[1] edgarcayce.org/radio/index.aspx?id=1620: Podcasts can be listened to, but are undated. Webarchive reveals that Hancock was invited some time between November 14, 2012 and January 22, 2013.



[2] May 25, 2010 upload by David Wilcock, Youtube, 'David Wilcock Interviews Graham Hancock: Setting History Free!' Graham Hancock: "I just mention in passing here that gold [of the Ark of the Covenant] is a superb radiation shield. And the whole aura that surrounds this box in the Old Testament is of a dangerous and deadly object. If you touch it, you die. There are many accounts of people being struck dead by bolts of fire shooting out of the Ark. ... If I were asked to place a bet on this, my bet would be that the Ark of the Covenant is an out of place artifact. That it is a piece of technology, a piece of high technology. Now, I trace that back through the lineage of Ancient Egypt. Objects like the Ark of the Covenant are found in other Egyptian traditions. ... The people who could build the pyramids, who could move gigantic blocks of stone that weight hundreds of tons [note: not the case at the pyramids] as if they weight no more than a feather, those Egyptians clearly could a lot of things that we can't do today. ... Where they got it from, I don't go there. I don't speculate. But I do argue that they were the masters of a sacred technology. A kind of magic. And that this was manifested in the Ark of the Covenant. And the Ark of the Covenant was taken out of that system and carried off to Israel, but it continued to be a powerful object. I think that they absolute did [the Knights Templar trying to get the Ark to gain power]. Well, it is the power of God. ... If you can direct and control divine power in some way.... There's only one country in the world where the Ark is still venerated as an object and that is in Ethiopia and they have become masters of concealment."

[3] As for the genetic evidence: 2002, Dr. Spencer Well, 'The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey'. In 2004 this book was turned into a TV documentary, which can be found on Youtube.

[4] *) The inventory Stela can give a person a headache: 1) Orthodox Egyptologists ignore it; 2) Hancock and co. only prefer to use it as evidence that the Sphinx predates Khufu, while ignoring the Great Pyramid in this instance.

*) 1906 translation as given by Egyptologist James Henry Breasteds, 'Ancient Records of Egypt': "Live the Horus: Mezer [the living Pharaoh, Khufu – Horus initially was considered the brother of Isis and Osiris and later their son], King of Upper and Lower Egypt [united under the 1st Pharaoh in 3,150 B.C.]: Khufu, who is given life. He found the house of Isis [equated to the Sirius star, close to Orion/Osiris], Mistress of the [Great] Pyramid, beside the house of the Sphinx [correct, immediately to the north] of [Harmakhis] on the north-west [south-east] of the house of Osiris [Giza pyramids, according to Zahi Hawass, but only the Great Pyramid existed at the time of Khufu. This makes sense, as Giza/Osiris are linked to Orion], Lord of Rosta. He built his pyramid [Great Pyramid] beside the temple of this goddess, and he built a pyramid for the king's-daughter Henutsen [G1-c, one of the Khufu Pyramids small queen pyramids right next-door] beside this temple."

*) It appears that the Stela is not a literal word-for-word translation of an older text, this because of words not used in the Old Kingdom.

[5] 1949, Selim Hassan, 'The Sphinx: Its History in the Light of Recent Excavations', pp. 88-91: "In my opinion, the Great Sphinx of Giza was erected after the completion of the Khafra Pyramid Complex; the evidence which leads me to this conclusion being a trench which runs down the northern side of the Causeway of the Second Pyramid. This trench, which measures about 2 metres wide and 1-50 metres deep, is cut in the rock, and serves as a division between the Necropolis of Khufu on the north, and that of Khafra on the south. The marking of boundaries by means of trenches may be seen in the case of rock-cut mastabas, where thev occur in the upper surface of the rock to define the limits of the tomb. In the case of the trench we are discussing, it stops abruptly at the western edge of the cavity of the Sphinx (see Plan, Fig. 2). Now, in the case of a heavy rainfall, this trench would act as a drain, and discharge all its dirty water into the cavity of the Sphinx. This seems to be clear proof that the Sphinx was cut after the completion of the causeway, for had it existed before, the trench would never have been continued right to the edge of the cavity, it being unthinkable that the sacred enclosure of the God should become the receptacle for drainage water, even periodically. However, when the Sphinx was cut, this state of affairs became unavoidable; therefore, the architects did their best by plugging the end of the trench with great blocks of granite, and this forms a convincing proof that the Sphinx was a later addition to the Khafra Pyramid Complex, but not necessarily belonging to it. This, then, seems to limit the age of the Sphinx to the latter end of the reign of Khafra at the very most. Moreover, the details of the statue are all in keeping with the style of the Old Kingdom sculpture. Further, as we have already seen, the Sphinx antedates the rock-cut tombs in the walls of the amphitheatre, while the style of its temple is beyond all doubt that of the IVth Dynasty. As the pedestal of the Sphinx actually forms the lower part of the western wall of this temple, I think we cannot but accept this fact as putting the very lowest limit to the age of the Sphinx, as the middle of the IVth Dynasty. Further facts in favour of this theory are as follows :— (1) That the Great Sphinx is later than Khufu can be seen by the evidence of the trench in the causeway, which makes it practically certain to have been cut after the completion of the causeway. (2) If we are to regard the Sphinx as the representation of the King-God, then we must look for its originator in the king whose pyramid and temples lie nearest to it, and here again the evidence points to Khafra. (3) It can hardly belong to Men-kaw-Ra, the builder of the Third Pyramid, for two reasons : First, it is far from his Pyramid Complex, and secondly, he was unable to finish even his own pyramid and temples. (4) That Khafra was responsible for the erection of the Sphinx seems all the more probable when we study the plans of the Temple of the Sphinx and the Valley Temple of Khafra (see Plan, Fig. 2). It seems quite evident that the two buildings are part of one gigantic scheme. Therefore, taking all these things into consideration, it seems that we must give the credit of having erected this, the world's most wonderful statue, to Khafra, but always with this reservation, that excepting for the mutilated line on the Granite Stela of Thothmes IV, which proves nothing, there is not one single ancient inscription which connects the Sphinx with Khafra. So sound as it may appear, we must treat this evidence as circumstantial until such a time as a lucky turn of a spade will reveal to the world definite reference to the erection of this statue."

