Will Durant: On the Origin of Egyptian Science

"The scholars of Egypt were mostly priests.... According to their own legends the sciences had been invented some 18,000 B.C. by Thoth, the Egyptian god of wisdom, during his thousand-year-long reign on earth; and the most ancient books on each science were among the twenty thousand volumes composed by this learned deity. So we are assured by Iamblichus (ca. 300 A.D.). Manetho, the Egyptian historian (ca. 300 B.C.), would have considered this estimate unjust to the god; the proper number of Thoth's works, in his reckoning was 36,000. The Greeks celebrated Thoth under the name of Hermes Trismegistus -- Hermes (Mercury) the Thrice-Great. Our knowledge does not permit us to improve substantially upon the theory of the origins of science in Egypt." -- Will Durant, historian, The Story of Civilization, Volume I, Our Oriental Heritage, 1935

"At the very outset of recorded Egyptian history we find mathematics highly developed; the design and construction of the Pyramids involved a precision measurement impossible without considerable mathematical lore." -- Will Durant, historian, The Story of Civilization, Volume I, Our Oriental Heritage, 1935

"Nearly all the ancients agreed in ascribing the invention of this science [geometry] to the Egyptians." -- Will Durant, historian, The Story of Civilization, Volume I, Our Oriental Heritage, 1935

"The oldest mathematical treatise known is the Ahmes Papyrus, dating back to 2000-1700 B.C.; but this in turn refers to mathematical writings five hundred years more ancient than itself." -- Will Durant, historian, The Story of Civilization, Volume I, Our Oriental Heritage, 1935

"Of Egyptian physics and chemistry we know nothing, and almost as little of Egyptian astronomy. ... Perhaps they knew more than they cared to publish ... the priests regarded their astronomical studies as esoteric and mysterious science, which they were reluctant to disclose to the common world. For century after century they kept track of the position and movements of the planets, until their record stretched back for thousands of years." -- Will Durant, historian, The Story of Civilization, Volume I, Our Oriental Heritage, 1935

"We cannot understand the Egyptian -- or man -- until we study his gods." -- Will Durant, historian, The Story of Civilization, Volume I, Our Oriental Heritage, 1935

Cave Complex Under The Giza Pyramids

"And they shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth." -- Isaiah, 2:19

Discovery News: Cave Complex Allegedly Found Under Giza Pyramids.

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 Salt's explorations. If Hawass does have any report related to these caves, we have yet to see it," Collins said.

How Old Is Egypt?

The customarily ignored history of planet Earth gives perhaps contradictory dates as to when the Land of Egypt was settled. Herodotus gives the date of ~11,770 B.C. while Plato gives the date of ~8,500 B.C.

"Thus the whole period is eleven thousand three hundred and forty years; in all of which time (they said) they had had no king who was a god in human form, nor had there been any such either before or after those years among the rest of the kings of Egypt. Four times in this period (so they told me) the sun rose contrary to experience; twice he came up where he now goes down, and twice went down where he now comes up." -- Herodotos, historian, Book II, ~440-420 B.C.

"She [Venus] founded your city [Athens] a thousand years before ours [Sais], receiving from the Earth and Hephaestus the seed of your race, and afterwards she founded ours, of which the constitution is recorded in our sacred registers to be eight thousand years old." -- Plato, philosopher, Timaeus, 350 B.C.

Predynastic Architecture

The Valley Temple







The Osirion