Egypt Books

The Secret of the Great Pyramid: How One Man's Obsession Led to the Solution of Ancient Egypt's Greatest Mystery

Bob Brier, Jean-pierre Houdin

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Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Nine years ago, French architect Jean-Pierre Houdin became obsessed by the centuries-old mystery of how the Great Pyramid was built. For ten hours a day, he labored at his computer to create exquisitely detailed 3-D models of the interior of the Great Pyramid. After five years of effort, the images rotating on his computer screen provided evidence of an astonishing secret. Corkscrewing up the inside of the Great Pyramid is a mile-long ramp, unseen for 4,500 years. The pyramid was built from the inside. This revelation casts a fresh light on the minds that conceived one of the wonders of the ancient world.

The Secret of the Great Pyramid moves between the ancient and the modern. The ancient story chronicles, step-by-step, how a nation of farmers only recently emerged from the Stone Age could construct one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. To execute something as complex and massive as the Great Pyramid, Egypt needed architects, mathematicians, boat builders, stone masons, and metallurgists. It took twenty years to build the Great Pyramid. By the time its capstone was laid in 2560 B.C., the innovations born of the building quest had transformed agrarian Egypt into the world's most modern, most powerful nation.

As we follow the progress of Hemienu, the innovative architect who planned, organized, and oversaw construction of the Great Pyramid, we also follow Houdin working to discover how and why the ancient architect designed the Pyramid as he did. Houdin works as a forensic architect, aiming to reconstruct the lessons Hemienu had learned from construction of three previous pyramids and to visualize his blueprint for the massive stone building. In the process, Houdin also discovers the answers to other questions that have bedeviled Egyptologists for centuries: such as what was the purpose of the mysterious Grand Gallery and when did the Pyramid crack? Along the way, Houdin receives the support of a pathbreaking French software company, which helps him validate his theory virtually—a first in archaeology!

The story of genius and obsession in the ancient and modern world, this archaeological mystery will appeal to anyone who has ever been captivated by this magnificent edifice.

The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography

Simon Singh

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Subjects -> History -> Africa -> Egypt -> General

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Total reviews: 252 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

People love secrets. Ever since the first word was written, humans have sent coded messages to each other. In The Code Book, Simon Singh, author of the bestselling Fermat's Enigma, offers a peek into the world of cryptography and codes, from ancient texts through computer encryption. Singh's compelling history is woven through with stories of how codes and ciphers have played a vital role in warfare, politics, and royal intrigue. The major theme of The Code Book is what Singh calls "the ongoing evolutionary battle between codemakers and codebreakers," never more clear than in the chapters devoted to World War II. Cryptography came of age during that conflict, as secret communications became critical to both sides' success.

Confronted with the prospect of defeat, the Allied cryptanalysts had worked night and day to penetrate German ciphers. It would appear that fear was the main driving force, and that adversity is one of the foundations of successful codebreaking.

In the information age, the fear that drives cryptographic improvements is both capitalistic and libertarian--corporations need encryption to ensure that their secrets don't fall into the hands of competitors and regulators, and ordinary people need encryption to keep their everyday communications private in a free society. Similarly, the battles for greater decryption power come from said competitors and governments wary of insurrection.

The Code Book is an excellent primer for those wishing to understand how the human need for privacy has manifested itself through cryptography. Singh's accessible style and clear explanations of complex algorithms cut through the arcane mathematical details without oversimplifying. --Therese Littleton

The Stairway to Heaven: Book II of the Earth Chronicles (The Earth Chronicles)

Zecharia Sitchin

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Total reviews: 26 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Food for your brain 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I am a fanatic reader of Zecharia Sitchin and Maximillien de Lafayette. Two great writers who knew very well how to present a theme with intelligence and depth.
You read their books and your brain starts to analyze things you never knew they existed outside traditional science.
Sure many of Sitchin's claims cannot be proven. Sure some of Lafayette's new presentation on the Anunnaki and their representative the Ulema is beyond our comprehension. But at least, they make us think and rethink delicate and vital issues RELIGION avoids at all costs.

