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Egyptians in the Grand Canyon


icet925

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I heard recently on tv that egytians tomb were found in the grand canyon in 1909. Was this real or was this a hoax?

If you believe that this is truth, the how do you think it got there.

Let's discuss this topic without any flaming.

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"Well, the first thing I can tell you, before we go any further," she said, "is that no Egyptian artefacts of any kind have ever been found in North or South America. Therefore, I can tell you that the Smithsonian Institute has never been involved in any such excavations."

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I think the story was just a Inquirer style Treasure Hoard story made up by a newspaper. There are numerous caves in the grand canyon, many from underground rivers, but no human made tunnels that I know of. I've heard the same story, but with Inca, Aztec, Atlantean, Chinese or Templar treasures used instead of Egyptian. If there ever were some treasures there, they were taken a long, long time ago.

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I saw a somewhat convincing show on Egyptian (ish) tombs/ruins being found in central America , Costa Rica if I remember correctly.

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i dont believe the smithsonen is hiding anything, although id like to hear the offical reason that area in the grand canyon is restricted though.

also there are many threads here on um about this, try search.

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Nobody would like to see Egyptian ruins in the Grand Canyon more that I would, but let's not forget that the entirety of the evidence for their existence is one or possibly two newspaper articles from the opening years of the 20th Century, a time when papers hoaxed such articles on an almost-daily basis.

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....id like to hear the offical reason that area in the grand canyon is restricted though.

Let me suggest two possible reasons:

1. The Park Service is required to keep a few areas entirely pristine;

2. There are only a limited number of areas which Rescue Services can reach quickly and effectively, and in which its workers receive regular training

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I heard recently on tv that egytians tomb were found in the grand canyon in 1909. Was this real or was this a hoax?

If you believe that this is truth, the how do you think it got there.

Let's discuss this topic without any flaming.

I can assure you with unwavering confidence that this is not true. Despite what alternative theorists have tried to argue in the past at UM, there is not the slightest evidence of any kind that Egyptians ever reached the Western Hemisphere. I can assure you of that. But what's my word, eh? You can research it for yourself--in legitimate literature written by experts, of course. There is not one iota of evidence existing in any ancient Egyptian record or artifact that even suggests their knowledge of the Western Hemisphere. Rather, we have a solid understanding of the extent to the world the Egyptians did know, and it certainly did not include any lands across the ocean.

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(Bosanchero walks up from the pits of hell) = havent been on UM in like 2 years lol

First of all i DO NOT support the idea of pyramids in grand canyon lol

reason i had to comment is following

sesh you should look into "Cocaine Mummies" German toxicologist Dr. Svetla Balabanova discovered them within the the mummy of a female priestess called Henut Taui! good subject to research :)

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....there is not the slightest evidence of any kind that Egyptians ever reached the Western Hemisphere....There is not one iota of evidence existing in any ancient Egyptian record or artifact that even suggests their knowledge of the Western Hemisphere.

It's been suggested, I'd assumed by reliable individuals, that when the Egyptian fleet sent out by Erostratenes to document the curvature of the globe sailed eastwards until it reached the supposedly-impassable "wall of the world" this "wall" was most likely the Andes Mountains. I'm not sticking a dog in this particular donnybrook, merely asking your opinion on the possibility of this hypotheses having any truth to it.

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i dont believe the smithsonen is hiding anything, although id like to hear the offical reason that area in the grand canyon is restricted though.

also there are many threads here on um about this, try search.

Might be an area prone to flash flooding, that occurs fairly often down there, despite the desert surroundings.

Ive yet to find a solid link to proof of the off-limits area, anyone got a link to a fairly reputable source?

