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The Gosford Glyphs Hoax, Part 4

21 Saturday Apr 2012

Posted by in Ancient Egypt, Combating the Fringe

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It’s time to put this issue to rest. This is my fourth and final installment in the hoax of the Gosford Glyphs. I suppose there’s always the chance I’ll return to the story at some future point, should more information surface that is worth comment. But for now I’d like to close our examination of the Gosford hoax with a review of modern investigations of the site and what relevant experts and witnesses have to say on the matter. Most of the material in Part 4 comes from Steve S., author of the blog All things Woy, whose investigative experience in the Gosford matter is the most throrough and rational I’ve encountered.

To begin, how far back can the Gosford glyphs really be tracked? When were they first brought to public attention? The site of the glyphs is somewhat remote, but not so much that one would expect them to have remained hidden for 4,500 years. That is, in fact, not what happened. Although it’s possible some of the glyphs may have been carved as early as the 1960s by local students, most of the carving seems to have begun in the early 1970s.

The first person to document the site was a local surveyor, now retired, named Alan Dash (Source). Dash was surveying a water easement in the early 1970s when he observed a man walking away from the Gosford site and heading toward a nearby abandoned cabin. Dash investigated the site and noticed some hieroglyphs carved along the western wall of sandstone, although at the time nothing was carved into the eastern wall.

Several months later Dash returned with a coworker to explore the site again, and noticed carvings on the eastern wall. About a year later more glyphs had been added, this time about 160 feet away from the original etchings.

The cabin to which Dash observed the man heading was frequently used by transients, and the man’s identity was never learned. The cabin was destroyed by brushfires in 1979, but this doesn’t seem to have stopped the carving activities. Early observers and photographers could chart the development of the glyphs, to a point, and the changes and additions are quite obvious. The photo below, from 1983, shows freshly cut glyphs:

Gosford Glyphs: Courtesy of All things Woy

Several of the most prominent glyphs were apparently some of the last added, and include the cartouches (see Part 3). Also among these additions was the large figure of the god Anubis. The photo below was taken in 1983:

Gosford Glyphs: Courtesy of All things Woy

Take note of the figure’s ears and compare them to the ears of the same figure in this photo from 2007:

Gosford Glyphs: Courtesy of All things Woy

The fresh quality of the cutting is painfully obvious in the first photo. When the details to the ears were added is not known, but one can see the wear to the carving in the intervening 20-plus years. This is actually significant. We are supposed to believe that these glyphs were carved in the reign of King Khufu, well over 4,000 years ago. Yet in the vicinity are authentic Aboriginal petroglyphs that are dated to about 250 years ago. These authentic petroglyphs are barely discernible today and most believe they will be entirely gone within 200 years, because of the poor quality of the sandstone. It is the same stone into which the “Egyptian hieroglyphs” were carved, but we are told by the Gosford promoters that they really do date to the third millennium BCE.

These promoters will go to great lengths to bolster their claims. Probably the staunchest supporter today is a man named Hans Dieter von Senff. I mentioned him briefly in Part 2. I am not an Australian nor have I ever been to that country, but I have a strong feeling that von Senff has taken it upon himself to pick up where Ray Johnson left off (recall that Johnson died some years ago). I’ve personally debated von Senff on the Gosford issue in an internet forum to which I belong, and while von Senff is an intelligent and articulate man, I was not left impressed.

Von Senff claims to have found a basalt chisel dating to the original carving of the glyphs (in von Senff’s position, this means 2500 BCE). He insists the chisel contains geological inclusions not native to Australia, the implication being the Egyptian sailors carried it with them from their distant desert homeland. There’s a photo of the chisel in von Senff’s paper, “Ancient Egyptians in Australia. The Kariong Glyphs, a Proto-Egyptian script deciphered” (Page 16), which can be downloaded from the internet as a PDF.

This brings up concerns of removing a possible artifact from government land—remember that Gosford is under the protection of the National Parks and Wildlife Service. While such an act is highly unethical, we needn’t worry. Not surprisingly, there isn’t much to this chisel. The closest access to Gosford is Bambara Road, and in past roadwork the Gosford City Council used countless chunks of basalt identical to von Senff’s chisel as fill. Basalt is plentiful in this area.

A bit of slight of hand, yes, but this is what hoaxers will resort to in desperation.

As I mentioned earlier, one of the Gosford promoters’ chief complaints is that no one credible has been to the site or observed the glyphs to render an expert opinion. Bear in mind that neither Ray Johnson nor Rex Gilroy, nor anyone else among the promoters, are themselves qualified in Egyptology or Egyptian hieroglyphs to render an informed opinion. But if you recall, in Part 1 I included quotes from three different Egyptologists who have seen photos of the glyphs, and all three are in agreement that the site is a hoax. What more need be asked of real experts?

