king is bound for the sky on the wind” (pyr. 309); on a storm-cloud/thunderbolt (“The king is a flame before the wind…there is brought to him a way of ascent to the sky”); on a hailstorm (“the hailstorms of the sky have taken me”); on a reed-floa: (“the reed-floats of the sky are set in place for me…I am ferried over to the eastern sky”); by climbing a rope (“set the rope aright, cross the Milky Way…”); on the thighs of Isis: (I ascend [to the sky] upon the thighs of Isis” ).  So the Pyramid Texts are full of such metaphors, and thus the idea of the dead king climbing on the sun’s rays is only another to describe poetically the celestial ascent, and cannot be taken as evidence for the shape of the Benben or the pyramid. There is, however, in the Pyramid Texts a passage which directly equate the actual pyramid to the king and Osiris: “This king is Osiris, this pyramid of the king is Osiris, this construction of his is Osiris, betake yourself to it, do not be far from it in its name of pyramid…”.

In the rebirth rituals of the Pyramid Texts the dead king’s name is compounded with the name of Osiris, showing that after his death the king became “an Osiris”. Now Osiris in the Pyramid Texts was a star-god whose soul was identified to the constellation of Orion:

“Behold Osiris has come as Orion”

“O king, you are this Great Star, the companion of Orion”

Could, therefore, the Benben Stone, and its derivatives the pyramid and the pyramidion, be regarded as ‘star’ symbols?  It is true that the ‘Mansion Of The Phoenix’ in which was kept the Benben Stone was in the City of Iunu, later called Heliopolis (City of the Sun) by the Greeks, an association of the Benben with the sun does not necessarily follow. Why, one must wonder, was a pyramid or conical shaped stone would be regarded as a manifestation of the sun when in all ancient Egyptian art the sun is represented as a disk or circle? Egyptologists have argued that the reason for this was because the Benben Stone may also have been a symbol of the so-called “Primeval Mound” in the Pyramid Texts on which it is said that the first sunrise took place, implying that the shape of the pyramid was inspired by the idea of a sacred mound. Edwards rejects this idea by pointing out that the Primeval Mound was linked to the much older Mastaba tomb structure of the first three Dynasties, which was not pyramid-shaped but rather in the form of a rectangular slab. Clearly, another more plausible explanation for the pyramidal or conical shape of the Benben Stone must be sought.

It is known that a sacred pillar was worshipped at Heliopolis before the Benben. The phallic symbolism of a pillar needs no emphasis; and its association to the “phallus” of Atum is implied in the Pyramid Texts

“Atum is he who once came into being, who masturbated in Heliopolis. He took his phallus in his grasp that he might create orgasm by means of it…”

“O Atum, the rising sun (-khoprer, the sacred beetle), you became high on the heights, , you rose as the Benben Stone in the Mansion Of The Phoenix in On…”

The Egyptologist Henry Frankfort made the plausible suggestion that the Benben was placed atop the sacred pillar, giving rise to the idea of the obelisk with a Benbenet/pyramidion at its top, and that the pyramidion may thus represent the “semen” or “seed” being ejaculated from a cosmic phallus associated to Atum. There are several well-known depiction of the Earth-God Geb (the son of Atum) laying down with an exaggeratedly long phallus pointing to the Sky-Goddess Nut, the “mother of Osiris”:

“…make the womb of Nut pregnant with the seed of the spirit which is in her”

“Pressure is in your womb, O Nut, through the seed of the god which is in you; it is I [the Osiris-king] who am the seed of the god which is in you…”

“…the king is an imperishable star, son of the sky-goddess Nut…”

“The king was fashioned by his father Atum…”

“O Atum, this king comes to you, an imperishable spirit (star)…your son comes to you, this king comes to you”

