1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:12,000
On Egypt's Giza Plateau, the Sphinx stands guard over the pyramids, the oldest and most famous structures in the world.

2
00:00:12,000 --> 00:00:18,000
We've come to believe they were built simply as tombs for ancient pharaohs.

3
00:00:18,000 --> 00:00:31,000
But were they? Or do new investigations point to a much larger purpose, one that could even change our ideas about when civilization began?

4
00:00:48,000 --> 00:01:16,000
The Pyramids

5
00:01:16,000 --> 00:01:24,000
The pyramids were built during Egypt's fourth dynasty, about 4,500 years ago.

6
00:01:24,000 --> 00:01:33,000
They're one of the seven wonders of the world, monuments whose mysteries have provoked centuries of debate.

7
00:01:33,000 --> 00:01:40,000
Egyptologists insist that they were tombs, the same as other pyramids along the Nile Valley.

8
00:01:40,000 --> 00:01:46,000
But now a new breed of investigators is asking questions and challenging that idea.

9
00:01:46,000 --> 00:01:52,000
Sluice like Robert Bauble, a construction engineer, and writer Graham Hancock.

10
00:01:52,000 --> 00:02:08,000
Textbooks say that these pyramids were royal tombs like all the others, but no mummies were found inside Giza, no inscriptions, nothing.

11
00:02:08,000 --> 00:02:14,000
Besides, some of these fourth dynasty pharaohs built two pyramids.

12
00:02:14,000 --> 00:02:18,000
Why did they intend to be buried in both places at once?

13
00:02:18,000 --> 00:02:26,000
And why did none of them leave inscriptions? Why did none of them make clear to posterity that he was the owner?

14
00:02:26,000 --> 00:02:38,000
Ask yourself this. If you'd just built the biggest tomb in human history after decades of cost and effort, would you leave the world guessing about your identity?

15
00:02:38,000 --> 00:02:44,000
Isn't it likely that there's something much more to all this than just tombs and tombs only?

16
00:02:44,000 --> 00:02:48,000
Could this be part of some very different scheme?

17
00:02:48,000 --> 00:03:00,000
The date Egyptologists fix as the beginning of Egyptian civilization is 3000 BC, about 500 years before the pyramids were built.

18
00:03:00,000 --> 00:03:06,000
Before that, they claimed the land was populated by Stone Age wanderers.

19
00:03:06,000 --> 00:03:09,000
Bauble is skeptical.

20
00:03:09,000 --> 00:03:14,000
According to the textbooks, Egypt only just emerged from the Stone Age.

21
00:03:14,000 --> 00:03:20,000
And suddenly, just like that, were able to produce these enormous and perfect structures.

22
00:03:20,000 --> 00:03:25,000
And all this for what? To cover the body of a dead king.

23
00:03:25,000 --> 00:03:27,000
This tomb-only theory doesn't make sense.

24
00:03:27,000 --> 00:03:36,000
And despite a hundred years of scientific investigation, many vital questions remain unanswered.

25
00:03:36,000 --> 00:03:43,000
The pyramids on the Giza Plateau are unlike any ever built in Egypt before or since.

26
00:03:43,000 --> 00:03:48,000
Their predecessors from the Third Dynasty are mountains of crumbling brick.

27
00:03:48,000 --> 00:03:52,000
Their fifth-century successors are piles of rubble.

28
00:03:52,000 --> 00:03:56,000
Hancock explains.

29
00:03:56,000 --> 00:04:00,000
It's as though in the Third Dynasty they built the Model T Ford.

30
00:04:00,000 --> 00:04:03,000
In the Fourth Dynasty they built the Porsche.

31
00:04:03,000 --> 00:04:10,000
Then in the Fifth Dynasty, for some bizarre reason, they reverted to the penny-farthing bicycle of pyramids.

32
00:04:10,000 --> 00:04:12,000
It really doesn't make any kind of sense.

33
00:04:12,000 --> 00:04:19,000
The pyramids don't excite everybody's curiosity.

34
00:04:19,000 --> 00:04:28,000
Egyptologists aren't much interested in them and believe that speculation, especially about the Great Pyramid, has gone too far.

35
00:04:28,000 --> 00:04:38,000
Pyramids, in general, are not very popular with Egyptologists because I think they're too plentiful.

36
00:04:38,000 --> 00:04:41,000
There are about a hundred of them.

37
00:04:41,000 --> 00:04:47,000
And also, I think they've acquired something of a bad name because they've attracted so many cranks.

38
00:04:47,000 --> 00:04:50,000
The Great Pyramid has this power over people.

39
00:04:50,000 --> 00:04:54,000
In my view, it has the power to destroy common sense.

40
00:04:54,000 --> 00:05:04,000
But if the pyramids were simply tombs, then why were the Egyptians so obsessed with the pyramids' dimensions and with their orientation on the Earth?

41
00:05:04,000 --> 00:05:08,000
They lie almost exactly along the 30th parallel.

42
00:05:08,000 --> 00:05:17,000
The relationship of the Great Pyramid's circumference to its height is the same as that of the Earth's circumference to its radius from the pole.

43
00:05:17,000 --> 00:05:23,000
Egyptologists don't dispute this. They just deny that it was done on purpose.

44
00:05:23,000 --> 00:05:31,000
Is this a simple coincidence? Or is it possible that these people knew the exact shape and dimensions of the Earth?

45
00:05:31,000 --> 00:05:38,000
Miraculously, too, these gigantic structures are impeccably aligned to the cardinal directions.

46
00:05:38,000 --> 00:05:44,000
Perfectly east-west and perfectly north-south.

47
00:05:44,000 --> 00:05:51,000
The precision of these alignments is uncanny and hasn't been achieved in any modern structure.

48
00:05:51,000 --> 00:06:00,000
How is it possible that such precision could have been achieved almost 5,000 years ago?

49
00:06:00,000 --> 00:06:06,000
500 years ago, our own civilization wasn't even sure that the Earth is a sphere.

50
00:06:06,000 --> 00:06:12,000
And it wasn't until 300 years ago that we knew for certain the exact dimensions of the Earth.

51
00:06:12,000 --> 00:06:23,000
But these people knew because the Great Pyramid turns out to be a mathematical model of the Northern Hemisphere on a scale of 1 to 43,200.

52
00:06:23,000 --> 00:06:33,000
The Great Pyramid also incorporates the value of pi in its construction, a transcendental number thought to have been discovered by the Greeks.

53
00:06:33,000 --> 00:06:39,000
And even the slope of the pyramid's walls is odd and complicated.

54
00:06:39,000 --> 00:06:52,000
It's clear that what we have here is an advanced system of mathematics and technology at a time when this isn't supposed to have existed.