Well, there is more. Numerous witnesses and experts of various fields also agree the site is a hoax. Here is a summary of some of them, together with our Egyptologists:

• 1983: David Lambert, Rock Art Conservator of the Cultural Heritage Division of the NPWS

• 1983: Professor Nageeb Kanawati, Department of Egyptology at Macquarie University, Sydney

• 2000: Australian Egyptologist Dr. Gregory Gilbert

• 2003: David Coltheart in Archaeological Diggings, Vol 10 No 5 Oct/Nov 2003 Issue No 58

• 2012: Dr. Ray Johnson, Egyptologist, University of Chicago, director of the Epigraphic Survey in Luxor, Egypt

I hate to beat a dead horse but please do remember that the above Dr. Johnson, a real Egyptologist, must not be confused with the late Australian by the same name.

Some of this is also summarized in a letter penned by Gosford Area Ranger Laurie Pasco (see here), dated May 17, 2011. The effect of this letter is that the Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service is officially on record as stating that the Gosford glyphs are a hoax.

And, finally, there is Kenneth Feder’s book Encyclopedia Of Dubious Archaeology: From Atlantis To The Walam Olum. Feder covers the Gosford site and provides a succinct and convincing conclusion that the site is a hoax. Feder himself comments that the glyphs “are a trasnparent fraud” (2010: 121).

I hope that in the four parts of this article, I have been able to demonstrate the obvious nature of the Gosford hoax. Numerous experts have evaluated the glyphs and have judged them to be fake. I should hope the average amateur historian could come to the same conclusion in a few seconds’ time. For that matter, the average layperson ought to be able to do so. The nature of the Gosford site is absurd on the face of it and stretches logic beyond its limits, but this has never thwarted its ardent supporters from insisting they’re real.

Still, I think we can all agree, no matter how ardent the supporters are, they remain wrong. No amount of zeal can change reality.

Who carved the glyphs? No one seems to know. In all likelihood more than one person is responsible. Why did the original hoaxer(s) do this? The answer to that is even more elusive. Whoever he or they are, I have a feeling he or they are having a great laugh.

This brings it to a close, then. Is there any more to be said? About Gosford, I don’t think so. Yet recently I encountered a fellow on the Net who claims to have found early Sumerian cuneiform inscriptions near Cairns. He insists he was able to translate them, yet he refuses to release his translations or drawings or photos of the inscriptions. And there’s always Rex Gilroy’s yarns about Gympie Pyramid, so all in all there’s no shortage of fringe fun to address Down Under.

But this is enough for now.

My special thanks to Steve S. of All things Woy for allowing me to use his photos and to draw on his own investigative research.

As always, thanks for reading.

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Blog All things Woy: It’s life , it’s the constitution , it’s mabo .. it’s just the general vibe of things.

Feder. Kennth L. Encyclopedia Of Dubious Archaeology: From Atlantis To The Walam Olum. 2010.

 

The Gosford Glyphs Hoax, Part 3

13 Friday Apr 2012

Posted by in Ancient Egypt, Combating the Fringe

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We’ve examined the backstory of the Gosford Glyphs, the main players in the story, some of the people who’ve fervently promoted the site as authentic, and have analyzed the inscription itself. Now let’s take a closer look at the hieroglyphs themselves.

I stress again that I am not an Egyptologist nor a professional historian. Nevertheless, anyone who has undergone a certain level of training in Egyptian hieroglyphs should be able, in the span of a few seconds, to determine that the Gosford Glyphs are indeed a hoax. I like to joke that it looks as though a sixth grader who likes hieroglyphs etched the Gosford Glyphs, but in point of fact the sloppy and cartoonish nature of the glyphs is not enough by itself to reveal them as a hoax. Plenty of authentic Egyptian monuments were not carved by skilled artisans simply because the people who commissioned them could not afford skilled artisans. Some authentic stelae and statuettes and the like were originally considered fake because of their poor quality, only later to be determined authentic (this was recently the case with a simple stela in the collection of the Field Museum of Natural History, in Chicago).

Rather, other aspects of the Gosford Glyphs establish beyond question that they’re fraudulent. The most important point is, all of the inscribed glyphs at the Gosford site really don’t say anything. At all. They tell no story. They are almost in total nothing more than a random scattering of Egyptian hieroglyphs. They make about as much sense as anything you or I might type by closing our eyes and pecking randomly on a keyboard. As with any written script, ancient or modern, ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs required a fairly regimented system of rules following the grammar and syntax of the language.

So, one might ask, how do Australians like the late Ray Johnson and Rex Gilroy and other Gosford promoters get around this conundrum?

