The controversy has returned again among the users of social networking sites in Egypt, against the backdrop of the so-called "lost civilization";
A term that appears and disappears from time to time as a result of some uncommon theories and hypotheses in Egyptology.
Opinions differ clearly and widely between the supporters of scientific theories agreed upon and approved by the official authorities - primarily the Egyptian state - and those who believe that there is a "necessity to reflect" on what has been handed down by generations about different civilizations, and to refute suspicions.
lost civilization
The term "lost civilization" is not new to geologists and Egyptologists, but rather to some bloggers and those interested in uncommon hypotheses, some of which have been labeled "pseudo-science";
For example, we find that the scientist of natural sciences at the College of General Studies at Boston University, American Robert Shosh, issued in 2012 a first edition of a book called "Forgotten Civilization".
Shosh adopted in his book the theory that suggests the existence of a real civilization before 6 thousand years BC, and reached a time range estimated at 10 thousand to 12 thousand years, and that this civilization was not as portrayed by scientists, including the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, who described human life at the time as being "isolated, poor, dirty, and savage, and that humans were mere hunters and gatherers."
Shosh, in an interview with Al-Jazeera Net via e-mail, reiterated his complete conviction that the Egyptian civilization - according to data he collected in the early nineties during his studies in the Pyramid Plateau region with researcher Thomas Dobacki, especially those related to the Sphinx, and others from the Sanliurfa region (southern Turkey) ) - "It dates back to the end of the last ice age (about 12,000 years ago)."
He believed that his hypothesis does not negate the establishment of another civilization in Egypt between 5 thousand and 6 thousand years (BC), against the background of the destruction of the previous civilization "catastrophically due to natural events."
"There were heavy rains and sudden floods that contributed to the erosion of the statue, which we now know as the Great Sphinx," he added in his interview with Al-Jazeera Net.
He pointed out that this geological time "was a period of many earthquakes and volcanic activity," explaining that the causative factor for that situation "is the end of the last ice age, and the Earth's exposure to a large solar explosion (sometimes referred to as a micronova)."
Likewise, the hypothesis of the existence of a lost civilization due to a natural disaster that struck the earth led to the interruption of its sciences. It was adopted by British researcher Graham Hancock, who spoke in his theory of the possibility of the existence of another "more glorious and developed" civilization before the ancient Babylonian and Egyptian civilization.
Hancock weaved his hypothesis based on discoveries of antiquities estimated to be thousands of years old in a number of parts of the world, including the archaeological site of Göbekli Tepe (southern Turkey), which is known for its huge stone columns that take the shape of the letter (T), and scientists estimated its age to be about 11,500 years.
However, the fact that there is a "great" lost civilization in Egypt that could construct huge facilities is still not agreed upon, due to the lack of sufficient evidence capable of achieving this scientific persuasion, which is the prevailing trend among archaeologists.
Wild river
In this context, the Egyptian researcher Abdullah Zaki confirmed - in an interview with Al-Jazeera Net - that the age of humans on the African continent and Egypt is estimated at thousands of years, not just 12 thousand years.
He said - in a dialogue via the "Zoom" application - that studies indicate that man originated in the African continent - according to the theory of exit from Africa - and then spread to the land, through the Nile River, the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandab Strait.
On the other hand, he stressed that the presence of man in a region "does not mean that he built a great civilization during his presence," which is a potentially erroneous opinion according to other researchers and other hypotheses.
Zaki was a member of a research team affiliated with the Swiss University of Geneva when he concluded that humans "were abundantly present in the Nile Basin region 12 thousand years ago, and this was followed by a mass migration to the extremely dry Egyptian desert that lasted until 5 thousand and 300 years (BC) after which they returned to the Nile Basin region.
Zaki explained to Al-Jazeera Net that the study was conducted in the desert region, which included Egypt, Chad, Libya and Sudan, by examining about 150 samples, and showed that groups of people migrated en masse from the Nile Valley basin area to the desert in the time period ranging between 8.5 thousand and 5.3 thousand years (BC). M), after the climatic conditions suitable for life improved, including the growth of grass against the background of years of massive rains.
He added that, based on their observations, the Nile Basin region, between 8.5 thousand and 5.3 thousand years BC, turned into a catastrophic region.
