The Great Pyramid Hoax: The Conspiracy to Conceal the True History of Ancient Egypt

Introduction

A CONTROVERSIAL CLAIM

What is the truth of the crudely painted marks within four hidden chambers of the Great Pyramid of Giza, which were presented to the world by the British explorer and antiquarian Colonel Richard William Howard Vyse after blasting his way with gunpowder into these chambers in 1837?

To historians, archaeologists, and Egyptologists, these marks present hard evidence—the only hard evidence—that the Great Pyramid belonged to the ancient Egyptian king Khufu, who ruled Egypt circa 2550 BCE, and that it was probably built as his eternal tomb. According to the traditional view, the discovery of these painted marks gave to the world confirmation of the writings of the Greek historian Herodotus, who, some two thousand years after the Great Pyramid is believed to have been built, wrote that the structure had been erected as the eternal tomb of Cheops (the Greek word for Khufu), although the later historian Josephus (following Manetho) recorded the builder of the structure as Suphis, or Sensuphis, a name that linguists were eventually able to transliterate into its ancient Egyptian form of Khnum-Khuf and its abbreviated form, Khufu.

These roughly painted marks, which included three different names of the king (an ancient Egyptian king could have as many as five different names), are—without doubt—the strongest evidence that Egyptology has to link the Great Pyramid directly to Suphis/Khufu and thus to firmly lock the pyramid’s construction to the date of circa 2550 BCE.

To an ever-increasing number of alternative thinkers, the site at Giza, including the Sphinx and the Giza pyramids, is much, much older, and these painted marks allegedly discovered in situ are regarded as nothing more than the result of a quite audacious hoax perpetrated by Vyse and his team in order to confirm Suphis/Khufu as the builder of the Great Pyramid and thereby to provide corroboration to the ancient historical accounts of Herodotus, Manetho, and others that the Great Pyramid was built as the eternal tomb of this ancient Egyptian king.

In 1980, Russian-born, international bestselling author Zecharia Sitchin challenged the Egyptological establishment by publishing in his book The Stairway to Heaven a controversial claim that the painted marks, including the various king’s names, deemed to have been discovered in the Great Pyramid by Vyse were, in fact, forged by him. While Sitchin raised some pertinent questions concerning Vyse’s claimed discovery—some of which remain legitimate questions even to this day—the main evidence he presented in support of his forgery theory was eventually discredited. As a result, Sitchin’s controversial allegation was soon dismissed, and many of those who had hitherto supported him quickly distanced themselves from the controversy.

Now, almost forty years after Sitchin first made his forgery allegation, The Great Pyramid Hoax revisits this highly controversial question and presents a dossier of new and never-before-seen evidence that strongly suggests that Sitchin’s forgery claim (while largely unsupported by the evidence Sitchin himself presented) may, in fact, have been right all along, and that, far from being the near impossible task that mainstream Egyptology claims it would have been, such a forgery could have been carried out by Vyse with just the most elementary knowledge of the ancient Egyptian language—and a little bit of luck.

The evidence presented in this book comes from a variety of sources, old and new: from Vyse’s little-known private field notes as well as his published work, from the survey and facsimile drawings made at the time by his assistants, and from modern high-definition photographs, eyewitness accounts, modern chemical analysis, and other credible sources.

With all of these sources at our disposal we find ourselves, like the best historical detectives, prying open this cold case as we comb the byways and alleyways of recent and ancient history, compiling a compelling dossier of highly incriminating facts that strongly suggests that the painted quarry marks in these chambers—in particular the various royal names of the king—were almost certainly faked by Vyse and his team.

To many of us today, the implication of such a hoax having been perpetrated within the Great Pyramid is—quite literally—monumental, for, at a stroke, the Great Pyramid is removed almost entirely from the historical context into which conventional Egyptology has effectively shoehorned the structure. But if the evidence of the crudely painted marks found within the pyramid truly was faked, then, at a stroke, Egyptology loses the key piece of evidence that allows it to attribute the structure to Khufu and to a construction date of circa 2550 BCE. With this vital evidence removed, then the Giza pyramids become monuments whose provenance is much less certain and, as such, reopens the question as to who really was the builder of these monuments, when were they built, and for what purpose.

This is The Great Pyramid Hoax.

