Graham Hancock On Pyramids and Ark of The Covenant

21:54Amazing. A kind of practice run. It would be incredible, wouldn't it? On the afterlife journey, yes.

21:59Piers Morgan:Did you ever talk to Dr Zahi? Zahi and I get on OK. We've had some misunderstandings in the past. If I was to go out there, because he's inviting me, would he let you come with me? Yes, I'm sure... What a fun trip, wouldn't it? I'm sure he will. What Zahi and I have come to is we've agreed to disagree. There's too much mutual insulting going on in this world where archaeologists insult alternative researchers and alternative researchers insult archaeologists. Zahi and I have agreed that we will not insult each other personally anymore. our disagreements will be purely on the basis of our interpretations, our different interpretations of the evidence.

22:39And I don't think Zahi is opposed to different interpretations of the evidence, but he is opposed to flimsy, badly thought out ideas.

22:45Piers Morgan:Who makes the final decision on whether this drilling can happen? Well, ultimately, it's going to be the Minister of Tourism and Antiquities who make that decision. But Zahi would be very influential in that aspect. And it would be necessary to show that the drilling could be done without causing massive damage. and I don't see why it should cause massive damage. I mean, you know, do you understand why he has big concerns about it? Yes, I do. I mean, we're looking... But to him, it's a sacred place. We're looking at the last surviving wonder of the ancient world. Yeah. This is a unique, precious and special place for the heritage of all of humanity.

23:18And we shouldn't just be bombing in there with... Like they did in the 19th century, you know, with gunpowder and sledgehammers. I mean, this is the damage that British explorers did to the Great Pyramid, principally a Colonel Howard vice, who used gunpowder to blow a huge gash in the south side of the Great Pyramid, who went in and blew his way up into the chambers above the king's chamber. Why did he do that? Because he was drawn to the Great Pyramid as well. He wanted to find out, and there was no moral code governing what they did. They could just take it. And so much stuff was taken away from Egypt and brought to other countries.

23:56The possibility of doing damage to this site is a horrific thing, and we should not do it. But I believe that we are an intelligent species. We have a good grasp of our technology and I think it would be possible to do drilling at the Great... Well, in fact, this is the second pyramid we're talking about, the pyramid attributed to Khafre. It would be possible to do a deep drilling around there to ground truth whether or not these imaging that Corrado, Malanga and Filippo Biondi and their team are coming up with, whether there's anything to them or not. Is it just noise or is it real signal? That's what we have to find out.

24:31Piers Morgan:It's so interesting. There's been another story in the news. The archaeologists now say humans mastered the art of creating fire 400 ,000 years ago, which, if that is true, would be 350 ,000 years earlier than previously known. And it's a groundbreaking discovery in a field in Suffolk. The evidence unearthed a patch of scorched earth. I love this stuff. and fire-cracked hand axes at a time when brain size was approaching the modern human range and some species were expanding into harsher northern climates, including Britain. Now, does this all fit into your thesis, that humans were quicker to civilisation than previously thought?

25:15Yeah, I have a saying, which is, stuff just keeps on getting older, and this is true. We are constantly pushing the timeline back. There was a time when we thought that anatomically modern humans only went back 50 ,000 years. Then that was revised to 196 ,000 years. Then it was revised again with a discovery in Morocco to 300 ,000 years. Anatomically modern humans, people just like you and me. My point is that if you're going to have my proposal that we may have a forgotten episode in human history, the longer we've been around as human beings, the more likely that is to be the case. and that's why I use that phrase.

25:56In this case, I think we're almost certainly looking at Neanderthals who made this fire in Britain. They were not anatomically modern humans in Britain at that time, but Neanderthals are closely related to us. In fact, in a sense, we are Neanderthals.

26:08Piers Morgan:When you... I mean, look, when someone like you, when I read that, I'm like, oh, this is really interesting. When you hear there's a patch of unearthed, scorched earth like this, which could support your long-held theory... The human story is longer than we think, yes. But how do you react when you hear something like that? Well, first of all, let's bear in mind that humans were using fire before that. There's an ancestor with the rather awkward name of Homo erectus. And Homo erectus was quite an interesting character. I bet he was, yeah. Brain size was about half of ours. Really? But this being was bipedal.