This prompted the study's authors to describe the Nile at that time as "the savage Nile".
Geological studies did not clarify - according to Zaki - the nature of the disaster that occurred in the Nile Valley region and led to the mass migration towards the desert.
Scientists had talked about the possibility of a water disaster, and the most likely is a massive flood in the Nile.
Zaki and the research team noted that while the area around the Nile was witnessing a catastrophe that forced human groups to migrate, the rains were enormous in the desert, but "it seems that life in the desert was more suitable for people at that time."
Zaki revealed to Al-Jazeera Net that he and his colleagues had found "the remains of 6 ancient rivers in the Egyptian desert near the Abu Simbel area and Toshka Lakes (western Egypt), and large pebbles revealing that these rivers were very flowing."
He also pointed out that the ancient rivers extended over an area of about 20,000 km, and that the oldest of them was estimated to be 53,000 years old (BC).
The Egyptian historian Bassam Al-Shamaa repeated in many of his meetings the need to correct the information that limited the Egyptian civilization to 7 thousand years.
Al-Shamaa said - in a media interview 3 years ago - that the Egyptian civilization was confined to 7 thousand years as a result of some scholars believing that history "begins with writing, as the beginning of the ancient Egyptian language was dated between 3.2 and 3.5 thousand years ago only (BC)."
Sphinx puzzle
Geologists, archaeologists, Egyptologists, and others continue to debate the "mystery" of the ever-present Sphinx, and how old it was exactly.
The most common theory says, and a large number of historians and Egyptologists agreed about it;
This giant limestone statue in the Giza pyramid complex is about 4,500 years old, and it was built for King Khafra (Pharaoh of the Fourth Dynasty), and his pyramid is the second tallest pyramid built in Giza, next to the Great Pyramid of his father Khufu.
However, the problem with the age of the Sphinx lies in the absence of any contemporary inscriptions directly linking it to King Khafra, in addition to the widespread erosion of limestone, which, according to geologists, requires heavy rains to cause this type of erosion.
The situation in which the "Sphinx" appeared prompted some foreign scholars - including Robert Shosh - to suggest that the Sphinx is more than 7 thousand years old, and that it was built before the era of the Pharaonic families.
Robert Shosh - who determined the age of the Sphinx to be about 12,000 years - and other supporters of this theory believe that there is a "great possibility" that the Sphinx "was located in the area of the Giza Plateau, and that it is the remnants of a previous civilization that was obliterated, and that King Khafre may have ordered remove the sand from it.
This controversy about the mystery of the age of the Sphinx is not new to scholars of Egyptology, as it killed research in many studies, and many hypotheses were woven around it, which did not change the most common hypothesis globally that it is "an image of the god Aton, the largest of the Egyptian gods, which is the sun."
According to the popular theory, the Sphinx was carved after the road connecting the mortuary temple and the valley temple of King Khafra was established, meaning that the Sphinx must have been carved during the reign of Khafre, and this is the first fixed date in the age of the Sphinx.
What reinforced the hypothesis of the "divinity of the Sphinx" is that in different eras they made statues of this god and prepared them as souvenirs in religious parties.
The Egyptian state rejects any suspicions about the age of the Sphinx, represented by its former Minister of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass, by pointing out that the Sphinx "was carved from the stones of quarries that were present in the place of its construction, and that it is a solid rock under which there are no lost cities, as some opinions claim." .
Egyptologists indicated that the current catacombs in the structure of the Great Sphinx are the result of attempts to steal or the work of researchers who were studying the statue, most notably the Italian adventurer Caviglia, who excavated in the early 19th century, under the chest of the Great Sphinx, where he found a "dream painting" covering a 3-meter-deep gap ( It is a commemorative plaque ordered by King Thutmose IV to be placed between the extended hands of the Great Sphinx in Giza, in memory of a dream this king had before his coronation.
British historians Malcolm Hutton and Jerry Cannon said in their fourth book, "The Giza Plateau Secrets and a Second Sphinx Revealed";
The Sphinx "is based on a secret underground city, and it is expected that there will be several tunnels and passages leading to that hidden civilization, but the Egyptian state deliberately does not disclose the matter."