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(Bosanchero walks up from the pits of hell) = havent been on UM in like 2 years lol

First of all i DO NOT support the idea of pyramids in grand canyon lol

reason i had to comment is following

sesh you should look into "Cocaine Mummies" German toxicologist Dr. Svetla Balabanova discovered them within the the mummy of a female priestess called Henut Taui! good subject to research :)

I've read several reports both in favor of and arguing against the "cocaine mummies," and frankly, when viewed scientifically, it's most unlikely to have been contemporary to when these mummified people had been alive. The amounts are at most trace, and a much more realistic explanation is contamination. These mummies (there's more than one that was tested) had been handled by any number of Europeans, and cocaine had long been a popular drug in Europe.

The more I looked into it the less I was impressed, so I rarely read any more about it nowadays.

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It's been suggested, I'd assumed by reliable individuals, that when the Egyptian fleet sent out by Erostratenes to document the curvature of the globe sailed eastwards until it reached the supposedly-impassable "wall of the world" this "wall" was most likely the Andes Mountains. I'm not sticking a dog in this particular donnybrook, merely asking your opinion on the possibility of this hypotheses having any truth to it.

I'm not familiar with the tale of Erostratenes. I just tried looking into it on the internet and found nothing. There was no king of Egypt named Erostratenes--native Egyptian, Macedonian, Greek, or otherwise--so I don't know what to make of it. But to be honest I'm not terribly impressed by most Classical or Hellenistic accounts. I mean, they're fun to read, but as works of history they're shot through with ragged holes.

Herodotus is a good example. His work, The Histories, is one of the finest of the Classical period and very pleasurable to read, but I would never use it as a primary reference when studying Egypt. Never. For example, there is his account of Nectanebo II sending out a fleet to sail around Africa, to try to find another route into the Mediterranean. Outside Herodotus I've never seen this tale documented, but perhaps it is. Yet, even Herodotus doubted its veracity. One interesting thing he writes in Book 4 is that Nectanebo contracted with the Phoenicians to send their fleet to do the job. The Egyptian vessels were not equipped for any such voyage. This much is undeniably true, which leads me to my final point.

Given the obvious lack of veracity in Classical and Hellenistic accounts, one must turn to archaeology, philology, and the material record. We have a very full understanding of Egyptian maritime technology and capabilities, and there is nothing to suggest they were ever equipped for a transatlantic voyage. The Egyptians were principally riverine sailors. In fact, they studiously avoided sailing in the open seas. When venturing beyond the Nile, such as to go to Byblos in ancient Syro-Palestine or to Punt on the coast of the Red Sea, they sailed always near the coastline. Based on the archaeological record of Egyptian maritime technology, containing everything from models of boats to actual boats to the equipment that was used on them, it's clear the types of vessels they built were not meant for open-sea voyages.

I also stress the philological and linguistic record. The Egyptians left behind a rich lexicon of place names to describe the places they conquered and visited, and though we cannot identify them all, there is nothing in their own record to indicate any kind of voyage across the seas to unknown lands. Given their cosmology and world view, they would've avoided it in the first place. There isn't even anything to suggest that, as a state function, they even ventured into the western Mediterranean.

We have to go strictly by what archaeology, philology, and the material culture reveal to us. Until such time that new information might surface, we are tightly bound by those limits. And those limits clearly express no knowledge of the world beyond the western Mediterranean.

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Forgive my atrocious spelling error, I was actually referring to the Greek mathematician Eratosthenes, who carried out many experiments in Ptolemaic Egypt.

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Forgive my atrocious spelling error, I was actually referring to the Greek mathematician Eratosthenes, who carried out many experiments in Ptolemaic Egypt.

:lol: I'm just as guilty. You're spelling error really wasn't that bad. I should've recognized the name anyway, as one of the librarians of the Library of Alexandria. Still, I'm only vaguely familiar with him, and less so familiar with his work pertaining to the circumference of the globe. I'm not familiar with the account of Eratosthenes' dispatching an Egyptian fleet, to be honest. I did find this excerpt on a web page:

The third librarian of Alexandria, Eratosthenes (275-194 B.C.E), calculated the circumference of the earth to within 1%, based on the measured distance from Aswan to Alexandria and the fraction of the whole arc determined by differing shadow-lengths at noon in those two locations. He further suggested that the seas were connected, that Africa might be circumnavigated, and that "India could be reached by sailing westward from Spain." Finally, probably drawing on Egyptian and Near Eastern observations, he deduced the length of the year to 365 1/4 days and first suggested the idea of adding a "leap day" every four years.

