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Oct. 20, 1997 - Art Bell
48:02
Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell - Art's Egypt Trip
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It was nothing short of incredible.
We went to Athens, Greece.
We went to several Greek islands, including Rhodes, which I dearly loved.
Rhodes was amazing.
We went to Israel.
We went to Bethlehem.
We went to Pompeii.
We went to Rome.
We just literally, of course, we went to Egypt, to Giza, to the pyramids, and the Sphinx, and it was the trip of a lifetime.
There is no question about it.
Now, what can I tell you about my trip to Egypt?
I met with Zahi Hawass, who is the Director of Antiquities and takes care of the Pyramid and the Sphinx and everything in that part of Egypt, and I received carte blanche to go anywhere I wanted.
As a matter of fact, I had a personally conducted two-hour tour from Zahi Hawass himself, and then he signed a legal paper.
Handed it to one of his aides after the two hours and said, this is carte blanche for you to go anywhere you want.
You are barred from absolutely nothing.
So, that's exactly what I did.
Now, I have some amazing stories to tell you about, Isa.
And I've got some amazing photographs to share with you.
I got to the Vatican, by the way, saw the Pope, talk about lucky, walked into the Vatican walls, and here are all these people gathered.
And naturally, we ask immediately, what are all these people doing out here?
And somebody said, well, you know, the Pope's coming out in five minutes.
And I said, what?
What?
We just walk in, and the Pope's coming out in five minutes.
Sure enough, five minutes later, here's the Pope.
And I've got several wonderful pictures of the Pope, one of them on the website right now.
As a matter of fact, during this comprehensive trip that I just took, I took, I believe, 26 rolls of film.
26 rolls.
rolls of film. 26 rolls. On that number, I, as a matter of fact, got them developed overseas,
so I could have them immediately on my return and scan them and get them up on my website.
And that's exactly where they are, not 200 or 400 or whatever.
But about 42 hand-picked photographs, ones I liked, I have now put on my website.
It encompasses actually seven pages of photographs on the website.
Some pretty astounding stuff, I would say.
Beginning with, of course, getting on the ship, that sort of thing.
You know, the normal kind of picture that you would have when you begin a cruise.
Welcome aboard, that kind of thing.
So I stuck that on there.
And then you will see a picture of me with Zahi Awas, Director of Antiquities, in his office at the beginning of this tour.
And then the tour itself with Zahi Hawass.
I have videotape of what I'm about to describe as well because it is and it's astounding how I can get you the videotape I don't know.
One of the first things Dr. Hawass did was take me to a location where they had this giant several ton limestone square Rock.
And he said, Art, I'm going to show you how they created the blocks that built the pyramid.
And here's this one guy, one guy, with a sledgehammer.
And I said, come on.
Mentally, I said, come on.
There's no way in hell this guy's going to break this block.
You know, you're talking about several tons of limestone there.
And he said, go ahead.
And so this fellow begins, he takes his sledgehammer, and he begins slamming it on this gigantic limestone rock.
Oh, I'm videotaping, you know, all the time.
And I'm thinking to myself, there's no way on God's green earth, or even, you know, the earth, the sand that we have here at Giza, right by the pyramids, there's no way this rock is going to break.
And so for about a minute, he went, boom, boom, boom, boom, on this giant rock.
And I'm sort of internally laughing.
I'm still videotaping.
After about a minute, I said, oh, and I almost stopped videotaping.
And he picked the sledgehammer, because he paused.
You know, he put the sledgehammer down like, hey, I'm getting tired of this.
And I thought, of course he is.
He's never going to break that rock.
And so I almost stopped videotaping.
Thank God I didn't, because he picked the sledgehammer back up, whacked this gigantic thing one more time, and I'll be damned if it didn't break before my very eyes literally break exactly in half and Zahi then did a quite an extensive you see art this is how the pyramids were built and he went into quite a long explanation about it all and I've got that on videotape now on the website I've got a photograph of a block just like two seconds
After it broke, of course I had a 35 millimeter camera with me to try to get some good high-resolution photographs, and I did.
And so in the still photograph you will simply see the guy standing there with a sledge and this rock in half.
Now of course on videotape I've got the actual breaking of the rock, but that, Zahi says, is exactly how the pyramids were constructed.
