Voenix Rising

…called Scanning The Pyramids, and they were describing Caliph al Ma’mun’s breaching of the Great Pyramid in the ninth century. (Supposedly the first time it had been entered since its construction was completed ~2000 years earlier.) At the time of the breaching, the exterior of the pyramid was still covered in polished limestone and there were no visible entrances. The original account described how, once they gained entrance, Ma’mum’s men were overcome by the number of bats and their guano found in the inner passageways.

In my mind, this raises an interesting question: if there were no openings to the pyramid prior to al Ma’mun’s exploration where did the bats come from? How did they get inside? We now know there are at least two “air shafts” that lead from both the King’s and Queen’s chambers to the outer casing of the pyramid, but are we to believe that bats somehow managed to fly the hundreds of feet down the narrow shafts that led into the still-sealed chambers?

I’m sorry, but something just doesn’t add up. Either there was another, unknown entrance through which the bats were coming and going, or the inner chambers weren’t sealed up as described.

Just another question about those ancient, enigmatic structures which we’ll probably never have an answer to.

BTW, the documentary is very interesting and worth your time if you’re even slightly interested in this stuff. I also found it not at all surprising that Zahi Hawass, former Minister of State for Egyptian Antiquities Affairs—known for rejecting pretty much anything that does not conform to his self-proclaimned archeological orthodoxy—was looking at the data and outright rejected the findings of the team which claims they had located additional chambers in the Great Pyramid—stating outright that there was nothing additional to be found within the structure and refusing to allow any followup investigations that might definitively settle the matter one way or another.

Infuriating. And as always it makes me wonder what he’s so afraid of finding.