Alan F. Alford
Encyclopedia
Alan F. Alford, B. Com, FCA
, MBA is a British
writer and speaker on the subjects of ancient religion, mythology
, and Egyptology
.
His first book Gods of the New Millennium (1996) drew on the ancient astronaut theory
of Zecharia Sitchin
and became a number 11 non-fiction bestseller in the UK. In his subsequent writings, however, he admitted to serious faults in his use of Sitchin’s theory and proposed an alternative, cataclysm
theory of ancient myth: "I am now firmly of the opinion that these gods personified the falling sky; in other words, the descent of the gods was a poetic rendition of the cataclysm myth which stood at the heart of ancient Near Eastern religions.”
Alford's recent work focuses on the importance of the creation myth in ancient Egyptian religion.
writer Zecharia Sitchin
. The book was a commercial success. However, less than two years later, Alford began to contradict his mentor by arguing that the gods personified the explosion of a heavenly planet which had shaped the creation of the earth.
Alford's doubts about Sitchin's theory emerged while reading the Pyramid Texts
as research for his book The Phoenix Solution (1998). In so doing, he found little evidence to support the ancient astronaut theory, but rather found correspondences between the Egyptian myths and the ‘exploded planet hypothesis’ of the American astronomer Tom Van Flandern
. Alford affirms that the key to his U-turn was the realisation that "the gods personified the cataclysmic powers of creation". Nevertheless, many of his readers prefer the conspiracy theory that Alford was silenced by the CIA.
Having realised his mistake, Alford began his own investigation of the Mesopotamian mythological texts. The result was When The Gods Came Down (2000), in which he refined and extended his cataclysmic theory of myth while penning a hard-hitting rebuttal of the ancient astronaut interpretation. Coinciding with the publication of this book, Alford published on his website an extensive ‘Self-critique’ of his first book Gods of the New Millennium. At this time also the paperback edition of GOTNM began to carry a new foreword in which the author expressed his reservations about chapters 6 to 16.
In The Atlantis Secret (2003), Alford attacked the Euhemerist
and Von Daniken
theories of myth, arguing that the Greek gods were not deified heroes or astronauts but personifications of cataclysmic events from the beginning of the world. As for the ancient belief that the gods had granted the gifts of civilisation to man - a myth commonly cited by ancient astronaut writers - this was a natural extension of the ‘birth from the earth’ myths which were popular in ancient times.
In The Phoenix Solution, Alford noted various Egyptian texts which appeared to describe ‘the fall of the sky’ and the ensuing fertilisation of the earth. Drawing on the controversial work of astronomer Tom Van Flandern
, he interpreted this mythological drama (which is well known also in Sumerian mythology) as a theorised (but not observed) planetary explosion which took place millions of years in the past. Much of Egyptian mythology, he claimed, was based on the imagined ‘death and resurrection’ of this long-lost planet, which was personified as a kind of creator-god.
In When The Gods Came Down, Alford extended the scope of his study to Mesopotamian and biblical mythology. In this book, he separated his own exploded planet hypothesis of myth from Van Flandern’s exploded planet hypothesis of science. He argued that the Sumerian religion had been an ‘exploded planet cult’ and that its central myth had been encoded in tales of the gods coming down from the sky - of the deluge and the creation of man - of the wars between gods of heaven and earth - and of the sacred marriage of the god and the goddess. One of his most controversial claims was that the story of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ
allegorised the fate of the heavenly planet, and that Jesus in all probability never existed unless as the lead actor in an ancient Passion play
.
In The Atlantis Secret, Alford underlined the importance of cataclysms in ancient Greek myth and suggested that the Greek gods had inherited many characteristics from the older Mesopotamian deities. He cautioned, however, that the ancients’ belief in exploded planets did not require an actual explosion. Instead, he drew on the work of Victor Clube
and Bill Napier
to suggest that comet
s, fireballs
and meteorite
s had been closely observed at the dawn of civilisation, and that the ancient sages had deduced an exploded planet, correctly or incorrectly, from first principles; the sages had then attributed the great cataclysm to the beginning of time. It should be noted, here, that there is an implied criticism of Velikovsky’s
historicist interpretation of cataclysm myths.
Critics of Alford’s theory say that it is atheistic, that planets do not explode, or that the ancients did not even understand the concept of a planet. More pertinent are the critics who suggest he is wrong to see the exploded planet as a monolithic explanation of all myth.
