The Shock of the Then. . .

 I began teaching art courses at my own Art School in the early 90's and since we needed a History of Art Curriculum, I began compiling a course outline for the History of Art.

Having gone through the standard  student's Art History at UCT I pretty much went along with the accepted point of view, I remember buying a few of the recommended books and among them was Frederick Hartt's (1914–1991) Art: A History of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture - A comprehensive, scholarly and somewhat dry two volume collection of general art history.

I used it sparingly at the time finding it a bit of a slog, but when I began my own research I used Volume I extensively.

In this book he goes from the Paleolithic cave paintings to late medieval art. This is the book that formed the backbone of my reading and I must say it became a kind of Art Bible to me.

But at this time my view of History and might I add, also of reality, began to change in the mid 90's, As i began exploring different literature for my lectures I began to feel a bit dissatisfied, and began to wander far from the basic requirements of Art History for Students. This path would lead into areas that are not directly concerned with Art History itself.

A more wholistic Experience

Firstly I wanted to address, a far more wholistic approach to Art History. The publications we used as Students were all overviews focussing on art movements in periods of time, documented and described more or less in Chronological order. I now wanted to find out more about the social, political and philosophical developments of the day, since it was becoming obvious to me, Art doesn't just happen in a vacuum, there must be a lot of circumstances to consider. So, of course, there are books for these and therefore one has to put the general volumes aside and start reading books on specifics topics and time periods in which backgrounds, places and events are enlarged upon.

But that was just beginning. 

I could mention so many influences and books I read over this time, but I want to draw attention to some TV programs that forever etched themselves on my mind, so much so that I have to say they definitely formed a significant part of my psyche.

The First was "THE WORLD AT WAR"

This was still in the 1970's when TV was new in South Africa and the whole country, it seems, was mesmerized by this brilliant BBC production which I have recently watched again from beginning to end on You Tube.

At that time I was only a teenage kid but I was totally captivated, later we did the two world wars for History at School and this was definitely the beginning of my passionate love affair with History.

The Second Series was "CIVILISATION" By Kenneth Clarke  

This series caught me by surprise, it was aired in SA in the early 1980's and I initially thought of it as just some dull History documentary.



But I felt myself once again drawn in and totally transfixed with fascination as 'Lord Clark' took me on a journey back into the sands of time and instilled in me a thirst for more. . .

And yes I bought the book and this with Frederick Hartt formed part of the back bone of my 'overview'.

However: The Third Series was the most important of all for me.

I did not watch it on TV, no they aired it at the Cape Town Art Gallery in Gardens. I had just graduated from UCT and was working at my very first job, as a teacher in a private Art School in WoodStock near CapeTown and we all drove through, once a week sometime in the mid 1980's to watch this TV series.

The "SHOCK OF THE NEW" By Robert Hughes

Another high quality BBC documentary but not a Brit narrating this time, no, but a gifted presenter and writer, Robert Hughes from Australia. It is hard to describe now just how radical this video series was,  at the time, we were watching on video cassette on a bulky box TV at the CT gallery of Art with a small group of people who travelled through especially for the occasion every Monday or whatever day it was.

And I have to say I had never seen anything like it. We did get lectures once a week at Varsity with a talk and a slide show, but here was a very slick audio visual presentation, not to forget the unforgettably witty dialogue of Robert Hughes who could discuss difficult philosophical concepts with casual ease so young novices such as I could follow.

The Pinnacle of Success early 80's

The series is packed full of quotes that I have never forgotten 

Such as “Nothing dates faster than people’s fantasies about the future."

or "Like plants we need the shit of others to grow" and

“The World's Fair audience tended to think of the machine as unqualifiedly good, strong, stupid and obedient. They thought of it as a giant slave, an untiring steel Negro, controlled by Reason in a world of infinite resources.”

“It is hard to think of any work of art of which one can say 'this saved the life of one Jew, one Vietnamese, one Cambodian'. Specific books, perhaps; but as far as one can tell, no paintings or sculptures. The difference between us and the artists of the 1920's is that they they thought such a work of art could be made. Perhaps it was a certain naivete that made them think so. But it is certainly our loss that we cannot.”

“Essentially, perspective is a form of abstraction.