[6] 440 B.C., Herodotus, 'The Histories', Book 2, (Translation by Pamela Mensch and edited by James Romm, pp. 124-127): "Cheops [Khufu], according to the priests, plunged Egypt into utter misery. Shutting up all the temples, he prevented the Egyptians from sacrificing, and pressed them all into royal service. Some were assigned to haul stone to the Nile from the quarries in the Arabian mountains. When the stone was ferried across the river, Cheops [Khufu] stationed others to receive and haul it to the Libyan hills. The Egyptians labored in gangs of 100,000 men, each gang assigned for a three-month shift. It took them ten years to build the road used for hauling the stone. This road, it seems to me, required hardly less effort to build than the pyramid. ... To build the pyramid itself took twenty years. ... It is built entirely of polished stone blocks, fitted together meticulously, none of the blocks being less than 30 feet long. ... The Egyptians said that Cheops reigned for fifty years. When he died, his brother Chephren succeeded to the throne. Chephren emulated his brother in many respects. He, too, built a pyramid, though his was smaller than his brother's. (I measured them both myself.) Chephren's has no underground chambers, nor a canal, as the other has, to supply it with water. But water from the Nile, channeled through an aqueduct, surrounds the pyramid where the body of Cheops is said to lie, and makes the site an island. ... They calculate that Egypt's misery lasted for 106 years, during all of which time the temples were shut and never opened. So hated were these kings that the Egyptians actually refuse to mention their names. Instead, they call the pyramids after Philitis, a shepherd who at that time pastured his flocks in the neighborhood."

[7] Ca. 77-79, Pliny the Elder, 'Natural History', Book XXXVI (36), Chapter 17: "We will mention also cursorily the Pyramids, which are in the same country of Egypt, — that idle and foolish exhibition of royal wealth. For the cause by most assigned for their con- struction is an intention on the part of those kings to exhaust their treasures, rather than leave them to successors or plotting rivals, or to keep the people from idleness. Great was the vanity of those individuals on this point. There are traces of a great number of Pyramids begun and left unfinished. ... The largest (3) Pyramid is built of stone quarried in Arabia: three hundred and sixty thousand men, it is said, were employed upon it twenty years, and the three were completed in seventy-eight years and four months. They are described by the following writers: Herodotus [d. 425 B.C.] , (4) Euhemerus [lived +-300 B.C.] , Duris of Samos [d. +-280 B.C.] , Aristagoras [lived +-500 B.C.] , Dionysius, Artemidorus [lived +-100 B.C.] , Alexander Polyhistor [lived +-75 B.C.] , Butoridas, Antisthenes [lived +-400 B.C.] , Demetrius, Demoteles, and Apion [lived +- 0] . These authors, however, are disagreed as to the persons by whom they were constructed; accident having, with very considerable justice, consigned to oblivion the names of those who erected such stupendous memorials of their vanity. Some of these writers inform us that fifteen hundred talents were expended upon radishes, garlic, and onions (5) alone."

[8] 1980, Zecharia Sitchin, 'The Stairway to Heaven, Book II of the Earth Chronicles', pp. 332, 346-352. "Determined to run his own show, Vyse moved from Cairo to the site of the pyramids. "I naturally wished to make some discoveries before I returned to England," he admitted in his journal on January 27, 1837. At great expense to his family, he was now gone for well over a year. ... As it turned out, Vyse secretly entered the Great Pyramid on the night of February 12, accompanied by one John Perring... The circumstances of Vyse launching into this adventure of discovery, his treatment of Caviglia, the chronology of events, his determination to obtain a major find as time and money were running out—bespeak a character capable of such a deed. [faking the workmen's graffiti]"

[9] 2003, Stargate, Ultimate Edition DVD, interview with director Roland Emmerich and producer Dean Devlin.

[10] The 1994 movie Stargate was followed by miniseries: 1) Stargate SG1 (1997-2007); 2) Stargate Atlantis (2004-2009); and 3) Stargate Universe (2009-2011). The initial movie was heavily influenced by Zecharia Sitchin, John Anthony West and Robert Schoch.

[11] 1994, Stargate movie, starting about 6:45 minutes into the film. Dr. Daniel Jackson speaking at the "Symposium Ancient Egypt": "[Dr. Daniel Jackson, portrayed by a 24-year-old James Spader:] When is the academic community going to accept the fact that the pharaohs of the 4th dynasty did not build the Great Pyramid? [crowd gets rowdy] Look, look, inside the Great Pyramid, the most incredible structure ever erected, there are no writings whatsoever. ... [Participant:] Dr. Jackson, you left out the fact that Colonel Vyse discovered quarrymen's inscriptions of Khufu's name within the pyramid. [Dr. Daniel Jackson:] Well, his discovery was a fraud. [Participant:] I how you can prove it. [Another participant:] Who do you think built the pyramids? [Dr. Daniel Jackson:] I don't have any idea who built them. [Participant:] You mean from Atlantis? Or Martians perhaps? [Dr. Daniel Jackson:] That's not the point. The point is when they were built. [Crowd leaves.] As you all know, new geological evidence dates the Sphinx back to a much earlier period. And knowing this, I think we have to begin to reevaluate everything that we have come to accept about. I've been able to show a fully developed writing system appeared in the first two dynasties. You know, almost as if it is was based on an even earlier ... Is there a lunch or something?" Later in the movie it becomes clear the Egyptian god Ra built the Great Pyramid with high technology. Jackson is recruited into a secret government project after this speech.

