The Secret Chamber of Osiris: Lost Knowledge of the Sixteen Pyramids (14 page)
Read The Secret Chamber of Osiris: Lost Knowledge of the Sixteen Pyramids Online
Authors: Scott Creighton
Tags: #Ancient Mysteries
Here are just a few examples.
People knew from long experience that this was about the time for the level of the Nile to start rising. Just before this, flocks of white ibises would have appeared on the fields as they returned from the south. If they came late or not at all, farmers would see this as a bad omen foreshadowing low floods and a poor harvest. So they regarded the wise bird that knew the secret of this vital phenomenon as an embodiment of the learned god Thoth.
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In Ancient Egypt, sacred ibis were heralds of the flood, and symbolized the god Thoth, god of wisdom and master of time. They were also of practical use to the villagers, making pools safe to bathe by feeding on the water snails that carried the bilharzias liver parasite.
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In Africa also we meet with the great Ibis (Tantalus ibis . . .), and the sacred ibis (I. religiosa), which is venerated in Egypt as the harbinger of the annual Inundation of the Nile, and was frequently embalmed and mummified.
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Given this rather unique quality of the ibis in “predicting” the imminent arrival of the annual Nile inundation, it is easy to understand how, in this sense, the ibis would be viewed by the ancient Egyptians as useful, beneficial, and illuminated. The Nile inundation was the lifeblood of the kingdom, and to have foreknowledge of its imminent arrival (or not) would have been most beneficial to ancient Egyptian farmers.
That conventional Egyptologists hold that the function of the early, giant pyramid was as an instrument of rebirth for the king is but an assumption that derives from their corresponding presumption that these pyramids were built as tombs for ancient Egyptian kings. If, however, we adopt the alternative view that the Giza pyramids (and all others of this period) were built not as instruments of rebirth for the king but rather as instruments of rebirth for the kingdom after the anticipated great deluge of Thoth (just as the Arab chronicles tell us), then in this sense Khufu’s akhet (Khufu’s “place of re-creation” or “place of reemergence”) is equally valid, if not more so, given the use of the ibis hieroglyph and the bird’s connection to Thoth and its wisdom as the harbinger or messenger of the coming deluge. And whereas the seasonal Nile flood (akhet) is symbolized by the use of the flooded land strip with plants sprouting forth, the great deluge or akhet spoken of by Thoth is symbolized by the ibis, the wise bird that was illuminated with the knowledge of Thoth and who knew of Thoth’s coming deluge, the bird as the harbinger of the flood. And to reinforce this idea, we are presented with a determinative of the pyramid “emerging” from the flooded land.
So it seems to me that the term
akhet
has three different meanings, all of which have the same underlying concept—reemergence (rebirth) from water, to wit:
1. Akhet: when the sun is reborn by reemerging from the waters of the watery underworld to shine again on the eastern horizon (figure 5.2).
2. Akhet: when the crops are reborn by reemerging from the waters of the annual Nile inundation (figure 5.3).
3. Akhet: when the kingdom (i.e., the primeval mound of the Earth symbolized by the pyramid and flooded-land determinative) is reborn by reemerging from the great deluge of Thoth, just as it did in the First Time of creation (figure 5.4).
Akhet—when the sun, the crops, and the Earth are reborn or reemerge from water. And this idea may well explain the use of the hatched-disc glyph (
kh
), which some Egyptologists believe to be a placenta and is often colored red. Without the placenta, birth is not possible, and every human birth is preceded by waters; we are all born out of water.
So, whether it be depicted with the ibis or the land strip with growing plants or indeed as the later version of the sun disc between two mountains, the term
akhet
is to be related to rebirth or reemergence from water. Indeed, some versions of
akhet
with the sun disc between two mountains actually look more like the sun rising out of the sea, whereby the two “mountains” actually appear more like the crest of two waves with the sun rising from the trough in the middle—the sun emerging from the watery underworld.
In
The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts,
James P. Allen noted this: “The Living One [the sun] became clean in the Akhet.”
