← Piers Morgan Uncensored
Piers Morgan Uncensored
‘Doing Awful, Terrifying Things’ Graham Hancock On Pyramids and Ark of The Covenant
00:50:44
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- [00:02]
A
You are most famous beyond the pyramids for the Ark of the Covenant.
- [00:06]
B
That's what started me on this journey.
- [00:08]
A
Yes. You think you know where it is.
- [00:11]
B
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. This is according to the book of Exodus. Every description of it in the Bible has it doing really awesome, terrifying things, like striking people dead.
- [00:33]
A
And it's guarded by a single monk who's never allowed to leave his chapel.
- [00:37]
B
That's correct. The Ark is a thing of fire. And that was the moment when this story really got its hook into me.
- [00:45]
A
Well, later in the show, we have a special preview of the All New History uncensored, our new YouTube channel. We'll begin with a returning favourite. This time last year, I interviewed for the first time a documentarian, Graham Hancock, whose uncensored theories on ancient civilizations have made him a superstar in the world of alternative history, but maybe a pariah in mainstream academia. We've had some lively debates about it all since then and there have been recently a few updates. I'm delighted to welcome him back. Grant, welcome back.
- [01:12]
B
Thank you.
- [01:12]
A
What was your reaction like to our interview last time?
- [01:15]
B
Well, it was. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it very much because you pushed me all the time and that's what you do, and you do it very well, but you pushed me in a way that wasn't sneering and condescending. So I found that quite refreshing, actually. I'm used to being pushed, but usually it's accompanied by sneers and condescension. So it was nice to have that.
- [01:36]
A
Well, I have a sort of skepticism of anyone who has a definitive view about something which actually hasn't been proven.
- [01:43]
B
Well, I'm not one of those, because I don't have a definitive view.
- [01:45]
A
That's what I mean. I always take a bit of an open mind to stuff because I. I just think, unless there is an obvious, definitive, provable answer which cannot be contested. Well, then, whose view is more interesting than anybody else's?
- [01:57]
B
Yeah, and, you know, that varies across the sciences. You could say that a neurosurgeon's view on neurosurgery might be better not contested by a journalist. But when it comes to archeology, the level of science involved in archaeology is not comparable with the level of science involved in. In neuroscience.
- [02:17]
A
Right.
- [02:18]
B
And there's room for the man.
- [02:21]
A
A lot of it is sort of informed conjecture. Right. I mean, the same set of Facts that we know, but a different interpretation of what that may or mean.
- [02:29]
B
Absolutely. What archaeology is doing is conjecturing based on extremely limited information. First of all limited because only a tiny fraction of the earth's surface has even been looked at by archaeologists. And huge areas of the world that were really interesting in the remote past are particularly neglected. Like the Sahara Desert and like the submerged continental shelves. Sea level rose 400ft at the end of the Ice Age. And then secondly, archaeology has got a very weighing, measuring and counting approach to evidence. And that's fine and that's really necessary. But my problem with that is that I don't think that archaeologists should have a monopoly on the interpretation of the past. And I don't think that they should regard others interpretations of the past as necessarily inferior to their own.
- [03:19]
A
Right. So we have some great reaction. We've collated some of the best ones. A positive reaction from somebody called the G Zone. Archaeologists claim that if there was an ancient lost civilization, they would have found it already. Dude is right in front of their dumb ass faces. Lol. Hancock is bang on the dollars. History is being hidden from us. Well, that was good. Negative John Wade. If Graham Hancock thinks there was some kind of advanced Ice age civilization that preceded what we're aware of, they should at the very least propose at least one testable hypothesis. Otherwise Hancock needs to STFU and let real scientists do the science. And in the middle was a guy called John Mel. So Isaac Newton was a heretic, Galileo was a heretic and hundreds of others. Heretics gave this technology and built this world. Maybe Hancock is not correct, but more correct than other so called experts. And then some of the feedback was enraged. As if being questioned on these matters was heretical in itself. One whose name is so long at Dylan Pilcher universe 6515 Piers Morgan doesn't deserve Graham Hancock. Well, you're back Mr. T. Henry 1988. Which may be a reference to my favorite football player, Thierry Omri. It's weird. Morgan just can't listen. Okay, well that's a perennial issue. But a lot of reaction which I just found really interesting. You know, I wasn't quite aware, I mean I knew of you, I didn't aware quite how polarizing you are.