To be sure none of them really understand Egyptian hieroglyphs, or they would at once determine like everyone else has that the Gosford Glyphs are a hoax. Rather, they’ve come up with all sorts of creative and inventive explanations to get around the issue. Most of this stems from the original efforts of Ray Johnson to promote Gosford as real. It’s on him whom we must concentrate since so much of the silly fiction began with him.

One senses in Johnson’s enthusiastic efforts a degree of duplicity. One must wonder, how on earth did Johnson arrive at his “translation” when the glyphs at Gosford clearly don’t relate any narrative at all? It must have required a lot of work on his part to concoct the story and to build the myth from there. I have to wonder if Johnson even believed what he was preaching about Gosford, but he went to real lengths to pass off the glyphs as authentic. This includes letters fired off to people Johnson thought ought to know, such as this one from 1997 to the Gosford City Council and this one from 1994 to Dr. Dia’ Abou-Ghazi in Egypt. I wonder how Dr. Abou-Ghazi, a former director of the Cairo Museum, must feel about being dragged into this sorry tale. Johnson and the other Gosford promoters have folded her into the myth in a fashion that makes it seem as though she were in support of them, when in fact there is no evidence for this. She is merely a peripheral victim in the Gosford saga.

Johnson arrived at a creative explanation for the apparently random and scattered nature of the glyphs. He announced that they are in fact “proto-Egyptian,” of the sort used by ancient Egyptians when the writing system was brand new. Like Johnson argued in his day, those who’ve taken up the banner on his behalf insist that the style of glyphs at Gosford are so archaic that even most real Egyptologists can’t decipher them. So, one can’t help but ask, how is it that Johnson and his retinue somehow can read them so easily?

Now, for a moment of reality. The earliest-known Egyptian hieroglyphs come from a site in southern Egypt called Abydos. Specifically, they were discovered in Tomb Uj by the German Egyptologist Günter Dreyer. Tomb Uj was created in late prehistory, before the kingdom of pharaonic Egypt existed; the glyphs appear on ivory dockets and pottery fragments and date to around 3320 BCE (MacArthur 2010: 119).

Dreyer has proposed a system of translating these extremely ancient glyphs, but not all Egyptologists agree with him. While it does seem many of the glyphs are phonetic in nature, as later hieroglyphs would function, the fact is these glyphs are notoriously difficult to make sense of in some cases. I can’t say that the late Ray Johnson had Dreyer’s discovery in mind when he argued that the Gosford glyphs were “proto-Egyptian” in nature, but even if he did his argument doesn’t hold water. Here is a photo of some of the glyphs at the Gosford site:

Gosford Glyphs: Courtesy of All things Woy

For comparison, here is a sampling of some of the Tomb Uj ivory dockets with their hieroglyphs:

Hieroglyphs from Tomb Uj, Abydos

Clearly, in form and style, there is no comparison. If anything, as cartoonish as the Gosford Glyphs are, they are obviously more similar in form to hieroglyphs from most of pharaonic Egypt.

Some of the glyphs at Gosford do not even seem to be from the ancient Egyptian repertoire. One resembles a bell and another a spaceship (although alien encounters were not being implied…one hopes). Johnson got around this by stating the earliest stages of hieroglyphs numbered far more than most Egyptologists are aware of. Again, one wonders how Johnson, not an Egyptologist or historian, knew this fact when legitimate Egyptologists and historians do not. In any case Johnson argued that in the earliest stages of the script, there were more than 2,800 hieroglyphs. This would explain it, then.

Or not. Through most of pharaonic history, the repertoire of hieroglyphs exceeded 700. Some came and went, some were joined with others, and there were always a number of variants for certain glyphs. In point of fact the number of hieroglyphs was larger in the earliest periods, but reached its peak at around 1,000 in the Early Dynastic Period (Stauder 2010: 145). Some hieroglyphs were already falling by the wayside at this earliest time, and much of the full repertoire of glyphs recognizable from later periods was already in place by early in the Early Dynastic Period.

Johnson muddied the waters a bit more by explaining the glyphs might look a bit rough and contain errors because the men who cut them in the Early Bronze Age were not adept at such work. There is a hint of truth in this because not all scribes were blessed with noticeable skills, but let’s remember that this was supposed to be a royal expedition. We’ve already seen that the two principal players, princes Nefer-Djeseb and Nefer-Ti-Ru, are not attested as sons of King Khufu and are more than likely just made up, but allow me to play devil’s advocate for a moment.

These were two royal sons supposedly setting out on a dangerous and adventurous voyage. The Egyptians really did like this sort of thing, and it was the stuff of legends. Whenever a royal expedition set out, be it for trading or war, professional scribes accompanied the expedition so as to record everything. On more than a few occasions, what scribes recorded on trading or military expeditions ended up as official royal propaganda on the walls of state temples.