A Young Hip Hughes in the Early 70's

It simplifies the relationship between eye, brain and object. It is an ideal view, imagined as being seen by a one-eyed, motionless person who is clearly detached from what he sees. It makes a God of the spectator, who becomes the person on whom the whole world converges, the Unmoved Onlooker.”

etc. etc . . .

When Robert Hughes died on 6 August 2012, aged 74, I felt a great personal sense of Loss, like I had lost a good friend, I'm pretty sure many other lovers of Art felt the same and I wonder how many would agree on the enormous impression he made on our collective consciousness. Any program on Art seems to have the Shock of the New in the background, the high water mark of Art-Documentaries, in my opinion.

And yes of course, I bought the book, which graced my shelves and formed another (Few) vertebrae in my backbone of references.

Appendix to my Robert Hughes Tribute: 

In 2003 Hughes wrote a biography on Francisco Goya which was also made into a TV series. In the opening chapter of the book he describes a car accident he was involved in 1999 which very nearly killed him.

One Of Goya's nightmarish 'Black' paintings 

He was 60 years old at the time and apparently had multiple bone fractures and should have died. In the aftermath he described a nightmare vision of Goya, tormenting him in his pain, which inspired the book, well it sounds a bit melodramatic but he must have suffered terribly.

In year 2000 he got up off his hospital bed to finish his TV series "Australia - Beyond the Fatal Shore". Here is a clip in which he returns with remarkable courage to confront his smashed up car to relive that fateful day.

A very tough and erudite character he seems to have become a little cantankerous in his late years somewhat disillusioned by the superficiality and commercialism of the Art World these days.

And this really does bring me to my point, the Art business is a money making scam in which advertising and connections seem to be what it's all about - My personal view is the Art world, (and by this I don't mean the thousands of talented painters sculptors and gifted people who use the Art process to express themselves), but rather the collusion between certain individuals and the big Art dealing business that writers such as Robert Hughes would be intimately involved with.

Names like Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons spring to mind, their "talent" is not really their ability to express themselves poetically using Artistic processes but rather an uncanny skill to feed off a drip inserted into the financial arms of the wealthy elite who seem to have an endless need for notoriety and hype.

Robert Hughes on Damien Hirst 

"Hirst's 1991 suspended tiger shark, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, is, Hughes judges, a 'tacky commodity', even though collector Charles Saatchi sold it for £8m in 2004.

'It is a clever piece of marketing, but as a piece of art it is absurd,' Hughes says. The common defence is that Hirst's work mirrors and subverts modern decadence: 'Not so. It is decadence,' says Hughes."

In the first episode of "The Shock of the New"

Hans Arp, Tristan Tzara, Hans Richter
  Zurich 1918

A small group of dissenters hides out in Zurich from the horrors of the first world war. They declare a need to wipe the slate clean and "restart culture from scratch".

Since then, all the freedoms that these rebellious poets and Artists yearned for have in fact, actually happened, the western world has never enjoyed the kind of rights and freedom it now has. . . from the emancipation of slaves and protections from racial discrimination, woman's rights, gay rights, freedom of choice in a democratic society. . . etc. etc. and yet still nobody is happy, there seems to no end in site to peoples clamoring and demanding, like over-indulged and spoilt children they will never be satisfied.

Would the artists of the Dada era and the abstract expressionists feel the world has changed for the better? I guess Dadaist Marcel Duchamp would remain aloof and indifferent, maybe the hedonistic Pop Artists of the 60's would be quite happy, hard to say. Damien Hirst the wealthy millionaire sitting in his Castle in England couldn't care less.



But I believe Robert Hughes cared, and cared a great deal. I'm sure he loved his success and fame, and he was probably quite arrogant and proud, but a serious car accident and encroaching old age can go a long way in curing arrogance and pride.

He returned to the Art world because its what he new best, to be sure, but he also loved Art and loved the poetry of it, a form of visual communication that is so difficult to grasp at times and so tantalising as well as frustrating but also so satisfying that it can mesmerize the onlooker just as a beautiful or powerful piece of music or prose can.

Not long before he left this world defiant, unapologetic and totally honest.

But sadly I think Robert ended his days unhappy with Art and at times he sounded like a grumpy old man but I think he felt disappointed and died disillusioned.

Perhaps he didn't bother to, or ran out of time, or was too "locked in", too deeply invested,  to look beyond the narrow confines of liberal capitalistic western concerns. He couldn't find a solution and basically "painted himself into a corner" from which he could see no escape.

