Erich von Daniken - Confessions of an Egyptologist: Lost Libraries, Vanished Labyrinths & the Astonishing Truth Under the Saqqara Pyramids

His ideas have a mythic appeal...

James A. Herrick, Christianity Today

Erich boldly made us think about what no one else dared to even speak of. He continues to challenge our understanding of history.

Philip Coppens, author of
The Ancient Alien Question

Chariots of the Gods is a pivotal book, first published at an important point in human consciousness and awareness, a time when minds were opening. That book changed many others' and my own worldview. Erich von Dniken has again touched the pulse of humanity at another crucial moment in discussing the now known fact that the Gods Never Left Us.

Colin Andrews, author of On the Edge of Reality

Erich's newest book is a fascinating journey from the ancient past into the present with a plethora of scientific evidence and documented research. As always, he adds his own to the point take on it all. Readers may also like that his newest work moves in a slightly different direction from his past books. A thoroughly enlightening and enjoyable read.

Bruce Cunningham, director of Ancient Mysteries International LLC and publisher of Advanced Archaeology Review magazine

This edition first published in 2021 by New Page Books,
an imprint of

Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC
With offices at:
65 Parker Street, Suite 7
Newburyport, MA 01950
www.redwheelweiser.com

Copyright 2021 by Erich von Dniken

Translation copyright 2021 by Bernhard Sulzer

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC. Reviewers may quote brief passages.

ISBN: 978-1-63265-191-4

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available upon request.

Cover design by Kathryn Sky-Peck

Cover illustration Stefano Bianchetti/Bridgeman Images

Interior photos/images by EvD-Archive, Patrick Wenger, and Ramon Zrcher

Interior by Maureen Forys, Happenstance Type-O-Rama

Typeset in ITC New Baskerville, Orpheus Pro, and Franklin Gothic

Printed in the United States of America
IBI
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ON NOVEMBER 17, 1997, an attack took place in front of the Hatshepsut temple in Luxor that resulted in the hideous murder of unarmed tourists by cowardly Islamist psychopaths. The drama started at 9 A.M., as the early November sun burned down on the Nile valley near Luxor. The first tourists were waiting at the ticket booth by Queen Hatshepsut's (14661444 BC) temple complex. They had come to marvel at the unique grave site. Information above the little window showed the current admission prices, and to the left was a copy of an engraving from the temple that read: Built as a monument to Amun, Lord of the Two Thrones. Amun is the Most Holy One.

Suddenly, six young bearded Arabs stood in front of the ticket clerk, who looked up in astonishment, expecting them to ask about tickets. Then one of the six men opened his jacket, pulled out a Kalashnikov and shot the clerk and two inspectors standing next to him, killing all three.

The tourists in the queue started to scatter, but it was too late. Whole groups of them were simply mowed down. Even after forty minutes, there was neither a policeman nor any military personnel on the premises. No siren sounded; no military helicopter appeared. The cold-blooded killers had a free hand to target individuals or groups who were trying to escape or hide. The echo of the victims' screams rang from the temple walls to the rocky sides of the valley that enclosed the site.

When they were done shooting, the terrorists began massacring their victims with machetesall in the name of Allah. They placed a message praising Islam in the hacked-open body of a Japanese visitor. A five-year-old British boy and a couple on their honeymoon were also slaughtered. A forty-five-year-old woman from Freiburg (Switzerland) threw herself protectively over her daughter, held her tight, and closed her eyes. But when the rattle of the automatic weapons finally stopped, blood flowed from the child's face. Murdered. Twenty-three-year-old Manuela Kamuf from Lrrach pretended to be dead, lying beside her father, Karl-Heinz. Several shots had ripped his face apart.

The result of this horror? Fifty-eight tourists dead, including thirty-six Swiss, ten Japanese, six British, four German, and two Colombian. In addition, four Egyptiansthree police officers and a tour guidewere killed. That tour guide was my friend, Adel H., and this book is about him.

Adel and I were friends who had shared a great deal of knowledge about some of Egypt's millennia-old secretsthose under the Saqqara pyramid and those under the Sphinx. On many nights, we had talked about the administrators within the Egyptian civil-service hierarchy and their connections to archaeologists. Adel let me know in no uncertain terms that he shouldn't be having these conversationsespecially not with me. He counted on my discretion. Over twenty years have passed since Adel's murder.

On that fateful morning, Adel accompanied a group of Swiss tourists from the Hotel Meridian in Luxor to the boat that would take them across the Nile and then, on the other side of the river, to the modern, air-conditioned bus that would carry them to the mortuary temple. As I later learned from a survivor, the mood on board was relaxed and friendly. Everyone was looking forward to seeing Queen Hatshepsut's temple, which stood directly at the bottom of the steep rock face of the Theban Desert mountains.

Adel prepared his group for their experience by giving them some background and history over the bus's loudspeakers. Hatshepsut, he told them, had ruled Egypt for twenty years. Illustrations and statues show her as a stately figure dressed in male robes with a beard and the insignia of the ruler. But Hatshepsut was, in fact, a woman (see ). Was she the world's first transgender person? It's possible.

Figure 1. The mortuary temple of Hatshepsut, located on the west bank of the Nile near the Valley of the Kings.

When Pharaoh Thutmosis II, of the Eighteenth Dynasty, died in 1479 BC, his son Thutmosis III (14861425 BC) should have inherited the throne, but he was still a child. His stepmother, Hatshepsut, ascended the throne instead and eventually had herself crowned pharaoh. She also created a myth about her alleged divine origin, claiming that she had been created by the god Amun. After her death, the rightful heir, Thutmosis III, finally became pharaoh and ruled for thirty-three years.

Adel explained to the tourists that the temple they would arrive at in a few minutes was one of the greatest achievements of the New Kingdom. The architects who had worked there millennia ago had created a structure that consisted of three harmoniously layered terraces. Hatshepsut probably chose the location because, centuries earlier, a sanctuary of Hathor, goddess of fertility, love, art, and science, had stood there.