Interesting fellow, to be sure. However, because I'm not familiar with the account pertaining to the Egyptian fleet, I don't think I'm equipped to comment on it.

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kmt_sesh, you're obviously knowledgeable but your argument doesn't quite answer the question. The absence of Egyptian records of the New World doesn't mean that Egyptians never reached it, only that they never returned. I know of no evidence they did reach the Americas and you make some good points as to why they wouldn't have, but a lack of records in Egypt doesn't prove they didn't.

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kmt_sesh, you're obviously knowledgeable but your argument doesn't quite answer the question. The absence of Egyptian records of the New World doesn't mean that Egyptians never reached it, only that they never returned. I know of no evidence they did reach the Americas and you make some good points as to why they wouldn't have, but a lack of records in Egypt doesn't prove they didn't.

By the same token using your own counter-argument, the absence of human records of a trip to Alpha Centauri doesn't mean that we never reached it, even though it's 99.99 (carry that as far as you want) percent unlikely to even be worth mentioning in regards to human history and accomplishments. That argument swings both ways.

cormac

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kmt_sesh, you're obviously knowledgeable but your argument doesn't quite answer the question. The absence of Egyptian records of the New World doesn't mean that Egyptians never reached it, only that they never returned. I know of no evidence they did reach the Americas and you make some good points as to why they wouldn't have, but a lack of records in Egypt doesn't prove they didn't.

You bring up a legitimate point, PersonFromPorlock, and one that bears a response from me. So for the sake of argument, let's imagine that somehow an Egyptian vessel survived a transatlantic voyage and beached in the Western Hemisphere. LOL I'm chuckling as I type this because it sounds so ridiculous, but I'm willing to play devil's advocate for a moment. We can say this Egyptian vessel was somehow blown off course from the Mediterranean--which is also extremely unlikely, but let's go with that.

It still bears emphasizing that there is no evidence of an Egyptian-based culture anywhere in the Western Hemisphere. If an Egyptian vessel ended up somewhere in this part of the world, it left no trace whatsoever. That's the more likely scenario, anyway. It's not realistic to expect that a single Egyptian vessel (or two or three) and its occupants would've had any lasting effect on the native populations they encountered.

Therefore, attempting to state that Egyptians ended up in the Western Hemisphere is neither an hypothesis nor a theory. It is merely speculation. It cannot be corroborated by any evidence, direct or indirect.

That brings us back to the OP and the charge that Egyptians left traces in the Grand Canyon. Why stranded Egyptians would've ventured so far inland to the Grand Canyon and left evidence only there, very much strains the limits of rationality and reality. In fact, it's amusingly unrealistic to suggest.

I tried to find out more information about this on the web but came up with nothing but the usual assortment of fringe writing, which is long on speculation and completely empty on scientific and historic value. A common tactic with this story is to claim a cover-up by orthodoxy, which is a typical, juvenile tactic of fringe adherents. One web page put it this way:

Is the idea that ancient Egyptians came to the Arizona area in the ancient past so objectionable and preposterous that it must be covered up? Perhaps the Smithsonian Institution is more interested in maintaining the status quo than rocking the boat with astonishing new discoveries that overturn previously accepted academic teachings.

Writers such as the individual who wrote this demonstrate a clear lack of understanding of how historical research is conducted, and the value it has for us all. It is further absolutely ludicrous to suggest the Smithsonian would rather bury evidence than work with it. This is a sad copout on the part of fringe writers: they cannot offer anything that resembles evidence, so they resort to defaming an institute whose very existence is based on learning.

