Forgotten Ages Research

The Great Pyramid—How Old is It Really?

Report Topics:

• Was the Pyramid a reflection of prehistoric zodiacal light that peaked 20,000 years ago?
• Astronomical indications the Great Pyramid is far older than conservative scholars have dated it
• Temples in Egypt that date before the Megalithic Age—are they remnants of Atlantean architecture?
• Enigmas in the progression of construction of the three Giza Pyramids
• Were the Giza Pyramids first, and did they serve as models for the other Egyptian pyramids which came later?

Full Report:

In 1995, astronomer Duncan Steel pointed to a celestial phenomenon called “zodiacal light” and made an interesting link with the pyramids of Egypt.

Zodiacal light is a diffuse glow in a huge triangular shape which follows the ecliptic across the sky and is caused by dust rains in space scattering sunlight. It is best seen from an Earthbound perspective from or near tropical latitudes, especially a few hours after sunset or before dawn. In particular, it was known to the ancient peoples of the Middle East as the “false dawn.” At such times it stretches far above the horizon more than half way to the zenith.

Often accompanying the zodiacal light is a second phenomenon, a dim band reaching across the sky along the ecliptic, known as the zodiacal band. It is due to dust that is exterior to the Earth’s orbit, while the zodiacal light is more pyramid-shaped, and is due predominantly to sunlight scattered from dust interior to our orbit.

The source for these two zodiacal dustings is the periodic breakup of large comets coming into close proximity or at times even striking out planet in the distant past. The comets disintegrate and the dustings eventually fall to Earth themselves from their exterior and interior orbits at measurable rates, as has been determined from accumulations found in polar ice and from lunar micro-craters.

Steel surmises that there have been periods in the past when cometary breakups have greatly enhanced both the pyramidal band and the zodiacal light, making them appear brighter in the heavens than they do today. In fact, they would look like the “river” that Ra navigates in his bark, and at each end of the “river” lies the triangular profile of the main zodiacal light, pyramidal in shape.

At dawn the Sun would seem to be born anew from out of the predawn zodiacal clouds, perhaps inspiring the concept of Ra-Harakhty being birthed into higher consciousness at the beginning of each day. The astronomer asked the important question, was such a prominent celestial display the chief source of inspiration for the building of the Egyptian pyramids?

Most significantly, Steel found that the periodicity of cometary infusions of dusting material into the zodiacal clouds does not correspond with the era of pyramid-building along the Nile as determined by modern conservative archaeologists. There may have been a minor infusion about 3000 B.C.E., but this was at least seven centuries off from when supposedly the first pyramid was constructed, at Saqqara. The last major infusion Steel dates to the time of the ending of the Ice Age, or about 10,000 B.C.E., with an even larger infusion having taken place approximately 10,000 years before that. The astronomer predicts the next one will be coming as early as A.D. 3000.

If the zodiacal light or pyramid in the heavens had indeed influenced the early Egyptians to build the Pyramids, then to correspond to when the phenomenon was last at its greatest manifestation, the Pyramids had to have been built just after 10,000 B.C.E.—and in turn may have been replacements for other prehistoric pyramids going back to almost 20,000 B.C.E.

An important concept on the enigmas of the Pyramids of Egypt has been forwarded by two British investigators, Robert Bauval and Adrian Gilbert. They propose a number of new observations concerning the link between the architectural purpose of the Pyramids and the more celestial aspects of the worship of Osiris.

The first major point was Bauval’s observation that the configuration of the three Giza Pyramids, when seen from above, matches the configuration of the three Belt Stars of the constellation Orion, which for the Egyptians symbolized stellar Osiris.

This has led to looking at the entire landscape from Helipolis in the north to Meidum to the south as being a great map of stars, with the pyramids representing the major celestial orbs in Orion, plus other neighboring star fields.

A second major point is that the four Air Passages inside the Great Pyramid appear to point directly at specific stellar locations in the sky--namely, the Northern King’s Chamber Air Passage toward Thuban in Draco, the Northern Queen’s Chamber Air Passage toward Ursa Minor, the Southern King’s Chamber Air Passage toward Orion’s Belt Stars, and the Southern Queen’s Chamber Air Passage toward Sirius—the Egyptian Sothis, or Isis’ Star.

The most recent astronomical time frame when all these Passages and stars would have been in alignment took place between 2450 B.C.E. and 2600 B.C.E., which is when Bauval and Gilbert suggest the Great Pyramid was built by Khufu.

However, there is one important corollary point made by the two researchers which strongly suggests that a far older date for the Pyramid’s building is more possible. Both admit that the so-called Giza construction project fitting into the Fourth Dynasty was nothing short of miraculous, given what the Egyptians were able to barely accomplish in pyramid-building both before and after the supposed Giza works were erected. The Egyptians themselves referred to another previous period, called the Zep Tepi or First Time, a long remembered Golden Age, for which the authors claim the Pyramids were built as memorials.

However, as Bauval and Gilbert showed through computer calculations, the constellational alignments imprinted in the Air Passages for 2450 B.C.E. were also present earlier, in about 10,500 B.C.E., because of the Precession of the Equinoxes. Rather than surmise that the Pyramids were constructed at the time of the more recent alignments, what if the Pyramids were actually built during the earlier alignments--a concept many other sources support instead.

And what if the recorded rituals performed by Khufu and the other Pharaohs inside the Pyramids during the Fourth Dynasty were meant to celebrate the return of the old alignments and the remembrance of the earlier Golden Age—but with only repair work being accomplished on the monuments, with no major construction having been done whatsoever?