1

MAKING HISTORY

The Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt is said by historians to have been the tomb of Khufu (the Greek Suphis, or Cheops), an ancient Egyptian king who ruled the land of the Nile some 4,500 years ago and who is believed to have been the second king of the Fourth Dynasty of the ancient Egyptian civilization.

Alas, however, neither the remains of Khufu nor any of his funerary equipment were ever found within the Great Pyramid, the structure supposedly having been pillaged and picked clean in antiquity by tomb robbers, according to the traditional narrative. Indeed, the only direct physical evidence Egyptology has to connect the Great Pyramid of Giza to this Fourth Dynasty king are some rough, red-painted marks that are claimed to have been discovered by British explorer and antiquarian Colonel Richard William Howard Vyse (fig. 1.1), who claims he found the marks inscribed on the stone walls and roof of a series of hidden stress relieving chambers that had been sealed since the pyramid’s construction (fig. 1.2).

Fig. 1.1. Colonel Richard William Howard Vyse

Fig. 1.2. The five stress relieving chambers of the Great Pyramid. The upper four chambers were blasted open by Vyse in 1837. (Image: Scott Creighton)

Among the profusion of marks found on the stone blocks of these small chambers were some highly significant inscriptions that, according to Egyptologists, present the various names of the king they believe built the Great Pyramid.

It has come down to us via the fragmented accounts of the ancient historians Herodotus, Manetho, and some others that the builder of the Great Pyramid was known in ancient times as Cheops (according to Herodotus) and Suphis (according to Manetho). Historians accept that these two Greek names refer to the same historical person—the man they believe constructed the Great Pyramid. After Jean-François Champollion—building on the earlier efforts of Sir Thomas Young—finally succeeded in cracking the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic system in 1822, the name Cheops/Suphis was, ten years later in 1832, transliterated by the pioneering Italian Egyptologist Ippolito Rosellini into the hieroglyphic form of the name Khnum-Khuf and its abbreviated form, Khufu (figs. 1.3 and 1.4).

Fig. 1.3. Egyptian hieroglyphs spelling Khnum-Khuf—the full birth name of Khufu. Note how this name is contained within an oval frame known as a cartouche.

Fig. 1.4. Egyptian hieroglyphs spelling Khufu. The vertical bar (at the left of the cartouche) always indicates the end of the name.

As stated, both Khnum-Khuf and its abbreviated form, Khufu, are said to have been found in a number of hidden chambers of the Great Pyramid. However, these marks were not neatly sculpted hieroglyphic signs like those in figures 1.3 and 1.4 but instead were simple, crudely painted hieroglyphic signs written in a cursive style known by scholars today as old hieratic, a shorthand script used for everyday communication (figs. 1.5 and 1.6). The red ochre paint used to make these marks was made from iron oxide ochre mixed into water, sometimes with fish oil, gum, egg, or honey added to act as a binding agent. This simple paint, known as moghra, was still being made and was still available in Egypt in 1837.

Fig. 1.5. Reproduction of Egyptian cursive script (old hieratic) spelling Khnum-Khuf (Image: Scott Creighton, based on original drawing by J. S. Perring)

Fig. 1.6. Reproduction of Egyptian cursive script (old hieratic) spelling Khufu (Image: Scott Creighton, based on original drawing by J. R. Hill)

The signs used in old hieratic script were cursively painted equivalents of the sculpted hieroglyphs, and, as such, their early orthography was not so far removed from their counterpart sculpted signs. As the centuries passed, however, the ink or painted cursive signs became ever more simplified (for ease of writing), resulting in the hieratic signs becoming ever more cursive, evolving further and further away from the sculpted hieroglyphic form from which many (though not all) of the hieratic signs originated. In later dynasties the written hieratic signs had evolved to the point of bearing no likeness whatsoever to their root sculpted hieroglyphic equivalents. This was called demotic script. By contrast, many of the sculpted, or monumental, hieroglyphic signs changed very little over the entire duration of the ancient Egyptian civilization.

In short, old hieratic signs, whether written neatly with ink and reed on a sheet of papyrus or crudely written with paint and brush on a block of stone, were obviously much quicker forms of writing than the labor-intensive sculpted stone hieroglyphics, and, as a consequence, the signs naturally became much more cursive and simplified in appearance than the traditional monumental form (figs. 1.5 and 1.6).

