The Underground Labyrinth of Egypt

Lost History of the  Pyramids
by Tony Bushby

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The Fayum Oasis  district, just a few kilometres outside the boundary of the Memphis  Nome, presents a site of unusual interest. It was in that lush, fertile  valley that Pharaohs calling
themselves the "masters of the royal hunts"  fished and hunted with the boomerang.1 Lake Moeris once bordered the  Fayum Oasis and on its shores was the famous Labyrinth, described by  Herodotus as "an endless wonder to me". The Labyrinth contained 1,500 rooms and  an equal number of underground chambers that the Greek historian was not  permitted to inspect. According to Labyrinth priests, "the passages were  baffling and intricate", designed to provide safety for the numerous scrolls  they said were hidden in subterranean apartments. That massive complex  particularly impressed Herodotus and he spoke in awe of the  structure:

"There I saw twelve palaces regularly disposed, which had  communication with each other, interspersed with terraces and arranged around  twelve halls. It is hard to believe they are the work of man. The walls are  covered with carved figures, and each court is exquisitely built of white marble  and surrounded by a colonnade. Near the corner where the labyrinth ends, there  is a pyramid, two hundred and forty feet in height, with great carved figures of  animals on it and an underground passage by which it can be entered. I was told  very credibly that underground chambers and passages connected this pyramid with the pyramids at Memphis."

 
Many ancient writers supported Herodotus' record of  underground passages connecting major pyramids, and their evidence casts doubt  on the reliability of traditionally presented Egyptian history. Crantor (300 BC)  stated that there were certain underground pillars in Egypt that contained a  written stone record of pre-history, and they lined accessways connecting the  pyramids. In his celebrated study, On the Mysteries, particularly those of the  Egyptians, Chaldeans and the Assyrians, Iamblichus, a fourth-century Syrian  representative of the Alexandrian School of mystical and philosophical studies,  recorded this information about an entranceway through the body of the Sphinx  into the Great Pyramid:2

"This entrance, obstructed in our day by sands  and rubbish, may still be traced between the forelegs of the crouched colossus.  It was formerly closed by a bronze gate whose secret spring could be operated  only by the Magi. It was guarded by public respect, and a sort of religious fear  maintained its inviolability better than armed protection would have done. In  the belly of the Sphinx were cut out galleries leading to the subterranean part  of the Great Pyramid. These galleries were so artfully crisscrossed along their  course to the Pyramid that, in setting forth into the passage without a guide  throughout this network, one ceasingly and inevitably returned to the starting  point."

It was recorded in ancient Sumerian cylinder seals that the  secret abode of the Anunnaki was "an underground place...entered through a  tunnel, its entrance hidden by sand and by what they call Huwana.. .his teeth as  the teeth of a dragon, his face the face of a lion". That remarkable old text,  unfortunately fragmented, added that "He [Huwana) is unable to move forward, nor  is he
able to move back", but they crept up on him from behind and the way to  "the secret abode of the Anunnaki" was no longer blocked. The Sumerian record  provided a probable description of the lion-headed Sphinx at Giza, and if that great creature was built to guard or obliterate ancient stairways and lower passages leading to subterranean areas below and around it, then its symbolism  was most appropriate.

Local 19th-century Arab lore maintained that  existing under the Sphinx are secret chambers holding treasures or magical  objects. That belief was bolstered by the writings of the first-century Roman  historian Pliny, who wrote that deep below the Sphinx is concealed the "tomb of  a ruler named Harmakhis that contains great treasure", and, strangely enough,  the Sphinx itself was once called "The Great Sphinx Harmakhis who mounted guard  since the time of the Followers of Horus". The fourth-century Roman historian  Ammianus Marcellinus made additional disclosures about the existence of  subterranean vaults that appeared to lead
to the interior of the Great  Pyramid

"Inscriptions which the ancients asserted were engraved on the  walls of  certain underground galleries and passages were constructed deep in the  dark interior to preserve, ancient wisdom from being lost in the  flood."

