The Secret Chamber of Osiris: Lost Knowledge of the Sixteen Pyramids (17 page)

But the story does not end there. There is yet
more
evidence of this deception for consideration. As a consequence of the material uncovered in Vyse’s journal, further questions arose concerning the facsimile drawings Vyse instructed to be made by his assistant, J. R. Hill, of the hieroglyphics allegedly found in these hidden chambers. What was found in Hill’s facsimile drawings of the hieroglyphics in these hitherto hidden chambers was further evidence of the hoax.

THE LIE OF THE LANDSCAPES

This piece of evidence comes from something that is so obvious, no one ever actually notices it or, if they do, they think there is little relevance to it. It may seem something of a fastidious point, but the orientation of all three Khufu cartouches from Campbell’s Chamber we find in Vyse’s written journal are all oriented
horizontally
—but why should this be when the actual cartouche in Campbell’s Chamber (figure 6.2a) is
vertically
oriented at 90° to Vyse’s drawing of it (figure 6.2b)?

It may seem a trivial point, but when we consider Vyse’s entire journal, we find that he has drawn other hieroglyphics exactly and correctly as he would have observed them in the various chambers; sometimes upright, sometimes upside-down (i.e., rotated 180°), and sometimes sideways (i.e., rotated 90°). With his body as the frame of reference (head to top of chamber, feet to bottom of chamber), this then presents us with evidence of how Vyse
instinctively
would draw the glyphs he observed in the chambers along with their specific orientation relative to the axis of his body—in short, he drew in his journal exactly what was in front of him, maintaining the appropriate orientation of the glyphs as he saw and drew them in his journal.

We surely have to ask then, given the
other
examples of glyphs in his journal, why then did Vyse decide to draw the three Khufu cartouches we find in his diary some 90° differently from how this cartouche actually appears in the chamber? In short, the Khufu cartouche is painted
vertically
on a gabled ceiling block of the chamber, so why didn’t Vyse maintain its orientation (as he did with his other journal drawings) and draw the cartouche vertically in his journal rather than horizontally? Are we perhaps detecting here a clue as to how Vyse
originally
saw the Khufu cartouche and, therefore, why it takes this orientation in his written journal? Did Vyse originally copy a Khufu cartouche from some other place where the cartouche was
horizontally
aligned? Did Vyse simply copy what he had found in some other place into Campbell’s Chamber (by Raven and Hill) and, without fully thinking through the ramifications of the next decision, had the original horizontal cartouche rotated by 90°, placing the glyphs vertically into the chamber thereby creating the contradiction with his horizontal journal entries?

Admittedly, this particular line of questioning may seem somewhat pedantic, but, remarkably, we find that it is a behavioral pattern that is emulated in the facsimile drawings of his assistant, J. R. Hill, and to a quite remarkable degree.

HILL'S ORIENTATIONS

During some unrelated research in 2013, I had been sent copies of three of Mr. Hill’s facsimile drawings by Patricia Usick, Ph.D., of the British Museum. In studying these drawings I felt there was something odd about them, but, at the time, I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was I felt was wrong. I subsequently contacted Dr. Usick again in April 2014, asking if she could send me scanned copies of Mr. Hill’s other facsimile drawings (twenty-eight in all) in order that I might be able to examine these to perhaps figure out what it was about them that was nagging in my mind. Unfortunately, Dr. Usick explained to me that there were no digital scans or photos of the other Hill facsimiles that she could send and that the only way I would be able to see them would be to arrange an appointment with her at the British Museum, which I duly did.

And so, on a beautiful spring day in May 2014, my wife, Louise, and I set off once again from our home in Glasgow, Scotland, for the British Museum in London (figure 6.10). This time it would be a round trip of about 1,000 miles. We didn’t know it then, but it was to be another trip filled with unexpected discovery.

After a couple of false starts searching the museum for Dr. Usick’s department, we eventually met with her at the museum’s information desk and she led us to the Egyptian and Near East Department’s study room via some incredibly tortuous labyrinth through the museum. Indeed, from the information desk it took us a full ten minutes or so to finally arrive at the study room, having passed through a number of long passageways, expansive hallways, and galleries, through a number of doors, up some stairs, through some other small rooms, down a service elevator, and finally into the room where Hill’s drawings were at last presented to us. All around us there were numerous students and museum staff employed in analyzing and cataloging all manner of ancient artifacts. Dr. Usick took us to a table where Hill’s facsimile drawings had already been laid out, awaiting our arrival. Once again we were permitted to photograph the material so long as we did not use flash photography.