Perhaps there isn't, or on the other hand, maybe there is! This was left for another, younger generation  not locked in to the "official" Paradigm of the last century or so. Of course, there are plenty of young writers and journalists who carry on enthusiastically from where Hughes left off, the worn out themes from yesterday are all new to them, but then there are others who are forging a new path. This is where I am wanting to go. . .

I too have been around long enough to have become more and more bored with the endless repetition of old themes in Art with people trying to push beyond already overstretched boundaries in territories already explored quite thoroughly and, in my opinion, exhausted by previous generations.


My fascination for Art History remains - but I feel the tired and worn out themes of today may be indicative of a tired and worn out (Western) culture that knows how to complain but has very little else to offer.

I would rather explore new ground, but what? and where?

Books come to the rescue again.

 Just after the 80's closed there arose a new consciousness in the world of literature, the shock of the new was no longer new, or shocking What would be the new approach to Art and History? Perhaps just like the Dadaists in 1916 we need to wipe the slate clean once again, just like the great communist experiment in Russia that crumbled and fell apart at the end of the 1980's the western experiment with Darwinism and Democracy is crumbling into ruins as well.

There was a different approach altogether the overturning of the old Regime, just as the Jacobins wanted to overturn the ancient regime in the French Revolution, we have a modern overturning of the Paradigm they have constructed for the last century or so. . . .

One writer was to stand out as a spokesman in a pivotal book of its time and there were a great many people who were deeply affected by it,  and not least of them was me. . .

I first read Fingerprints of the Gods back in the mid 90's. . . 

This was at a time that I now realize, was the beginnings of my own and at the same time, a world wide awakening. 

Fingerprints hit the shelves at a particularly key moment in History and touched the pulse of a growing minority of progressive thinkers.

This book was part of the beginnings of a ripple effect in the world that continues to expand to this very day. 

There were many other writings that had a similar effect on myself and others, but if I had to choose a particular beginning to my Odyssey, it would be that fateful day when I picked up this book.






Since then, the internet has taken up the challenge and it has now exploded across the Globe, unfortunately running parallel to this fabulous outpouring of shared ideas and research is the flip-side. Muddying the waters and reducing the credibility of genuine Scholarship is any number of nut-cases who use the net to vent and deposit misinformation of varying levels of facts, fiction and garbage.

This alongside the inevitable plethora  of mindless rubbish that occupies the minds of those still fast asleep creates a real challenge for a serious truth seeker. Also the likes of Poor Graham being thrust into a public forum has had his fair share of mudslingers accusing and insulting him,  mostly ignorant people's knee jerk reactions to anything outside of the accepted paradigm.

Speaking of which

The Accepted Paradigm in which Anthropologists Archeologists and Historians work within. . .
A neatly ordered concept of a materialistic reality that dovetails comfortably into a progressive development of History that moves from simple to complex and from Dumb to Smart.

The Smart part is us today, humankind in general and . . . more specifically the high priests of the materialist universe. . . the Scientific community.

These 'clever' guys have basically proclaimed themselves the high point of all evolution. 

In other words they are the greatest beings in the known Universe. Bit arrogant? Just a tad.

A position they are understandably reluctant to relinquish. Rocket scientists and professors their elevated brains must surely be in an advanced state of evolution which places them a little bit in front of the rest of us, average and below, people. Second to them is those with money, wealth is power, so they may not be as bright, but they are privileged and also, they run the planet, so they can by necessity associate themselves with the high priests. . .  since they fund them. So these rule the earth like a modern version of a (secularized) Church and State, under which all the ordinary people just like medieval serfs must pay their taxes and fight in their armies. And. . . believe in their paradigm of reality.

Bit simplistic to be sure, 

But my point is simply this, there is so much evidence all around us that there is a whole lot more to this reality than we are being s/told.

Which is fine, we have to do some digging around and find out for ourselves. Which is precisely what Graham Hancock did and is still doing. Does this mean I believe in everything he says? No of course not, but what I love about him is is openness to debate, to the weighing up of evidence as we find it, at the same time admitting that we do not have all the facts and at some stage we are going to have to speculate and hypothesis on very scant physical evidence.

My Great Pyramid Adventure . . . Pyramids are not Tombs

The Big Debate 

Well as we all know, the official view point is the Pyramids were built as tombs for the pharaohs and their queens, from before the beginning of the Old Kingdom to the end of the Middle Kingdom.