Editorial Review:

Since earliest times, human beings have pondered the incomprehensible questions of the universe, life . . . and the afterlife. Where did mortal man go to join the immortal Gods? Was the immense and complex structure at Giza an Egyptian Pharaoh's portal to immortality? Or a pulsating beacon built by extraterrestrials for landing on Earth?

In this second volume of his trailblazing series The Earth Chronicles, Zecharia Sitchin unveils secrets of the pyramids and hidden clues from ancient times to reveal a grand forgery on which established Egyptology is founded, and takes the reader to the Spaceport and Landing Place of the Anunnaki gods—"Those Who from Heaven to Earth Came."

Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs: Official Companion Book to the Exhibition sponsored by National Geographic

Zahi Hawass

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Total reviews: 23 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun - the most spectacular royal tomb ever found - is one of the most famous events in the history of archaeology. The treasures of this tomb surpass all others and the 50 Tutankhamun artifacts featured in this book illustrate many uses of gold and other precious materials in ancient Egypt, providing us with a glimpse into the extraordinary richness of this ancient civilization. The book also includes cutting-edge forensic data that may provide tantalizing clues to Tutankhamun's mysterious life and death. In addition, artifacts from the period preceding the reign of Tutankhamun will be featured, illuminating this fascinating era of Egyptian history and setting the stage for the treasures of Tut. These pieces will illustrate the history of the 18th dynasty, daily life under the golden pharaohs and the journeys of both kings and commoners to the afterlife and will include pieces dating to the reigns of four 18th dynasty pharaohs, the direct ancestors of Tutankhamun: Amenhotep II, Tuthmosis IV, Amenhotep III and Akhenaten

Cleopatra: Last Queen of Egypt

Joyce Tyldesley

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Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The Romans regarded her as “fatale monstrum”—a fatal omen. Pascal said the shape of her nose changed the history of the world. Shakespeare portrayed her as an icon of tragic love. But who was Cleopatra, really?

Cleopatra was the last ruler of the Macedonian dynasty of Ptolemies. Highly intelligent, she spoke many languages and was rumored to be the only Ptolemy to read and speak Egyptian. Her famous liaisons with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony had as much to do with politics as the heart. Ruthless in dealing with her enemies, many within her own family, Cleopatra steered her kingdom through difficult times, and very nearly succeeded in creating an eastern empire to rival the growing might of Rome.

Her story was well documented by her near contemporaries, and the tragic tale of contrasts and oppositions—the seductive but failing power of ancient Egypt versus the virile strength of modern Rome—is so familiar we almost feel that we know Cleopatra. But our picture is highly distorted. Cleopatra is often portrayed as a woman ruled by emotion rather than reason; a queen hurtling towards inevitable self-destruction. But these tales of seduction, intrigue, and suicide by asp have obfuscated Cleopatra’s true political genius.

Stripping away our preconceptions, many of them as old as Egypt’s Roman conquerors, Egyptologist Joyce Tyldesley offers a magnificent biography of a most extraordinary queen.

The Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Book of Going Forth by Day - The Complete Papyrus of Ani Featuring Integrated Text and Full-Color Images

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Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Reprint of 1994, 1998 edition -- Word and Image together for the first time in 3500 years. 5 out of 5 stars.
23 of 23 people found this review helpful.

The Egyptian Book of the Dead

The Papyrus of Ani was painted in Egypt about 1250 BC. It represents the best preserved, longest, most ornate, and beautifully executed example of the form of Mortuary Text known as the Egyptian Book of the Dead.

Ani was a well-to-do scribe (or accountant) within the Temple hierarchy who, as he approached middle age, decided it was time to order his personalized selection of the prayers and invocations designed as a guide to the Egyptian afterlife. Compiled from the oldest religious culture on earth, these spells (known as the Pyramid Texts) had originally been engraved on the walls of the tombs of kings or pharaohs). As time went on, they began to be more widely available, carved and painted on the wooden sarcophagi of great nobles (where they are known as Coffin texts). Finally, they became even more widely available, painted on scrolls and available to the upper middle class. Ani's papyrus measured 78 feet long by 15 inches high.