In an interview made in 1995, Bauval made these revealing statements:

“At 10,500 B.C.E. when the constellation Orion was at its low point, it also happened to be crossing the meridian at the time of the vernal equinox. On that day, the vernal point would have been due east. That immediately draws our attention to the Sphinx, because the Sphinx looks due east. And when you investigate the position of that vernal point at 10,500 B.C.E., you’ll find that it is exactly between Virgo and Leo. The constellation was performing its first heliacal rising. This means that the Age of Leo was just beginning. Now, this coincidence is a million to one. It’s luring us to consider that the image of the Sphinx is a symbol of the lion in the sky—Leo. The message is, ’look at the Age of Leo’ over 12,000 years ago.”

As to the deeper purpose and meaning behind the Sphinx and the Giza Pyramids, Bauval commented further:

“We are led to conclude that by following the instructions, we reach a date of 10,500 B.C.E., and that somewhere between the Sphinx and the Great Pyramid is something that has to do with 10,500 B.C.E. I’m translating the message as it was written in the Pyramid Texts and on the monuments. The message is that to find the body of Osiris which is behind you, represented by the pyramids, you have to proceed to that point. But he was actually told to go under the Sphinx. And what we find there is a plaque in front of the Sphinx—a stele. And on it is written, ’This is the place of the First Time.’ What they are telling us is that in 10,500 B.C.E. they buried the body of Orion-Osiris at Giza.”

Madame Helena P. Blavatsky was among the earliest of the modern esoteric writers who speculated about the Great Pyramid being far older than realized by archaeologists. Based on the two ceiling Zodiacs at Dendera Temple, from which she calculated the Egyptians recorded events over the past three Precessions of the Equinoxes, Madame Blavatsky surmised the Great Pyramid must be at least 78,000 years old.

However, would the Great Pyramid as we know it today have existed at such a remote period? Or would it have been in some pre-existing form which eventually evolved into the present structure?

Ancient pictographs actually show the Great Pyramid not as pointed with an apex but having a truncated platform about one-third distance up, with a pillar or gnomen in its center. The Neoplatonist Proclus preserved the legend that when the Pyramid was in this form it served as an astronomical observatory. Near the turn of the last century, British astronomer Richard Proctor noted that if the earlier structure was indeed truncated as depicted, then the upper end of what is now the Grand Gallery would have been open to the sky, and the prehistoric Egyptians could have made very accurate calculations based on the sun, moon, planets and stars transiting across the opening.

At such a time, with the top portion of the Pyramid missing, the King’s Chamber would not yet have existed, and thus the main center of Initiation would have been either what is now the Queen’s Chamber, or the cavernous Pit Chamber far below. The exit point for the Initiates in their final process would have been the sky opening of the Gallery. In one of her psychic visions, Madame Blavatsky seems to have visualized just such a situation in the earlier form of the Pyramid. She wrote:

“The initiated adept, who had successfully passed through all the trials was tied on a couch in the form of a tau and plunged into a deep sleep. He was allowed to remain in this state for three days and three nights, during which time his Spiritual Ego was said to confabulate with the gods, his body remaining all the time in a temple crypt or subterranean cave.

“It was carried during the night of the approaching third day to the entrance of a gallery, where at a certain hour the beams of the rising Sun struck full on the face of the entranced candidate, who awoke to be initiated by Osiris, and Thoth the God of Wisdom.”

And before the truncated pyramid there may have been even older structures at Giza. Madame Blavatsky once remarked that when the “first pyramids” were built, the Pole Star or Polaris was at its lowest culmination and the Pleiades were overhead at the same meridian. One astronomer calculated that the last time this took place was 86,960 years ago.

In the symbology of the Giza Pyramids representing the Belt Stars of Orion, the Great Pyramid is Alnitak, and 83,860 years ago it coincided with the Vernal Equinox—when its ecliptic longitude was 0 degrees. At the same time the Descending Passage would have been aligned with the then Pole Star, Alkaid. About 84,340 years ago the lower descending passage in the Second Giza Pyramid would have been aligned with Lambda Bootes, the previous Pole Star of that era. In the same time frame Mintaka, the Belt Star represented by the Third Giza Pyramid, coincided with the Vernal Equinox, and its descending passage also pointed to Alkaid. Circa 83,770 years ago Alnilam, the Belt Star of the Second Giza Pyramid represents, coincided with the Vernal Equinox, and its upper descending passage was aligned to Alkaid.

Do these tell-tale configurations indicate that the rock cut lower portions and passageways of the Three Giza Pyramids were already present in such a remote period, between eighty-seven and eighty-two millennia ago?

There are several indications that the upper portion of the Great Pyramid—including the King’s Chamber, the Relieving Chambers and the Apex—may have been completed as early as 66,180 years ago. At that time the northern shaft in the King’s Chamber would have pointed directly at Sulafat, a prominent star in Lyra. Circa 66,500 years ago the southern shaft of the King’s Chamber would have been aligned with Alcyone.

During the same period, Capricorn the Goat would have been the chief Sign of the Precessional Age. In his most primordial form, the god Khnum was a Goat and was later changed during Dynastic times to a Ram as a rival to ram-headed Amun at Karnak. In the Relieving Chambers above the King’s Chamber are found prehistoric hieroglyphs, among them the enigmatic title Khnum-Khuf. Conservative archaeologists have tried to equate this title with Pharaoh Khufu of the Fourth Dynasty, claiming his name in the Pyramid proves he built it. But there is increasing evidence that Khnum-Khuf was the original name for the Great Pyramid, and that the later Pharaonic ruler simply took the title as his own in his attempt to claim the monument for himself. Khnum-Khuf means “Khnum Protects Me”—and would have been chosen by the Pyramid builders in honor of the Goat-Sign Age during which their great structure was actually completed.

When Robert Schoch announced his opinion that, based on his professional geological findings, the Great Sphinx of Giza must date to between 7,000 and 9,000 years old, it set off a firestorm of controversy among historians and Egyptologists. Yet Schoch’s new date is far more conservative than other researchers and writers have claimed for the Sphinx’s real origins.