55
00:06:52,000 --> 00:06:58,000
And to achieve these results, the ancient builders had to use a slope of 52 degrees.

56
00:06:58,000 --> 00:07:08,000
Any other slope just wouldn't work. Can all these things be coincidence?

57
00:07:08,000 --> 00:07:13,000
The accuracy of these monuments is almost obsessive. Take the sides of the Great Pyramid.

58
00:07:13,000 --> 00:07:19,000
They're each 755 feet long, yet the average variation in the side length is barely 5 inches.

59
00:07:19,000 --> 00:07:28,000
We're talking 0.01 of a single percent. Such incredible precision would stretch to breaking point the capacities of modern construction crews.

60
00:07:28,000 --> 00:07:34,000
So it's hard to imagine how it was done by primitives only just emerging from the Stone Age.

61
00:07:34,000 --> 00:07:39,000
There's still more worth pondering, like the size of the building blocks.

62
00:07:39,000 --> 00:07:46,000
Some of these blocks, high up in the body of the Great Pyramid, each weigh as much as a hundred family-sized cars.

63
00:07:46,000 --> 00:07:51,000
Egyptologists remain strangely unpuzzled by this, but frankly, we're very puzzled indeed.

64
00:07:51,000 --> 00:07:58,000
I'm an engineer, and I can tell you that to raise blocks of this size to such heights requires a special crane.

65
00:07:58,000 --> 00:08:05,000
Now, for a people who did not have that sort of machines, not even the simplest pulley or the wheel,

66
00:08:05,000 --> 00:08:09,000
and using simple copper tools, how could they do this?

67
00:08:09,000 --> 00:08:25,000
Deep within the pyramid, inside a room called the King's Chamber, there is a granite chest so skillfully made it would challenge even modern-day machines.

68
00:08:25,000 --> 00:08:28,000
Chris Dunn is a drilling expert.

69
00:08:28,000 --> 00:08:36,000
This is an incredible piece of work, and a mystery. How did they do it?

70
00:08:36,000 --> 00:08:48,000
The typical way of doing it primitively would be with a bow drill, and they would advance the tool into the piece using sand or a diamond.

71
00:08:48,000 --> 00:08:53,000
And, to me, that would just take too long, too many years to do this.

72
00:08:53,000 --> 00:08:57,000
But, let me ask you this. How do you think they did it?

73
00:08:57,000 --> 00:09:01,000
I think that they had to have used some power tool.

74
00:09:01,000 --> 00:09:09,000
Today, if we were to drill this, we would advance the drill into the granite at a rate of two ten-thousandths of an inch per revolution of the drill.

75
00:09:09,000 --> 00:09:14,000
Do you think their drills could possibly be turning as fast as they are?

76
00:09:14,000 --> 00:09:18,000
No. They were advancing a lot faster than that.

77
00:09:18,000 --> 00:09:20,000
Faster? Faster.

78
00:09:20,000 --> 00:09:25,000
The drills were advancing into the granite at a rate of one-hundred-thousandths of a revolution.

79
00:09:25,000 --> 00:09:40,000
The investigators admit the idea is controversial, but the fact is, the Egyptians were able to cut granite and even diorite, the hardest stone in nature,

80
00:09:40,000 --> 00:09:46,000
and drill out the inside of diorite vases where modern-day tools couldn't even reach.

81
00:09:46,000 --> 00:10:09,000
In the King's Chamber, there's another mystery the investigators don't think has been adequately solved.

82
00:10:09,000 --> 00:10:11,000
This is the real mystery.

83
00:10:11,000 --> 00:10:16,000
Cutting through the wall are a number of precision-made shafts.

84
00:10:16,000 --> 00:10:22,000
Egyptologists claim their ventilation shafts, air conditioning for the dead monarch.

85
00:10:25,000 --> 00:10:30,000
But there's no way these could have been ventilation shafts.

86
00:10:30,000 --> 00:10:33,000
The detail of design is far too complicated.

87
00:10:33,000 --> 00:10:36,000
They rise on the incline all the way out of the pyramid.

88
00:10:36,000 --> 00:10:39,000
They must have had a much higher purpose.

89
00:10:39,000 --> 00:10:42,000
But what kind of purpose?

90
00:10:42,000 --> 00:10:50,000
Barvel and Hancock began to believe the five-thousand-year-old monuments were built to send a message to future generations.

91
00:10:50,000 --> 00:10:56,000
The investigators wanted to decipher that message and turn to astronomy for clues.

92
00:10:56,000 --> 00:11:00,000
Scholars say that the ancient Egyptians did not have a high knowledge of astronomy.

93
00:11:00,000 --> 00:11:06,000
But here is evidence of their fascination and sophisticated knowledge of the sky.

94
00:11:06,000 --> 00:11:09,000
Look at the zodiac constellation.

95
00:11:09,000 --> 00:11:18,000
Leo, Taurus, Pisces, and here the constellation of Orion and the star Sirius.

96
00:11:18,000 --> 00:11:24,000
Barvel was convinced the shaft from the King's Chamber was targeted at the constellation of Orion.

97
00:11:24,000 --> 00:11:27,000
He set out to prove it on the computer.

98
00:11:27,000 --> 00:11:30,000
Obviously it didn't go through all this trouble just for fun.

99
00:11:30,000 --> 00:11:34,000
To the ancient Egyptians, Orion was Osiris, the high god of resurrection.

100
00:11:34,000 --> 00:11:38,000
Now this is a reconstruction of the sky in 2500 BC.

101
00:11:38,000 --> 00:11:43,000
And let's see what happens to Orion's belt as it crosses the north-south line.

102
00:11:43,000 --> 00:11:50,000
A perfect alignment to Orion and the god Osiris.

103
00:11:50,000 --> 00:11:54,000
Now to the left of Orion, and here is the star Sirius.

104
00:11:54,000 --> 00:11:59,000
To the ancient Egyptians, it was the star of Isis, the consort of Osiris.

105
00:11:59,000 --> 00:12:02,000
And I was amazed to discover this.

106
00:12:02,000 --> 00:12:07,000
Just as the King's Chamber is sighted at Osiris,

107
00:12:07,000 --> 00:12:16,000
the shaft from the Queen's Chamber leads straight to his consort, the goddess Isis.

108
00:12:16,000 --> 00:12:22,000
Osiris and Isis were central to the ancient Egyptians' religion.

109
00:12:22,000 --> 00:12:27,000
The coming of these gods thousands of years before the beginning of history

110
00:12:27,000 --> 00:12:30,000
heralded the birth of Egypt.

