Before The Pharaohs:
The Evidence for Advanced
Civilisation in Egypt’s Mysterious Prehistory
by Edward
Malkowski—
There is no other place
on Earth like Egypt’s Giza Plateau. Anyone with even a slight interest in history and
civilisation is aware of this fact. For on this plateau there stands the Great
Pyramids and their sculpted guardian, the Great Sphinx.
Although there are plenty
of theories, no one really knows who built the Giza Pyramids or carved the
Sphinx, or when they were constructed. Any statement as to who built them, or
when they were built, is pure theory. In light of all the various theories
concerning these mysterious structures, I don’t think the theoretical nature of
the pyramid builders can be emphasised enough.
What stands out at Giza
more than anything else is not only the magnitude of the construction of the
pyramids, but the internal design of the Great Pyramid; three chambers, of
which one is subterranean, and their connecting passageways. The passageway
that leads to the so-called King’s Chamber rises to a height of thirty-six
feet! On the other hand, all other passageways were not built tall enough to
accommodate the average man or woman.
There is also the unique
configuration of the King’s Chamber as well as the Queen’s Chamber. Both of
these contain two shafts, one on each side of the chamber. The Queen’s Chamber
contains a corbelled niche built into its east wall, and the King’s Chamber’s
ceiling is composed of five granite slabs stacked one atop the other. Why these
chambers were constructed in this manner is unknown.
The official theory is
that the pyramids were tombs, and that King Khufu kept changing his mind where
his burial chamber was to be placed; thus, the reason for three chambers in the
Great Pyramid. However, in comparison to typical Egyptian burial methods (the
mastaba and the tombs in the Valley of the Kings), the Giza pyramids, and
particularly the Great Pyramid, do not fare well within the Egyptian concept of
a tomb.
The Ancient Egyptian View of the Afterlife
The Egyptians believed in
an afterlife, and the tomb was an important part of that belief. As the tomb of King Tutankhamun
testifies, the deceased’s chamber of internment was to be decorated with art
and filled with that person’s possessions. Why they practiced this ritual was
not for superstitious reasons, as one might suspect. It was practical,
according to their beliefs, and aimed at preventing that person’s energy
(spirit) from being re-absorbed into Nature’s spiritual force.
For the ancient
Egyptians, Ba animated a living person, whereas Ka was the energy
emanating from that person. Although not an exact analogy, the Ka and the Ba
are what traditional Western thought might refer as spirit and soul. Another
important aspect of Egyptian belief represented immortality, the ankh,
depicted as the crested ibis.
The Ka, represented in
art by up-stretched arms, was believed to be the part of man’s consciousness
and energy (man’s spirit or inner quality) that related to the immediate world.
It is the part of us connected to the physical body; where it lived, its
possessions, as well as the people he or she was acquainted with. The Ka can be
likened to one’s personality, which upon death is separated from the body, and
naturally seeks a way to once again take form. The Ba, represented by a winged
human head, or sometimes a human-faced bird, represented the part of
consciousness that is immortal.
When someone passed away,
it was their goal as well as the hope of the family, that the deceased’s Ka
would seek a way to remain united with their Ba. To help accomplish this
eternal union, the possessions of the deceased were gathered together by the
family and placed in the tomb with the mummified body. Mummification prevented
the body from decomposing and returning to the soil of the Earth, whereas the
tomb, with the deceased’s possessions, served as a ‘home’ for the Ka. As a
result, the Ka maintained its identity in the spiritual world and could seek
out its Ba in order to achieve ankh, which resulted in the resurrected and
glorified form of the deceased beyond the limits of an earthly realm.
Pyramids and the Concept of the Egyptian Tomb
Like the pharaonic tombs
carved into the Valley of the Kings, royal mastabas built during the early dynasties – some
as early as 3000 BCE – were also designed with ‘home’ in mind, as that home
relates to a person’s Ka. Case in point: from the sixth dynasty, Mereruka’s
mastaba was crafted in mansion-like proportion with thirty-two rooms and
adorned with statues and art depicting, for example, scenes of wildlife along
the Nile River.
The traits of Egyptian
domestic life, so beautifully incorporated into the design of their tombs, are
not found in the Giza pyramids. The Giza pyramids contain no art or
hieroglyphics of any kind, very uncharacteristic of Egyptian tombs. So why is
it the case that the Giza pyramids are generally considered to be tombs of
fourth dynasty Pharaohs? The reason is because of an association of the Giza
complex with another development ten miles south at Sakkara where the Egyptians
really did build tombs as pyramids.