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As arks, the early, giant pyramids were the means by which the kingdom itself could be re-created or could reemerge from the floodwaters of Thoth. In short
akhet
might not so much equate to “horizon” or “spirit,” as believed by conventional Egyptology, but actually to a “process of re-creation through a reemergence from water.” It should not, however, be automatically assumed that this re-creation or reemergence of Khufu’s akhet should be referring to the re-creation or reemergence of the king; it is equally possible, if not more so, that the re-creation or reemergence associated with the Great Pyramid in its name of Akhet Khufu is to be connected with the reemergence of the
kingdom
(the land) from a great deluge.
Akhet Khufu—the place of rebirth or re-creation of the kingdom. With this name applying to the entire space around the Giza pyramids it should be no surprise to find that an inscription on the Dream Stele that stands between the paws of the Sphinx tells us that Giza is “the Splendid Place of the First Time” (meaning “of creation”)—the place of Sp Tpy (pronounced Zep Tepi). By the ancient Egyptians construct-ing their great pyramid arks, creation (after Thoth’s deluge) might be assured again, and the pyramid arks, in mimicking the original primeval mound that arose from the primordial waters of creation and from which everything in existence came out of, would reenact this emergence from the flood waters that occurred at the First Time—the kingdom reborn a second time.
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Gunpowder and Plot
Mr. Hill requested more gunpowder. . . . Two quarrymen were sent to blast over Wellington’s Chamber.
COLONEL RICHARD WILLIAM HOWARD VYSE
This book would not be complete without comment upon a situation that is fast becoming a major source of embarrassment for conventional Egyptology. By including this chapter I hope to add my voice to the growing international demand that Egyptology conduct a thorough, independent scientific analysis of the inscriptions found within the Great Pyramid in 1837 by British adventurer and antiquarian Colonel Richard William Howard Vyse (figure 6.1). The need to reassess these inscriptions is all the more pressing given new evidence that has recently come to light concerning this discovery and the people involved in it.
The inscriptions are an issue that has been hotly debated for decades, if not longer. In 1837, Colonel Vyse, with the help of some “gunpowder archaeology,” blasted his way into some hitherto-secret compartments above the King’s Chamber of the Great Pyramid. Inside he found numerous painted “quarry markings” (graffiti), the only writing ever discovered inside the monument. Among these unofficial quarry markings, Vyse and his team found a number of cartouches bearing the name of Khnum-Khuf, the full name of Khufu. In the topmost “Campbell’s Chamber” they found the cartouche of Khufu—the king who, according to mainstream Egyptology, built the Great Pyramid circa 2550 BCE. They also discovered Khufu’s “Horus name,”
Mddw
(pronounced “Mededu” or “Medjedu”); in 1837 no one even knew that such a thing existed. These markings provided Egyptologists with the only tangible pieces of hard evidence directly connecting Khufu to the Great Pyramid and thus the Great Pyramid to the era of circa 2550 BCE.
Figure 6.1. Colonel Richard William Howard Vyse
Curiously though, the lowest of these chambers, discovered some seventy-two years earlier by Nathaniel Davison, was completely devoid of any such markings. This curious situation led some to speculate that perhaps Vyse’s discovery was not so much a discovery at all but rather a fraud perpetrated by Vyse himself. However, Egyptologists reject such a notion based on two pieces of evidence.
- No one in 1837 knew that the Horus name (the name the king took upon his ascension to the throne) existed let alone that Khufu’s Horus name was
Mddw. - There are quarry marks in tight gaps between the 70-ton granite blocks where no forger could ever hope to use a brush.
These two objections, however, can be easily dispelled. In the case of the Horus name we find that this was often written along with the king’s birth name, that is, Khufu. First, if Vyse could recognize Khufu on a particular stone or document (and we shall see later in this chapter that he
could
recognize Khufu), then any other hieroglyphics that may have been written alongside—such as the Horus name—could also be copied. Vyse would know that whatever else was written—even although he couldn’t read or understand it—was related to what he
could
read and understand—Khufu.
