Journeys to the Mythical Past Read online

  Dedicated to my grandson Ariel J. Feldman who has beamed me up to the Computer Age

  CONTENTS

  Cover Image

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1—The Great Pyramid Forgery

  Chapter 2—Puzzling Cavities, Mysterious Sand

  Chapter 3—The Secret Chamber

  Chapter 4—The Fateful Day

  Chapter 5—OOPs in the Cairo Museum

  Chapter 6—Enigmas Made of Stone

  Chapter 7—The Iceman of the Alps

  Chapter 8—Insights to History

  Chapter 9—Vatican Encounters

  Chapter 10—Stargazers and Skymaps

  Chapter 11—Antikythera: A Computer Before Its Time

  Chapter 12—Nazca: Where the Gods Left Earth

  Postscript: Prophecies of the Return

  Also by Zecharia Sitchin

  About the Author

  About Inner Traditions • Bear & Company

  Copyright & Permissions

  1

  THE GREAT PYRAMID FORGERY

  The records of Egypt’s archaeological finds include stories of varied bitter ends of the discoverer of this or the uncoverer of that, the most famed of which were the unusual deaths attributed to “King Tut’s Curse” of those who had found his tomb; but I know of no such instance pertaining to probing the Great Pyramid and its mysteries. Even Agatha Christie’s archaeological thrillers, that included murder on the Nile, did not take place inside the pyramid; and when James Bond was lured to Giza, the deathly encounter took place outside, near the Sphinx.

  Ever since Napoleon, who invaded Egypt in 1798, made a visit to the Great Pyramid in Giza a tourist’s “must,” millions of people have entered it to admire, wonder, research and explore; yet I could not recall coming across even one report of a visitor’s death inside it. Thus, when I was almost killed there, I would have probably made a First . . .

  I was inside the Great Pyramid, at the top of the Grand Gallery, awaiting to climb up by a series of ladders into compartments above the King’s Chamber, when I suddenly felt a mighty blow to my head: Someone had dropped from higher up a large and heavy piece of wood that knocked me down. Warm blood began to pour down from the top of my head, and I was certain that my skull had been cracked.

  Though dazed and bleeding as I was rushed down and out, the thoughts of death that raced through my mind included visions of newspaper headlines reporting my end. They ranged from an appropriate Famous Author Killed Inside Great Pyramid, to a humdrum Visitor Dies in Giza Pyramid, to—cursed was the thought—no headline at all. Upsetting was the headline Fatal Tourist Accident in Egypt, for I was certain that what had happened was no accident. And most disturbing was the imagined wisecracking headline Curse of King Cheops?—disturbing because I entered the pyramid that day to prove that the Pharaoh Cheops did not build the Great Pyramid.

  Being able to write about the day when I was nearly killed in the Great Pyramid suggests that I managed to survive; but this is the very first time I am revealing what had happened. And as the reader can surely also guess by now, what happened that day had its origins, its beginning, long before. So, even before I tell the full story of that eventful and almost fatal day, it behooves me to backtrack to the Beginning.

  There are many pyramids and pyramidical structures in Egypt, dotting the land from where the Nile River forms a delta in the north all the way south to ancient Nubia; the main ones are the twenty-odd pyramids (fig. 1) attributed to Pharaohs of the Old Kingdom (2650–2150 B.C.). These in turn consist of two distinct groups: The elaborately decorated pyramids associated with rulers of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties (such as Unash, Teti, Pepi); and the pyramids ascribed to Third and Fourth Dynasty kings.

  The later group’s builders are clearly identified by a profusion of inscriptions on the pyramids’ walls, the so-called Pyramid Texts; it is in regard to the earlier and paradoxically grander pyramids that the mysteries proliferate. With few written clues inside or beside them, or even entirely devoid of inscriptions or decorations, these earlier pyramids keep secret the mystery of their construction—Who built them and when, how were they built, and for what purpose. There are only theories and educated guesses.

