SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has tweeted, “Aliens built the pyramids obv”.  Whether people believed him or not, he certainly garnered a lot of attention with his tweet.  The question of who built the pyramids has been repeated often.  While Elon was likely joking, there are many people who believe that statement as well as many other theories that vary from the mainstream idea that ancient Egyptians built the pyramids.  Christian youtuber Joe Kirby has made a video that contains four different theories as to how the pyramids were built.  The first is based on an Elon Musk tweet saying that aliens built the pyramids.  The second idea is that the ancient Egyptians built the pyramids.  His third theory is that an ancient lost civilization erected the monuments.  His fourth and main theory is that the pyramids were built by the Israelites from the Bible.  This explanation is what makes up most of the video and is Joe Kirby’s opinion as to who made the pyramids.  This video is full of false information with very little truth or trustworthy evidence to back up any of the claims.   

Analysis of Graham Hancock

A source mentioned in the video is Graham Hancock. Hancock speaks often about the pyramids and lost civilizations. He is a writer and star of many tv shows, many of which are his own. Marc J Defant, a professor of geology and writer for Skeptic, has claimed, “Hancock … presents himself as a wise and knowledgeable person.”  However, he is a pseudo archaeologist that pushes many theories that go against the scientific majority.  For example, Defant has claimed that Hancock says, “indigenous peoples were incapable of building the early sophisticated archaeological structures and monuments across the globe, and so he asserts that these hunter- gatherers have ‘a shared legacy from a lost global civilization that provided the seeds and the spark of inspiration from which many later civilizations grew.’”  Hancock has many theories of different ancient civilizations. Sam Kriss, a journalist for the British newspaper Daily Telegraph, explains Hancock’s ideas about the pyramids “[W]hich Hancock believes are much, much older than the scientific consensus allows.”  Graham Hancock also commits to a logical fallacy by appealing to the Galileo argument, saying that he is suppressed by the establishment.  He warrants his own ideas as the enemy of the scientific community, and that the ideas of historians and scientists are false.  Sam Kriss has claimed, “Academics find his theories implausible, while he argues they just stick the label ‘pseudohistory’ on anything they can’t refute.”  According to Defant, Hancock has said that “[He] is trying to overthrow the paradigm of history.” 

However, Marc Defant has written for Skeptic Magazine and argued, “If Graham Hancock truly wanted to ‘overthrow the paradigm of history’ he would submit his work to the scientific community in peer-reviewed journals and at professional meetings, in addition to presenting them directly to the public.”  Defant is saying that Hancock does not try to get his work approved by the scientific community and so none of his theories or evidence is ever looked into any further.  That means that the supporters of Graham Hancock are simply trusting his word.  Hancock does not attempt to have his work approved, and his “work” is nothing more than an act for his shows.  Marc Defant has claimed, “I have never once seen Graham Hancock doing any of the hard work archaeology demands” but rather “He is an armchair pseudo-archaeologist, flying into a site for a couple of days as the cameras roll showing him wandering around making observations and speculations.”  Hancock has been well known for his many theories that go against the scientific community, and he does not put in the work to prove them, nor does he try to get other experts to join his position.  For those reasons Graham Hancock can not be trusted to provide any valuable evidence to back up when the pyramids were built.  Sam Kriss has done a Zoom interview with Hancock, and in the interview, Hancock does not even claim to be correct: “Bottom line, I don’t claim I’m right.”