So Johnson’s explanation falls flat here, too. The alternative is to believe that Nefer-Djeseb and Nefer-Ti-Ru were a pair of misfits who were embarrassments to the court, so King Khufu dispatched them on a perilous journey with half-assed scribes in the hopes they would all die somewhere far away. If that’s the case, then Khufu’s plan was a grand success and the Gosford Glyphs are the real deal.

I jest. It’s hard to avoid chuckling over things like this.

About the only places where the glyphs actually do spell something are several names. We can read them on the sandstone walls of Gosford. Still, even here there are obvious errors. We can focus on one pair of names, as seen below:

"Cartouches" at Gosford

This image has been enhanced to make the pair of names stand out clearer. Immediately one notices the odd, squarish nature of the “cartouches” surrounding the names. They resemble something midway between cartouches and serekhs. The cartouche was a highly sacred symbol representing eternity—specifically the path of the sun; the name written inside a cartouche basically implied the owner of that name held dominion over everything around which the sun travels (in other words, absolutely everything). No true ancient scribe, even of minimal training, would carve cartouches like these. This would’ve been akin to an insult.

The name at left is Khufu and the name at right is our imaginary prince Nefer-Ti-Ru. The glyphs for Khufu are correct in form and orientation. However, the glyphs for Nefer-Ti-Ru are muddled and out of order, specifically the two at top. For that matter, the glyph at top-right, which is supposed to represent the “Ti” portion of the name, is not correct for that sound value. It more resembles the glyph designated S39, a shepherd’s crook (Allen 2001: 442), which carries the sound value awt (pronounced something like “ah-oot”).

These are not the mistakes of a poorly trained pharaonic scribe: these are the mistakes of a modern person not acquainted with hieroglyphs.

I might be nitpicking, as I tend to do, but now let us turn our attention to the glyphs positioned above the cartouches. The two paired above Khufu’s cartouche (left) are more or less correct and can be translated as “King of Upper and Lower Egypt” or “He of the Sedge and Bee” or “King of the Dualities,” depending on your preference. However, they’re oriented backwards—they read in the opposite direction from the name. A real scribe would never have committed such an obvious and egregious error. Those above the name of Nefer-Ti-Ru (right) are also oriented backwards. They read “Son of Re” (sA-ra), a title used by kings for most of pharaonic history.

However, two things are clearly wrong about this. First, Nefer-Ti-Ru was not a king at all. It’s not just that he’s imaginary and cannot be attested in the historical record—his name should not be in a cartouche and he definitely should not carry the epithet “Son of Re.” Moreover, although widely attested in the historical record, this title did not appear for kings until the reign of Djedefre, son and successor of Khufu (Quirke 1996: 47). This is the kind of mistake made by someone not well acquainted with ancient Egypt and the development of royal titles and epithets—but not something a real scribe would ever have done.

We can toss in here an instance for the name of the other main player, Nefer-Djeseb:

Gosford Glyphs: Courtesy of All things Woy

At the top is an imaginative blending of titles which seems to read “The king, Son of Re.” I’m not aware of this in the royal titularly, but then again, as with Nefer-Ti-Ru, Nefer-Djeseb was a prince and should not be referred to as Son of Re in the first place. In any case the fact that the name appears inside a box is decidedly odd. This is not attested for personal names in pharaonic Egypt. And the glyphs certainly do not spell Nefer-Djeseb. Rather, they seem to render something like “Nefer-es-ed-eb.”

I particularly like this photograph because it’s a terrific example of random carvings made by the original hoaxer. Most of the shapes around the name-box don’t even seem to be Egyptian hieroglyphs. The hoaxer must have been running out of ideas by this point.

In our analysis of the hieroglyphs themselves we have seen that in total they do not say anything. They are a random scattering of glyphs that relate no narrative, and so how Ray Johnson arrived at his “translation” is anyone’s guess. To be sure, what Johnson concocted is complete imagination on his part. We have seen how Johnson’s arguments about “proto-Egyptian” and “unknown” glyphs do not survive scrutiny. We have seen the clumsy and amateurish errors. We have even seen how some of the glyphs are not ancient Egyptian at all.

As I said at the beginning of this installment, one can determine in the work of a few seconds that the Gosford Glyphs are a clear hoax. Those who promote the glyphs continue to build on the farce, and they do so with conviction and passion, but it doesn’t matter. They’re not taken seriously for a reason. The more they contrive, the more they fail.

I’ll share one more installment to the hoax of the Gosford Glyphs. We’ll look at what others have to say about the site and will bring this business to a close. As always, thanks for reading.

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Allen, James P. Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs. 2001.

MacArthur, Elise V. “The Conception and Development of the Egyptian Writing System.” Visible Language. Christopher Woods, Emily Teeter, & Geoff Emberling, ed. 2010.