[12] "The pyramids have a strong astronomical association. The four faces of an Egyptian pyramid are precisely aligned with the four cardinal points of the compass. Given that the Egyptians never recognized a north pole on the Earth, they could have only done this by means of the rotation of the sky about the North Celestial Pole. The most obvious way of fixing azimuthal north would be by the symmetry of the rising and setting points of stars. The great pyramid of Khufu is level to a centimetre and aligned to a twentieth of a degree, a tribute to the accuracy of ancient surveying skills. Khufu's pyramid also contains four "star shafts", aimed towards the meridian in the sky. When the pyramid was built (c. 2500 BC), these shafts aimed at the transitpoints of Thuban (Alpha Draconis - then pole star), Orion's Belt, Sirius and Kochab (Beta Ursa Minoris), clearly intentionally and not coincidentally. The shafts apparently served to direct the ka, or spirit, of the dead pharaoh towards these key stars. Thuban and Kochab were circumpolar "Imperishable ones" (stars that never die), Orion represented the deity Osiris, and Sirius his consort, Isis."

*) 1992, Virginia Trimble, 'Visit to Small Universe', published by the American Institute of Physics, pp. 3-9 (based on research published in 1964 by Egyptologist Alexander Badawy and astronomer Virginia Trimble): "Among the most obvious [unique features of the Great Pyramid] are two shafts leading north and south out of the King's Chamber… The [north] shaft points very neatly toward the celestial pole, about which the circumpolar stars seem to revolve. It is also of interest to note that at the time the pyramid was built, the pole was marked by a bright star [Thuban, or Alpha Draconis] about as accurately as Polaris (Ursae Minoris) now marks it. … In this scheme of moving stars, pole stars are a rather rare occurrence. In fact, after Polaris ceases to mark the pole in a few hundred years, there will not be another good one until Draconis [Thuban: the Arabic word for snake; it was the pole star from 4,000 B.C. to 1,900 B.C.] returns around A.D. 23,000. It happens, however, that the last "visit" of Draconis to the neighborhood of the pole occurred from about 3000 to 2500 B.C. … It thus seems highly probable that they would have chosen to build a shaft that would allow the soul of their dead king to ascend directly to this central point. … Tables and recent calculation by the same method show that one of the three stars in Orion's belt had a declination within 30' of 15.5 degrees (2840 to 2480 BC). … This means that these three [Orion] stars, whose importance to the Egyptians we have seen [meaning: Osiris and the Duat], passed once each day, at culmination, directly over the southern shaft of the Great Pyramid at the time it was built."

*) 2003, Dr. Zahi Hawass for his old personal website, guardians.net, 'The Secret Doors Inside the Great Pyramid': "Egyptologists have multiple explanations for these shafts [of the Queen's Chamber]. Some believe that they were used for ventilation, but this cannot be true as they do not open up to the outside. Others believe that they have an astronomical function; the southern shaft connected to the star Sirius, and the northern shaft linked to Minoris, Ursa, and Beta [Beta Ursae Minoris, or Kochab - an important navigational star]. Stadelmann believes that these shafts are not for ventilation, but are tunnels through which the king's soul will rise to the stars that never darken. I believe that the shafts from the so-called Queen's Chamber likely have no function, as they were blocked from the inside. If they had a religious function, they should have been left open, as were the shafts of the third burial chamber (the King's Chamber). Since these open outside of the pyramid, I believe that Khufu's soul was meant to travel through them. The south shaft [of the King's Chamber, towards Orion/Duat/Osiris] was intended for Khufu to use as the sun god Ra. The south shaft opens exactly between the two boat pits to the south of the Pyramid. Khufu would take the two boats and use them as solar boats – one for the day trip, one for the evening trip. The north shaft [to the pole star, Alpha Draconis/Thubans] was made for the soul of Khufu as Horus to travel to the stars in order to emerge from them as the sun god. In order to understand the purpose of the shafts of the so-called Queen's Chamber, more work had to be done. Egyptologists have multiple explanations for these shafts. Some believe that they were used for ventilation, but this cannot be true as they do not open up to the outside. Others believe that they have an astronomical function; the southern shaft connected to the star Sirius, and the northern shaft linked to Minoris, Ursa, and Beta. Stadelmann believes that these shafts are not for ventilation, but are tunnels through which the king's soul will rise to the stars that never darken."

*) Details on which shafts point to which stars can be seen below:



Pyramid chamber Shaft facing Star King's Chamber North Alpha Draconis (pole star) King's Chamber South Orion (Osiris) Queen's Chamber North Kochab (Beta Ursae Minoris) Queen's Chamber South Sirius (Isis)

*) Sometimes alternate historians argue that Egyptologist Sir Flinders Petrie didn't make the most accurate measurements of the Great Pyramid's shafts, which were subsequently used by scientists Virgina Trimble and Alexander Badawy in 1964 to figure out at which stars the shafts pointed in the 26th century B.C. As the reader can see below, there only exist small variations between the measurements of Petrie in 1880 and Rudolf Gantenbrink in 1993, with not being exactly clear who has the better measurement in each case, at least not based on information from publicly available sources. In all cases the fact remains that the shafts aligned with the afore-mentioned stars somewhere around the 26th century B.C., which is not the case when we go back, let's say, to 10,500 B.C.



