Forbidden History - The Pyramid Code

Episode Date: June 13, 2024

Ancient pyramids are among the greatest wonders of the world and exist across many civilizations. In this episode of the Forbidden History podcast, we explore the origins of these structures, as experts question if they were independently constructed or perhaps the design of something more mysterious… Cast List: Klint Janulis: Archaeologist & Former Special Forces Operative Lynn Picknett: Historian and researcher specialising in exposing historical conspiracies. She is also the co-author of several notable works Andrew Gough: Writer, presenter and editor of The Heretic Magazine  Tony McMahon: Former BBC news producer, author, print journalist and historian  Dr. Karen Bellinger: Anthropologist, archaeologist, and historian  Dr. Bob Bianchi: Art historian Dr. Meredith Brand: Archaeologist & Egyptologist Hugh Newman: Author & Megalith Enthusiast Dr. Sergio Gómez Chávez: Archaeologist Marianne Tames-Demauras: Egyptologist & Archaeological Scientist Dr. Sheila K. Hoffman: Art Historian, Iconologist and Senior Lecturer at the University of Massachusetts Sam Osmanagich: Author & Pyramid Researcher Eric Meyers: Narrator Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Forbidden History Podcast. This program is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. It contains mature adult themes. Listener discretion is advised. They are some of the greatest wonders in the world, pyramids, and they're found across the globe. Are they simply tombs or much more? Were they built by ancient civilizations or by something more mysterious? Nobody knows for certain why the pyramids were built.

For whom, when, and why, those remain the questions. And if someone tells you they have the answer, they're either delusional or lying. We just don't know. Are they tombs? Are they space stations? Are they power stations? Are they spacecraft?

I mean, you name it. Every theory imaginable has been brought up about pyramids. Pyramids are energy amplifiers and they are energy machines. There are pyramid structures across the world, the iconic ones of Egypt, but also those in Mexico, Cambodia, Sudan, Greece, Peru, and Italy. But how much do we really know about them? And did many different civilizations independently create the same type of building, or were they given the blueprints by a mysterious common ancestor?

We love pyramids in popular culture because they harken back to this time that we can only imagine. For some of us it relates to the biblical stories we heard. For others, it's just imagining these massive societies. And the only thing left is these huge monuments. So every pyramid represents a fantastic mystery. For something as huge and impressive as the ancient pyramids, there are relatively few answers. It's totally surprising how little is actually known for certain about them. There is evidence for a teacher culture with the pyramids that have sprung up all over the world. They all are aligned to the cardinal points. They all have a causeway.

They all have a mortuary temple. None of them have tombs. So whoever came up, this blueprint passed it on all across the globe. How did they do that? All the fringe theories about the pyramids that they were actually built in 10,500 BC that they were built by, aliens, that they were built by Atlanteans, that all the pyramids around the world are somehow united or even speaking to each other. All of this comes under a kind of a pseudo-science which is described as pyramidology.

The Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt, a huge statement that has survived from time long ago. But who built it and why? The ancient Egyptians built pyramids as tombs for their pharaohs during the old kingdom period. these were expressions of power and prestige as much as they were intended to be a final resting place for the Pharaoh and a storage place for everything that the Pharaoh is thought to need as he ascended into the afterlife and took on his kingly role again there. The chronology of ancient Egypt is in debate because they're all relative dates, not absolute dates. We are fairly sure the pyramids were built in the third millennium BC. And it's a question of where in the third millennium do you want to fix them?

When it was erected by at least 2,500 BC, outside of today's Cairo, the Great Pyramid was a spectacular structure. It was said to be covered in sheets of smooth white limestone, and possibly topped by a golden triangle. It would have been a truly breathtaking sight. Meredith Brand is an Egyptologist from the American University in Cairo, and very familiar with these ancient monuments. We're here in front of the Great Pyramid of Hufu.