The two historians claimed that this hypothesis first appeared in March 1935 with the start of excavation work to reach the city, which was estimated to be 4,000 years old at the time.
In May 2021, the Egyptian newspaper "Al-Masry Al-Youm" published an article that talks about the reluctance of archaeologists' interest in Egypt in the "lost" city.
And the subject stated, "We know that Hawass descended stairs from the rear entrance of the Sphinx to a deep room on a middle layer, and then down to the lower room, which appears to contain a very large coffin, which was filled with water. Such scenes are all in a documentary film produced by a company "Fox. It's hard to imagine how he could think he could later deny all he had accomplished."
Nader Osama, a geological researcher at the Canadian University of Alberta, agreed with the official version of Omar Sphinx, questioning secondary hypotheses and suspicions about this statue.
He said that determining the age of the Sphinx as belonging to the last ice age is "somewhat minor," noting that there are geological opinions that "complement with current official evidence, showing that the water erosion factors appearing on sedimentary rocks occurred before the Sphinx was carved."
He asked, in an interview with Al-Jazeera Net, "If the Sphinx is exposed to erosion due to rain, why do we not see the effects of the aforementioned water erosion on the rocks of the pyramid, for example, which are more prominent and have a larger area, and therefore are more susceptible to erosion?"
Egypt.. a picture of the sky on earth
The hypothesis that Egypt - especially the Giza Plateau region - is a "picture of the sky on earth" based on the theory of "the Orion-Orion belt connection", which is the most prominent controversial issue and suspicion surrounding the ancient Egyptian civilization.
This hypothesis goes back mainly to the Belgian engineer Robert Boval, who says that there is "a connection between the site of building the pyramids and the belt of Orion (Orion) in the sky, at the time of building the pyramids, and not the current position of the stars."
Although the proposal presented by Boufal in 1989 was globally classified as a "marginal theory in alternative Egyptology", the many mysteries about building the pyramids, their alignment in this way, and their different sizes prompted researchers to evaluate the possibility of their validity, and the possibility of it being only an attempt to simulate 3 stars in the sky.
Boufal and his supporters believe that the current situation of the pyramids was a simulation of the image that the Orion belt appeared on 10.5 thousand years ago (BC), when it was watching the Milky Way as if it was cutting the sky from north to south.
However, this hypothesis was not confirmed by Robert Shosh, who estimated the age of the Sphinx to be about 12,000 years old, in his statements to Al-Jazeera Net.
He said, "The Orion association theory developed by Robert Bauval assumes that the three great pyramids can be viewed as representing the stars of the three belts of Orion, and that the Nile is the terrestrial reflection of the Milky Way in the sky, and that the pyramids of Giza reflect what was seen in the sky 12.5 thousand years ago." However, he stressed in his speech that this proposition "lacks irrefutable evidence to prove its validity."
He added, "If it is true (this assumption) and there is evidence to support the validity of the theory, then there is agreement between the pyramids of Giza and the re-dating of the age of the Great Sphinx, and that there is an origin for Egyptian civilization thousands of years ago."
In the context of researching the hypothesis of Boufal's Orion Belt, researchers at the Italian University of Del Salento published in 2016 a study based on physical and astronomical tests saying that the construction of the pyramids and their association with the Orion belt "does not appear to be a coincidence, and that it is consistent with the measurements of the naked eye and the optical measurement of the stars of this belt." ’, ruling out the congruence hypothesis referred to by Bauval.
However, this conclusion is not considered proof of Bauval's hypothesis, as Egyptologists did not rule out the ancient Egyptians' awareness of the movement of the stars and their superiority in astronomy and means of measuring time.
The theory of Orion's association assumed that the reflection of the sky on the land of Egypt is not only related to the three pyramids and the Nile River, but also to the rest of the pyramids (most of them were built in later families) and has an image in the sky, and that the Sphinx has a reflection in the sky represented by the constellation of the Lion.
Egyptian scholars confirm that the Sphinx, which is currently located on the Pyramid Plateau, has a second instance, but they did not tend to hypothesize the mighty connection, and the weightings went to its presence on a rock similar to the well-known Sphinx, but it appears to be in a poor state of preservation.
