Posts Tagged ‘egypt’

On March 3rd, 2008 I entered a previously overlooked large tomb on the Giza plateau. I had come to this neglected area, west of the Great Pyramid, following new information that was set to challenge everything we know about the evolution of Giza’s famous monuments. In 1817 Henry Salt (1780-1827), the British Consul General in Egypt, an avid explorer and collector of Egyptian antiquities, recorded how he and Italian explorer Giovanni Caviglia (1770-1845), entered a network of Catacombs beneath the plateau, exploring them for a distance of “several hundred yards”. Even though they chanced upon three large, interconnected chambers, the two men abandoned their search and returned to the surface, having come upon no gold or treasure. What they did uncover has never been made public, and Salt’s memoirs recording their work remained unpublished until 2007, the site of the Catacombs being lost in the process.

Underworld of the Soul

What Salt and Caviglia found back in 1817 is of immense importance to the Egyptological world, for rumours concerning the existence of a lost underworld at Giza go back to the Pyramid age. Ancient Egyptian creation texts, as well as an assortment of funerary literature, i.e. books of the dead, speak of a hellish realm of darkness called the Duat, guarded by demons and snakes, which has to be navigated by the soul of the deceased to achieve rebirth and an afterlife among the stars.

In an ancient Egyptian funerary text called the Am-duat, the “Book of that which is in the Underworld”, the Duat is ruled by the falcon-headed god Sokar. He was patron of the sprawling cemeteries and pyramid fields that served the ancient city of Memphis, and in particular those at Rostau, the ancient name for Giza. Archaeologists have found textual evidence of the existence in South Giza of an important shrine to Sokar honouring something called the Shetayet, a name given to the Tomb of Osiris.

Adding to the belief that a physical representation of the pharaoh’s underworld existed at Giza is its ancient name, Rostau, which means something like the “mouth of the passages”. In the fourth-century AD Graeco-Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus (fl. AD 360-390), wrote of “subterranean fissures and winding passages called syringes” beneath the Pyramids, constructed before a great deluge in order that the memory of the ceremonies of the ancients might not be destroyed.

Arab travellers recorded similar tales. These spoke of subterranean passages created beneath the Great Pyramid by a legendary king named Saurid to preserve his race’s knowledge of the arts and sciences in advance of a cataclysm involving fire from heaven and a subsequent deluge.

As far back as the ninth century the ruling caliph, al-Mamoun, spent an enormous amount of energy tunnelling a hole through into the Great Pyramid hoping to find gold and treasure. This he failed to do, but those who came after him continued the trend, forever searching for hidden entrances to subterranean tunnels and vaults that were said to connect the Great Pyramid with the nearby Sphinx monument.

Wonderful Discoveries

Having determined to locate Salt’s lost Catacombs, I sought the help of the Association for Research and Enlightenment of Virginia Beach, VA, the research wing of the Edgar Cayce Foundation. Since the mid 1970s they have sponsored research expeditions in the hope of locating the lost Hall of Records, the name given to Giza’s lost underworld by their founding mentor Edgar Cayce (1877-1945). With their support our team made preparations to fly out to Egypt.

My intention was to investigate a seemingly unrecorded tomb west of the Great Pyramid that was in the search area indicated by Salt’ newly-discovered memoirs as concealing the entrance to the lost catacombs. This same general area of the plateau conformed to a ground-sky star correlation involving the stars of the constellation of Cygnus, the celestial swan, known also as the Northern Cross. In ancient Egyptian funerary texts Cygnus would appear to have signified the womb, navel and even the site of the vulva of a sky-goddess named Nuit, who is personified in the night sky as the Milky Way. It was in the terrestrial counterpart of Nuit’s womb, the so-called Shetayet, that the god Osiris achieved transformation into an ascended being, and there seemed every good reason to conclude that Salt’s Catacombs were the entrance to this underworld realm, lost to the world for thousands of years.