Figure 6.10. The British Museum

The drawings had been placed in a very elaborate and robust folder whose dimensions were around two by three feet. A cream-colored panel on the front of the folder detailed the contents and was signed at the bottom “Colonel Howard Vyse” and below this, “1837.” Fortunately, with only twenty-eight drawings to photograph this would be a much easier task for us than the 600 pages of Vyse’s diary we had photographed the previous month. When, finally, we were able to view all twenty-eight of
Hill’s drawings, they told their own story and confirmed my suspicions
about Vyse’s horizontal diary entries of the Khufu cartouche—that the
Khufu cartouche we find in his journal and in Campbell’s Chamber
had been copied by Vyse and his team from an original secret source
that had been oriented
horizontally
when Vyse and Hill first copied it.

But how could we possibly determine this from only a brief study of
Hill’s drawings? The realization began to dawn when Louise picked up
one of the facsimiles and was confused as to which way up it should be
held in order for me to properly photograph it; that is, with the correct
orientation of the hieroglyphics as they would have appeared to someone
observing them in the chamber. The hieroglyphics on this particular
drawing were oriented 90° to the signatures of the various witnesses,
including Mr. Hill’s signature (figure 6.11). I explained to Louise that
many of the hieroglyphics in these chambers of the Great Pyramid were,
in fact, painted upside-down or rotated at 90°. I further explained that
Hill’s signature, as well as the signatures of the other witnesses, essentially
tell us the correct orientation of the hieroglyphics; the signatures should
always be the right way up (like the north indicator on a map), which will
then correctly align the hieroglyphics as they would appear to an observer
in the chamber. And so we carried on, carefully photographing each of Hill’s facsimile drawings, ensuring the signatures (our compass) on the facsimiles were the right way up, thereby presenting to us the correct orientation of the hieroglyphics as they would appear in the chamber.

Figure 6.11. Reproduction of the
Hill facsimile showing hieroglyphics
oriented 90° to Hill’s signature
(and other signatures on original).
This is how the hieroglyphics would
appear to an observer standing
or crouching in the chamber. The
facsimile hieroglyphics are given
their correct orientation by the
signature of Mr. Hill and the other
signatories.

When we had finished our work and were checking the drawings on our laptops against the plan drawings by Mr. Perring of the hieroglyphics in the various chambers,
^*3
the penny dropped and I finally realized now what it was that had been nagging me for the best part of a year. The drawings Hill had made of the Khufu cartouche, which I had seen the year before, and crew name from Campbell’s Chamber
both
had the wrong orientation relative to Hill’s signature on the facsimile drawing.

This is to say that, almost without exception, Mr. Hill’s drawings of the glyphs in the various chambers had the correct orientation relative to his own signature and the signatures of the other witnesses
except
the two drawings from Campbell’s Chamber of the Khufu cartouche and crew name—the two facsimiles containing the very hieroglyphics I suspected Vyse had faked.
^†1

Bizarrely, both of these facsimile drawings from Campbell’s Chamber were signed by Mr. Hill (the
only
witness) as though he had been copying them from an original source that had the hieroglyphics oriented
horizontally
(figure 6.12), thereby providing corroboration that the cartouche and crew name facsimiles had come from some other place where the source had been presented with a different orientation (i.e., horizontal) to what we actually find in Campbell’s Chamber (i.e., vertical). This then presents compelling evidence that Hill copied his facsimile drawing of the Khufu cartouche (and crew name) not from Campbell’s Chamber but from somewhere else where it had been presented to him horizontally, hence why he unwittingly and habitually
signed the facsimile at the bottom (as most artists do), aligning his signature
with the landscape orientation of the original.

Figure 6.12. Reproduction of the Khufu
Cartouche with Hill signature in landscape

Figure 6.13. Mock-up facsimile of
portrait Khufu Cartouche with mock
Hill signature (bottom right)

If Hill had made this facsimile from the vertically aligned (portrait)
hieroglyphics that we observe today in Campbell’s Chamber (as is
believed), then, by following the normal convention he employed with
every other facsimile drawing he made that we were able to check, he
should
have signed his Khufu facsimile as is shown in figure 6.13.

That Hill appears not to have followed his own convention in signing these facsimiles from Campbell’s Chamber strongly suggests that these drawings had originally been copied from some alternative source where Hill
did,
in fact, follow his normal signing convention—he instinctively and habitually signed the drawing as he normally would at the foot of the horizontal/landscape drawing (figure 6.12), because that
was
the orientation of the
original
source cartouche. That Hill then, rather stupidly, decided to rotate his already signed landscape drawing 90° to copy it into the Great Pyramid was to be his undoing as it resulted in this very obvious discrepancy we find today. Had Mr. Hill simply copied this drawing into the chamber horizontally then his deception would have gone entirely unnoticed.

It seems somewhat ironic that Mr. Hill’s signature placed on his facsimile drawings is used to vouch for the authenticity of the hieroglyphics in these chambers, and yet it is his signature that has, in the end, been his undoing, since, once again, the truth of these markings in Campbell’s Chamber of the Great Pyramid is laid bare. And it has to be said—if Vyse and his team could change even just
three
markings in these chambers then their action taints
all
the markings found in Campbell’s Chamber and all other chambers below; this evidence becomes the fruit of the poisonous tree.