Free Republic

Peter James believes ancient Egyptians formed the huge tombs by piling up rubble and small rocks on the inside and attaching the large bricks on the outside later rather than using giant blocks carried up ramps. There's much debate over how the pyramids were buil AN engineer dubbed Indiana James has stunned archaeologists by rubbishing their theories on how the pyramids were built. Peter James believes ancient Egyptians formed the huge tombs by piling up rubble and small rocks on the inside and attaching the large bricks on the outside later. His claim challenges hundreds of years of accepted belief...

With a world on edge after the coordinated terror attacks in Paris, and as criticism grows louder of the Obama administration’s handling of adversaries such as Iran and Syria, tough talk and defiance have become strong currencies in the presidential race. Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson’s mild-mannered, soft-spoken demeanor – which helped endear him to many voters in the first place – now appears to be working against him, while Sen. Ted Cruz’s tell-it-like-it-is, in-your-face style is now raising his stock. In the crucial state of Iowa, which holds closely-watched caucuses, the event in Paris on Nov. 13 changed many conservatives’...

Retired neurosurgeon turned presidential candidate Ben Carson has doubled down on his crazy theory about the pyramids. Not only is it false, his idea also minimizes the wonder of God's creation by implying that human beings are not creative enough to build the majestic Egyptian landmarks on their own. At a commencement address at Andrews University in 1998, Carson argued that the biblical prophet Joseph built the pyramids as grain silos for the seven fat years recorded in Genesis. Scholars of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, feel free to laugh now. Everyone else, go ahead, join in. The archaeological evidence...

Leading Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson believes that federal and state official overreacted in the case of Terri Schiavo, a Florida woman who died in 2005 as her husband and family battled over whether to keep her alive despite her vegetative state.The case roiled the state of Florida and sparked an emotional national debate about the ethics, politics and spiritual significance of her life and death.(snip)After speaking at a Republican Party conference here on Friday, a reporter asked Carson what he thought of the infamous case -- one that Bush speaks about occasionally as he mounts his own presidential campaign."We...

The thermal scanning was made at sunrise as the sun heats the structures from the outside, and then at sunset when the pyramids are cooling down. The speed of the heating and cooling phases was used to uncover "anomalies" such as empty areas in the pyramids, which could be internal air currents or different building materials. Minister of Antiquities Mamdouh Eldamaty told reporters at a press conference, which was held Monday night at the step of the Great Pyramid plateau, that the result of the infrared thermography scan on the first row of the pyramid’s limestone blocks shows that all...

".... I certainly don't agree with Carson on this but neither do I think it is terribly material to anything. If you are trying to make a case that Carson is an idiot or against science, I think it takes more than a religious conviction to discredit an internationally prominent neurosurgeon with a string of articles published in scholarly medical journals. On the other hand, Hillary Clinton believes in man-induced global warming. Many of the same people criticizing Carson actually believe that gender has nothing to do with chromosomes or endocrinology or physiology. When it comes to GMOs, especially seeds...

GOP frontrunner Ben Carson, in a 1998 commencement address, floated his own personal theory that the pyramids in Egypt were built by Joseph -- the biblical patriarch known for his coat of many colors -- to store grain, Buzzfeed reported. In the speech -- given at Andrews University, a school with ties to Carson's Seventh-day Adventist faith -- the neurosurgeon shot down claim that aliens had built the pyramids. But he also disagreed with the archaeological consensus that the pyramids were constructed as tombs for the pharaohs. “My own personal theory is that Joseph built the pyramids to store grain,”...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is the latest GOP presidential candidate to jump on 2016 frontrunner Ben Carson's theory that the pyramids were created by the biblical figure Joseph to store grain. "I'm really big into conspiracy theories, so I think they were probably built by the aliens as grain silos, don’t you think," Paul joked, when asked about Carson's idea on 1110AM WBT, as reported by Buzzfeed. Carson has defended the idea that the pyramids were built for grain storage -- not as pharaohs' tombs, as modern archaeology holds -- since Buzzfeed recently unearthed a video of the neurosurgeon making...

Joe Scarborough's critique of Ben Carson goes way beyond policy differences. Scarborough questions whether Carson has the "character" to be president. On today's Morning Joe, Scarborough twice suggested Carson was "quirky" and said his theory on the pyramids is "crazy." Scarborough suggestively asked whether Carson "has the temperament, whether he has the character to be President of the United States?" View the video here.

Ben Carson was put on the defensive on Thursday, with reporters pressing him about a series of reports that have sprung up questioning the factual accuracy of his past statements. As Carson has gained in the polls, so has media scrutiny of the 64-year-old retired pediatric neurosurgeon and Republican presidential candidate, whose past and present statements have drawn no shortage of curiosity and interest. On Thursday, during a stop on his book tour, Carson was pressed on everything from a report that questioned past claims of his physical violence toward others, an interview in which he appeared to struggle with...

