Episode 41: Unveiling the Truth Behind Egypt's Great Pyramid and Napoleon's Expedition
Nov 20, 2023Episode 41
Marty Smarticus
Ever imagined what it would be like to explore the hidden chambers of the Great Pyramid of Giza? Join us and our co-host, Phoenix, as we take you through a riveting journey inside this ancient wonder, uncovering the mysteries of a secret room with the help of the Scan Pyramids project. We'll also demystify the legendary saga of Napoleon's expedition into the Pyramid, separating fact from fiction to bring you the real story behind the myth.
But there's more to Egypt than just pyramids. Ever tasted Hawaushi, the delicious street food that Cairo takes pride in? We delve into the origins of this Egyptian culinary delight, exploring what makes it so popular. As we navigate the intriguing history of the Great Pyramid and savor the taste of traditional Egyptian cuisine, we'll also reflect on how Napoleon's expedition profoundly influenced the study of Egyptology. So prepare to be amazed by fascinating facts, spellbinding history, and get a taste of Egypt, all from the comfort of your own home. Join us on this enthralling adventure, it's an episode you wouldn't want to miss!
Ever imagined what it would be like to explore the hidden chambers of the Great Pyramid of Giza? Join us and our co-host, Phoenix, as we take you through a riveting journey inside this ancient wonder, uncovering the mysteries of a secret room with the help of the Scan Pyramids project. We'll also demystify the legendary saga of Napoleon's expedition into the Pyramid, separating fact from fiction to bring you the real story behind the myth.
But there's more to Egypt than just pyramids. Ever tasted Hawaushi, the delicious street food that Cairo takes pride in? We delve into the origins of this Egyptian culinary delight, exploring what makes it so popular. As we navigate the intriguing history of the Great Pyramid and savor the taste of traditional Egyptian cuisine, we'll also reflect on how Napoleon's expedition profoundly influenced the study of Egyptology. So prepare to be amazed by fascinating facts, spellbinding history, and get a taste of Egypt, all from the comfort of your own home. Join us on this enthralling adventure, it's an episode you wouldn't want to miss!
History. Alright, enough with the Echo and Fanfare. You're here for history, right, and not that boring crack you learned in high school. This stuff's actually interesting, like things you've never heard about the Civil War, cleopatra, automobiles, monopoly, the Black Plague and more Fascinating stories, interesting topics and some downright weird facts from the past. It's a new twist on some stories you may know and an interesting look at some things you may have never heard. So grab a beer, kick back and enjoy. Here's your host, smarticus.
Speaker 2:
Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Smarticus Tales History. I am your host, smarticus, accompanied by my co-host Phoenix.
Speaker 1:
Hello.
Speaker 2:
Today we are going to talk about a newer discovery that myth and legend says was actually discovered by Napoleon in late 1700s, this discovery being a secret room in the Great Pyramid of Giza. But we can't work on an empty stomach, so first let's introduce this episode's food item.
Speaker 3:
Hawaushi. This is a dish from Cairo, egypt, and started as a kind of street stall food made by a butcher by the name of Ahmed Al-Hawash in 1971. And, by the way, if the family is listening which I doubt they are, but I'm sorry if I screwed up the name it became so popular in Cairo that it quickly spread through the rest of the country After Al-Hawash died. It became especially beloved in the Nile Delta region of the Sharkia Governorate, to the point that it is universally believed that the area has the best Hawaushi.
Speaker 2:
I had one earlier, but I still have one here in front of me. They were super easy to make. They are more or less just like hamburgers for the most part.
Speaker 3:
Spicy hamburgers. Hmm, well, it's got jalapeno in it, so it's a little spicy, but they're good.