In my opinion, then, the idea of a pillar surging skywards and on top of which was the Benben Stone, is highly symbolic of a giant phallus offering its “star-seed” to the sky-goddess in order to gestate it in her womb and cause the departed king to be “reborn”. Bearing this in mind, it comes as no surprise to discover that the word “Benben” is often given the meaning to “copulate” or “seed a womb” confirmed by the hieroglyphic sign of an erect phallus shown ejaculating semen. Indeed, there are several words in the ancient Egyptian language that use the root word ‘Ben’ to describe sexual acts. Also in the famous Turin Papyrus which depicts sexual scenes, one image shows a beautiful naked woman inserting the tip of a pyramidion into her vagina, making clear that such objects were regarded phallis or capable of seeding a womb. The stellar aspect of these “seeding” rituals are depicted in the following passages of the Pyramid texts, where the departed king is somehow put into the womb of the sky-goddess (the ‘sarcophagus’) and is gestated there to eventually be reborn as star:

“The king is your seed”

“…the king comes to you, O mother of the king, he has come to Nut, that you may bring the sky to the king and hang the stars for him…”

“the sky-Goddess Nut conceives you with Orion…”

“Recitation by Nut, the greatly beneficent: the king is my eldest son who splits open my womb…”

“…O King, you are this Great Star, the companion of Orion…the sky has borne you with Orion…” (pyr.882-3).

“The King is a star brilliant…the King appears as a star…”

“You [Nut] have set this King as an imperishable Star who is in you…”

“The King is a star”

“I [the king] am a soul …a star of gold…”

“I [the king] am a star which illumines the sky…”

As we have said earlier in this article, the names of several monumental pyramids were given stellar names such as ‘Djedefre is a sehed  star’; ‘Nebka is a star’. Also the ‘ba’ i.e. soul, of the dead king is clearly to be regarded as a s ‘star’ in the Pyramid Texts, which indirectly also gives a stellar name to many other pyramids such as ‘The soul (ba) of Sahure gleams’ and ‘Neferirkare has become a soul (ba)’. The compounding of the pharaoh’s name with his pyramid implies, if not proves, that the monument (or perhaps mostly the pyramidion at the top) is to be regarded as the transfigured form of the king into a star-soul.

Still, why did the ancient Egyptians imagine that the star were shaped like a pyramid or a cone?

In antiquity the sight of “shooting stars” or  “falling stars” is, of course, a meteorite. Meteorites are debris from outer space, mostly from broken up asteroids, which enter the gravitational pull of the Earth and fall down to the ground –as opposed to meteors which completely burn up during atmospheric transit. Meteorites are either iron-meteorites (about 90% iron and 10-12% nickel) or stone meteorites. The largest that survive impact are the iron-meteorites for obvious reasons. Most meteorites are very small, but occasionally a large meteorite enters our atmosphere. If it is very large  it will retain most of its cosmic velocity, thus compressing the air in front of it as it approaches the ground, causing it to explode with dramatic effect. But if the meteorite is of medium size, somewhere between 10 and 60 tons, its cosmic velocity is slowed down by the earth’s atmosphere, causing the meteorite to eventually free fall and hit the ground almost intact. Some of these medium size meteorites retain their orientation as they speed through the earth’s atmosphere, which causes only the front part to melt and flow toward the rear. The result is a iron object having the shape of a rough pyramid or cone.

Bearing this in mind, I also discovered that the ancient Egyptians believed that iron actually came from heaven, which is clearly an allusion to the meteoritic origin of iron before the Iron Age. In other ancient cultures there were many sacred stones such as the Benben which were believed to have ‘fallen from heaven’. The Ephesians (see Acts xix-35 of the Bible) worshipped such a stone in the temple of Diana “that symbol of her which fell from heaven”. In Delphi a stone shaped like a cone was believed to have come from the sky. A conical iron-meteorite was also worshiped by the Phrygian in the 7th century BC. There was also the famous conical “black stone” called Elagalabus that was worshipped in Emessa. A modern example of such “stone from heaven” is the  black stone of the the Ka’aba in Mecca in Saudi Arabia which is a meteorite that was recovered in antiquity. The British Egyptologist Gerald Wainwright has shown how iron in early Egypt was obtained from iron-meteorites. The ancient Egyptian word for iron was ‘bja’ which was called “material of which heaven was made”. Significantly, in the Pyramid Texts we are told that,

“The king’s bones are iron and the king’s members are the imperishable stars…”

“I [the king] am pure, I take to myself my iron bones…my imperishable limbs are in the womb of Nut”

“…my bones are iron and my limbs are the imperishable stars”.