 I believe there is good reason to question this. . .

I am no expert, my only qualification is my Fine Art training and background, love for History, not to mention my fascination for Egypt and I must add, alternative History. 

So yes a dilettante, but a serious one. 

We will have to sift our way to all kinds of conspiracy theories ranging from the scientifically feasible to the utterly preposterous, and try to present a balanced result. 

Of course the first question is why do the Egyptologists stubbornly cling to their tomb theory? Is there enough solid evidence for this theory? Am I so uniquely brilliant as to be among a select few that see through all the subterfuge? Egyptologists are hardly idiots and they have more or less 150 years of archeology to draw upon. But surely they know there are many problems with the Tomb hypothesis? Even if they believe it to be so surely there is room for other points of view that may be worthy of following up?

If there is room for doubt then why not do further research?

It is interesting to me that immediately I asked myself this question when the self same query pops up in my latest read, in the admittedly 'fringe' book 

Serpent in the Sky: The High Wisdom of Ancient Egypt by John Anthony West

West is well known for upsetting the Egyptologist's applecart and in the book he too wondered why the Egyptologists were so hung up on this theory especially in the light of the following issues. . .

"the numerous small pyramids of Mid­dle and Late Kingdom Egypt were clearly and obviously designed as tombs, and have disclosed a wealth of mummies and coffins, the eight 'great' pyramids assigned to the Third and Fourth Dynasties of the Old Kingdom have revealed no sign of either coffin or mummy. The construction of these vast edifices differs in every way from the later tombs. The curious, slanting passageways could not possibly be less conducive to the elaborate funerary rituals for which Egypt was famed. The stark interiors of the 'tomb chambers' stand in vivid contrast to the lavishly inscribed and carved chambers of later Egypt. 

(this is just for starters. . .)

This is the one and only entrance into the Kings Chamber - Just exactly How was the Funeral Cortege going to get the Kings Body with all the rituals and regalia through this little entrance?

The so called "Sarcophagus" just a little bit on the small side for a Royal Mummified Body  

Of course any Egyptologist has studied many years, courses in archeology, Anthropology,  History, particularly of Egypt according to available records. They are required to learn relevant languages such as Greek and Arabic. 

As a specialist in the ancient Egyptian language, they have taken courses in Old, Middle and Late Egyptian. . . in both hieroglyphic and hieratic scripts, Demotic, and Coptic. 

They will also have studied the art and architecture of ancient Egypt in all its different periods.

So these guys are well grounded and have been awarded with Doctorates as well as time in the field. 

So now, what happens when a Raconteur like West challenges the existing paradigm? It doesn't matter how hard he works and how thorough is his research, he is outside the "family" and even if he rocks the boat with TV programs narrated by Charlton Heston and backed up with the research of Eminent Geologist Dr Robert Schoch. . . the fraternity can ignore his claims with the comforting repost that he is not a qualified Egyptologist and his studies are not peer-reviewed and therefore he does not need to be taken seriously.

If there is going to be a serious challenge to existing research then it has to come from within the field itself. 

We need a face off 

Well perhaps we can try. . .

So in the one corner we have. . . a well known example of traditional Egyptology  

Mark Lehner 

Who tells us of his particular position on his  LOST CITY website

"I went to Egypt to study at the American University in Cairo and to search for the Hall of Records that psychic Edgar Cayce had prophesied lay beneath the Sphinx." 

Edgar Cayce was an American  psychic who ignited many peoples curiosity when he predicted in the 1940's there was a secret subterranean chamber hidden under the paws of the Giza Sphinx that had information in it about Atlantis and could possibly answer all questions about the origins of the Pyramids. 

Mark Lehner was one of many people who since the explosion of Egyptology in the 1800's found themselves drawn in to the fascinating study of Archeology and unwrapping these and other mysteries of Ancient Egypt. 

He is known for his discovery of the "workers for the Pyramids" who were discovered not to be teams of slaves driven by whips by Stern overlords as previously understood, but rather a willing group of paid workers whose living quarters had now been discovered and unearthed. 