Having reached the tomb on camels that eventful day in March 2008, Egyptological researcher Nigel Skinner Simpson, my wife Sue Collins and I explored its every nook and cranny without discovering the entrance to any lost Catacombs. About to move on to other nearby tombs to continue the search there, we noticed a crack in a rock face, once sealed by a mud brick wall. Peering inside, an incredible sight greeted us – a vast cave chamber filled with rock debris, and enhanced here and there to make it more rectangular in appearance.

Hesitantly, I descended into the darkness, as flocks of bats exited the entrance, disturbed by this rude intrusion into their natural habitat. After exploring the opening chamber and various side compartments, I entered a long cave tunnel that headed in the direction of Giza’s Third Pyramid. In the pitch darkness, I navigated a seemingly never ending carpet of fallen rocks and boulders. The uneven floor, thwart with dangerous cracks and hollows, was covered with animal bones, most likely those of camel carcasses dragged in by hyenas.

Dangers in the Darkness

Reaching a natural bifurcation in the cave tunnel, I felt it the right time to double back and return to the surface, having taken some 20 minutes to travel just 80-90 metres. On subsequent visits, Sue and I penetrated the darkness for a much greater distance, before we began suffering the ill effects of oxygen starvation. Adding to our problems was the constant threat of life-threatening diseases associated with bats and bat guano, as well as the shocking discovery in the caves of a species of spider that we tentatively identified as the white widow.

Clearly, we had not found Cayce’s Hall of Records, or the legendary Tomb of Osiris. Yet in the deepest cave compartment reached we found lightly incised parallel lines on the walls, as well as other evidence of untouched archaeological features, giving hope that the caves might provide firm evidence of human activity on the plateau going back before even the Pyramid age. The cave complex’s existence might even throw new light on the ancient Egyptians’ belief in a Duat underworld existing at Giza in its role as Rostau, the “mouth of the passages”.

Snake Guardian

Most extraordinary of all is the story told to us by an elderly tomb guardian, who we encountered in the vicinity of the Tomb of the Birds. He refuses point blank to enter the caves. When asked why, the man, who wore a headscarf and traditional galabeya, said that they were the abode of a giant snake called el-Hanash. Apparently, it is “nine meters (30 feet)” long, and anyone attempting to enter el-kahf (Arabic for “the cave”) will be squeezed to death in its powerful coils. It is a fable, of course, yet one that echoes the very ancient belief that snakes of great size inhabited the Duat underworld, a tradition that persisted into Roman times with the belief that beneath the Great Pyramid reposed a god in the form of a huge serpent called Agathodaimon, the “good spirit”.

I later learnt more about the mysterious el-Hanash. One story told to me by a local craftsman in Nazlet el-Samman, the village of the Pyramids, related how this underworld serpent protects the entrance to the “Hall of Records”. He will spit venom in the face and blind anyone who attempts to steal the great “diamond” it protects. Yet one day a chosen one will enter the caves and el-Hanash will blind them in just one eye. This person will go on to enter the Hall of Records and find the great jewel that has the power to bestow on them great powers.

It is a strange tale, tainted by modern new age thought, although it seems to echo the ancient Egyptian belief that the Underworld of the Soul, or Tomb of Osiris, contains a power object that radiates an unearthly light. Clearly, nothing like this was found in the caves by Salt and Caviglia. Yet they left this underground world only partially explored, as we did ourselves, offering hope that one day this mystery will finally be revealed. Until then, it remains safely under the protection of el-Hanash.

Copyright Andrew Collins, 2009 – All theories and evidence presented in this article are expounded in Beneath the Pyramids by Andrew Collins (Fourth Dimension Press, Virginia Beach, VA, 2009).

Andrew Collins will be a guest on The Explore Your Spirit with Kala Show in spring 2010 . Check back for the official show date coming soon.

