Archive 2948

Some people have argued that if the Great Pyramid could be dated to earlier times, its construction could have spanned for thousands of years. In turn, the rapid construction rate established by Egyptology would not have to be adhered to and the building problems might be mitigated.

The Egyptian Pyramid Mystery Is Solved! shows that evidence for an earlier construction date is lacking.

Some propose that an earlier Atlantean civilization at Giza built the Great Pyramid. The following excerpt from The Egyptian Pyramid Mystery Is Solved! shows that some of the claims associated with this idea are too strange to take seriously:

In recent years, the idea of a link between the Great Pyramid and the fabled lost continent of Atlantis has gained popularity. Ancient people thought that the legendary sunken island-continent was located somewhere west of Gibraltar, at the southern extremity of Spain.

Proponents of a pre-Egyptian date for the Great Pyramid assert that survivors of Atlantis built this Monument long before the rise of Egyptian culture. They theorize that Pharaoh Khufu later expropriated the Great Pyramid.

The reputed psychic Edgar Cayce (1877-1945) popularized a link between Atlantis and Giza in the early decades of the 20^th century. In a hypnotic sleep-state, he said that the Great Pyramid was built in the time of a priest named Ra Ta, in 10,500 B.C.

More recently, Mark Lehner, of the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute, has championed Cayce’s claims. Lehner expounded Cayce’s material in a book titled The Egyptian Heritage: Based on the Edgar Cayce Readings (1974).

Lehner speculates that followers of Ra Ta inscribed the cartouches above the King’s Chamber as a feat of prophetic skill. In his book, Lehner describes Khufu’s cartouche as a:

“‘red herring’ for modern man until the time was right for the real meaning of this Pyramid to be brought to light. This, of course, would require considerable prophetic skill.”

Khufu was born some 8,000 years after the alleged priest Ra Ta, and the modern investigators were born some 12,500 later!

Lehner discusses this topic further in his book The Egyptian Heritage: Based on the Edgar Cayce Readings (1974). In its pages, Mark Lehner writes that he will “attempt to demonstrate good reasons for believing that the Ra Ta story is rooted in truth.”

He goes on to cite portions of the Ra Ta story, which include an alternative theory of human evolution. Accordingly, humankind forcibly pushed itself from the spiritual realm into the physical world. Consequently, many individuals of 10,500 BC were grotesque hybrid beings. Some had horse heads and human bodies. Others were sphinxes, with the body of a lion and a human head. Most people had tails, and native Egyptians had feathers on their legs! Lehner’s book purports that a physical cleansing in the Egyptian temple services caused many to lose their leg-feathers. Many tails fell away, and claws transformed into hands.

Not only are these claims too ridiculous to take seriously, but no fossil records support the notion that humans ever took the form of grotesque hybrid beings!

Moreover, Edgar Cayce had nothing tangible or useful to say about how builders overcame the problems mentioned above relative to constructing the Great Pyramid.

Another proponent of the Atlantean theory is author John Anthony West, who largely bases his assertions on the research of Dr. Robert Schoch. Many people have been convinced that the Great Pyramid is more ancient than the date assigned by Egyptology because of Schoch’s study of erosion on the Great Sphinx at Giza.

Robert Schoch thinks that water damage appearing on the Sphinx must have occurred when the region was subjected to a relatively moist, rainy climatic phase. In other words, Robert Schoch thinks the erosion on the Sphinx must have appeared toward the end of the glacial melts of the last Ice Age, thousands of years before Egypt became a nation.

Thus, John Anthony West and Robert Schoch think that great monuments were being built along the Nile River at a time when Egyptology believes people still carried on a hunter-gatherer style of life. Please see the next excerpt from The Egyptian Pyramid Mystery Is Solved!, which shows why the claims of Robert Schoch and John Anthony West may be invalid.