Stauder, Andréas. “The Earliest Egyptian Writing.” Visible Language. Christopher Woods, Emily Teeter, & Geoff Emberling, ed. 2010.

Quirke, Stephen. Who Were the Pharaohs? 1996

The Gosford Glyphs Hoax, Part 2

08 Sunday Apr 2012

Posted by in Ancient Egypt, Combating the Fringe

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For our new segment on the hoax of the Gosford Glyphs, it’s a good idea to take a closer and more analytical look at the story itself, as translated by the Australian Ray Johnson. For anyone who is versed in the ancient Egyptian culture, religion, and inscriptional material, the story presents a number of notable oddities. For the sake of convenience, I repeat the translation below:

THUS SPEAKS HIS HIGHNESS THE PRINCE FROM THIS WRETCHED PLACE WITHIN THIS LAND, TRANSPORTED THERE BY SHIP.
DOING THIS WRITING FOR THE CROWN OF LOWER EGYPT, ACCORDING TO GOD’S WORDS. THE FELLAHEEN CALL OUT FROM THIS PLACE IN THIS STRANGE LAND, FOR SUTI.
I, NEFER-DJESEB, SON OF THE KING KHUFU, THE KING OF UPPER AND LOWER EGYPT, BELOVED OF “PTAH” HAVE TRANSPORTED “SUTI.”
“HE (NEFER-TI-RU) IS KIND (AND) BENEVOLENT, (A) FOLLOWER (OF THE) GOLDEN-HAIRED GOD, “RA-HERU.” “TWO YEARS* THAT I (HE ?) MAKE WAY WESTWARDS, I (HE, NEFER TI-RU) (PUT) UP STRONG FRONT, PRAYING, JOYFUL, SMITING INSECTS. HIS HIGHNESS, A SERVANT OF GOD, HE (SAY’S) GOD BRINGS THE INSECTS, THUS THINE OWN FELLAHEEN PROTECT.”
THE SNAKE BIT TWICE, ALL THOSE BEHIND THE DIVINE LORD OF KHUFU, THE LORD OF THE TWO ADZES , MIGHTY ONE OF LOWER EGYPT. NOT ALL GO BACK. (WE ARE) MARCHING FORWARD, (WE) DO NOT LOOK BACK.
(WE) ALL DAMAGED THE BOAT AT LOW TIDE. OUR BOAT IS TIED UP. THE SNAKE CAUSED THE DEATH. (WE) GAVE HALF AN EGG (FROM MEDICINE) BOX (OR CHEST), (AND) PRAYED TO THE HIDDEN ONE, FOR HE WAS STRUCK TWICE.”
A HARD ROAD, WE ALL WEPT OVER THE BODY, KEEPING TO THAT, WHICH IS ALLOWED. “SEATED (BY) THE SIDE WAY.” “WITH CONCERN AND DEEP LOVE, (THE) FELLAHEEN.
PLANTS WILTING, LAND DYING, IS THIS MY LOT FROM THE MOST HIGH GOD, OF THE SACRED MER. THE SUN POURS DOWN UPON (MY BACK), O! KHEPERA, MOST HIGH, THIS IS NOT AS THE ORACLE SAID. MY OBELISK IS OVERTURNED, BUT NOT BROKEN.
THE BANDAGED ONE IS CONFINED, HEAR, THE RED EARTH REGION.” THEN OF TIME TO GROW, (I.E. SPRING), WE WALLED IN WITH LOCAL STONES THE ENTRANCE TO THE SIDE CHAMBER. I COUNTED AND IMPOUNDED THE DAGGERS (OF THE) FELLAHEEN.
THE THREE DOORS TO ETERNITY ARE CONNECTED TO THE REAR END BEHIND THE BULWARK (OF THE GRAVE).
A NECKLACE PLACED BY HIS SIDE. A ROYAL TOKEN, SIGNIFYING HEAVENS GIFT, AS FROM THOU…! O HOLY SHINING ONES. TAKEN ACROSS (TO) PRIVATE SANCTUARY (OF THIS) TOMB. (ALONG WITH) THE SILVER DAGGER, A ROYAL TOKEN (OF THE) GREAT MAKER.
SEPARATED FROM (THE CITY OF) “ PENU” (IS) THE ROYAL BODY (AND FROM) ALL OTHERS. THAT REGAL PERSON THAT CAME FROM THE HOUSE OF GOD, NEFER-TI-RU, THE SON OF KHUFU, KING OF UPPER AND LOWER EGYPT , WHO DIED BEFORE, IS LAID TO REST.
HE IS NOT OF THIS PLACE. HIS HOME IS PENU. RETURN HIM TO HIS TOWN . ONE THIRD OF (THE) FRUITS, I MYSELF DIVIDED FOR THE BURIAL SERVICE. HOLD HIS SPIRIT WITH LOVE, O MOST HIGH. WORMS IN THE BASKET OF FRUIT, GOING INTO (HIM), SHALL NOT BE.
MAY HE HAVE LIFE, EVERLASTING. AM I NOT TO GO BACK BESIDES THE WATERS OF THE SACRED MER, THEN CLASP HIM, MY BROTHER’S SPIRIT TO THY SIDE, O FATHER OF THE EARTH.