Maverick archaeologist John Anthony West believes the Sphinx was first carved not during the last Age of Leo twelve millennia ago, but rather during the previous Age of Leo a full Precession of the Equinoxes before that, circa 36,000 B.C.E. This, West feels, is more in harmony with Manetho’s chronology of prehistoric Divine Rulers. Popular authors Robert Bauval and Graham Hancock have made allusions to the beginnings of civilization along the Nile going back at least 50,000 years. Esoteric writer Madame Helena P. Blavatsky, more than a century ago, made her psychic revelation that Egypt had its true origins even farther back in time, between 430,000 and 400,000 years ago.

Perhaps more than coincidentally, this last extreme time frame had been in fact Schoch’s very first impression about the age of the Sphinx. In 1991, when he received permission from Egyptian government officials to enter the Sphinx enclosure and examine up close its erosion marks, Schoch’s initial response was, “Wow! These rocks look like they’re hundreds of thousands of years old!” Suddenly realizing there was a camera crew present with him on the site, he quickly added, “But don’t quote me.”

Was Schoch’s intuitive insight perhaps the more correct?

Both John Anthony West and Robert Schoch regard the two prehistoric climate optimum periods—13,000 to 10,000 B.C.E. and 7000 to 5000 B.C.E.—as possible dates for the carving of the Sphinx, though West leans more heavily in favor of the earlier time frame. In fact, West surmises three may have been two advanced prehistoric civilizations in Egypt in the past that acted as me diaries in handing down the lost legacy of the past that eventually gave birth to the historic Egypt begun in the First Dynasty. These would correspond in Manetho’s chronology and the Turn Papyrus’ listing of prehistoric rulers to the Age of the Gods and the First Time, and the subsequent Age of the Shemsu Hor--the Followers of Horus and Thoth.

Graham Hancock and West point to not only the Sphinx but also to other Giza monuments and other structures elsewhere in Egypt that do not fit architecturally into the Dynastic period, which instead seem to hark back to far earlier periods. In sharp contrast to the typical Pharaonic temples built with small limestone masonry-layered blocks, corniced entranceways and wall-spaces covered inside and out with engravings and hieroglyphs, such mystery monuments as the Sphinx Temple, the so-called Mortuary Shrines of Khafre and Menkhare, the Osireion at Abydos and the enigmatic temple at Qasr el-Sagha were made using a totally different architecture. These were instead fashioned with gargantuan granite and limestone blocks weighing from 50 to 275 tons each, using megalithic jigsaw-pattern wall construction and trilithon archways, and were completely bare of any decorations whatsoever (notwithstanding graffiti additions in later ages).

These examples of “primordial” architecture are found either in layers below that of the Pharaonic temples (as is the Osireion in relation to the Eighteenth Dynasty shrine of Seti at Abydos), or close relation to Predynastic and prehistoric cultural remains (as is the temple of Qasr el-Sagha in the Fayum region), or show signs of advanced water erosion from a former pluvial period (like what is observed on the Sphinx, on the inner limestone blocks of the Sphinx Temple and on the Giza Mortuary Shrines). West has expressed his opinion that still other remains of earlier civilizations in Egypt will certainly yet be discovered:

“Nobdy’s thought to look in the right places. I’m absolutely certain that other evidence will be found once a few people start looking in the right places--along the banks of the ancient Nile, for example, which is miles from the present Nile, or even at the bottom of the Mediterranean, which was dry during the last Ice Age.”

If, as conservative scholars surmise, the three Giza Pyramids were built in the Fourth Dynasty by the succession of three Pharaohs—Khufu, Khafre and Menkhare—what we find regarding the sizes of the three Pyramids in association with the three reigns is inconsistent with what we would expected to have happened.

First, Khufu ruled and supposedly constructed the Great Pyramid. Khafre followed Khufu, and in order to be politically and religiously “correct,” we would have expected him to have erected a pyramid larger than Khufu’s. To do otherwise would have seriously reflected on his being inferior to his predecessor. Generally speaking, a ruler could not afford for his people to think that the Pharoah was weaker in power and less blessed by the gods than the ruler before him.

After Khafre, Menkhare next took the throne of Egypt, and in order to be in continued good political and religious form, we would have expected him the build the largest Pyramid of all, dwarfing those of Khufu and Khafre in order to make sure he was not to be outshone by either of his predecessors.

Yet what we find at Giza is exactly opposite the expected scenario. Supposedly Khufu constructed the largest Pyramid, Khafre built his slightly smaller than Khufu’s, and Menkhare erected a Pyramid only a third the size of the other two.

What actually happened is not consistent with what should have happened if the three Giza Pyramids were built in the Fourth Dynasty. This can only mean that something is fundamentally wrong with the accepted scenario.

If instead of the three Pharaohs building the three Giza Pyramids, what if the Pyramids were already present, old with age, and in the Fourth Dynasty the three succeeding rulers simply claimed possession of the structures, doing repair work on them, and building only the minor subsidiary pyramids around them for themselves and their families. What would we expect would have happened?

Khufu, the first on the scene, would naturally have laid claim to the largest Pyramid for himself, or the Great Pyramid. His successor, Khafre, now left with only two Pyramids to choose from, would have taken possession of the second largest. Menkhare, the last to reign, would have had to be content with the last Pyramid available, the smallest of the three.

Such a scenario best fits the actual facts, for this is exactly the succession of Pyramids the Pharaohs had jurisdiction over, each in their turn. Clearly the Giza Pyramids came first, then the Pharaohs ruled, not the other way around.