The Israelites Could Not Have Built the Pyramids

Joe Kirby’s first and main claim is that the Israelites built the pyramids.  He says, “So, could it be, that the Israelites are the ones who built the pyramids?”  He believes this because in the Bible, specifically Exodus 1:11, it says that the Israelites built cities and buildings while enslaved in Egypt.  He justifies this because he believes that if the Israelites were to have built the pyramids you would expect to see nothing but the highest level of excellence.  “Whenever God’s people put their hand to a task and the Lord was with them, they prospered.”  Kirby gives a few biblical examples of this such as King David, Daniel, and the resting places of the Ark of the Covenant.  This claim that the Lord was with the Israelites is biblically accurate, as God followed the Israelites throughout their exodus from Egypt. Kirby goes on to explain that many scholars discount the idea of the Israelites building pyramids due to the time periods of the two events being about 1,000 years apart. The pyramids are estimated to have been built in 2500b.c., and the Israelites’ exodus is estimated to have been in 1400b.c.  However, he does not see that as an issue because there are disputes about when the pyramids were built that create a much wider range.  This is where Graham Hancock is mentioned, and he claims “that the Great Pyramid is much older than 4500 years old.”  The argument to lower the range of construction is that the original carbon dating test in 1984 was disproved by a more recent test in 1995.  Kirby also claims that the carbon dating tests could be wrong because the Egyptians recycled resources. He argues, “[T]he wood and other resources that were tested could actually be much older than the pyramid itself.”  This would mean that the pyramids could have been built much earlier, because the carbon dating tests may have used recycled materials.  Kirby’s claim of God being with the Israelites is biblically accurate and his claim that the Egyptians recycled resources is also true, but both can be proven as irrelevant to the claim that the Israelites built the pyramids.

As the video says, the time of when the Israelites were in Egypt and when the pyramids were built do not align at all.  Kirby tells us that the Israelites were in Egypt in 1400b.c., but that the pyramids were built in 2500b.c.  He uses Graham Hancock as a source because Hancock believes the pyramids are much older than the 2500b.c.  This, however, cannot prove that the pyramids were built at the time of the Israelites.  That requires a younger justification that comes later when Kirby mentions two carbon dating tests, one in 1984 and the other in 1995. The former test found the 2500b.c. date and the latter “stated that the first test was off by nearly two centuries.”  Now the video keeps going but if what he just said is analyzed, it can be seen that the time of the pyramids’ construction would then be 2300b.c.  That is still nine hundred years off from what Kirby himself stated as the Israelite exodus, 1400b.c.  A study done by Georges Bonani and others in a scholarly journal compared the two radiocarbon studies as well as chronology studies to find the age of the pyramids.  The mean radiocarbon dates were 2758b.c. to 2719b.c. and is 200 years older than the historical range of 2589b.c. to 2566b.c.  This allows for Kirby’s claim of the Egyptians recycling materials to be correct, however it disproves his justification for the difference in time periods.  The dates can also be proven false by archaeology.  An article from Live Science, a well renowned science news source, asserts, “The pyramids could not have been constructed by Jewish slaves, as no archaeological remains that can be directly linked to the Jewish people have been found in Egypt that date back to 4,500 years ago, when the Giza pyramids were built, archaeological research has revealed.”  There is a lack of evidence to back up Kirby’s claim, but instead Live Science claims that “all the evidence shows that the ancient Egyptians built the pyramids.”  The archaeology proves the claim false, but it can also be analyzed from a biblical perspective.  Dr. David A. Falk, an Egyptologist, has advocated in an article that “the Bible is not claiming that the pyramids were built by the Israelites.”  He does not believe that the Israelites built the pyramids and he argues, “Instead, the biblical text describes the Israelite slaves working in mud brick construction.”  Kirby refers to the Bible because once again, in Exodus 1:11, it does say that the Israelites were building in Egypt.  However, this building was of a city separate from Giza.  Live Science claims, “the story told in the Hebrew Bible about Jews being slaves in Egypt refers to a city named ‘Ramesses.’ A city named pi-Ramesses was founded during the 19th dynasty (about 1295-1186 B.C.) and was named after Ramesses II, who ruled 1279–1213 BC. This city was constructed after the era of pyramid construction had ended in Egypt.”  This means that not only is Kirby’s claim false because the times are 1000 years apart, but that his biblical analysis is also wrong.  There is no logical way to believe that the Israelites built the pyramids, or that it claims so anywhere in the Bible.