26:46Piers Morgan:Were his other body parts twice as big? Perhaps. Perhaps. They don't survive, unfortunately. We can't measure them. But he was sailing. Homo erectus sailed to Australia. They were capable... Well, you can't sail to Australia without a brain. No, you can't. Must be fully formed. They were remarkable. Is it a smaller brain or a smaller head or both? Well, smaller brain. Right. I mean, look, given computers were massive and are now tiny, could the human... I mean, does it make any difference to your brain power? Yeah. It does. It's a very good point. The extent to which brain size is linked to brain power is not clear.

27:23We've got the example with computers where we're miniaturising things more and more. Yes, that's what I mean. So it's not so important. But my point was that fire was being used by Homo erectus. The question is, were they managing fire? Did they know actually how to create fire, to strike a spark? And I think what's happening in this case is they're saying they found evidence, definite evidence of sparks being struck. So that's another aspect of human behaviour.

27:47Piers Morgan:My point about your reaction is, when my football team Arsenal score two or three brilliant goals like last night in the Champions League, I'm like punching the air and shouting, are you calm and measured when you hear these things? Or do you leap around? No, I don't punch the air about finding earlier evidence of fire, no. I would expect that actually long before 400 ,000 years ago, human ancestors were managing and using fire. It's just that archaeology hasn't found the evidence. That's fascinating. The right window treatments change everything. Your sleep, your privacy, the way every room looks and feels.

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28:49Piers Morgan:Let's talk to another fascinating thing, the Ark of the Covenant. We didn't get around to this in our last interview. You are most famous beyond the pyramids for the Ark of the Covenant. That's what started me on this journey. Yes. So for those who only know a little bit about it from Raiders of the Lost Ark, in very simple terms, what is the Ark of the Covenant? The Ark of the Covenant is the box about 3 feet 9 inches long, two feet three inches high and wide, made of wood and gold. The outer part is gold, coating a wooden interior, and then the inner part of the box is also gold. And in it are placed the two tablets of stone of the Ten Commandments.

29:29This is according to the book of Exodus. Moses is summoned to Mount Sinai, creates the tablets of stone, and the Ark of the Covenant is built by a craftsman called Bezalel who builds this object. And it's a very strange object. It was one of the things that started me thinking, could there be missing episodes in the human story? Because when you read the description of the Ark of the Covenant in the book of Exodus, it's like a blueprint. How big is it? Three feet, nine inches long, two feet, three inches high and wide, carried on carrying poles. Every description of it in the Bible has it doing really awesome, terrifying things.

30:10Like what? like striking people dead. There's a chap called Uzzah. At one point the ark has been stolen by the Philistines, but it's caused them so much damage at a city called Ashdod. Interestingly, the Bible itself uses the word cancerous tumors, that the Philistines opened the Ark of the Covenant and they filed past it like some kind of tourist object. And then they all started to die and they died of cancerous tumors. Well, eventually they decided to send it back to Israel And they put it on a cart drawn by an ox, and they sent it back towards Israel. And on the journey, the ark apparently, and this is in the Bible, was rocking on the platform.

30:53So somebody reached out to stabilize it, and a bolt of fire shoots out from the ark and strikes him dead. There are occasions where it strikes its own bearers dead, where it rises up into the air and rushes towards the enemies of Israel. It's a most intriguing object.

31:08Piers Morgan:And you believe, because you wrote a book about this called The Sign and the Seal, you believe not only is it real, but you think you know where it is. Well... I mean, your argument was... I was the East Africa correspondent for The Economist. I was regularly travelling to Ethiopia, and I couldn't miss the fact that Ethiopia claims to be the last resting place of the lost Ark of the Covenant. In Aksum in Ethiopia, in the Church of St Mary of Zion. Correct. In the province of Tigray. And it's guarded by a single monk who's never allowed to leave his chapel. That's correct. It's all fascinating.

31:42But did you get to see it? No. Has anybody ever seen it? No. I went there even with a crew from CNN back in 1992. They were gung-ho to get in.

