Claim

In a recently discovered clip of an address given at Andrews University in Michigan in 1998, retired neurosurgeon and Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson claims that the Egyptian pyramids were constructed by the biblical Joseph to store huge quantities of grain and were not, as is commonly believed, tombs for the pharaohs.

Fact?

Carson’s claims seem to be drawn in part from Egyptologist Dr Wyatt Thom’s 1984 book Egypt Egypt Egypt. According to Thom, the pyramids were built to house grain, and mummified bodies were placed inside as scarecrows to keep birds away. If you’re wondering how that makes sense given that the pyramids are enclosed structures, Thom claims this is because you’re “hamstrung by a very modern conception of birds”.

Verdict: fact

Claim

According to Nathaniel Waggoner, a bagboy at the Los Angeles Four Seasons Hotel, Carson once told him, in lieu of the standard cash tip, that the pyramids were constructed with pointy tips in order to prevent blimps from landing on them.

Fact?

This idea seems to be drawn from a speech given by archeologist Lizzy Acker at the University of Cambridge in 1992. Acker’s claim is that blimps did not in fact exist during the Old or Middle Kingdom periods during which the pyramids were constructed, but that some Egyptian scholars had theorized that such a thing could be possible in the future, and wanted to be ready for anything.

Verdict: fact

Claim

On his official campaign website, Carson claims that he came up with the idea for a musical based on the story of Joseph and his coat of many colors during a surgical consultation with a patient named Jacob Brandman.

Fact?

Carson did apparently propose this idea to Mr. Brandman … in 1998, 30 years after Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat premiered. However, when pushed for comment on this issue, Carson responded that he was in fact aware of the existing musical production in 1998, but that “The Bible calls it a coat of many colors, but in those days the only colors were black and white, as you can see in old television footage. My belief is that the coat was black, white and brown – the first time anyone had ever seen brown. That story has yet to be told.”

Verdict: fact

Claim

In 2009 Carson wrote an essay for his now deleted Livejournal account claiming that the Great Sphinx of Giza was not a creature with the body of a lion and the head of a human, but instead “an ugly cat with a hat on. The confusion stems from the fact that anything looks human with a hat on. Put a hat on a turtle, a monkey, a bat, tell me I’m wrong.”

Fact?

This claim doesn’t seem to originate from any source outside Carson’s own imaginings. An independent study conducted by the Guardian concluded that putting a hat on a monkey primarily resulted in a cute idea for a calendar, and that getting a hat on a bat is basically impossible. But Carson was right about the turtle.

Verdict: half-true