The controversy over the age of the Great Pyramid encompasses no just the Pyramid, but also its sister structures at Giza—the Second and Third Pyramids. According to conservative scholars, these three were supposed to represent the “height of accomplishment” in the Egyptian age of pyramid building, fro the Third to the Thirteenth Dynasties, circa 2700 to 1600 B.C.E. But if the Giza Pyramids are in reality twelve thousand years old, then they instead must have served as the models the Dynastic Egyptians repeatedly tried to copy and emulate.

If we recognize this greater antiquity for the Giza Three, that they were built first, then many mysteries surrounding the design and construction of Egypt’s other pyramids find their solutions.

The conservative view purports that the early pyramids along the Nile developed by stages of evolution. Initially, in the First and Second Dynasties, from circa 3200 to 2800 B.C.E., the Pharaohs were buried in mastabas, which were rectangular-shaped structures with walls sloping inward, built over underground vaults. What has baffled archaeologists is hat each of the first kings of Egypt had not one but two such mastabas, at Abydos and at Saqqara. One of these served as a cenotaph, or an empty tomb in honor of the royal person. The reason for this early practice is still a puzzle for scholars, not yet solved.

However, we know from ancient records that the peoples of the ancient world at one time had knowledge of the existence of the known entrance to the Great Pyramid, and they left evidence, in the form of torch soot and graffiti on the walls, that they penetrated as far as the Descending Passage and Pit Chamber. The Second and Third Pyramids also possess passages and empty chambers deep beneath their foundations. Did the early Pharaohs, in studying the design of the Giza Pyramids standing silently before them on the Nile, imitate the empty Pyramid chambers in the building of their second royal tombs, believing the empty chambers had a special spiritual significance they wished to emulate?

In the Third Dynasty, beginning about 2780 B.C.E., Pharaoh Zoser undertook to build a mastaba for himself as had his predecessors, but then decided to go several steps further. Two more mastaba structures were constructed on top of the first in step fashion, and finally, these in turn were incorporated as one side of a six-tiered pyramid. The development of this curious structure—today called the Step Pyramid, and located at Saqqara—indicates that Zoser was attempting to copy or duplicate a particular image. The pyramid does resemble a Sumerian ziggurat, or “holy mountain,” except that unlike a ziggurat Zoser’s structure possessed no sanctuary at its apex, and had a system of internal tunnels and chambers. The only structure which comes close to being models for Zoser’s work are the Giza Pyramids.

Significantly—and again in imitation of the Giza monuments—Zoser was not buried in his Step Pyramid. The foot of a mummy thought to have belonged to Zoser was found in one chamber, but the wrappings proved to be from a period much later than the Third Dynasty. All in all, a total of sixty mummies were found in and around the Step Pyramid, but these have been dated to the Saitic or Late Period, in the first millennium B.C.E. Zoer’s tomb has been identified as located at Bet Khalaif, and no pyramid structure was found associated with it.

Following Zoser, his successor, Pharoah Sekhemket, attempted to build a pyramid, but it appears never to have been completed, and today is only a mass of rubble. However, archaeologists did find at the bottom of a shaft below the structure a sealed alabaster sarcophagus. When the sarcophagus was opened, it was found to be completely empty, mirroring the state the Stone Box was found in, in the Great Pyramid.

The one ruler who by far was the most ambitious pyramid builder of the Third Dynasty was Pharaoh Senefru. He constructed three monuments, and there is every reason to believe he attempted to duplicate the feat of the three Giza Pyramids. He came close, for his pyramids contained two-thirds as much stone, covered ninety percent as much area, and were built with comparable speed as the Giza structures. The one obvious difference is their building design and masonry were very crude, when examined alongside the work done in the Giza area. What is interesting is to notice these points of similarity between Senefru’s monuments and those at Giza, within sight to the north:

1. The Senefru pyramids all have square-cut descending passaes angled between 26 and 28 degrees. The Great Pyramid has the same, angled at just slightly over 26 degrees.

2. The passages of the three Senefru structures point into the northern sky, at the celestial pole, as does the Descending Passage in the Great Pyramid.

3. All the Senefru pyramidal chambers were found empty, as with the Giza Pyramids—none contained ancient mummies.

4. The Meidum Pyramid—Senefru’s first—was made with completely white limestone covering, the Bent Pyramid—Senefru’s second—possessed both red and white stonework, and the Red Pyramid—Senefru’s Third—was composed of all rose-hued limestone. In comparison, the Great Pyramid had an exclusively white limestone casing, the Second Pyramid was white except for red granite stonework around its base, and the Third Pyramid had an entirely red granite exterior.

5. The Senefru monuments all had subsidiary pyramids and temples, like those attached to the Giza Three.

6. In particular, the Bent Pyramid imitated the Second Pyramid at Giza almost point for point: Both have two entrances; both possess two chambers, one upper and one lower, near the base; and both are accompanied by a smaller pyramid, located on the south side.

According to the conservative model of Egyptian history, the pyramids of the Third Dynasty were built in their locations and design only by the whim of each succeeding Pharaoh, and were thus unrelated to one another. But there now appears to have been an overriding purpose behind their collective construction, as if they were part of a larger master plan.

There is good evidence to suggest that by the early Dynastic period the prehistoric outline of the Great Pyramid had been so worn down that its shadow-casts could no longer be utilized for accurate Earth commensurations or for calendral purposes. As a result, the Third Dynastic pyramids were built with such measurements in mind. As one example, both Zoser’s Step Pyramid at Saqqara and Senefru’s Bent Pyramid at Dashur were constructed precisely on the 31 degrees 31 minutes meridian East four miles from each other.

By taking note of the difference in shadow lengths on the Winter Solstice, with the Step Pyramid shadow being 6.85 inches longer, the overall length of latitude could have been determined within a few minutes of accuracy—information which leads one to both a precise calculation of the size of the Earth, as well as a definitive length of the year.