This massive structure is 93.5 million cubic feet of stone. It's 481 feet tall, and its size are 71 feet in length. This remarkable feat of architectural engineering has 26,000, foot tall ceilings and is 150 feet long. There's some exciting research that's been done recently with muon particles. These are cosmic rays that have been measured by a bunch of scientists and they have found the potential for a void above the grand gallery. Maybe it could be a hidden chamber, maybe it could be some kind of architectural anomaly, but it points to potentially some very exciting features of the pyramids that we don't know about yet.

The Great Pyramid at Giza is in many ways exquisitely. precisely and incredibly well built. It is situated in terms of a couple of degrees of precision on a north-south, east-west axis. It really is an engineering marvel. So how do we know the great pyramid is Kufu's pyramid? We really don't. We know that he venerated it and created a boat

and put it in the ground next to the pyramid. We know that his name appears to have been inscribed some graffiti inside the relieving chamber But there's no other evidence. In fact, there's only one image of the Pharaoh Kufu, and it's a tiny little sculpture in the Cairo Museum. Is that all that you'd expect for the great Pharaoh Kufu, the builder of the Great Pyramid?

The Great Pyramid of Giza is in fact the burial place of Kufu. We know that because there are some inscriptions inside the pyramid, and we have the papyrus documentation. that has just recently been found, naming an administrator involved in its construction whose name is now known as Merrer. And so if you want to argue that the pyramids were not built by the ancient Egyptians,

you have to contradict and prove that the papyrite just found are bogus. The lack of clarity around the date of the pyramid's building, Pyramids Building, its use, plus the near absence of naming identification and traditional ceremonial goods, has sparked questions about its true purpose. It is likely that it was something more, some kind of initiation chamber. We simply don't know. The most recent explanation about the lack of inscriptions and relief decorations,

within the Great Pyramid rests on that Kufu was a god on earth. So if Kufu is of divine status, Egyptian tradition prohibits one god from being obeisance to another god. The Great Pyramid of Giza in Cairo is one of the great wonders of the ancient world. Egyptologists agree it was constructed around 2,500 BC as a burial chamber of the pharaoh Kufu. But there are some who disagree. Skeptics say the monument is missing several key things, traditional hieroglyphs on the walls,

proper identification tying it to Kufu, and ceremonial burial items. It's really difficult to date the pyramids, especially the ones some have attempted to date them from how the entrance chamber is orientated towards the pole star. Others have looked for organic materials such as axes and ropes that were found in boat pits and nearby. But that leads to the question, was this organic material? Is it from people who are restoring the pyramid or building it? That's what we don't know. But the Egyptologists are confident they have the facts right. Dr. Meredith Brand believes that the Great Pyramid is a wonder of the ancient world, that its origins

are entirely human and can be dated to around 2,500 BC. We know Hufu reigned in the mid-26th century BCE, but the actual date itself has been a bit harder to pin down. Now obviously you can't do any sort of radiocarbon dating on the stone, but the core of the structure, the stones were built in a more haphazard manner with mortar in between, and some of this mortar has organic material. So several scientists have collected samples for radiocarbon dating. Now the results of these samples are a bit complicated. Some of them hit at the right date of Fufu, and some of them are 100 to 300 years older. So this requires more re-evaluation and

testing to pin down the actual date. But we are pretty confident with the radiocarbon dating that it is somewhere around this type. Hugh Newman is a British megalith enthusiast with some controversial theories. He believes the Great Pyramid is much older than academics proclaim. Few people agree with him, but he's on a mission to prove his case.

Well, there's some ideas about who could have built the pyramids. We're talking about semi-divine god kings of ancient Egypt called the followers or disciples of Horus. They had the technology somehow. to construct the pyramid. And the research that I've been doing connects them with giants from the Bible lands and were involved in the construction of the Great Pyramid,

the Pyramids of Dashir, the Red and Bent Pyramid, also Dendera. You start looking at the dating, you look at the Sphinx, and when the whole Giza plateau could have been laid out, it seems like it was designed all as one, and it was a very great mine,

or mines, behind the construction. the geometry, the mathematics, and the whole surveying of these particular areas. I think we are imperfectly informed about why the particular plateau of Giza was chosen. But one can suggest that it was on a slight rise from which the spirit of the dead pharaohs could overlook their domain.