The prayers are connected to certain archetypal images. Thus an invocation to Osiris, the Lord of the Underworld, will be written within a painting (or vignette) of that deity. The meaning of the passage is a marriage of word and image, reaching well beyond the merely verbal level of the brain. One of the best known examples of these breathtaking unions of text and image is the Weighing of the Heart scene. Here, the heart (the moral integrity of the deceased, the conscience) is weighed against the feather of Truth and Justice. If the cumulative effects of the person's past have allowed his soul to be as light as the feather of Truth, he or she is judged pure and admitted to the presence of the Lord of the Dead in preparation for the journey through the Afterlife. However, if the person's heart is weighted down with the burden of sin, his soul is flung to the great monster who awaits the recording of the verdict and is no more.

As a magical, polytheistic religion, the Egyptian spiritual path was alive with creativity and energy. The spiritual dignity afforded the observant Egyptian was an invigorating state. One who had led an upright moral life, who had shown respect to the Gods, and, who had been strong enough to persevere through the awesome dangers of the path of the afterlife, was then invited to feast with his Gods, playing board games in beautiful fields, drinking beer and enjoying related pleasures, The successful adherent would reach a stellar glory of his own, at last a member of that hierarchy his life had been spent in honoring.

The impact of Ancient Egypt on modern western culture is of course ubiquitous. Egypt is known as the Mother of Western Civilization. The 42 part Negative Confession is a source of our own Ten Commandments. (The additional ancient statute against the bringing of law suits might be worth revisiting!) Egyptian religion is the source of the Judaeo-Christian belief in the after death resurrection promised to mankind as a reward for righteous living.

The Egyptian religion was a magical religion that involved a continuous interaction between the individual and the various deities who constituted its elaborate and exalted pantheon. Initiates were required to memorize magical formulas and spells, and to demonstrate their proficiency therein; tests of courage and honor were administered by the officers of the Temple. Possession of secret knowledge, along with a highly developed moral character, were necessary to penetrate the deeper levels of Egyptian spirituality.

Egypt's moral teaching presented in its Wisdom literature and Mortuary texts attain to the highest levels of sacred awareness. Egypt's temples, statues, frescoes, carvings, jewelry, painted scrolls and sarcophagi stand as mute witnesses to a brilliant and lofty spiritual culture that has never been equaled on earth. The silent and stationary images of The Egyptian Book of the Dead continue to speak and move today, some four millennia after their creation.

* * * * *
The story of the securing of the Papyrus of Ani combines elements of fate and tragedy, even slapstick, and marks the very end of European colonialism in North Africa. Sir E. A. Wallis Budge, assistant Keeper of the Egyptian Collection at the British Museum, and author and editor of many books on ancient Near Eastern civilizations, arrived in Egypt in 1887 with funds for the purchase of antiquities for the Museum. There had recently been a series of extraordinary finds in Upper Egypt. The Egyptian government, seeking to preserve the finds, had appointed police/military units to seek out native Egyptians in possession of these antiquities and to prevent Europeans from buying them. Budge was personally threatened with arrest should he attempt to purchase anything.

At Luxor, Budge found a papyrus he described as the largest such roll he had ever seen. "... I was amazed at the beauty and freshness of the colours of the human figures and animals, which in the dim light of the candles and heated air of the tomb, seemed to be alive." In fact Budge was obsessed with the papyrus. He arranged for a tin smith to make a cylindrical box to protect the roll. He evaded the chief of police of Luxor, who was carrying out orders from the Director of the Service of Antiquities. The Ani papyrus was stored in a small building nearby the old Luxor Hotel, where it had been placed under government guard. Budge and the antiquities dealers first attempted to get the guards drunk, then to bribe them to leave their posts for an hour. Finally they arranged for a crew to quietly dig under the wall. A substantial supper was arranged for the guards and while they feasted, the conspirators removed the papyrus of Ani along with numerous other finds through the two foot square hole they had dug for the purpose earlier in the evening. Secreting the papyrus aboard a steamer at midnight, Budge arrived in Cairo, and with the help of members of the British army, managed to get the papyrus off to London.