It is not very hard to see that chunks of meteoritic iron, which generally have a luster black appearance, were classified by the ancient Egyptians along with other hard black or dark stones such as diorite, basalt and granite. To a people unfamiliar with iron and its chemical properties, the resemblance of basalt to a rough iron meteorite can be uncanny. Not surprising then, black basalt was called ‘black iron’ (bja kam), suggesting that basalt, and possibly black granite, were associated to meteoritic iron, and consequently to the ‘bones’ of star-gods. Most pyramidions that were once placed on the top of pyramids were made of dark granite, such as the fine example of Amenemhet III. Also the hieroglyphic sign for ‘pyramid’ was a pyramid often with a yellow pyramidion, suggesting that the latter may have been covered with gold leaf. An inscription on the pyramid of queen Udjebten (6th Dynasty) speaks of the golden capstone on her pyramid. In the Pyramid Texts we read,

“O King, raise yourself upon your iron bones and golden members, for this body of yours belongs to a god… may your flesh be born to life and may your life be more than the life of the stars in their season of life…”

“I [the king] row Ra when traversing the sky, even I a star of gold…”

“…be a soul like a living star”.

Could the idea of the pyramidal shape of a “living star” made from golden flesh and black iron bones and shining high up in the sky, have been the reason for the pyramidion made of black granite covered in gold leaf and raised high up the pyramid? Was this how the lost pyramidion of Khufu looked like? And what could have happened to it? Could it have been removed by the priests of Heliopolis, under the orders of Imhotep, from its original sanctuary and hidden somewhere? Where?

In a ‘secret chamber’ inside the Great Pyramid?

Only time will tell…

Secret sites

Secret Sites part IV, Secrets Of Giza Plateau

Leave a comment

 

 

Egypt has always been in my mind since I was a little boy. I have known that something very important is hidden in that area. Why Egypt’s officials don’t tell everything and all the fights between French and Britain of the artifacts, I know there’s something very important and it belongs to whole mankind. I wont tell the history about Giza Plateau but some facts first:

When Khufu, perhaps better known by his Greek name, Cheops, became king of Egypt after the death of Sneferu, there was no convenient space remaining at Dahshur, where Sneferu was buried, for Khufu’s own pyramid complex. Hence, he moved his court and residence farther north, where his prospectors had located a commanding rock cliff, overlooking present day Giza, appropriate for a towering pyramid. This rock cliff was in the northernmost part of the first Lower Egyptian nome, Ineb-hedj (“the white fortress”).

Giza is located only a few kilometers south of Cairo, several hundred meters from the last houses in the southernmost part of the city proper, where a limestone cliff rises abruptly from the other side of a sandy desert plateau. The ancient Egyptians called this place imentet, “The West” or kher neter, “the necropolis”.

Clickable Image Map of Giza

Clickable Image Map

of Giza According to a treatise on the geology of the pyramid plateau by Thomas Aigner, it is part of the Middle Eocene Mokattam Formation, which dips slightly southeast, comprising limestone and dolomites. To the south, the Mokattam and dolomitic limestones are overlain by the marly limestone and sandy marls of the Upper Eocene Maadi Formation. To the north and east, the Mokattam Formation is characterized by two steep escarpments about 30 meters (92 feet) high. It continues to the Great Sphinx ditch, which must at one time have formed a high peak. From there, the stonemasons cut the core blocks for the Great Pyramid.