- [04:53]
B
Yes, it's a curious thing and I never expected this to is to happen to me. It seems to me. First of all, I want to be clear. I am not claiming that I have proof that there was a lost advanced civilization during the Ice Age. This is a possibility that I explore. I'm unhappy with the picture that is presented to us of the remote past by archeology. I think there are major missing pieces of the puzzle. For example, ancient knowledge of astronomy, of detailed aspects of astronomy, which is present in ancient mythology and in ancient traditions around the world, is largely ignored by archaeologists. And I think it needs to be taken into account. So, you know, I did not expect suggesting that there may be problems with the current picture of history that we have and trying to look for an explanation to those problems. I didn't expect that to be polarizing.
- [05:53]
A
I mean, you become a bit of a cult hero. But is that a problem? If you get treated like a kind of quasi religious figure rather than a historian just asking what you think are quite rational questions, is that problematic?
- [06:06]
B
I've never experienced being treated like a quasi religious figure. That has not been my experience at all. What happens is that people who have an interest in the past are profoundly dissatisfied with the explanations offered by archaeology. And I think they find me useful as offering an alternative point of view which is worked out and which is thought through, which isn't just off the top of my head. But I do not see myself as a cult leader. I have nothing to do with any kind of cult. I don't want to be a leader. I don't want leadership in the world. Actually, I think leadership is a big problem in the world. Last thing I want to be is a leader. What I would like to do is provoke some free thinking. I think that there's not enough thinking for ourselves in the world today and in the world of archeology. I think the main problem is that archaeologists are saying we have a monopoly on the past. We are the experts on the past. We are the ones who can tell you what to think about the past. And that does not seem sit well with the modern mindset where people are actually trying to think for themselves and are wishing to release themselves from top down control.
- [07:24]
A
So since we spoke last, we've had a lot of quite heated debates about stuff in your wheelhouse, not least of which have been the pyramids in Egypt. Probably the most inflammatory was when Dr. Zahi Hawass, the godfather of the Giza pyramids, as he's known about a thousand page book about the Jesus pyramids, went up against two of your supposed disciples.
- [07:47]
B
No, I have no disciples. I really want to be clear about that.
- [07:50]
A
They probably see themselves more as that than you would.
- [07:53]
B
No, no. We're a group of people with open minds. But nobody is leading anybody else as far as I'm concerned.
- [08:02]
A
Well, people who like and admire you and think you're a force for good. Jimmy Corsetti and Dan Richards, and they were debating the issue whether high tech drilling of the pyramids was a good idea. Let's take a look.
- [08:14]
B
If you want to squash debate involving, you know, conspiracy theorists and everything, all we got to do is go in and look, we know where it's at. We could drill a hole. This is doable.
- [08:23]
A
Yeah, I agree. Why can't you just go in?
- [08:25]
C
You cannot just go indirectly like this. You have to make a study, you have to research it. You have to decide as a scientist, when can you do it and when we can use it. The nine years do that. We can.
- [08:37]
A
I mean, come on. I mean, look, we sent rockets. We sent rockets to the. Hang on. We have sent rockets to the moon since the 60s.
- [08:46]
C
I mean, this is the pyramid of Egypt. This is something valuable. This one of the seven wonders of the world. You just can go and boom and drill like this. You have to be sure that this drill is important to discover something.
- [09:02]
A
Yeah. What was interesting about that? It got a lot of reaction. A lot of people watched it. Millions. Robbie Williams, the singer, contacted me saying he really wants. Because in the end, Dr. Zahi invited me to go to the Giza Beramez and do a show from him. Robbie Williams wants to come. He was serious. I really want to come. He's fascinated by it. A lot of people are. I still am not quite sure why Dr. Zahi was so against what seemed to me to be a fairly obvious thing to try and do.
