Issue No.607
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10 - 16 October 2002 Issue No.607 Heritage |
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Pyramids and New Agers
The secrets of the Pyramids continue to tantalise. Missions from Japan, France and the United States have used radar to explore the shafts inside the Pyramids of Giza, arousing the interest of New Age theories. Attempts are being made to discover secret chambers that they believe contain information about a so-called lost civilisation.
Most of these New Age expeditions have tended to jump to conclusions based more on fantasy than on fact. When a crack appears on the computer screen they take it to be a hollow in the rock, and, consequently a secret room. For example, back in 1977 Stanford Research Institute claimed that radar showed evidence of a room under the right paw of the Sphinx. At that time the Permanent Committee of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (PCSCA) gave them permission to drill, but nothing at all was found. Following this experience, the PCSCA insisted that solid evidence had to be provided before anyone would be allowed to drill near the Sphinx again.
In 1996 Florida State University again used radar to carry out investigations around the Sphinx and the eastern side of the Great Pyramid of Khufu. Their results showed a hollow beneath the Sphinx which, they claimed, was a large tunnel extending from the third subsidiary Pyramid of Queen Henutsen to the Great Pyramid. They sent a report to the PCSCA and said that they wished to drill near the Sphinx and also near the Queen's Pyramid, near the Great Pyramid of Khufu, to authenticate their claim. The PCSCA responded that they should first prove that their radar test was accurate by drilling outside the Great Pyramid, since they did not want to put the Sphinx at risk unless convinced of the plausibility of their theory.
Using sophisticated advances in technology, a scientist from Florida State University again said that he was sure that there was a tunnel on the east side of the Great Pyramid. This time we appointed a scientist to assist in their work.
I am sure that there is no evidence at all to indicate that this area of the Great Pyramid contains tunnels. I put so little stock in their theory that I even forgot that they were drilling. A few weeks later, the inspector who was accompanying them came to tell me they had found nothing. I was not surprised. The expedition had let its imagination run away with it. The area they were drilling was solid rock, part of the Muqattam formation, so why would there be a tunnel there? They had come to believe a myth which, scientifically, did not make sense. The first and second levels of the bedrock at Giza is very weak and contain natural cracks. The upper level is only good quality limestone. Therefore I believe that most of the anomalies that appear on radar are actually natural cracks in the rock.
In 1986, a French team came to work at Giza. They wanted to drill in the west wall of the corridor leading to the so-called Queen's Chamber. They received permission and drilled, but found nothing. However, they did create a lot of publicity and even had a photograph in a French magazine bearing the headline: "We are the ones who drilled inside the Pyramid." Had these people been affiliated to an authorised institution they would never have done that; they were amateurs and I do not understand how they obtained permission to drill since, according to the Antiquities Law, no one can work on any monument in Egypt unless affiliated to a recognised university or museum.
The same group came back to work inside the Pyramids of Khufu and Khafre, and I wrote objecting to their work. They gave the PCSCA a report claiming there was a hidden chamber under the Queen's Chamber inside the Great Pyramid of Khufu, and asked for permission to drill. I studied their report, took a scientist along with me and entered the Pyramid to see if there was any justification for their claim. I ascertained that the idea was based on theory without any accurate or scientific evidence to support it. I even took their report and gave it to two scholars who specialised in Pyramids, and they agreed that the theory was nonsense.
I want to re-emphasise that we can only permit authorised scholars to make holes in the Pyramids, and only they should be able to provide concrete evidence to support their theories. We cannot allow people to drill in these magnificent structures for purposes of publicity.
After the report was issued, two things happened. An Egyptologist with no experience in the field of Pyramids started to support the amateur group and, with the help of media propaganda, articles began to appear in newspapers around the world stating that a secret room had been found inside the Great Pyramid. The head of a French newspaper explained the discovery of the "secret room" under the so-called Queen's Chamber. And so the rumours spread, the myth gains momentum, while the mystery of the Pyramids remains unsolved.
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