31:51Piers Morgan:Because you remember the story of Geraldo Rivera and Al Capone's vault? Do you remember this? Not exactly. He was a massive TV star. He still is. He's a great guy. Good friend of mine. But he was a massive TV star in America. and he got wind that Al Capone's vault had been discovered. And they decided to do it as a live special. Two hours, and at the end of the two hours, they'd open the vault. And obviously, he had no idea what was going to be in it. And when they opened it, it was completely empty. Could this be the... Yes. I mean, has anybody seen it in there? My case in support of Ethiopia's claim is entirely circumstantial based on...

32:30Because I never did get into that chapel, and nobody ever has. Yes, there is one monk who is appointed as the guardian of the ark. Once he is appointed, he can never again leave that chapel. But there's only one monk guarding it. No, there's not. This is the Hargit Tigre province. This is the province that led the rebellion against Mengistu Haile Miriam that overthrew the dictatorship of Ethiopia back in 1991. This is an armed camp. The whole place is not. Everybody in Axum camp is going to be. Could it all just be a scam? No, I don't think it's a scam. I think a scam would mean... A scam to bring tourists.

33:00A scam would mean that the Ethiopians themselves don't believe this. They do believe this. This is a passionate belief. There is a replica of the Ark of the Covenant or of the tablets of stone in every single church in Ethiopia. There's more than 20 ,000 churches. Take the replica out and it stops being a church. So we have this pre-Christian relic in Christian churches. And it's so important that if the relic or the replica of the relic is removed from the church, the church stops being a church. Really? It's consecrated, yes. But that still doesn't mean the original is in this church. No, it doesn't.

33:32Why do you believe so passionately it is? I looked into the matter in great detail. The question is, what happened to the Ark of the Covenant? We know that Jerusalem was invaded by the Babylonians in 587 BC, that they raided the temple, that they took everything out of the temple. They kept detailed lists of everything they took, which they carried off to Babylon. Those lists did not include the Ark of the Covenant. I consulted closely with a number of scholars, particularly Bezalel Porton in Jerusalem into this issue. And he suggested that the Ark of the Covenant had been taken out of the temple long before the Babylonian invasion.

34:08It was taken out during the reign of a monarch called Manasseh. And Manasseh was an apostate. He had abandoned the traditional Judaic faith and he had adopted the worship of a Canaanite deity called an Asherah. And he had placed an Asherah in the Holy of Holies of the temple. According to Bezalel Porton and other experts, there's no way that those who were loyal to the traditional religion could have allowed the Ark to stay in proximity to a pagan relic. This is the time when suddenly in Upper Egypt on the island of Elephantine, opposite the city of Aswan in the Nile, a Jewish temple is built, 650 BC.

34:44It's very puzzling because this was the first temple period. There's not supposed to be any temples outside Jerusalem, but there's no doubt it's been excavated by the German Archaeological Institute. there was a Jewish temple there. It stood there for 200 years. Nobody knows why it was there, but the suggestion is it was put there as a place of refuge for the Ark, that the Ark was taken there during this period of upheaval in Jerusalem. And then later, 200 years after that, the Jewish population of Elephantina were sacrificing rams. And the Egyptian deity of the island of Elephantina is Khnum, a ram-headed deity.

35:20There was an uprising of the Egyptians against them, and they disappear from history. I suggest, and the traditions of the Ethiopian Jews themselves support this, they fled south, they followed the Nile River system, they followed the Blue Nile to its source in Lake Tana. And that is indeed exactly where the ancient Jewish community of Ethiopia still lives to this day, the Falashas, the Beta Israel. They practice a very Old Testament form of Judaism. Put the pieces together and you begin to have rather a strong case.

35:51Piers Morgan:But many scholars, as you know, if not the majority of scholars, I think it'd be fair to say, believe the Ark was likely destroyed, looted or disappeared during that Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem. Mainstream researchers say there is no solid textual or archaeological evidence that the Ark was ever taken out of Jerusalem. Is that fair? That's fair. It's absolutely fair. And yet we have this massive, intriguing country in the Horn of Africa. No, you've got me on it. which is totally focused on this matter in a very puzzling way, which has an Old Testament Judaic community as part of the population.