The Nile River, in antiquity at the time the pyramids were built, built, came a lot closer to the site, so the transport of material would be facilitated. And there were probably no other pre-barrials in the area. And all of those, I think, are contributing factors that led to decision that this is the spot on which we're going to build these structures. The Great Pyramid and the Giza Plateau appears to have been laid out in a grand plan, aligning the Great Pyramid perfectly north, south, east and west. So there are astronomical alignments associated with the pyramids as well.

The three pyramids appear to mirror Orion in the night sky. And what's really interesting to me is the fact that Tioa Takan in Mexico seems to be almost the same. It has three main pyramids and they almost align precisely to the mirrored version of Orion. So if this is the case, you know, is there a mother culture that shared this knowledge or did the Egyptians even travel to Central America? The evidence seems to point that this is indeed the case. There is no question that the pyramids at the Giza Plateau are aligned. The suggestion that they are aligned with celestial constellations or stars is worth considering

because after all, before we had GPS and other sophisticated surveying tools, ancient mariners set their course by the stars, which were constants. Tio Tewaacan is a huge pyramid complex in Mexico City. According to some, it is aligned with the Great Pyramid. Sergio Gomez is one of the top archaeologists at Tio Tijuanaquan. The origins of Tio Tewa Wachan date back to the year 400 BC. The entire city is perfectly aligned. according to a master plan that continues to surprise us.

All the buildings of the entire city have the same orientation of 15 degrees, 17 minutes deviated to the east of the north, and there is no other construction in Teotihuacan that does not keep the same orientation. That's why it's amazing. They built the city according to this orientation so that the whole city would operate

as a great astronomical clock, a solar clock, It also tells us that we have signs that Teotihuacan was perfectly planned in all its aspects, not only in terms of orientation, but also in terms of the impressive drainage system that continues to operate just as it did when it was built more than 1800 years ago. Another intriguing element of the pyramid complexes around the globe, in particular Giza and Teotihuacan, is the presence of what appears to be Orion's belt. Is it coincidence, or is it somehow the encoding of information about a constellation that was really important to the ancients

and perhaps associated with the pyramid builders themselves? We still have much to learn about the pyramids at Tio Tewaqan. Who built them? For what purpose? And are they mysteriously connected to the great pyramid at Giza? All pyramids have the same characteristics. characteristics. One, they're orientated towards the cardinal points, north, south, east, west. Two, they have a causeway, a ceremonial path leading to the pyramid. Three, they have a mortuary

chamber, a little temple in front of the pyramid where you would worship. All pyramids have those. So it seems that the deeply mysterious pyramids had other functions, ritual functions that we can only really just make stabs at, because we don't have the ancient Egyptian mindset. Their entire life was just standing in line for the afterlife. It was queuing up for the next life. And everything they did, as human beings,

was about that, and especially about enabling the pharaoh to go off into the afterlife and become God. The Pyramid of the Feathered Serpent at Teotihuacan is believed to have been at the center of this Mesoamerican metropolis, but mysteries around its origin remain. Heavy rains recently uncovered extraordinary, long tunnel, underneath the pyramid of Teotihuacan. And archaeologists went down and they were puzzled to find bits of pyrite and mica

clearly embedded in the wall purposefully. They weren't sure what it was. They happened to extinguish the artificial light, and it lit up as if they were outside of the wall. under the night sky, surrounded by stars. We don't know who built the pyramids at Teotihuacan. We know that the site was established in around 400 BC and reached a peak a thousand years later.