It was an astounding Mind-blowing, mind-expanding moment!
Because, of course, nobody really knows how the pyramids were built, but there's more, and I'll get to that in a moment.
We then went up into the Great Pyramid, the King's Chamber.
Now, I will tell you this.
Making one's way from the base of the pyramid at the entrance, To the sarcophagus room, the room where the large sarcophagus is, is a wonderful test.
I have now determined I'm going to live for several more years.
How do I know that?
I know that because if I was going to have a heart attack and or die from strain or stress or exercise, I would be a dead man now.
Walking up this wooden step thing from the base of the pyramid to where the sarcophagus is, you've got to do it all scrunched over, bent over.
It's probably one of the most stressful things a human being could ever do in their entire life.
At least that's the way I looked at it.
But I got up there.
By gosh, I got up there.
Let me tell you, this is one place where the two faces of Dr. Hawass are apparent.
Now bear in mind, I met with Dr. Hawass, glad hand me.
He seemed to be a truly wonderful, warm man.
And we had a great time in his office and everything, but he led the way up to the King's Chamber.
Dr. Hawass personally did that.
It was right in front of me.
Now, after Dr. Hawass was all smiles and said, you know, you're going to be, you're going to have to go carte blanche to go anywhere here at Giza, I'm going to sign a paper.
And that was the kind, gentle, politically correct, we've got nothing to hide, Dr. Hawass.
When we were going up to the King's Chamber, Dr. Hawass was directly in front of me.
Dr. Hawass, and I've got this on videotape, he doesn't know that, I guess also hot and stressed and angry with the people that were in line to get, you know, there was a line to go up into the chamber.
And he got very upset with this group of people in front of us, and he was saying, He was yelling, actually.
I've got it on tape.
I don't know that he knows that, but I do.
Saying, I'm Dr. Zaheer Awas.
Don't you know who I am?
Move!
Move!
Go!
Go!
And he was literally just angry with the tourists and shoving them, urging them out of the way.
So that was the other Dr. Zaheer Awas.
Who has quite a temper, I must say.
Not ever aimed toward me, but at that critical or stressful moment, aimed at those in front of him.
It was something to behold.
So there are two Dr. Huases, one very nice, one who suggests that there is nothing close to my eyes, that I may go anywhere at Giza, No restriction whatsoever.
See anything I want.
And we did see a lot.
For example, we saw the famous well midway on the causeway.
As a matter of fact, before I leave the large pyramid, you will see a photograph of the sarcophagus in the King's Chamber.
That's up there.
And then you will see Another photograph of the sarcophagus with none other than myself lying in there like a dead pharaoh.
I couldn't resist.
I jumped right in.
Now, nobody else from my party wanted to jump right in.
But I, you know, me.
So I jumped into the sarcophagus.
And I will tell you this.
There is An extremely, extremely strange vibration and resonance to your voice when you lie in the sarcophagus in the middle of the King's Chamber.
There is no question about this fact.
It's not a, gee, you know, what a little sensation, or gee, I wonder if I really feel this, or gee, What a psychologically intriguing moment.
I think that I'm feeling something special.
This was real.
And when you speak from that sarcophagus, there is a resonance, a frequency that you feel, a vibration, which I have never felt anywhere before in my life.
A deep, vibrant return is the way that I would describe it.
One that I have never in my life heard before and that's the only way I can think to describe that to you and I'm doing I'm really doing my best here to describe to you what I felt but I lay in that sarcophagus and I spoke and I spoke and I spoke and I listened to this unusual resonance that was returning to me and I don't know that I really have words to describe what I felt, but it was not some vague, psychological, psyched-up feeling that was coming back to me, because I'm very objective about these kinds of things.
The only way I can think to tell you is there was a deep resonance that returned to me.
Every word I spoke, every utterance that I made returned to me with some sort of deep Very, very hard to describe.
Resonance that, in effect, bounced back to me.
This is not doing it sufficient justice, and I'm going to have to think about how to describe it to you properly, but lying in that sarcophagus was a very, very, very unusual experience.
Indeed.
We then went on to the well.
There is, in the causeway, About midway on the causeway at Giza.
There is an iron gate and behind it a well.
At the beginning of a well, a stair step that goes down about a hundred feet.
And then again another 25 feet down to water and a fake sarcophagus.