Speaker 2:
I left that out in mine. Oh really, I bought the jalapeno and I was going to go ahead and cut the seeds out of it and leave the seeds out of it, but I wouldn't have just left it out altogether. It's got paprika in it, coriander in it, cardamom, cinnamon. That's very floral. Yeah, cinnamon, cumin, garlic. There's like two. I call it two cloves of garlic, one green bell pepper. I put two. I also put two because for some reason I thought it said two and I put two in it.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, he just blitzed the snot out of it and throw it all together with the meat and stuff it in a pita.
Speaker 2:
Yep, so you mix it all up in the food processor and you take all the seasoning and stuff and mix it in. So you mix all the vegetables and stuff in, first any of the meat, and get that all nice and mixed and everything, and then you slowly add in the seasoning and stuff while you're still mixing it. I just mixed it by hand. You probably could use a blender I'm not a blender, that would have been overkill a mixer, I mean you probably could use a mixer to mix it all up or whatever. However you wanted to mix it up. There was a video that was accompanied with the recipe that we used. She put a glove on, just mixed it by hand. That's what I did. I didn't use a glove I probably should have, but it's just me eating it anyway, so I figured it doesn't matter, I washed the heck out of my hands.
Speaker 2:
I'm fine, yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean I washed them really good and then I just went to town on it and just started mixing it up.
Speaker 3:
If you ever get the chance to have some, take that opportunity.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, it is. It's really good. It's very similar to a hamburger. Oh yeah, it's wrapped in a pita bread. The hamburger is stuffed inside of the pita bread and the pocketed kind. I guess you can probably get the regular kind and then put a whole out. It would be very hard.
Speaker 3:
I ended up running out of pita and my husband I have a whole bunch of stuff. I had a whole bunch of them mixture and my husband was like we really need to, we should make some more. And I said, cool. So I grabbed some of our tortillas that we have and I made more out of that.
Speaker 2:
So I just overstuffed mine because I also had leftover. I had maybe a cup and a half left of meat, because the recipe calls to stuff it with one third yeah, and I felt like those were awfully thin, so I overstuffed mine. I probably put closer to half a cup, maybe three quarters of a cup, in mine and really fattened them up, and but I still had like a cup and a half left. So I managed to find some that were still kind of thin that I didn't overstuff and I just kind of stuffed them more.
Speaker 3:
I figured I'd save a whole bunch and stick them in the freezer. The recipe we had said that you could do that.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Speaker 3:
Usually enough, and I was like fantastic.
Speaker 2:
And then I did, I stuffed mine with cheese. I didn't call for cheese, but I stuffed mine with cheese, a few of them.
Speaker 3:
Nice and I'm over here eating mine with yogurt, Greek yogurt.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Speaker 3:
It's very good.
Speaker 2:
Anyways. So that's that's the meal for today. It is from, so the. In the video, the lady also says it's not just from Cairo, it's from Cairo and and Alexandria.
Speaker 3:
That's the, the Nile Delta area. That was.
Speaker 2:
Cherique, governor Right, and she, she said it was. It did mainly come from Cairo and Alexandria, and then it eventually spread elsewhere. But that's where it originated from is Cairo and the Alexandria area from Ahmed Ahawash. All right, so it is delicious, but now it is time to get to work. So for centuries, the Great Pyramid has been a source of fascination and wonder for people around the world, and myself included. I've always. You know, I actually have an Egyptian half-sleeved tattoo on my arm. Oh nice, yeah, it's a new bus and it's got the Egyptian gods on it as people, but anyway. So it was built more than 4500 years ago, and the Great Pyramid of Giza happens to be one of the seven wonders of the ancient world and one of the most visited tourist sites in the world today.
Speaker 3:
But according to legend, it wasn't until 1798 that the pyramid would reveal one of its most intriguing secrets. That year, Napoleon Bonaparte, the famous French general and emperor Although he wasn't an emperor at the time, bear that in mind he led a military expedition to Egypt. His goal was to conquer the country from the mumlaks, establish a French presence in the region and explore the ancient wonders of Egypt.