  Although no actual royal burial was ever discovered inside any pyramid, the accepted theory has been that the pyramids were glorified royal tombs, evolving from the earlier flat horizontal mastaba—a large tombstone that covered the royal grave. Egyptologists assert that the first imposing pyramid, at Sakkara, belonged to king Zoser, the second Pharaoh of the Third Dynasty, whose ingenious architect piled up one mastaba on top another to create a step pyramid (fig. 2). The pyramid stands atop underground stone shafts, vaults, and passages decorated with carvings and blue-glazed tiles; we know it is Zoser’s pyramid because some depictions of the king and inscriptions bearing his name were discovered there. The pyramid is surrounded by decorated stone structures and colonnades; but the pyramid itself, above ground, is poorly constructed with rough stones held in place by mud-clay mortar and tree stalks, all now exposed for the visitor to see. It is as though the above-ground and the below-ground parts of the pyramid were set apart, each following a different architectural and structural discipline.

  Figure 1

  Egyptologists hold that Zoser’s Third Dynasty successors emulated him, on a lesser scale and with varied degrees of success, with step pyramids of their own; but then the last Pharaoh of the Third Dynasty, named Huni, decided to build a “true” pyramid with smooth sides, rising at the steep angle of 52°. It is known, appropriately, as the Collapsed Pyramid, for that attempt ended in dismal failure. What the visitor still sees at the site (at Maidum) is the step-shaped core surrounded by the debris of the collapsed masonry of the smooth-face mantle that the builders had attempted to attach to the core (fig. 3).

  Figure 2

  Why, all of a sudden, was an attempt made to shape this pyramid as a “true” pyramid, and where did the notion of a “true pyramid” with smooth triangular sides come from? Why was a steep angle of 52° chosen, and whether it was Huni—or, as some hold, his successor—who tried to attach the smooth mantle to the core, no one knows.

  That successor was Sneferu, the first Pharaoh of the Fourth Dynasty. He was building (at Dahshur) his own “true” pyramid when the previous one, at Maidum, collapsed; so his architects (as plausibly held by some Egyptologists) abandoned the steep 52° angle in mid construction, and continued raising it at a flatter and much safer angle of 43°—resulting in what is known as the Bent Pyramid (fig. 4a); a stela (stone pillar) depicting the king and bearing Sneferu’s name confirmed his association with this pyramid. Then Sneferu, still persisting in building a “true pyramid” with smooth sides, ordered the construction of a third pyramid (also at Dahshur). Known for the hue of its stones as the Red Pyramid (fig. 4b), it has the “correct” triangular sides rising from a square base and meeting at an apex. But its remains indicate that its sides rose at the safe angle of 44° . . .

  Figure 3

  And then—so Egyptological theories go—Sneferu’s son and successor, a Pharaoh named Khufu (Cheops in English), managed to erect what is still the grandest stone edifice on Earth and the greatest of the “true” pyramids—the Great Pyramid of Giza. Dwarfing any previous pyramid in sheer size, it still rises like an artificial stone mountain at the magical angle of 52°—unique, majestic, unchallenged, and uncollapsed (plate 1).

  Khufu’s success—so the textbooks tell us—inspired his successors to build their pyramids next to his, at Giza. One, that outwardly emulates the Great Pyramid, was built by the Pharaoh Chefra (Chefren or Chephren in English), and is known as the Second Pyramid; because a causeway leads fr
om it to the Sphinx (plate 2), it too is attributed to Chefra (although it stands much closer to the Great Pyramid). Then his successor, Menkaura (Mycerinus) built nearby the Third Pyramid—but for inexplicable reasons, as a miniature of the other two (fig. 5). Rising skyward where the desert stops at the Nile valley, the three, as the site map shows (fig. 6), were perfectly aligned to the cardinal points of the compass and to each other, forming an architectural unit as though they were planned by a single architect and not by three different Pharaohs separated by a century.

  Figure 4

  Figure 5

  Figure 6

  Unlike the other pyramids, the three Giza pyramids are devoid of any decorative feature, have no paintings or texts inscribed on their walls, hold no royal seal or effigy, and (with the exception to be discussed later) contain no other shred of evidence that the three were built by Khufu, Chefra, and Menkaura; Egyptologists nevertheless continue to adhere to their favorite theory of “pyramid per successive Pharaoh”—and they do so in regard to Giza even though the actual successor of Khufu was not Chefra but the Pharaoh Dedefra (also read Radedef ) whose small crumbling pyramid, sloped at 48º, was built far away from Giza, at Abu Ruash in the north (see fig. 1).