And we've done a program on that so I wanted to see it, sure enough.
Zahi Awass, without second thought, took me there, and you will see a photograph on my website of that well, and you will then see some of Zahi Awass's people prying this door open, which had not been opened in quite some time, and as a matter of fact, of course, it was very dark down there, so we couldn't get pictures further down, but you will see a picture of me, like a dummy, holding on to one ladder, With one hand, the ladder with one hand, and sort of posing for all of you, or whoever it was.
I think it was Ramona who took that photograph.
And so I, just like an idiot, held on with one arm and waved at you all in the photograph and the other.
You'll see that.
I got to go there.
I got to go to the side of the space.
And I got to see the dig they're doing into the side of the Sphinx, which Zahi claims has yielded nothing thus far.
Then I got to do something which I'm going to tell you about that you don't know about and I probably should not tell you about because I'm probably going to get in trouble for it.
I was told not to take photographs of what I was seeing.
However, unfortunately for the fellow who told me not to take photographs, I had already taken two still photographs.
And I was in the process of taking video when he tapped me on the shoulder and said, I'm sorry, Dr. Hawass said you cannot take photographs here.
Well, you know, once a shutter has clicked, folks, it's a little late So I did get two still photographs of what I'm about to tell you about in a moment, and a little bit of video before I got the tap on the shoulder, and I agonized a little bit over it, but I have put it up on the web.
In a moment, I'll tell you all about it!
Alright, uh, so here we go.
As I said, I took a couple of photographs I should not have taken, but to be absolutely honest with you, I took them before the fellow told me no photographs.
And the fellow was Zahi Was' assistant.
And now, the area they took me to, the public doesn't know about yet.
But they will.
Because I'm going to tell you now.
He took me to something they've been excavating for about a year.
There are, on a hill, Quite some distance from the pyramids.
As a matter of fact, you can just see the tip of one pyramid barely over this hill in the photograph.
It's that far.
You have to drive to it at Giza.
And they took me over this hill, and lo and behold, here are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of graves.
Sarcophagus.
Buried people.
Now, who do you think these people might be?
Well, I'll tell you.
According to Dr. Hawass, this is the burial ground for the people who built the pyramids.
And I think there can be no doubt about it.
Hundreds, thousands of burial spots of people who built the pyramids.
Now, how do we know they built the pyramids?
Well, because these people had hieroglyphic inscriptions written on the tombs just the way you would find in the Great Pyramid itself.
As a matter of fact, these are pristine, beautiful hieroglyphics showing how the pyramids were built, the various jobs the people buried in these So these are the people that built the pyramids.
You'll see that photograph in there.
Now again, I wasn't supposed to take it.
did with the pyramids to their families, their wives, their daughters.
And here it was laid out in front of me.
So these are the people that built the pyramids.
You'll see that photograph in there.
Now again, I wasn't supposed to take it.
I don't think it's supposed to be public knowledge.
The people that built the pyramids.
They've got their own burial ground.
However, nobody still knows how they were built.
Everybody's tried to duplicate it.
The Japanese tried and couldn't do it.
But this is nevertheless revolutionary information that here lie the people who actually built the pyramids.
And you will see You will see that photograph as one of the ones that I've got up there.
As a matter of fact, I think it says, here is an out-of-the-way, not generally available for public viewing, area where workers who constructed the pyramids are buried.
So you'll see that on my website.
Absolutely astounding.
And you'll see a lot of very, very good photographs.
I was fortunate to have a very good, high-quality 35 millimeter A camera with me, and then of course I've got a very good scanner, a nice Hewlett-Packard high-res scanner.
So I was able to give you quite a few very, very good photographs.
And I was able to walk right up to the Sphinx and put my hand on it, and look around it, and look at the digs on the side of it, and all the rest of it.
But I want to say this to you about Dr. Halas.
Do I believe everything that he told me?
Yes, I do.
Do I believe that he told me everything?
No, I don't.
Do I believe that if Dr. Hawass had a secret, or had located something that he did not want me to know about, That I would somehow magically know about it, spending a day in Giza.
The answer is hell no.
Now, I had carte blanche to go see anything I wanted, but Giza's a pretty big area, and there is no way that I could possibly have gone to some location that I did not have prior knowledge about.
Not one day, not one week, probably not one month of exploration around Giza.