- [09:31]
B
I think we need some sympathy and some respect for Zahi Hawass. Zahi has devoted his life to the study of the pyramids. He is a world expert on the pyramids. He's passionate about the subject. He's not putting on an act. The pyramids really matter to him and they matter to his sense of national pride as an Egyptian. And he has a huge amount of knowledge and information to bring to the subject. But I think that Zahi is very tired of people coming to him with what he regards as crackpot ideas and saying, you should do this, you should do that.
- [10:02]
A
Is that a crackpot idea?
- [10:04]
B
No, this is the problem. The work that Filippo Biondi and Kurada Malanga and others have done is not a crackpot idea. In a way, the reaction, the instant hysterical reaction of archaeologists to the publication of this information is an indication of the serious problem that archaeologists did not get to grips with the nature of the technology.
- [10:29]
A
Right, let me just remind of what you're talking about. The specific story that we were debating with that panel was the news back in March that a team of Italian scientists announced the discovery of a colossal underground complex plunging nearly three and a half thousand feet beneath Egypt's Giza Plateau. And just this month, well, I think it was just this month, Filippo Biondisi said the radar engineer who developed the imaging method has gone public on the American Alchemy podcast, saying that four independent satellite operators, Umbra Capella, Space ISI and Italy's cosmoskymed, all returned identical raw tomography data showing the same structures. Now, just put that into simple layman's language for me. What have they actually unearthed?
- [11:17]
B
Well, first of all, the hysterical initial reaction of archaeologists was because they did not understand the technology, they thought that it's simply a matter of radar. And they correctly pointed out that radar cannot see very far under the ground, particularly when the radar's up. In a satellite, you have ground penetrating radar, which can get 20 or 30ft under the ground if you're actually on the ground. But seeing underground from a satellite with radar is not a possibility. So the reaction was, this can't be real, this isn't real. But they don't understand the technology, which is not just synthetic aperture radar. It's combined with tomography, it's combined with sound. The Earth has sound, it has resonance, it has vibration. Even a car moving can create vibrations under the Earth if there are cavities or spaces under the Earth. So it's a combination of, and don't ask me for the high tech details, but it's a combination of radar and sound and the mixture of the two that produces this imaging. And the technology has been tested enough for it to be taken reasonably seriously. That does not mean that they've discovered anything. What it means is that they have identified anomalies beneath the Great Pyramid. And you are absolutely right. The, the only way to settle that is to drill.
- [12:32]
A
Has to be.
- [12:32]
B
And I can't. And that's the only way.
- [12:34]
A
But is that way. Look, I'm a big fan of Dr. Zay. I thought he was great. And he obviously is an indisputed, you know, probably most expert guy on the Giza pyramid alive. Sometimes people in that position, and I'm not gonna speak for him as to whether this is true or not. You can get a little bit overprotective because it means so much to you, because he's an Egyptian, because this is the Great Pyramid. All these things that sometimes you get a little overprotective, when in fact the World, I think, ought to be able to try and work out what has. It's amazing to me that all four of these operators came back and all made the same identification. That means there's something probably. I mean, arguably. Arguably, you have to say on the balance of probability, that it's more likely than not. There's something there.
- [13:22]
B
Yes.
- [13:23]
A
At which point I knew nothing about the pyramids before, probably before I spoke to you. Now I'm, like, really obsessed with it, because I'm like, well, what is there? And could it be there? Is this whole thing underneath? Right?
- [13:35]
B
Yes, it could be.
- [13:35]
A
There's only one way we really can find out.
- [13:37]
B
Drill.
- [13:38]
A
Right. As Donald Trump would say, drill, baby, drill.
- [13:41]
B
And there's no problem in drilling down a kilometer or 2 kilometers below the surface of the Earth. We have drilling projects in the world that are going down 12km. It can be done. It's technically possible. Furthermore, but drilling has taken place on the Giza Plateau before. There has been drilling around the Great Sphinx, supposedly looking for groundwater beneath the Great Sphinx.
- [14:01]
A
Did it cause any damage to them?
- [14:02]
B
No, it didn't cause any damage.
- [14:03]
A
So why would he be so implacably opposed to it?