It is in the period immediately following Senefru, at the beginning of the Fourth Dynasty, that we are supposed to believe that Egyptian architects somehow miraculously overcame all their construction shortcomings, and developed a quantum leap of techniques for advanced building that went into the making of the Giza Pyramids. But the Giza monuments, however, stand out above all the rest of the pyramids in Egypt in many unique ways, clearly showing they were not related to the other Egyptian pyramids in time or construction.

First, only the Great Pyramid and—from what is known from legend and esoteric sources—the other two Giza Pyramids have chambers in their upper interior—all the rest possess only a lower chamber or chambers near the foundation. These are copies of the pit chambers in the Giza Pyramids. The Dynastic Egyptians, not knowing of the secret chambers higher up, had no precedent for including these in their own pyramids.

Second, only the Giza Three are accurately aligned to true north, which is indicative of a very sophisticated science of Earth measurement and construction—elements exhibited in no other pyramid.

Third, only the Giza monuments were built with a high degree of accuracy—this precision, coupled with the apparent mastery of large, multi-ton stone construction, is what allowed the Giza Pyramids to reach their gigantic sizes, the largest in Egypt. In the Second and Third Pyramids the construction blocks are often not as massive or as finely positioned as they are seen in the Great Pyramid, but they are precise enough to place them in an entirely different category from all other structures along the Nile.

Fourth, the Giza monuments were built using construction designs totally alien to any other pyramid form. Writer-researcher William Fix observed:

“Because the other pyramids consist of much smaller blocks, they were built as a series of shells with multiple internal retaining walls to give cohesiveness. The three large Giza Pyramids do not have these internal casings. The very size of the blocks produces the necessary stability. This characteristic reveals a general excellence of workmanship and also imply a much higher technological capability than that employed anywhere else.”

And fifth, unlike any pyramid supposedly built either before or after the Giza Three, none of the Giza monuments contain religious symbols or pictures in any of their inner chambers.

It is becoming increasingly apparent that the three Pharaohs who are thought to have build the Giza Pyramids instead simply claimed the monuments as their own, having given up on the idea of attempting to duplicate the structures, as Senefru had tried but failed to do before them. There are several subsidiary pyramids around the Giza Three which were probably built by the Pharaohs, and today are almost in total ruins because of their greatly inferior construction.

With Menkhare came the end of the Fourth Dynasty, and at the beginning of the Fifth Dynasty we are supposed to believe, according to archaeologists, that the Egyptians suddenly reverted back to the same old methods of design and greatly inferior construction techniques as seen in the pyramids prior to the Fourth Dynasty.

The first Pharaoh of the Fifth Dynasty, Shepeskaf, actually built nothing more than a mastaba for his burial place. He was then followed by Userkaf, whose pyramid was so badly made it today is only a heap of debris. Sahure, Nieswerre and Nefirirkare came next, and between them at Abu Sir they attempted to build three stone pyramids—again attempting to duplicate Giza—but these in no way approached the size or grandeur of the Giza Three, and today are nothing more than broken piles. The same can be said for the monuments of the Sixth through the Thirteen Dynasties, after which pyramid building for the most part came to an end.

In all, twenty-three major pyramids were erected following the Fourth Dynasty and in each single case, the work on them was done hastily, with little care of precision, and using blocks that were no more than roughly shaped boulders. We may well ask, if the Giza Pyramids, in all their excellence, were supposedly built in the Fourth Dynasty, what happened to the advance knowledge seen in their design and construction—why was it never used again, in not a single later pyramid?

In truth, the Giza Pyramids were not an integral part of the evolutionary development of the Egyptian pyramids. Instead, they were there from the very beginning, the motivation and influence which spurred the building of the Dynastic pyramids along the Nile.

Many misconceptions exist in conservative thought as to how far back in time the monument of the Great Pyramid goes. The “established” or accepted date conservative historians place at circa 2300 B.C.E. or at the beginning of the Fourth Dynasty. Yet the certainty of this date and period is still very much in question. Researcher-author David Zink once stated:

“The sparseness of evidence from which the Fourth Dynasty is described, and the Great Pyramid is dated, is surprising to the trained scholar. Before the reign of Sesostris III (1978 - 1843 B.C.E.) the events of Dynastic Egypt become more and more conjectural, so much so that, b the time of the Fourth Dynasty, linking the kings of the dynasty to their respective pyramids seems almost arbitrary.”

The conservative historians’ entire case for dating the Great Pyramid to the Fourth Dynasty rests upon two major pieces of evidence. The first is the story of Herodotus, the Greek traveler who recounted how Pharaoh Cheops (the Greek name for Khufu) built the Great Pyramid with one hundred thousand men in twenty years. For most scholars, however, this story is highly questionable. Herodotus, as an Initiate in the Egyptian Mystery Schools, was sworn to secrecy regarding the true nature of the Pyramid, and he probably simply copied a fictitious tale about the monument that was then in circulation among the common masses.

The second piece of evidence is the existence of painted hieroglyph inscriptions found in the air space chambers above the King’s Chamber, which supposedly include the name of Pharaoh Khufu. They were alleged to have been discovered by Col. Richard Howard-Vyse in 1837, when he forced his way into these chambers using gunpowder. But this evidence too is highly controversial, for there are several schools of thought on how to interpret these glyphs.

The conservative view, of course, is to take them at face value as proof that the Pyramid was built by Khufu. But other researchers have offered evidence that the glyphs were in fact forgeries manufactured by Howard-Vyse himself. Still others accept the glyphs as genuine, yet argue they in no way date the Pyramid to the Fourth Dynasty. Instead, they are a primordial form of writing made when the monument was built twelve thousand years ago, and the actual name “Khnum-Khuf” and its variants that appear in the chambers was really a prehistoric deity after whom Pharaoh Khufu entitled himself in honor of his repair work on the structure, in his own later age.