Atlantis
story and asserted that Atlantis never existed in a geographical sense. In keeping with recent Platonic scholarship, he took the story to be political allegory, based on Plato’s critical view of Athens’ status as a powerful but decadent maritime empire in the 5th century BC. But he argued that the story was simultaneously an allegory for the creation of the universe - following the geocentric cosmogony of the Greeks. In this way, he claimed that the story was indeed “true” - as Plato insisted it was - for the ancient sages believed that the myth of creation was a true account of how the universe had been brought into being.
The details of Alford’s theory are as follows: that Atlantis was a metaphor for the primeval underworld (the interior of the earth); that the invasion of the known world by Atlantis allegorised the eruption of the underworld; and that Ancient Athens represented the ideal city - an archetypal and metaphorical ‘city’ - which fell from the sky and defeated Atlantis by breaking into the underworld.
While much of Alford’s interpretation hinges on known parallels in Greek myth, for example Hesiod’s tale of the battle between the gods and the Titans, the key to his theory is his exploration of parallels between Greek and Near Eastern myths. Drawing upon the recent work of scholars such as Walter Burkert
, Martin West
, and Charles Penglase, Alford suggests that the Greek poets and philosophers borrowed from their Near Eastern neighbours mythical ideas such as: the birth of the universe in a cataclysm; the fall of the sky; the lowering of 'cities' from heaven to earth; the fall of the golden age; the wars of the gods of heaven and the underworld; the fall of gods, islands and continents from heaven into the underworld or subterranean sea; the birth of all things from the earth or subterranean sea; and the idea that mythical peoples dwelt in heaven, the earth and the underworld.
Alford’s theory has been attacked by supporters of a historical Atlantis. A classical scholar welcomed his approach and complimented his efforts to elucidate the story from a mythological perspective, while remaining cautious about the 'exploded planet hypothesis' for the myth of the falling sky.
to elucidate the 'physics' of the ancient Egyptian creation myth. He argued, following Allen, that the creation myth provided a coherent and consistent account of the creation of the cosmos, albeit on a geocentric
view, and accordingly proposed a central role for this myth in our understanding of ancient Egyptian religion. He further argued, contra Allen and others, that the sun-god was secondary to the creator-god in Egypt, being tasked (alongside the pharaoh) with re-enacting the creation myth in order that the cosmic order (ma'at) be made to endure for ever. Alford thus held that the traditional cults of Egyptian religion were facets of a unifying 'cult of creation'.
In keeping with this creational view of Egyptian religion, Alford is a sceptic of the orthodox solar interpretation of obelisk
s and pyramid
s. He maintains that these monuments commemorated the creation of the cosmos, the benben stone
at the apex representing the seed of the creator-god which had been raised from the earth into the sky.
Alford has also proposed that the Pyramid Texts
– such a puzzle to scholars – make sense as a ritualistic re-enactment of the events of creation, in which the king played the part of the creator-god and hence emerged from the earth into all parts of the cosmos.
in the context of ancient Egyptian religion. Crucially, however, he redefines the builders’ religion, arguing that it was not a sun cult per se but a ‘cult of creation’, and he devotes an entire volume The Midnight Sun (2004) to the establishment of this idea.
Alford takes as his starting point the golden rule that the pharaoh
had to be buried in the earth, i.e. at ground level or below, and this leads him to conclude that Khufu
was interred in an ingeniously concealed cave whose entrance is today sealed up in the so-called Well Shaft adjacent to a known cave called the Grotto. He has lobbied the Egyptian authorities to explore this area of the pyramid with ground penetrating radar, and although nothing has happened yet it is quite possible that one day this theory will be put to the test.
The cult of creation theory also provides the basis for Alford’s next big idea: that the sarcophagus in the King’s Chamber - commonly supposed to be Khufu’s final resting place - actually enshrined iron meteorite
s. He maintains, by reference to the Pyramid Texts
, that this iron was blasted into the sky at the time of creation, according to the Egyptians’ geocentric
way of thinking. The King’s Chamber, with its upward inclined dual ‘airshafts’, was built to capture the magic of this mythical moment.
The rest of the Pyramid is interpreted by Alford as a network of secret chambers in which religious relics were concealed - hence the title of his book Pyramid of Secrets. This is the weakest part of his case, as the textual support for the idea is thin and there is no way of knowing what might have been contained in the chambers that we know of today. Once again, Alford’s theory can be proven or negated by future exploration, since it is central to his case that further secret chambers exist. In this regard, his thoughts are guided by the scholar J.P. Lepre, who claimed that anomalous patterns in the Pyramid’s masonry joints might be signs to the existence of hidden passages and chambers.