111
00:12:30,000 --> 00:12:37,000
This was what the Egyptians called the beginning of time,

112
00:12:37,000 --> 00:12:41,000
when the gods shaped the river and the land

113
00:12:41,000 --> 00:12:45,000
and brought civilization and its bounty to the Nile Valley.

114
00:12:45,000 --> 00:13:02,000
But then Osiris was killed by his brother,

115
00:13:02,000 --> 00:13:06,000
and the land was plunged into violence and terror.

116
00:13:06,000 --> 00:13:22,000
Isis gathered her husband's body and bound it in linen.

117
00:13:22,000 --> 00:13:25,000
Then she changed into a bird,

118
00:13:25,000 --> 00:13:31,000
and resurrected Osiris to a new life among the stars.

119
00:13:31,000 --> 00:13:36,000
Together they ruled over the night skies for eternity,

120
00:13:36,000 --> 00:13:40,000
with Osiris the god of resurrection.

121
00:13:40,000 --> 00:13:45,000
Resurrection was also the goal of Egypt's pharaohs.

122
00:13:45,000 --> 00:13:50,000
Now when a pharaoh died, his body was mummified and prepared like Osiris,

123
00:13:50,000 --> 00:13:54,000
and his soul was ready to ascend to the sky.

124
00:13:54,000 --> 00:14:05,000
His earthly mission fulfilled and the dead king would depart to the sky.

125
00:14:05,000 --> 00:14:12,000
In effect what we have here is a reenactment of the resurrection myth of Osiris,

126
00:14:12,000 --> 00:14:14,000
told in stellar terms.

127
00:14:14,000 --> 00:14:17,000
Pavel believes the purpose of the pyramid shafts

128
00:14:17,000 --> 00:14:21,000
was to send the pharaoh's soul to its place next to Osiris,

129
00:14:21,000 --> 00:14:24,000
and he's found compelling support.

130
00:14:24,000 --> 00:14:27,000
I'm taking you inside the pyramid of Unas,

131
00:14:27,000 --> 00:14:30,000
one of the kings who immediately followed the fourth dynasty.

132
00:14:30,000 --> 00:14:33,000
Here are the oldest religious writings in history.

133
00:14:33,000 --> 00:14:36,000
These are the pyramid texts,

134
00:14:36,000 --> 00:14:39,000
and they hold the key to the mystery of the pyramids.

135
00:14:39,000 --> 00:14:43,000
The meaning of these texts were nearly forgotten,

136
00:14:43,000 --> 00:14:47,000
because Egyptologists saw in them mainly a sun religion.

137
00:14:47,000 --> 00:14:52,000
But this isn't a religion of the day and the living.

138
00:14:52,000 --> 00:14:56,000
This is a religion of the night and of the dead.

139
00:14:56,000 --> 00:15:05,000
These texts repeatedly tell us that the king becomes a star in the kingdom of Osiris,

140
00:15:05,000 --> 00:15:07,000
in the constellation of Orion.

141
00:15:07,000 --> 00:15:09,000
One of these texts says,

142
00:15:09,000 --> 00:15:15,000
O king, you are a companion of Orion.

143
00:15:15,000 --> 00:15:17,000
And another text says,

144
00:15:17,000 --> 00:15:22,000
May you traverse the winding waterway, the Milky Way,

145
00:15:22,000 --> 00:15:26,000
and may you go to the place where Orion is.

146
00:15:26,000 --> 00:15:32,000
Everything here attests to a grand unified plan, a master plan.

147
00:15:32,000 --> 00:15:36,000
And yet there's something very perplexing about this plan.

148
00:15:36,000 --> 00:15:38,000
We have three pyramids,

149
00:15:38,000 --> 00:15:41,000
two of which are of almost identical size

150
00:15:41,000 --> 00:15:44,000
and are set along a diagonal line.

151
00:15:44,000 --> 00:15:47,000
And yet here's the curious thing.

152
00:15:47,000 --> 00:15:49,000
The third pyramid is much smaller

153
00:15:49,000 --> 00:15:53,000
and is offset to the left of this diagonal line.

154
00:15:53,000 --> 00:15:54,000
Why?

155
00:15:54,000 --> 00:15:57,000
What were the pyramid builders trying to do?

156
00:15:57,000 --> 00:16:02,000
Bavel wondered if the alignment of the pyramids on the ground

157
00:16:02,000 --> 00:16:06,000
might be clues pointing to a larger purpose.

158
00:16:13,000 --> 00:16:15,000
The problem had been lying to me for years

159
00:16:15,000 --> 00:16:16,000
and on a night like this,

160
00:16:16,000 --> 00:16:18,000
sitting in the desert with a friend of mine,

161
00:16:18,000 --> 00:16:22,000
he was telling me how the star Sirius would rise

162
00:16:22,000 --> 00:16:24,000
and then he pointed in the sky

163
00:16:24,000 --> 00:16:27,000
and showed me the belt of Orion right above.

164
00:16:27,000 --> 00:16:28,000
And he said,

165
00:16:28,000 --> 00:16:30,000
do you notice how the three stars run in a row?

166
00:16:30,000 --> 00:16:32,000
But the top star, the smaller star,

167
00:16:32,000 --> 00:16:34,000
is slightly offset to the left.

168
00:16:34,000 --> 00:16:36,000
And suddenly I had it.

169
00:16:36,000 --> 00:16:40,000
Bavel had realized the pyramids

170
00:16:40,000 --> 00:16:43,000
might be a terrestrial map of Orion's belt,

171
00:16:43,000 --> 00:16:46,000
but not as it would have looked in the skies

172
00:16:46,000 --> 00:16:51,000
in 2450 BC when the pyramids were built.

173
00:16:51,000 --> 00:17:03,000
Interestingly, the position of the stars in the sky

174
00:17:03,000 --> 00:17:08,000
doesn't stay the same century after century.

175
00:17:08,000 --> 00:17:10,000
When viewed from Earth,

176
00:17:10,000 --> 00:17:12,000
the constellations appear to move,

177
00:17:12,000 --> 00:17:15,000
a phenomenon called precession,

178
00:17:15,000 --> 00:17:18,000
caused by the wobbling of the Earth on its axis.

179
00:17:18,000 --> 00:17:22,000
The movement progresses at a snail's pace

180
00:17:22,000 --> 00:17:25,000
about one degree over a human lifetime.

181
00:17:25,000 --> 00:17:30,000
Egyptologists and students of Eroglyphids

182
00:17:30,000 --> 00:17:32,000
ignore precession,

183
00:17:32,000 --> 00:17:34,000
but without it, certain problems

184
00:17:34,000 --> 00:17:36,000
simply cannot be solved

185
00:17:36,000 --> 00:17:39,000
because it is precession that is the key

186
00:17:39,000 --> 00:17:42,000
that will unlock the mysteries of the pyramids.