- [14:07]
B
I think it's this overprotective thing. I think it's the absolute fatigue with just being deluged with lunatic theories and feeling. Look, we archeologists, we devoted our lives to this. We understand Giza. It just can't be. But it was premature because the technology is good. The technology is interesting. I think what needs to be done is, first of all, let's identify a number of deep structures around the world. There are underground cities in Turkey which go down a couple of hundred feet beneath the ground.
- [14:40]
A
Indisputably.
- [14:41]
B
Indisputably, absolutely. They're in Kuyu, for example. I've been in them.
- [14:46]
A
So we know there are underground cities.
- [14:48]
B
And we know their shape. We. We know the shape of all the rooms within.
- [14:51]
A
I mean, treat me as a complete village idiot, but why are they so far underground now? What's happened?
- [14:56]
B
Well, they were dug out. Nobody knows who by. One theory is that local people used them as places of refuge when the area was under attack. But these are very complicated buildings, so.
- [15:06]
A
They would have been almost like, tunneled down.
- [15:09]
B
Tunneled down, Right.
- [15:09]
A
So they weren't like, over time being, you know, changing terrain?
- [15:14]
B
No, no, no.
- [15:14]
A
This is stuff that was recreated underground. Is that your theory, then, about what may lie under Giza, then?
- [15:20]
B
No, is that this is a place where the technology can be tested, because we know the shape of those underground spaces.
- [15:27]
A
So if it goes down and identifies it all accurately, you'll know the technology could possibly do the same with the Giza.
- [15:33]
B
That makes it more likely that the technology is identifying something.
- [15:36]
A
What's the dream? I mean, what in our wildest fantasies, when you think about this and you think of the possibilities, what could lie beneath the Giza pyramid? Today's show is sponsored by Oxford Natural, makers of the Optimum Day and Optimum Night, all natural supplements. Thousands of Brits and Americans are already taking them with incredible results. Optimum Day boosts your energy and supports weight loss throughout the day. Optimum Night helps you relax and get deep, refreshing sleep. They have countless success stories, including from some very familiar faces. England Ledger Michael owen who lost £40. AFTV's Robbie, who lost more than £100. To watch their full stories and many more, scan the QR code on your screen or visit oxfordnatural.com peers and here's the best part. Use the code peers and get 70% off your first order. Get 70% off with the code, Piers. Christmas is peak time for online shopping sprees, but that also means it's peak time for hackers and and data brokers who steal your information online. The solution is very simple. Use Express VPN to shut them down. Top tier encryption keeps your activity hidden, even on dodgy public WI fi, which is perfect for holiday travel. You can set your location to 105 different countries, which lets you access content from all over the world. Users save hundreds on streaming and even plane tickets with ExpressVPN, all for $3.49 a month. It's a no brainer. I use it and you should too. Right now you can get an extra 4 months of ExpressVPN if you go to ExpressVPN.com peers that's ExpressVPN's lowest price ever, plus 4 extra months of service. Just scan the QR code on the screen or go to expressvpn.com peers.
- [17:29]
B
It's very clear when we go back into the ancient Egyptian texts that the one thing you know, I'm not particularly interested in the Great Pyramid as a machine or as some kind of device. Maybe it is, maybe it is more than one thing. But one thing for sure is that the pyramids were connected in the minds of the ancient Egyptians with the mystery of life after death. What happens to us when we die? And they explored that mystery in great depth. And they had a concept of an underworld, a place that they called the Duat, where the soul travels to after death. And interestingly, where you see depictions of that underworld, for example, on the tomb of Thutmose III in the Valley of the Kings, you can see that they consist of narrow corridors and passageways very much like the internal corridors and passageways of the Great Pyramid. There's even a pyramid in the Egyptian underworld. So there's some sense that we should expect to find beneath the Giza Plateau a great deal more than has already been found. That is very. We already know that there are deep shafts like the Osiris shaft, the bottom of the Great Pyramid. The subterranean chamber is 100ft vertically beneath the base of the Great Pyra. I think we're only scratching the surface of what's underneath the Giza Plateau.
- [18:41]
A
I presume you've been out there, have you?