Speaker 2:
Now, before you start thinking that this was a crusades level attack because the mumlaks had ruled for seven centuries under the banner of the Ottoman Empire, it should be noted that the French had no desire to eradicate a religious group. In fact, after taking over the region, many French soldiers converted to Islam so that they can make wives and settle down in the region. No, it was actually a strategy on Napoleon's part. He just so happened to set his sights on this particular region as a countermanoeuvre against the British India state. France and Britain were having a huge tiff at that time.
Speaker 3:
Yep. So if you're ever watching any period pieces during the Edwardian period, you know, think Jane Austen and Arlic Bridgerton. They're fighting with Napoleon at that particular point. Oh, yeah, I did not know that. Yeah, I only recently, like it clicked in my head and I was going oh, that makes sense. Yeah, Napoleon's expedition was a major turning point in the study of Egyptology. During his time in Egypt, Napoleon established the Institute de Egypt, an organization that was dedicated to the study of Egyptian history, language and culture. For the first time, European scholars had access to the ancient sites and monuments of Egypt, and they were able to study them in detail. Of course, this also brought about multiple stories that quickly turned into myth. One of the most famous is his expedition into the Great Pyramid of Giza. There are three versions of the same myth. The gist is that Napoleon went into the Great Pyramid and inside he saw the secret depths of the Great Structure. Where he went in? Because of a red specter, a meeting with the Cairo Imams, or it was just morbid curiosity? Legend is quite unclear.
Speaker 2:
So what really happened? Did Napoleon really discover a secret room in the Great Pyramid of Giza? No, no, he did not. The people who were with Bonaparte recorded no such thing. In fact, there is proof from the diary of his personal secretary, luis Antoine Feveule de Bourian, that clears things up very nicely. A direct quote On the 14th of July, bonaparte left Cairo for the pyramids.
Speaker 2:
He intended spending three or four days in examining the ruins of the ancient necropolis of Memphis, but he was suddenly obliged to alter his plan. This journey to the pyramids, occasioned by the course of war, has given an opportunity for the invention of a little piece of romance. Some ingenious people have related that Bonaparte gave audiences to the Mufti and Ulamas and that, and entering one of the Great Pyramids, he cried out Glory to Allah, god only is God and Muhammad is his prophet. Now, the fact is that Bonaparte never even entered the Great Pyramid. He never had any thought of entering it. I certainly should have accompanied him had he done so, for I never quitted his side a single moment. In the desert, he caused some persons to enter into one of the Great Pyramids, while he remained outside and received from them, on their return, an account of what they had seen. In other words, they informed him there was nothing to be seen.
Speaker 3:
Now, one of the things I liked when I was researching this was, like I said, there were three different myths about what had happened. One of them said that a ghostly red specter called him in towards the, into the pyramid. And then, I guess, when he left the red specter after having his meeting with this personage, he came out just looking white as a sheet and he was just terrified. So funny, the stuff that people make up. Kind of liking how Borene waxed a little poetic when making fun of the people who made the myths.
Speaker 3:
So it makes you wonder what suddenly happened to oblige the French general to alter his plans. At least he had the opportunity to get close and look at the large structure. Sadly, that's where we leave, monsieur General Bonaparte, and dive into the Pyramid of Giza itself. The pyramid has long been suspected of being built during the reign of Pharaoh Khufu by many historians going all the way back to Herodotus to present day. However, during the medieval times it was briefly considered the granaries of Joseph of biblical fame by Christian pilgrims. Officially, thanks to all the graffiti inside the various chambers, Khufu is generally considered the man who made them.