Lehner states on his Website that his early ideas about Edgar Cayce were perhaps more romantic than factual and he does argue quite reasonably that

 "we found that our initial notions about the ancient civilisation along the Nile could not stand up to the bedrock reality of the Giza Plateau."

and 

"While my early experiences gave me a respect for many who seek a deeper meaning in the Egyptian antiquities, I came to believe that what we can know and understand about ancient Egypt must be learned through the application of the scientific method." ( This statement in itself makes the claim that all other avenues of enquiry unless under the protective oversight of the Council of Egyptian antiquities, are invalid). So placing himself under the wing of the "Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities and Director of the Giza Pyramids Excavation" Zawi Hawass he is firmly entrenched as 'one of them' the protectors of the Paradigm.
  



and in the other corner we present:

  

Stephen Mehler

Stephen Mehler with his long term associate Abd'El Hakim Awyan 

Holds three degrees in the sciences and is a trained field archaeologist and prehistorian. This should do it except for this. . . 

"Mehler also served as a Staff research scientist for the Rosicrucian Order, AMORC, in San Jose, California from 1978-1980."https://stephenmehler.wordpress.com/about-2/

Oops that sounds rather esoteric - perhaps is a clue to what estranges such a well qualified veteran from the (other) "fraternity".

Just to illustrate how Polarised are the two camps lets have a quick look at a ostensibly innocent example of how the two opposing mindsets differ over the seemingly innocuous issue of the meaning of the word Pyramid.

The word. . . Pyramid

(The following is taken from Mehler's website  http://www.gizapyramid.com/mehler-originword.htm )

The word pyramid is derived from the Greek words PYRAMIS and PYRAMIDOS. The meaning of the word Pryamis is obscure and may relate to the shape of a pyramid. The word Pyramidos has been translated as "Fire In The Middle". This meaning is very interesting and I will return to it later. 

(Me:  Not being a Greek Scholar I pick up on the Greek 'Pyro'. . . Greek word πυρ (pyr) meaning fire) as in Pyrotechnic for example) 

Well known American Egyptologist Mark Lehner has stated that the ancient Khemitian term for pyramid was something he calls MR.Pyramid. Lehner bases this on his translation of MR as "Place of Ascension" following his belief that pyramids were tombs for kings and where the dead king’s souls "ascended". 

But MR, usually written as Mer, is commonly translated as beloved, as in Meriamen (Beloved of Amen, The Hidden) or Meritaten (Beloved of Aten, The Wiser). Our indigenous sources tell us Mer meant "beloved" and had nothing to do with pyramid.

My Indigenous Wisdom Keeper teacher, Abd'El Hakim Awyan, states unequivocally that the ancient Khemitians used the term PR.NTR, Per-Neter, for pyramid. Per means "house" and Neter we have discussed in the previous article. Neter has been translated by Egyptologists as "God" or "Goddess" but we reject this mistranslation. 

In alignment with the indigenous tradition, we use the interpretation "House of Nature, House of Energy" for Per-Neter. The temple was Per-Ba (House of the Soul) and the tomb was Per-Ka (House of the Physical Projection) according to the indigenous tradition.

With this understanding of Per-Neter as House of Nature, I state categorically that no one was ever intended to be buried in a pyramid in its original intent! Even Mark Lehner has admitted that no evidence of an original burial in any of the major Khemitian pyramids has ever been found. Also no inscriptions or reliefs either depicting or stating that any king was ever buried in a pyramid have ever been found.

One of the main purposes of the Great Per-Neter was to generate, transform, and transmit energy. The Indigenous Wisdom Keepers of Egypt have provided us a concrete paradigm to support the power plant theory of Christopher Dunn. 

Although Egyptologists base their pyramid-as-tomb theories on the writings of Greek historians such as Herodotus, the Greek word Pyramidos is closer to the true meaning. Indeed, if we support Dunn’s ideas that the energy reactions in the Great Pyramid took place in the so-called Queen’s and King’s Chambers, then certainly it was Fire In The Middle.

Glyph of Per-Neter, House of Nature, Energy. Taken by author at Abusir,1997.

Well now, what do we know of ancient Egyptian? Here is an argument about the translations from two qualified Scholars with differing world-views. 

Lehner uses 'Mer' to designate 'ascension', which ties in with his tomb theory, Mehler uses 'Per' which ties in with the 'ancient power-plant' theory. 

Here is a prime example of how two Scholars with similar knowledge, training and experience, studying exactly the same evidence, can come to two completely separate conclusions. 

Who do we believe? 