At Sakkara in 1881, the
French Egyptologist, Gaston Maspero (1846–1916) discovered that the
subterranean chamber of the Pepi I Pyramid (second ruler of the sixth dynasty)
was engraved with hieroglyphics. Over the course of subsequent explorations, it
was discovered that a total of five pyramids at Sakkara also contained
inscriptions, from the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth dynasties of the Old
Kingdom. In 1952, Dr. Samuel A.B. Mercer (1879–1969), Professor of Semitic
Languages and Egyptology at the University of Toronto, published a complete
English translation of “The Pyramid Texts” in a volume of the same name.
According to Mercer, The Pyramid Texts contained ‘words to be spoken’
concerning funerary ritual, magical formulae, and religious hymns, as well as
prayers and petitions on behalf of the deceased king.1
With the pyramids at
Sakkara being confirmed as tombs the associative logic came to be that all
pyramids must be tombs. Furthermore, since there are two cemeteries (mastaba
fields) to the east and west of the northernmost Giza pyramid, assuming that
all pyramids are tombs was a likely conclusion. However, the condition of the
Sakkara pyramids – most of which are believed constructed after the Giza
pyramids – poses serious problems in this logical association. Of the pyramids
at Sakkara only Djoser’s ‘Step Pyramid’ is in good condition, although not
really a true pyramid. (The Step Pyramid was originally a mastaba that was
modified into a pyramid.) All other pyramids at Sakkara, most of which belong
to the fifth and sixth dynasties are in ruins today and resemble mounds of
rubble.
According to a consensus
of Egyptologists, Djoser’s Step Pyramid at Sakkara was constructed during the
third dynasty and was the forerunner to the fourth dynasty pyramids on the Giza
Plateau. After pyramid development at Giza, for whatever reason, the focus of
pyramid building shifted back to Sakkara.
The Great Pyramid – A Device
The easily observable and
obvious differences in the Giza pyramids and the Sakkara pyramids, which were all supposed to have
been built during the same era, are a problem. Clearly, the construction
techniques, as well as materials, for the Giza pyramids were different than
those at Sakkara, or else we would expect pyramids at both sites to have stood
the test of time in a similar manner. They did not. The important point is why.
Did the engineers and construction workers of the Old Kingdom not pass
along their methods from the fourth to the fifth dynasty? It seems they did
not, which is a very curious occurrence given the stability of Egyptian
civilisation. It may also be the case that the fourth dynasty Egyptians did
not build the Giza pyramids.
No other pyramid in Egypt
(the world for that matter) is like the Giza pyramids, and in particular the
Great Pyramid. Additionally, there is no direct evidence to support the claim
that the Great Pyramid, or the other Giza pyramids were tombs. Nor is there any
record left by its builders as to what it was for or when it was built. This
creates a problem of explanation. If the Great Pyramid was not a tomb, then
what was it? A mystical temple for initiation ritual, or a public works project
designed to unify the country? Or, was it something else entirely? Theories are
abundant, but the only theory I am aware of that covers all aspects of the
Great Pyramid’s interior design, is Christopher Dunn’s theory that it was a
device. According to Dunn, the Great Pyramid was a machine for producing power
by converting tectonic vibration into electricity.
There are a number of
reasons to accept Dunn analysis. First, he explains the interior design and all
other evidence within the Great Pyramid in a cohesive manner. Second, he
demonstrates the technical skills required to accomplish precision
construction. Third, Dunn’s expertise and career is in the precision
fabrication and manufacturing industry, which makes him uniquely qualified to
express a professional opinion on the techniques and tools of the Giza pyramid
builders.
The fact is, modern
construction companies could not build the Great Pyramid today without first
inventing specialised tools and techniques in order to deal with blocks of
stone that vary in weight from ten to fifty tons. Such an endeavour would be on
a magnitude equivalent to building a hydroelectric dam or a nuclear power
station requiring tens of billions of dollars in resources.
Although our modern
economy is different than that of the ancient world, the resource required now
as compared to then is the same! The stone must be quarried and moved and the
workers must be paid. The fact that an extremely large amount of resources were
dedicated to Giza pyramid development over a long period of time demands, in my
opinion, that pyramid building was utilitarian, and not for any fourth dynasty
pharaonic vanity of having the largest headstone in the world.
Prehistory – Evidence and Perspective
For me, the evidence
clearly tells a very different story of early dynastic Egypt. Sometime around 3000 BCE, the
establishment and growth of permanent settlements in the Lower Nile Valley led
to the development of civilisation. Why Giza and the surrounding area were
chosen as the focal point for early Dynastic Egypt was because ‘civilisation’
had been there before, as the three pyramids and the Great Sphinx testify.
Without knowing what the pyramids were designed for, the early Egyptians also
assumed they must have been tombs.
As a result, they
rejuvenated the Giza Plateau and turned it into a Necropolis, then expanded to
Sakkara where they built tombs in pyramid form, albeit of lesser quality and
not brandishing the skills the original builders of the Giza pyramids
demonstrated. Pyramid building, even the smaller ones at Sakkara, was resource
intense, so the Egyptians reverted to burying their nobility in the traditional
mastaba.