If there was something he didn't want me to know about, would I know about it?
Oh, of course not.
Do I consider it possible Dr. Hawass would hide something?
Yes, of course I do.
I'll tell you what I'll do.
Tomorrow, if I get the time, I will dub some of the audio with Dr. Hawass off the videotape I have, and you can hear some of what I've been talking about for yourself.
I think that's probably the best way to do it.
In the meantime, I would suggest you enjoy the photographs that I've got up on the website.
And they are not just of Giza, but of course many of them are because of my intense interest in Giza.
But you will see photographs of... Oh, I'll tell you a strange one.
You'll see a photograph taken in the Vatican.
As a matter of fact, the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican of my wife, Ramona, pointing at a globe In a gigantic globe of the world, this is really strange, but seeing is believing, a gigantic globe of the world with all the signs of the Zodiac on it.
Now I ask you, ladies and gentlemen, what would a globe with the signs of the Zodiac be doing in the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican in Rome?
What would that be doing there?
Well, you know what I've got?
I've got a photograph of my wife pointing her finger at the Libra inscription on the globe, which of course is her birth sign, her birth symbol, and she's pointing right at it!
Now, maybe some of you can tell me, because I surely don't understand why the Vatican would have, particularly in the Sistine Chapel, something with the signs of the Zodiac.
I thought I was losing my mind, but I've got the photograph to prove it!
Then I did two other things.
I went to Bethlehem and Jerusalem.
And I'm going to tell you that in Bethlehem, which is controlled by the Palestinians, by the way, you'll see a picture of Yasser Arafat about a hundred yards from the birthplace of Christ.
They have the exact place in Bethlehem where Christ was born.
I was there and I touched it and then I went to Jerusalem And I got to touch the exact place where Christ died.
The final phase of the crucifixion of Christ.
And I went to the exact place where he died.
My wife had her own very strong reaction to that.
And I had a very strong reaction to that as well.
You hear about the life of Christ You know, all your life in Sunday school, through whatever church you attend, and whatever reading of the Bible that you have done.
But to be there is an experience that I would like to recommend to all of you who are able to make it.
It is indeed a very, very, very sobering experience to actually see it.
It produces emotions that are hard to describe.
It's sort of like, and this will annoy a lot of people to use this analogy, and it's not really a good one, but it's like walking out into the real world and running into Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
Do you follow me?
In other words, something that you always imagined possibly as being mythical or partially mythical.
Suddenly there it is staring you in the face.
The place where Christ was born.
The exact place where he was born.
The exact place where he died.
And so I've got photographs of both of those.
Very good high-res photographs.
Those are on the website.
You're not going to want to miss them.
Then of course I got to the Wailing Wall.
In Jerusalem.
You'll see quite a number of photographs, at least three, at the Wailing Wall.
So there's so very much that I can tell you about this trip.
It was an amazing trip.
I can tell you this, when I got home I just about kissed the ground that our wonderful country is on.
Boy, was I glad to be back.
Eighteen days away is a long time.
Eighteen days away from this program, away from what I do, away from my home, away from my cats.
Was too much, and I was really glad to be back home.
Anyway, then you will see we went to Pompeii as well.
Overshadowed, of course, by the ever-present Mount Vesuvius, which at one time buried the occupants and the city of Pompeii in ash.
They have to dig it out.
I've got pictures of, for example, a guy.
A guy who was buried in Bombay.
And I've got photographs.
Go up there and take a look.
You'll see photographs of me with ruins.
You'll see Mount Vesuvius in the background.
Then, of course, we got to go to the Greek Islands.
You'll see us on Rhodes.
As a matter of fact, you'll see a photograph of Ramona and myself right at the point where the Aegean Sea and the Mediterranean Sea come together.
We went to Rome.
You'll see photographs in the Colosseum.
Now, there's a kind of a cool story.
Let me tell you the story about the Colosseum.
As you know, we went with Bob and Sue Crane, one of the sponsors of this radio program.
And when we got to the Colosseum, We had been to the Vatican in the morning, and so it was later, it was in the afternoon, and the Coliseum was closed!
Closed!
The Coliseum was closed!
The gates were locked!
And the Coliseum was closed!
It was after hours!
So.
Then how did I get photographs inside the Coliseum?
