Hawara near the Fayoum oasis might not look as much today but in historical accounts it is a somewhat legendary place here's a quote by a classical author this i have actually seen a work beyond words for if anyone put together the buildings of the greeks and display of their labors they would seem lesser in both effort and expense to this labyrinth even the pyramids are beyond words yet the labyrinth surpasses even the pyramids these are the words of ancient historian Herodotus describing his visit to a colossal multi-level.
Structure named labyrinth said to contain three thousand rooms full of hieroglyphs and paintings and yet no archaeological evidence so you can see why historians felt Herodotus was embellishing an account especially considering the father of history's horrific reputation with regards to accuracy with time however more and more of Herodotus's accounts from Hawara have been vindicated in the extract from the account of lake maris given by Herodotus he mentioned two pyramids each of which rose 93 meters above the surface of the water.and stood in the middle of the lake and the historian declares that on each pyramid was a stone statue seated on a throne the statues according to professor Petry who excavated some parts of them were seated colossi of about 18 meters in height carved in hard quartzite sandstone and brilliantly polished so the description of Herodotus therefore is fully accounted for and it shows that he actually saw the figures and visited the place sounds like another win for Herodotus when the area around the Hawara pyramid.
researched with geo radar and later space ground penetrating technology that not only were in favor of his reports but also discovered something phenomenal underground but let's start with the Hawara pyramid first and its technical marvel inside even though it looks like a pile of dark mud today the pyramid has an ancient megalithic core of the highest quality hence there is a clear presence of two completely different types of technologies a superb dressed ancient megalithic stone core underneath thepile of mud breaks on top of it it's flooded with ground salt water these days which destroys the once brilliantly finished surfaces and blocks of the entrance passage .
The quality of the entrance masonry and how tightly blocks are fitted together is outstanding but this is nothing compared to what was first discovered in the 19th century to our luck it was professor flinders petri who was not only a brilliant archaeologist but had a great eye for the technical side of things petri noticed that the stone casing had been removed in roman times and as the body of the structure was of mud bricks it had crumbled away somewhat it's not even clear if it was originally a megalithic pyramid, because when he searched for the entry on the north side of it he couldn't find anything so it was evident then that the plan of this structure was entirely different to that of any known pyramids back then the entrance was on the ground level on the south side near the southwest corner unlike other pyramids the descending passage was adapted for the entrance and has steps and the ramps on both sides the design is very similar to what the laboratory of alternative history researchers found in the black pyramid the steps have two ramps on both sides and seem like the passage was adapted for moving some kind of cargo carts on wheels then there was discovered a system of passages and roofs with sliding trap doors there are three known trap doors in that megalithic complex each one weighing around 20 tons a piece and this is probably the smallest weight in that structure petri found that none of the trap doors .
had been slid into place and were left open he wrote that while he was searching for a path to a sepulcher no door was to be found as the entrance had been by the roof an enormous block of which had been let down into place to close the chamber the way in had been forced by breaking away a hole in the edge of the glassy hard sandstone roofing block and thus reaching the chamber and its two sarcophagi here is a mind-blowing thing quote the chamber itself is a marvelous work nearly the whole height of it is carved out of a single block of hard quartzite sandstone forming a huge tank in which the sarcophagus was placed end of quote so what happened was the rock .
which is here a hardened sand was excavated to form the central hollow or pit which was intended to receive the sarcophagus chamber into this hollow in the rock the enormous quartzite monolith chamber weighing over 110 tons which was hewn out to form the sarcophagus chamber was sunk and the sarcophagus and two chests were next placed inside it then trenches which were to form the passages leading to it were cut also next on this incredible structure rested the horizontal slabs of stone .
which were to form a kind of roof the purpose of the false passages on petri scheme then actually could serve the purpose these exist not to confuse the robbers but were an ingenious device so the last great quartzite ceiling slab was lowered to close the box with the help of sand which had supported props holding up the block and was released via side tunnels allowing the huge piece of stone slowly to descend to its resting place above these double roofs then comes the third roof of the slanting beams of limestone weighing about 55 tons .