Pyramid chamber Shaft angle, Petrie (1880) Shaft angle, Gantenbrink ('93) King's Chamber 31° 32.47° King's Chamber 44.5° 45° Queen's Chamber 37.47° 39°-40° Queen's Chamber 38.47° 39.6°

*) June 1999, Vol. 40, Anthony Patrick Fairall (1943-2008; an experienced professor at the University of Cape Town and director of Cape Town Planetarium) for Astronomy & Geophysics, the journal of the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) in England, 'Precession and the layout of the ancient Egyptian pyramids' ( pdf file ):*) 1992, Virginia Trimble, 'Visit to Small Universe', published by the American Institute of Physics, pp. 3-9 (based on research published in 1964 by Egyptologist Alexander Badawy and astronomer Virginia Trimble):*) 2003, Dr. Zahi Hawass for his old personal website, guardians.net, 'The Secret Doors Inside the Great Pyramid':*) Details on which shafts point to which stars can be seen below:*) Sometimes alternate historians argue that Egyptologist Sir Flinders Petrie didn't make the most accurate measurements of the Great Pyramid's shafts, which were subsequently used by scientists Virgina Trimble and Alexander Badawy in 1964 to figure out at which stars the shafts pointed in the 26th century B.C. As the reader can see below, there only exist small variations between the measurements of Petrie in 1880 and Rudolf Gantenbrink in 1993, with not being exactly clear who has the better measurement in each case, at least not based on information from publicly available sources. In all cases the fact remains that the shafts aligned with the afore-mentioned stars somewhere around the 26th century B.C., which is not the case when we go back, let's say, to 10,500 B.C.

[13] *) 2007, Jay B. Holberg (senior research scientist, Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona), 'Sirius: Brightest Diamond in the Night Sky', p. 4: "Sopdet was the star Sirius, and the celestial manifestation of the goddess Isis. The stars of Osiris, god of the Nile and rebirth, are part of the constellation Orion that rises just prior to Sirius. Isis and Osiris had once again returned from the duat, or underworld."

What follows are excerpts of the Pyramid texts, which were extremely elaborate funeral rites/spells to help guide the pharaoh through the Duat and towards Orion. The texts quoted are Old Kingdom and from roughly 200 years after Khufu finished the Great Pyramid.

*) Pharaoh Pepi I (2,332 – 2,283 B.C.) Pyramid Text, utterance 442, 'The king becomes a star': "Your hand is grasped by Re [Ra] . Your head is raised by the two Enneads [group of gods] . Behold, he has come as Orion, Osiris has come as Orion. Lord of wine and the wag-fest. ... You shall live! You shall rise with Orion in the eastern sky. You shall set with Orion in the western sky. Your third is Sothis [Isis] , pure of thrones. She is your guide on the sky's good paths."

*) 2005, James P. Allen, 'The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts', Chapter 2: The Pyramid texts of (Pharaoh) Pepi I (2,332 – 2,283 B.C.): "Osiris has gone to be with his ka [spirit]; Seth has gone to be with his ka; ... you too [Pepi] have gone to be with your ka. ... You shall [row] and go around the sky [which has] been swept for you and a path [has been] laid down [for] you away from the Duat and toward the place where Orion is. ... Ho, Pepi! You are the big star that is Orion's companion, who travels the sky with Orion and rows the Duat [underworld] with Osiris. You shall emerge in the eastern side of the sky, renewed at your proper season and rejuvenated in your time, Nut having given you birth with Orion, the year having put your headband on you with Osiris. Arms will wave for you, drumming (feet) will go down for you, you will be given a repast, and the Great Mooring-Post will scream for you as (for) Osiris in his activity. Ho, Pepi! Row [the boat] and reach (the sky, but) beware of the Great Lake [the Duat]! ... Tremble, sky; shake, earth—before this [Pharaoh] Pepi! Pepi is Magic, Pepi is one who has magic. This Pepi has come that this Pepi might akhify Orion, that this Pepi might bring Osiris to the fore, that this Pepi might put the gods on their seats. Sees Behind Him, the gods' bull, get that (ferryboat) for this Pepi, put this Pepi on the other side!"

*) 2005, James P. Allen, 'The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts', Chapter 2: The Pyramid texts of (Pharaoh) Teti (2,345–2,333 B.C.): "Osiris Teti, Horus [son of Osiris] has come to you that he might gather you: you are his father. ... Stand up! Raise yourself like Osiris! Ho, Osiris Teti! Horus has come seeking you. He has made Thoth drive back Seth's [Osiris' brother] followers for you... You are greater than he, for you have emerged in precedence to him and your character has precedence over him. ... Geb [father of Isis] has gotten for you your two sisters to your side—they are Isis [normally normally Osiris' wife] and Nephthys. Horus has made the gods join you: they shall be brotherly to you... Ho, Osiris Teti! Horus has tended you. He has acted for his ka [spirit] in you, that you might become content in your identity of Ka At Rest. Ho, Osiris Teti! Geb has given you your eyes: ... Isis and Nephthys tend you, and they have given you to Horus, that he may be content with you. ... Ho, Osiris Teti! Elevate yourself to Horus, betake yourself to him: don't be far from him."

*) 2003, Dr. Zahi Hawass for his old personal website, guardians.net, 'The Secret Doors Inside the Great Pyramid': "The south shaft [of the King's Chamber, towards Orion/Duat/Osiris] was intended for Khufu to use as the sun god Ra. The south shaft opens exactly between the two boat pits [to navigate the Duat, or underworld] to the south of the Pyramid. Khufu would take the two boats and use them as solar boats – one for the day trip, one for the evening trip. The north shaft [to the pole star, Alpha Draconis/Thubans] was made for the soul of Khufu as Horus to travel to the stars in order to emerge from them as the sun god."

[14] *) c14dating.com/int.html (accessed: June 17, 2014): "The historical perspective on the development of radiocarbon dating is well outlined in Taylor's (1987) book "Radiocarbon Dating: An archaeological perspective". Libby and his team initially tested the radiocarbon method on samples from prehistoric Egypt. They chose samples whose age could be independently determined. A sample of acacia wood from the tomb of the pharaoh Zoser (or Djoser; 3rd Dynasty, ca. 2700-2600 BC) was obtained and dated. Libby reasoned that since the half-life of C14 was 5568 years, they should obtain a C14 concentration of about 50% that which was found in living wood (see Libby, 1949 for further details). The results they obtained indicated this was the case. ... In 1949, Arnold and Libby (1949) published their paper "Age determinations by radiocarbon content: Checks with samples of known age" in the journal Science."