... According to Masoudi in the 10th century, mechanical statues  with amazing capabilities guarded subterranean galleries under the Great  Pyramid. Written one thousand years ago, his description is comparable to the  computerised robots shown today in space movies. Masoudi said that the  automatons were programmed for intolerance, for they destroyed all "except those  who by their conduct were worthy of admission". Masoudi contended that "written  accounts of Wisdom and acquirements in the different arts and sciences were  hidden deep, that they might remain as records for the benefit of those who  could afterwards comprehend them". That is phenomenal information, as it is  possible that, since the times of Masoudi, "worthy" persons have seen the  mysterious underground chambers. Masoudi confessed, "I have seen things that one  does not describe for fear of making people doubt one's intelligence.... According to Masoudi

In the same century, another writer, Muterdi,  gave an account of a bizarre incident in a narrow passage under Giza, where a  group of people were horrified to see one of their party crushed to death by a  stone door that, by itself, suddenly suddenly slid out from the face of the  passageway and closed the corridor in front of them.

Herodotus said  Egyptian priests recited to him their long-held tradition of "the formation of  underground apartments" by the original developers of Memphis. The most ancient  inscriptions therefore suggested that there existed some sort of extensive  chamber system below the surface of the areas surrounding the Sphinx and  pyramids.

Those old records were confirmed when the presence of a large  cavity was discovered in a seismic survey conducted at the site in 1993. That  detection was publicly acknowledged in a documentary called The Mystery of the  Sphinx, screened to an audience of 30 million people on NBC TV later that year.  The existence of chambers under the Sphinx is well known. Egyptian authorities  confirmed another discovery in 1994; its unearthing was announced in a newspaper  report that was carried under the headline, "Mystery Tunnel in Sphinx": 

Workers repairing the ailing Sphinx have discovered an ancient passage leading deep into the body of the mysterious monument. The Giza Antiquities  chief, Mr. Zahi Hawass, said there was no dispute the tunnel was very old.  However, what is puzzling is: who built the passage? Why? And where does it  lead...?
Mr Hawass said he had no plans to remove the stones blocking the entrance. The secret tunnel burrows into the northern side of the Sphinx, about  halfway between the Sphinx's outstretched paws and its tail.

The popular  supposition that the Sphinx is the true portal of the Great Pyramid has survived  with surprising tenacity. That belief was substantiated by l00-year-old plans  prepared by Masonic and Rosicrucian initiates, showing the Sphinx was the  ornament surmounting a hall that communicated with all Pyramids by radiating  underground passages. Those plans were compiled from information originally  discovered by the supposed founder of the order of the Rosicrucians, Christian  Rosenkreuz, who allegedly penetrated a "secret chamber beneath the ground" and  there found a library of books full of secret knowledge.

The schematic  drawings were produced from information possessed by mystery school archivists  before sand-clearing commenced in 1925, and revealed hidden doors to  long-forgotten reception halls, small temples and other enclosures.

The  knowledge of the mystery schools was strengthened by a series of remarkable  discoveries in 1935 that provided proof of additional passageways and chambers  interlacing the area below the Pyramids. The Giza complex showed major elements  of being a purposely built, uniting structure with the Sphinx, the Great Pyramid  and the Temple of the Solar-men directly related to each other, above and below  the ground.

Chambers and passageways detected by sophisticated  seismograph and ground penetrating radar (GPR) equipment in the last few years  established the accuracy of the plans. Egypt is also successfully using  sophisticated satellites to identify sites buried beneath the surface at Giza  and other locations. The novel tracking system was launched at the beginning of  1998 and the location of
27 unexcavated sites in five areas was precisely  determined. Nine of those
sites are on Luxor's east bank and the others are in  Giza, Abu Rawash, Saqqara and Dashur. The printouts of the Giza area show an  almost incomprehensible mass of net-like tunnels and chambers criss-crossing the  area, intersecting and entwining each other like latticework extending out  across the entire plateau. With the space surveillance project, Egyptologists  are able to determine
the location of a major site, its probable entrance and  the size of chambers before starting excavations. Particular attention is  being
focused on three secret locations: an area in the desert a few hundred  metres west/southwest of the original location of the Black Pyramid, around  which is currently being built a massive system of concrete walls seven metres  high covering eight square kilometres; the ancient highway that linked the Luxor 
temple with Karnak; and the "Way of Horus" across northern  Sinai.