187
00:17:42,000 --> 00:17:48,000
The precession appears as a change in altitude of the stars.

188
00:17:48,000 --> 00:17:51,000
From the moment Orion rises from its starting position,

189
00:17:51,000 --> 00:17:54,000
11 degrees above the horizon,

190
00:17:54,000 --> 00:17:56,000
until the time it returns,

191
00:17:56,000 --> 00:17:59,000
takes 26,000 years.

192
00:17:59,000 --> 00:18:12,000
The pyramids' alignment with Orion's belt was close,

193
00:18:12,000 --> 00:18:13,000
but not exact.

194
00:18:13,000 --> 00:18:16,000
The Nile corresponded to the Milky Way

195
00:18:16,000 --> 00:18:18,000
and the pyramids to Orion,

196
00:18:18,000 --> 00:18:23,000
but neither was perfectly matched with their position in 2500 BC.

197
00:18:23,000 --> 00:18:27,000
Bob will look to other time periods.

198
00:18:27,000 --> 00:18:29,000
Now let's look at the three stars in Orion's belt

199
00:18:29,000 --> 00:18:31,000
in relation to the Milky Way.

200
00:18:31,000 --> 00:18:33,000
Now in order to get a perfect match

201
00:18:33,000 --> 00:18:35,000
with the pyramids on the ground,

202
00:18:35,000 --> 00:18:38,000
the sky needs to be rotated slightly anti-clockwise.

203
00:18:38,000 --> 00:18:40,000
This means going back in time,

204
00:18:40,000 --> 00:18:47,000
3000 BC, 4000 BC, 5000 BC.

205
00:18:47,000 --> 00:18:53,000
The computer follows Orion back over the millennia

206
00:18:53,000 --> 00:18:55,000
of its precessional cycle.

207
00:18:55,000 --> 00:19:16,000
7,000, 8,000, 9,000, 10,000,

208
00:19:16,000 --> 00:19:18,000
and in 10,500 BC,

209
00:19:18,000 --> 00:19:20,000
that's when we get the perfect match.

210
00:19:20,000 --> 00:19:22,000
It's absolutely amazing.

211
00:19:22,000 --> 00:19:27,000
Well, the whole arrangement freezes the time of 10,500 BC.

212
00:19:27,000 --> 00:19:31,000
The pyramid builders made their terrestrial map

213
00:19:31,000 --> 00:19:33,000
to reflect Orion as it looked

214
00:19:33,000 --> 00:19:38,000
and only as it looked in 10,500 BC.

215
00:19:38,000 --> 00:19:40,000
But why?

216
00:19:40,000 --> 00:19:44,000
Hancock has a theory he knows sounds incredible.

217
00:19:44,000 --> 00:19:48,000
He likes to speculate that the idea of the pyramids

218
00:19:48,000 --> 00:19:51,000
was inherited from another culture,

219
00:19:51,000 --> 00:19:55,000
one that existed in 10,500 BC.

220
00:19:55,000 --> 00:19:57,000
That culture disappeared,

221
00:19:57,000 --> 00:19:59,000
but somehow their advanced knowledge

222
00:19:59,000 --> 00:20:02,000
of architecture, mathematics, and science

223
00:20:02,000 --> 00:20:04,000
was passed down through the ages.

224
00:20:04,000 --> 00:20:06,000
With that knowledge,

225
00:20:06,000 --> 00:20:10,000
the Egyptians of 2,500 BC built the pyramids.

226
00:20:10,000 --> 00:20:13,000
The monuments Hancock suggests

227
00:20:13,000 --> 00:20:16,000
are part of a legacy from a lost civilization.

228
00:20:16,000 --> 00:20:23,000
We're not claiming that the pyramids are 12,500 years old.

229
00:20:23,000 --> 00:20:26,000
What we're saying is that the pyramids speak

230
00:20:26,000 --> 00:20:29,000
of that very distant date.

231
00:20:29,000 --> 00:20:31,000
There's no doubt in my mind

232
00:20:31,000 --> 00:20:34,000
that the Egyptians were the inheritors

233
00:20:34,000 --> 00:20:39,000
of an ancient knowledge and wisdom.

234
00:20:39,000 --> 00:20:42,000
It's absurd to suggest, as Egyptologists do,

235
00:20:42,000 --> 00:20:45,000
that these monuments were the creation

236
00:20:45,000 --> 00:20:48,000
of the infancy of a civilization.

237
00:20:48,000 --> 00:20:51,000
There's a huge accumulated knowledge and wisdom

238
00:20:51,000 --> 00:20:53,000
expressed in these monuments.

239
00:20:53,000 --> 00:20:57,000
These monuments, to me, are the end of something,

240
00:20:57,000 --> 00:20:59,000
not the beginning of something.

241
00:20:59,000 --> 00:21:13,000
To me, this almost impossible engineering feat

242
00:21:13,000 --> 00:21:16,000
conveys one clear message.

243
00:21:16,000 --> 00:21:18,000
Speaking to us across the Gulf of Ages,

244
00:21:18,000 --> 00:21:20,000
what the ancients are saying is

245
00:21:20,000 --> 00:21:22,000
we were not fools.

246
00:21:22,000 --> 00:21:24,000
And we weren't simpletons

247
00:21:24,000 --> 00:21:26,000
dancing after superstitious priests.

248
00:21:26,000 --> 00:21:29,000
We will show you our knowledge and precision.

249
00:21:29,000 --> 00:21:31,000
We did nothing by chance.

250
00:21:31,000 --> 00:21:35,000
Take us seriously.

251
00:21:35,000 --> 00:21:42,000
As far as the new investigators are concerned,

252
00:21:42,000 --> 00:21:44,000
it's a message that's being sent

253
00:21:44,000 --> 00:21:47,000
by more than just the pyramids.

254
00:21:47,000 --> 00:21:54,000
On the Giza Plateau, in the shadow of the pyramids,

255
00:21:54,000 --> 00:21:56,000
lies a weather-beaten monument

256
00:21:56,000 --> 00:21:58,000
that has the body of a lion

257
00:21:58,000 --> 00:22:00,000
and the head of a man.

258
00:22:00,000 --> 00:22:02,000
Carved out of natural rock,

259
00:22:02,000 --> 00:22:06,000
there's no sure way to know how long it's been here.

260
00:22:06,000 --> 00:22:08,000
It's called the Sphinx.

261
00:22:08,000 --> 00:22:13,000
Egyptologists insist it was made 4,500 years ago

262
00:22:13,000 --> 00:22:16,000
when the three great pyramids were built.

