Egyptian Underworld Found?

Cave Complex Allegedly Found Under Giza Pyramids

Quote :

Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News
Aug. 13, 2009 -- An enormous system of caves, chambers and tunnels lies hidden beneath the Pyramids of Giza, according to a British explorer who claims to have found the lost underworld of the pharaohs.

Populated by bats and venomous spiders, the underground complex was found in the limestone bedrock beneath the pyramid field at Giza.

"There is untouched archaeology down there, as well as a delicate ecosystem that includes colonies of bats and a species of spider which we have tentatively identified as the white widow," British explorer Andrew Collins said.

Collins, who will detail his findings in the book "Beneath the Pyramids" to be published in September, tracked down the entrance to the mysterious underworld after reading the forgotten memoirs of a 19th century diplomat and explorer.

"In his memoirs, British consul general Henry Salt recounts how he investigated an underground system of 'catacombs' at Giza in 1817 in the company of Italian explorer Giovanni Caviglia," Collins said.

The document records that the two explored the caves for a distance of "several hundred yards," coming upon four large chambers from which stretched further cave passageways.

With the help of British Egyptologist Nigel Skinner-Simpson, Collins reconstructed Salt's exploration on the plateau, eventually locating the entrance to the lost catacombs in an apparently unrecorded tomb west of the Great Pyramid.

Indeed, the tomb featured a crack in the rock, which led into a massive natural cave.

"We explored the caves before the air became too thin to continue. They are highly dangerous, with unseen pits and hollows, colonies of bats and venomous spiders," said Collins.

According to Collins, the caves -- which are tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of years old -- may have both inspired the development of the pyramid field and the ancient Egyptian's belief in an underworld.

"Ancient funerary texts clearly allude to the existence of a subterranean world in the vicinity of the Giza pyramids," Collins told Discovery News.

Indeed, Giza was known anciently as Rostau, meaning the "mouth of the passages."

This is the same name as a region of the ancient Egyptian underworld known as the Duat.

"The 'mouth of the passages' is unquestionably a reference to the entrance to a subterranean cave world, one long rumored to exist beneath the plateau," Collins told Discovery News.

Collins' claim is expected to cause a stir in the Egyptological world.

Zahi Hawass, chief of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, has dismissed the discovery.

"There are no new discoveries to be made at Giza. We know everything about the plateau," he stated.

But Collins remarks that after extensive research, he found no mention of the caves in modern times.

"To the best of our knowledge nothing has ever been written or recorded about these caves since Saltâ€s explorations. If Hawass does have any report related to these caves, we have yet to see it," Collins said.

I'm personally a history junkie. Also with myths and such. I just find this freakin' sweet. I wonder what all is down there? Sure, they're going to have to don oxygen masks to explore down there, but I think it'd be worth it.

Now THAT is something that I would love to hear more about.

That is an awesome find.

I would love to be one of the people exploring that... I would also love to be on an explore mission for atlantis. I love history as well. Those are two of the 10 or 15 things I'm majorly interested in in history.

There have been indications that there could be an extensive underground complex at Giza for a long time, but the Egyptian government have been reluctant to allow further research and exploration.
If this story becomes well-known, perhaps public opinion will cause them to reconsider, especially considering (assuming there is substantial evidence for this), that this demonstrates something far more extensive than has been proven in the past!

OMG!!!!! I too am a major history junkie and right now, my inner archeologist is just jumping with joy!! (I wish to become an egyptologist...)I want to explore those. really badly. I'll deal with poisionous spiders and oxygen tanks.... hopefully by time i graduate they will allow them to be explored! This is an amazing find.... Someone want to buy me a plane ticket to Egypt???

My inner Lara Croft would be tickled if I were near Giza. It would be so cool to explore something that has not been seen by human eyes in millennias.

I bet there'sa spaceship down there with a being in the pilot's seat, where it died laughing itself silly.

I wonder what the skeleton would look like.