Welcome to History for Granite.
Join me to explore ancient Egypt.
Together we’ll uncover secrets that only stones from antiquity can reveal.
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so much for growing the channel.
The first year in our investigation of Egypt’s Old Kingdom Pyramids is now behind us, and
it’s truly been a joy reading all your comments and ideas.
It’s important to me everyone feels they can contribute in some way, even if it’s
just asking a simple question.
It's been an honor sharing quality photos of the mysterious designs within these pyramids
so that all of you can participate in the investigation.
With so many people getting their first look inside, there is a single question that has
been asked far more than any other.
Upon discovering that the Bent and Meidum Pyramids contain original wooden beams, it’s
only natural to ask – ‘has this material been radiocarbon dated?’
Uncoincidentally, the other comment I receive most often is one that asserts Old Kingdom
Pyramids were built much earlier than four-to-five thousand years ago.
It’s easy to forgive one for not realizing all of the pyramids can be radiocarbon dated,
because they appear to be made of nothing other than stone.
But in addition to the information that may be contained within the logs of a few pyramids,
every pyramid has some organic matter within it – even if it’s confined to tiny pieces
of charcoal and reeds embedded into the mortar that bonds the masonry.
There’s also a strange and adversarial history between Egyptology and radiocarbon dating
that has caused this scientific test to be underutilized on the pyramids and other monuments
of Egypt.
So while carbon dating pyramids might seem like a dry subject, it actually comes with
a lot of controversy and there remains an enormous amount of work to be done in this
area.
Amazingly, the idea of radiocarbon dating the pyramids goes all the way back to the
very invention of this scientific test.
In March of 1949, scientists W.F.
Libby, E.C.
Anderson and J.R.
Arnold published a paper in the journal ‘Science’ that demonstrated how accurate carbon dating
could be.
In what now seems ironic, the oldest pyramids of Egypt were used to prove the validity of
the radiocarbon test.
Wood samples from both the Bent Pyramid and Djoser’s Pyramid were used to prove the
accuracy of carbon dating, based upon the estimated age of those structures as derived
from the historical chronologies of Egyptian society.
Indeed, before the radiocarbon test was invented it was Egyptology that served as the primary
method for dating archaeological sites throughout the Middle East.
Archaeological discoveries were previously dated by determining their context in relation
to an Egyptian pharaoh, and this would give an age based upon a fairly well documented
succession of Egyptian rulers.
In that context, it is not surprising Egyptology has continued to see it’s genealogical approach
to dating as superior and more relevant than the radiocarbon test.
Through the end of the 20th century, radiocarbon dating wasn’t very precise and usually had
a 100-year error margin.
This greatly reduced its usefulness in Egyptology, where lineage records for pharaohs often contained
smaller margins of error.
The limitations of radiocarbon dating are due to the variable amounts of C14 in the
atmosphere from year to year and even season to season.
There is also uncertainty about how long a piece of organic material had died before
it was used by humans in the context where it was discovered.
Despite these obstacles, improvements in the science of radiocarbon dating continues to
shrink the margin of error.
Using extremely old trees such as Bristlecone Pines in California and Oaks from Ireland
– reference tables have been established for the amount of C14 present in the atmosphere
dating all the way back to the Old Kingdom of pyramids of Egypt.
Combining this data with the science of dendrochronology, which analyzes tree-ring growth, even more
accurate dates can be determined if a log with measurable rings can be found at an archaeological
site.
As you can tell by the rough ends of the wooden beams which remain in the pyramids of Djoser
and Snefru – this science has not yet taken place there.
But before we jump in to what information these logs might still contain, let’s talk
a little bit about the radiocarbon testing that as already occurred.
Another irony about science at the pyramids, is that it was alternative archaeology which
first funded and pushed for radiocarbon testing to take place there.
Edgar Cayce was an early 20th century mystic who claimed the pyramids were 12,500 years
old.
His foundation financed a mission in 1984 whereby 64 carbon samples were tested from
the pyramids and their nearby temples.
Often these samples were extremely small, no more than a black fleck of charcoal 1-2
millimeters in size embedded into the mortar.
I’ll link articles about this in the description for those of you who want to dive deeper into
the science.
It was the now-famous Egyptologist Mark Lehner who collected these samples in 1984.
Lehner began his interest in ancient Egypt as a close friend of Edgar Cayce’s children
and a believer in their ideas about the pyramids being 12,500 years old.
In interviews Mark Lehner openly discusses his past relationship with the Cayce Foundation,
but it’s never been clarified exactly when he changed his views from that of Edgar Cayce
to institutional Egyptology.
In contrast, Zahi Hawass denies being ever being involved with the Cayce Foundation even
though he also received funding from it and had spoken at its conference at least twice
according to its director in 2010, John van Auken.