Just follow your heart just isn't going to work here. Is it not so that people in general, including highly qualified Scholars, decide on a particular point of view and then look for the evidence to support it, Instead of the evidence leading to a point of view? 

I would suggest this is the norm and not the exception. . .

One really big preconception is the theory of Evolution. Without delving into the prehistoric aspect (for now), this is a world-view that is foisted onto Egyptology (as it is with all fields of Scholarly study) today. The issues we find ourselves dealing with are mainly concerned with the neat progressive chart from hunter-gather to ancient civilisations and eventually to modern technological man. 

Without attempting to get into the debate, any idea that civilisations could have existed in the dim distant and unrecorded past that do not 'fit' into the paradigm, are simply rejected. This really is the key to the whole problem, since any Egyptologist will be happy to debate various issues as long as they are placed neatly within the time scale. The ideas of Stephen Mehler and Christopher Dunn are an interesting debate, but they would necessitate a revision of the  time scale, and we know Egyptology will simply refuse to do so. 

So the stand-off remains. 

My Great Pyramid Adventure

I ticked a mark off my Bucket list last Saturday 10 Dec 2016

For many years I have dreamed of visiting the great Pyramid of Egypt on the Giza plateau. By this I mean the Pyramid of Khufu which stands alongside the Pyramids of Khafre and Menkaure. But it is the great pyramid itself which intrigues and fascinates researchers and dilettantes such as I. 

Here I am with Barry my colleague from El Gouna School, as we walked onto the Giza plateau. 

Standing in front of the Great Pyramid of Kafre

I had obviously decided I was definitely going inside the great Pyramid, and paid my 200 LE just for the privilege. 

They have made the entrance easier by placing smaller steps on the huge blocks and you can make your way to the entrance that was apparently punched through by a ninth century Caliph al Ma'mun of Cairo

I didn't actually take a photo of the entrance so found this pic that matched my experience. The actual entrance is clearly visible above. I was not sure why its not used today and does appear to be blocked. The small opening to the right below is where we went in.

You Tube video showing the entrance to the Pyramid

The "Official Story" of the entrance 

In the ninth century an Arab governor of Cairo, known as the Caliph al Ma'mun, decided to see for himself what lay inside the Great pyramid and began to excavate a tunnel bodily through the casing and core blocks. Fortuitously for the Caliph, their busy tunnelling shook the structure so much that the capstone fell off the end of the ascending passage. 

The resonating crash was heard by the workers, who dug in that direction and found not only the descending passage, but also the ascending passage and all the upper chambers in the pyramid. After thousands of years lying undisturbed deep inside the pyramid, the King's and Queen's chambers were opened at last and their treasure would soon belong to the Caliph. 

Except they found nothing inside. Now that's an intriguing question. . .

Heres a video of the entrance tunnel dung by Caliph al Ma'mun, I filmed this on my way out bear in mind and you can see at the beginning a lower stair case leading to the Queen's chanber, which for whatever reason is out of bounds.
 I do apologise for the bad sound quality of the video my phone just wasn't behaving this day of all days . . . !!

After a slightly winding tunnel entrance and passing the descending tunnel,  We find ourselves at the beginning of the very narrow and cramped and claustrophobic ascending tunnel. 

This mercifully comes to an end and broadens out into a high steeply ascending 'hallway' they call the 'grand gallery' 

 Again apologise for the poor sound quality. . . My impression was, Firstly, wow here I am. . ta dah  !                                                                                                     I have seen this on countless videos and books, but here I am actually inside. It has another entrance which splits the gallery in half, I must admit I am a bit puzzled about which entrance goes to the Queens chamber, since we passed another one nearer the entrance. Anyway you can't go into this entrance as it too has a gate that is locked, but it splits the walkway in two, so you climb up a ladder and continue your climb on either side of this 'entrance' upwards towards the 'Kings Chamber" . . .

Then I thought somehow I thought it would be larger, not that it was small. . . but I got that idea. Then I thought this Pyramid is enormous they could fit any number of passageways and chambers in it. Indeed this question has often be raised, but no further exploration has ever been properly done.  

This is the actual entrance to the Kings chamber, it is linked to the 'grand gallery by a small passageway that is also very narrow and cramped. The guard at the top of the grand gallery presumably watching over the Kings chamber shouted down at me when he saw my cell phone.              You are not allowed to film or photograph the inside of the Pyramid. 