263
00:22:16,000 --> 00:22:21,000
Others say the Sphinx was really built 8,000 years before the pyramids,

264
00:22:21,000 --> 00:22:25,000
at a time when no civilization should have existed.

265
00:22:25,000 --> 00:22:28,000
All these people, they come by for a day or two to the plateau,

266
00:22:28,000 --> 00:22:31,000
and they come by with a theory and a publishing.

267
00:22:31,000 --> 00:22:33,000
The theory has to be crazy.

268
00:22:33,000 --> 00:22:35,000
The theory has to be fantastic,

269
00:22:35,000 --> 00:22:37,000
because if you make a fantastic theory,

270
00:22:37,000 --> 00:22:40,000
you'll make money and you'll be famous.

271
00:22:40,000 --> 00:22:43,000
Many theories like this have been said about the Sphinx,

272
00:22:43,000 --> 00:22:45,000
but all of it gone with the wind,

273
00:22:45,000 --> 00:22:48,000
because we Egyptologists have a solid evidence

274
00:22:48,000 --> 00:22:52,000
to state that the Sphinx is dated to the time of Kephren,

275
00:22:52,000 --> 00:22:55,000
the builder of the second pyramid at the Giza Plateau.

276
00:22:55,000 --> 00:22:57,000
Money isn't the issue here.

277
00:22:57,000 --> 00:23:00,000
I've been doing this for 20 years without making a bean out of it.

278
00:23:00,000 --> 00:23:02,000
We've got to get to the bottom of this.

279
00:23:02,000 --> 00:23:04,000
The issue is to find the truth,

280
00:23:04,000 --> 00:23:06,000
and we require several disciplines

281
00:23:06,000 --> 00:23:08,000
to find out what all this is all about.

282
00:23:08,000 --> 00:23:12,000
I don't think that Egyptology is up to the task at all.

283
00:23:12,000 --> 00:23:17,000
To come to a site like this with a one-dimensional view,

284
00:23:17,000 --> 00:23:18,000
a narrow perspective,

285
00:23:18,000 --> 00:23:22,000
and to claim that through that narrow funnel

286
00:23:22,000 --> 00:23:24,000
we can interpret this site

287
00:23:24,000 --> 00:23:27,000
is a grave disservice to humanity,

288
00:23:27,000 --> 00:23:29,000
because it's prevented other disciplines

289
00:23:29,000 --> 00:23:32,000
from exercising their intelligence here.

290
00:23:32,000 --> 00:23:35,000
Robert Bovel, a construction engineer,

291
00:23:35,000 --> 00:23:38,000
and writers Graham Hancock and John A. West

292
00:23:38,000 --> 00:23:41,000
are the unorthodox observers questioning

293
00:23:41,000 --> 00:23:45,000
whether the Egyptologists' evidence really stacks up,

294
00:23:45,000 --> 00:23:47,000
like the claim that the head of the Sphinx

295
00:23:47,000 --> 00:23:50,000
is a rendering of Kephren.

296
00:23:50,000 --> 00:23:56,000
Frank Domingo, a forensic artist, joins them in the debate.

297
00:23:56,000 --> 00:23:59,000
He works with the New York Police Department

298
00:23:59,000 --> 00:24:02,000
and is an expert in identification.

299
00:24:02,000 --> 00:24:04,000
He was asked to compare the face

300
00:24:04,000 --> 00:24:07,000
on the only known statue of Kephren

301
00:24:07,000 --> 00:24:09,000
with that of the Sphinx.

302
00:24:09,000 --> 00:24:13,000
He concluded that the two weren't even of the same race.

303
00:24:13,000 --> 00:24:24,000
After reviewing all the measurements, angles, and proportions,

304
00:24:24,000 --> 00:24:26,000
it's my conclusion that the great Sphinx of Giza

305
00:24:26,000 --> 00:24:28,000
is not the same individual

306
00:24:28,000 --> 00:24:31,000
represented in the statue of the Pharaoh Sheffron.

307
00:24:31,000 --> 00:24:33,000
Despite the controversy,

308
00:24:33,000 --> 00:24:36,000
independent investigators aren't surprised.

309
00:24:36,000 --> 00:24:40,000
John West has some daring theories of his own about the Sphinx,

310
00:24:40,000 --> 00:24:43,000
starting with its head.

311
00:24:43,000 --> 00:24:45,000
Now you look at the head,

312
00:24:45,000 --> 00:24:48,000
you see that it's in much better condition than the body.

313
00:24:48,000 --> 00:24:52,000
Even though the head is cut of a much harder limestone,

314
00:24:52,000 --> 00:24:55,000
the difference between the condition of the head

315
00:24:55,000 --> 00:24:57,000
and the condition of the body is extreme.

316
00:24:57,000 --> 00:24:59,000
Perhaps even more important,

317
00:24:59,000 --> 00:25:01,000
the head is disproportionately small.

318
00:25:01,000 --> 00:25:03,000
Seen especially from the air,

319
00:25:03,000 --> 00:25:07,000
you see that the body of the Sphinx is long and flattened out,

320
00:25:07,000 --> 00:25:11,000
and the head almost looks like a pinhead stuck on the top of it.

321
00:25:11,000 --> 00:25:15,000
This, to us, is an indication that the head has been re-carved.

322
00:25:15,000 --> 00:25:19,000
In other words, the head is not original to the Sphinx.

323
00:25:19,000 --> 00:25:23,000
At some point in its long history, the head was redone.

324
00:25:23,000 --> 00:25:28,000
The investigators also think that the Giza Plateau is a map of the stars

325
00:25:28,000 --> 00:25:33,000
as they appeared in the skies in 10,500 B.C.

326
00:25:33,000 --> 00:25:35,000
Graham Hancock explains.

327
00:25:35,000 --> 00:25:42,000
Standing at Giza, the ancient astronomers faced an uninterrupted 360-degree horizon,

328
00:25:42,000 --> 00:25:47,000
which invited observations of the rising points of the sun and the stars.

329
00:25:47,000 --> 00:25:50,000
Another direction also drew their attention.

330
00:25:50,000 --> 00:25:56,000
The north-south line dividing the sky directly above their heads,

331
00:25:56,000 --> 00:25:59,000
and they observed the stars as they crossed this line.

332
00:25:59,000 --> 00:26:06,000
In 10,500 B.C., when the three stars of Orion's belt crossed this line,

333
00:26:06,000 --> 00:26:09,000
they did so in a pattern that is exactly matched

334
00:26:09,000 --> 00:26:13,000
by the pattern of the three pyramids on the ground.