More about Andrew Collins…

Andrew Collins, is a science and history writer and the author of various books that challenge the way we perceive the past. They include From the Ashes of Angels (1996), which shows that the Watchers of the book of Enoch were shamans responsible for the Neolithic revolution, and that their homeland—the biblical Eden—was southeast Turkey, where archaeologists have recently found the oldest stone temple in the world; Gods of Eden (1998), which reveals that Egyptian civilization is thousands of years older than is conventionally believed; Gateway to Atlantis (2000), which demonstrates that Plato’s Atlantis was located in Cuba and the Bahamas, and The Cygnus Mystery (2006), which argues that veneration of the Cygnus constellation was responsible for the world’s earliest sky religions. His latest book Beneath the Pyramids uncovers Egypt’s cave underworld for the first time. Andrew, born in 1957, lives with his wife Sue near Marlborough, Wiltshire. For more information on Andrew Collins and his work, go to www.andrewcollins.com

Edgar Cayce’s Association for Research and Enlightenment reported the following information from their headquarters in Virginia Beach, Virginia on August 25th 2009:  Explorer and author Andrew Collins, funded by Edgar Cayce’s A.R.E. Archeological Research Fund, has found and begun exploration of a subterranean network of previously unrecorded chambers and passageways beneath the Giza plateau, home to the Great Pyramid and Sphinx. Collins hopes that his discovery will eventually lead to finding a secret chamber alluded to by the ancient Egyptians as the “Tomb of God,” a structure known more popularly today as the “Hall of Records.”

The trail began in 2002 when the British Museum needed to relocate its library and archives of the Department of Ancient Egypt and Sudan. During the move, the memoirs of Henry Salt, British Consul General in Egypt from 1815 until his death in 1827, were found again. Although previously catalogued, the contents had not been studied in depth. Some extracts were published in the nineteenth century, but it was only when the British Museum reproduced the complete work in The Sphinx Revealed, A Forgotten Record of Pioneering Excavations that full details of Salt’s amazing exploration of “catacombs” under the Giza plateau came to light. Salt, in the company of Italian explorer Giovanni Caviglia, conducted these explorations in 1817, exploring underground tunnels for a distance of “several hundred yards” before entering a spacious chamber that communicated with three others, from which went several “labyrinthick” passages, one of which was investigated by Caviglia for a distance of 300 feet. Although these passages are of natural origin (meaning caves), there are hints that some parts of this subterranean network of chambers and tunnels are man-made, and stretch beneath the plateau on which the Pyramids are located.

When Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, was initially informed of Collins’ discovery, he thought it was the same passageways that Dr. Abbas Mohamed Abbas had located using ground penetration radar (GPR) equipment in 2006. During an extensive survey conducted with an all Egyptian team, Dr. Abbas came across evidence suggestive of previously unknown chambers and tunnels up to 80 feet (25 meters) below the Giza bedrock, close to the Great Pyramid, Second Pyramid and Sphinx. Yet in a subsequent meeting, Dr. Hawass was shown photos of the caves discovered by Collins and his team and said that he was not sure that they had ever been explored by modern archaeologists.

Explorer and author Andrew Collins, working with Egyptology researcher Nigel Skinner-Simpson, found the entrance and managed to enter the massive caves and – despite the presence of colonies of bats, venomous spiders and fallen rock debris – they journeyed for some distance before breathing became difficult. After procuring the proper equipment, his team, which included his wife Sue Collins, re-entered the caves. Collins tells the story of his discovery in a new book due out this fall titled Beneath the Pyramids and published by 4th Dimension Press (an imprint of A.R.E. Press). It reveals a personal journey of exploration and discovery that is breathtaking to read from start to finish, lavishly illustrated with full color photos, and available for pre-order at ARECatalog.com.

According to Collins, since the caves are tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of years old, they may have influenced the development not only of the famous pyramid field but also ancient Egyptian beliefs in an underworld where the soul achieves resurrection before ascending to the stars. “Ancient funerary texts clearly alluded to the existence of a subterranean world in the vicinity of the Giza pyramids, calling it variously the Underworld of the Soul and the Shetayet, quite literally the Tomb of God,” said Collins. “Hopefully, the existence of the caves will help us understand the earliest human activity on the plateau.”

Numerous Edgar Cayce readings reference identical records of ancient civilizations hidden underground in Bimini, in Egypt, and in the Yucatan and contend that the “Hall of Records” will one day be discovered. It is possible that Collins’s cave discoveries will open the way to confirming the existence of the Hall of Records, which Cayce prophesized would be entered via an entrance close to the Sphinx in Egypt.