Side View of Giza

Side View of Giza

The older pyramids of the third and early fourth dynasty were built on thick layers of marl and slate. These marl layers were easier to dig than limestone, so excavation of the large shafts that extended as much as 30 meters beneath the step pyramids was accomplished in a reasonable time. However, there was also a serious disadvantage, because the marl layers could not support their weight. The underlayer gave way, and the construction became unstable. This in fact happened with the South Pyramid at Dahshur, where cracks and serious damage appeared in the corridor system and in the chambers so that the pyramid had to be abandoned.

Another view of Giza

Another view of Giza

Hence, when Khufu planned his own ambitious pyramid, he was looking for a solid rock base, nearby quarries and a dominating position overlooking the Nile Valley, which he of course found at Giza.

Giza can be subdivided into two groupings of monuments, clearly defined and separated by a wadi. The larger grouping consists of the three “Great” pyramids of Khufu, Khephren (Khafre), and Menkaure, the Sphinx, attendant temples and outbuildings, and the private mastabas of the nobility.

The second grouping, located on the ridge to the southeast, contains a number of private tombs of citizens of various classes. While the majority of the monuments of the larger grouping are made from limestone that was quarried and transported to the site, the tombs of the smaller grouping are simply carved out of the native living rock.

Though the three Great Pyramids are the most famous and prominent monuments at Giza, the site has actually been a Necropolis almost since the beginning of Pharaonic Egypt. A tomb just on the outskirts of the Giza site dates from the reign of the First Dynasty Pharaoh Wadj (Djet), and jar sealings discovered in a tomb in the southern part of Giza mention the Second Dynasty Pharaoh Ninetjer. But it was the Fourth Dynasty Pharaoh Khufu (Cheops) who placed Giza forever at the heart of funerary devotion, a city of the dead that dwarfed the cities of the living nearby. In order to build his complex, he had to clear away many of the old tombs, filling in their shafts or even totally destroying them. His pyramid, the largest of all the pyramids in Egypt (though it should be noted that it surpasses the Red Pyramid at Dahshur built by his father Snefru by only ten meters), dominates the sandy plain.

On its southwest diagonal is the pyramid of his son, Khephren (Chephren, Khafre). Although it is smaller, a steeper angle results in the illusion that they are the same size. In fact, Kephren’s pyramid appears taller since it is on higher ground. The notion that this was done on purpose to out-do his father is without question. As it occupies the central point, has the illusion of greater size, and still has some of its casing stones intact, it is frequently mistaken to as the Great Pyramid, something that would no doubt please Khephren were he alive today.

Further along the southwest diagonal is the smallest of the three great pyramids, that ofKhephren‘s son, Menkaure. It is also the most unusual. First of all, it is not entirely limestone. The uppermost portions are brick, much like the several Pyramids at Dahshur, though separated from them by several centuries. One theory is that Menkaure died before his pyramid could be completed, and the remaining construction was hastily done to finish it in time for the burial. It is also not along the diagonal line that runs through the Great Pyramid and the Second Pyramid, but instead is nearly a hundred meters to the southeast. This error, if error it is, is of a magnitude not in keeping with the mathematical skill known to have been possessed by the ancient Egyptians. However, an idea has emerged in the last few years that the three large pyramids of Giza are actually meant to be in an alignment resembling that of the three “belt” stars in the constellation Orion: Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka. This theory is largely discounted by the majority of Egyptologists, but some do believe it is a point to ponder. Actually, it should also be noted that, while the center of the pyramid does not line up with its larger counterparts, the southeast sides of all three pyramids are in alignment.

All three pyramids stand empty, probably plundered during the political unrest that ended the Old Kingdom when the monarchy collapsed. Yet there are the occasional surprises. Airtight pits along the southern and eastern walls of Khufu‘s pyramid contain boats (not small ritual boats, but fully-functional funerary barges with 40-ton displacements. One was excavated in 1954).

Exactly how big Giza is may never be known. Excavations have continued to find new tombs and artifacts since Bezoni, Caviglia, Perring, and Vyse began the first systematic study of Giza in the early 1800s. It has been explored and excavated more thoroughly than any other site in Egypt, possibly more than any other site in the world, yet no one believes the research is anywhere near complete today.

