Andrew Collins & Hugh Newman - The Subterranean Mega-Structures of Giza - Megalithomania

Hello, Megalithomaniacs. We're here today with Andrew Collins, not only to discuss the new discoveries that are potentially being made under the central pyramid on the Giza plateau, but also we visited Egypt very recently, based upon this new research, to explore a discovery that Andrew made way back in 2008. This is the Tomb of the Birds. Now, the reason this is connected is because the entrance to the Tomb of the Birds and the whole pathway through it goes towards the middle pyramid. So we've got Andrew here to discuss not only the new discovery, but also our exploration of the Tomb of the Birds and how this all fits together. So Andrew, can you tell us what has been discovered in recent days? Well, I think there's a lot of work to be done, and I obviously look forward to releases of information in the coming weeks and months. However, I think they've got something. I think that there is definitely something there, and our friends at the Land of Chem channel, I think, put the finger on the nail here by actually saying that they felt that whatever it is that's underneath there is linked to the cave system, the cave system which myself, Nigel Skinner-Simpson, and my ex-wife, Sue Collins, as she was known then, discovered back in 2008 and entered into on various occasions and recorded. Now, that's a natural cave system, but what we know is that this SAR technology has been there since the 2000s, and in 2007, a satellite called TerraSAR-X actually recorded data as passing over the Giza Plateau, and this shows the caves that we discovered continuing all the way to the second pyramid. So, in other words, to suggest that this cave system is linked with these discoveries is very, very important, and I think is the right way to go. And the other important clue, as we'll see, is that as far back as 1977, 1978, the Stanford Research Institute, along with the Ayn Shams University at Cairo, detected chambers underneath the second pyramid and concluded that they could well be artificial. So, this is not a new idea that there's something beneath the second pyramid. So, when you were going into the Tomb of the Birds way back in 2008 and on our very recent visit, what do you feel about the new data and how it connects to that? Do you think the new data and the analysis that's been done of it with all these elaborate kind of tubes going underneath the pyramid and everything else, do you think that's connected and do you think it's valid? Well, I mean, we're talking about a natural cave system that would have been used by probably the first Egyptians to ever reach the plateau. I mean, it should be remembered that the ancient name for Giza is actually Rostau, which means the mouth of the passages or the mouth of the caves or quite literally the entrance into the caves. That's its actual name. And as I've suggested in my books, there's a good chance that that was one of the reasons why the dynastic Egyptians actually went there because these caves related to their underworld realm known as the Duat. And it's through the Duat that you reach the Halls of Amenta. So, the whole thing links together. And so, these caves that we discovered need further exploration. They may be the only way that will allow you access to the area beneath the second pyramid. And only then will we know exactly what is down there. So, this is fascinating. So, just to get this data that's come out and to have a look at it without all the kind of reconstructions and the speculative kind of imagery that's been kind of created from that is really interesting because the fact that you have scans going back to 2007 of that whole area proves that the Tomb of the Birds is connected to this kind of area around the middle pyramid or Caphras Pyramid. So, we're now gonna jump over to Egypt where on a very recent visit based upon the new research that's coming out where we went into the Tomb of the Birds once again to see what's going on there today and see how that fits with the new discoveries on the Giza Plateau. We're in Giza. We have made a special visit here to go to somewhere incredibly important not only to my own history but to that of Egyptology as a whole. And that is the Tomb of the Birds which is actually right over there beyond the Great Pyramid on the north cliff at Giza. And this is the site of the entrance into Giza's lost cave system that we know now goes all the way to the second pyramid. And we have made this journey and we're gonna go over there and we're gonna tell you all about it when we come out, myself and Hugh Newman. Now, we're approaching it and we're going down this cliff here. And as we come and turn around, we can see in front of us the entrance of the tomb cut into the bedrock. Now, officially, this place is called North Cliff Two. Information which doesn't really give you any information about it other than the fact that we know that Colonel Howard Weiss and his engineer friend John Perring were here in the 1840s removing apparently large mummies of birds. Now, as we go inside the actual tomb, we can see these weird rectangular slots in the walls. This is where we think that the bird mummies were actually placed. I'm here with Hugh Newman and myself and we're now going through the actual tomb. As you can see on the left are these very strange rectangular slots, which is where we think that the bird mummies were actually placed. And we go through it. And what I know from my own visits here back in 2008 when we first discovered the cave system is that the entrance is a small hole right up there at the right-hand side. Okay, now we're at the actual entrance into the caves themselves and we're moving through these down into what we call the opening chamber or the dome. And it's this huge natural cave that has been partly carved into a rectilinear room. It doesn't look like they have gone too far with it, but we can now climb down into its base and actually find the main opening, the main tunnel that will take us towards the south. Right, we're now entering into the south tunnel within the actual caves themselves. As you can see, they're all natural. And on the floor are these huge, massive boulders. Now we're not sure where they come from. They may well have come from the walls to the side and have just collapsed down. It may be that some of them