* * * * *
Here's where the real trouble began. Budge cut the papyrus into 37 nearly equal lengths for ease of handling. The sheets were glued onto wooden boards to keep then rigid. Fortunately Budge immediately commissioned a facsimile to be prepared. An exquisite limited edition was produced by color lithography in 1890 preserving forever the awesome beauty of the ancient original. Meanwhile the translation began which took five years and a companion volume of translation was released in 1895. Meanwhile, the extraordinary nature of the find encouraged the British Museum to display the sheets under a large skylight in a central hall. The glue and direct sunlight damaged the papyrus beyond repair. The translation had also revealed that many of the cuts were made in the wrong places, thus chapters were interrupted, vignettes were split, and text was left far from its accompanying image.

Book designer James Wasserman arranged to photograph his extremely rare copy of the British Museum facsimile of the papyrus. Utilizing the modern magic of computers and state-of-the-art production techniques, the images were scanned, reassembled, and electronically recut to best display the 78 foot papyrus as a book. A team of Egyptologists was led by Dr. Ogden Goelet of the Department of Near Eastern Studies at New York University, who wrote an overall commentary on the work along with a plate by plate The bulk of the translation used is that of the late Dr. Raymond O. Faulkner, whose work is universally acknowledged as the most authoritative. It was updated by Dr. Goelet to reflect advances in Egyptian philology. Carol Andrews of the Department of Antiquities of the British Museum wrote the Preface and facilitated access to the original papyrus. Eva van Dassow acted as overall project editor. The work of these scholars made this publication as intellectually accurate as it is visually beautiful.

The translation of the text of each image is placed on the page directly below the image, allowing the reader, for the first time in 3500 years, to gaze on the images while reading the words of the papyrus. Uncluttered with footnotes or other extraneous matter, the papyrus is displayed with the intent of allowing the modern reader to experience the full depth of the original. The restoration of the unity of word and image in this publication of the Papyrus of Ani has brought to life one of the most important early spiritual treasures of mankind.

Editorial Review:

This reissue of The Egyptian Book of the Dead, a perennial favorite, features a newly designed cover. Inside, the legendary 3,500-year-old Papyrus of Ani—the most beautiful of the ornately illustrated Egyptian funerary scrolls ever discovered—is restored in its original sequences of text and artwork. Four exquisitely illustrated gatefold spreads and an acclaimed translation by two noted Egyptologists showcase the Papyrus's elaborately bordered images and convey its intended sense of motion and meaning.

Before the Pharaohs: Egypt's Mysterious Prehistory

Edward F. Malkowski

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Total reviews: 14 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Presents conclusive evidence that ancient Egypt was originally the remnant of an earlier, highly sophisticated civilization

• Supports earlier speculations based on myth and esoteric sources with scientific proof from the fields of genetics, engineering, and geology

• Provides further proof of the connection between the Mayans and ancient Egyptians

• Links the mystery of Cro-Magnon man to the rise and fall of this ancient civilization

In the late nineteenth century, French explorer Augustus Le Plongeon, after years of research in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, concluded that the Mayan and Egyptian civilizations were related--as remnants of a once greater and highly sophisticated culture. The discoveries of modern researchers over the last two decades now support this once derided speculation with evidence revealing that the Sphinx is thousands of years older than Egyptologists have claimed, that the pyramids were not tombs but geomechanical power plants, and that the megaliths of the Nabta Playa reveal complex astronomical star maps that existed 4,000 years before conventional historians deemed such knowledge possible.

Much of the past support for prehistoric civilization has relied on esoteric traditions and mythic narrative. Using hard scientific evidence from the fields of archaeology, genetics, engineering, and geology, as well as sacred and religious texts, Malkowski shows that these mythic narratives are based on actual events and that a highly sophisticated civilization did once exist prior to those of Egypt and Sumer. Tying its cataclysmic fall to the mysterious disappearance of Cro-Magnon culture, Before the Pharaohs offers a compelling new view of humanity’s past.