- [18:43]
B
Many times.
- [18:43]
A
Many times, yeah. When you stand there, I mean, they are. It's an astonishing thing, right? I mean, every single part of it is kind of breathtaking in the scale and ambition. Many people just don't believe it could have been done the way people think.
- [19:00]
B
It's like the Great Pyramid is like a huge question mark. Standing there on the Giza Plateau saying, figure me out. Figure me out. First of all, figure out how we did this. There have been multiple theories about how.
- [19:12]
A
When you first went there, how did you feel standing there?
- [19:14]
B
Awe. Inspired. It changed my life.
- [19:15]
A
Did it?
- [19:16]
B
It changed my life. And I felt drawn towards it and I felt compelled to try to understand it better. And in that process, I've climbed the Great Pyramid five times. I've been inside every known cavity and passageway and corridor inside the Great Pyramid. I feel intimately connected to it, but I also feel that that is just scratching the surface and that there is much, much, much more to be found. When you go down to that subterranean chamber beneath the Great Pyramid, you'll find at one side of it a narrow corridor cut into the rock face. And it then goes for 30 or 40ft and then it stops dead. And you have to wonder what else is down there. So I'm fascinated by the work that Filippo Biondi and his team have done. I think that.
- [19:57]
A
And are they credible, these guys?
- [19:59]
B
They are, absolutely. Philippe Biondi is a thoroughly credible radar scientist. Kurada Malanga is a chemist. Neither of them are Egyptologists. This is one of the problem. But they are coming to this with scientific method. Their method has not been understood by Egyptologists. It's been rejected prematurely. Without understanding what the method is, what needs to be done rationally is further testing of the method on known underground structures like Derinkuyu In. In Turkey, for example. And then ultimately, if the method continues to check out and proves that it can identify deep underground spaces, then it comes time to drill, and it may not be a very damaging project.
- [20:38]
A
And you think that potentially what could lie there is a real world manifestation of the spiritual world that you were talking about?
- [20:46]
B
I think so. I think that it was a place of initiation. The ancient Egyptians were obsessed with preparing for death. That this was the ultimate adventure in life. That you would be tested on everything, everything you had done in your life. And that you would have to make a journey through narrow corridors and passageways, in darkness, confronted by gates, protected by fiends and demons. It was a terrifying prospect. And I suspect it's only a theory. I can't prove this, but I suspect that there was an initiation process where initiates were given an insight into what that journey would be like. Practice run.
- [21:26]
A
It would be incredible, wouldn't it?
- [21:27]
B
On the afterlife journey? Yes, it would be.
- [21:29]
A
Did you ever talk to Dr. Zahi?
- [21:31]
B
Zahi and I get on okay. In fact, we've had some misunderstandings in the past.
- [21:36]
A
I mean, if I was to go out there. Cause he's invited me, would he let you come with me?
- [21:41]
B
Yes, I'm sure it's a fun trip.
- [21:42]
A
Wouldn't he?
- [21:43]
B
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 are different interpretations of the evidence. And I don't think Zahi is opposed to different evidence interpretations of the evidence, but he is opposed to flimsy, badly thought out ideas.
- [22:16]
A
Who makes the final decision on whether this drilling can happen?
- [22:18]
B
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.
- [22:34]
A
I mean, do you understand why he has big concerns about it?
- [22:37]
B
Yes, I do. I mean, we're looking, to him, it's a sacred world. 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. And 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 Vyse, who used gunpowder to blow a huge gash in the south side of the country. Great Pyramid. Who went in and blew his way up into the chambers above the king's chamber.
- [23:10]
A
Why did he do that?
- [23:12]
B
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. The 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 Filipe 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.
- [24:02]
A
It's so interesting. There's been another story in the news that 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 civilization than previously thought?
- [24:45]
B
Yeah, 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 4,50,000 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 to be the case. And that's why I use that phrase in 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.
- [25:39]
A
When you, I mean, look, when someone like you. When I read that, I'm like, oh, it's really interesting when you hear there's a patch of. On earth, scorched earth like this, which could support your long held theory.
- [25:52]
B
The human story is longer than we think.
