Posted on 08/14/2009 10:09:21 AM PDT by LibWhacker
Aug. 13, 2009 -- An enormous system of caves, chambers and tunnels lies hidden beneath the Pyramids of Giza, according to a British explorer who claims to have found the lost underworld of the pharaohs.
Populated by bats and venomous spiders, the underground complex was found in the limestone bedrock beneath the pyramid field at Giza.
"There is untouched archaeology down there, as well as a delicate ecosystem that includes colonies of bats and a species of spider which we have tentatively identified as the white widow," British explorer Andrew Collins said.
Collins, who will detail his findings in the book "Beneath the Pyramids" to be published in September, tracked down the entrance to the mysterious underworld after reading the forgotten memoirs of a 19th century diplomat and explorer.
"In his memoirs, British consul general Henry Salt recounts how he investigated an underground system of 'catacombs' at Giza in 1817 in the company of Italian explorer Giovanni Caviglia," Collins said.
The document records that the two explored the caves for a distance of "several hundred yards," coming upon four large chambers from which stretched further cave passageways.
With the help of British Egyptologist Nigel Skinner-Simpson, Collins reconstructed Salt's exploration on the plateau, eventually locating the entrance to the lost catacombs in an apparently unrecorded tomb west of the Great Pyramid.
Indeed, the tomb featured a crack in the rock, which led into a massive natural cave.
"We explored the caves before the air became too thin to continue. They are highly dangerous, with unseen pits and hollows, colonies of bats and venomous spiders," said Collins.
According to Collins, the caves -- which are tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of years old -- may have both inspired the development of the pyramid field and the ancient Egyptian's belief in an underworld.
"Ancient funerary texts clearly allude to the existence of a subterranean world in the vicinity of the Giza pyramids," Collins told Discovery News.
Indeed, Giza was known anciently as Rostau, meaning the "mouth of the passages."
This is the same name as a region of the ancient Egyptian underworld known as the Duat.
"The 'mouth of the passages' is unquestionably a reference to the entrance to a subterranean cave world, one long rumored to exist beneath the plateau," Collins told Discovery News.
Collins' claim is expected to cause a stir in the Egyptological world.
Zahi Hawass, chief of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, has dismissed the discovery.
"There are no new discoveries to be made at Giza. We know everything about the plateau," he stated.
But Collins remarks that after extensive research, he found no mention of the caves in modern times.
"To the best of our knowledge nothing has ever been written or recorded about these caves since Salt’s explorations. If Hawass does have any report related to these caves, we have yet to see it," Collins said.
Edgar Cayce and others have alluded to predictions that around this time, we would be finding a wealth of knowledge stored in a cavity beneath the pyramids and the sphinx.
Use of the word “clearly” should raise the bs meter needle a few notches.
So are they caves really there or not?
Or is it “unclear”?
kuhl if tru.
And these colonies of bats emerge when and from where?
Ping
Andrew Collins, was raised in the Essex town of Wickford. As a teenager, he became a UFO investigator. In 1977, he investigated the first-ever missing time abduction case reported in the UK, and that investigation changed his life. He became a journalist with the magazine Strange Phenomena and openly sought the help of psychics in an attempt to better understand the relationship between UFOs, prehistoric sites, earth energies, and the human mind. As a science and history writer, he has authored a variety of books that challenge the way we perceive the past, including his best-selling The Cygnus Mystery, that delves into how ancient monuments and temples, that are still standing today, were built with an orientation towards Cygnus. Collins latest titles, The New Circlemakers and Beneath the Pyramids, were both publishing by 4th Dimension Press, an A.R.E. Press imprint, in 2009. Collins continues to speak and travel throughout the U.S. while living in the heart of crop circle country, near Marlborough, Wiltshire, with this wife Sue.Okie-dokie... He's a UFO researcher and this whole thing is a big fat hoax. So... Never mind, everyone. I apologize. (If anyone has any pull with the Admin Moderator, I'd appreciate it if you got this whole damned thread pulled.)Beneath the Pyramids
Beneath the Pyramidsby Andrew Collins Beneath the pyramids of Egypt lies a lost underworld of catacombs, hewn chambers, and cave tunnels. They are alluded to in ancient texts and Arab legends, but have been lost for almost two millennium. They have now been rediscovered and investigated for the first time by science and history writer Andrew Collins. What now awaits discovery at Giza, and what exactly does this subterranean realm tell us about the pyramids, their relationship to the stars, and the mythical origins of Egyptian civilization?Lavishly illustrated with color photos, this is a breathtaking personal journey of exploration and discovery."
Caves are often associated with pyramids, all around the world.
I see you’ve already done some checking and found the story is pretty dubious. Before I got to your background post, this made me suspicious.
“’We explored the caves before the air became too thin to continue. They are highly dangerous, with unseen pits and hollows, colonies of bats and venomous spiders,’ said Collins.”
I’ve never heard of air getting thin in caves. If a chamber were sealed it would be possible to use up the oxygen, but supposedly they are exploring through openings to areas where bats and spiders live. I guess there could also be areas where heavy gases from vents to underground hot springs or volcanic vents had replaced oxygen, but that doesn’t sound like Egypt.
Too bad. It would have been very cool.
Probably some inconvenient graffiti.
"Aegyptes eunt domus", perhaps? "Shmuel was here." "Midianite girls are easy!"
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Thanks Hegemony Cricket. I'll have to check this out. There was a 1990s show (mostly) about Giza, starring Omar Sharif, which had Mark Lehner crawling around inside the Sphinx (there's a couple of rat-tunnels inside made by ancient or medieval thieves searching for hidden treasure) and in the Old Kingdom (4th Dynasty) catacombs under the plateau. I think that's also the video which has Lehner crawling through the Great Pyramid robber's hole, and showing us the Old Kingdom construction graffiti in one of the relieving chambers above the "King's Chamber" inside the GP. |
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Don't know how long I could handle the heat though. 130oF is not my idea of fun. (yeah, I know. It's a 'dry heat')/s
If there are colonies of bats, I cannot believe that this cave has gone undetected. Someone would have seen their daily ingress/egress.
Whatever you do, do not use earth-penetrating radar to ping! the Pyramids.
The "ping" is amplified by the Death Caverns, which rings Mother Gaea's chimes, resulting in a major planetary gong-bong (not to be confused with a gang-bang) that leads to the cleaning of Earth's Clock.
It can destroy the World As We Know It!
Zahi Hawass' secret Prime Duty has not to do with archaeology, but rather as a member The Guardians, to prevent this very thing from ever occurring. Archaeology is merely the public front he uses as cover for his real mission.
:’D
Hawass strikes me as the sort who will discredit anthi8ng he does not find himself.
He does seem more propaganda oriented at times. The cave concept makes sense if the Nile is as old as some claim. The continued flow of water erodes caves all over the planet. What’s inside? Who knows.
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