Beneath the Pyramids

By Andrew Collins

In March 2008 we went on to the Giza plateau and located the entrance to a previously unrecorded cave underworld, entered via an overlooked tomb some distance due west of the Great Pyramid. This find was achieved after piecing together clues left in the 200-year-old memoirs of a nineteenth century British diplomat and explorer named Henry Salt. He recorded how in 1817 he and Italian explorer Giovanni Caviglia entered and explored “catacombs” at Giza for a distance of “several hundred yards” before coming upon spacious chambers and “labyrinthick” passages that penetrated the darkness still further.

Underlying geology hints that this cave system might extend beneath the second Pyramid and link with a whole network of cave tunnels, compartments, and chambers existing all the way down to the Sphinx on the eastern edge of the plateau.

The existence of the cave tunnels argue that ancient Egyptian mythology is based on truth. Ancient funerary and creation texts speak of the existence in the vicinity of Giza, ancient Rostau, of just such a cave underworld--one through which the soul of the pharaoh had to pass in order to achieve rebirth among the stars. Thus the pyramids were very likely built where they were because of the known presence beneath the plateau of this cave underworld. The pyramid’s cave-like passages enabled symbolic access to this underground realm, where the soul of the pharaoh, in its role as Osiris, was expected to achieve transformation within a mystical chamber known as the Shetayet, quite literally the “Tomb or God,” called also the Duat n Ba, or “Underworld of the Soul.” This deep structure was thought to exist somewhere in the vicinity of Giza, in what was known as the Duat of Memphis or Duat of Rostau.

Beyond this is the politics and intrigue surrounding the cave discoveries. How were amateurs like us able to make such finds? Why have the caves existence been denied by Egypt’s head Egyptologist? Why has their discovery stirred up so much interest worldwide? The clue is that they help fulfill age-old, and more recent, prophecies surrounding the imminent discovery of just such a cave complex at Giza--one that might well provide undeniable evidence of early human activity on the plateau that goes back beyond even the age of the pharaohs.

The book is published by 4th Dimension Press, an imprint of The ARE Press, Virginia Beach, VA and is available at ARECatalog.com.

© Andrew Collins, 2009