As the study of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics progressed and the names of the various kings became ever more understood, it was realized that not only did these hidden chambers discovered by Vyse contain the full and abbreviated birth name of the king but that a third name of the Great Pyramid builder had also been inscribed onto the walls of these hidden chambers. This other name became known as the king’s Horus name (fig. 1.7), and, significantly, this name was not contained within the distinctive oval cartouche, which, in Vyse’s time, was understood as the only means by which the king’s name could be recognized.

As stated in the introduction to this book, it is now understood that an ancient Egyptian king could have as many as five different names, although, it has to be said, this was not fully understood in Vyse’s time. And so, with all of these different royal names of the Great Pyramid builder painted onto a number of stone blocks of the various relief chambers, Egyptologists now had more than the mere word of Herodotus and Manetho to support their view that Suphis/Khnum-Khuf (a.k.a. Khufu/Medjedu) built the Great Pyramid.

But there is much more to Vyse’s claimed discovery. These inscriptions within the Great Pyramid were not simple isolated inscriptions of the king’s various names, but were, in fact, contained within phrases consisting of a series of other signs alongside (or below) the king’s name. It is now believed that these other signs (along with the king’s name) formed the identities of the various work gangs (figs. 1.8–1.10) involved in constructing the pyramid, and it is believed that these names were painted onto individual stone blocks by the various quarry gangs as they extracted the blocks at the stone quarries, which is why these writings are called quarry marks or workers’ graffiti. Within the hidden chambers three different quarry gang names were found, although the precise translations of these names remain somewhat uncertain.

Fig. 1.7. Reproduction of Egyptian cursive script spelling Hor Medjedu (Khufu’s Horus name). Note that the Horus name is not contained within the distinctive oval cartouche. (Image: Scott Creighton, based on original drawing by J. R. Hill)

Fig. 1.8. Reproduction of a gang name from the Great Pyramid that reads, The gang, the White Crown of Khnum-Khuf is powerful. Note: actual orientation of script maintained. (Image: Scott Creighton, based on original drawing by J. R. Hill)

Fig. 1.9. Reproduction of a gang name from the Great Pyramid that reads, The gang, Companions of Khufu. Note: actual orientation of script maintained. (Image: Scott Creighton, based on original drawing by J. R. Hill)

Fig. 1.10. Reproduction of a gang name from the Great Pyramid that reads, The gang, Pure Ones of the Hor Medjedu. (Image: Scott Creighton, based on original drawing by J. S. Perring)

And so, with this highly compelling material, Egyptology felt supremely confident that it now had sufficient authentic documentary evidence to declare Suphis/Khufu as the builder of the Great Pyramid.

AN IMPOSSIBLE FORGERY

But there were other reasons why Egyptologists could feel confident that the painted marks in these chambers were authentic Old Kingdom marks and not, as a number of researchers have suggested—most notably Zecharia Sitchin (fig. 1.11)—fake marks painted onto the chamber walls by Vyse and his team.

These reasons can be summarized as follows:

Both the full birth name of the king (Khnum-Khuf) and its abbreviated form (Khufu) as well as the Horus name appear in these hidden chambers of the Great Pyramid. There are six, mostly complete, occurrences of Khnum-Khuf (fig. 1.5), one complete occurrence of Khufu (fig. 1.6), and four occurrences of Hor Medjedu (fig. 1.7) to be observed within the various chambers. However, in 1837 no one anywhere in the world knew that an ancient Egyptian king could shorten his birth name or, as noted, that the king could have as many as five different royal names. So, the reasoning goes, if these marks had been faked, why would any forger have placed what would have appeared to the forger to be two different (though similar) royal cartouches within these chambers if, as it was understood in 1837, the pyramid was built as the eternal tomb of just one king? Why not place only the Khnum-Khuf cartouche name or only the Khufu cartouche name within these chambers? In short, why would any hoaxer at this time have placed two cartouches into the chambers when it would surely have been known to the hoaxer that the Great Pyramid was built by one king, known as Suphis?