Let us examine the evidence given by those who believe the Pyramid glyphs were forgeries:

1. At the time Col. Howard-Vyse began his quest to find chambers above the King’s Chamber, his digging concession from the Egyptian authorities, as well as his financial support, were both running out. It was necessary for him to make a major discovery as soon as possible in order to continue his work. He was hoping that the area above Davison’s Chamber—the first air space chamber discovered by Nathaniel Davison in 1765—would contain a large hidden room or vault, and was severely disappointed when instead he brought to light only another air space chamber, which was far from the “dramatic discovery” he needed. Only two months before, his rival, the Italian explorer Captain Caviglia, had stirred archaeological circles with his find of quarry inscriptions in some of the tombs around the Great Pyramid.

These quarry inscriptions took the form of hieroglyphs daubed on the building blocks with red paint, and had been used by the builders of the Old Kingdom as directions for where the blocks were to be placed.

A number of modern researchers now suspect that, in the battle for archaeological one-gunmanship, Howard-Vyse sought to overshadow Caviglia and gain renewed support for his own projects with a similar but more spectacular “discovery,” by imitating these quarry inscriptions inside the Great Pyramid itself.

Forging such inscriptions would have been fairly easy, since the Arabs still use similar red ochre paint, called moghrah, that is indistinguishable from that of the ancient examples.

As Perring, a contemporary of Howard-Vyse, noted: “Such is the state of preservation of the marks in the quarries, that it is difficult to distinguish the mark of yesterday from one of three hundred years.”

2. It is curious that on the day Howard-Vyse entered the first air chamber he discovered, he did not report finding any sign of inscriptions within. He wrote that it had been hermetically sealed, and observed that, “the ceiling was beautifully polished and had the finest joints.” Thus his examination was very thorough, enough so that the inscriptions in bright red paint on the walls that are so obvious today to anyone going inside, should have been plainly seen.

But it was not until the evening of the next day, and in the company of the first visitors to the site, that the red-daubed hieroglyphs suddenly revealed themselves. Howard-Vyse named the air space “Wellington’s Chamber,” and he and his new-found discoveries became an instant success.

Anticipating that there were yet more air spaces higher up, with yet more inscriptions, Howard-Vyse won further digging concessions and financial backing, blasting his way farther up into the Pyramid to discover three more similar chambers. To be sure, these too did indeed also contain mysterious inscriptions, each find adding to the Colonel’s reputation.

3. However, the question has never been answered, why do inscriptions appear only in the air space chambers that Howard-Vyse opened, but none were found in Davison’s Chamber, with which the Colonel had nothing to do with, discovered earlier, in 1765?

4. And why, too, are these inscriptions on the north, south and west walls in these chambers, but nothing is found on the eastern walls, which happen to be the walls Howard-Vyse broke through to enter within?

Either the ancient builders were somehow precognizant of the direction the Colonel came, or the painting was done after the fact of the break-in, and the forger could only utilize the walls that were intact. There is in one of the chambers the vain attempt to paint something on a broken part of the wall, but it is very crude and incongruous with the other inscriptions. The try was made and failed, so it was not tried again elsewhere.

5. More clumsy artwork is apparent in the attempt to make it appear as if some of the inscriptions were partially covered over by the floor blocks, which would be proof that the paint had been daubed on before the blocks were placed into the structure. But careful analysis carried out nearly a century after Howard-Vyse’s break-in demonstrated that tiny flakes of paint are present on the floor blocks adjacent to many of the daubings, which indicate where a paintbrush accidentally brushed against the blocks as the ochre was being applied. This shows the work had been done not before but after the fact of construction.

6. Linked with this, the perspective and angle at which the inscriptions were made likewise shows that they were painted not by the quarry masons before the blocks were moved, but rather by someone working in the cramped quarters of the air space chambers after the blocks had been placed in the Pyramid. Instructions for locating blocks in a construction project served no purpose after the fact had been accomplished. Clearly, they were added by someone else, and not by the builders themselves.

7. Serious problems also arose when in later years the nature of the air space inscriptions were examined by ancient language experts. Samuel Birch, a hieroglyph expert of the British Museum, was among the first to analyze the paintings, and noted a number of peculiarities among them which remain unresolved to this day.

Later Egyptologists such as Carl Richard Lepsius and Sir Flinders Petrie expressed being disturbed at the number of exceptions of usage in the air space chamber inscriptions found by Howard-Vyse that have absolutely no parallel throughout four millennia of hieroglyphic writing.

There is particular confusion concerning the many variations of an appellation that appears among the inscriptions, given as “Khnum-Khuf,” “Souphis,” “Saufou,” etc. While most modern experts have attempted to link these multiple names with Pharaoh Khufu, many early researchers were not so sure. One prominent early authority, Gaston Maspero, wrote: “The existence of the many cartouches of Khufu on the same monument has caused much embarrassment to Egyptologists.”

In 1837, when Howard-Vyse made his “discoveries” of the air space inscriptions, not much was yet known concerning the five royal names for Khufu that later archaeological discoveries would reveal. Those who argue the inscriptions are forgeries point to these “variations” as evidence of pure guesswork—for they are names which do not appear in such forms anywhere else in known ancient Egyptian literature.

However, those who do accept the air space inscriptions as genuine, yet who believe the Pyramid is over twelve thousand years old, explain the anomalies in the language usage and in the variant names as indicators that the inscriptions came from a far older age, from a prehistoric period when a more “primordial” form of hieroglyphs was utilized, an original “parent” language from which the later Dynastic examples descended. And as noted earlier, the appellations and their variations painted on the blocks honored not a Pharaoh but a prehistoric deity to whom the Pyramid was dedicated. The names were passed down from generation to generation through the many millennia—and one of these names was chosen by the Pharaoh who would claim the monument as his own when he ruled in the Fourth Dynasty, nearly seven thousand years after it was constructed.