This scenario, which
calls for an earlier civilisation with advanced technical skills, poses another
problem. It does not fit the standard model of history. However, the notion
that an earlier civilisation existed does not rest on the Giza pyramids alone.
There is also the Sphinx, which in 1991 was geologically dated to between 7,000
and 9,000 years old by the team of John Anthony West and geologist Dr. Robert
Schoch. Add to that the megaliths of Nabta Playa in southwestern Egypt, which
is believed to have been a star viewing diagram, according to astrophysicist
Dr. Thomas Brophy, that relates not only the distance from Earth to the belt
stars of Orion, but their radial velocities as well. Another ‘head scratching’ discovery
is the 1260-ton foundation stones of the Baalbek temple, west of Beirut in
Lebanon, one of which was left in its quarry.
Clearly history has its
secrets, but there is enough evidence to validate, as theory, that civilisation
is much older than we have previously believed. History, according to the
ancient Egyptians themselves, confirms this. According to the Papyrus of Turin,
which is a complete list of kings up to the New Kingdom, before Menes (before
3000 BCE) the:
…venerables Shemsu-Hor,
[reigned] 13,420 years
Reigns up to Shemsu-Hor,
23,200 years2
These two lines in the
king’s list are explicit. According to their documents, the total years of
Egyptian history goes back 36,620 years. The argument that the years in the
king’s list do not represent actual years, but some other, shorter, measurement
of time seems more of an attempt to explain away than to explain. The ancient
Egyptians employed a sophisticated calendar system that involved a 365-day
year, which was periodically corrected through the predictable and cyclical
nature of the star Sirius. Every 1,461 years, the heliacal rising of Sirius
marked the beginning of the new year.
A single Sirius cycle
corresponds to 1,461 years, where each year is equivalent to 365.25 days. In
essence, the marking of the New Year at the heliacal rising of Sirius was the
ancient Egyptian’s ‘leap year.’ Of course, determining the length of Sirius’
cyclical nature requires stellar observation over thousands of years which
means the origins of pharaonic Egypt, or its source of knowledge, must
originate in the remote past.
Late twentieth century
Egyptologist Walter Emery seems to have agreed in principle that the origins of
ancient Egypt date well into prehistory. Emery believed that ancient Egypt’s
written language was beyond the use of pictorial symbols, even during the
earliest dynasties, and that signs were also used to represent sounds, along
with a numerical system. When hieroglyphics had been stylised and used in
architecture, a cursive script was already in common use. His conclusion was
that:
All this shows that the
written language must have had a considerable period of development behind it,
of which no trace has as yet been found in Egypt.3
Ancient Egyptian religion
also testifies to a considerable period of development. Their religion, which
is more of a philosophy of nature and life than it is a ‘religion,’ is based on
a level of sophistication that, in all respects, appears more scientific than
it does mythical.
Symbolism and Nature: The Method of Egyptian Thought
From a modern Western
perspective their religion has been billed as primitive and polytheistic, and appears as a mythological
menagerie of gods. Nothing could be further from the truth. The source of this
misunderstanding stems from the Egyptian word neter being translated
into Greek as ‘god,’ which later took on the Westernised meaning of deity. The
true meaning of neter was to describe an aspect of deity, not a deity to be
worshipped. In essence, neters referred to principles of nature in a practical
scientific way.
Yet, the meaning of a
specific neter was communicated in a visually symbolic manner. When a human was
depicted with an animal head, this signified the principle as it occurs in man.
If the whole animal was depicted it was a reference to a principle in general.
Alternatively, a human head depicted on an animal represented that principle as
it relates to the divine essence within mankind, not any person in particular,
but the archetypal; as the immortal Ba is represented by a human-faced bird.
Another example is Anubis
(the jackal), who presided over the process of mummification. He did so as a
representation of the decomposition or fermentation process. In nature, the
jackal keeps its prey and allows it to decompose before consumption. Therefore,
he who presided over the mummification ritual was depicted in art as a man with
the head of the jackal, thereby representing man’s death as the digestive
principle found in nature. From a universal perspective, the decomposition of a
body is, to Nature, digestion. Hence, those organs associated with digestion,
after being removed from the deceased, were placed in a Canopic jar with a lid
shaped in the image of the jackal’s head.
Before the Pharaohs
The sudden emergence of
Dynastic Egypt, at the beginning of the third millennium BCE, is one of civilisation’s
greatest mysteries. How did this supposedly primitive North African culture
organise itself into a civilisation of such magnificence? One aspect that I
believe has been overlooked is that mankind – anatomically modern humans – has
been around for a very long time. According to recent genetic studies, all
people today are the descendants of a single African woman who walked the Earth
150,000 years ago. According to geneticists, her mitochondrial DNA exists in
all of us.