Alford’s most speculative idea is that the King’s Chamber generated low frequency sound via its ‘airshafts’, the purpose being to re-enact the sound of the earth splitting open at the time of creation. This theory is an attempt to explain the builders’ use of stacked roofs with enormous granite beams above the chamber’s ceiling. Egyptologists, however, do not see a mystery in these roofs and would therefore reject this as an unnecessary hypothesis.
FCA
FCA may refer to:In economics:* False Claims Act, United States federal law* Fellow of Chartered Accountants, senior member of the largest Canadian accountancy body for chartered accountants and auditors....
, MBA is a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
writer and speaker on the subjects of ancient religion, mythology
Mythology
The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...
, and Egyptology
Egyptology
Egyptology is the study of ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end of its native religious practices in the AD 4th century. A practitioner of the discipline is an “Egyptologist”...
.
His first book Gods of the New Millennium (1996) drew on the ancient astronaut theory
Ancient astronaut theory
Some writers have proposed that intelligent extraterrestrial beings have visited Earth in antiquity or prehistory and made contact with humans. Such visitors are called ancient astronauts or ancient aliens. Proponents suggest that this contact influenced the development of human cultures,...
of Zecharia Sitchin
Zecharia Sitchin
Zecharia Sitchin was an Azerbaijani-born American author of books promoting an explanation for human origins involving ancient astronauts. Sitchin attributes the creation of the ancient Sumerian culture to the Anunnaki, which he states was a race of extra-terrestrials from a planet beyond Neptune...
and became a number 11 non-fiction bestseller in the UK. In his subsequent writings, however, he admitted to serious faults in his use of Sitchin’s theory and proposed an alternative, cataclysm
Cataclysm
The term cataclysm The term cataclysm The term cataclysm (from the Greek kataklysmos, to 'wash down' (kluzein "wash" + kata "down") may refer to:*Deluge (mythology)*a hypothetical Doomsday event*any catastrophic geological phenomenon**volcanic eruption**earthquake...
theory of ancient myth: "I am now firmly of the opinion that these gods personified the falling sky; in other words, the descent of the gods was a poetic rendition of the cataclysm myth which stood at the heart of ancient Near Eastern religions.”
Alford's recent work focuses on the importance of the creation myth in ancient Egyptian religion.
Biography
Born in 1961, Alan Alford was educated at King Edward VI Grammar School in Southampton, England and gained a degree in Commerce from the University of Birmingham in 1982. He became a qualified chartered accountant in 1985, while training with Arthur Young Chartered Accountants in Southampton. He pursued a career in industry, working for McCarthy & Stone plc, Flight Refuelling plc, and South Staffordshire Water plc (during this time he gained an MBA from the University of Coventry). He left the latter company in 1995, and began a new career as a writer.Books
- Gods of the New Millennium, Hodder & Stoughton, 1997; first published by Eridu Books, 1996.
- The Phoenix Solution, Hodder & Stoughton, 1998.
- When the Gods Came Down, Hodder and Stoughton, 2000.
- The Atlantis Secret, Eridu Books, 2001, trade paperback edition.
- Pyramid of Secrets, Eridu Books, 2003, trade paperback edition
- The Midnight Sun, Eridu Books, 2004, trade paperback edition.
Retraction of ancient astronaut theories
In Gods of the New Millennium (1996 & 1997), Alford drew the attention of the British public to the theories of the ancient astronautAncient astronaut theory
Some writers have proposed that intelligent extraterrestrial beings have visited Earth in antiquity or prehistory and made contact with humans. Such visitors are called ancient astronauts or ancient aliens. Proponents suggest that this contact influenced the development of human cultures,...
writer Zecharia Sitchin
Zecharia Sitchin
Zecharia Sitchin was an Azerbaijani-born American author of books promoting an explanation for human origins involving ancient astronauts. Sitchin attributes the creation of the ancient Sumerian culture to the Anunnaki, which he states was a race of extra-terrestrials from a planet beyond Neptune...
. The book was a commercial success. However, less than two years later, Alford began to contradict his mentor by arguing that the gods personified the explosion of a heavenly planet which had shaped the creation of the earth.