You might ask.
Well, Good old Bob Crane, ever-adventuresome Bob Crane, walked up to one of the gates.
I mean, there's hundreds of people out there.
Coliseum's just about empty inside.
Hundreds outside, wanting to get in.
So Bob Crane walked up to one of the gates, these large metal gates, and like the convict escaping from jail, reaches around the gate, He finds a latch that he somehow managed to undo, and he let Ramona and myself into the Coliseum.
And what I did was I strolled into the Coliseum like... like I belonged there.
And there were, you know, there were some officials standing around, and I imagine they looked at me, but I looked like I belonged doing what I was doing, so they left me alone.
And so Ramona and myself went up to the top of the Coliseum and took some photographs.
And the Coliseum was virtually empty.
It was wild.
It was bizarre.
You know the Coliseum where they had the gladiators fighting and all the rest of that?
Well, that's what I'm talking about.
And here we were in this empty Coliseum with hundreds, if not thousands, of people outside.
And we snuck in.
We crashed their gates.
So I thought I was probably going to get thrown in jail, or Bob was going to get thrown in jail, but we did it anyway.
And you will see those photographs up on the website.
So I've scanned all of these, and I brought them back.
You'll see photographs of Greece, and oh yes, there are, I think, there's a grand total of, I don't know, about 42 photographs up there.
I always photograph the local female population, or at least a few photographs whenever I go on vacation, and there was one Grecian goddess that I ran into.
Oh my God, what a beautiful woman she is, girl, child, whatever.
I ran into her on the island of Rhodes, a Greek island, and I went, wow, this is one beautiful girl.
And so I took a photograph of her, and that is up there.
And as a matter of fact, she was sitting in a shoe store on the Island of Rhodes when I happened to get photographed.
So enjoy that one.
She is surely a beauty.
I mean, she is really a beauty.
And you let me know what you think.
But in my world, this one's a 10.
No question about it.
This one's a 10.
And then you will see various photographs of the Vatican.
So anyway, there you have it, in a one-hour encapsulation, my trip to the Middle East and associated areas.
By the way, one of the nights we were at sea, we experienced just about 30-foot swells, 30-foot waves, high winds, tremendous winds, About 60 miles an hour up on the bridge and 30 foot waves.
And I said, I mean, here's the whole ship is empty and everybody's in the room getting violently ill because the ship, even though it's a big one, in 30 foot waves, this guy's going back and forth.
There is no question about it.
We're rocking and rolling.
Now, I don't get seasick.
I don't get seasick.
So I thought it was cool.
And I said, come on.
Let's go up to the very top deck of the ship, which is like going to the top of a skyscraper, in the middle of this storm, up to where the radar is turning around, you know, way up to the very topmost part of the ship.
And I said, let's go up there.
And we did.
Bob Crane, Sue Crane, myself, Ramona, we all went up there.
And here, there's a good 60 mile an hour wind blowing at us.
This was the same night we passed an active volcano, incidentally.
And we can barely stand.
You can't stand.
As a matter of fact, if you stand, you literally blow across this top deck.
So you have to crawl.
And we crawled all the way to the edge and looked over the edge at the ocean and stood up there for a while.
And it was amazing.
The girl's hair was going straight out.
And the wind caught my glasses.
And whipped, actually the only ones I had along, right, and whipped my glasses, I thought, into the briny deep.
In other words, whoosh, they were just ripped right off my face.
And I thought, great, I'm going to be on the rest of the cruise not being able to see properly.
Dynamite, huh?
Well, we found them.
Fortunately, they caught on the deck before they blew over.
You know, there was a little ridge there, and they caught there, thank goodness, so I got them back.
All in all, it was an incredible vacation.
That gives you some sense of it.
If you go to my website and take a look, you'll get a much better sense of it.
As I said, 42 photographs.
So there it was, folks.
This year's vacation.
When I was in Egypt, I first met with Dr. Zahi Hawass.
Dr. Hawass is the Director of Antiquities at Giza.
In other words, he maintains and is in charge of the research, the archaeology that goes on, the digging, such as it is, around the Sphinx, the Great Pyramids, and all of the associated relics and things at Giza, which is an incredible, incredible place.
Now, I'm going to let you hear a couple of things.
It's really a shame, and I only very occasionally wish I had television, because I have video to go with what you're about here.