I also tried to find some kind of photography to corroborate the claims in the original post. I found nothing of value. Photographs of burial artifacts and tomb preparation would be very strong evidence indeed of an Egyptian presence, because perhaps more than any other culture before or since, ancient Egypt developed burial practices and rituals of clear distinction. The lack of photographs to corroborate the premise is another tactic of fringe writers. The only useful photo I could find is this one. LOL It proves nothing whatsoever.

This is where I'm coming from. Concocted accounts from 100 years ago do not establish credibility. If someone can offer photographic evidence of things found in these elusive tombs, I'd be more than happy to see them so I could evaluate their validity. I could find nothing. As one of the fringe web pages admits, in sharing a quote from a Smithsonian archaeologist:

"Well, the first thing I can tell you, before we go any further...is that no Egyptian artefacts of any kind have ever been found in North or South America. Therefore, I can tell you that the Smithsonian Institute has never been involved in any such excavations."

That should've ended it right there, but no. Let's not trust the word of a trained expert. She works for a world-class institution of science and history, a part of the establishment--eek!--so she must be lying! :lol:

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kmt_sesh, I'm not disagreeing although I will say that 'an Egyptian' and 'an Egyptian vessel' aren't the same thing: we can speculate that an Egyptian on a Phonecian vessel might have reached the Americas, for instance, even if Egyptian watercraft were incapable of the journey. And that famous Olmec head with African features argues that there was some crossing of the Atlantic. But absent evidence it is, as you say, just speculation.

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They aren't getting confused with Mayan/aztec stuff are they? Could they have come up that far? How would the Egyptians get there anyway?

(Bosanchero walks up from the pits of hell) = havent been on UM in like 2 years lol

welcome back it hasn't changed much

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They aren't getting confused with Mayan/aztec stuff are they? Could they have come up that far? How would the Egyptians get there anyway?

I am not as well versed with the pre-columbian cultures as I am with those of the Near East, but people with a less than sound grounding in historical studies often do try to tie in peoples like the Maya or Aztec with the ancient Egyptians. There are no connections, of course. The pre-columbian cultures are completely different and distinct from ancient Egypt. Just because all of these people built pyramids or pyramid-like structures does not mean anything of consequence. In the ancient world, the only way to construct a very large building was to make it big at the bottom and taper toward the top--hence, the plethora of pyramid-like structures around the world.

Very important to bear in mind is the simple fact that by the time the Maya and Aztecs were thriving as full-blown civilizations, the civilization of ancient Egypt had already sunk into history. The timeline alone argues completely against such connections.

PersonFromPorlock mentioned the famous Olmec heads. People often bring up these artifacts when trying to search out connections. I for one do not see a meaningful connection with African cultures by these heads alone, but what's significant is to guard against what something happens to "look like" when making connections. Ancient artwork is not that simple. The Olmecs were one of the oldest of the pre-columbian cultures, which might lend some credence to the idea, but the colossal heads don't prove anything.

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  • 3 weeks later...
frankly, when viewed scientifically, it's most unlikely to have been contemporary to when these mummified people had been alive.

Nature and history are full of all sorts of unlikely surprises which are nevertheless true.

The amounts are at most trace

There are people rotting in jail right now for far lesser amounts...:rolleyes:

"Apart from an ongoing investigation of hallucinogenic drugs in ancient societies, this preliminary study reports the identification of cocaine, hashish, and nicotine in Egpytian mummies. We took samples of soft tissue, bone, and hair from nine mummies. Drugs were detected by radioimmunoassay and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry." -- Svelta Balabanova, forensic toxicologist, et al., Aug 1992

"Data are presented on the biochemical findings in several intermal organs from an Egyptian mummy with a 14C-dating of approximately 950 B.C. By use of radio immunoassay systems and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry, significant amounts of various drugs were detected in internal organs (lung, liver, stomach, intestines) as well as in hair, bone, skin/muscle and tendon. These analyses revealed a significant deposition of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), nicotine (and its metabolite cotinine) and cocaine in the tissue from the mummy." -- Franz Parsche, anthropologist, and Andreas Nerlich, pathologist, 1995

and a much more realistic explanation is contamination. These mummies (there's more than one that was tested) had been handled by any number of Europeans, and cocaine had long been a popular drug in Europe.