Imhotep Was Not Joseph From the Bible

Kirby’s second claim is that Joseph from the book of Genesis is Imhotep.  He claims, “This person Imhotep sounds an awful lot like the Joseph of the Bible.”  Imhotep was an architect in ancient Egypt and an advisor to the Pharaoh.  According to a BBC article “Imhotep was chief architect to the Egyptian pharaoh Djoser.”  Imhotep also built pyramids in Egypt and the BBC article claims he was “the architect of the pharaoh’s tomb, the Step Pyramid.”  Kirby also mentions a historical drought and famine in Egypt when “the people experienced a period of seven years of hunger.”  This is true, there was a 7 year drought in Egypt. A Reuters article on Egyptian archaeology states, “A granite inscription tells us that for seven years during the reign of the ancient Egyptian king Djoser, the Nile failed to go through its annual flooding cycle, causing a devastating drought and famine.”  There is also a biblical famine in Genesis 41:25, in the time of Joseph.  In the verse and earlier in the chapter, there is a dream of Pharaoh’s that is interpreted by Joseph as predicting seven years of famine.  This dream later came true and there was a seven year famine throughout Egypt.  The two famines do sound similar and there is an argument to be made.  Kirby also claims that Imhotep was “one of the most intelligent human beings who has ever lived.”  Kirby explains that Imhotep got his intelligence from God, because God was with Joseph, as is stated in Genesis 39:2.  Imhotep also interpreted Pharaoh’s dreams, which Joseph does in the Bible in Genesis chapter 39, so Kirby argues that they are the same person.  However, these claims can also be rebutted.

As with Kirby’s first claim, the time periods still do not line up. Imhotep lived from 2667b.c. to 2648b.c. However, according to Jean-Pierre Isbouts in a National Geographic article, a Social Science professor, the story of the exodus is said to have taken place “between 1280 and 1220B.C.E.”  Imhotep was alive with the pharaoh Djoser and he built the pharaoh’s tomb.  This does not match up with the Israelite exodus and Isbouts argues, “The identity of Pharaoh in the Moses story has been much debated, but many scholars are inclined to accept that Exodus has King Ramses II in mind.”  That causes the same error as before, and that is the fact that the time of Imhotep and the time Joseph is believed to have been in Egypt are centuries apart.  It is mentioned that Imhotep “built the first pyramid.”  This claim is true, Imhotep did build the first pyramid, and that was the step pyramid of Djoser.  He did not build the Great Pyramids, which was claimed in the video. In fact it is never mentioned which of the pyramids Imhotep built, but left to sound as if he built the Great Pyramids.  Kirby says, “the first pyramid, which was the largest structure in the world at the time.”  A statement like that deceives people into believing that he is talking about the most popular pyramid, the Pyramid of Giza.  Another reason people would be deceived is because while Joe Kirby is explaining the pyramid that Imhotep built, an image of the pyramid of Giza is shown (see fig. 1).  For that reason this appears to be intentful deception to avoid the difference in time periods.

An image of the Great Pyramid of Giza is shown while the Step Pyramid of Djoser is being described (18:30).

Analysis of Ron Wyatt

An archaeologist mentioned as a source is Ron Wyatt.  Ron Wyatt was a Christian amateur archeologist who died in 1999.  He had no professional background in archaeology, but was involved in archaeological work.  He claimed to have found many Biblical artifacts including Noah’s ark, which he believed he found in Turkey.  Ron was a devout Christian and that seemed to shape everything that he did, and he made his career on his beliefs.  Richard Rives has written for Wyatt’s website and stated, “Ron’s main goal in life was to ‘help somebody get to heaven.’ When considering an archaeological project, Ron’s main consideration was ‘Will it help somebody get to heaven?’ He would always say: ‘If it won’t help somebody get to heaven I don’t want to do it.’”  

