The Egyptian Labyrinth

The Claim

There’s a huge underground labyrinth beneath the pyramids of Egypt that no one has been in for thousands of years.

Ancient Egyptian wonders lost by time are normally right at the top of the list for explorers and treasure hunters, as the level of work put into building them and their age over other ancient sights is unmatched, so when people heard about an enormous underground labyrinth complex around the pyramids, it piqued a lot of interest. But since no one has been in it, why do people even think it exists?

The Labyrinth has been mentioned numerous times throughout history by various ancient figures, such as Pliny, Diodorus, and Strabo, but none give a greater description than Herodotus, a Greek historian born in the Persian empire. Below is a quote taken from his works where he speaks of being allowed to visit the upper levels.

“This I have actually seen, a work beyond words. For if anyone put together the buildings of the Greeks and display of their labours, they would seem lesser in both effort and expense to this labyrinth… Even the pyramids are beyond words, and each was equal to many and mighty works of the Greeks. Yet the labyrinth surpasses even the pyramids”. Herodotus (‘Histories’, Book, II, 148)

By the time Herodotus visited the complex, he found out it was already more than 1300 years old, and since his visit took place during the 4th century BC, that would today make it around 4000 years old. He goes on to talk at length in his book, stating he was only allowed to tour the upper levels as the lower section contained the tombs of the 12 kings who built it, as well as burial sites of sacred crocodiles.

The Labyrinth is said to contain over 3000 rooms and is completely covered in intricate hieroglyphics and paintings. The architecture has been described as more stunning than the Pyramids themselves, and has works even beyond the capabilities of the Greeks.

“When one had entered the sacred enclosure, one found a temple surrounded by columns, 40 to each side, and this building had a roof made of a single stone, carved with panels and richly adorned with excellent paintings. It contained memorials of the homeland of each of the kings as well as of the temples and sacrifices carried out in it, all skilfully worked in paintings of the greatest beauty.” – Herodotus

So where is it?

Herodotus described that one corner of the complex was located directly below one corner of a pyramid, believed to be the Hawara pyramid.

In 2008, an expedition scanned areas around the base of the Hawara pyramid and detected walls several meters thick that went down as far as the range of their equipment. They scanned 2 areas around the south of the pyramid, with one area being 100m by 50m and another area to the left of that, 80m by 100m.

In both areas, they found thick stone walls and hundreds of rooms, as well as an underground canal system and the presence of water. The Mataha Expedition had been a success and had proved the existence of a legendary ancient Egyptian labyrinth.

The results were published in the fall 2008 scientific journal of the NRIAG, but shortly after, the Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities of Egypt demanded a stop to the publishing of the results due to national security reasons. The Egyptian government never published the findings themselves, and so the members of the Mataha expedition set up a website to show what they had discovered.

So there’s a huge Labyrinth under the pyramids? Could that be true?

The problem with this one is that no one has publicly declared it found, even after knowing it was there.

From the treasure hunter’s perspective, it would be impossible to get in undetected, as a good amount of digging would be required, and even if someone managed to get in, people don’t just turn up with hundreds of tons of 4000-year-old Egyptian artifacts no one has ever seen before. It raises questions to say the least, so the possibility of an independent visit can be safely ruled out.

Ultimately, it’s the Egyptian government who have the final say over who can search for it, but if it’s already been proven to them that it’s real, why haven’t they opened it up? Revealing the labyrinth to the world would make it the biggest historic discovery in the history of Egypt, and the treasure value would be beyond priceless, so why haven’t they tried to get in?

The above is why some people doubt it even exists, as the findings have been deemed a clever hoax, but then again, these claims always are until someone proves them one way or another.