It is noteworthy that the most common criticism of this theory and adopted by a number of its opponents is that the illustrative image that Bauval relied on to show his theory witnessed modifications by turning the image taken of the pyramids of Jira "upside down" so that the pyramids match the stars of Orion's belt 10.5 thousand years ago BC.
The criticism also included that the angle formed by the pyramids of Khufu and Khafre at the time Boufal spoke of in his theory was 45 degrees Celsius, while the angle of Orion's stars was aligned at an angle of 54 degrees.
This criticism was made by astronomer Ed Krupp of the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, as part of a documentary presented by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in 1999 entitled (Atlantis reborn).
A large number of British astronomers and physicists - at the time - objected to the arguments that Krupp relied on in criticizing the theory (the belt of Orion) and accused him of not being "fair" in dealing with it, according to what was stated in a research paper published by the "Academia" website.
Pyramids and power generation
Social media platforms have been crowded again with the controversy of the mechanism of building the pyramids and their actual purpose, in addition to how an ancient civilization that did not know technology and advanced machines was able to manually construct great edifices weighing tons of kilograms using primitive methods.
These allegations went further, by adopting the thesis that the pyramids were not tombs for kings, but rather were built to be power stations.
Although there are not many supporters of this hypothesis, the Egyptian researcher Wassim Al-Sisi referred to it in 2018, and it also did not receive support from Egyptologists.
Al-Sisi explained his hypothesis that the inner chambers of the pyramid work to convert the energy released by the movement of tectonic plates (infrasound waves) under the pyramids into collision energy capable of rinsing and cutting granite.
Al-Sisi's statements circulated in conjunction with the publication of the British newspaper "Express" a topic supporting the same idea, and he talked about the accounts of those who made the arduous climb to the top of the Great Pyramid, saying, "They felt slight but noticeable shifts in energy, tingling sensations in the extremities of the body and even cases of electric shock".
The "Express" report at the time was based on a theory by a British archaeologist named Abdul Hakim Hakimoyan, in which he claimed that "from that spot (the area of the pyramids of Giza), as you know, the energy might have been derived from the earth, and it appears from the excavations that they were trying to control the flow of this energy and use it for their purposes." special".
However, this theory was rejected by Egyptologists, including the Frenchman Frank Monnier, who stressed in statements to Al-Jazeera Net that "the absence of any scientific evidence that Egyptologists could rely on that the pyramids were a source of energy in ancient Egypt."
Monier agreed with those who asserted that the pyramids were designed as a tomb for the king, and that the texts of the pyramids and many papyri confirm this belief.
According to Egyptologists, there are architectural elements within the scope of the pyramids that confirm their function in reviving the belief of the deceased king through the priests who lived inside the pyramid city, and performed rituals inside the Valley Temple and the Funerary Temple.
The discovery of the Merir Papyrus in Wadi Al-Jarf near the western shore of the Gulf of Suez in 2013 also reinforced the scientists' conviction of the methods used by the ancient Egyptians in building the pyramids and organizing work within their sites.
This papyrus is the only one that talks about the construction of the pyramid of Khufu and the transportation of stones by boat from the quarries from Tora (13 kilometers from Giza) across the Nile to the pyramid.
Although the process of transporting tons of stones and how they are used in construction operations still raises doubts among some about the nature of the tools and equipment used, this papyrus tried to answer these questions.
The papyrus indicated that Merer was well versed in engineering sciences, and that he recorded in the ancient papyrus his crew's participation in a scheme to divert the Nile water towards the pyramid, to make the stone pieces at the closest point to the pyramid by changing the course of the water channels.
Regarding the process of transporting stones from the quarries, the joint French-English archaeological mission - affiliated with the French Institute of Oriental Archeology and the English University of Liverpool - announced in 2018 that the system used by the ancient Egyptians consisted of a central ramp, surrounded by two staircases with column holes, which helps to raise the alabaster blocks out. The quarry through very rough slopes of at least 20%.
It is noteworthy that several archaeologists agreed that the pyramid, when it was built, was covered with a soft layer of soft white limestone, which gave its surface a smooth, sloping finish that shimmered in the sunlight, but it changed due to climate and erosion factors.