Throughout the Old Kingdom, the cemetery of Giza remained the most prominent, even when the kings moved again to Southern Saqqara. For example, important officials such as the architects of the ‘inti family, who constructed the pyramids of the 5th and 6th Dynasties, continued to live in the pyramid town of Khufu and had their family tombs at Giza.

During the First Intermediate Period, the pyramid town of Khufu and the cemetery of Giza were both abandoned, and they remained so during the Middle Kingdom. In fact, the pyramids were forcefully opened and plundered, and the private tombs were not ignored by thieves either. The causeways and temples were in fact even used as quarries by the architects of the kings of the 12th Dynasty.

The Great Sphinx at Giza

This all changed completely during the New Kingdom. The kings of the 18th Dynasty showed deep respect for the pyramids as monuments of their ancestors at Giza, and the area gained considerable religious significance as the center of royal worship to the Great Sphinx, “Lord of Setpet, the Chosen Place.” Princes and kings of the 18th and 19th Dynasties erected stelae between the paws of the Sphinx, which was no longer seen as a royal statue but rather as an image of the sun god Harmachis, “Horus in his Western Horizon”, which was actually a reference to the “Horizon of Khufu”. Amenhotep II dedicated a small temple to Harcachis to the northeast of the Sphinx. On foundation tables of that temple, the Sphinx is also named Harmachis-Hauron. Hauron was the name of a Syrian-Palestinian god of the netherworld that a community of Syrian-Palestinians living near the Great Sphinx identified with his image. Ramesses II installed a sanctuary within the forepaws of the Sphinx.

In the Late period, Osiris became the dominant god of the area, taking over the cult locations of Rostau from Sokar and installing his cult in the Sphinx. High, massive pedestals were actually added to the body of the Sphinx, on which chapels of Osiris and probably Isis stood. Isis became known as the “Lady of the Pyramids.”

Another View of the Great Sphinx at Giza

During the Sixth Century BC onward, Greek travelers admired the pyramids at Giza, and it was they who eventually placed the monuments in the list of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

After the Pharonic Period, and up until recently, stone from the monuments were taken and used to build buildings in nearby Cairo. First the polished white limestone “casing” was taken, then the softer core stones. Many of Cairo’s oldest buildings are built partly from stones from the pyramids. This destruction continued well into the Nineteenth Century until preservation efforts and a resurgence of national pride put a stop to it. It is believed that had the pyramids not been vandalized, they would still remain to this day much as they were when they were built. As the saying goes, “Man fears Time, but Time fears the Pyramids.”

Giza Pyramids

Giza Tombs

Eastern Necropolis

Western Necropolis

Other Structures

See also:

One of my favorite Egypt researchers is Graham Hancock and his ideas of Giza Plateau. Here is some info about hidden tunnels & doors in Giza Plateau:

THE “DOOR” IN THE GREAT PYRAMID

  • (c) 1996, Graham Hancock
    In March 1993, a small “door” made of marble or limestone with two copper handles fixed on it was discovered by a mechanized robot (Upuaut II, “Me opener of the way” in ancient Egyptian) at the end of a long narrow shaft (8 x 8 inches and 200 feet long). Since then the discoverer, robotics engineer Rudolf Gantenbrink from Munich, has been banned from resuming the exploration and opening the door. The official reason given by the Egyptian Antiquities Authorities (known as the Supreme Council of Antiquities – SCA) was that Gantenbrink leaked the news of the discovery to the British Press in April 1993 and thus, apparently, broke a “rule” of archeology. The Director of the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo, Dr. Rainer Stadelmann, sided with the Egyptians and condemned Gantenbrink for his press action. Dr. Stadelmann was adamant about the non-importance of the find. “This is not a door; there is nothing behind it.” The President of the Supreme Council for Antiquities, Dr. Muhamad Bakr, went as far as claiming a “hoax.” “The orifice of the shaft is too small for the robot to go through” and accused the “German scientist” of not having the correct “approvals” from the SCA to carry out the exploration. Dr. Bakr fired the Chief Inspector of the Giza Pyramid Plateau, Dr. Zahi Hawass, although the official reason given was that a valuable ancient “statue” under the custody of Hawass was stolen from Giza. Three months later, in June 1993, Dr. Bakr himself was fired and replaced by Dr. Nur El Din. Amid accusations of malpractice and fraud, Dr. Bakr spoke of a “mafia” which had been involved with the Pyramids for “the last twenty years”. Refusing to give names, Dr. Bakr said, “I wanted the whole matter investigated by the prosecution authorities, but my request was refused.” Meanwhile, Dr. Hawass, who went to the USA, claimed that the discovery of the “door” was “THE discovery in Egypt,” and speculated on important artifacts behind it. In early 1994, Dr. Hawass was reinstalled at his post at the Giza Pyramids. Meanwhile, Gantenbrink offered his robot to the Egyptians and also offered to train an Egyptian technician to man the equipment and open the door. The Egyptians rejected the offer; “We are very busy at the moment,” replied Dr. Nur El Din. About the same time, Dr. Hawass was to declare that “I do not think this is a “door” and there is nothing behind it.” In March 1996 however, Dr. Hawass changed his mind once again and declared Gantenbrink’s find as being one of huge interest and that the “door” would be opened in September 1996 by a Canadian “mission”, but not including Rudolf Gantenbrink or his robot. The Canadian “mission” is owned by Amtex Corporation of Canada, a mulit-media CD-ROM company, who are reported to be raising the huge sum of $10 million to promote a staged a “live opening” of the door on television networks. “I’m working with a private guy who is a personal friend of Hawass and we are absolutely going to drum this thing to death. Whatever the event we are going to stage, it will be televised live,” reported Amtex Corporation’s president, Mr Peter Zuuring.

TUNNELS & CHAMBERS UNDER THE GREAT SPHINX

I. In a series of expeditions between 1991 and 1993 led by John Anthony West, an independent Egyptologist, scientific investigators conducted geological and seismic surveys around the Great Sphinx of Egypt. The chief geologist was Dr. Robert Schoch, Professor of Geology at Boston University, and the chief seismologist was Thomas Dobecki, from the highly-respected Houston consulting firm, McBride-Ratclif & Associates.

II.The team’s conclusions were as follows: A. Geology, The pattern of erosion on the Sphinx indicates that it was carved at the end of the last Ice Age, when heavy rains fell on the eastern Sahara – perhaps more than 12, 000 years ago. This contrasts starkly with the “orthodox” Egyptological dating for the Sphinx of around 4,500 years ago. B. Seismography. The seismic survey indicated the existence of several unexplored tunnels and cavities in the bedrock beneath the Sphinx, including a large rectangular chamber at a depth of some 25 feet beneath the monuments front paws.

III., In 1993, John West and his team were physically expelled from the site by Dr. Zawi Hawass then (and now) the Egyptian government’s Chief Inspector of Antiquities for the Pyramids and Sphinx. He appeared to be angered by the suggestion that the Sphinx might be far older than the civilization of Egypt itself – and thus the work of a lost civilization – and was particularly incensed by an NBC television film that was made about the team’s work This film linked the Sphinx to Atlantis and suggested that the chamber beneath the paws might contain the legendary “Hall of Records” of Atlantis. Hawass called these claims, “American hallucinations .. There is no scientific base for any of this. We have older monuments in the same area. They definitely weren’t built by men from Atlantis. It’s nonsense and we won’t allow our monuments to be exploited for personal enrichment. The Sphinx is the soul of Egypt.”

IV. An article in the Egyptian press responding to the NBC film quoted Dr. Hawass on his further reasons for expelling John West and his team from the Sphinx enclosure: “I have found that their work is carried out by installing endoscopes in the Sphinx body and shooting film for all phases of the work in a propagandistic but not scientific manner. I therefore suspended the work of this unscientific mission and made a report which was presented to the permanent commission who rejected the mission’s work in the future.”