36:26Piers Morgan:Why won't they ever let anybody go in and look at it? Because it's the... Why won't anybody be allowed into the Kaaba in Mecca? Because it's the most sacred place, as far as the Ethiopians are concerned. Is there anyone alive who's ever seen it? No. No? Apart from the Guardian of the Ark. And the Guardian of the Ark, and I've met several of them, they all get ill. This is another thing that intrigued me. They get cataracts over their eyes. Why? They say the Ark caused it. I asked specifically through a translator how and why did the Ark cause this to you? And he just said the Ark is a thing of fire.

37:02And that was the moment when this story really got its hook into me. The absolute honesty with which that person spoke and the feeling that he was in the presence of some awesome power intrigued me. I'm offering this as an alternative point of view. And I'm backing up supporting... No, no, I get it. I get it. But I might not be right. The Ethiopians might not be right.

37:24Piers Morgan:Here's my point about you, which I was... I didn't know what to make of you the first time until I interviewed you. And afterwards I said, it seems completely reasonable to me. I mean, you might not... Everything you're saying might be completely wrong, but you don't pretend otherwise. What you're saying is there are a set of circumstances here which, if you interpret it like this, could lead us to this. and there's this fascinating place, heavily guarded, which has all this history, and it could be, logically, that that is where the Ark of the Covenant lies. Yeah, I think it's the best claim.

37:57It's the place in the world with the best claim.

37:59Piers Morgan:I've never read, never watched Raiders of the Lost Ark. I have. How accurate is it in the way... In terms of the awesome powers of the Ark, very accurate. Really? Yeah, spot on. The biblical description has been honoured correctly in the construction of their model arc of the covenant and the way that it strikes people dead and it's used as a fearsome weapon, that's all over the Bible. Maybe I should watch it. I might watch it over Christmas. It's entertaining. You've got me into all this stuff. You see, I never used to like all this stuff. I'm now into it. It's fascinating. You make it so exciting and interesting.

38:33Piers Morgan:And because I know that you're... See, I think you're intellectually honest because you don't try and say to me, well, no, no, I'm right about this and they're all wrong. You don't say that. You just say, look, their view is this, and my view is it could be this. I like that. Yeah, and I hope that I'm bringing some balance to the picture, which I think has been a very unbalanced picture up to now. I've got to wrap up soon, but I want to ask you about the Bible. Obviously, incredibly important historical text. How much of the Bible should we treat as being fact, and how much as non-fact? I think the Bible, particularly the Old Testament, is an extremely precious testimony that has come down to us in written form from the ancient world.

39:20What's fascinating is how much that's in the Bible is in older texts from ancient Sumer, from Mesopotamia, supposedly the first high civilization. The story of the flood, for example, the flood of Noah, that is prefigured in Mesopotamia with a much older story that speaks of a global flood and of a god warning one individual that the flood is coming and encouraging him to build an ark and to save humankind. There's no doubt that the documentation of the Old Testament draws heavily, heavily on ancient Sumerian knowledge and facts. I think that like any document that comes down to us from the remote past, it has to be taken with a pinch of salt.

40:08we have to look at each individual case carefully.

40:12Piers Morgan:So some of it can be proven from what we believe, but other parts of it are subjective? Yes, like any ancient document. I think it should be regarded as... And the New Testament? It should be regarded as an asset rather than the truth, the whole truth. And what about the New Testament? Look, I'm not a Christian, so... I am, so that's why I'm curious what you were going to say. What I see, as far as I understand them, is the teachings of Jesus are teachings of love and teachings of care and support. I see nothing wicked or cruel or unkind in the teachings of Jesus, but I see much that's wicked and cruel and unkind in the Christian church over the course of history.

41:00Do you believe the Christmas story? No, I don't believe the Christmas story. You really are a Grinch, aren't you?

41:10I don't believe it's as simple as that. But do I believe that we live in a mysterious universe where a God is a definite possibility? Yes.

41:21Piers Morgan:Well, I've always taken a view of that. I mean, I had this argument with Richard Dawkins and others. It's fine to say, all right, you're an atheist and this all happened or you subscribe to the Big Bang Theory, whatever, but they can never answer the one question, which makes me certain there must be a superior thing out there, which is, well, what was there before the Big Bang? Yeah. What's nothing? Yeah. The human brain cannot comprehend nothing or eternity. And because we can't and no one can explain it, to me there must be a superior thing to the human brain that's there that can comprehend these impossible questions.