335
00:26:13,000 --> 00:26:17,000
The Sphinx, they believe, is actually an astronomical marker

336
00:26:17,000 --> 00:26:22,000
of the vernal equinox, but not in 2,500 B.C.,

337
00:26:22,000 --> 00:26:26,000
when the Sphinx was supposedly built.

338
00:26:26,000 --> 00:26:33,000
When the Sphinx is supposed to have been built, 2,500 B.C.,

339
00:26:33,000 --> 00:26:37,000
the sun rose in the constellation of Taurus.

340
00:26:37,000 --> 00:26:43,000
It would have been utterly absurd for a pharaoh to have built an equinoctial marker

341
00:26:43,000 --> 00:26:47,000
in the form of a lion in that epoch.

342
00:26:47,000 --> 00:26:51,000
In fact, there's only one epoch when it would have been appropriate

343
00:26:51,000 --> 00:26:54,000
for the Sphinx to have been built in the form that it has.

344
00:26:54,000 --> 00:27:00,000
That was the age of Leo, beginning in the 11th millennium B.C.

345
00:27:00,000 --> 00:27:05,000
Every 2,000 years or so, a different constellation appears behind the sun,

346
00:27:05,000 --> 00:27:08,000
and a new astrological age begins.

347
00:27:08,000 --> 00:27:13,000
The last time there was an age of Leo was 12,000 years ago.

348
00:27:13,000 --> 00:27:16,000
Robert Bovel explains.

349
00:27:16,000 --> 00:27:19,000
At this special time in 10,500 B.C.,

350
00:27:19,000 --> 00:27:23,000
the sun would rise due east, directly in line with the Sphinx,

351
00:27:23,000 --> 00:27:26,000
at the rising of the constellation of Leo.

352
00:27:26,000 --> 00:27:29,000
Here comes the constellation of Leo breaking over the horizon.

353
00:27:29,000 --> 00:27:33,000
And here is the sun.

354
00:27:33,000 --> 00:27:36,000
So it's at this time, at the age of Leo,

355
00:27:36,000 --> 00:27:41,000
that the Sphinx would be gazing at its own image in the sky.

356
00:27:45,000 --> 00:27:48,000
But if that isn't enough, there's more.

357
00:27:48,000 --> 00:27:54,000
Why is the Sphinx offset to the right of the main east-west axis of this pyramid,

358
00:27:54,000 --> 00:27:58,000
and why is that causeway sloping to the south of east?

359
00:27:58,000 --> 00:28:01,000
The ancient pyramid builders did nothing by chance.

360
00:28:01,000 --> 00:28:04,000
So what's the significance of this curious offset?

361
00:28:12,000 --> 00:28:14,000
The computer has the answer.

362
00:28:14,000 --> 00:28:18,000
It shows us that this is the place where the sun would rise

363
00:28:18,000 --> 00:28:21,000
exactly in the direction of the causeway,

364
00:28:21,000 --> 00:28:25,000
14 degrees to the right, in perfect alignment with the causeway.

365
00:28:25,000 --> 00:28:26,000
Now what do we have here?

366
00:28:26,000 --> 00:28:29,000
To the left is the constellation of Leo.

367
00:28:29,000 --> 00:28:34,000
And as we can see, it's half buried below the horizon,

368
00:28:34,000 --> 00:28:37,000
with its head and shoulders sticking out.

369
00:28:37,000 --> 00:28:40,000
And this is what they saw when they looked in the east.

370
00:28:40,000 --> 00:28:44,000
The sun rising along the direction of the causeway.

371
00:28:44,000 --> 00:28:48,000
And to the left, the Sphinx, half buried in the sand,

372
00:28:48,000 --> 00:28:51,000
with its head and shoulders sticking out of the sand,

373
00:28:51,000 --> 00:28:57,000
in the same way that the constellation of Leo would be seen rising over the horizon,

374
00:28:57,000 --> 00:29:02,000
with its head and shoulders sticking over the horizon line.

375
00:29:02,000 --> 00:29:12,000
The Sphinx and the pyramids link up to form a gigantic astronomical hologram of the skies above Egypt

376
00:29:12,000 --> 00:29:15,000
around the year 10,500 BC.

377
00:29:15,000 --> 00:29:22,000
In that epoch, and only in that epoch, the key celestial bodies are represented with faultless accuracy,

378
00:29:22,000 --> 00:29:25,000
viewed from every conceivable angle and direction.

379
00:29:25,000 --> 00:29:30,000
When we remember the uncanny precision with which the pyramid builders worked,

380
00:29:30,000 --> 00:29:36,000
it's impossible to ascribe such interlocking complexity to coincidence.

381
00:29:36,000 --> 00:29:44,000
What we have here is a massive and deliberate time marker for the epoch of 10,500 BC,

382
00:29:44,000 --> 00:29:51,000
almost 8,000 years before Egyptian civilization is supposed to have begun.

383
00:29:51,000 --> 00:29:56,000
Other evidence supports that date, especially the erosion on the Sphinx.

384
00:29:56,000 --> 00:30:00,000
John West believes it was caused not by sand, but by water.

385
00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:04,000
He says the evidence was there all along.

386
00:30:04,000 --> 00:30:06,000
Well, nobody was looking for it.

387
00:30:06,000 --> 00:30:09,000
It's a bit like if you're looking for potatoes.

388
00:30:09,000 --> 00:30:13,000
You can walk right through a field full of diamonds and see a lot of nasty glittering stones.

389
00:30:13,000 --> 00:30:16,000
So the geology was simply taken for granted.

390
00:30:16,000 --> 00:30:17,000
Nobody looked for it.

391
00:30:17,000 --> 00:30:19,000
Nobody found it.

392
00:30:19,000 --> 00:30:26,000
West's conclusion is based on the Sphinx's extremely distinctive pattern of weathering.

393
00:30:30,000 --> 00:30:38,000
You don't even have to be a geologist to look at it and see what must have been responsible for that kind of weathering.

394
00:30:38,000 --> 00:30:43,000
Only water pouring in sheets over the enclosure wall could have produced those rounded contours.

395
00:30:43,000 --> 00:30:48,000
Though the age of any stone is difficult to determine,

396
00:30:48,000 --> 00:30:53,000
a history of the rock can be constructed by looking at the characteristics of its erosion.

397
00:30:53,000 --> 00:31:03,000
When stone is exposed to wind and sand, the telltale sign is that the layers appear soft and scoured out.

398
00:31:03,000 --> 00:31:07,000
This kind of erosion is found everywhere in Giza.

399
00:31:07,000 --> 00:31:14,000
But the Sphinx and its surrounding pit are worn differently.

400
00:31:14,000 --> 00:31:18,000
These show a different kind of erosion altogether.