V. The NBC film was produced by a certain Boris Said and partially financed by investments from the members of the Association for Research and Enlightenment (ARE). The ARE, headquartered in Virginia Beach in the US, is a multimillion dollar organization that exists to promulgate the teachings and prophecies of an American psychic, Edgar Cayce, who died in 1947. Prominent amongst Cayce’s pronouncements were many statements to the effect that the Sphinx had been built in 10,500 BC by the survivors of the lost civiliaztion of Atlantis and that the survivors had concealed beneath it a “Hall of Records” containing all the wisdom of their lost civilization and the true history of the human race. Cayce prophesied that this Hall of Records would be rediscovered and opened between 1996 and 1998. He connected the opening to second coming of Christ.

VI. In 1995, John West and Professor Robert Schoch of Boston University put in an application to the Egyptian authorities to resume their research. their application was ignored.

VII At the beginning of April 1996, the Egyptian authorities granted a one-year license to a new team to conduct surveys around the Sphinx and the Giza necropolis using seismic equipment and ground-penetrating radar. This team, which claims academic sponsorship from Florida State University , is largely financed through the Schor Foundation of New York – by Dr. Joseph Schor, an American multimillionaire. Dr. Schor is a life member of the ARE and wrote on 24th May 1994 of his great personal interest in corroborating “the Cayce records which indicated that the culture which led to the building of the Pyramids dates to 10,400 BC.’: He also staated his wish “to further delineate that civilization.”

VIII On April 11th 1996 Dr. Schor stated of his current project at the Sphinx: “We do not work for the Edgar Cayce Group. The major purpose of the Schor Foundation and the Florida State University is to aid in the preservation and restoration of the Pyramids and Sphinx. In addition, we are surveying the underground of the Giza Plateau to find faults and chasms that might collapse. This will increase the safety of the plateau.”

IX Also financed by Dr. Schor is a short video film shot at the end of 1995 by Boris Said and produced in early 1996. The film opens with Dr. Zawi Hawass scrambling into a tunnel leading under the Sphinx. When he reaches the bottom he turns to face the camera and whispers to the viewer, “Even Indiana Jones woull never dream to be here. Can you believe it? We are now inside the Sphinx in this tunnel. This tunnel has never been opened before. No one really knows what’s inside this tunnel. But we are going to open it for the first time.” In commentary the film’s narrator goes on to state, “Edgar Cayce, America’s famous ‘Sleeping Prophet’, predicted that a chamber would be discovered beneath the Sphinx – a chamber containing the recorded history of human civilization. For the first time we’ll show you what lies beneath this great statue…a chamber which will be opened tonight, live, for our television cameras.”

X . Dr. Schor has stated (on 11th April 1996) that this video is not a promotional venture aimed at hooking a major US network to televise a live opening of a chamber under the Sphinx. On the contrary, he insists, ‘It was made to test script and equipment and was made in November 1995 which was many months before we received approval for our expedition. We have abandoned its use..”

XI. On 14th April 1996, Dr. Zawi Hawass announced in the Egyptian press that there were secret tunnels under the Sphinx and around the Pyramids and stated his belief that these tunnels would prove to “carry many secrets of the building of the Pyramids.”

Here Graham Hancock talks about the Great Pyramids, that they are not just ancient tombs:

 

And here is a Chris Dunn’s beautiful theory, that Pyramids could have been ancient power plants (4 parts):

 

 

I think that the “official” story about Great Pyramids and Giza Plateau stinks and it stinks very bad. We don’t know anything about the ancient technology, because of some little group of scholars who has decided that this is the “official” theory and there’s no more about it. I think that it’s foolish to built these kind of monuments just tombs, it’s just too stupid. Ancient had maybe anti-gravity technology and this knowledge belongs to mankind. We need to know the Truth about Giza Plateau and it can be found if you search deep enough. Let’s find the Truth and stay tuned for more SECRET SITES!!!