41:54I would go with that. I'm just uncomfortable with the very rigid way that the three monotheistic faiths, Christianity, Judaism and Islam have created this kind of tribal chieftain that tells us all what to do and who can be extremely cruel. But actually, Piers, you're right. I mean, it's a mystery. It's a mystery to be alive. It's a mystery. Just the fact that you live, the fact that I live, the fact that we can. It's incredible. Consider the possibility of neither of us being here. If our parents had done something different, you know, we wouldn't be here.

42:24Piers Morgan:And I'm kind of fascinated, you know, as I've got older and I've lost a lot of people, sadly, at different ages and stuff. Yeah, me too. And it really, I'm sure inevitably, you start to think more and more, well, what is thereafter? Is it really feasible that we have this extraordinary existence and then that's it? I just don't think it is. I don't think it is either. I do believe that consciousness survives death, and I do think it's also, and it's become clearer to me as I've got older, it's really important what we do with our lives. We do not want to come to that moment of death carrying a burden of guilt and shame and regret at what we've done.

42:59when we come to the fulfilment and the end of our lives, we should be able to look back on it and say, yeah, I made some mistakes, I screwed up in this and that, but by and large, I tried to do the right thing. Yeah.

43:09Piers Morgan:I want to end by reminding you of what you said about my football team last time. I have one question at the end, which is this. Will Arsenal win the Premier League before or after the world ends? Before. Thank you. Great to see you. So Arsenal blew it last season, but we are currently top of both the Premier League in this country and of the European Champions League. So my question now has evolved to, will Arsenal, with all your knowledge of history and all your optimism for the future, will my beloved Arsenal win the Premier League and Champions League this season? Well, since my eldest son is a huge Arsenal fan, I have got to say yes.

43:55Piers Morgan:Excellent! I love ending on a positive note. Graham Hancock, it's always great to see you. Nice to see you. Come back again. I love our chats. It's great. It winds up all the right people, too. Good to see you. Good to see you. And Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas to you. Even if you don't believe it. Thank you. We'll be taking a bit of a break over Christmas and the New Year here at Piers Morgan Uncensored, but that doesn't mean the entire Uncensored family gets to slack off. History Uncensored is now up and running, and the host Bianca Nobolo is joining me to tell us what she has in store but first here's a little appetizer.

44:31Welcome to History Uncensored with me Bianca Nobolo. Isaac Newton's secret search for the Philosopher's Stone. Were the Nazis normal? The Slavic vampire panic a century and a half before anyone had even heard of Count Dracula.

44:49Is the killing of 8 ,000 individuals somehow worse than the killing of 3 million? I don't think it is. One of the things I found early on was a set of x-rays of Hitler's skull. He was not intrinsically nasty. He really wasn't. But he was clear about how Germany should be shaped. The two facets of the Philosopher's Stone, limitless health and limitless wealth. Divinely ordained wise swapping. It was a magical way to create harmony across the universe, but for them that was just how the world worked. Randy Boggesson's Alchemist. What do the historical sources say about cannibalism in the Crusades?

45:34Piers Morgan:That's the$10 ,000 question. People were genuinely disturbed by this. It was widespread. They were the Hashishans. They were a sect of Shia Islam. Their goal was to create the political outcomes they wanted through assassination. This would be very single white female, were you not such a popular historian. We have this astonishing document written in 1732, inspection and findings on the so-called vampires or bloodsuckers. Dracula is a sexual predator. He's making impure the blood of the imperial race. Male human beings have a stronger tendency for antisocial behaviour. Don't say. What I think.

46:20How can you tell a fellow vampire? Well, they're usually not quite about it. God looks great on pizza. History has forbidden questions. They feel morally dangerous. We've got to ask the questions that we'd rather avoid.

