Book Review: Before the Pharaohs

There are some fascinating books out there on "Alternative History," and I'm not talking about science fiction "what if this happened instead of that?" books. I mean books that take a look at history in a new light, presenting new and interesting theories about what really happened. Some of them are idiotic ancient conspiracy theories, but others are food for thought, even if they do turn out to be crap in hindsight.

Back in 2006, I was on one of these kicks and I read two books that purported to turn History on its head. One of them was about the Templars and North America (maybe I'll post it later), but the other one fits this week's Egypt theme.

It's a book by Edward Malkowski called Before the Pharaohs, and it's a truly fascinating book that puts forth a lot of theories, both about the Sphinx (which is prominent on the cover) and about Egyptian civilization in general. Did you know that some people believe the Great Pyramids of Giza are not tombs but actually power conduits, a power source to create massive amounts of electricity?

Yeah, that's in there.

Malkowski's book is also the source of the "Sphinx must be dated before 10,000 BC because of soil erosion around it" theory that I mentioned in Sunday's post on Robert Temple's The Sphinx Mystery, though Malkowski is just telling us about that theory. He didn't come up with it.

In fact, there's a lot of that in Before the Pharaohs.

Book Review: The Sphinx Mystery

One of the great mysteries of the ages is: just who or what is the Sphinx? You know what the Sphinx is, of course. That huge statue that's sitting there in the Egyptian desert on the Giza Plateau, an animal creature with a human head?

You know, this?

(Thanks to Kewl Wallpapers)

The mystery has always been who made this? Just how old is the Sphinx? Whose head is that on the Sphinx?

Those questions may never be officially answered, but one man thinks he has done so.

In The Sphinx Mystery: The Forgotten Origins of the Sanctuary of Anubis, Robert Temple and his wife Olivia claim that they have figured out everything about this giant monument.

Is he right?

Last Segments of Egyptian Book of the Dead Found

The archaeology of Ancient Egypt has always fascinated me, and I get a thrill when I hear about new discoveries about the ancient tombs, Pharaohs, or whatever. I know I have a few fellow travelers in that respect.

After yesterday's super-serious post, I thought I would present to you something that's more intriguing than anger-inducing.

Did you ever see The Mummy, with Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz?

One of the objects in the movie, and one that causes a bunch of problems for our heroes, is the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Evelyn (Weisz) reads a passage from the Book and it brings to life the ancient mummy Imhotep, a High Priest that was entombed for falling in love with the mistress of the Pharaoh.

We all know that these types of movies have tons of historical inaccuracies, but that's beside the point. They're a hell of a lot of fun. One inaccuracy is, of course, that they didn't have books back in Ancient Egypt. By "books," I mean bound copies with pages that you flip, even if they do appear to be metal plates or something like that in the movie.

No, they wrote everything on papyrus scrolls. Like this:

(Thanks to the Daily Mail)

The real Book of the Dead, or at least the most famous one, has been an incomplete set of papyrus scrolls and fragments that have been collected from museums over the last 100 years. But some pieces were still missing.

Until now.