Because of that Ron Wyatt is not a very credible source, yet he insisted on his discoveries.  He believed that his research was correct but an article in All That’s Interesting, a history and archaeological news site, has reported, “none of his supposed discoveries were ever verified by professional archaeologists.”  One of Wyatt’s most popular claims was that he found Noah’s Ark.  He believed that he had found timber from the ship at the site in Turkey.  All That’s Interesting has claimed, “[A]ccording to the Christian website Answers In Genesis, a laboratory that reportedly tested Wyatt’s ‘timber’ was not able to definitively identify it as timber, much less timber from Biblical times.”  His claim of finding Noah’s ark is his claim with the most evidence to back it up, and yet it has not been proven true.  This makes this claim very controversial.  However, every one of Wyatt’s discoveries is controversial, mainly due to the fact that he searches for biblical artifacts but even Christian scientists and professional archaeologists  do not agree with Wyatts’s findings.  The same article from All That’s Interesting asserts, “Ron Wyatt’s findings have been widely characterized as not credible by professional archaeologists — both Christian and non-Christian — and Biblical scholars.”  His alleged findings are not reliable and having him as a source in this video does not help to prove any claims.

The Pyramids Were Not Built With the Purpose of Storing Grain

Another claim in the video is that the pyramids were built by Joseph to store grain.  This claim is expressed by Ben Carson.  Ben Carson explains his reasoning in two clips from the video (see fig. 2).  He is the one who claims, “Joseph built the pyramids in order to store grain.”  Kirby then says, “[I]s it really that illogical to hold such a position?”  Joe Kirby then uses biblical evidence to explain his position.  Two verses in Genesis, 41:48-49, refer to Joseph gathering up vast amounts of grain in Egypt.  Ben Carson believes the claim is justified because the vessel to hold all of this grain “would have to be awfully big.”  Ben Carson also mentions that the pyramids have “hermetically sealed compartments” that you would need to store grain.  Then Ron Wyatt is brought in as a source.  Kirby states, “There were 11 large pits which the Egyptians had no explanation for.”  When excavated, bits of grain were found in these pits.  Ron Wyatt believes that the pits were used to sell the grain.  Men would sit in the pits, and during the 7 year famine people would come to these men to buy grain. The origins of this claim come from a picture in a cathedral and John Darnell, an Egyptogoly Professor, states in an article, “If you go to St Mark’s cathedral in Venice, there’s a medieval depiction showing people using the three great pyramids of Giza as granaries in Joseph’s story.”

Ben Carson explaining his theory during the 2016 presidential race (15:10).

The pyramids, however, have been known to be built as tombs for kings for the longest time now. Egyptologist John Darnell has claimed, “Now of course we know the pyramids were burial chambers … their internal passageways and the function of their spaces can be traced right through the period into the new Kingdom of Egypt.”  Once again the time periods of the claims made do not line up.  In a BBC article, Darnell argues, “The story of Joseph is supposedly set in the time of Egypt’s Middle Kingdom … which is centuries after the pyramids of Giza were built.”  Not only that but the way the pyramids were built and the architecture makes them very impractical for storing large amounts of grain.  Darnell reports, “The major internal element of the pyramids is stone and brick – there wouldn’t be much space for grain, and it would be a huge waste of power and engineering, plus we know ancient granaries tended to be beehive-shaped and quite small. It wouldn’t make sense to build gigantic monumental granaries – it would take ages to grain in, and smother everyone when it poured out.”  Having the pyramids as grain storage would have been very illogical and that makes the claim very improbable. Another Egyptologist, James Allen has claimed, “There’s no way in the world an ounce of grain would be stored in a structure like that, it would be totally impractical. It’s like saying the Tower of London was built as a granary store.”

Conclusion

The pyramids are an amazing feat of engineering and it is important to recognize the true builders of such a monument. The spread of false information and disinformation is dangerous to not only history but also the future.  What is true and what is not needs to be recognized so that people can truly appreciate the stories of history. That is why people saying “Israelites are the ones who built the pyramids” or “Aliens built the pyramids obv” need to be proven false.