HEADLINE NEWS

Among the mystics or members of Egyptian  mystery schools, tradition explained that the Great Pyramid was great in many  ways. Despite the fact that it was not entered until the year 820, the secret  schools of pre-Christian Egypt insisted that the interior layout was well known  to them. They constantly claimed that it was not a tomb nor a burial chamber of  any kind, except that it
did have one chamber for symbolic burial as part of an  initiation ritual.

According to mystical traditions, the interior was  entered gradually and in various stages via underground passageways. Different  chambers were said to have existed at the end of each phase of progress, with  the highest and ultimate initiatory stage represented by the now-called King's  Chamber.

Little by little, the traditions of the mystery schools were  verified by archaeological discoveries, for it was ascertained in 1935 that  there was a subterranean connection between the Sphinx and the Great Pyramid and  that a tunnel connected the Sphinx to the ancient temple located on its southern  side (today called the Temple of the Sphinx).

As Emile Baraize's massive  11-year sand and seashell clearing project neared completion in 1935, remarkable  stories started to emerge about discoveries made during the clearing project. A  magazine article, written and published in 1935 by Hamilton M. Wright, dealt  with an extraordinary discovery under the
sands of Giza that is today denied.  The article was accompanied by original photographs provided by Dr. Selim  Hassan, the leader of the scientific investigative team from the University of  Cairo who made the discovery. It said:

"We have discovered a subway used  by the ancient Egyptians of 5,000 years ago. It passes beneath the causeway  leading between the second Pyramid and the Sphinx. It provides a means of  passing under the causeway from the Cheops Pyramid to the Pyramid of Chephren  [Khephren]. From this subway, we have unearthed a series of shafts leading down  more than 125 feet, with roomy courts and side chambers."

Around the same  time, the international news media released further details of the  find.

The underground connector complex was originally built between the  Great Pyramid and the Temple of the Solarmen, for the Pyramid of Khephren was a  later and superficial structure. The subway and its apartments were excavated  out of solid, living bedrock -a truly extraordinary feat, considering it was  built
thousands of years ago.

There is more to the story of underground  chambers at Giza, for media reports described the unearthing of a subterranean  passageway between the Temple of the Solarmen on the plateau and the Temple of  the Sphinx in the valley. That passageway had been unearthed a few years before  the release and publication
of that particular newspaper article.

The  discoveries led Dr. Selim Hassan and others to believe and publicly state that,  while the age of the Sphinx was always enigmatic in the past, it may have been  part of the great architectural plan that was deliberately arranged and carried  out in association with the erection of the Great Pyramid.

Archaeologists  made another major discovery at that time. Around halfway between the Sphinx and  Khephren's Pyramid were discovered four enormous vertical shafts, each around  eight feet square, leading straight down through solid limestone. It is called  "Campbell's Tomb" on the Masonic and Rosicrucian plans, and "that shaft  complex", said Dr Selim Hassan, "ended in a spacious room, in the centre of  which was another shaft that descended to a roomy court flanked with seven side  chambers". Some of the chambers contained huge, sealed sarcophagi of basalt and  granite, 18 feet high.

The discovery went further and found that in one  of the seven rooms there was yet a third vertical shaft, dropping down deeply to  a much lower chamber. At the time of its discovery, it was flooded with water  that partly covered a solitary white sarcophagus.

That chamber was named  the "Tomb of Osiris" and was shown being "opened for the first time" on a  fabricated television documentary in March 1999. While originally exploring in  this area in 1935, Dr. Selim Hassan said:

"We are hoping to find some  monuments of importance after clearing out this water. The total depth of these  series of shafts is more than 40 metres or more than 125 feet... In the course  of clearing the southern part of the subway, there was found a very fine head of  a statue which is very expressive in every detail of the face."

According  to a separate newspaper report of the time, the statue was an excellent sculpted  bust of Queen Nefertiti, described as "a beautiful example of that rare type of  art inaugurated in the Amenhotep regime". The whereabouts of that statue today  are unknown.