Speaker 2:
Khufu, named after Canum, the God of creation and growth, ruled Egypt from 2520 to 2494 BC. It is largely believed that the pyramid was built as a tomb for Khufu and it is the largest of the three pyramids that make up the Giza Pyramid complex. The Great Pyramid is a marvel of engineering and construction. It is made up of more than 2.3 million blocks of limestone and granite weighing up to 80 tons. The pyramid initially stood at a height of 146.6 meters, that's 481 feet. It has lost almost all of its white limestone coverstones to pillaging. Now it stands in its more diminished stature of 138.5 meters, or 454.4 feet, and has a base of more than 230.3 meters, 755.6 feet square on each side. Inside there are three chambers the Subterranean, the Queens and the Kings, each bigger than the last, not to forget the various passages to and from each chamber and the self-explanatory named Robert's Tunnel.
Speaker 3:
While these rooms have been gone over and mysterious shafts from the Kings and Queens chambers investigated as much as was possible without destroying anything. It is interesting to note that the 90s saw a lot more discoveries outside of the pyramid in the major complex than inside. In recent years, new technologies such as ground penetrating radar and infrared I almost said it again Thermography, thermography, infrared thermography. In recent years, new technologies such as ground penetrating radar and infrared thermography have been used to scan the pyramid and search for possible hidden chambers. It wouldn't be the first time that tunnels to new chambers have been hidden away by the builders and time.
Speaker 2:
In 2017, the Scan Pyramids project announced that they had discovered a large void within the Great Pyramid. Scan Pyramids is an Egyptian international project instituted by the Cairo University in partnership with I hope you find this as humorous as us the French Heritage Innovation Preservation. It seems Napoleon's presence is still felt in no small fashion. The void that the project revealed is located above the Grand Gallery that precedes the King's chamber. According to the scans, the void is about 30 meters or 90 feet long.
Speaker 3:
While the discovery of the void is exciting, it is important to note that it's not a secret room or hidden chamber in the traditional sense. The entrance is narrow and just above the north-facing Chevron entrance, using moulins, which were heavy relative electrons that can penetrate through solid material, the researchers of Scan Pyramids found a 9 meter long corridor, about 2 meters tall and 2 meters wide, which is 29 and a half feet long and 6 and a half feet tall and wide. Using an endoscope, so as not to disturb anything structurally, the researchers gave the newly discovered space a sort of colonoscopy.
Speaker 2:
A pyramid of Moschemia maybe.
Speaker 3:
Yes, I like it.
Speaker 2:
Unfortunately, what the pyramidoscopy revealed was that void just beyond was, in case, in stone, making it impossible to reach. I want to clarify pyramidoscopy is not a real thing. No no no, it's our thing. Yeah, it's our thing. Just somebody's out there I know they are Pyramidoscopy googling it. What is a pyramidoscopy? How does one?
Speaker 3:
go about such things.
Speaker 2:
Well, we just told you there, those Scan Pyramids has used nuclear emulsion films, scintillator hodoscopes and gas detector. There is no way of knowing what is beyond the stone. They know that it is at least 98 feet long and as wide as a grand gallery that leads to the King's Chamber, which is 6.9 feet. That is all that they have been able to establish as of 2023.
Speaker 3:
Yes, funny enough, the Japanese research team that is working with Scan Pyramids says that, according to their scans, the void is entirely unlike others from earlier identified construction spaces in the complex. I'm sure you guys are asking the same thing that we are asking why the heck can't they do a little problem solving and open it? Surely we can do better now than what they used to do, which was using battering rams to get in and explosives. That's how we ended up with the robber's tunnel, by the way. Yeah Well, it seems that the chamber is central to the structure and disturbing it without understanding it as a whole could cause damage that would truly harm the pyramid, and there's no way that the Egyptian government would allow something like that after everything their country has been through. With all the available technology, there is no current knowing what is inside the big void, let alone if or when they will be able to find out.
Speaker 2:
For now, we're going to have to wait for Scan Pyramid and its affiliated researchers to figure out what to do next. Until the next discovery, we'll be awaiting with excitement for the next reveal and whatever the new myths will crop up along the way. That is it for today's episode of Smarticus Tells History. Join us next time as we uncover more secrets from the past.