Alford's doubts about Sitchin's theory emerged while reading the Pyramid Texts
Pyramid Texts
The Pyramid Texts are a collection of ancient Egyptian religious texts from the time of the Old Kingdom. The pyramid texts are possibly the oldest known religious texts in the world. Written in Old Egyptian, the pyramid texts were carved on the walls and sarcophagi of the pyramids at Saqqara during...
as research for his book The Phoenix Solution (1998). In so doing, he found little evidence to support the ancient astronaut theory, but rather found correspondences between the Egyptian myths and the ‘exploded planet hypothesis’ of the American astronomer Tom Van Flandern
Tom Van Flandern
Thomas C Van Flandern was an American astronomer and author specializing in celestial mechanics. Van Flandern had a career as a professional scientist, but was noted as an outspoken proponent of non-mainstream views related to astronomy, physics, and extra-terrestrial life. He also published the...
. Alford affirms that the key to his U-turn was the realisation that "the gods personified the cataclysmic powers of creation". Nevertheless, many of his readers prefer the conspiracy theory that Alford was silenced by the CIA.
Having realised his mistake, Alford began his own investigation of the Mesopotamian mythological texts. The result was When The Gods Came Down (2000), in which he refined and extended his cataclysmic theory of myth while penning a hard-hitting rebuttal of the ancient astronaut interpretation. Coinciding with the publication of this book, Alford published on his website an extensive ‘Self-critique’ of his first book Gods of the New Millennium. At this time also the paperback edition of GOTNM began to carry a new foreword in which the author expressed his reservations about chapters 6 to 16.
In The Atlantis Secret (2003), Alford attacked the Euhemerist
Euhemerus
Euhemerus was a Greek mythographer at the court of Cassander, the king of Macedon. Euhemerus' birthplace is disputed, with Messina in Sicily as the most probable location, while others champion Chios, or Tegea.-Life:...
and Von Daniken
Erich von Däniken
Erich Anton Paul von Däniken is a Swiss author best known for his controversial claims about extraterrestrial influences on early human culture, in books such as Chariots of the Gods?, published in 1968...
theories of myth, arguing that the Greek gods were not deified heroes or astronauts but personifications of cataclysmic events from the beginning of the world. As for the ancient belief that the gods had granted the gifts of civilisation to man - a myth commonly cited by ancient astronaut writers - this was a natural extension of the ‘birth from the earth’ myths which were popular in ancient times.
Exploded planet hypothesis of myth
The ‘exploded planet hypothesis’ of myth first appeared in Alford’s book The Phoenix Solution, and was followed up in his subsequent books When The Gods Came Down and The Atlantis Secret.In The Phoenix Solution, Alford noted various Egyptian texts which appeared to describe ‘the fall of the sky’ and the ensuing fertilisation of the earth. Drawing on the controversial work of astronomer Tom Van Flandern
Tom Van Flandern
Thomas C Van Flandern was an American astronomer and author specializing in celestial mechanics. Van Flandern had a career as a professional scientist, but was noted as an outspoken proponent of non-mainstream views related to astronomy, physics, and extra-terrestrial life. He also published the...
, he interpreted this mythological drama (which is well known also in Sumerian mythology) as a theorised (but not observed) planetary explosion which took place millions of years in the past. Much of Egyptian mythology, he claimed, was based on the imagined ‘death and resurrection’ of this long-lost planet, which was personified as a kind of creator-god.
In When The Gods Came Down, Alford extended the scope of his study to Mesopotamian and biblical mythology. In this book, he separated his own exploded planet hypothesis of myth from Van Flandern’s exploded planet hypothesis of science. He argued that the Sumerian religion had been an ‘exploded planet cult’ and that its central myth had been encoded in tales of the gods coming down from the sky - of the deluge and the creation of man - of the wars between gods of heaven and earth - and of the sacred marriage of the god and the goddess. One of his most controversial claims was that the story of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
allegorised the fate of the heavenly planet, and that Jesus in all probability never existed unless as the lead actor in an ancient Passion play
Passion play
A Passion play is a dramatic presentation depicting the Passion of Jesus Christ: his trial, suffering and death. It is a traditional part of Lent in several Christian denominations, particularly in Catholic tradition....
.