The report also described other chambers and rooms beneath  the sands, all interconnected by secret and ornate passageways. Dr. Selim Hassan  revealed that not only are there inner and outer courts, but they also found a  room they named the "Chapel of Offering" that had been cut into a huge, rock  outcrop
between Campbell's Tomb and the Great Pyramid. In the centre of the  chapel are three ornate vertical pillars standing in a triangular shaped layout.  Those pillars are highly significant points in this study, for their existence  is recorded in the Bible. The conclusion drawn is that Ezra, the initiated Torah  writer (c. 397 BC), knew the subterranean layout of passages and chambers at 
Giza before he wrote the Torah. That underground design was probably the origin  of the triangular shaped layout around the central altar in a Masonic lodge. In  Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus, in the first century, wrote that Enoch of Old  Testament fame constructed an underground templeconsisting of nine chambers.  In a deep vault inside one chamber with three
vertical columns, he placed a  triangular-shaped tablet of gold bearing upon it the absolute name of the Deity  (God). The description of Enoch's chambers was similar to the description of the  Chapel of Offering under the sand just east of the Great Pyramid.

An  anteroom much like a burial chamber, but "undoubtedly a room of initiation and  reception," was found higher up the plateau closer to the Great Pyramid and at  the upper end of a sloping passage, cut deep into rock on the northwest side of  the Chamber of Offering (between the Chamber of Offering and the
Great Pyramid).  In the centre of the chamber is a l2-foot long sarcophagus of white Turah  limestone and a collection of fine alabaster vessels. The walls are beautifully  sculpted with scenes, inscriptions and emblems of particularly the lotus flower.  The descriptions of alabaster vessels and the emblematic lotus flower have  remarkable parallels with what was found in the
temple-workshop on the summit of  Mt Sinai/Horeb by Sir William Petrie in 1904.

Additional underground  rooms, chambers, temples and hallways were discovered, some with vertical  circular stone support columns, and others with wall carvings of delicate  figures of goddesses clothed in beautiful apparel. Dr Selim Hassan's report  described other magnificently carved figures and many
beautifully coloured  friezes. Photographs were taken and one author and researcher who saw them,  Rosicrucian H. Spencer Lewis recorded that he was "deeply impressed" with the  images. It is not known where the rare specimens of art and relics are today,  but some were rumoured to have been smuggled out of Egypt by
private  collectors.

The foregoing particulars are but a few contained in Dr Selim  Hassan's extensive report that was published in 1944 by the Government Press,  Cairo, under the title Excavations at Giza (10 volumes). However, that is just a  mere fragment of the whole truth of what is under the area of the Pyramids. In  the last year of sand clearing, workers uncovered the most amazing discovery  that
stunned the world and attracted international media  coverage.

Archaeologists in charge of the discovery were "bewildered" at  what they had unearthed, and stated that the city was the most beautifully  planned they had ever seen. It is replete with temples, pastel-painted peasant  dwellings, workshops, stables and other buildings including a palace. Complete  with hydraulic underground waterways, it has a perfect drainage system along  with other modem amenities. The intriguing question that arises out of the  discovery is: where is that city today?

Its secret location was recently  revealed to a select group of people who were given permission to explore and  film the city. It exists in a huge natural cavern system below the Giza Plateau  that extends out in an easterly direction under Cairo. Its main entry is from  inside the Sphinx, with stairs cut into rock that lead down to the cavern below  the bedrock of the River Nile.

The expedition carried down generators and  inflatable rafts and travelled along an underground river that led to a lake one  kilometre wide. On the shores of the lake nestles the city, and permanent  lighting is provided by large crystalline balls set into the cavern walls and  ceiling. A second entry to the city is found in stairs leading up to the  basement of the Coptic Church in
old Cairo (Babylon). Drawing from narratives of  people "living in the Earth" given in the books of Genesis, lasher and Enoch, it  is possible that the city was originally called Gigal.

Film footage of  the expedition was shot and a documentary called Chambers of the Deep was made  and subsequently shown to private audiences. It was originally intended to  release the footage to the general public, but for some reason it was  withheld.

A multi-faceted spherical crystalline object the size of a  baseball was brought up from the city, and its supernatural nature was  demonstrated at a recent conference in Australia. Deep within the solid object  are various hieroglyphs that slowly turn over like pages of a book when mentally  requested to do so by whoever holds the object. That remarkable item revealed an  unknown form
of technology and was recently sent NASA in the USA for  analysis.