Edgar Cayce founded the non-profit Association for Research and Enlightenment (A.R.E.) in 1931, to explore spirituality, holistic health, intuition, dream interpretation, psychic development, reincarnation, and ancient mysteries—all subjects that frequently came up in the more than 14,000 documented psychic readings given by Cayce, who died in 1945. Through its many programs, services, publications, and membership outreach, Edgar Cayce’s A.R.E. provides individuals from all walks of life and a variety of religious backgrounds with tools for personal transformation and healing at all levels—body, mind, and spirit. A.R.E. Press has been publishing books since 1931 as well, with the mission of furthering the work of the A.R.E. by publishing books, DVDs, and CDs to support the organization’s goal of helping people change their lives for the better. In 2009, A.R.E. Press launched its second imprint, 4th Dimension Press. While A.R.E. Press features topics related to the work of Edgar Cayce in the fields of spirituality, intuition, psychic abilities, ancient mysteries, philosophy, comparative religious studies, personal and spiritual development, and holistic health, 4th Dimension Press allows us to take our publishing efforts further with like-minded and expansive explorations into the mysteries and spirituality of our existence. For more information about Edgar Cayce’s A.R.E., please visit EdgarCayce.org and ARECatalog.com.

Edgar Cayce’s A.R.E. has joined the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE) as a Research Support Member (RSM) involved in the governance, research, and expedition interests in Egypt. A.R.E. continues to cooperate with and support archaeological research in Egypt—especially in the search for ancient records. As an ARCE member, A.R.E. will interface with prestigious universities and museums on the Board of Governors of the ARCE.

According to A.R.E. Director John Van Auken, “This is all part of A.R.E. management’s efforts to expand A.R.E.’s global role in research and enlightenment. ARCE will provide logistical support in Cairo for archaeological expeditions in Egypt, including professional archaeological permits, excavation licenses, and visa extensions. We are looking forward to networking with the other fine organizations already supporting ARCE.”

The ARCE is a nonprofit organization founded in 1948 by a consortium of educational and cultural institutions to support research on all aspects of Egyptian history and culture. Among ARCE’s many great achievements is their relationship with the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) within the Egyptian Ministry of Culture. ARCE is viewed as making important contributions that serve to help Egypt directly in its pursuit of cultural heritage preservation. You can visit the ARCE’s Web site at www.arce.org.

More about the A.R.E.
Edgar Cayce founded the non-profit Association for Research and Enlightenment (A.R.E.) in 1931, to explore spirituality, holistic health, intuition, dream interpretation, psychic development, reincarnation, and ancient mysteries—all subjects that frequently came up in the more than 14,000 documented psychic readings given by Cayce, who died in 1945. The mission of A.R.E. is simply to help people around the world change their lives for the better through the ideas and information found in the readings The Virginia Beach headquarters is a popular site for locals and tourists with free daily lectures, a Health Center and Spa, the Cayce/Reilly School of Massotherapy, an extensive metaphysical library, a meditation garden, a stone labyrinth, and a bookstore and gift shop. Visitors from around the world come to our conferences to hear expert speakers on subjects like ancient mysteries, holistic health, and spiritual development. A.R.E. also maintains an affiliation with Atlantic University. Through its many programs, services, publications, and membership outreach, Edgar Cayce’s A.R.E. provides individuals from all walks of life and a variety of religious backgrounds with tools for personal transformation and healing at all levels—body, mind, and spirit. For more information about Edgar Cayce’s A.R.E., please visit EdgarCayce.org.

We both use intuition when visiting the ancient sites of Egypt. Mine is more an intuitive echo, an attraction towards a certain area, a doorway, a stone or a patch of sunlight, which might hold a secret, whereas Robert, the cosmic detective, deduces and concludes, measures, seeks out and finds clues and evidence from the ancient archive. He picks up stardust, magnetic hints which zoom into his head like comets.