What I did was dub the following down from my video camcorder.
So let me sort of give you an idea of what you're going to hear.
The first is, yesterday you may recall I told you there was a five ton piece of granite that I saw one man, one man with a sledgehammer Break very precisely in half.
I mean, it was unbelievable.
The guy took a sledgehammer and went to work on a five-ton piece of granite, pure granite, and split that sucker right in half like he had, you know, like a knife going through butter.
It was amazing.
Now, I've got the audio from that, and then Zahi comments afterwards.
You've got to listen very carefully.
But here is just a few days ago in Egypt.
Here's a man going to work on a five ton piece of granite.
listen carefully to the following.
Do you want to go to the airport or do you want to go to the airport?
You want to go to the airport?
I want to go to the airport.
No, hurry up.
I want to go to the airport.
Hurry up.
I want to go to the airport.
I want to go to the airport.
Oh my God.
He's pounding away on that granite.
I didn't think he was going to do it.
He's getting ready to split that.
He's getting ready to split that.
Then you'll hear Zahi Awan.
Wow!
That's exactly what I want to show to you.
Wow!
People always say, how the Egyptians can cut stone?
Yes.
That's exactly what they just are, the descendants of the ancient Egyptians.
And this is what I tell people, if you want to understand how this pyramid was built, come to me, and I will show you how it's built.
This man cut 5 tons of stone in 2 minutes.
and i think that the how they hold it we have to be a little bit of the interception of the book
that's the way to go and it's a little bit
we will have been a good to do it all right uh... there was the first segment i wanted to
play you Now obviously the video attendant with that audio shows this guy with a sledgehammer splitting precisely down the middle a five ton piece of granite.
One man, five tons, two minutes.
It was a mind-blower, and you should see the video.
The rock simply parts in the middle, and it was a total mind-blower.
Now, what I'm going to play for you when we come back from the break is the actual trek that we were making up the Great Pyramid.
Now, what I'm going to play for you, you're going to have to listen very carefully, because it was a noisy environment.
I went up inside the Great Pyramid, the Great Pyramid, going up to the King's Chamber, where the sarcophagus is, the one I actually laid down in.
That's a whole other story.
But on the way up, it's a very long, hot, difficult trek with a lot of people.
Zahi Hawass, the director of Antiquities at Giza, was directly ahead of me, and I don't think he knew That I had the camcorder running.
Now, I was huffing and puffing, and you will hear me very much out of breath, along with everybody else that was making the climb.
But Zahi is directly in front of me.
And Zahi, when I first met him, of course, was a extremely cordial, extremely seemingly open man.
A very even-tempered man, I might add.
Very even-tempered.
You know, when I was in his office, it was all smiles and he was just glad-handing me and seemed to be a very, very nice man.
But I had the camcorder running as we were making the climb up inside the Great Pyramid to the King's Chamber.
And you will hear Zahi, if you listen very carefully, you will hear him saying things to the tourists that were in front of us.
I am the director of this whole place!
Move, move!
So listen very carefully and see if you're able to hear that.
It comes now.
This is, again, as we were climbing the Great Pyramid.
Go ahead, please.
I'm the director.
I am smiling at you.
How? Why me?
There is not alone here.
Oh yeah, because I am tired of it.
I am not the expert.
I need everyone to take a side, a line and go.
Go ahead.
No, don't.
Let me go. Let me go.
You are not alone.
This is the finish line.
You have to be on my side.
I am the director of this bank.
Everyone has to go on my side.
You are not alone.
I am on your side.
You are not alone.
Good.
Well, anyway, that was it.
That's it.
That was Zahi directly in front of me, and you could hear me huffing and puffing.
That was a real, a very serious climb.
But as Zahi climbed in front of me, he was getting very annoyed, very annoyed with the people in front of him.
So I thought I would play that little audio clip.
And here is one more.
This particular clip, again with everybody huffing and puffing as we're marching all over the place, He is right at the side of the Sphinx.
At the side of the Sphinx, there is a large hole, which has gone down X number of meters, that Bavall and Hancock, in fact, you will hear Zahi mention Bavall and Hancock, who think that Zahi is hiding something.
And he mentions Bavall and Hancock, and this claim says there's absolutely, absolutely nothing down here.
so here's that audio clip I have a slide and a photograph showing people inside the
city.
