There's something about the pyramids at Giza, Egypt, that attracts speculation and alternative theories about their construction and history. At least a sizable faction in the public seems unwilling to accept conventional theories about how the pyramids were built and their purpose.
In March, a team of Italian researchers claimed to have discovered evidence of massive, artificial structures under the pyramid of Khafre using a novel technology-based approach, hinting that they might have found a lost city. While scientists widely criticized these claims, the same team doubled down and claimed to have also found the Tomb of Osiris beneath the same pyramid. Now, a different researcher is gaining attention in the media for an alternative theory about the pyramid of Khufu.
Konstantin Borisov, an independent researcher who holds a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Mississippi State University, is gaining attention in the media for his 2024 paper in the journal Archaeological Discovery claiming that the pyramid of Khufu at Giza (the "Great Pyramid") is the location of the Biblical "Garden of Eden".
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Borosov's Reassessment Of Eden's Location
The Garden of Eden with the Fall of Man by Jan Brueghel the Elder and Pieter Paul Rubens, c. 1615
The location of the "Garden of Eden," where the Bible's Book of Genesis claims that the first man and woman, Adam and Eve, lived before being banished, is not among the locations in the Bible believed to be real. Scholars have traditionally understood Eden as a mythical location, though Genesis provides some geographical details that could help locate the Garden.
Genesis 2:10-14 describes a single river flowing from Eden, which breaks into four other rivers: the Tigris, the Euphrates, the Gihon, which runs through the "land of Kush," and the Pishon, which runs through "the land of Havilah". The Tigris and Euphrates are known rivers that run through present-day Iraq. Scholars have traditionally identified the Gihon as the Nile (the "Land of Kush" is the ancient name for northern Sudan and southern Egypt). The Pishon is less clear, but is usually identified as the Ganges or the Indus.
These four rivers do not meet, though scholars searching for a physical location for Eden have usually looked to Iraq, where two of the four rivers are found. Borisov, however, points to a line from the 1st-century AD Jewish historian Josephus, who wrote that "the garden was watered by one river, which ran around about the whole Earth."
Borisov interprets Josephus' comments not as referring to a ring around the globe, but rather as a "sky river" of "aurora-like light" that encircled the globe in the past. No textual evidence from the Bible, Josephus, or any other ancient Jewish text for this aurora "sky river" was provided. Instead, he cites the Rigveda, a collection of ancient Hindu hymns, as mentioning "a celestial river called the Sarasvati".
If you're thinking, "Wait, how does any of this connect the Garden of Eden to Ancient Egypt?" Your guess is as good as anyone else's.
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Is The Egyptian Djed Pillar The Bible's Tree Of Life?
a section of the Egyptian Book of the Dead featuring a Djed column (bottom center)
Borosov's paper connected the Biblical Garden of Eden and Ancient Egypt based on the "Tree of Life" mentioned in Genesis 2:9 as "in the middle of the garden". Borosov pointed to depictions of trees in other ancient Near Eastern cultures (like Canaan, Sumer and Assyria) as having similar depictions of a "tree of life", which he explained "is commonly depicted with a straight line representative of a trunk having several horizontal branches extending from the trunk".
Borisov also suggested the Egyptian Djed symbol represented the Tree of Life. The Djed is a pillar used to symbolize stability in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. Egyptologists understand it to depict both a tree and the spinal column of the god Osiris.
Borosov cited an experiment that simulated a "blast" (of what?) inside the King's chamber in Khufu's pyramid. The simulation showed that the "blast" would produce charged particles "arranged in a way that creates several parallel branches extending outward from the center line, creating a tree-like representation."
Borosov did not explain who conducted this simulation or what software was involved, though he did state that such a blast would result in "the release of photons, predominantly in shades of purple and green". While the paper did not say so explicitly, Borosov hints that these are the aurora borealis colors, which he mentioned as part of his "sky river" argument.
So far, Borisov's evidence to connect the Garden of Eden to Egypt is: 1. Egypt is on Earth, and 2. Ancient Egyptians used to draw pictures of trees.
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The Pyramid Of Khufu....Or Adam?
An artistic representation of the Great Pyramid of Giza emitting strands of Aurora Borealis
Borisov's paper also connected the pyramid of Khufu to Adam, the first man created by God, according to Genesis. Borisov cites Genesis as saying that Adam lived to be 930 years old before dying and was made of clay.
Borisov correctly observed that a normal, biological human cannot live for 900+ years, nor be made of clay. He then suggested that the "Adam" mentioned in Genesis may have been a personification of an "artificial structure made of clay" and that "the Great Pyramid would certainly fit this context."
Genesis 2:7 actually says that Adam was made of "dust," not clay, and the Great Pyramid is made of limestone, not clay. These are the kinds of errors that peer reviewing usually catches.
To be clear, Borisov's argument isn't that the pyramid of Khufu is a symbol of Adam or a marker. He claims that the pyramid is Adam. Borosov explained that Genesis' account of Adam living 930 years before dying "could imply that the pyramid, after such a long period of service, might have ceased to fulfill its primary function or failed."
While the paper did not explicitly state so, the implication Borisov made is that the Great Pyramid was a machine for producing charged particles of green and blue light to create the "sky river" of aurora, and that the machine broke down after 930 years of use.
It's important to understand that Borisov's paper was published in Archeological Discovery, a Science Research Publishing (SCRIP) journal. SCRIP has been widely criticized as an alleged "predatory journal" that charges academics fees to publish content of questionable quality without proper peer review.
Alternate theories about the pyramids are prolific, with conspiracy theorists claiming that the pyramids were built to hide an ancient underground city or to provide wireless electricity to flying saucers.
Will Borosov's suggestion that the Great Pyramid was used to generate the aurora borealis catch on like the other theories? Nobody knows, but here's a tip: if you want to see the Northern Lights, skip Giza and try Alaska instead.