Second, with regards to placing painted marks in the tight gaps between the immovable granite blocks—this is not so difficult a task Egyptologists imagine it to be. (It should be said here, for clarity, that there are no cartouches in any of these tight spaces, just random mason’s markings.) As independent researcher Dennis Payne informs us, by using a thin piece of wood, some string, and ochre paint a stencil could have been made. In this scenario the string forms the shapes of the relevant glyphs that are affixed onto a thin piece of wood and painted over with ochre paint. This thin wood with the painted marks is then inserted into the gap between the granite blocks. A thicker wooden board is then inserted behind the first board, jamming it against the granite block and thereby pressing the painted marks onto the block. When the wooden boards are removed we are left with the
illusion
of an impossible forgery—painted marks in a tight gap where no forger could ever use a brush. Thus Egyptology’s two key objections to the forgery hypothesis are debunked.
But what about the actual paint? In 1837 red ochre paint (called
moghra
) was still being made according to the same ancient formula or recipe. Alas, however, at that time there was no scientific means to analyze the paint used to create the markings found in these hidden pyramid chambers, and so Egyptology had little option but to accept the authenticity of Vyse’s discovery on simple trust, on his word.
QUESTIONS OVER VYSE'S CHARACTER
But was Vyse a man who could be trusted? Some thirty years earlier, in 1807, Vyse stood as a candidate in the Beverley constituency for the British Parliament. After Vyse won the seat (by a margin not seen before or since), Mr. Philip Staple (who finished a very poor third in the contest) presented a petition to Parliament, charging Vyse of electoral fraud.
A petition of Philip Staple, Esquire, was read, setting forth, That at the late Election for Members to serve in Parliament for the Borough of Beverley, in the County of York, John Wharton, Esquire, Richard William Howard Vyse, Esquire, and the Petitioner, were candidates to represent the said Borough; and that the said John Wharton and Richard William Howard Vyse . . . each of them was guilty of bribery and corruption and corrupt practices in order to their being elected to serve as Members for the said Borough in the present Parliament.
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Unfortunately for Mr. Staple, his petition was not upheld. With the benefit of time, however, we now know it should have been, for it was discovered that of the 1,010 votes Vyse obtained in that election, 932 of them he secured with bribes. It has to be said, though, that in 1807 this was not an uncommon practice in rotten boroughs such as Beverley. But it also has to be said that not everyone who stood for Parliament was prepared to commit electoral fraud in order to secure victory. So, in this act, we have the first glimpse into Vyse’s character; that he was a man who would do whatever it took, including perpetrating fraud, to achieve his goals.
Another charge of fraud leveled against Vyse is presented in his own published book, to wit:
A slanderous paragraph, intended to be inserted in the English newspapers, was this day shown to me, which accused Colonel Campbell of having improperly laid himself under obligations to the Pacha by obtaining the firmaun [a permit to excavate]; and which implied the Colonel and myself intended to make our fortunes under the pretence of scientific researches . . .
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Vyse makes no mention here as to the precise nature of the allegations being made against him. In what way did Colonel Patrick Campbell improperly obtain the firmaun (a permit, in this instance, for excavating in the Pyramids of Giza that had been issued in the name of Captain Giovanni Caviglia)? What was the extent of Vyse’s involvement? How exactly were the two men planning to make fortunes “under the pretence of scientific research”? Who was behind these allegations, and what evidence did they have?
While Vyse’s published work remains silent on these key questions, what this episode demonstrates is that someone believed that Vyse’s activities in Egypt were improper, and this individual threatened, via the British press, to expose what Vyse was doing. Once again, Vyse’s moral character is brought into question.
A DUBIOUS DISCOVERY
During his excavation at the third largest pyramid at Giza, the pyramid of Menkaure (G3), Vyse and his team found some human remains and a coffin lid bearing the name of Menkaure (in Greek,
Mycerinus
). On the surface this discovery appeared to have been the remains of an ancient Egyptian king in his pyramid tomb and, at that time, would have been the first king ever found (Howard Carter did not discover Tutankhamun’s undisturbed shaft tomb in the Valley of the Kings until 1922). However, it was very quickly realized that the find was completely bogus. In this regard, renowned British Egyptologist Sir I. E. S. Edwards writes:
In the original burial chamber Col. Vyse had discovered some human bones and the lid of a wooden anthropoid coffin inscribed with the name of Mycerinus. This lid, which is now in the British Museum, cannot have been made in the time of Mycerinus, for it is of a pattern not used before the Saite Period. Radiocarbon tests have shown that the bones date from early Christian times.