- [25:54]
A
Yes, but how do you react when you hear something like that?
- [25:56]
B
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. His brain size, how many was. Yeah, his brain size was about half of ours, really. But this, this being was bipedal.
- [26:17]
A
Were his other body parts twice as big? Is that why he got his name?
- [26:20]
B
Perhaps. They don't survive, unfortunately. We can't measure them. But he was sailing. Homo erectus sailed to, you know, sailed to Australia. They were capable.
- [26:29]
A
You can't sail to Australia without a brain.
- [26:31]
B
No, you can't just be fully formed. They were remarkable.
- [26:35]
A
It's a smaller brain or smaller head or both.
- [26:37]
B
Well, smaller brain.
- [26:38]
A
Right. I mean, look, you know, given computers were massive, but are now tiny, could the human. I mean, does it make any difference to your brain power?
- [26:46]
B
Yeah, it does. This is a very good. No, it's a very good point. The extent to which brain size is linked to brain power is not clear. And we've got the example with computers where we're miniaturizing things more and more and more.
- [26:57]
A
That's what I mean.
- [26:57]
B
So it's not, it's not so important. But my point was that fire was being used by Homo erectus. The question is, were they managing fire? Were they actually. 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. Another aspect of human behavior.
- [27:17]
A
My point about your reaction is like, when my football team, Arsenal, score two or three brilliant goals, like last night in the Champions League, I'm like, punch in the air and shouting as a. Are you calm and measured when you hear these things or do you leap around?
- [27:31]
B
No, I don't punch the air. About, about the finding.
- [27:33]
A
Never. You don't shout eureka.
- [27:35]
B
Earlier, evidence of fire? No, that's, that's. I would expect that actually long before 400,000 years ago, human Ancestors were managing and using fire. It's just that archeology hasn't found the evidence.
- [27:48]
A
That's fascinating. Let's talk to another fascinating thing, the Ark of the Covenant. We didn't get around some of this in our last interview. You are most famous beyond the pyramids for the Ark of the Covenant.
- [27:59]
B
Well, it's what started me on this journey, yes.
- [28:01]
A
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?
- [28:09]
B
The Ark of the Covenant is the box about 3ft 9 inches long, 2ft 3 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. This 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 Bezaleel, 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, it in the Book of Exodus, it's like a blueprint.
- [28:58]
A
How big is it?
- [28:59]
B
3Ft 9 inches long, 2ft 3 inches high and wide, carried on carrying poles. Every description of it in the Bible has it doing really awesome, terrifying things.
- [29:11]
A
Like what?
- [29:12]
B
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. On, on. On the platform. So somebody reached out to stabilize it and a bolt of fire shoots out from the ark and strikes him, strikes him dead. There are occasions where it strikes its own bear as dead, where it rises up into the air and rushes towards the enemies of Israel. It's the most intriguing object.
- [30:09]
A
And you believe, because you wrote a book about this called Basyan and Messile, you believe not only is it real, but You. You think you know where it is? Well, I mean, you're arguable.
- [30:20]
B
I was the East Africa correspondent for the Economist. I was regularly traveling 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.
- [30:30]
A
In Aksum in Egypt.
- [30:31]
B
In Aksum in the province.
- [30:32]
A
In the Church of St. Mary of Zion.
- [30:34]
B
Correct. In the province of Tigray.
- [30:37]
A
And is guarded by a single monk who's never allowed to leave his chapel.
- [30:41]
B
That's correct.
- [30:41]
A
It's all fascinating, but did you get to see it?
- [30:44]
B
No, not that.
- [30:45]
A
Does anybody ever see it?
- [30:46]
B
No. I went there even with a crew from CNN back in 1992. They were gung ho to get in.
- [30:51]
A
Because remember the story of Geraldo Rivera and Al Capone's vault?
- [30:54]
B
Do you remember this?
- [30:56]
A
He was a massive TV star. He still is a great guy. Yeah. 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.
- [31:10]
B
Yeah.
- [31:11]
A
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.
- [31:20]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [31:21]
A
Could this be the.
- [31:23]
B
Yes.
- [31:23]
A
I mean, has anybody seen it yet?