So this is a major, very sophisticated civilization. Their city covers eight square miles. It's carefully gritted. There's at least 2,000 private residences. There are plazas and temples. And everything is linked beautifully in a perfectly solar-aligned avenue, the avenue of the dead.

I mean, we don't know who did it, though. And that's because they left some glyphs, but it's a language we have not cracked yet. We may never know who built Teyatua Khan, but we do know that its name means birthplace of the gods, and were those gods extraterrestrial? Is there a connection between the pyramids of Egypt and those discovered in Mexico and other parts of the world?

For some reason, pyramids seem to hold a real grip on the human imagination. Are these pyramids tombs? Are they a means of communicating with aliens, passing UFOs? Are they a way of aligning with the stars? Are they a way of launching a king, a pharaoh spirit into outer space? All these theories have been posited about the pyramids. About an hour's drive from the Great Pyramid is Sakara. There lies what is believed.

to be the oldest pyramid in Egypt, the pyramid of Jocer, also known as the step pyramid because of its design. The so-called step pyramid built for Zozer at Sakara is kind of like a missing link for archaeologists. Its importance actually can't be overstated, and that's because it's proof that the Egyptians developed the technology to build pyramids

and they did it over a period of time and the idea that they did not have the technology, technology or the knowledge or the means to build pyramids is utterly absurd. Marianne Tames de Mores is an Egyptologist who specializes in Jocer's pyramid at Sakara. We are at the funerary complex of the step pyramid of the king Joser, who actually built this around 2,600 BCE, so that's over 4,600 years ago. This pyramid measures at the base 390s. 97 feet times 358 feet. It has a height of 197 feet.

It has a whopping volume of 12 million cubic feet of clay and stone. And we believe that it would have taken around 19 years to build. When you look at the size of the pyramids, of any of them, they're all huge, the scale, the effort required to construct them. Could a pharaoh really construct their own tomb during their lifetime? and worthy tombs. I think the step pyramid complex of Zohzer is one of the great, great wonders of the world.

They are cutting stone to approximate the size of a brick. You have to imagine how labor intensive that is. We admire the huge blocks of the Kufu Pyramid. But now you've got these guys making little tiny bricks out of stone. So it's, the step pyramid is just a delight in that sense. Pyramids around the world, there's some aspects of them which are quite similar, and that's why a lot of people think there are these connections between Egypt and Mesoamerican

pyramids and so forth. But I don't believe that's the case. I believe that it would be, it's more like an archetypal form. It's a shape that basically connects Earth to the sky, and it would have been an easy access to travel to the skies, to travel to the gods. So I believe it's, It's a shape that would have been employed because of those reasons. We find pyramids all over the world usually associated with emerging agricultural economies that are becoming big because they are the simplest to build in terms of engineering. It is the most elemental of building structures and the most stable and sturdy. All of these people are building high in order to get essentially closer to God.

And in addition, have God recognize you, or the gods, because the gods had to have their attention called to you, otherwise you were just this tiny little ant crawling all over the earth. So you can imagine the pyramids were a great big sound saying, hey, here we are. What was so special about the step pyramid is that it was an intermediary between what was called mastaba slabs or just flat pieces of stone set on the sand

that people were buried underneath in the early stages of the old kingdom and the full-fledged pyramid. Because if you can imagine just like a child would build something with blocks, successively smaller mastabas were stacked. And then they decided maybe it would be nice if it was smooth on the outside and sort of got to the point of the pyramid that we recognize today. The step pyramid at Sakara, archaeologists found an intact sarcophagus that was sealed and had been sealed for thousands of years and they opened it and inside was nothing.

So where were the human remains? Obviously there hadn't been looted and carted off anywhere. The thing was sealed. So it does add another layer to the ongoing mysteries surrounding the pyramids. We know from the warren of tunnels and passages underneath the step pyramid that the tomb was rifled perhaps repeatedly by tomb robbers in search of pressure. And the body of Zosa was probably in the tomb. was probably a casualty of those depredations.