The Egyptians left us a veritable wealth of inscriptions and texts from all periods of pharaonic history. Indeed, until Jean-François Champollion cracked the hieroglyphic code in 1822, no one knew anything meaningful or substantial about ancient Egypt. Almost two centuries of steady decipherment, linguistics, and philology have opened Egypt to us—teaching us everything from their personal names to the names of their deities to the most enigmatic rituals in their religion.

I’ll pull only some examples of oddities from Ray Johnson’s translation. The more I read it, the more fault I can find in the translation, to the point that almost every line presents something dubious or unlikely.

We can start with the main players in the story, the princes Nefer-Djeseb and Nefer-Ti-Ru. As I explained in Part I, these were supposedly sons of King Khufu, the builder of the Great Pyramid and one of the most powerful monarchs of the entire Old Kingdom. If we search actual monuments from the reign of Khufu, can we find evidence for two sons named Nefer-Djeseb and Nefer-Ti-Ru? This should be easy enough. In the tombs of Giza, especially in the mastaba field to the east of the Great Pyramid, we find the family members of Khufu—their names inscribed not only in their own tombs but also in the tombs of fellow family members. Khufu’s family is well attested, in other words.

The answer for Nefer-Djeseb and Nefer-Ti-Ru is: No. They are not mentioned. And yet we know the names of Khufu’s children, both sons and daughters: Neferetiabet, Kawab, Hetepheres II, Djedefre, Hordjedef, Minkhaf, Babaef A, Meryetyotes II, Bauefre, Khufukhaf I, Meresankh II, Horbaef (Dodson & Hilton 2004: 52-61). So why should two sons named Nefer-Djeseb and Nefer-Ti-Ru be completely unattested except for a dubious smattering of glyphs on rock faces in Australia? This alone is highly suspect.

Whoever etched the Gosford Glyphs may have been decidedly unlearned in Egyptian hieroglyphs but they knew at least enough to be clever. The “nefer” element was safe to go with. Meaning such things as “beautiful,” “good,” and “perfect” in the ancient language, “nefer” was a common part of names for both males and females (think of two of pharaonic Egypt’s most famous queens, Nefertiti and Nefertari). To the uninitiated, then, the two “nefer” names at Gosford have a familiar ring and are therefore believable. However, as much as “Djeseb” might sound like ancient Egyptian, try as I might I could not find any record of this name or root or word in the ancient language. It’s a modern invention. As for “Nefer-Ti-Ru,” I could find very little at all. The only thing I came across that might be close is the name Nefertiry (another way to render Nefertari), and there was a Nefertiry B: a daughter of Tuthmosis III whose name appears in that king’s tomb, KV34 (ibid 140). This of course would have no relation with the invented “Nefer-Ti-Ru.”

So right off the bat the two main players in the story clearly come across as a modern attempt to represent Egyptian-sounding names. What else can the translation tell us?

Quite a lot. It’s loaded with factual errors. One that jumped out at me is the reference to the “Golden-haired god Re-Heru.” Re was of course the principal solar deity of ancient Egypt, and Heru is a decent rendering of the name of the falcon god Horus as it might have actually been spoken in the ancient tongue. The synthesis of these two gods, Re and Horus, goes back to the very earliest times in Egypt, but the proper form of the name is Re-Horakhty. This might be a fussy point for me to make but I admit to being a stickler for details, and this is not the sort of error a real translator should make. More bizarre, however, is the epithet “Golden-haired god,” which makes Re-Horakhty sound like some sort of Scandinavian studmuffin. In point of fact the Egyptians themselves held that the skin of Re was made of gold, his bones were of silver, and his hair was of lapis lazuli (which means his hair wasn’t golden but blue).

There is also the repeated reference to “fellahin.” I can’t think of any modern translation that would use this term to refer to ordinary people or a work crew of sailing crew in ancient Egypt. In fact, “fellahin” is an Arabic word to describe farmers or agricultural workers. A word in ancient Egyptian for ordinary people would be “khet” (Xt) or even more commonly “rekhyt” (rxyt) (Faulkner 2002: 152, 200). To refer to the men specifically as the crew of a ship, as these men were supposed to be, the term would be “iset” (ist) (ibid 30). This might also be a fussy point, but it goes to the accuracy of translation (or lack thereof) and whether the translator is merely making it up based on his or her lack of training in the ancient script.