actually come down from the roof. However, what we know is that this creates a very dangerous environment where if you lose your footing, your leg can get caught between these blocks and you could not just break a leg, but literally snap it off. There are bats everywhere flying at us. One has just hit Hugh in the face, but we're continuing on down here. This is the first time I've been here since April, 2008. That's 16 years ago. And yet it all looks familiar, exactly as it did before. And it's just incredible to be back here. Bones on the floor, look. They're shining. And have a look at this. Yeah. Yeah, that's like a natural ending, but this is where it ends here. And it goes into the second chamber. Yeah. Look at the striations here. All these marks here. Okay. I mean, what's all this about? And some of them go underneath the rock. All the blackness on the walls here is not caused through fire. It is manganese oozing out of the rock. You will also see the extreme redness within the rock. That's ochre coming out of the limestone rock as well. I mean, as far as artifacts are concerned, you know, there are bones, animal bones strewn all over the place. There are no evidence of human activity here other than the striations on the walls, which we can see up here. And you find these in various places in the cave, but they seem to be in very odd positions. They don't seem to be practical. They seem to go underneath the walls. And there is no reason for that whatsoever. So they could have a symbolic meaning. In this side chamber, we can see that there's actually these marks, almost like claw marks on the walls. These parallel striations that have been created quite clearly by humans in the past. We don't know whether this took place during dynastic times afterwards or even beforehand in pre-dynastic times. Okay, we are here in the famous Collins Cave, aka the Cave of the Snake, that's accessed via the Tomb of the Birds. And we've reached what we call the tube. This is this area here that you can see that carries on to a deeper section. And this was as far as Sue Collins and I got in 2008. We know now that this does continue on towards the south and that radar images show that the caves continue all the way to the second pyramid, basically. Now, these are natural caves. They were probably caused by water erosion across tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of years, and have been here probably for much longer even than that, probably when the waters of the Mediterranean Sea actually came to the northern base of the plateau. So it's incredible coming back in here. 16 years after I was here originally, and it's just great to be back. And it's just an exploration, just a token of the importance of this place and what it means to the Giza Plateau, which takes its name from Rostau, which means the mouth of the passages or the opening into the caves. These were those caves. This was the entrance into the physical underworld of Giza. Okay, we've just come out of the Tomb of the Birds after an incredible experience that Hugh and I will probably remember for the rest of our lives. Once again, it's just a privilege to be here on this special visit that we have made to check out the caves. We'd heard rumours that you could get into them once more, and we wanted to just take in everything that we could on this first return visit, which for me is the first time I've actually been in those caves for 16 years after the discovery of them in 2008 with the Egyptological researcher, Nigel Skinner Simpson, and my ex-wife Sue. And we explored them then four times, and this caused almost like an international stir, really. Not only was it published in my book, Beneath the Pyramids, but in 2014, it became a virtual international incident when I was no longer really welcomed in the country. And my good friend, Robert Buval worked on my behalf to try and clear my name on behalf of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, and he managed to achieve this back then. Luckily, all of that has washed over, so today we are free to go in there once again, and that's exactly what we've done today. But I think what's important to know is that even though there is access to it now, that back in 2008, nobody knew about these caves, not even Zahi Hawass. He was shown just a few months later going inside them as part of a TV series called Chasing Mummies, when it was quite clear he knew nothing about this cave system. And considering the fact that he had been the director of operations of excavations on the Giza Plateau for many years, I think that is incredibly telling. The TV show Chasing Mummies, which was a reality show with Zahi Hawass, reached this far and archaeologist David Cheetham went down the tube and he called back and said, this is as far as the caves go. But the one thing that we now know about this show is that he was told to say that. We know that the tube does continue on and that it goes towards the second pyramid. We can tell this from radar images that were taken of the plateau in 2007 that show this like dark shadow going all the way to the northwest corner of the second pyramid. And the important thing about the second pyramid is that it was anciently seen as the tomb of Hermes or Hermes Trismegistus, who was not just a psychopomp that helped souls enter into the next world, but he was also the keeper of the secrets, the keeper of the mysteries of ancient Egypt. And according to tradition, he was actually buried with the original of the emerald tablet on his breast. And it is said that this contained the secrets of creation. Now, what exactly those are, we don't know. Some have suggested they could be the original of the pyramid texts that would later be found in the fifth dynasty pyramids at places like Abu Siyah and Saqqara. But that seems to be the destination of these caves, the actual secret chamber that we've been looking for. Some call it the Hall of Records, others the crystal chambers due to the stories to do with this giant snake that's supposed to haunt these caves called El Hanash. Various people today have said, oh, well, we knew about those caves, but this was something which had never been published. There was nothing online. There were no papers. There were no articles. There were no books that mentioned them. So quite clearly, this was a new discovery. And Zoe Hawass was forced to respond