LOL. No.

"The first thing you think of is that this is just mad. It's wrong. There's contamination present. Maybe there's a fraud present of some kind. You don't think that cocaine can be present in an Egyptian mummy." -- John Henry, toxicologist, 1996

"I continued to work on it [cocaine mummies] because I wanted to be sure of my results, and after 3000 samples, I was absolutely certain that the tobacco plant was known in Europe and Africa long before Columbus." -- Svelta Balabanova, forensic toxicologist, 1996

Corliss, J.R., Rameses II Hooked On Tobacco, Science Frontiers, Number 7, June 1979

Balabanova, S., Parsche, S., and Pirsig, W., First Identification of Drugs in Egyptian Mummies, Naturwissenschaften, Volume 79, Number 8, Page 358, Aug 1992

Balabanova, S., Teschler-Nicola, M., Strouhal, E., Evidence of Nicotine in Scalp Hair of Naturally Mummified Bodies From the Christian Sayala (Egyptian-Nubian), Anthropologischer Anzeiger; Bericht über die Biologisch-Anthropologische Literatur, Volume 52, Number 2, Pages 167-173, Jun 1994

Corliss, J.R., Evidence of Tobacco In Ancient Egypt, Science Frontiers, Number 95, Sep-Oct 1994

Parsche, F., and Nerlich, A., Presence of Drugs In Different Tissues of an Egyptian Mummy, Ferensius' Journal of Analytical Chemistry, Volume 352, Number 3-4, Pages 380-384, Jan 1995

Corliss, J.R., Tobacco and Cocaine In Ancient Egypt, Science Frontiers, Number 111, May-Jun 1997

Flem-Ath, R., The Curse of the Cocaine Mummies, Esolibris, 1997

Edited by Total Science
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Nature and history are full of all sorts of unlikely surprises which are nevertheless true.

There are people rotting in jail right now for far lesser amounts...:rolleyes:

"Apart from an ongoing investigation of hallucinogenic drugs in ancient societies, this preliminary study reports the identification of cocaine, hashish, and nicotine in Egpytian mummies. We took samples of soft tissue, bone, and hair from nine mummies. Drugs were detected by radioimmunoassay and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry." -- Svelta Balabanova, forensic toxicologist, et al., Aug 1992

"Data are presented on the biochemical findings in several intermal organs from an Egyptian mummy with a 14C-dating of approximately 950 B.C. By use of radio immunoassay systems and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry, significant amounts of various drugs were detected in internal organs (lung, liver, stomach, intestines) as well as in hair, bone, skin/muscle and tendon. These analyses revealed a significant deposition of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), nicotine (and its metabolite cotinine) and cocaine in the tissue from the mummy." -- Franz Parsche, anthropologist, and Andreas Nerlich, pathologist, 1995

LOL. No.

"The first thing you think of is that this is just mad. It's wrong. There's contamination present. Maybe there's a fraud present of some kind. You don't think that cocaine can be present in an Egyptian mummy." -- John Henry, toxicologist, 1996

"I continued to work on it [cocaine mummies] because I wanted to be sure of my results, and after 3000 samples, I was absolutely certain that the tobacco plant was known in Europe and Africa long before Columbus." -- Svelta Balabanova, forensic toxicologist, 1996

Corliss, J.R., Rameses II Hooked On Tobacco, Science Frontiers, Number 7, June 1979

Balabanova, S., Parsche, S., and Pirsig, W., First Identification of Drugs in Egyptian Mummies, Naturwissenschaften, Volume 79, Number 8, Page 358, Aug 1992