The results of the 1984 carbon testing were disappointing for both Cayce followers and
Egyptology, because the dates of the samples averaged 374 years older than what was expected
by the pharaonic timeline.
This put the Great Pyramid closer to 3000 B.C. than 2500.
With the Cayce timeline for the pyramids scientifically disproven, advocates for a 12,500 year-old
Giza settlement have shifted their focus entirely upon the Great Sphinx.
Since it is carved entirely out of bedrock, it is not datable using radiocarbon testing.
History was to repeat itself in 1995, when eccentric billionaire David Koch funded another
radiocarbon dating project for the Old Kingdom pyramids.
In the Ancient Egypt Research Associates very first newsletter, founder Mark Lehner writes
that it was David Koch’s quote “keen personal interest” that started this mission.
I find this phrase to be quite revealing, it indicates institutional Egyptology wouldn’t
be conducting radiocarbon tests without the insistence of an independent financier.
Both the 1984 and 1995 rounds of testing were only conducted because of such pressure.
David Koch was a controversial public figure in the United States, and I think his involvement
in funding much of Mark Lehner’s career reveals a distinction in how institutional
Egyptology communicates differently in public versus private.
Here are two soundbites to illustrate this effect.
The first is Mark Lehner in 2015 speaking to a private gathering at an expensive business
club in Colorado.
He’s talking about the large buildings in the Giza worker’s village where perhaps
40 men slept together in long rows.
“And I went back, and I was giving a talk and David Koch was in the audience and you
know, obviously he’s made this possible.
And he raised his hand, and I… it’s gonna be a good question… and he goes ‘yeah
how’d they go to the bathroom?’”
Now watch how the same anecdote is conveyed to an auditorium of undergraduates at Minot
State University in 2019.
“One of the first questions I had when I presented this to school-kids, in fact the
very first time I did, when we came up with this hypothesis, the young man in the front
row said ‘excuse me, uh, professor Lehner, um how did they go to the bathroom?’”
It’s safe to assume Mark Lehner never confused his 79-year-old billionaire benefactor with
a school-kid.
Perhaps he’s only lying in an attempt to impress his respective audiences and there’s
nothing more to it.
But it’s a funny example of how prominent figures in Egyptology aren’t always sincere
with their messaging.
In my opinion, the main reason so few people are aware the pyramids have been radiocarbon
tested is because those tests have been intentionally downplayed by Giza spokespersons Mark Lehner
and Zahi Hawass.
In their ‘definitive history’ book about Giza published in 2017, there is but a single
sentence mentioning carbon testing has taken place and no citation for it is provided.
In particular, Zahi Hawass is not eager to promote radiocarbon science about the pyramids
because as a promoter of tourism, he believes alternative history believers are Egypt’s
best customers.
“The people who talk about this actually, some of them, they’re doing it as business
and some of them are idiots.
Every day, one email of people insulting me.
They think that I hide all the evidence about lost civilization.
But you have to know, if there is anything bad in Egypt, these new age people, they come,
they don’t care.”
But unlike Hawass, I don’t think you’re an idiot if you believe the pyramids are 12,500
years old.
There is a lot of money at stake in presenting Egypt’s history in a manner that invokes
mystery.
Keeping physical science out of the messaging keeps believers of a lost ancient civilization
coming to Egypt, instead of letting those tourist dollars travel elsewhere.
In that context, the conflict between alternative and mainstream Egyptology is mostly fabricated.
Even Graham Hancock gave up on the pyramids being 12,500 years-old a long time ago, although
he is very selective about when he mentions this.
I should also clarify that I’m not in conflict with any spiritual connection that people
feel towards the pyramids.
Rather, I would like to show how much more we might learn about them with further investigation.
Returning to the 1995 expedition, there were over 300 additional samples which were carbon
dated.
At the pyramid of Khufu, they were still limited to charcoal in the mortar although a single
piece of reed was also found embedded at the summit.
The pyramid of Meidum had samples taken from the wood in the vertical shaft, as well as
three logs found embedded in the walls of the upper chamber.
Inexplicably, none of the wood in the Bent Pyramid was tested and only two samples of
charcoal were used from its mortar.
The Red Pyramid at Dahshur remains completely untested.
Djoser’s pyramid, as well as the monuments of Djedefre, Khafre, Shepseskaf, Userkaf,
Sahure, Unas, Teti and Pepi II were also tested with moderate sample sizes.
A few other sites were tested as well, including early dynastic mastabas, temples and worker
sites.
This chart compares the expected age of the monuments in yellow, with the date range provided
by radiocarbon dating in red.
The carbon dating ranges here have an error margin of 1 sigma.
It’s plain to see the data doesn’t align well to Egyptology’s timeline, particularly
with the largest pyramids of the 4th dynasty which all have a similar age distribution.
A potential reason is that charcoal is the least ideal carbon source, as the largest
pyramids would have required enormous amounts of combustible material for their construction.