- [31:25]
B
My case in support of Ethiopia's claim is entirely circumstantial. Based on. Because 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.
- [31:40]
A
But if there's only one monk guarding it.
- [31:41]
B
No, there's not. This is the heart of Tigray province. This is the province that led the rebellion against Megisto Haile Miriam that overthrew the dictatorship of Ethiopia back in 1991. This is an armed camp. The whole place is everybody in Axum.
- [31:54]
A
Can it all just be a scam?
- [31:56]
B
No, I don't think it's a scam. I think a scam would mean a scam to bring tourists. A 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. It's consecrated.
- [32:28]
A
Yes, but that still doesn't mean the original is in this church.
- [32:32]
B
It doesn't. That's why.
- [32:33]
A
Why do you believe so passionately? It is.
- [32:35]
B
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. It 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, 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. It'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. There 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.
- [34:52]
A
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 archeological evidence that the Ark was ever taken out of Jerusalem. Is that fair?
- [35:12]
B
That's fair. It's absolutely. And yet we have this massive, intriguing country in the Horn of Africa.
- [35:18]
A
No, you've got me on it.
- [35:19]
B
Which is totally focused on this matter in a very puzzling way, which has an Old Testament Judaic community as part of the population.
- [35:27]
A
Why won't they ever let anybody go in and look at it?
- [35:30]
B
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.
- [35:38]
A
Is there anyone alive who's ever seen it? No, no.
- [35:42]
B
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.
- [35:56]
A
They do it till they die.
- [35:57]
B
Why did the ark cause this to you? And he just said, the ark is a thing of fire. And 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.
- [36:18]
A
No, that's a good.
- [36:19]
B
And I'm backing up supporting.
- [36:21]
A
No, I get it, I get it.
- [36:22]
B
But I might not be right. The Ethiopians might not be right.
- [36:25]
A
Here's my point about you, which I didn't know what to make of you the first time until I interviewed you. And afterwards I said, 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.
- [36:55]
B
Yeah, I think it's the best claim. It's the place in the world with the best claim.
- [37:00]
A
I've never read, never watched Raiders of the Last Ark.
- [37:03]
B
I have.
- [37:04]
A
How accurate is it in the way.
- [37:06]
B
In terms of the awesome powers of the Ark? Very accurate.
- [37:09]
A
Really?
- [37:09]
B
Yeah, spot on. The biblical description has Been honored correctly in the construction of their model Ark 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.
- [37:23]
A
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.
- [37:31]
B
It's fascinating.
- [37:32]
A
You make it so exciting and interesting.
- [37:34]
B
Thank you.
- [37:34]
A
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.
- [37:49]
B
Yeah. And I hope that I'm bringing some balance to the picture, which I think has been a very unbalanced picture up till now.
- [37:56]
A
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 none?
- [38:07]
B
I think the Bible, excuse me, particularly the Old Testament, is an extremely precious testimony that has come down to us in written form from the ancient world. What'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 on. 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. We have to look at each individual case carefully, but.
- [39:12]
A
So some of it can be proven from what we believe, but other parts of it are subjective?
- [39:19]
B
Yes. Like any ancient. Like any ancient document, I think it should be regarded in the New Testament.
- [39:24]
A
How do you deal with it should.
- [39:25]
B
Be regarded as an asset rather than the truth, the whole truth.
- [39:30]
A
And what about the New Testament?
- [39:32]
B
Look, I'm not a Christian, so I am.
- [39:35]
A
So that's why I'm curious what you were gonna say.
- [39:38]
B
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.
- [40:01]
A
Do you believe the Christmas story?
- [40:03]
B
No, I don't believe the Christmas story. You really are a Grinch, aren't you? I 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.
- [40:21]
A
Well, I've always taken a view with that. And I had this argument with Richard Dawkins and others. It's like, it's fine to say, all right, you're an atheist and this all happened, or 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? What's nothing 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 possible questions.
- [40:54]
B
I 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.
- [41:24]
A
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.
- [41:29]
B
Me too.