In The Atlantis Secret, Alford underlined the importance of cataclysms in ancient Greek myth and suggested that the Greek gods had inherited many characteristics from the older Mesopotamian deities. He cautioned, however, that the ancients’ belief in exploded planets did not require an actual explosion. Instead, he drew on the work of Victor Clube
Victor Clube
Stace Victor Murray Clube is an English astrophysicist.He was educated at St John's and Christ Church, Oxford...
and Bill Napier
Bill Napier
William M. Napier or Bill Napier is the author of five high tech thriller novels and a number of serious scientific books....
to suggest that comet
Comet
A comet is an icy small Solar System body that, when close enough to the Sun, displays a visible coma and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena are both due to the effects of solar radiation and the solar wind upon the nucleus of the comet...
s, fireballs
Meteoroid
A meteoroid is a sand- to boulder-sized particle of debris in the Solar System. The visible path of a meteoroid that enters Earth's atmosphere is called a meteor, or colloquially a shooting star or falling star. If a meteoroid reaches the ground and survives impact, then it is called a meteorite...
and meteorite
Meteorite
A meteorite is a natural object originating in outer space that survives impact with the Earth's surface. Meteorites can be big or small. Most meteorites derive from small astronomical objects called meteoroids, but they are also sometimes produced by impacts of asteroids...
s had been closely observed at the dawn of civilisation, and that the ancient sages had deduced an exploded planet, correctly or incorrectly, from first principles; the sages had then attributed the great cataclysm to the beginning of time. It should be noted, here, that there is an implied criticism of Velikovsky’s
Immanuel Velikovsky
Immanuel Velikovsky was a Russian-born American independent scholar of Jewish origins, best known as the author of a number of controversial books reinterpreting the events of ancient history, in particular the US bestseller Worlds in Collision, published in 1950...
historicist interpretation of cataclysm myths.
Critics of Alford’s theory say that it is atheistic, that planets do not explode, or that the ancients did not even understand the concept of a planet. More pertinent are the critics who suggest he is wrong to see the exploded planet as a monolithic explanation of all myth.
Atlantis theory
In The Atlantis Secret (2003), Alford criticised historicist interpretations of Plato’sPlato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
Atlantis
Atlantis
Atlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....
story and asserted that Atlantis never existed in a geographical sense. In keeping with recent Platonic scholarship, he took the story to be political allegory, based on Plato’s critical view of Athens’ status as a powerful but decadent maritime empire in the 5th century BC. But he argued that the story was simultaneously an allegory for the creation of the universe - following the geocentric cosmogony of the Greeks. In this way, he claimed that the story was indeed “true” - as Plato insisted it was - for the ancient sages believed that the myth of creation was a true account of how the universe had been brought into being.
The details of Alford’s theory are as follows: that Atlantis was a metaphor for the primeval underworld (the interior of the earth); that the invasion of the known world by Atlantis allegorised the eruption of the underworld; and that Ancient Athens represented the ideal city - an archetypal and metaphorical ‘city’ - which fell from the sky and defeated Atlantis by breaking into the underworld.
While much of Alford’s interpretation hinges on known parallels in Greek myth, for example Hesiod’s tale of the battle between the gods and the Titans, the key to his theory is his exploration of parallels between Greek and Near Eastern myths. Drawing upon the recent work of scholars such as Walter Burkert
Walter Burkert
Walter Burkert is a German scholar of Greek mythology and cult.An emeritus professor of classics at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, he also has taught in the United Kingdom and the United States...
, Martin West
Martin Litchfield West
Martin Litchfield West is an internationally recognised scholar in classics, classical antiquity and philology...
, and Charles Penglase, Alford suggests that the Greek poets and philosophers borrowed from their Near Eastern neighbours mythical ideas such as: the birth of the universe in a cataclysm; the fall of the sky; the lowering of 'cities' from heaven to earth; the fall of the golden age; the wars of the gods of heaven and the underworld; the fall of gods, islands and continents from heaven into the underworld or subterranean sea; the birth of all things from the earth or subterranean sea; and the idea that mythical peoples dwelt in heaven, the earth and the underworld.
Alford’s theory has been attacked by supporters of a historical Atlantis. A classical scholar welcomed his approach and complimented his efforts to elucidate the story from a mythological perspective, while remaining cautious about the 'exploded planet hypothesis' for the myth of the falling sky.