But after I entered the 'Kings Chamber' the guard took my phone! I thought he was either going to confiscate it or force me to erase my pics! But instead he took a series of pics and asked me to pose at various positions. I was very pleased of course. . . then he inevitably asked me for money, which I had left in bag at the bottom with the guide. . . 

This is the famous 'Sarcophagus' of Pharaoh Khufu. 

BUT IS IT?

I would like to explore this idea in further blogs, but it is not a new subject.

Firstly, the only people who managed to break into the Pyramid found it exactly as we see it today. 

Then, the granite Box is in fact not that big! When one considers the sarcophagus of Tutankhamen an exceedingly minor and insignificant king, his boxes of sarcophagi would never be able to fit into this granite box. 

According to the research, the average ancient Egyptian adult (male and female) could lay down inside the Coffer with about 188 mm (5.5 in.) clearance to spare at their head and feet. Not a lot of head and foot room, but a body could fit, provided they were not wearing a headdress and other large outer garments. When one considers the mummification process it becomes far too cramped to fit much more than an unadorned body in there. 

 The sarcophagus is slightly larger than the Ascending Passage, which indicates that it must have been placed in the Chamber before the roof was put in place. 

The Coffer was carved out of a single block of red Aswan granite and hollowed out similar to how a carpenter would hollow out a block of wood with an auger — the spiral markings on the inners sides tells us this. Engineers have estimated it would require very hard bits (some precious stone?) and an overhead pressure of 1-2 tons.

The four sides are about 6 inches thick and the base is about 7 inches thick. There is also a lip along the inside edge of the top that hints of a lid, but no lid has ever been found. . . The broken corner is the result of people chiseling pieces from of the Coffer to take home with them as a souvenir. . . 

Then theres another problem: 

Granite sarcophagus that were used during the Old Kingdom (2500 BC) had designs inscribed on their exterior. In later years, the sarcophagus had more elaborate designs and inscriptions on them. The stone Coffer inside the King's Chamber of the GP has NO designs nor any inscriptions. Nothing. Nothing to denote any (special) purpose whatsoever.

THE CHAMBER                                                                     

WAS THE KING'S CHAMBER A TOMB?

There is no physical evidence to support this theory. None. No funerary text, no hieroglyphics, nor any artefacts have ever been found to support the idea that the Chamber was a tomb. At best, the only physical evidence found to support anything are the hieroglyphic inscriptions in the upper relieving chambers that simply (and perhaps fraudulently?) suggest the GP was built during Khufu's reign.

Our Guides name was 'Gad' did a really great job

Next Stop Cairo museum

What is Very interesting to me is that so many artists and art teachers have a strong connection and fascination for ancient Egypt.

The most well known one was Howard Carter the famous discoverer of Tutankhamen's tomb in the valley of the Kings. and yes indeed he began his career as an artist.

"He spent much of his childhood with relatives in the Norfolk market town of Swaffham, the birthplace of both his parents. Nearby was the mansion of the Amherst family, Didlington Hall, containing a magnificent collection of Egyptian antiques, which sparked Carter's interest in that subject. In 1891 the Egypt Exploration Fund (EEF), on the prompting of Mary Cecil, sent Carter to assist an Amherst family friend, Percy Newberry, in the excavation and recording of Middle Kingdom tombs at Beni Hasan." (taken from Wikipedia)

The Entrance to the Tutankhamen exhibit with a great diagram of his tomb at the valley of the Kings

 I saw the relics of Tutankhamen at the Egyptian museum in Cairo and the most beautiful object among them was his funerary mask and gold covered coffers 

This is a pic I found but this is exactly what I saw.

I stood looking down at this coffin and tried to sneak in a picture. Here's the best I could do with my phone down on my belt trying not to be caught. . . 

There was a guard standing there who was stopping people from taking pictures, it was just in this particular section of the museum.

Very frustrating when to be sure it was the most beautiful and awe inspiring artefact in the whole museum. 

This is what the funerary mask looks like on its display, again I had to dig this pic up off the internet, since we were not allowed to take pics in this room but this is exactly what we saw.

Why we cant take pics so annoying but we could take pics of the other stuff which was amazing, but i have to say these objects are quite breathtaking. 

I took this shot from the outside looking into the room, best I could do. . . 
But that mask is very beautiful. . . You really have to see it for yourself.







More amazing artefacts it was really wonderful to get to see all this.

To be continued. . .