Howdy Shawn B
Col. Howard-Vyse forgery
Stower demolishes Sitchin's theory in clear and simple language:
"In 1837, even Samuel Birch [Vyse's assistant and Sitchin's assumed forger] couldn't have faked the quarry marks. They have features which even
experts didn't understand, but which have become clear since. In fact they fit in perfectly with later discoveries and later analyses."
Stower shows that the hieroglyphs' "misspellings" and errors were actually imperfections in 19th century knowledge of hieroglyphs projected onto
the correctly-spelled hieroglyphs themselves.
Nevertheless, the authority of Zecharia Sitchin gave free licence to over a dozen alternative authors to cite the "forged" quarry marks as proof
that Khufu did not build the pyramid.
For this reason von Däniken could still say in 1996's Eyes of the Sphinx: "[T]he Great Pyramid is a huge, largely anonymous work... There is not a
single inscription that would indicate how it was [built]. No one left behind even the briefest note to answer any of our questions regarding its
construction. The pyramid itself features no heiroglyphics at all [emphasis added]."
As we have seen from the earlier discussion of the quarry marks, this is patently false. Whether they are genuine or not, the quarry marks do exist,
and they are hieroglyphics.
While von Däniken sticks to the forgery line, Graham Hancock changed his mind in the light of "new" evidence known to Egyptology since the 19th
century. Says Hancock:
"Cracks in some of the joints reveal hieroglyphs set far back into the masonry. No 'forger' could possibly have reached in there after the blocks
had been set in place - blocks, I should add, that weigh tens of tons each and that are immovably interlinked with one another. The only reasonable
conclusion is the one which orthodox Egyptologists have already long held - namely that the hieroglyphs are genuine Old Kingdom graffiti and that they
were daubed on the blocks before construction began."
The link
No serious scholar believes these to be faked. This belief in there being faked is one of the odder aspects of high pyramidology. The charge was
popularized by the Economists Sitchin who cannot read Egyptian. However about ten years ago an alternative theorist, Hancock was allowed into the
chambers and based on his observation he rejected the theory.