401
00:31:18,000 --> 00:31:25,000
A round, undulating profile, usually caused by rainwater and torrential downpours.

402
00:31:25,000 --> 00:31:40,000
When confronted with this evidence, Egyptologists theorize that the flooding of the Nile could have caused the damage.

403
00:31:40,000 --> 00:31:42,000
West disagrees.

404
00:31:42,000 --> 00:31:46,000
No, absolutely not, because the Nile floods would come in from the bottom.

405
00:31:46,000 --> 00:31:51,000
And if it had been flooding by Nile waters, you'd have a different pattern of erosion.

406
00:31:51,000 --> 00:31:52,000
You'd have the walls undercut.

407
00:31:52,000 --> 00:31:56,000
In other words, you'd have the deepest erosion at the bottom, not at the top.

408
00:31:56,000 --> 00:31:59,000
And you also wouldn't get those deep fissures.

409
00:31:59,000 --> 00:32:02,000
West's discovery raised many questions.

410
00:32:02,000 --> 00:32:06,000
In a debate geologists sided with West.

411
00:32:06,000 --> 00:32:10,000
Egyptologists have offered few replies to his conclusions.

412
00:32:10,000 --> 00:32:13,000
Journalist Paul Roberts covered the controversy.

413
00:32:13,000 --> 00:32:19,000
West is really an academic's worst nightmare because here comes somebody way out of left field

414
00:32:19,000 --> 00:32:29,000
with a thoroughly well thought out, well presented, coherently described, beautifully written,

415
00:32:29,000 --> 00:32:34,000
full of data you can't refute, and it pulls the rug from beneath your feet.

416
00:32:34,000 --> 00:32:36,000
So how do they deal with it?

417
00:32:36,000 --> 00:32:37,000
They ignore it.

418
00:32:37,000 --> 00:32:42,000
They hope it'll go away, and it won't go away.

419
00:32:42,000 --> 00:32:47,000
Repair work done on the Sphinx seems to lend credence to West's theory.

420
00:32:47,000 --> 00:32:50,000
Here we're looking at a section of the earliest repairs.

421
00:32:50,000 --> 00:32:56,000
You see that some two to three feet of repair blocks were necessary in order to bring the Sphinx back to its original contours.

422
00:32:56,000 --> 00:33:03,000
We're told that these repairs were done within 300 years of the original carving of the Sphinx.

423
00:33:03,000 --> 00:33:10,000
Now the question arises, why would three feet of repairs have been necessary over the course of just some 300 years?

424
00:33:10,000 --> 00:33:19,000
Egyptologists insist that the stone the Sphinx is carved from is of such poor quality that it weathered away three feet in just 300 years.

425
00:33:19,000 --> 00:33:36,000
This presents another problem. If the stone the Sphinx is carved from is of such poor quality, and the Sphinx was carved 4500 years ago, it means that at the erosion rate of a foot a century, the Sphinx would have disappeared some 500 years ago.

426
00:33:36,000 --> 00:33:39,000
Well, it hasn't.

427
00:33:39,000 --> 00:33:44,000
Even if the repairs were done because of water damage, a major question is still unanswered.

428
00:33:44,000 --> 00:33:47,000
When was there water in the desert?

429
00:33:47,000 --> 00:33:53,000
The answer is surprising. At the end of the last ice age, about 12,000 years ago.

430
00:33:53,000 --> 00:34:03,000
This was a time in the history of mankind when the Earth was passing through an unprecedented upheaval.

431
00:34:03,000 --> 00:34:10,000
A tremendous cataclysm was taking place in the Earth 12,500 years ago. This was the end of the last ice age.

432
00:34:10,000 --> 00:34:20,000
There had been 50,000 or 60,000 years of relatively stable conditions, with millions of square miles of ice covering the northern hemisphere.

433
00:34:20,000 --> 00:34:32,000
And suddenly, for reasons that no scientist has yet fully fathomed out, all of this ice melted in a span of just 2,000 to 3,000 years.

434
00:34:32,000 --> 00:34:38,000
The ice cap that covered northern Europe and America back then was two miles thick.

435
00:34:38,000 --> 00:34:44,000
The melting was sudden and widespread, and created floods of biblical proportions.

436
00:34:44,000 --> 00:34:47,000
Egyptologist Fikra Hassan explains.

437
00:34:47,000 --> 00:35:07,000
Egypt experienced major and dramatic changes at the end of the ice age, particularly about 10,500 BC, when very high, exceptionally high floods covered the flood plain and ended things both in the Delta and the Nile Valley in general.

438
00:35:07,000 --> 00:35:08,000
West developed his theory.

439
00:35:08,000 --> 00:35:12,000
I think the history of the Sphinx goes something like this.

440
00:35:12,000 --> 00:35:17,000
Long ago, before Egypt became desert, the Giza Plateau was a fertile savannah.

441
00:35:17,000 --> 00:35:22,000
At its very edge was a large outcrop of natural rock.

442
00:35:22,000 --> 00:35:35,000
An unknown group of sculptors, taking advantage of its prominent position, carved the rock into a giant face, may have been the face of a god or of a lion.

443
00:35:35,000 --> 00:35:36,000
Time passed.

444
00:35:36,000 --> 00:35:42,000
Shifting weather patterns brought torrential rain to the area, signaling the end of the ice age.

445
00:35:42,000 --> 00:35:49,000
The rains weathered the lion to virtually the shape we see today.

446
00:35:49,000 --> 00:35:54,000
When the rain stopped, the once fertile savannah turned into the Sahara Desert.

447
00:35:54,000 --> 00:35:57,000
Wind-blown sands buried the statue up to its neck.

448
00:35:57,000 --> 00:36:03,000
Thousands of years, protecting the body and its tell-tale traces of water weathering.

449
00:36:03,000 --> 00:36:05,000
But what about the face?

450
00:36:05,000 --> 00:36:08,000
Still eroding away, diminishing in size.

451
00:36:08,000 --> 00:36:10,000
Possibly it was re-carved.

452
00:36:10,000 --> 00:36:15,000
Certainly the 4th Dynasty kings who built the pyramids around 2500 B.C.

453
00:36:15,000 --> 00:36:19,000
uncovered the Sphinx and further fashioned the face in their image.

454
00:36:19,000 --> 00:36:22,000
Pharaoh Kefran didn't build the Sphinx.

455
00:36:22,000 --> 00:36:23,000
He restored it.

456
00:36:23,000 --> 00:36:32,000
With proof of their theories, West and his fellow investigators point to another structure they believe could date to 10,000 B.C.