now it's not clear why they went with this exact design when the huge carved monolith box sunk into the hollow in the rock that they've just finished the whole structure looks like some kind of a protected stone vault here's what flinders petri wrote about the megalithic quartzite tank inside quote in the inside it is 7 meters in length by 2 meters in width and 2 meters height .
while the sides are about one meter thick the workmanship is most excellent the sides are flat and regular the inner corners so sharply rot that though i looked at them i never suspected that there was not a joint there until i failed to find any joint in the sides and the surface so polished that the hard flinty sandstone reflects the light of the candle one carries end of quote he noted that no trace of inscription exists on either the walls or sarcophagi and but for the funeral furniture even the very name would not have been recovered pretty strange for a pharaoh not to leave his name in a quote tomb after rendering such a masterpiece above all the megalithic elements is a completely different level of technology the great brick arch was thrown over the whole of the masonry of the chamber and the bricks of the pyramid were piled above it all now there is an important moment there is no entrance to the sepulcher the sepulcher is roofed by three enormous slabs of the same hard quartzite sandstone over 1. 2 meters in thickness and extending far beyond the chamber walls on each side the original access to the chamber was closed by lowering one of these slabs which weighs about 45 tons into its place so the only way for the mummy of the pharaoh to be placed inside then was on the stage of the construction of the pyramid which is kind of ridiculous traces neither of bodies nor of coffins were found in the sarcophagi of course all that petri found were a few scraps of charred bones besides bits of charcoal and grains of burnt diorite in the sarcophagi it was evident that the content had been made of wood inlaid with polished stones and it seems like whatever was found inside of this sarcophagus in ancient times it was burned right there for some reason still the question of the second sarcophagus was unsolved the main sarcophagus is centered in the room but the second one was distinctly a later addition built after the pyramid was built when no larger blocks could be brought in it would be very interesting to compare the technical qualities of these two objects this might not be the last secret that the Hawara pyramid holds because there might still be hidden passages connected to the other magnificent megalithic system underground on the south of the pyramid lay a wide mass of chips and fragments of structure which had long been generally identified with the celebrated labyrinth of egypt when petri began to excavate the area in front of the hawara pyramid the result was soon plain that the brick houses of a village were built on the top of the ruins of a great stone structure quote beneath them and far away over a vast area the layers of stone chips were found and so great was the mass that it was difficult to persuade visitors that the stratum was artificial and not a natural formation end of quote no trace of architectural arrangement could be found to help in identifying this great structure with the labyrinth but the mere extent of it proved that it was far larger than any temple known in egypt the size of this megalithic structure used to be enormous here is what flinders petri wrote quote .
All the temples of Karnak of Luxor and a few on the western side of the bes might be placed together within the vast space of these buildings at Hawara end of quote we know from pliny the roman army commander and many others how for centuries the labyrinth had been a great quarry for the whole district and destruction of this wonder of egypt occupied such a body of masons that a small town existed there the fact that the labyrinth was not just another building is shown by its unusual size it covered an area of about 28 000 square meters and by all ancient reports it was truly massive and megalithic here are the descriptions given by classical authors herodotus 5th century bc quote they built a labyrinth a little above the lake of maris this i have myself seen and found it greater than can be described the pyramids likewise were beyond description yet the labyrinth surpasses even the pyramids he continues quote for it has 12 courts enclosed with walls with doors opposite each other six facing the north and six the south contiguous to one another and the same exterior wall encloses them it contains two kinds of rooms some underground and some above ground over them to the number of three thousand one thousand five hundred of each then he says that the rooms above ground he saw himself and related from personal inspection but the underground rooms he only knows from a report he said that the egyptians who were in charge of the building would on no account show him them saying that they were the sepulchers of the kings who originally built this labyrinth and of the sacred crocodiles .
