Open Veils · Answer
Did Richard Vyse fake the Great Pyramid inscriptions?
The forgery hypothesis, first advanced by Zecharia Sitchin in 1980 and significantly expanded by Scott Creighton in 'The Great Pyramid Hoax' (2016), rests on specific palaeographic anomalies that remain genuinely unresolved. Creighton argues that a cartouche rendering uses a solar-disc hieroglyph where an Aa1 'placenta' sign was required — an error traceable to Egyptological reference books available to Vyse's team. The case is not settled, but the counter-evidence is substantial and must be confronted honestly.
Evidence
- Zecharia Sitchin's original claim, laid out in 'The Stairway to Heaven' (1980), centred on one hieroglyphic sign: he argued the cartouche in Campbell's Chamber renders Khufu's name using the sun-disc of Ra (N5) where authentic Old Kingdom usage demanded the placenta sign (Aa1).
- Scott Creighton developed this into a full structural argument in 'The Great Pyramid Hoax' (2016), drawing on Vyse's own published journals and the drawings of engineer John Perring.
- The strongest rebuttal comes from the 2013 Wadi al-Jarf papyri — the logbook of inspector Merer, which independently corroborates Khufu-era construction activity at Giza using the same royal name variants found in the relieving chambers.
- Nevertheless, Creighton's palaeographic argument about the specific hieroglyph substitution has not been definitively refuted on its own technical terms.
- Sitchin's inference was that Vyse's draughtsman, Hill, copied the name incorrectly from a then-current but flawed reference work — specifically Sir John Gardner Wilkinson's publications — producing a literate-looking but subtly wrong inscription.