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So, what we have here are archaeological artifacts from two quite different periods that are far removed from Menkaure’s time and that have somehow magically found themselves together in Menkaure’s pyramid, having been recovered by Vyse and his team only after other earlier explorers of this pyramid had somehow overlooked them. Why were the bones and coffin not of the same period? Are we to believe there were
two
intrusive burials from two different periods long after the time of Menkaure? Why, then, weren’t any fragments of coffin or bones uncovered from the
other
intrusive burial (assuming, of course, that there were two such burials)? Do these events alone not reek of an attempt at deception by Vyse and/or his team, trying to pass off a “discovery” of an ancient Egyptian king that was later found to be false? If we have grounds here in Menkaure’s pyramid to suspect attempted deception, we surely have to ask: Just how does this impinge upon the credibility of Vyse and his claimed discoveries elsewhere at Giza, including the inscriptions he allegedly discovered in the Great Pyramid?
A WITNESS TO DECEPTION
If all of this isn’t bad enough for Vyse’s reputation, then the 1954 handwritten family history of a Mr. Walter M. Allen of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, makes it a whole lot worse. It seems that Walter Allen’s great-grandfather, Humphries Brewer, apparently worked with Vyse and his team at Giza in 1837 and witnessed Vyse’s assistants, Mr. Raven and Mr. Hill, refreshing old paint and making new markings in the pyramid.
Humfrey [
sic
] received prize for bridge he designed in Vienna over Danube. H. Went to Egypt 1837. British Medical Serv. To Egypt. . . .
They were to build hospital in Cairo for Arabs with severe eye afflictions. Dr Naylor took Humfrey along. Treatment not successful, hospital not built. He joined a Col. Visse [
sic
] exploring Gizeh pyramids. Rechecked dimensions 2 pyramids. Had dispute with Raven and Hill about painted marks in pyramid. Faint marks were repainted, some were new. Did not find tomb. . . .
Had words with a Mr Hill and Visse when he left. He agreed with a Col. Colin [
sic
] Campbell and another Geno Cabilia [
sic
]. Humfrey went back to England late 1837.
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Curiously, while Vyse makes no mention of Humphries Brewer in his published book, he does refer to all the other individuals mentioned in Walter Allen’s family account, including Dr. Naylor with his intention to help the local Arab people with severe eye problems. And as we can see from the Allen family record, it seems that his great-grandfather had a dispute with Vyse before leaving the site. Had Brewer objected to the marks being painted, perhaps accusing Vyse and his team of perpetrating a fraud, then it is hardly likely that a young man barely twenty years old and of little consequence to Vyse would have been mentioned in Vyse’s finished work, his published account. That said, however, even though Vyse may not have mentioned Brewer by name in his book, he may have indicated his presence at the site through the work he would have done in the Great Pyramid. As Vyse notes:
Two quarry-men were sent to blast over Wellington’s Chamber.
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This is precisely the kind of work in which Brewer, a civil engineer, would have been involved. One of these quarrymen, we know from Vyse’s book, was a local Arab man named Daoud, but no mention is made therein of the name of the other—a man with expertise that would have been crucial to Vyse’s ambitions. When he is so meticulous in naming everyone else in his book that was pivotal to his operations, why doesn’t Vyse name the other quarryman?
While all of the above may leave a bad smell, an air of suspicion, it is not actual proof that Vyse perpetrated a fraud within the Great Pyramid. However, the most damning evidence of all comes from Vyse’s own hand, and it shows beyond reasonable doubt that a deception
was
perpetrated by Vyse and his team within the Great Pyramid.