Titles and epithets in the story are particularly odd. In one line, for instance, Khufu is provided the title “Lord of the Two Adzes.” King’s titles and epithets are particularly well attested from all periods, understandably, but this isn’t one of them. “Lord of the Two Lands” was certainly a common title for kings, but one wonders where “Two Adzes” comes from? “Father of the Earth” is found at the end of the story but who or what is “Father of the Earth?” Geb was a prominent earth deity but this isn’t a title for him. The phrases “Great Maker” and “O Most High” sound a lot more Judeo-Christian than ancient Egyptian.

Unusual is the point near the middle of the story where we’re told the crew “prayed to the Hidden One.” Now, this does fit well with the god Amun, whose name more or less translates as “Hidden One.” It is a decidedly noticeable anachronism in this case, however, because Amun was a very minor deity in the Old Kingdom and isn’t seen in the Egyptian pantheon until the earliest appearances of the Pyramid Texts at the end of Dynasty 5, more than 150 years after the time of Khufu. This was not a deity to whom this sailing crew should have been praying. Amun would not have been important to them. Amun did eventually become an extremely important deity, but in Egyptian history he didn’t start to emerge as prominent until the Middle Kingdom (Wilkinson 2003: 92).

At one point we are told of an obelisk that was “overturned, but not broken.” The obelisk is one of the hallmarks of ancient Egypt, and a familiar sight to us all. It was co-opted by all sorts of cultures, ancient and modern; think of the Washington Monument. However, obelisks were not always a fixture in pharaonic Egypt. The earliest one on record which was carved for someone other than a king dates to Dynasty 6 at the end of the Old Kingdom (Quirke 2001: 135), and this is of course well after Khufu.

On a last note, one of the most prominent carvings at Gosford is this tall figure:

Gosford Glyphs: Courtesy of All things Woy

This is the deity recorded as “Suti” in the translation of Ray Johnson. Even most kids whom I’ve met would immediately know that this is supposed to be Anubis, one of the primary deities of the underworld and patron god of ancient Egyptian embalmers, so where does “Suti” come from? “Suti” is an alternate spelling for the name of the god Set, the deity associated with chaos, storms, and the desert. So why did Johnson “translate” the above figure as Suti and not Anubis?

This is a bit of a puzzle. One of the followers of Ray Johnson’s work is an Australian man called Hans-Dieter von Senff. He wrote a paper titled “Ancient Egyptians in Australia: The Kariong Glyphs, a Proto-Egyptian script deciphered.” It’s one of those papers you can download on the internet, which is the only place it exists. Von Senff clearly worked hard to support Johnson’s translation and his “Ancient Egyptians in Australia” paper stretches on to 149 pages. It’s a tortured attempt to make Johnson’s translation seem legitimate and, aside from falling well short in that regard, von Senff attempts to explain this odd discrepancy between Anubis and Set by framing “Suti” as more suitable for travelers and the only deity that could be used in this Australian setting for the deceased Nefer-Ti-Ru.

One could go on for a while refuting the flawed reasoning in von Senff’s explanation, but one is immediately caused to ask: if the Egyptian carver intended the figure to be Set, why not use a figure of Set instead of Anubis? The forms and iconography of Anubis and Set are entirely different and would’ve been very familiar to ancient Egyptians, from all periods. In any case, Set was not an afterlife deity in most respects, especially in the Old Kingdom when our story is supposed to have taken place.

In my next installment on the Gosford hoax I’ll go into more detail on other clear errors in the glyphs. But all in all, whoever carved the glyphs and initiated this hoax, they don’t seem to have anything whatsoever in common with the translation Ray Johnson concocted. It’s a completely transparent invention on the part of Johnson, and it’s just plain silly. This is not the translation work of anyone truly acquainted with the ancient Egyptian language, the orthography of hieroglyphs, or the fundamentals of ancient Egyptian religion and culture.

I hope you’ll keep reading.

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Dodson, Aidan & Dyan Hilton. The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt. 2004.

Faulkner, Raymond O. A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian. 1962.

Quirke, Stephen. The Cult of Re: Sun-Worship in Ancient Egypt. 2001.

Wilkinson, Richard. Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt. 2003.

The Gosford Glyphs Hoax, Part 1

07 Saturday Apr 2012

Posted by in Ancient Egypt, Combating the Fringe

≈ 61 Comments

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Australia brings up images of exotic landscapes and vast tracts of wilderness. It was originally inhabited by Aborigines tens of thousands of years ago and, much later, by Europeans as a penal colony. Australia has brought us colorful characters like Crocodile Dundee (I’m dating myself by that reference) and Steve Irwin. The dialect of English spoken there is charming and immediately recognizable. This land is a modern tourist destination for those among us who want to experience the culture of Sydney and the adventures of the Outback.