He is Sherlock Holmes and I am his Dr Watson. His brain can almost be heard whizzing around like clockwork and waves of energy seem to surround him like sonar. When he is on the track of something he is unstoppable and has no idea of time passing. Atmosphere pulls me into a haze, a trance, a stream of consciousness, a meditative inner state where receptors are open to unseen currents and tensions, ley lines and whispers of the collective memory. Between us we navigate the furrows and folds of ancient invisible boundaries and scoop up the residue of forgotten plans.

Thus it was that upon seeing the Great Sphinx for the first time we both gulped because we saw things as they once had been. Anubis, crouching, his slim body stretched out in guardian repose, long legs forward, spine straight, a guard dog. No lion – even in the imagination. We sensed a watery place, a navigation, an inundation, not rain, but flood. The dumpling head that sits there now seemed to scream out like a denial. The pharaoh’s face, that Mona Lisa enigmatic smile: Above it in our inner eye loomed the sharp and listening ears of Anubis.

This was how it started. The search for clues. Collecting and reading, in many cases, translating early travellers’ tales, which we collected from all over the world, with their descriptions of the small chamber hidden in the haunches of the body, and these descriptions not made by experts or Egyptologists or even archaeologists, but by ordinary adventurers, travellers writing home with descriptions of what they had seen. They saw what we can never see because the restoration work, as it is called, has succeeded in covering up all the interesting bits in 1926 with tons of modern cement and concrete.

Many times we tried the patience of the Inspectors who accompanied us into the sphinx enclosure and the Valley Temple. We stayed too late, we strayed too far, Robert leapt across rooftops and slithered into pits and trenches, immune to everyone and everything, not hearing whistles or the clanking of keys telling him it was time to leave, or noticing the light fade. The keys that we sought were not those that close and lock but those that open and reveal. We hope that we have opened a whole new dawn for the silent sphinx and that other people will follow up the story and help to solve the Sphinx Mystery…..

Listen to the interview with Kala and Robert and Olivia Temple on The Explore Your Spirit with Kala Show. The show airs on May 29th, 2009 and can be found in the archives here: http://exploreyourspirit.com/Media/shows2.shtml#TEMPLESPHINX

More About Robert and Olivia Temple:
Professor Robert Temple is author of a dozen challenging and provocative books, commencing with The Sirius Mystery. His books have been translated into a total of 44 foreign languages. He combines solid academic scholarship with an ability to communicate with the mass public. He is Visiting Professor of the History and Philosophy of Science at Tsinghua University in Beijing, and previously held a similar position at an American university. For many years he was a science writer for the Sunday Times, the Guardian, and a science reporter for Time-Life, as well as a frequent reviewer for Nature and profile writer for The New Scientist. He is a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, and has been a member of the Egypt Exploration Society since the 1970s, as well as a member of numerous other academic societies. He has produced, written and presented a documentary for Channel Four and National Geographic Channels on his archaeological discoveries in Greece and Italy, and he was at one time an arts reviewer on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Kaleidoscope’. In 1993, his translation of the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh was performed at the Royal National Theatre in London. With his wife, Olivia, an author and artist, he is co-author and translator of the first complete English version of Aesop’s Fables, which attracted a great deal of international press attention at the time of its release, as the earlier translations had suppressed some of the fables because of Victorian prudery. OLIVIA TEMPLE is an artist and writer, who has contributed to many well known magazines in the UK. She was co-author with her husband of Aesop: The Complete Fables (Penguin Classics). She organised the Egyptian, Greek and Italian archaeological research trips for the Project for Historical Dating, and took part in all the archaeometric dating work in Egypt with the permission of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities. She works closely with her husband, she translated all the French early travellers’ reports on the Sphinx, consulted on and edited the book, and took many of the photos which appear in The Sphinx Mystery. She has co-designed this website. Olivia is also director of an opera and theatrical design archive. More info at: http://www.sphinxmystery.info

Add The Explore Your Spirit with Kala Show to your YouTube Favorites as this year we’ll be rolling out new YouTube videos, some to do with Kala and her teachings, others offering more information about the shows.