This is a long time,
147,000 years, for our ancestors to have remained in a relatively primitive
state. In my opinion, the evidence, some of which is incredibly anomalous (in
particular the Great Pyramid) suggests they did not remain primitive. Given the
evidence of ancient Egypt’s technical abilities (their monument, temples, and
other crafted artifacts still exist), as well as their sophisticated symbolism
in describing Nature, it appears that in establishing a dynastic society, the
Egyptians of the third millennium BCE benefited from a legacy of knowledge.
Skeptics of this approach
to history, of course, would want to know where the evidence of this technical
and prehistoric civilisation is. If such a civilisation existed, surely there
would be overwhelming evidence to support its existence. If an exclusively
uniformitarian approach to geologic formation were generally accepted as fact,
I would agree with the skeptic.
However, mass
extinctions, as a result of environmental catastrophism because of volcanism,
asteroid or comet impact, or stellar (gamma) radiation, now seems to be a
reality.
According to geologists
there have been five large mass extinctions in Earth’s history: the Ordovician
(440–450 mya), Devonian (408–360 mya), Permian (286–248), Triassic (251–252
mya), and Cretaceous (144–65 mya). Although all of these cataclysms occurred
well before the modern human form, there are two global disasters that occurred
relatively recently.
Approximately 71,000
years ago Mount Toba, in Sumatra, erupted spewing an enormous amount of ash
into the atmosphere. It was the largest volcanic eruption in the last two
million years, nearly 10,000 times larger than the Mount St. Helen’s explosion
in 1980. The resultant caldera formed a lake 100 kilometres long by 60
kilometres wide, with devastating and lasting climatic consequences. A six-year
long volcanic winter followed, and in its wake an ice age that lasted for a
thousand years. With its sulfuric haze, the volcanic winter lowered global
temperatures, creating drought and famine decimating the human population.
According to geneticist’s
estimates, the population was reduced to somewhere between 15,000 and 40,000
individuals. Professor of Human Genetics at the University of Utah, Lynn Jorde,
believes it may have been as low as 5,000.4
Even closer to our time
is the mysterious cataclysm at the end of the Ice Age, only 10,000 years ago.
No one really knows if it was the result of natural phenomenon or an asteroid
impact. What is known is that the climate drastically altered life for those
who lived at that time. It is a known geologic fact that at the end of the Ice
Age many North American species became extinct, including the mammoth, camel,
horse, ground sloth, peccaries (pig-like hoofed mammals), antelope, American
elephant, rhinoceros, giant armadillo, tapirs, saber-toothed tigers and giant
bison. It also affected the climates of lower latitudes in Central and South
America, as well as Europe in a similar way. Those lands have also revealed
evidence of mass extinction. Yet, the mechanism that brought on this Ice Age
ending cataclysm remains a mystery.
If an ancient technical
civilisation existed during the remote past, what would be the likelihood of
that civilisation surviving a global catastrophe intact? Estimates from the
Toba eruption are not encouraging. Neither are the scenarios that astronomers
and climatologists build today for a theoretical asteroid impact.
According to the
archeological evidence, anatomically modern man (Cro-Magnon) appeared in
Western Europe 40,000 years ago. Where they came from has been a long-standing
mystery. The logical deduction is that they migrated from Africa. However, such
a migration requires a host culture, of which there is no evidence.
Nevertheless, a likely
location for this host culture would have been along the shores of the
Mediterranean Sea, which were likely a series of fresh water lakes during the
remote past.
If ancient civilisation
existed in the region of the Mediterranean, it would not have survived the
conflagration that turned those lakes into a salt-water sea.
If that were indeed the
case, the remnants of those who lived on the perimeter of that civilisation
would appear to us, today, as anomalies such as the Giza pyramids and the giant
stones of Baalbek.
Cro-Magnon cultures of
Western Europe, although once a part of a great Mediterranean civilisation,
would also appear as an anomaly. For us, it would be as if they appeared from
nowhere.
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Footnotes
1. Samuel A. B. Mercer, The
Pyramid Texts, Longmans, Green and Co., 1952, p.2.
2. René Schwaller de
Lubicz, Sacred Science: The King of Pharaonic Theocracy, Inner
Traditions, 1982, p.86.
3. Walter B. Emery, Archaic
Egypt, Penguin Books, 1961, p.192
4. ‘Supervolcanoes’,
BBC2, 3 February 2000, also see www.bbc.co.uk/
science/horizon/1999/supervolcanoes_script.shtml.
.
EDWARD MALKOWSKI is the author of Ancient Egypt 39,000 BCE, Sons of God–Daughters of
Men, Before the Pharaohs, and The
Spiritual Technology of Ancient Egypt. He is a historical researcher
in Lincoln, Illinois.
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