to the fact that the story basically went viral after our discovery of them. And he basically used the term Colin's Cave for the first time, which is a term that has stuck. I myself called them the Kaf El Hanash in my book, Beneath the Pyramids, which means the cave of the snake. And the reason why I called it that is that what we found is that there is a legend that the cave system beneath Giza is actually haunted, supposedly, by this giant snake that is said to prevent anybody from finding the secret chambers, the so-called Hall of Records. And it's said that anybody that tries to enter this chamber will be blinded by El Hanash. However, it's said that one day somebody will come along that will only be blinded in one eye by El Hanash and that they will be the ones that the secret will be revealed to of what this great diamond represents. Now, quite clearly, this is some kind of abstract fantasy based on very old traditions. That story was found amongst the local people of Nazleh El Saman. So I think it's been there for hundreds, if not thousands of years. I mean, the people that live in this area are all ancient families that lived out in the desert, that all moved here possibly a couple of hundred years ago. And when they did so, they would have picked up all of these ancient tales, which they would probably have told to the tourists at the time, and that those tales are still around today. And one of them relates to what can be found inside this secret chamber. What we also know is that there are stories relating to the ancient peoples known as the Sabians or the Chaldeans, coming all the way from Southeastern Turkey to the Giza Plateau to pay their respects to their founders. And those two founders were Seth, who was said to be buried beneath or within the Great Pyramid, and Hermes, who was said to be buried either in or beneath the Second Pyramid. Now, Hermes was the god Thoth in Egypt. In Hebrew myth and legend, he was Enoch, and in Arabic tradition, he is Idris. Now, he is said to be the keeper of the knowledge, the keeper of the ancient library, a library which we could associate with the Hall of Records that the great American psychic Edgar Cayce spoke about. And of course, what Edgar Cayce said was that the entrance to the Hall of Records could be found somewhere in the vicinity of the Sphinx. And we now actually know that there are tombs within the Sphinx enclosure that do head off into cave tunnels, some of which are heading in the direction of the Second Pyramid. And it's my opinion that if you are looking for this secret chamber, you need to look in the vicinity of the Second Pyramid, because not only was this the tomb of Hermes, not only was this the tomb of Hermes, but it also was said to be where Hermes has the original of the secret tablets held against his chest. They contain the secrets of creation. Some suggest that they could be the originals of the pyramid texts, the spells and sayings and roots of the dead as they go into the afterlife, and that they are there on the walls. And perhaps the story that the emerald tablet is green suggests that the walls themselves could be made of some kind of green stone. Now, all of these are possibilities, but what we do know is that the most likely entrance into this underworld, which leads to this secret chamber, is within the Tomb of the Birds. So it's a real privilege to have the opportunity to go underground beneath the pyramids on the Giza Plateau into the Tomb of the Birds and see your discovery firsthand. It was really quite remarkable. And just the fact that there's a direct connection to the Middle Pyramid that you proposed back in 2008 is just astonishing. So I wanna get your take, you know, before we end, on the data, the actual data that's come out that was also analyzed by the Land of Chem, which still got brilliant video linked below. But what's your take on it based upon just the data and not all the kind of elaborate imagery and speculative graphics that have come out since then? Well, I think that if it's anywhere near what the Italian team are suggesting, then this is not created by the dynastic Egyptians. It's something that's far, far older. Arguably, it could go back, you know, to the end of the last Ice Age. And it's two things. It's a natural cave system that's been enhanced so that it may have some kind of functional purpose. That could be to tap the water table, perhaps to draw from it, you know, ionospheric environments to create electromagnetic energies. This may have affected the pyramid when that was finally constructed around 2,500 BC, perhaps even to draw down things like lightning or plasma or something like that. I mean, these are the possibilities that we should at least look at. But who actually created these structures? I think that you're looking, if everything's correct, to what we refer to as Egypt's elder culture, something that was going on there thousands of years before the time of the dynastic Egyptians and probably is contemporary with the Tash Tepela culture of Egypt. We know that there are links between the era of Gobekli Tepe and Egypt through a place called Helwan, which is now a big city just south of Cairo within sight of the Giza Plateau, where there was a advanced settlement going back 20,000 years. I mean, you know, and it has direct links with the era of Gobekli Tepe. So that's what I think we're looking at if the interpretation of this data is correct. I just look forward to whatever now comes out in the following weeks and months. So, you know, I think it is very exciting. And I think that we have to remain sceptical, but on the other hand, we should also be quite excited at these discoveries and encourage the researchers involved to continue their work. Thanks very much, Andrew. And thanks everybody who's listening. Please leave any comments below. We'll leave a couple of links below to Andrew's work on this, his book that he wrote back in the late 2000s, and also the Land of Cambria, which I think is a good analysis of the actual scanned data. So it really is now up to the archeologists at the Giza Plateau to kind of prove this right or wrong once and for all and get underground, maybe go through the Tomb of the Birds to get there and see what is going on. So leave any comments below. We'll happily discuss this with you. And thanks for watching Megalithomaniacs, and we'll see you next time.