Historical documents recorded that, during the 20th century,  staggering discoveries not spoken of today were made at Giza and Mt Sinai, and  Egyptian rumours of the discovery of another underground city within a 28-rnile  radius of the Great Pyramid abound. In 1964, more than 30 enormous,  multilevelled
subsurface cities were discovered in the old Turkish kingdom of  Cappadocia. One city alone contained hugE caverns, rooms and hallways that  archaeologists estimated supported as many as 2,000 households, providing living  facilities for 8,000 to 10,000 people. Their very existence constitutes evidence  that many
such subterranean worlds lie waiting to be found below the surface of  the Earth.

Excavations at Giza have revealed underground subways,  temples, sarcophagi and one interconnected subterranean city, and validation  that underground passageways connected the Sphinx to the Pyramids is another  step towards proving that the whole complex is carefully and specifically  thought out.

OFFICIAL DENIALS

Because of Dr. Selim Hassan's  excavations and modern space surveillance techniques, the records and traditions  of the ancient Egyptian mystery schools that claim to preserve secret knowledge  of the Giza Plateau all rose to the highest degree of acceptability. However,  one of the most puzzling aspects of the discovery of underground facilities at  Giza is the repeated denial of their
existence by Egyptian authorities and  academic institutions. So persistent are their refutations that the claims of  mystery schools were doubted by the public and suspected of being fabricated in  order to mystify visitors to Egypt. The scholastic attitude is typified by a  Harvard University public statement in 1972:

"No one should pay any  attention to the preposterous claims in regard to the interior of the Great  Pyramid or the presumed passageways and unexcavated temples and halls beneath  the sand in the Pyramid district made by those who are associated with the  so-called secret cults or mystery societies of Egypt and the Orient. These  things exist only in the minds of those who seek to attract the seekers for  mystery, and the more we deny the existence of these things, the more the public  is led to suspect that we are deliberately trying to hide that which constitutes  one of the great secrets of Egypt. It is better for us to ignore all of these  claims than merely deny them. All of our excavations in the territory of the  Pyramid have failed to reveal any underground passageways or halls, temples,  grottos, or anything of the kind except the one
temple adjoining the  Sphinx."

It was well enough for scholarly opinion to make such a  statement on the subject, but in preceding years, official claims were made  stating that there was no temple adjoining the Sphinx. The assertion that every  inch of the territory around the Sphinx and pyramids had been explored deeply  and thoroughly was disproved when the temple adjoining the Sphinx was discovered  in the sand
and eventually opened to the public. On matters outside official  policy, there appears to be a hidden level of censorship in operation, one  designed to protect both Eastern and Western religions.

EVER-BURNING  LAMPS

In spite of amazing discoveries, the stark truth is that the early  history of Egypt remains largely unknown and therefore unmapped territory. It is  not possible, then, to say precisely how miles of underground passageways and  chambers beneath the Giza Plateau were lit, but one thing is for sure: unless  the
ancients could see in the dark, the vast subterranean areas were somehow  illuminated. The same question is addressed of the interior of the Great  Pyramid, and Egyptologists have agreed that flaming torches were not used, for  ceilings had not been blackened with residual smoke.

From what is  currently known about subsurface passageways under the Pyramid Plateau, it is  possible to determine that there are at least three miles of passageways 10 to  12 storeys below ground level. Both the Book of the Dead and the Pyramid Texts  make striking references to "The Light-makers"From what is
currently known about subsurface passageways under the Pyramid Plateau, it is  possible to determine that there are at least three

Iamblichus recorded a fascinating  account that was found on a very ancient Egyptian papyrus held in a mosque in  Cairo. It was part of a 100 BC story by an unknown author about a group of  people who gained entry to underground chambers around Giza for exploratory  purposes. They described their experience:

"We came to a chamber. When we  entered, it became automatically illuminated by light from a tube being the  height of one man's hand [approx. 6 inches or 15.24 cm] and thin, standing  vertically in the corner. As we approached the tube, it shone brighter...the  slaves were scared and ran away in the direction
from which we had come! When I  touched it, it went out. We made every effort to get the tube to glow again, but  it would no longer provide light. In some chambers the light tubes worked and in  others they did not. We broke open one of the tubes and it bled beads of silver-  coloured liquid that ran fastly around the floor until they disappeared between  the cracks [mercury?].
As time went on, the light tubes gradually began to  fail and the priests removed them and stored them in an underground vault they  specially built southeast of the plateau. It was their belief that the light  tubes were created by their beloved Imhotep, who would some day return to make  them work once again."