  The Egyptologists’ list also conveniently omits two other Pharaohs who reigned between Chefra and Menkaura; and skipping a successor to the latter named Shepseskaf, continue the “pyramid age” straight into the Fifth Dynasty. Its first Pharaoh, Userkaf, built (at Abusir) a “true” pyramid at about half-size scale to that of the Great Pyramid of Giza. It adopted a slope angle similar to that of Giza; the result was a pile of rubble that even nowadays looks like a mud mound . . .

  Next came a pyramid built by the Pharaoh Sahura, in Abusir. A much reduced-scale imitation of the great ones in Giza, it sloped at about 50°, and is also a pile of rubble now. So are the four built next, also in Abusir, by his successors Neferirkara, Raneferef, Neuserra, and Zedkara-Isesy. In and around the ruins, wall reliefs and other finds (including images of the kings and their hieroglyphic names) attest the extensive artworks and decorations in these pyramids and in their companion structures. But all that remains of the Fifth Dynasty century and a half of “true pyramid” building are piles of ruined rubble.

  We now move with Egyptology to the profusely decorated and inscription-filled pyramids of the Sixth Dynasty. That part of the Pyramid Age began with the Pharaoh Unash (who some consider the last of the Fifth Dynasty rather than the first of the Sixth). He led the way back to Sakkara, in proximity to Zoser’s step pyramid; adopting a one-third scale compared to Giza’s Great Pyramid, he dared a slope akin to 52°—and ended up, like others before him, with a pile of rubble. The pyramids of the Sixth Dynasty Pharaohs who followed him in Sakkara—Teti, Pepi I, Mernera, Pepi II—ended up the same way. In spite of all the decorations and the verses from the Book of the Dead inscribed on their walls, the monuments that those Pharaohs had erected for their afterlife journeys to Eternal Life on the “Planet of Millions of Years” ended up as collapsed piles of rubble.

  Having been to all these pyramids with their changed shapes and slope angles, and having seen their collapsed ruins—everywhere except in Giza, I could not accept without questioning the Egyptologists’ assertion that the Giza pyramids followed and emulated the others. As I gazed at the remains of the other pyramids in the flat desert landscapes, my gut feeling was No—Giza was the example, the model that the others tried to emulate, and not vice versa!

  The Great Pyramid of Giza—in sheer size, in structural ingenuity and complexity, in mathematical and geometric precision, in enduring stability—has been unique, and there is no need here to illustrate that with well-known data; but that alone does not prove that it was the model for all the others. For that, the most compelling aspect is its inner ascending features. All the pyramids have inner features that are located in subterranean levels; but of all the pyramids (including its companions in Giza—fig. 7 compares the main ones in size and inner complexity)—the Great Pyramid is the only one with ascending passages and complex inner components high above ground level.

  The story of the discovery of those ascending and upper inner features is a key to understanding the true sequence of pyramid construction in Egypt; the mystery of the plugging off of the ascending features is a clue to the true identity of the Giza builders.

  The Giza pyramids as seen nowadays are without the smooth white limestone facing they originally had—the handiwork of robbers who stripped off the valuable limestones for use in neighboring Cairo and surrounding villages. In the Second Pyramid, the strippers fell short of the uppermost courses and the limestone “skin” can still be seen only way up; in the Great Pyramid some of the facing stones remained at the base, serving to indicate the precise slope angle (fig. 8). Today’s visitor enters the Great Pyramid by climbing up several courses of the stone blocks of its exposed masonry, and goes through a forced opening in the pyramid’s north face that leads to its innards via a tunnel-like passage. However, as one looks at the pyramid while still outside (fig. 9), it becomes obvious that this entrance lies somewhat lower and sideways than the true original entrance, which is marked by two sets of massive stone slabs touching diagonally to protect the entranceway (fig. 10a). There, when the pyramid still had its smooth facing, a swivel stone not only shut the entrance but also hid it completely from an outside onlooker (fig. 10b).

  That such an original entranceway, with its swivel stone, had existed was not a complete secret in antiquity; though hidden from view, Egyptian priests knew of it. In fact Strabo, the first century A.D. Roman geographer and historian, reported that when he visited Egypt he entered the Great Pyramid through an opening in the north face hidden by a “hinged stone,” and went down a long and narrow passage all the way to a pit dug in the bedrock—just as other Roman and Greek visitors had done before him.