Balabanova, S., Teschler-Nicola, M., Strouhal, E., Evidence of Nicotine in Scalp Hair of Naturally Mummified Bodies From the Christian Sayala (Egyptian-Nubian), Anthropologischer Anzeiger; Bericht über die Biologisch-Anthropologische Literatur, Volume 52, Number 2, Pages 167-173, Jun 1994

Corliss, J.R., Evidence of Tobacco In Ancient Egypt, Science Frontiers, Number 95, Sep-Oct 1994

Parsche, F., and Nerlich, A., Presence of Drugs In Different Tissues of an Egyptian Mummy, Ferensius' Journal of Analytical Chemistry, Volume 352, Number 3-4, Pages 380-384, Jan 1995

Corliss, J.R., Tobacco and Cocaine In Ancient Egypt, Science Frontiers, Number 111, May-Jun 1997

Flem-Ath, R., The Curse of the Cocaine Mummies, Esolibris, 1997

None of which points to the presence of Egyptians in the New World.

Even if there is no longer a native source of nicotine and a cocaine-type alkaloid available from any of the plants of those genera in the Old World (and it is debatable there isn't), the discovery of silk in Egypt at around 1000BCE indicates that trade was happening throughout Eastern North Africa/Europe and Asia. It is also known that various species of the Erythroxylaceae family are native to tropical Africa and Asia. Studies indicate that many of these plants contain the same sort of alkaloids (tropane alkaloids) that cocaine is and many have narcotic qualities which are similar.

The lack of any corroborating evidence of contact between the Old and New World (no trade items from one appearing in the other) would indicate the source of the nicotine and cocaine/alkaloid was sourced from somewhere the Egyptians already had trade links to, and the obvious answer(s) to this are Southern (sub-Saharan) Africa and East Asia.

Edited by Leonardo
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None of which points to the presence of Egyptians in the New World.

Even if there is no longer a native source of nicotine and a cocaine-type alkaloid available from any of the plants of those genera in the Old World (and it is debatable there isn't), the discovery of silk in Egypt at around 1000BCE indicates that trade was happening throughout Eastern North Africa/Europe and Asia. It is also known that various species of the Erythroxylaceae family are native to tropical Africa and Asia. Studies indicate that many of these plants contain the same sort of alkaloids (tropane alkaloids) that cocaine is and many have narcotic qualities which are similar.

The lack of any corroborating evidence of contact between the Old and New World (no trade items from one appearing in the other) would indicate the source of the nicotine and cocaine/alkaloid was sourced from somewhere the Egyptians already had trade links to, and the obvious answer(s) to this are Southern (sub-Saharan) Africa and East Asia.

I bow to your sharp analysis, if I may add, there is also a variety of solanaceae and solanum species in Asia and Africa that contain significant amounts of alkaloids, most of them nicotine. No need to go to America to obtain them. The only "new" idea that came from America with tobacco is that one could smoke it to ingest nicotine.

Edited by questionmark
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I can assure you with unwavering confidence that this is not true. Despite what alternative theorists have tried to argue in the past at UM, there is not the slightest evidence of any kind that Egyptians ever reached the Western Hemisphere. I can assure you of that. But what's my word, eh? You can research it for yourself--in legitimate literature written by experts, of course. There is not one iota of evidence existing in any ancient Egyptian record or artifact that even suggests their knowledge of the Western Hemisphere. Rather, we have a solid understanding of the extent to the world the Egyptians did know, and it certainly did not include any lands across the ocean.

Cocaine residue was discovered in pottery vessels within Egyptian tombs. This fact is suppressed from popular culture reporting. This information would disclose the nature of the world in the past.

The Egyptian Empire was a trading Empire.

Here is an interesting book for one who is interested - America B.C.

America B.C. details the global historical artefacts discovered in America. There were people living in Ohio 13,000 years ago. In that time, there have been many travels.

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