*) 2010, Mark Lehner (came to Egypt on a Cayce Foundation scholarship, but slowly came to renounce Cayce's theories and became a close friend and colleague of Zahi Hawass for decades), Ancient Egyptian Research Association (aeraweb.org), 'How Old are the Pyramids?': "The earliest experiments in radiocarbon dating were done on ancient material from Egypt [in 1948-1949]. Willard F. Libby's team obtained acacia wood from the 3rd Dynasty Step Pyramid of Djoser to test a hypothesis they had developed. Libby reasoned that since the half-life of C14 was 5568 years, the Djoser sample's C14 concentration should be about 50% of the concentration found in living wood (for further details, see Arnold and Libby, 1949). The results proved their hypothesis correct. Subsequent work with radiocarbon testing raised questions about the fluctuation of atmospheric C14 over time. Scientists have developed calibration techniques to adjust for these fluctuations."

[15] *) 2010, Mark Lehner (came to Egypt on a Cayce Foundation scholarship, but slowly came to renounce Cayce's theories and became a close friend and colleague of Zahi Hawass for decades), Ancient Egyptian Research Association (aeraweb.org), 'How Old are the Pyramids?': "In 1984 we conducted radiocarbon dating on material from Egyptian Old Kingdom monuments (financed by friends and supporters of the Edgar Cayce Foundation). We then compared our results with the mid-point dates of the kings to whom the monuments belonged (Cambridge Ancient History, 3rd ed.). The average radiocarbon dates were 374 years earlier than expected [due to the re-use of old wood, Lehner later found out]. In spite of this discrepancy, the radiocarbon dates confirmed that the Great Pyramid belonged to the historical era studied by Egyptologists."

[16] *) 2010, Mark Lehner (came to Egypt on a Cayce Foundation scholarship, but slowly came to renounce Cayce's theories and became a close friend and colleague of Zahi Hawass for decades), Ancient Egyptian Research Association (aeraweb.org), 'How Old are the Pyramids?': "In 1994-1995 the David H. Koch Foundation supported us for another round of radiocarbon dating. We broadened our sampling to include material from: The 1st Dynasty tombs at Saqqara (2920-2770 BC). The Djoser pyramid (2630-2611 BC). The Giza Pyramids (2551-2472BC). A selection of 5th Dynasty pyramids (2465-2323 BC). A selection of 6th Dynasty pyramids (2323-2150 BC). A selection of Middle Kingdom pyramids (2040-1640 BC). We also took samples from our Giza Plateau Mapping Project Lost City excavations (4th Dynasty), where we discovered two largely intact bakeries in 1991. Ancient baking left deposits of ash and charcoal, which are very useful for dating. The 1995 set of radiocarbon dates tended to be 100 to 200 years older than the Cambridge Ancient History dates, which was about 200 years younger than our 1984 dates. Comparison 1984/1995: The number of dates from the two projects was only large enough to allow for statistical comparisons for the pyramids of Djoser, Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure. There are two striking results. First, there are significant discrepancies between the 1984 and 1995 dates for Khufu and Khafre, but not for Djoser and Menkaure. Second, the 1995 dates vary widely even for a single monument. For Khufu's Great Pyramid, they scatter over a range of about 400 years."

[17] *) June 18, 2010, vol. 328, Science magazine, Christopher Bronk Ramsey, et al., 'Radiocarbon-Based Chronology for Dynastic Egypt', pp. 1554-1557: "We obtained short-lived plant remains from museum collections (e.g., seeds, basketry, plant-based textiles, plant stems, fruits) that were directly associated with particular reigns or short sections of the historical chronology. We avoided charcoal and wood samples because of the possibility of inbuilt age. We also avoided mummified material because of concerns about contamination from bitumen or other substances used in the mummification process and human material because of the possibility of riverine or marine components in the diet (which might contain older carbon). ... [measured/calculated pyramid dates, B.C.:] ... Djoser: ... 2691-2625; Sneferu: ... 2649-2582; Khufu: 2629-2558 [2580 B.C. is and remains conventional estimate]; Djedefra: ... 2610-2536; Khafra: 2604-2528; Menkaura: ... 2581-2504." All of these dates back up dates that were already estimated in the past.

[18] 2002 (estimated), Edgar Evans Cayce, 22 minute speech on ARE cd-rom (16:10): "Some of you may not know. The ARE sponsored an effort to carbon date the Great Pyramid. Of course, you can't carbon date stone, but you can carbon date any kind of organic matter that is in there. ... When the results did not go back as far as we hoped, we weren't able to get any samples from inside the pyramid, they only let you take samples from the outside, it did show that the structure was 400 years older than the Egyptian archeologists believed. And that kind of upset them, because the pharaoh they thought built it, didn't built it or he lived in a different time. Also, it showed that the blocks at the top were 400 years older than the bottom. That couldn't have been built from the top down, so that means that there have been repairs made, which is pretty good evidence that it is much older than they think."

*) Explanation of Mark Lehner (came to Egypt on a Cayce Foundation scholarship, but slowly came to renounce Cayce's theories and became a close friend and colleague of Zahi Hawass for decades): The discrepancies in dating primarily showed up in trying to date charcoal in the pyramid's mortar. Ancient Egyptians continually re-used wood, which had become scarce. It appears charcoal of sometimes centuries old wood ended up in the pyramid's mortar during the process of heating and making it. See the note below.

