Adventures in Archaeology, Op-ed

I partook in many archaeological adventures. Till date, I enter crypts, corridors, and tombs, and feel that it is the most wonderful adventure in the world.

Among my exciting and strange adventures was entering the five chambers that are located above the third burial chamber inside King Khufu’s pyramid.

These chambers are accessible by no one, more so, the public does not have any information about it; very few archeologists have partaken in this adventure.

I remembered this adventure, which I had done more than once, especially now as I am publishing an article about the graffiti inscribed on the roof of these chambers.

Entering these chambers is a real adventure, like the Hollywood adventures of an American archaeologist, Indiana Jones.

No one could imagine that every time I entered these chambers, I felt that I would not make it back, because the entrance begins after we enter the pyramid, from the first corridor until we reach the great hall, and then we reach the entrance of the third room, where there is a ladder that is used to climbing, which reaches approximately 7 meters.

Thereafter, I reach a very small opening, on top of which is a nail clasped with rope, and through the rope, I get up and crawl on my chest, in a very difficult way for a distance of more than 5 meters to reach the first room, which was built from the granite of the quarries of Aswan, which was cut off by the ancient Egyptians.

There was no inscription in the first chamber. Artist Noha Abdel Hafiz was with me while recording the inscriptions, which were present from the second chamber to the fifth chamber.

The inscriptions date to the eleventh year of king Khufu's reign, moreover, the names of the pyramid builders, such as "the friends of King Khufu" and the "White Crown Khufu", are also recorded.

Some Germans, who tried to take away our dearest belongings, came during in the events of the January 25 and bribed some employees to enter the pyramid at night and get the ladder up, I do not know how that happened.

They obtained a sample from the graffiti in the fifth room, which reads, "the friends of King Khufu", and written in a material that the ancient Egyptian knew as “Desher”— which means red color — and analyzed it and declared it to be 15,000 years old.

Of course, they wanted to say that King Khufu's Pyramid belonged to the continent of Atlantis, and has nothing to do with the Pharaohs; I announced to the whole world that the "Desher" material comes from a quarry in Western Sahara, which maybe half a million years old, and that the quarry age is not related to the pyramid age, as the material used for writing maybe 15 thousand years old, but the writing itself dates back to the age of construction of the King Khufu's Pyramid.