Why did two German 'hobbyists' deface a cartouche of Khufu inside the Great Pyramid

EXACTLY what drove two men to pretend to be archaeologists and hack off pieces of the Great Pyramid? Atlantis. It's a tale of cranks, conspiracies and an ancient cartouche.

The Great Pyramid of Khufu (also known as Cheops) on the Giza Plateau is the largest pyramid in Egypt and the only surviving example of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

The cartouche? It's an ancient red-pigment scribble deep inside the Great Pyramid said to be the linchpin in identifying who it was actually built for. Is it an authentic ancient Egyptian depiction of his name, or a 19th century fraud by a British adventurer seeking fame and fortune?

The conspiracy? That the academic world is colluding to conceal the true age and nature of the Great Pyramids. They're not monumental structures built to contain the tombs of Egyptian Pharoahs: They're really 20,000-year-old Atlantean power stations.

The cranks? Two men who took advantage of Egypt's internal chaos to gain access to the pyramid's inner septa, chip away at its stone slabs and scrape pigment off the cartouche to "prove" their alternative version of the history of the world.

In November, Egyptian authorities expressed their outrage at the defacing of their nation's greatest monument. Minister of State for Antiquities Mohamed Ibrahim vowed to hunt the vandals down and take retribution for the assault on their heritage.

Variously described as archeology students from Dresden, amateur archaeologists and "hobbyists", the pair have now reportedly apologised, saying they "meant no harm" in chiselling off samples from within the Great Pyramid.

They said they hoped Egypt's antiquities minister and the Egyptian people would accept their apology and offer to pay compensation.

I thought something had been posted about this, apparently not here. :') Thanks Theoria.

The cartouche? It's an ancient red-pigment scribble deep inside the Great Pyramid said to be the linchpin in identifying who it was actually built for... The conspiracy? That the academic world is colluding to conceal the true age and nature of the Great Pyramids. They're not monumental structures built to contain the tombs of Egyptian Pharoahs: They're really 20,000-year-old Atlantean power stations. The cranks? Two men who took advantage of Egypt's internal chaos to gain access to the pyramid's inner septa, chip away at its stone slabs and scrape pigment off the cartouche to "prove" their alternative version of the history of the world... Enter Dominique Goerlitz and Stefan Erdmann.

To "prove" this nuttery, they would have had to sample and test both the cartouche and the basically identical other ancient graffiti in the relieving chamber to see if they date the same. It doesn't appear that they thought of that, gosh, what a surprise!

This is a good one for the weekly Digest ping. Bauval-squirt ping.

Egyptologists use high-tech software to analyze construction of Great Pyramid
physorg.com | October 21, 2008 | Sumathi Reddy and Nia-Malika Henderson
Posted on 10/21/2008 9:14:48 AM by Mike Fieschko
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2111085/posts

Stones of the Pyramids were Poured, Not Chisled
Associated Content | 05-21-07 | Ranger
Posted on 5/21/2007 1:44:47 PM by mission9
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1837271/posts

http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/josephdavidovits/index

Graham Hancock
March 9, 2015
https://www.facebook.com/Author.GrahamHancock/posts/10153158860962354

The linked report is in English.

Zahi Hawass has a history of firing off rash accusations against others so I’m not surprised at the way this case has turned out. I will ask Zahi about it when I debate him in April. My friends Robert Bauval and Robert Schoch have done a great service in clearing the names of Dominique Goerlitz and Stefan Erdmann, at least of the accusation that they took a sample from, and damaged, the so-called Khufu cartouche. It’s unfortunate, though, that the report does not mention the Egyptians who, as I understand it (unless there have been developments I’m unaware of) are still in prison in Cairo accused of aiding and abetting Goerlitz and Erdmann in a ‘crime’ that we now know they did not commit. Again Robert Bauval has done excellent work in campaigning to get these unfortunate individuals released... As to the issue of iron in the Great Pyramid, this has been known for some time. An iron plate was found near the end of the southern shaft of the King’s chamber in 1837 and about one-third of that plate is presently in the British Museum although not on display to the public. Bauval and I have both seen and handled the plate and we reported on it in our 1996 book ‘Keeper of Genesis’ (published in the US under the title ‘Message of the Sphinx’). The plate has been analysed by metallurgists and it is categorically NOT meteoritic iron, which is extremely interesting as it suggests a much earlier dawning of the ‘iron-age’ in Egypt that archaeologists currently accept. The first detailed paper written on the subject is by El Gayer and Jones, “Metallurgical investigation of an iron plate found in 1837 in the Great Pyramid at Gizeh, Egypt” (Journal of the Historical Metallurgy Society, Vol. 23 No. 2, 1989, pp. 75-83).The paper concludes that ‘the plate was originally manufactured by welding together a number of laminations of iron metal...The quality of the forging operations used to weld the iron fragments together is often exceedingly poor and it is possible that the plate was produced by a very primitive and, in consequence, a very inefficient or inexperienced iron smithy... It is concluded, on the basis of the present investigation, that the iron plate is very ancient. Furthermore metallurgical evidence supports the archaeological evidence which suggests that the plate was incorporated within the Pyramid at the time that structure was being built.’ Interestingly El Gayer and Jones reported finding traces of gold on the iron plate. Their conclusions, however, have been disputed in a subsequent study by Craddock and Lang (’Gizeh Iron Revisited’).... Bauval and I commented on Craddock and Lang’s opinion in Keeper of Genesis/Message of the Sphinx. As usual at Giza nothing is ever quite what it seems.

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