Yesterday, November 4, marked 93 years to the day that the tomb of King Tutankhamen was opened in Egypt, revealing spectacular artifacts and a magnificent mummy of the boy king. The celebration was somewhat marred, at least here in the U.S., by a leading Republican candidate for president, former neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who confirmed a statement he'd made in 1998 - that he believes the Egyptian pyramids were grain silos, not tombs. The collective reaction from archaeologists and historians, who have command of literally centuries' worth of research into the artifacts and literature of the ancient Egyptians, is... Wait, what...

Seventeen years ago, Ben Carson delivered a commencement address at Andrews University that featured a very unusual theory: Maybe Joseph built the pyramids to store grain. The speech itself, dug up by the ever-enterprising Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed, was framed around Carson's trademark inspirational stories. "I thought that I would talk about my own personal philosophy for success in life," he told the graduating class. "Think big.? He used Joseph to illustrate the point. "Here was a man who was basically able to save the entire world with his big thinking," he mused. Joseph, in the biblical narrative, oversees the...

Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson is not backing down from a belief that drew widespread attention on Wednesday - that the Egyptian pyramids were built as grain silos, not elaborate tombs. In a 1998 commencement speech at Andrews University unearthed by BuzzFeed, Carson pointed to hermetically sealed chambers as a sign the pyramids were used by Egyptians to store grain and food. "My own personal theory is that Joseph built the pyramids to store grain," Carson said in the speech, referring to the biblical figure. He added: "Now, all the archaeologists think that they were made for the pharaohs' graves. But,...

White House hopeful Donald Trump on Thursday poked fun at GOP presidential rival Ben Carson for his theory that the Egyptian pyramids were used to store grain, not serve as tombs for pharaohs. "I think I'll have to put that into my repertoire when I talk about Ben," the real estate tycoon said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "That was a strange ... that was a strange deal," Trump added. BuzzFeed on Wednesday published a video of Carson's 1998 commencement address at Andrews University, which was founded by Sevenths-day Adventists, during which he said he believed the biblical figure Joseph built...

The retired neurosurgeon seeking his party's nomination for the White House made these remarks in a 1998 address at Andrews University, a school associated with the Seventh-day Adventist Church, to which he belongs, in a video posted Wednesday on Buzzfeed. The church is a conservative evangelical Christian one. "My own personal theory is that Joseph built the pyramids to store grain," Carson said.

NAPLES, Florida -- Ben Carson stood by his long-held belief about ancient pyramids in Egypt, that they were used to store grain, rather than to inter pharaohs. Asked about this Wednesday, Carson told CBS News, "It's still my belief, yes." The subject came up when Buzzfeed published a 1998 commencement speech delivered by Carson at Andrews University, a college founded by Seventh-day Adventists. "My own personal theory is that Joseph built the pyramids to store grain," Carson said. "Now all the archeologists think that they were made for the pharaohs' graves. But, you know, it would have to be something...

But experts say the five that he identified in Bosnia-Herzegovina are natural hills.Despite his many critics, maverick archaeologist Sam Osmanagich stands by his claims that he has uncovered not one, but five structures which he says are pyramids in Visoko in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Dr Osmanagich, who earned his doctorate on the history of civilisations at the University of Sarajevo in 2008, was in Singapore recently for a conference, where he spoke about his work on pyramids. The 55-year-old claims that he has discovered the "biggest complex of pyramidal structures in the world" comprising five pyramids, all connected by underground tunnels. The...

ISIS “caliph” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi told followers of his terror group that destroying Egypt’s national monuments, such as the pyramids and the sphinx, is a “religious duty” that must be carried out by those who worship Islam, as idolatry is strictly banned in the religion, according to reports.

ISIL is obliterating the Middle East's cultural landmarks. But should we arm ourselves in order to save threatened sites, asks Dan Cruickshank. ‘When Egypt comes under the auspices of the Khalifa [Caliphate], there will be no more Pyramids, no more Sphinx, no more idolatry.” This, I was told by British Muslim political activist Anjem Choudary, “will be just”. This chilling recent interview with Choudary in east London was part of a journey that started in early 2002. I went to Afghanistan in March of that year, just after the fall of the Taliban, to report for a television programme on...

In this June 18, 2015 photo, Zahi Hawass, Egypt's former head of antiquities, stands next to his new book, "The legend of Tutankhamun," as he speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in his office in Cairo. For more than a decade, he was the self-styled Indiana Jones of Egypt, presiding over its antiquities and striding through temples and tombs as the star of TV documentaries that made him an international celebrity. But four years after the 2011 uprising that toppled President Hosni Mubarak and nearly ended his own career, Hawass can be found in a cramped office, lamenting...