457
00:36:32,000 --> 00:36:38,000
It too shows unmistakable signs of being weathered by vast amounts of water.

458
00:36:38,000 --> 00:36:41,000
It's the Osirin at Abydos.

459
00:36:41,000 --> 00:36:46,000
It was found early in the 20th century, buried under sand.

460
00:36:46,000 --> 00:37:13,000
Here, some 500 miles south of Giza, at the Osirion, we find ourselves amidst another of those enigmatic anonymous structures that seem to date to no known epoch.

461
00:37:13,000 --> 00:37:19,000
50 feet or more below the floor of surrounding pharaonic temples.

462
00:37:19,000 --> 00:37:25,000
Is it possible that this is just one amongst many structures like this buried beneath the sands of Egypt?

463
00:37:25,000 --> 00:37:29,000
Later, pharaohs came and added their reliefs to these walls.

464
00:37:29,000 --> 00:37:36,000
But originally, this structure was anonymous and bare, left for future generations to interpret.

465
00:37:36,000 --> 00:37:48,000
Those who hold unorthodox views about the Giza Plateau find further confirmation in the Egyptian creation myth, what the ancients called the first time.

466
00:37:48,000 --> 00:37:49,000
Marvel explains.

467
00:37:49,000 --> 00:37:54,000
Every civilization refers to a creation myth, a beginning.

468
00:37:54,000 --> 00:38:00,000
But the Egyptians were extremely clear about what had happened in the beginning.

469
00:38:00,000 --> 00:38:03,000
They tell us the earth was totally covered with water.

470
00:38:03,000 --> 00:38:12,000
And that the physical, the material earth sprung out of the water and we had a primeval mound on which creation began, on which there was the first dawn, the first sunrise.

471
00:38:12,000 --> 00:38:18,000
It's as if, for example, the king who built those pyramids was reenacting that moment, that time of the gods.

472
00:38:18,000 --> 00:38:27,000
It would be normal for them to want to commemorate it, to freeze it, if you like, in a grandiose expression.

473
00:38:27,000 --> 00:38:31,000
I think if there is the original primeval mound, that's it, Giza.

474
00:38:31,000 --> 00:38:37,000
Indeed, the texts refer to the place of Giza, of Heliopolis, as being the location of creation.

475
00:38:37,000 --> 00:38:41,000
Perhaps we should take them literally. They tell us that this is the place of creation.

476
00:38:41,000 --> 00:38:49,000
And what else we would expect of that fantastic moment of creation than monuments of this sort to commemorate it?

477
00:38:52,000 --> 00:38:59,000
Conventional observers don't think the ideas of Hancock, Bauval and West are persuasive.

478
00:38:59,000 --> 00:39:04,000
To the Egyptologists, the new theories just raise too many problems.

479
00:39:04,000 --> 00:39:13,000
If we were to take the alternative view, think of what we're stuck with.

480
00:39:13,000 --> 00:39:18,000
We have an antediluvian civilization.

481
00:39:18,000 --> 00:39:20,000
And then you have nothing.

482
00:39:20,000 --> 00:39:23,000
You have nothing for how long? A thousand years? Two thousand years?

483
00:39:23,000 --> 00:39:26,000
And then it starts up again.

484
00:39:26,000 --> 00:39:28,000
Where's the link?

485
00:39:28,000 --> 00:39:31,000
Where is the other evidence of this culture?

486
00:39:31,000 --> 00:39:35,000
Show me a pot shard. Show me a tomb. Show me an inscription.

487
00:39:35,000 --> 00:39:40,000
Show me any other piece of sculpture. Show me any archaeological site that dates to this period.

488
00:39:40,000 --> 00:39:45,000
That's like telling Magellan after he'd sailed around the world that the world is still flat

489
00:39:45,000 --> 00:39:48,000
because where are the other guys who've sailed around it?

490
00:39:48,000 --> 00:39:52,000
What's at issue here is the entire history of civilization.

491
00:39:52,000 --> 00:39:57,000
It may not have gone in a straight line from stupid old cavemen to smart old us

492
00:39:57,000 --> 00:40:03,000
with our hydrogen bombs and our striped toothpaste.

493
00:40:03,000 --> 00:40:09,000
Every sleuth looks for answers. For proof that will solve his case.

494
00:40:09,000 --> 00:40:15,000
An ancient papyrus exists that intimates there's hidden information yet to be found.

495
00:40:15,000 --> 00:40:18,000
Secrets waiting to unfold.

496
00:40:18,000 --> 00:40:31,000
It's in the Berlin Museum and points to Thorpe, the god of wisdom, who was said to have described the mysteries of heaven in sacred books.

497
00:40:31,000 --> 00:40:38,000
It's like a treasure map on which X almost but not quite marks the spot where the gold doubloons are buried.

498
00:40:38,000 --> 00:40:44,000
This ancient papyrus tells the story of how Cheops, the builder of the great pyramid,

499
00:40:44,000 --> 00:40:52,000
sought in Heliopolis for a mysterious black box containing the number of the secret chambers of the sanctuary of Thoth.

500
00:40:52,000 --> 00:41:05,000
What was this Ark of Thoth, some repository of ancient wisdom that Cheops needed in order to construct his pyramid?

501
00:41:05,000 --> 00:41:11,000
If there really is such wisdom buried in a black box, where could it be?

502
00:41:11,000 --> 00:41:28,000
It's possible it's concealed in the pyramids, hidden in some unknown chamber and blocked from view by those who wish to keep it secret.

503
00:41:28,000 --> 00:41:33,000
And there's also a possibility it lies in the Sphinx.

504
00:41:33,000 --> 00:41:39,000
Our seismographs revealed that right here, where I'm standing, between the paws of the Sphinx,

505
00:41:39,000 --> 00:41:48,000
there is a large underground chamber, some 12 by 15 meters, rectangular in shape, 5 meters under the surface of the bedrock.

506
00:41:48,000 --> 00:41:58,000
So far official permission has not been given for the excavation.

507
00:41:58,000 --> 00:42:07,000
Perhaps beneath the paws of the great Sphinx of Giza lies evidence of a civilization older than Egypt.

508
00:42:07,000 --> 00:42:14,000
For as long as recorded history, there have been stories of early lost civilizations.

509
00:42:14,000 --> 00:42:19,000
Egyptian priests spoke of one called Atlantis.

510
00:42:23,000 --> 00:42:32,000
Could the monuments on the Giza Plateau be clues telling us of the existence of a forgotten time of human history?

511
00:42:36,000 --> 00:42:42,000
The new breed of investigators wonder and continue to turn over every stone

512
00:42:42,000 --> 00:42:48,000
in the search for more evidence that will reveal the secrets of ancient Egypt.