*) 2010, Mark Lehner, Ancient Egyptian Research Association (aeraweb.org), 'How Old are the Pyramids?': "The old-wood problem Ancient Egypt's population was restricted to the narrow confines of the Nile Valley with, we assume, a sparse cover of trees. It is likely that, by the pyramid age, the Egyptians had been intensively exploiting wood for fuel for a long time. Because of the scarcity and expense of wood, the Egyptians would reuse pieces of wood as much as possible. Some of this recycled wood was burned, for example, in mortar preparation. If a piece of wood was already centuries old when it was burned, radiocarbon dates of the resulting charcoal would be centuries older than the mortar for which it was burned. We thought that it was unlikely that the pyramid builders consistently used centuries-old wood as fuel in preparing mortar. The 1984 results left us with too little data to conclude that the historical chronology of the Old Kingdom was wrong by nearly 400 years, but we considered this at least a possibility. Alternatively, if our radiocarbon estimations were in error for some reason, we had to assume that many other dates obtained from Egyptian materials were also suspect. This prompted the second, larger, 1995 study. ... If the Middle Kingdom radiocarbon dates are good, why are the Old Kingdom radiocarbon dates from pyramids so problematic? The pyramid builders often reused old cultural material, possibly out of expedience or to make a conscious connection between their pharaoh and his predecessors. Beneath the 3rd Dynasty pyramid of pharaoh Djoser, early explorers found more than 40,000 stone vessels. These vessels included inscriptions of most of the kings of the 1st and 2nd Dynasties, but Djoser's name occurred only once. Did Djoser gather and reuse vases that were already 200 years old from tombs at North Saqqara? In the 12th Dynasty, Amenemhet I (1991-1962 BC) left clear evidence of this kind of recycling. He took pieces of Old Kingdom tomb chapels and pyramid temples (including those of the Giza Pyramids) and dumped them into the core of his pyramid at Lisht."

[19] See the two Graham Hancock quotes at the top of this article.

[21] The only source for the Ark of the Covenant is the bible. Numerous conspiracy rumors aside, it has never been discovered in the ruins of Solomon's Temple nor anywhere else - like the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion in Axum, Ethiopia.

[22] Hancock to David Wilcock: "We shouldn't be so arrogant and think we that we are the apex or pinnacle of human achievement. We may just be a blip in a very long story. The whole story of human history might by cyclical, not linear."

[23] 1995, Graham Hancock, 'Fingerprints of the Gods', pp. 19-20: "The 'idea' expressed in Hapgood's 1953 book is a global geological theory which elegantly explains how and why large parts of Antarctica could have remained ice-free until 4000 BC, together with many other anomalies of earth science. ... Further details of the evidence supporting these radical proposals are set out in Part VIII of this book. Orthodox geologists, however, remain reluctant to accept Hapgood's theory (although none has succeeded in proving it incorrect)."

[24] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pole_shift_hypothesis (accessed: August 31, 2014): "Pole shift hypotheses are not connected with plate tectonics... Pole shift hypotheses are not the same as geomagnetic reversal, the periodic reversal of the Earth's magnetic field (effectively switching the north and south magnetic poles). ... What is known as true polar wander, the solid Earth can rotate with respect to a fixed spin axis. Research shows that during the last 200 million years a total true polar wander of some 30° has occurred, but that no super-rapid shifts in the Earth's pole were found during this period.[2] A characteristic rate of true polar wander is 1° per million years or less.[3] Between approximately 790 and 810 million years ago, when the supercontinent Rodinia existed, two geologically rapid phases of true polar wander may have occurred. In each of these, the magnetic poles of the Earth shifted by ~55°.[4]"

[25] 1995, Graham Hancock, 'Fingerprints of the Gods', pp. 302-303: "Prior to the reigns of Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure [27th century B.C.] there was not a single pharaoh whose name could be put forward as a candidate. Khufu's father Sneferu, the first king of the Fourth Dynasty, was believed to have built the so-called 'Bent' [2,600 B.C.] and 'Red' Pyramids [2,600 B.C.] at Dahshur, about thirty miles south of Gizaan attribution that was itself mysterious (if pyramids were indeed tombs) since it seemed strange that one pharaoh required two pyramids to be buried in. [The Bent Pyramid appears to have been corrected halfway through in fear of another collapse, as happened to Pyramid of Meidum in the same period] Sneferu was also credited by some Egyptologists with the construction of the 'Collapsed' Pyramid at Meidum [2,611 B.C.] (although a number of authorities insisted that this was the tomb of Huni, the last king of the Third Dynasty). 12 The only other builders in the Archaic Period had been Zoser, the second pharaoh of the Third Dynasty, to whom was attributed the construction of the 'Step Pyramid' at Saqqara [2,611 B.C.: Pyramid of Djoser] , 13 and Zoser's successor, Sekhemkhet, whose pyramid also stood at Saqqara. Therefore, despite the lack of inscriptions, it was now assumed as obvious that the three pyramids at Giza must have been built by Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure and must have been intended to serve as their tombs. We need not reiterate here the many shortcomings of the 'tombs and tombs only' theory."

[27] 1995, Graham Hancock, 'Fingerprints of the Gods', pp. 426-428: "The roots of Bauval's discoveries at Giza go back to the 1960s when the Egyptologist and architect Dr. Alexander Badawy and the American astronomer Virginia Trimble demonstrated that the southern shaft of the King's Chamber in the Great Pyramid was targeted like a gun-barrel on the Belt of Orion during the Pyramid Agearound 2600 to 2400 BC. 2 Bauval decided to test the southern shaft of the Queen's Chamber, which Badawy and Trimble had not investigated, and established that it had been sighted on the star Sirius during the Pyramid Age."

[28] Edgarcayce.org, Don Caroll for the ARE blog, 'The Stars Above, the Great Pyramid Below: 10,400 BCE': "Text of Edgar Cayce Reading 5748-6 (Q) What was the date of the actual beginning and ending of the construction of the Great Pyramid? (A) Was one hundred years in construction. Begun and completed in the period of Araaraart's time, with Hermes and Ra. (Q) What was the date B.C. of that period? (A) 10,490 to 10,390 before the Prince entered into Egypt." The prince is actually a reference to biblical figure Jacob, who (allegedly) lived a between one and three millennia or more before Christ, but Cayce's claim has apparently been widely interpreted as roughly meaning 10,500 B.C.