Discovering the Mysteries of Ancient America: Lost History And Legends, Unearthed And Explored

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Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The nursery rhyme begins, "In fourteen hundred and ninety two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue." Less well-known is the line that follows: "…to learn if the old maps were true." How can there be "old maps" of a land no one knew existed? Were others here before Columbus? What were their reasons for coming and what unexplained artifacts did they leave behind?

The oceans were highways to America rather than barriers, and when discoverers put ashore, they were greeted by unusual inhabitants. In Discovering the Mysteries of Ancient America, the author of The Atlantis Encyclopedia turns his sextant towards this hemisphere. Here is a collection of the most controversial articles selected from seventy issues of the infamous Ancient American magazine. They range from the discovery of Roman relics in Arizona and California's Chinese treasure, to Viking rune-stones in Minnesota and Oklahoma and the mysterious religions of ancient Americans. Many questions will be raised including:

What role did extraterrestrials have in the lives of ancient civilizations?

What ancient pyramids and towers tell us about the people who built them?

Are they some sort of portals to another dimension?

What prehistoric technologies have been discovered, and what can they tell us about early settlers, their religious beliefs, and possible other-worldly visitors?

Did El Dorado exist, and what of the legendary Fountain of Youth?

Was Atlantis in Cuba?

What are America’s lost races and what happened to them?

Discovering the Mysteries of Ancient America brings to the fore the once-hidden true past of America’s earliest civilizations

Frank Joseph is the author of The Atlantis Encyclopedia (New Page Books), as well as a dozen other books on history, prehistory, and metaphysics. He has been the editor-in-chief of Ancient American magazine since its first issue in 1993. He lives in Wisconsin.

Wayne May is the founder-publisher of Ancient American. Laura Lee is the award-winning producer and host of the nationally syndicated "The Laura Lee Show". David Hatcher Childress wrote the best-selling Lost Cities series. Zecharia Sitchin is the author of the best-selling Earth Chronicles series. Andrew Collins is world-renowned for his consistent bestsellers, including Gateway to Atlantis.

The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality

Cheikh Anta Diop

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Total reviews: 97 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Don't hate us because we're Beautiful! 5 out of 5 stars.
9 of 14 people found this review helpful.

Without a doubt the most critical and honest review of who the ancient Kemetians(Egyptians)were; Black Africans. This book should be on the shelf in every African-American home, as well as those in the Diaspora. It is the final stage in understanding who were are as a people. As the great Mr. Diop says:

"The oneness of KMT(Egypt)and black culture could not be stated more clearly. Because of this essential identity of genius, culture, and race, today all Negroes can legitimately trace their culture to ancient KMT(Egypt)and build a modern culture on that foundation. By this dynamic contact, the Negro will be convinced that these temples, these forests of columns, these pyramids, these colossi, these bas-reliefs, mathematics, medicine, and all the science, are indeed the work of his ancestors and that he has the right and a duty to claim this heritage."

Diop is no idiot proclaiming this fact just because it sounds good, every arguement that he makes is based upon meticulous research & FACTUAL evidence. Is it any wonder that Dr. John Henry Clarke, the scholar, fought for almost ten years to get his books published in the United States?

The recent King Tut exhibit that was on tour in the United States was a propoganda tour with it's fake euro-arab depiction of King Tut; The blacks that protested it got absolutely NO media coverage. Anyone with just a cursory knowledge of ancient Egypt knows King Tut could never have looked like that, his grandmother was a pure African Woman, Queen Tiye. (look it up and see for yourself)

Zawi Hawass is an idiot who was trained here in the U.S., in its overwhelmingly racist field of egyptology; run by people who find it hard to believe that this was an African civilization, even though the greeks and other ancients admit this fact wholeheartedly themselves in their writings.

It is even more sick that some would like to think that aliens from outer space built the pyramids... It is laughable that an Arab is the curator and spokesman for egypt antiquity when Arabs didn't invade & settle into the Holy land until around 640 AD.

The fact is that Egypt is and was founded by Black Africans and no amount of propoganda can hide this; at least to those of us who know the truth.

Editorial Review:

Now in its 30th printing, this classic presents historical, archaeological, and anthropological evidence to support the theory that ancient Egypt was a black civilization.