It was common practice among early Egyptians to  seal lighted lamps in the sepulchres of their dead as offerings to their god or  for the deceased to find their way to the "other side". Among the tombs near  Memphis (and in the Brahmin temples of India), lights were found operating in  sealed chambers and vessels, but sudden exposure to air extinguished them or  caused their fuel to
evaporate."

Greeks and Romans later followed the  custom, and the tradition became generally established -not only that of actual  burning lamps, but miniature reproductions made in terracotta were buried with  the dead. Some lamps were enclosed in circular vessels for protection, and  instances are recorded where the original oil was found perfectly preserved in  them after more than 2,000 years.
There is ample proof from eyewitnesses that  lamps were burning when the sepulchres were sealed, and it was declared by later  bystanders that they were still burning when the vaults were opened hundreds of  years later.

The possibility of preparing a fuel that would renew itself  as rapidly as it was consumed was a source of considerable controversy among  mediaeval authors, and numerous documents exist outlining their arguments. After  due consideration of evidence at hand, it seemed well within the range of  possibility
that ancient Egyptian priest-chemists manufactured lamps that burned  if not
indefinitely then at least for considerable periods of  time.

Numerous authorities have written on the subject of ever-burning  lamps, with W. Wynn Westcott estimating that the number of writers who have  given the subject consideration as more than 150 and H. P. Blavatsky as 173.  While conclusions reached by different authors are at a variance, a majority  admitted the existence of the phenomenal lamps. Only a few maintained that the  lamps
would burn forever, but many were willing to concede that they might  remain alight for several centuries without replenishment of fuel.

It was  generally believed that the wicks of those perpetual lamps were made of braided  or woven asbestos, called by early alchemists "salamander'It was  generally believed that the wicks of those perpetual lamps were made of braided  or woven asbestos, called by early alchemists "salamanders wool". The
fuel  appeared to have been one of the products of alchemical research, possibly  produced in the temple on Mt Sinai. Several formulae for making fuel for the  lamps were preserved, and in H. P. Blavatsky's profound work, Isis Unveiled, the  author reprinted two complicated formulae

Some believe the fabled perpetual  lamps of temples to be cunning mechanical contrivances, and some quite humorous  explanations have been extended.

In Egypt, rich underground deposits of  asphalt and petroleum exist, and some would have it that priests connected  asbestos wicks by a secret duct to an oil deposit, which in turn connected to  one or more lamps. Others thought that the belief that lamps burned indefinitely  in tombs was the result of the fact that in some cases fumes resembling smoke  poured forth from the entrances
of newly opened vaults. Parties going in later,  and discovering lamps scattered about the floor, assumed that they were the  source of the fumes. There were some well-documented stories concerning the  discovery of ever-burning lamps not only in Egypt but also in other parts of the  world.

De Montfaucon de Villars gave this fascinating account of the  opening of the vault of Rosicrucian Christian Rosenkreuz. When the Brethren  entered the tomb of their illustrious founder 120 years after his death, they  found a perpetual lamp brightly shining in a suspended manner from the ceiling.  "There was a statue in armour [a robot] which destroyed the source of light when  the chamber was opened. " That is strangely similar to the accounts of Arab 
historians who claimed that automatons guarded galleries under the Great  Pyramid.

A 17th-century account recorded another story about a robot. In  central England, a curious tomb was found containing an automaton that moved  when an intruder stepped upon certain stones in the floor of the vault. At that  time, the Rosicrucian controversy was at its height, so it was decided that the  tomb
was that of a Rosicrucian initiate. A countryman discovered the tomb,  entered and found the interior brilliantly lit by a lamp hanging from the  ceiling. As he walked toward the light, his weight depressed the floor stones  and, at once, a seated figure in heavy armour began to move. Mechanically it  rose to its feet and struck the lamp with an iron baton, destroying it and thus 
effectively preventing the discovery of the secret substance that maintained the  flame. How long the lamp had burned was unknown, but the report said that it had  been for a considerable number of years.

From The Secret in the Bible by  tony Bushby
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