Then about a few months ago, a year ago, I announced that we're going to open the shop.
Then Hankook and Buffa, they're not everywhere, they're not letting us open because we're going to find something and we'll hide it.
There's nothing there because it has been opened before.
It was intact.
And you will not hide it, huh?
No.
How?
How would I hide it?
And why would I hide it?
They think maybe you'll sneak it out in the middle of the night, but you won't, will you?
Why?
Give me one reason of why you should discover something here you'll hide it.
If you discover something here, all your gold is in there.
No.
What they say doesn't make any sense.
Why do you hide this?
Why?
It would be something to the whole world.
There is no reason.
You're certainly too curious to expose it to the world.
Exactly.
Exactly.
What do you think might be down there?
In my opinion?
Your opinion.
The mystery has nothing.
But it's best to give the people that we hope that something is going to be found.
No, no.
It's best to give the people hope.
Could be true.
The people need hope.
But in my opinion, for someone who has studied every piece of sand in this area, I know there is nothing in this except for treasure.
This is what we do.
There is no one single object or a piece of sand has been found in the plateau to prove the existence of nothing.
That's true.
All that is covered that you will see, from this moment to the end of your trip, is nothing that is really covered every day.
Alright, well there you were.
That was Zahi at the side of the Sphinx, suggesting there had been nothing found.
And certainly nothing found to prove the existence of Atlantis.
And he made reference to, uh, Baval and Hancock.
So I've got many, many more like that, uh, but I will not play them for you now.
I just wanted to give you, uh, a kind of a taste of what the sound was like.
Um, and of course, I have a videotape, and I have video to go with all of this, and it makes a lot more sense when you're able to see the video, and this is the one time I wish this was TV and not radio.
I've got a lot of very good and interesting video.
He's to the right.
Well, hello there, everybody.
This is Art Bell, and I'm speaking to you from Giza, in Egypt, live.
It's about 9.35 in the morning here.
The sky is blue, and Zahi Hawass is with me.
We're talking on a Magellan satellite phone, and I think that this is the first time in history there has ever been a live broadcast from Giza.
So, I'm very honored to be doing this, and we've been watching the digging going on, and we just watched Zahi Awas just... Dr. Awas just showed us how one man, working alone, was able to break a block in, I would guess, about four minutes.
And I've got some video of that, which I will bring back with me.
It is the most amazing thing you ever saw.
So we have come from Athens, Greece, now to where we are at the base of the Great Pyramid.
And as I said, I'm with Zahi Hawass.
I wanted to say hello to my American audience and tell them what we're up to.
This is amazing technology.
The telephone that I'm speaking to you on is made by Magellan, and it's about the size of a regular telephone or maybe a laptop computer.
So we are in the middle of some of the oldest objects in the entire world, using some of the newest technology in the entire world, and I would like to let Zahi Hawass Dr. Hawass, say hello to my American audience.
So, here is Dr. Hawass.
Hello everybody.
I'm very glad to have Kurtzman with me here today.
And I'm taking him by myself.
He's going to enter inside the Great Pyramid.
And he's going to see with me all the discoveries that were made around the Pyramids.
And I'm very glad that we'll go back to all of you and tell you what we are doing here.
We are guarding this monument.
and we are sure, we want to be sure, that everything is safe, the Sphinx and the Great Pyramid is safe
because we always believe that this does not belong to Egypt only, but belongs to everyone.
I'm glad to talk to all of you. Goodbye.
Okay, there was Zahi Hawass, and we are now going to proceed to the Great Pyramid,
and if the audio was good enough, you'd be able to hear the clicks of the hooves of the camels that are right behind me.
So from a place where it's daylight and very ancient to the great land where I live,
I would wish you all, I guess from the very high desert, a good morning and a good morning to all, and a good night.
The Great Pyramid The Great Pyramid
the next video.
Wow.
That was really cool.
That was a phone call.
There was a little, you know, digital blurbing there.
But as far as I know, that was the first live broadcast from the base of a pyramid at Giza, Egypt.
Wasn't that something?
We even used that phone out in the middle of the ocean.
So there it was.
What a trip that was.
Now, if you want to see photographs of some of what I just described and of the rest of the trip, we've got some good high-res
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