[29] 1995, Graham Hancock, 'Fingerprints of the Gods', pp. 426-428: "I found the implications of the Orion correlation complicated and eerie. On the one hand, the Great Pyramid's southern shafts 'precessionally anchored' the monument to Al Nitak and Sirius in 2475-2400 BC, dates which coincided comfortably with the epoch when Egyptologists said the monument had been built. On the other hand the disposition of all three of the pyramids in relation to the Nile Valley eloquently signalled the much earlier date of 10,450 BC. This coincided with the controversial geological findings John West and Robert Schoch had made at Giza, which suggested the presence of a high civilization in Egypt in the eleventh millennium BC. Moreover, the disposition of the pyramids had not been arrived at by any random or accidental process but seemed to have been deliberately chosen because it marked a precessionally significant event: the lowest point, the beginning, the First Time in Orion's 13,000-year up' cycle. ... My research into Ice Age mythologies had persuaded me that certain ideas and memories could linger in the human psyche for many millennia, transmitted from generation to generation by oral tradition. I could therefore see no prima facie reasons why the Osirian mythology, with its strange and anomalous characteristics, should not have originated as far back as 10,450 BC."

[30] 1995, Graham Hancock, 'Fingerprints of the Gods', pp. 285, 303: "Khufu ... Khafre ... Menkaure ... According to all orthodox Egyptologists the pyramids had been built as tombsand only as tombsfor these three pharaohs. Yet there were some obvious difficulties with such assertions. For example, the spacious burial chamber of the Khafre Pyramid was empty when it was opened in 1818 by the European explorer Giovanni Belzoni. Indeed, more than empty, the chamber was starkly, austerely bare. The polished granite sarcophagus which lay embedded in its floor had also been found empty, with its lid broken into two pieces nearby. 2 How was this to be explained? To Egyptologists the answer seemed obvious. At some early date, probably not many hundreds of years after Khafre's death, tomb robbers must have penetrated the chamber and cleared all its contents including the mummified body of the pharaoh. Much the same thing seemed to have happened at the smaller Third Pyramid, towards which Santha and I were now walkingthat attributed to Menkaure. Here the first European to break in had been a British colonel, Howard Vyse, who had entered the burial chamber in 1837. He found an empty basalt sarcophagus, an anthropoid coffin lid made of wood, and some bones. The natural assumption was that these were the remains of Menkaure. Modern science had subsequently proved, however, that the bones and coffin lid dated from the early Christian era, that is, from 2500 years after the Pyramid Age, and thus represented the intrusive burial' of a much later individual (quite a common practice throughout Ancient Egyptian history). As to the basalt sarcophaguswell, it could have belonged to Menkaure. Unfortunately, however, nobody had the opportunity to examine it because it had been lost at sea when the ship on which Vyse sent it to England had sunk off the coast of Spain. 3 Since it was a matter of record that the sarcophagus had been found empty by Vyse, it was once again assumed that the body of the pharaoh must have been removed by tomb robbers. ... Despite the lack of inscriptions, it was now assumed as obvious that the three pyramids at Giza must have been built by Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure and must have been intended to serve as their tombs. We need not reiterate here the many shortcomings of the 'tombs and tombs only' theory."

[31] 1995, Graham Hancock, 'Fingerprints of the Gods', p. 427: "Using a sophisticated computer programme 7 capable of plotting the precessionally induced changes in the declinations of all the stars visible in the sky over any part of the world in any epoch, Bauval found that the Pyramids/Orion's Belt correlation was general and obvious in all epochs, but specific and exact in only one: At 10,450 BCand at that date onlywe find that the pattern of the pyramids on the ground provides a perfect reflection of the pattern of the stars in the sky. I mean it's a perfect matchfaultlessand it cannot be an accident because the entire arrangement correctly depicts two very unusual celestial events that occurred only at that time. First, and purely by chance, the Milky Way, as visible from Giza in 10,450 BC, exactly duplicated the meridional course of the Nile Valley; secondly, to the west of the Milky Way, the three stars of Orion's Belt were at the lowest altitude in their precessional cycle, with Al Nitak, the star represented by the Great Pyramid, crossing the meridian at 11° 08'.""

[32] "This has suggested that the layout at Giza may be an attempt to portray Orion's Belt. If so, the orientation of the line, with respect to the cardinal points, is wrong – for 2500 BC. Precession, however, changes the angle that the Belt makes in the sky. Bauval claims that going back to 10 500 BC gives "a perfect match". Or does it? My own investigation showed that, while the line of the two outer pyramids is set 38° from north, the angle of Orion's Belt to north in 10 500 BC is close on 50°! Hardly an exact match. I calculate that circular precessional motion would give 47°, whereas including nutational terms makes it slightly higher. Bauval, on the other hand, appears to have used computer programs. He implies that only with modern sophisticated computers can we examine the ancient skies! I wonder if he also made the mistake of measuring angles off a flat screen. ... Finally, as my colleague in the planetarium world Ed Krupp has pointed out, the otherwise straight line of the pyramids is deformed towards the north, but the line of Orion's Belt is deformed towards the south. ... Bauval's choice of 10 500 BC (when Orion is furthest south in its precessional cycle) also reinforces his argument that the Milky Way aligned with the Nile. But the course of the Nile is variable, and we do not now know where it ran in 10 500 BC with any accuracy." June 1999, Vol. 40, Anthony Patrick Fairall (1943-2008; an experienced professor at the University of Cape Town and director of Cape Town Planetarium) for Astronomy & Geophysics, the journal of the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) in England, 'Precession and the layout of the ancient Egyptian pyramids' ( pdf file ):

[33] 1995, Graham Hancock, 'Fingerprints of the Gods', pp. 343-344: "West's evidence focused on certain key structures, notably the Great Sphinx and the Valley Temple at Giza and, much farther south, the mysterious Osireion at Abydos. He argued that these desert monuments showed many scientifically unmistakable signs of having been weathered by water, an erosive agent they could only have been exposed to in sufficient quantities during the damp 'pluvial' period that accompanied the end of the last Ice Age around the eleventh millennium BC. 10 The implication of this peculiar and extremely distinctive pattern of 'precipitation induced' weathering, was that the Osireion, the Sphinx, and other associated structures were built before 10,000 BC. 11"