  Figure 7

  Figure 8

  But as the centuries went by, and Egyptian priests gave way to Christian monks and then Moslem clerics, the exact location of this hidden entranceway was forgotten. In A.D. 820, when the Moslem caliph Al Mamoon sought to enter the pyramid to find its rumored Chamber of Treasures, his engineers and masons ended up hacking their way in—correctly in the north face, but somewhat below the right spot. Their forced opening is the entrance through which today’s visitor goes in.

  Figure 9

  Once inside, all that Al Mamoon’s men found were stone blocks and more stone blocks. Hammering and chiseling, they cracked their way in by alternately heating and cooling the mass of stones. Finally, they reached a narrow inclined passageway; it led all the way down, through masonry and then bedrock, to an empty pit—the very same descending passage and pit described by Strabo.

  Figure 10

  The passageway also led up; following it for a short distance, Al Mamoon’s men found the original entrance from the inside. Were the story to end there, Al Mamoon’s efforts would have only confirmed what was known and believed in previous Roman, Greek, and prior Egyptian times: that the Great Pyramid, as its two companions and all the other pyramids, had only an inner descending passage and below ground-level features (fig. 11a).

  The secret that the Great Pyramid, alone of all the pyramids, also had amazing upper passages and chambers would have remained unknown were it not for an accidental discovery by Al Mamoon’s men. As they went on ramming and blasting, they suddenly heard a loosened stone fall. Searching in the direction of the sound, they found that a fallen triangular stone had hidden from view blocking granite slabs emplaced diagonally to the passage. Unable to break it or move it, they tunneled around it—and reached what is now known as the Ascending Passage (fig. 11b). It led up through the “Grand Gallery” via a horizontal passage to the “Queen’s Chamber” and farther up to the “King’s Chamber” (fig. 11c). The amazing and unique inner upper complexities of the Great Pyramid were discovered.

  Figure 11

  Pyramid researchers now recognize that at some point in time after th
e Great Pyramid was built, “someone” for “some reason” slid down a grooved channel in the Ascending Passage three granite plug-stones that sealed off completely all the upper inner parts of the pyramid, and hid them so well from sight that anyone entering the pyramid through its proper entranceway would only know of the Descending Passage. The inner upper parts became permanently sealed and forever hidden. That is why, I have explained, all the other Egyptian pyramids from Zoser’s on had only descending passages and compartments; for all of them emulated the Great Pyramid as they knew it, and as its companions at Giza suggested: Only descending passages and inner parts below ground level.

  How, when, and why was the upper passageway sealed? The best (or only) idea Egyptologists have is that the sealing-off took place after the Pharaoh’s burial in the “coffer” in the “King’s Chamber” was completed. But when Al Mamoon finally broke into the upper passages and chambers, the coffer was empty and no one was buried in the King’s Chamber. No, the granite plugs were slid down, I wrote, when the god Ra/Marduk, in punishment, was imprisoned in the Great Pyramid to die a slow death. It happened during what I have termed in The Wars of Gods and Men as the Pyramid Wars—when gods, not men, ruled Egypt, long before any Pharaonic dynasties.

  This finding alone should suffice for concluding that the Giza pyramids had been built before all the other pyramids in Egypt were erected; but there is more compelling evidence that leads to that unavoidable conclusion.

  Such evidence can start with showing that a “true” pyramid, as the Great Pyramid of Giza, had existed—and was known and even depicted long before Zoser or Khufu and their dynasties. One can submit in evidence a well-known ancient Egyptian artifact called the Victory Tablet of King Menes (also known as the Narmer Palette), who was the first king of the very first dynasty. It shows on one side the king wearing the white crown of Upper Egypt, defeating its chieftains and conquering their cities. On the tablet’s other side Menes is shown wearing the red crown of Lower Egypt—where Giza is situated; and there the pictographic symbols most clearly include a smooth-sided triangular “true” pyramid (fig. 12), indicating that such a pyramid had already been known circa 3100 B.C.—half a millennium before Cheops/Khufu.