So we find a sarcophagus in the steppe pyramid. We find one in the Great Pyramid, but there has never been a body of a pharaoh discovered in those sarcophagus. And more importantly, no hyaloglyphics go south to Luxor and the valley of the kings in proper burial chambers of kings and royalty. and you have corridor after corridor of hyaloglyphics telling the fabulous story of this person's life

and all their incredible boisterous deeds. There's none of that in the pyramids of Egypt, leading us to conclude that they were not tombs. So what were they? Academics and Egyptologists agree that the pyramids were built by ancient civilizations as tombs for their leaders. They dismiss theories of pyramidology, connecting similar structures found across the world. But there is a growing group of people who believe the pyramids are much older than science dates them and are much more mysterious. Another interesting theory is that the pyramids themselves are an energy conduit. Another common denominator amongst them was a body of water nearby, leading some to speculate

that they were electricity generators of some kind using a technology that we've long forgotten. Hugh Newman firmly believes that the Great Pyramid in Giza is misunderstood by the majority of academics and Egyptologists. The Great Pyramid, I believe, was a multifunctional system. Fundamentally, I think it's built as a kind of technological machine to produce energy and vibration and also a harmonic fertilising energy across the land here, utilising underground water, hydrogen, different chemicals that have been found to exist within it, and create something quite remarkable,

which could have been electricity, it could have been thermal energy, it could have been other types of energy that used to light up places or for power tools. Who knows? There are tiny things that the ancient Egyptians produce, that actually show that they were wizards at engineering. For example, in the Cairo Museum, there's tiny little vases,

and they've got holes drilled in them. How? They were supposed only to have copper tools. You could not do that with copper tools. And they're made of the hardest possible stone. They're granite some of them. It's like the ancient Egyptians was showing off. So back in October 2017, I was filming on the Giza Plateau. It was towards the end of the day around sunset.

And I managed just accidentally. I didn't see it with my own eyes, but I saw that when I moved the camera around, I caught this orb of light going up the side of Caffray's pyramid. It's believed that it could be some kind of energetic sphere, like a ball of light. Or it could have been something completely strange, even like a small UFO. Whatever it was, it appeared to be glowing and moving at a very precise way. across the face of the pyramid. So I believe it was like a byproduct of what these pyramids were all about,

which was energy. Although Egyptologists trust their scientific testing, even at the Pyramid of the Feathered Serpent in Tio Tewaqan, there is still evidence that baffles archaeologists. We have evidence that during the time when this magnificent building was functioning, they performed some kind of ritual with a lot of fire. It is very likely that in some parts they made great fires. We have precisely in this part some evidence that the fire was so intense

that it transformed the surface into a brick. We know that the Aztecs considered this place as a sacred place, a mythical place. In Teotihuacan, the pyramids are part of the earth. urban planned environment, and we know that they were used for ritual purposes, perhaps as temples. One of the most fascinating things about the pyramids at Teotihuacan is that they're built so close to an enormous mountain. The pyramids in Egypt are built as a symbolic mountain in their own right. But here in a different tradition, far removed from that space, you have people building almost like in response to that existing natural mountain, their own mountain.

Meanwhile in Bosnia, a massive pyramid shape was described. discovered by Sam Osmanage in 2005. While critics believe it's just a mountain coincidentally shaped like a pyramid, Sam has partially excavated the site and says he has evidence that it is a man-made structure. In the spring of 2005, I first came to a little Bosnian town of Vissacro in central Bosnia

to visit the local museum. And then I saw the largest period pyramid complex on the planet. Here we have four sides. We have triangular faces, perfect orientation, concrete. We have underground tunnels. Geometrically speaking, this is a pyramid. Sam Ozymanich claims to have found five pyramids in Bosnia

which he thinks were built anything up to 30,000 years ago. That would basically put them before the or even during the Ice Age. Now, many skeptics say that these are just natural, hilly formations, but he's adamant that they are man-made. We are at the northern face of the Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun. Back in the 2006, we started removing the soil. Who would expect that one meter below the soil there were rectangular blocks?