As to when the Egyptians themselves thought the Great Pyramid was built, the first clue comes from Egyptian mythic history. Conservative scholars do not recognize the possible existence of civilization along the Nile prior to the founding of the First Dynasty by Narmer-Menes in about 3200 B.C.E., yet the ancient chroniclers of the land recorded that in a far earlier time the Gods had reigned in a Golden Age of science and wisdom. These Gods, the legends reveal, were born, made love, fought battles and died as mortal men and women, suggesting they actually once had been historic figures whose memory in time was preserved through deification.

Manetho, the fourth century B.C.E. Sebennyte priest who attempted to compile the first complete chronology of Egyptian history, wrote that the Gods had come from some other place to reign in Egypt, bringing with them and teaching the peoples of the Nile all the rudiments of a high civilization.

The first of the Gods to rule was the equivalent to the Greek Hephaestus—the Roman Vulcan—who established the beginning of government in the land 24,925 years before Narmer-Menes’ time, or in approximately 28,000 B.C.E. After Hephaestus, a succession of Gods and Goddesses watched over the land. Then, suddenly, after a combined rule of almost 15,000 years—or until sometimes between 12,000 and 10,000 B.C.E.—the Deities disappeared from the scene, and the Age of Demi-gods and Hero Kings began, an Age which last for five millennia before the reign of the first Predynastic and finally Dynastic rulers emerged, bringing us into historic times.

When we look at mythic history for the story of the origins of the Great Pyramid, we discover that the monument was not attributed to any Pharaoh, but was the produce of the genius and higher learning of the Gods of old. Time and time again—from the Egyptian Pyramid Texts to the Roman Marcellinus to the Coptic Al Masudi and the Arab Ibn Abd Alhokim—the recounters of the ancient legends tell how the Pyramid was built by the Gods of the Zep Tepi or First Time to preserve the knowledge and their magnificent civilization from being lost in the destruction by a Flood, and that it was this Flood which brought the Age of the Gods to its tragic end. If this is true, this places a minimum date on the Pyramid of before 10,000 B.C.E.

For it is circa this date, as can be proven in scientific studies, which was highlighted by major climatic, geologic and biological revolutions in the planet, marking the division point between the last Ice Age and the Present Era.

In Egypt, geologists examining the fossil record have found that the combined effect of melting glaciers in the Mountains of the Moon, plus a sharp rise in precipitation levels in Central Africa, caused the Nile river circa 10,000 B.C.E. to swell in size a thousand fold, eroding away cliff walls miles from its present banks, and washing out its entire valley throughout the length of the country. At the same time, as the Mediterranean Sea began to fill and rise due to higher ocean levels from melting northern glaciers, its waters for a brief period also flooded the lower Nile valley. These, geologists are certain, are the last major flood events in Egypt’s fossil history, before the sea retreated and the Nile settled down to today’s relatively peaceful, winding flow.

Yet, knowing this, geologists are hard pressed to explain why there exists a fourteen-foot layer of silt around the base of the Pyramid, a layer which also contained many seashells, and the fossil remains of a sea cow, all of which dated by radiocarbon methods to 11,600 B.P. (Before Present) plus or minus 300 years.

Legends and records likewise speak of the fact that, before the Arabs removed the Pyramid’s outer casing stones, one could see water marks on the stones halfway up the Pyramid’s height, up to about the 240-foot level, which would be 400 feet above the present Nile level. The medieval Arab historian Al Biruni, writing in his treatise The Chronology of Ancient Nations, noted:

“The Persians and the great mass of Magians relate that the inhabitants of the west, when they were warned by their sages, constructed buildings of the King and the Giza Pyramids. The traces of the water of the Deluge and the effects of the waves are still visible on these pyramids half-way up, above which the water did not rise.”

Add to this the observation made when they Pyramid was first opened, that incrustations of salt an inch thick were found in several places inside. Most of the salt is natural exudation fro the chambered rock wall, but chemical analysis also shows some of the salt has a mineral content consistent with salt from the sea.

If the floodings of 10,000 B.C.E. were the last major catastrophic water events in Egypt, and the Pyramid exhibits signs of having been subjected to them, it means the Pyramid must date from a period before the flooding occurred.

Though most Egyptologists today have yet to accept any “radical” revision of their dating of the Pyramid, there have been other discoveries that have forced them to at least realize that their preconceived theories of any early Dynastic age for the structure is no longer tenable. In 1983 and 1984, prehistory Robert J. Wenke from the University of Washington, and president of the American Research Center in Egypt, was given permission to collect mortar samples from various ancient construction sites, including the Great Pyramid. The mortar contained particles of charcoal, insect matter, pollen and other organic materials which could be subjected to carbon-14 dating analysis.

Using two different radiocarbon testing laboratories—the Institute for the Study of Man at Southern Medthodist University, and the Institute of Medium energy Physics in Zurich--the samples revealed a number of curiosities. For the Great Pyramid samples, the tests performed at the two labs initially gave very different clusterings of dates, off by several thousands of years. When certain “adjustments” in the data were applied, the resulting time frame narrowed to 3100 B.C.E. to 2850 B.C.E.—which is still four centuries earlier than when most Egyptologists believe the Great Pyramid was built.

Even more anomalous, the dates obtained from mortar used near the top of the Pyramid were a thousand years older than those obtained from mortar nearer the Pyramid base. The researchers, if they were to fully believe these findings, would have to propose that the Pyramid had somehow been built from the top down.

What makes the datings further unacceptable is that all of them were taken from areas of previously exposed surfaces. We know from several ancient sources that the Giza monuments were time and time again subjected to many reconstructions and repair work, inside and out. Therefore the radiocarbon dates can only give us clues as to when the time frame was for the repair work, not the actual construction of the Great Pyramid. If the dates are to believed at all, they at least tell us that reconstruction work was done on the monument in a time period long before the “accepted” building was done, which means the Pyramid itself must be from an even earlier period, farther distant in the past.