The Message of the Sphinx: A Quest for the Hidden Legacy of Mankind

Graham Hancock, Robert Bauval

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Total reviews: 77 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Fingerprints part 2 4 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Basically this book feels like the Egypt chapters of "Fingerprints of the Gods" slightly expanded with more detail. It isn't as interesting or as terrifying as "Fingerprints" but it is shorter and brings a more specific set of "evidence" to the table.
Bringing up Edgar Cayce weakens the authors' position considerably. Psychic readings, though fascinating, cannot be accepted as evidence in any scientific debate.
The authors beat us over the head with the concept of precession, leaving the reader to gasp out "Okay, I get it!"
Ample quotes from ancient Egyptian texts help to build up a seemingly plausible picture of a sky/earth duality and the construction of the Giza complex as a "model" of the sky around the constellation Orion. Descriptions of the Pyramids and the freakish degree of accuracy in their design seem to indicate that whatever they were built for, it was something very specific and intentional. The orthodox Egyptological view that the Queen's Chamber was "abandoned" unfinished in favor of the King's Chamber just doesn't hold up, in view of the apparent care which was taken by Pyramid architects. This would not have been a construction project that you could make up as you went along.
One problem I had with the authors' theory of a mysterious "Brotherhood of Horus" which had preserved technological and astronomical secrets through the ages from 10,500 bc (supposed date of the "First Time" and the building of the Sphinx) to the Pyramid Age (2500 bc) ... if they were able to sustain their secret society for that length of time, where are they now? Such a "brotherhood" should, conceivably, be robust enough to survive and continue to "manipulate society from behind the scenes" even today. Seems fishy to me, and is another weak point in the authors' presentation.
Their most compelling evidence cited is the unmistakeable signs of water erosion on the body of the Sphinx (also a crucial element from "Fingerprints.") Why do Egyptologists wilfully ignore this clear indication of the actual age of the monument?? I'd like to hear the orthodox explanation, which of course is not presented in this book.
One point that is driven home is the notion that modern Egyptology is a religion rather than a science. The "orthodox" view of ancient Egyptian history is based largely on findings made by amateur treasure hunters during the British colonial period a century or more ago. We have much more sophisticated techinques and a better quality of information now at our disposal; why are we clinging to beliefs based on older, less reliable research? In a true science, theories are changed when new data becomes available, but Egyptologists have a tendency to dismiss or ignore any data that challenges what they already believe. There's always value to be found in divergent thinking, even if it is eventually proven wrong. Off the top of my head, I refer to Galileo and Darwin as "divergent thinkers" whose theories (of a heliocentric solar system and of evolution, respectively) were ridiculed at first.
I can understand Egyptologists' professional indignance when confronted with theories from "armchair researchers" who have done no actual fieldwork, and have not devoted their lives to study of Egyptian antiquity. But Hancock and Bauval have come armed with a formidable collection of evidence, much of which consists of FACTS which can be proven (or debunked.) Where is the scholarly rebuttal from thw Egyptological community? It's not enough to dismiss these theories as "ridiculous." Can somebody prove WHY they're ridiculous? It should be easy for an expert to shoot down the so-called "fanciful yarn" presented in this book, but so far I've seen no-one do it.
Meanwhile there are legitimate discoveries to be made at Giza, based on clues found by ACTUAL field work at the site. There's tangible evidence suggesting the presence of still-undiscovered chambers inside the Great Pyramid and under the plateau near the Sphinx. Work on following these leads proceeds frustratingly slowly. Dr. Zahi Hawas jealously guards the area almost as if it was his own personal property ... any "secrets" found there could be of profound importance to all of mankind, but based on some follow-up reading I've done (beyond the scope of this book) I question whether the public will even be told the truth about what, if anything, is discovered.

Editorial Review:

In this riveting account of historical and archaeological investigation, the authors present hard evidence that the Sphinx, the Pyramids, and the other monuments at Giza are of far more ancient origin than previously believed. Complete with evidence of a conspiracy between the Egyptology establishment and various confidential organizations to keep the secrets of the Pyramids from the world, The Message of the Sphinx is also a modern-day detective story. of photos.