Herodotus was so impressed by what he saw he noted that it
surpasses all human works not only Herodotus other travelers who were there supported his reports here is how another ancient visitor strabo describes the ceiling of the labyrinth quote the most surprising circumstance is that the roofs of these dwellings consist of a single stone each and that the covered ways through their whole range were roofed in the same manner with single slabs of stone of extraordinary size without the intermixture of timber or of any other material and the width of the hidden chambers is spanned in the same way by monolithic beams of outstanding size end of quote Strabo noted incredible megalithic work of the highest craftsmanship everywhere including a line of 27 pillars each consisting of a single stone the walls also are quote constructed of stones not inferior in size to these as to the date of the labyrinth pliny wrote that it was very ancient at his time estimating that it was already going back 3600 years ago he was astonished by the solidity of 17 this huge mass constructed that the laps of ages had been totally unable to destroy it the way he describes the labyrinth is more like a megalithic city rather than one massive temple he wrote that it would be impossible to describe the layout of that building and its individual parts since it is divided into regions and administrative districts which are called gnomes each of the 21 gnomes giving its name to one of the houses plany talks about columns from porphyry maze of paths ramps porticos stairs subterranean chambers and very interesting acoustic properties of the place in general quote some of the palaces are so peculiarly constructed that the moment the doors are opened a dreadful sound like that of thunder reverberates within in total darkness all of the ancient historians have similarities in describing multiple features of it all of them admired it so much for its greatness as it was inimitable for its workmanship when petrie excavated this area he found a bed of flat-laid sand made of chips of stone rammed down on which lay the pavement and walls of some enormous building and over that lie thousands of tons of fragments of the destroyed walls he measured that artificial stone plato and it covered an area about 304 meters long and 244 meters broad he also made an assumption that this was a foundation of the legendary labyrinth now destroyed but in 2008 there was a Mataha expedition that doubted that statement the professional team of geophysicists equipped with the ground penetrating radar conducted a survey under the foundation of Petri a vast grid of walls under neath the stone flat laid was discovered their conclusion was that this alleged foundation might very well be the roof of a still-existing labyrinth the results of the expedition were officially released by the national research institute of astronomy and geophysics at the workshop at Cairo then published in the nrig scientific journal and then exchanged at a public lecture at geet university in front of the belgian press so it was huge news .
When Dr Carmen Bolter and geo scan systems came into the game so what geoscan claims is that it has a technology that goes to live satellite feed and can detect anomalies some six kilometers deep underground using proprietary processing techniques apparently geoscan systems has a good record in the space archaeology industry in one of the case studies their findings were validated by two gps ground survey results and subsequently the remote scan work of another space archaeology company Merlin Burrows .
BREAKING NEWS - Egyptian Labyrinth Complex
Dr Bolter is marked as blue level at more than 18 meters depth and the red level at 40 meters depth the area of this underground complex is truly monumental it is 433 square meters or 81 football fields five of its chambers are bigger than the olympic swimming pool
18:50 it is so big that Dr Bolter compared its size to an airport that was taken and put underground all but one chamber is bigger than the average size house and that one chamber is still bigger than an average apartment there are 31 chambers on the blue level so they look random but in fact they are in decreasing order and none of the chambers are of the same size the red level follows that there are 32 chambers also following a descending pattern the biggest chamber on the blue level is 1819 square meters it's massive enough to contain a boeing 747 with folded wings the biggest chamber on the red level is even bigger the purple color is single passageways the total length of just them is 1.4 kilometers at this point it is hard to say what exactly it is does it have anything on the walls or are they plain why is it so big and underground the first thing that comes to mind is a secret repository especially the blue level we can only speculate at this point but given its depth and monumental size it could be the hidden storage place of those who were there before the pharaohs and whatever stuff to preserve .
The Pyramid, the Labyrinth and the underground Caches of Hawara
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