It is about four and a half meter long. one and a half wide, 45 centimeters thick, it is 7 tons in mass. And not only that, below the first one, there is a second row of blocks. And third row blocks. And below is the fourth one. One, two, three, four. This is a structure. It's not made by mother nature, but by intelligent hands.

We have sent samples to seven institutes for material. Everybody told us it was an artificially made concrete. Osmanovich argues that the creators of this pyramid field were an incredibly sophisticated race from the deep past, perhaps from Atlantis or from outer space, and that they possessed technologies way ahead of where humanity was at that point. For example, whereas geologists say that this is just bog standard of layers of sediment, he says it's reinforced concrete created by this technologically advanced race.

In 2005, Sam Osmanaghich discovered what he claims is a huge pyramid hidden within the hills of Bosnia. If it proves to be a man-made structure, it would become the biggest pyramid ever built. Yet the academic community isn't convinced. When geologists have examined the formations, they found that they are constructed of conglomerate, sandstone, and clay. There's absolutely nothing to suggest that they are man-made materials. These are geological formations. The debate rages on as to whether or not there are pyramids in Bosnia.

They are so ancient. They could easily be mistaken. for hills and mountains. And yet, they're orientated towards the cardinal points. So is the pyramid a construct that's been used time and time again

on planet Earth and are some of them looking so dilapidated because they are truly that ancient? Sam Osmanogic believes his research proves the authenticity of the pyramid, specifically the tunnels he's found.

This place potential purpose of the pyramid energy to protect what is the most precious to us and that is our health. We measure different energy properties on daily basis. One instrument measures the concentration of negative ions. Negative ions are extremely important for this project because they have healing capabilities. More negative ions, they remove various bacteria from our body. The regular levels, for example in the cities, are about a few hundred. In a nature, like natural surroundings like this one here, about 1,500, 800,

but in the tunnels, the values reach 10,000, 15,000, 20,000. Making it the ideal condition for our body to start the self-regeneration process, self-healing process. The pyramids around the globe that we see today from around three, 3000 BC to maybe 1500 BC, they all have the same characteristics leading me to conclude that there was some sort of teacher culture that imparted knowledge about how to construct them and why to construct them that has been lost from history. In the last 10 years we have received hundreds if not thousands of testimonials of people people noticing the health benefits and improvements.

For example, people with the high blood pressure after visiting the tunnels, they come back, blood pressure gets normalized. Even people with a very serious diseases show significant signs of improvements. More tunnels we open, energy flow is getting stronger, energy values are getting higher. Ancients knew that the pyramid energy is so beneficial. And it would make really sense instead of building such a huge structure for one dead body, king or pharaoh. You build structure that will serve generations and generations of living communities that will last almost forever.

Have we misunderstood the true purpose of pyramids all this time? Could they be far older than we imagined? Experts say no, yet there are people who believe these magnificent structures were made to be more than mere burial chambers. The debate rages on. If you look at the Bosnia pyramids, even though it's a lot older and run down compared to the other ancient pyramids such as Giza and Tia Tuakhan, it has the same characteristics. So I would say we still need to keep looking, but there's no reason to believe that it couldn't have been a pyramid complex.

To cut Sam Osmanagh gets some slack, and I've been to the Balkans myself, and you do find these statues, these Neolithic gods in the region, and it has to be said they two look like aliens. They are the most extraordinary sculptures. So it may be that the pyramids in Bosnia are real, and it may even be that little aliens built them. The Bosnian Pyramid theory is fantastic for the Bosnian economy. Not so great for its standing within the worldwide academic community and the constantly

updated understanding of our sort of shared human chronology on the planet.