- [41:30]
A
And it really. I'm sure inevitably you start to think more and more, well, what. What is thereafter? Is it really feasible that we'd have this extraordinary existence and then that's it? I just don't think it is.
- [41:42]
B
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. When we come to the fulfillment 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.
- [42:10]
A
I want to end by reminding you of what you said about my football team last night. I have one question at the end, which is this. Will Arsenal win the Premier League before or after the world ends?
- [42:23]
B
Before. Thank you.
- [42:25]
A
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?
- [42:50]
B
Well, since my eldest son is a huge Arsenal fan, I have got to say yes.
- [42:55]
A
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.
- [43:02]
B
It's great.
- [43:02]
A
Thank you very much. It winds up all the right people, too. So good to see you.
- [43:06]
B
Good to see you and Merry Christmas.
- [43:07]
A
Merry Christmas to you, even if you don't believe it.
- [43:10]
B
Thank you.
- [43:12]
A
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 Noblo, is joining me to tell us what she has in store. But first, here's a little appetizer.
- [43:31]
D
Welcome to History Uncensored with me, Bianca Noblo, Isaac Newton's secretary. 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?
- [43:50]
B
Is 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.
- [44:03]
A
He was not intrinsically nasty, he really wasn't. But he was clear about how Germany should be shaped.
- [44:12]
B
The two facets of the philosopher's stone, limitless health and limitless wealth.
- [44:18]
D
The divinely ordained Y swapping. It was a magical way to create harmony across the universe. But for them, that was just how the world worked. Randy Bug is these alchemist. What do the historical sources say about cannibalism in the Crusades?
- [44:34]
A
That's the $10,000 question. People were genuinely disturbed by this. It was widespread.
- [44:40]
B
They were the hashishins. They were a sect of Shia Islam. Their goal was to create the political outcomes they wanted through assassination.
- [44:50]
D
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 blood suckers.
- [45:06]
B
Dracula is a sexual predator. He's making impure the blood of the imperial race.
- [45:12]
A
Male human beings have a stronger tendency for antisocial behavior.
- [45:17]
D
Don't say okay. How can you tell a fellow vampire?
- [45:23]
B
Well, they're usually not quiet about it.
- [45:26]
A
Garlic is great on pizza.
- [45:28]
D
History has forbidden questions. They feel morally dangerous. We've got to ask the questions that we'd rather avoid.
- [45:46]
A
It's fascinating. I love history. Why do you want to do this?
- [45:51]
D
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. Almost 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.
- [46:37]
A
Now obviously I'm sort of known for long form interviews, for fiery debates, all that kind of thing.
- [46:43]
D
Yeah.
- [46:44]
A
What do you want to be known for on history uncensored?
- [46:47]
D
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.
- [47:19]
A
Vampire panics?
- [47:20]
D
Yeah. So 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 I just.
- [47:29]
A
Say what you like on here. Do we like.
- [47:31]
D
So what was going on there? People had real fears and something was happening which we need to explore. The same for alchemists and the philosopher's stone scientists like Isaac Newton were exploring. 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 yet.
- [47:58]
A
So I watched the first episode about the Nuremberg Trials was absolutely fascinating. I mean, I learned so much watching it.
- [48:04]
D
Oh, that's great.
- [48:05]
A
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 gonna try and get to reality. And I think it's so important. Cause there's so much crap out there of all kinds. And young people in particular just. They aren't sure was true.
- [48:36]
D
Yeah, I think there's. 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.
- [49:07]
A
Love it. And you'll have big interviews from time to time.
- [49:09]
D
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 because. 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.
- [49:31]
A
Well, no pressure, Bianca, but obviously Piers Morgan Uncensored is a global phenomenon, One of the most watched YouTube channels in our space ever. You're the next one on the block on Uncensored, so don't let me down.
- [49:43]
D
Well, you know, I'm very competitive, so I'm aiming not to.
- [49:46]
A
I think it's going to be great. I love the first few episodes I 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?
- [50:10]
B
Good luck.
- [50:10]
D
Thank you, Piers.
- [50:13]
A
Piers Morgan Uncensored is proudly independent. The only boss around here is me. If you enjoy our show, we ask for only one 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.