Another piece of evidence for when the Great Pyramid was really built may be found in the alignment of the structure. Because its overall alignment with true north is off only by 4 minutes of a degree, Drs. G. S. Pawley and N. Abrahamsen of Scotland and Denmark have proposed that originally the Pyramid may have been aligned exactly on target, but some force has since moved it slightly. They identified the force as continental drift.

Conservative scholars have argued, however, that the Pyramid’s misalignment is toward the west, while the African tectonic plate on which the Pyramid rides is moving toward the east. But there is also a much larger plate movement, involving both Europe and Africa, which is indeed swinging in a westward rotation movement, with the hinge point in the North Atlantic. The problem is, in the last 12,000 years this movement has only been 0.4 minutes of a degree, only on-tenth the movement necessary to have shifted the Pyramid. Is it possible the Pyramid—or at least the site upon which it was constructed—has a history that stretched back even before prehistoric Egypt?

Another possible explanation might have involved the Pyramid remaining still, and the North Pole itself having moved. We know hat the Pole position is not constant, and wanders slowly over the ages. But in the past 12,000 years, the Pole is not supposed to have deviated more than 0.72 minutes from its present position--again, far too small to explain 4 minutes misalignment in the Pyramid.

However, we know that just before twelve millennia ago, in about 10,000 B.C.C., the Earth underwent a sudden and catastrophic pole shift, an event which could have accounted for the Pyramid movement. The shift that occurred was in the form of a jolt, whereby the planet momentarily lost its balance, then the Pole quickly re-established itself back to near its original position, only now a few minutes off, and with a lingering wobble in its spin that is still detectable today.

A number of researchers believe this planetary jolt may have been caused by a meteor or comet plummeting to the Earth. The geologic record tells us that, even though the shift was a small one, it caused widespread destruction and earth upheavals. In the King’s Chamber in the Pyramid, the great 75-ton blocks at the southern end of the ceiling are cracked and broken, and along the Pyramid’s base as seen in the Descending Passage are large fissures in the rock, all indicating that the Pyramid must have been once subjected to an earth shock of tremendous proportions. Did the Pyramid survive a pole shift? If so, then its construction must date prior to the last one, or before 10,000 B.C.E.

The Great Pyramid, in its perimeters and in its height, contains in these dimensions three basic harmonic measurements for calculating the size of the Earth. While the first two of these measurements, the circumpolar and Equatorial circumferences which are linked to the casing stone perimeter and the socket perimeter respectively, are as precise as we can measure them today, the third, or the length of the polar radius harmonically commensurate with the height of the Pyramid, is not as accurate. In fact, the Pyramid measurement for the radius indicates a distance shorter by 391 feet than it is today.

Now it might be a simple matter to ascribe this difference to an error on the part of the Pyramid builders, but then why are the other two measurements near perfect, and the last one is not?

The surprising answer may be that, when the Pyramid builders made the measurements, and incorporated them into their monument, the polar radius was indeed shorter by 391 feet. But for this to be true, it means the Pole at that time was for some reason flatter, as if a tremendous weight had been pressing down on the top of the world, a weight that since has disappeared.

The one great mass that geologists know for a fact that did depress the North Pole of the Earth at one time was the glacier cover of the last Ice Age. For the Pyramid builders to have preserved this depression of the Pole in the Pyramid’s dimension, however, means they had to have been living contemporary with the Ice Age, or at least near its end, before the surface began to rebound as a result of tremendous melting. And this points to a period circa 12,000 to 10,000 years ago.

We find further corroboration of great age when we look at the Great Pyramid itself. Observing the precision of its architecture, the wonder of its construction, and the sophistication of the knowledge incorporated into its design, there is no way we can ascribe the Pyramid to any Dynastic era in Egyptian history, for we find no comparable level of sophistication existing anywhere else along the Nile a theat tme, or in the rest of the ancient world. As archaeologist William Kingsland observed:

"There is no record in Egypt itself of any gradual development of architectural knowledge and skill. How did the exquisite technical skill and knowledge displayed in this vast structure suddenly make its appearance in this mysterious land? We may even ask the question, which, indeed, has been asked before. “Though the Pyramid is in Egypt, is it of Egypt?”

After doing an exhaustive study of the architecture of the Great Pyramid as compared with the architecture of the other Egyptian structures, author-researcher William Fix concluded:

“The many fundamental differences between the major Giza monuments and the rest of Egypt’s pyramids indicates that they do not fit into the contended chronology for dynastic Egypt. But if they do not belong to dynastic Egypt, there is only one direction in which they can be moved—not forward, but back into the past.”

The Pyramid is thus a monument belonging to another age entirely, a far distant age when a great yet forgotten civilization flourished and died, leaving behind the Pyramid as a testament to its accomplishments, and perhaps also as a warning that even the most advanced societies can disappear almost without a trace. And what was that civilization? Where did the Egyptian deities come from so long ago, bringing the fruits of wisdom to a backward people? What culture was it that locked away in the time-vaults of the Great Pyramid a knowledge our own civilization has yet to attain?

The answer is by no means certain for so far we are left with very few tangible records or artifacts. There is something else which also happened about 10,000 B.C.E. A mysterious land was lost forever beneath the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Plato, in his Timaeus and Critias, preserved the historical account of this destruction as was given to him by his ancestor Solon, who in turn had received it from the priests of Egypt, reading to him the story directly off the columns of the temple of Neith at Sais, in the Nile Delta. Today, we know this story as the tragic sinking of the lost civilization of Atlantis.

[Copyright 2009. Joseph Robert Jochmans. All Rights Reserved.]