[34] 1995, Graham Hancock, 'Fingerprints of the Gods', pp. 438-439: "Around 10,450 BC, the sun on the vernal equinox rose in the constellation of Leo. On the ground at Giza, this event was frozen into architecture in the shape of the Sphinx, a gigantic, leonine, equinoctial marker which, like the second signature on an official document, could be taken as a confirmation of authenticity. The eleventh millennium BC, in other words, soon after the 'Mill of Heaven' broke, shifting sunrise on the spring equinox from Virgo into the constellation of Leo, was the only epoch in which the due east facing Sphinx would have manifested exactly the right symbolic alignment on exactly the right daywatching the vernal sun rising in the dawn sky against the background of his own celestial counterpart."

[35] "A parallel assertion of Hancock and Bauval is to say that 10 500 BC would be during the astrological "Age of the Lion" – a connection that they seek with the Sphinx. However, the vernal equinox of 10 500 BC would lie at 2000: 11 h 40 m, +2.2°, which, although close to the star pattern we now know as Leo, still lies decidedly in Virgo. Again, not a perfect match. ... The astronomical basis for arguing that the layout at Giza goes back to 10 500 BC is therefore very thin. Astronomy can do much to counter the publicity surrounding books that base so much conjecture upon such flimsy science. June 1999, Vol. 40, Anthony Patrick Fairall (1943-2008; an experienced professor at the University of Cape Town and director of Cape Town Planetarium) for Astronomy & Geophysics, the journal of the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) in England, 'Precession and the layout of the ancient Egyptian pyramids' ( pdf file ):

[36] 1995, Graham Hancock, 'Fingerprints of the Gods', pp. 403-405: "Almost as an afterthought, [R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz] added: "A great civilization must have preceded the vast movements of water that passed over Egypt, which leads us to assume that the Sphinx already existed, sculptured in the rock of the west cliff at Giza that Sphinx whose leonine body, except for the head, shows indisputable signs of water erosion."

While working on [his] Serpent [in the Sky book], West was struck by the possible significance of this remark and decided to follow it up...

Professor Robert Schoch, a Boston University geologist and specialist in rock erosion who had played a key role in validating West's evidence, was satisfied as to the reason for this. The weathering of the Sphinx and of the walls of its surrounding rock-hewn enclosure had not been caused by wind-scouring at all but by thousands of years of heavy rainfall long ages before the Old Kingdom came into being."

[37] 1993, transcripts of the 6th International Congress on Egyptology,Volume II, Dr. Zahi Hawass, 'The Great Sphinx at Giza: Date and Function', pp. 178-179: "Important new evidence has been revealed during conservation work now in progress on the Sphinx. To reiterate, most of the current work on the Sphinx is to replace the large stones that were added to the lion's body during 1982-1987 with other stones, their sizes based on the photogrammetric map that was recorded in 1979 [15]. This is a unique opportunity for scholars to look carefully at the 178 mother rock and to distinguish all the different levels of reconstruction and conservation that happened down through the ages. The most important fact is that the Sphinx's body is comprised mostly of poor quality layer beds of mother rock with many vertical fissures (Member II) [16]. At the very base of the Sphinx there is a harder quality stone which is, however, very rough and brittle (Member I). Some of the larger fissures pass through Member II and right down into Member I which makes up the lowest part of the lion body and the floor of the Sphinx. ... At the very base of the Sphinx, where we have gained a good look at the mother rock, there are extremely large limestone blocks, similar to those from [the] Turah [quarry] in their quality, that cover the bedrock and form a casing or coating over the Sphinx. Since the hard Member I mother rock [the Sphinx's bottom layer] does not weather, its rough surface underneath these large blocks must have been left as we see it by the original Sphinx builders. It was also in this condition when the casing of the very large blocks just mentioned was added. The conclusion follows that these large blocks belong to an Old Kingdom casing that was done by Khafra's workmen in order to complete the modelling of the lion body, since the poor quality limestone of Member II, higher up and comprising most of the core body, would not suffice for fine modelling. The Sphinx architect tried to complete the mother rock sculpture by adding stones, exactly as the builders did with the pyramids, matabas, and temples of this time [17]. We know that the weak Member II mother rock [the upper layers] was badly deteriorated when the Sphinx was restored in the 18th Dynasty, 1200 years after the carving of the Sphinx. We know from the Thutmose IV Granite Stela that the Sphinx was buried up to its neck in sand in around 1400 B.C. ... Only the head and neck were completed in the mother rock and left without covering because the layers from which they were carved are stronger (Member III). This is indicated clearly in the much better preser- vation of the surfaces of the Sphinx's face and head as compared with the major part of the lion body."

[38] 1995, Graham Hancock, 'Fingerprints of the Gods', p. 427: "The hypothesis proposes that this is what the enigmatic structures on the Giza plateau are all about: 1) that the Great Sphinx is indeed, as we have argued in previous chapters, an equinoctial marker for the Age of Leo, indicating a date in our own chronology of between 10,970 BC and 8810 BC; 2) that the three principal pyramids are indeed laid out in relation to the Nile Valley to mimic the precise dispositions of the three stars of Orion's Belt in relation to the course of the Milky Way in 10,450 BC."

[39] "Bauval's choice of 10 500 BC (when Orion is furthest south in its precessional cycle) also reinforces his argument that the Milky Way aligned with the Nile. But the course of the Nile is variable, and we do not now know where it ran in 10 500 BC with any accuracy." June 1999, Vol. 40, Anthony Patrick Fairall (1943-2008; an experienced professor at the University of Cape Town and director of Cape Town Planetarium) for Astronomy & Geophysics, the journal of the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) in England, 'Precession and the layout of the ancient Egyptian pyramids' ( pdf file ):