This large volume of fuel must have been taken from sources all over Egypt, and thus the
carbon samples are from vegetation both new and old.
This causes the age data for these pyramids to average out in a similar fashion.
Notably, the Meidum Pyramid with its wooden logs is giving data that is much more consistent
– with a single exception of the log embedded in the eastern wall.
In that context, why were the dozen or so wooden beams in the Bent Pyramid never tested?
My best guess is perhaps the pyramid interior wasn’t accessible in 1984 or even 1995.
Here Mark Lehner states in 2020 that he is traveling inside the Bent Pyramid for the
first time.
“Yeah, first time to go inside the Bent Pyramid at Dahshur.
This is a dream come true.”
The wood sample from the Bent Pyramid that Libby and others tested in 1949 came from
a museum.
The exact source for the wood’s location in the Bent Pyramid isn’t given, and that
adds a huge amount of uncertainty in dating the form work at the bottom of the upper chamber.
Maybe this unique design is a remodel from the 26th dynasty or something else totally
unexpected.
There are many questions about this chamber that Egyptology hasn’t even begun to address.
But even more tantalizing is the possibility of examining and testing the tree rings individually,
thus combining the data from radiocarbon decay and dendrochronology.
There are 4 beams in this chamber that wouldn’t even need to be cut to undergo such an experiment,
perhaps a small amount of clean up at their broken ends would be sufficient.
And let’s be very clear that while radiocarbon testing is a destructive test, the damage
inflicted by it would be negligible compared to the quantity of wood available for testing.
The overwhelming majority of damage inflicted upon the Bent Pyramid in the last century
has come from Egyptologists excavating with almost no documentation of their work, nor
with any scientific rationale for doing so.
Look how in 1947 the masonry supported by the wooden logs was almost completely intact!
Now that the Bent Pyramid is open for tourism, the probability of the logs being contaminated
by visitors is much higher.
There is zero rationale for not immediately testing this wood that is presently exposed
and more vulnerable to damage than ever before.
But as mentioned earlier, prominent Egyptologists don’t think of these tests as important
and may even have incentives aligned against testing.
Felix Höflmayer of the Austrian Archaeological Institute writes in a paper from 2016, quote:
“Most Egyptologists expected that at best radiocarbon dating would tell them something
that they already knew.”
End quote.
But there are many things that remain unknown about the pyramids, and only individuals with
something to sell will tell you we don’t need to conduct more tests.
In the year 2020, the missing Dixon relic from the Great Pyramid was found at the museum
of the University of Aberdeen.
This relic was fragments of a cedar rod which had been sealed within the Great Pyramid until
Waynman Dixon discovered and opened the Queen’s Chamber shafts in 1872.
The cedar was radiocarbon dated to between 3341 and 3094 B.C. – about 500 years earlier
than the Egyptology timeline for the Great Pyramid.
This could be the best carbon sample ever procured from the Great Pyramid, and it shows
dating the Old Kingdom pyramids still has enormous room for improvement.
The 1984 and ‘95 carbon testing was incomplete, and combining the science of dendrochronology
offers an opportunity to significantly reduce the margin of error in dating the pyramids.
Some Egyptologists will protest that precise dating of the pyramids isn’t important for
understanding them.
But enormous questions remain, particularly about the construction sequence for Snefru’s
pyramids.
He may not have been buried in any of them as none of them contain a sarcophagus.
That makes the wooden form work in the Bent Pyramid’s upper chamber even more intriguing.
As the first rounds of radiocarbon testing prove, this science can take place in Egypt
if there is money and interest in doing so.
But it’s not going to be institutional Egyptology that pushes for it.
This is why public opinion matters so much for solving these mysteries.
My video on the Bent Pyramid received an enormous response, and there is opportunity for Egypt
to use carbon testing as a way to encourage tourism.
Just don’t expect this to be a debate about 12,500-year-old lost civilizations.
While Zahi Hawass may call you an idiot for believing this, he’s happy to keep you thinking
this way if it brings tourism to Egypt.
This is why he and Mark Lehner don’t include hard science in their public messaging.
I also think institutional Egyptology would be embarrassed if the pyramid timeline was
off by a few centuries.
Challenging establishment ideas is important for knowledge to advance, but it’s only
effective if the right questions are being asked.
We shouldn’t have to rely upon Edgar Cayce or the keen personal interest of an eccentric
billionaire-turned school-kid, to get answers about early civilization.
If together, as fans of ancient Egypt, we demand serious investigation about the pyramids
than perhaps their mysteries can be solved.
The Ministry of Tourism allows all kinds of weird new-age stuff to go on at the pyramids.
The conflict of alternative versus academic Egyptology is maintained because it’s profitable.
But perhaps our YouTube community can change this by putting science front and center to
further our understanding of these magnificent structures.
Thanks to everyone who watched this video to the end.
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