VYSE'S JOURNAL SPEAKS
In the absence of official scientific tests being done on these painted markings it seemed that the only avenue left to explore to try to determine their authenticity would be Vyse’s
handwritten
journal from his time at Giza in 1837. I realized that if this document could be located then it might be possible to determine the accuracy of Walter Allen’s account regarding his great-grandfather, Humphries Brewer. If Brewer had been in Egypt with Vyse in 1837, as Allen’s account states, then it was perhaps possible that Vyse made mention of him in his handwritten journal (when they were on good terms) and simply redacted his presence from his published work after their dispute. That was my thinking, and if it turned out to be correct then it would at least offer some corroboration to Walter Allen’s account.
And so, in March 2014, I set about looking for Vyse’s handwritten journal. Thanks to the internet, it didn’t take very long. I had searched for this document on the internet over the years and had always come up empty-handed, but this time the location of this nearly 180-yearold document came up: the Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies, in Aylesbury, England, about 400 miles from home. So my wife, Louise, and I would have to drive a round trip of 800 miles (1,288 km) to have a look at Vyse’s journal. We didn’t know what to expect or, indeed, if we would find anything at all of any great relevance to our quest. However, when we finally arrived at the center in early April 2014, we were not to be disappointed, though not in the way we had first imagined.
Vyse’s handwritten journal consists of around 600 pages of yellowing, folded foolscap pages tied together in a bundle with a thin white ribbon and all contained within a rather unremarkable card folder. Although some of the pages are perfectly clear, the ink on many of the pages is exceedingly faint, browning with age. But this was the least of our problems with the document, as a quick glance of some of the pages would prove. Vyse’s handwriting is almost impossible to read; a scrawling style where many letters are contracted or expanded and where a particular letter can take a different form depending on where it appears in a word. I had experienced doctors’ prescriptions that were easier to read. In consideration of this difficulty, I sought permission to take digital photographs of the journal pages so that we could take them home to analyze at our leisure. Fortunately this wasn’t a problem (as long as we didn’t use flash photography). And so, for the next two days, Louise and I set about the not insignificant task of photographing each and every page of Vyse’s handwritten journal plus some other material in his archive. It wasn’t lost on us that the task to find anything significant from these pages could take months, if not years, to research thoroughly. (Indeed, a clear reference to the name Brewer has not, as yet, been found in Vyse’s journal, although we have identified a few possible candidates that could very well be the name Brewer but that, at the time of writing, have not been confirmed by handwriting experts.)
It always seems to be the case, though, that just when your research seems to have hit the buffers, the “library angel” appears and hands to you exactly what you need, just when you need it—and so it turned out to be the case here. The gods of serendipity were on our side.
Hour after hour we had been turning and photographing the pages, seeing nothing before us but an endless, meaningless scrawl. As Louise turned one of the pages for me to photograph, I noticed that it had some hieroglyphics on it. Very few pages had such content, and so it was easy to catch the eye. But this wasn’t just any old hieroglyphic markings that Vyse had written, it was the cartouche of Khufu, the king Egyptologists believe built the Great Pyramid.
Resting the camera on the table, I took a closer look at the cartouche Vyse had drawn and pointed something out to Louise. We both then looked at each other in stunned silence as the realization and enormity of what we were seeing sank in—for before us was compelling evidence that the cartouche of Khufu, which Vyse claimed to have discovered within the Great Pyramid, must, in fact, have been forged by him—as a number of people over the years have long suspected. To say we were dumbstruck by what we had uncovered would be an understatement—evidence that proved, beyond reasonable doubt, that Vyse had perpetrated the hoax of all history.
After we returned to our hotel late that evening, not a little exhausted from our day’s efforts, we sat and stared at our laptop screens in bemused silence at the evidence before us, struggling to wrap our minds around its game-changing implications. The irony of what we had found was not lost on us. Here we were, barely able to read a few words of Vyse’s own handwriting and yet the ancient Egyptian script he had so carefully copied into his journal revealed to us the truth of the disputed inscriptions in the Great Pyramid that many have been seeking for decades, if not longer: they had been faked.