No one in 1837 knew that the king had another royal name known as the Horus name, which was not written within the distinctive royal cartouche. As noted, it was believed in Vyse’s time that the names of ancient Egyptian kings were always written inside an oval cartouche. How then, the Egyptologists argue, would it have been possible for any forger to recognize a piece of ancient Egyptian script as another name for the king (i.e., the Horus name) and place it also within these chambers when this name wasn’t even inside a cartouche, the distinguishing oval sign that would have easily identified the text therein as a king’s name? For someone to possess such knowledge, the Egyptologists insist, would have made that individual the foremost scholar and authority of ancient Egyptian writing in the world. In 1837 such knowledge would have been beyond even the best academic minds of the time and would, they insist, have been far beyond the reach of the average forger—so it is believed.

Some of the quarry marks can only be observed through small cracks between tightly fitting adjacent blocks. How would it have been possible, the Egyptologists ask, for any forger to get a brush into the tight gaps between these immovable, seventy-ton blocks and paint any meaningful marks onto the faces of those closely fitting blocks? These marks, they insist, had to have been painted onto the blocks before they were set into place (i.e., when the block faces were accessible at the quarries), so they conclude that all the painted marks, including those in plain sight, must be genuine.

It is argued also by Egyptologists that each of the work gangs that built the pyramid (and its internal chambers) had quite different names and that each individual gang name was only ever linked to a specific version of the king’s five names; these gang names were quite specific and were never mixed and matched. How could any forger possibly have known of this pairing of a specific gang name to a specific version of the king’s name?

Related to point 4 above is the theory proposed by Egyptologists that each work gang was responsible for the construction of a particular side of the pyramid (and, presumably, the same side of the internal chambers). To this end it is argued that the work gangs responsible for particular sides of the pyramid (and its internal chambers) would place their names only on the blocks for the side of the pyramid or the pyramid chamber that they were responsible for constructing. How could any forger have possibly known of such a practice and (according to Egyptologist Ann Macy Roth, Ph.D.) have then replicated such a practice onto the stones within the various stress-relieving chambers of the Great Pyramid?*1

During a visit to these hidden chambers of the Great Pyramid, geologist and geophysicist Robert M. Schoch, Ph.D., visually examined many of the painted marks therein, and what he found convinced him of their authenticity, writing, Were these just fakes? Studying them closely, however, they looked authentically ancient to me. I could see later mineral crystals precipitated over them . . .¹

Fig. 1.11. Zecharia Sitchin (1920–2010) first suggested the painted marks within the hidden chambers of the Great Pyramid were faked by Vyse.

Together, all of the above points represent a summary of the key facts that mainstream Egyptologists present in support of their view that the painted marks in the Great Pyramid are genuine Old Kingdom quarry marks and are not and could never have been the product of a nineteenth-century hoax, as first proposed by Zecharia Sitchin in his controversial book The Stairway to Heaven. As such, Egyptology insists that there is little need for any modern scientific analysis, or further research of any kind, into the question of the authenticity and provenance of these marks. In their view a forgery would have been impossible; thus, the quarry marks are genuine, and that is the end of the matter.

SITCHIN’S FORGERY CLAIM

In his book Sitchin argued that Vyse and his assistant, J. R. Hill (with the tacit complicity of another assistant, John Shea Perring), painted the Khnum-Khuf and Khufu cartouches into the various chambers of the Great Pyramid. He writes:

His depiction thus served to enhance Vyse’s and Hill’s notion that the crucial cartouche of Kh-u-f-u should be inscribed in the uppermost chamber with the symbol for the solar disk. . . . But in doing so, the inscriber had employed the hieroglyphic symbol and phonetic sound for RA, the supreme god of Egypt! He had unwittingly spelled out not Khnem-Khuf, but Khnem-Rauf; not Khufu but Raufu. He had used the name of the great god incorrectly and in vain; it was blasphemy in ancient Egypt. . . .

And, therefore, the substitution of Ra for Kh was an error that could not have been committed in the time of Khufu, nor of any ancient Pharaoh. Only a stranger to hieroglyphics, a stranger to Khufu, and a stranger to the overpowering worship of Ra, could have committed such a grave error.²

In his later book Journeys to the Mythical Past, Sitchin expanded on his forgery theory, writing:

As I was poring over Vyse’s printed diary [Vyse’s published work], something odd struck me: The Royal name he showed was inscribed differently than on