46:46Piers Morgan:It's fascinating. I love history. Why do you want to do this? History has always been a passion of mine, and it's just fascinating. That's why people are drawn to it, because ancient history is so intriguing. What mysteries do we not know about yet? But also it feels like a point of contention today in a way that it hasn't before. Just in the same way that you have debates in the news about what people believe and fake news and what's real. The same thing is happening to history. Like if we look around the world, whether it's Vladimir Putin using all the maps to justify invasions of Ukraine, what's happened in Israel and Gaza, China invests in research projects to kind of claim broader territory.

47:26Almost every government selects their history to some extent. So we want to be a place that people can trust to learn about history, but most importantly, feel educated and entertained.

47:37Piers Morgan:Now, obviously, I'm sort of known for long-form interviews, for fiery debates, all that kind of thing. Yeah. What do you want to be known for on History Uncensored? Well, history isn't just the past. It's what we're allowed to remember. It's what's been remembered for us. So my approach is going to be, let's take these topics where the right questions or maybe the darker, more dangerous questions haven't been asked and ask them because history belongs to everybody and i want to go into the taboo the strange the weird stuff that often academics can be a little shy or sheepish about but actually they're so revealing about human nature like some of our first episodes we're looking at vampire panics in the 1700s vampire panic yes this was actually investigated by the habsburg empire they sent surgeons officials to find out what on earth was going on there I forgot I can swear on YouTube.

48:28I just sent myself. So what was going on there? People had real fears and something was happening which we need to explore. The same for Alchemist and the Philosopher's Stone. Scientists like Isaac Newton were exploring these things. They can't just be dismissed out of hand. What was really going on? So I'd like to be a place where people feel like they can trust us to look into the taboo, the strange, the difficult, and we'll give them both sides and ask the questions that other people haven't been willing to get.

48:58Piers Morgan:So I watched the first episode about the Nuremberg trials was absolutely fascinating. I mean, I learned so much watching it. Oh, that's great. And it was really compelling and really interesting and very timely with all the stuff about Nazis that's been disseminated over social media. What I love about this new show and channel is if you're out there and you don't know what to believe, I have anointed you as the historian for Uncensored who's actually going to try and get to reality. And I think it's so important because there's so much crap out there. Of all kinds. And young people in particular, they aren't sure what's true.

49:36Yeah, I think there's sort of two different problems. On the one hand, you have this orthodoxy, as in certain history is kind of dusty and academic and it's quite limited and it's the purview of a couple of historians that are doing this work in universities. And then you have this explosion of people on the internet who have thoughts about history or there are conspiracy theories. It's a lot of noise, and there might be some truth to part of that. We want to be the third way where you can come to us and we'll delve into both to give you the answers.

50:06Piers Morgan:Love it. And you'll have big interviews from time to time? Big interviews. Sometimes we're just sitting down with historians who have incredible bodies of work who are really interesting people, getting to the bottom of them, and this is to the point that you were just making. History is a product of humans. It is how the past is written about through a human being. So there's always an angle and a bias, no matter how brilliant these people are. So it's a good way to look at what's driving the people writing our history too. Well, no pressure, Bianca, but obviously Piers Morgan Uncensored is a global phenomenon, one of the most-watched YouTube channels in our space ever.

50:39Piers Morgan:You're the next one on the block and Uncensored, so don't let me down. Well, you know I'm very competitive, so I'm aiming not to. I think it's going to be great. I love the first few episodes I've watched and obviously I'm taking a well-deserved break, I'm sure you'll all agree, over Christmas. Bianca will be slaving away, bringing you historical, fascinating facts to the History Uncensored YouTube channel. So check it out, subscribe, and you will be informed, entertained and fascinated. What more could you want over the festive period? Good luck. Thank you, Piers. Piers Morgan Uncensored is proudly independent.

51:15Piers Morgan:The only boss around here is me. If you enjoy our show, we ask for only one simple thing. Hit subscribe on YouTube and follow Piers Morgan Uncensored on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. And in return, we will continue our mission to inform, irritate and entertain. And we'll do it all for free. Independent, uncensored media has never been more critical and we couldn't do it without you.

51:47Piers Morgan:Bloomberg follows the money, whether it's the funds fueling AI or crypto's trillion dollar swings. There's a money side to every story. Get the money side of the story. Subscribe now at Bloomberg.com.