Ideas on ancient Egyptian religion
In his book The Midnight Sun, Alford drew on the work of J.P. AllenJames Peter Allen
James Peter Allen is an American Egyptologist, specializing in language and religion. In 2007, he became the Wilbour Professor of Egyptology at Brown University.-Major publications:...
to elucidate the 'physics' of the ancient Egyptian creation myth. He argued, following Allen, that the creation myth provided a coherent and consistent account of the creation of the cosmos, albeit on a geocentric
Geocentric model
In astronomy, the geocentric model , is the superseded theory that the Earth is the center of the universe, and that all other objects orbit around it. This geocentric model served as the predominant cosmological system in many ancient civilizations such as ancient Greece...
view, and accordingly proposed a central role for this myth in our understanding of ancient Egyptian religion. He further argued, contra Allen and others, that the sun-god was secondary to the creator-god in Egypt, being tasked (alongside the pharaoh) with re-enacting the creation myth in order that the cosmic order (ma'at) be made to endure for ever. Alford thus held that the traditional cults of Egyptian religion were facets of a unifying 'cult of creation'.
In keeping with this creational view of Egyptian religion, Alford is a sceptic of the orthodox solar interpretation of obelisk
Obelisk
An obelisk is a tall, four-sided, narrow tapering monument which ends in a pyramid-like shape at the top, and is said to resemble a petrified ray of the sun-disk. A pair of obelisks usually stood in front of a pylon...
s and pyramid
Pyramid
A pyramid is a structure whose outer surfaces are triangular and converge at a single point. The base of a pyramid can be trilateral, quadrilateral, or any polygon shape, meaning that a pyramid has at least three triangular surfaces...
s. He maintains that these monuments commemorated the creation of the cosmos, the benben stone
Benben
Benben or Ben-ben, in Egyptian mythology, specifically in the Heliopolitan tradition, was the mound that arose from the primordial waters, Nu, and on which the creator god Atum settled. In the Pyramid Texts, e.g. Utterances 587 and 600, Atum himself is at times referred to as "mound"...
at the apex representing the seed of the creator-god which had been raised from the earth into the sky.
Alford has also proposed that the Pyramid Texts
Pyramid Texts
The Pyramid Texts are a collection of ancient Egyptian religious texts from the time of the Old Kingdom. The pyramid texts are possibly the oldest known religious texts in the world. Written in Old Egyptian, the pyramid texts were carved on the walls and sarcophagi of the pyramids at Saqqara during...
– such a puzzle to scholars – make sense as a ritualistic re-enactment of the events of creation, in which the king played the part of the creator-god and hence emerged from the earth into all parts of the cosmos.
Theories on the Great Pyramid
Unlike other alternative pyramid theorists, Alford interprets the Great PyramidGreat Pyramid of Giza
The Great Pyramid of Giza is the oldest and largest of the three pyramids in the Giza Necropolis bordering what is now El Giza, Egypt. It is the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the only one to remain largely intact...
in the context of ancient Egyptian religion. Crucially, however, he redefines the builders’ religion, arguing that it was not a sun cult per se but a ‘cult of creation’, and he devotes an entire volume The Midnight Sun (2004) to the establishment of this idea.
Alford takes as his starting point the golden rule that the pharaoh
Pharaoh
Pharaoh is a title used in many modern discussions of the ancient Egyptian rulers of all periods. The title originates in the term "pr-aa" which means "great house" and describes the royal palace...
had to be buried in the earth, i.e. at ground level or below, and this leads him to conclude that Khufu
Khufu
Khufu , also known as Cheops or, in Manetho, Suphis , was a Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt's Old Kingdom. He reigned from around 2589 to 2566 BC. Khufu was the second pharaoh of the Fourth Dynasty. He is generally accepted as being the builder of the Great Pyramid of Giza, one of the Seven Wonders of...
was interred in an ingeniously concealed cave whose entrance is today sealed up in the so-called Well Shaft adjacent to a known cave called the Grotto. He has lobbied the Egyptian authorities to explore this area of the pyramid with ground penetrating radar, and although nothing has happened yet it is quite possible that one day this theory will be put to the test.
The cult of creation theory also provides the basis for Alford’s next big idea: that the sarcophagus in the King’s Chamber - commonly supposed to be Khufu’s final resting place - actually enshrined iron meteorite
Iron meteorite
Iron meteorites are meteorites that consist overwhelmingly of nickel-iron alloys. The metal taken from these meteorites is known as meteoric iron and was one of the earliest sources of usable iron available to humans.-Occurrence:...
s. He maintains, by reference to the Pyramid Texts
Pyramid Texts
The Pyramid Texts are a collection of ancient Egyptian religious texts from the time of the Old Kingdom. The pyramid texts are possibly the oldest known religious texts in the world. Written in Old Egyptian, the pyramid texts were carved on the walls and sarcophagi of the pyramids at Saqqara during...