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I’ve created a special series of guided meditations to guide and lift the energy from your solar plexus chakra up to the heart chakra. The meditations assist in bringing forth the Higher Self within each person to release the inner wisdom within your soul. Each meditation takes you on a relaxing and inspired journey using beautiful natural settings while offering the opportunity to interact with guides and other beings of light throughout each journey.

This series features three meditations, which are:

Tibetan Mountain Journey

The mountains of Tibet are calling to you, Are you ready to take the journey…

Journey through mountains, waterfalls and ice caves in this delightful and adventurous meditation through the Himalayan mountains of Tibet. The Tibetan Mountain Journey meditation is one of a three part series, which includes Spirit of Hawaii, Egyptian Mystery Temple and Tibetan Mountain Journey. The series was created to guide and lift energy from the solar plexus chakra to the heart chakra and to bring forth the Higher Self within each person to share the inner wisdom. Each meditation invites the listener on a relaxing and inspired journey using beautiful natural settings while offering the opportunity to interact with guides and other beings of light throughout each journey.

The soothing voice of Kala Ambrose comforts the soul along the journey. Accompanied by an ethereal harmony of flute and keyboard, the body, mind and spirit consciousness experience a sense of harmony with nature while underlying tones of falling water allow the meditative mind to settle deep into the experience.

Spirit of Hawaii

It’s time to connect with the loving Spirit of Hawaii, the secrets of the islands are meant to be shared…

There are sacred areas which enhance our intuitive abilities and allow us to connect deeper with the Earth and our soul.  The islands of Hawaii circulate this loving energy giving birth to new ideas and creativity.

The Spirit of Hawaii meditation is one of a three part series, which includes Spirit of Hawaii, Egyptian Mystery Temple and Tibetan Mountain Journey. The series was created to guide and lift energy from the solar plexus chakra to the heart chakra and to bring forth the Higher Self within each person to share the inner wisdom.  Each meditation invites the listener on a relaxing and inspired journey using beautiful natural settings while offering the opportunity to interact with guides and other beings of light throughout each journey.

The soothing voice of Kala Ambrose comforts the soul along the journey.  Accompanied by a subdued celestial melody, the body, mind and spirit consciousness experience deep tranquil moments allowing the experience to unfold in an empowering manner

and

Egyptian Mystery Temple

The Egyptian Goddess Hathor awaits your presence in her temple, will you heed her call….

The ancient temples of Egypt guided initiates through a series of rituals connecting each seeker with the energy of the universe. Many who journeyed through these rituals returned with the ability to speak to the gods and goddesses of Egypt.

The Egyptian Mystery Temple meditation is one of a three part series, which includes Spirit of Hawaii, Egyptian Mystery Temple and Tibetan Mountain Journey. The series was created to guide and lift energy from the solar plexus chakra to the heart chakra  and to bring forth the Higher Self within each person to share the inner wisdom. Each meditation invites the listener on a relaxing and inspired journey using beautiful natural settings while offering the opportunity to interact with guides and other beings of light throughout each journey.

The soothing voice of Kala Ambrose comforts the soul along the journey.  Accompanied by lush keyboards creating gentle melodies and blissful moods, the body, mind and spirit consciousness experience a sense of deep calm and mystery allowing the meditative experience to unfold as it should in divine order

Kala lends her powerful voice and energy in this series of Guided Meditation’s designed to illuminate the soul, awaken the mind and guide the listener within on a wondrous journey. Carefully crafted, Kala’s uplifting and empowering meditations allow beginners to revel in the joy of meditation with a guide, while more experienced meditation practitioners will enjoy peeling back the many layers of this work which allows for new experiences each time the meditation is played.

These Guided Meditations can be purchased on iTunes and Audible.com, where you can listen from your computer, burn to a CD or transfer as an MP3 file to your Apple iPod or over 500 other devices. Audible is home to millions of listeners who’ve discovered a new way to receive the entertainment, information, and knowledge they seek.

In great love, gratitude and joy!
*~ Kala ~*