, that this iron was blasted into the sky at the time of creation, according to the Egyptians’ geocentric
Geocentric model
In astronomy, the geocentric model , is the superseded theory that the Earth is the center of the universe, and that all other objects orbit around it. This geocentric model served as the predominant cosmological system in many ancient civilizations such as ancient Greece...
way of thinking. The King’s Chamber, with its upward inclined dual ‘airshafts’, was built to capture the magic of this mythical moment.
The rest of the Pyramid is interpreted by Alford as a network of secret chambers in which religious relics were concealed - hence the title of his book Pyramid of Secrets. This is the weakest part of his case, as the textual support for the idea is thin and there is no way of knowing what might have been contained in the chambers that we know of today. Once again, Alford’s theory can be proven or negated by future exploration, since it is central to his case that further secret chambers exist. In this regard, his thoughts are guided by the scholar J.P. Lepre, who claimed that anomalous patterns in the Pyramid’s masonry joints might be signs to the existence of hidden passages and chambers.
Alford’s most speculative idea is that the King’s Chamber generated low frequency sound via its ‘airshafts’, the purpose being to re-enact the sound of the earth splitting open at the time of creation. This theory is an attempt to explain the builders’ use of stacked roofs with enormous granite beams above the chamber’s ceiling. Egyptologists, however, do not see a mystery in these roofs and would therefore reject this as an unnecessary hypothesis.
See also
- Ancient AliensAncient AliensAncient Aliens is an American television series that premiered on April 20, 2010 on the History channel. Produced by Prometheus Entertainment, the program presents theories of ancient astronauts and proposes that historical texts, archaeology and legends contain evidence of past...
- Ancient astronautsAncient astronautsSome writers have proposed that intelligent extraterrestrial beings have visited Earth in antiquity or prehistory and made contact with humans. Such visitors are called ancient astronauts or ancient aliens. Proponents suggest that this contact influenced the development of human cultures,...
- Chariots of the Gods?
- David IckeDavid IckeDavid Vaughan Icke is an English writer and public speaker, best known for his views on what he calls "who and what is really controlling the world." Describing himself as the most controversial speaker in the world, he has written 18 books explaining his position, and has attracted a substantial...
- Dogon peopleDogon peopleThe Dogon are an ethnic group living in the central plateau region of Mali, south of the Niger bend near the city of Bandiagara in the Mopti region. The population numbers between 400,000 and 800,000 The Dogon are best known for their religious traditions, their mask dances, wooden sculpture and...
- Extraterrestrial hypothesisExtraterrestrial hypothesisThe extraterrestrial hypothesis is the hypothesis that some unidentified flying objects are best explained as being extraterrestrial life or non-human aliens from other planets occupying physical spacecraft visiting Earth.-Etymology:...
- Giorgio A. TsoukalosGiorgio A. TsoukalosGiorgio A. Tsoukalos is a Swiss born Greek writer, television presenter, and proponent of the idea that ancient astronauts interacted with ancient humans...
- Murry HopeMurry HopeMurry Hope Richard Ellis, Imagining Atlantis, 1998. Alfred A. Knoft - original from University of Michigan; pp. 64-70, 269. ISBN 0679446028. is an English woman writer, lecturer, psychic, healer, astrologer, numerologist, palmist, former lyric singer and universal occultist. She makes part of the...
- Robert K. G. TempleRobert K. G. TempleRobert K. G. Temple is an American author best known for his controversial book, The Sirius Mystery which presents the idea that the Dogon people preserve the tradition of contact with intelligent extraterrestrial beings from the Sirius star-system...
- The Sirius MysteryThe Sirius MysteryThe Sirius Mystery is a book by Robert K. G. Temple first published by St. Martin's Press in 1975. It presents the hypothesis that the Dogon people of Mali in west Africa, preserve a tradition of contact with intelligent extraterrestrial beings from the Sirius star-system.These beings, who are...
- Zecharia SitchinZecharia SitchinZecharia Sitchin was an Azerbaijani-born American author of books promoting an explanation for human origins involving ancient astronauts. Sitchin attributes the creation of the ancient Sumerian culture to the Anunnaki, which he states was a race of extra-terrestrials from a planet beyond Neptune...