But who would’ve thought that one of the first bands of tourists were ancient Egyptians, thousands of years ago?  Few would imagine that the builders of the Great Pyramid and the founders of the world’s first nation-state would also sail the wide-open seas and find themselves Down Under.

If you find yourself in southeast Australia in the area of Gosford, not far from the coast, you can see the evidence for yourself. There, on numerous sandstone rock faces, are hieroglyphs carved by Egyptians themselves. If you have Google Earth, plug in the coordinates 33°27’4.69″S, 151°18’9.44″E and you can explore the area yourself. Google “Gosford Glyphs” and you’ll come up with all sorts of photos of these enigmatic hieroglyphs, such as this one:

Courtesy of All things Woy

Gosford Glyphs: Courtesy of All things Woy

What do the glyphs tell us? What story lay hidden in the ancient script?

Well, of course, the glyphs have been translated and the translation is widely available on the internet. I shall share the story here:

Thus speaks his Highness the Prince from this wretched place within this land, transported there by ship.
Doing this writing for the Crown of Lower Egypt, according to God’s Words. The fellaheen call out from this place in this strange land, for Suti.
I, Nefer-Djeseb, Son of the King Khufu, The King of Upper and Lower Egypt, beloved of “Ptah” have transported “Suti.”
“He (Nefer-Ti-Ru) is kind (and) benevolent, (a) follower (of the) golden-haired God, “Ra-Heru.” “Two years* that I (He ?) make way westwards, I (He, Nefer Ti-Ru) (put) up strong front, praying, joyful, smiting Insects. His Highness, a Servant of God, He (say’s) God brings the Insects, thus thine own Fellaheen protect.”
The snake bit twice, all those behind the divine Lord of Khufu, the Lord of the two Adzes , mighty one of LOWER EGYPT. Not all go back. (we are) marching forward, (we) do not look back.
(We) all damaged the Boat at low tide. Our boat is tied up. The snake caused the death. (We) gave half an egg (from Medicine) Box (or Chest), (and) prayed to the Hidden One, for he was struck twice.”
A hard road, we all wept over the body, keeping to that, which is allowed. “Seated (by) the Side way.” “With concern and deep love, (the) Fellaheen.
Plants wilting, Land dying, is this my lot from the most high God, of the sacred Mer. The Sun pours down upon (my back), O! Khepera, most High, this is not as the Oracle said. My Obelisk is overturned, but not broken.
The bandaged one is confined, Hear, The Red Earth Region.” Then of Time to grow, (i.e. Spring), We walled in with local Stones the entrance to the side chamber. I counted and impounded the daggers (of the) Fellaheen.
The three doors to Eternity are connected to the rear end behind the bulwark (of the Grave).
A Necklace placed by his side. A Royal Token, signifying Heavens Gift, as from thou…! O Holy Shining Ones. Taken across (to) private sanctuary (of this) Tomb. (Along with) the Silver Dagger, a Royal Token (of the) Great Maker.
Separated from (the city of) “ PENU” (is) the Royal Body (and from) all others. That Regal Person that came from the House of God, Nefer-ti-ru, the Son of Khufu, King of Upper and Lower Egypt , who died before, is laid to rest.
He is not of this place. His home is Penu. Return him to his town . One third of (the) fruits, I myself divided for the burial service. Hold his Spirit with love, O most High. Worms in the basket of fruit, going into (him), shall not be.
May he have Life, everlasting. Am I not to go back besides the Waters of the Sacred Mer, Then clasp him, my Brother’s Spirit to thy side, O Father of the Earth.

There you have it. We have two princes, Nefer-Djeseb and Nefer-Ti-Ru, sons of the great king Khufu, leading a band of Egyptian sailers to far-off Australia. Their ship ran aground, and evidently Prince Nefer-Ti-Ru succumbed to a snake bite. He was interred there, in the rocky outcrops near modern Gosford, 4,500 years ago.

We know the timeline because of the clear mention of Khufu, builder of the Great Pyramid, one of the mightiest edifices of pharaonic Egypt. Khufu reigned around 2547-2524 BCE, the second king of Dynasty 4, early in the Old Kingdom. His father was Sneferu (2597-2547 BCE), builder of three large masonry pyramids.

So, we know the backstory, we know the timeline, we know the main players. We can see the hieroglyphs for ourselves, splashed over those sandstone rock faces. The inscriptions are most commonly referred to as the Gosford Glyphs due to the nearby community of Gosford. They’re also known as the Kariong Glyphs because they’re located in the Brisbaine Water National Park, Kariong, which is a wilderness area governed by Australia’s National Parks and Wildlife Service. 

But are the inscriptions real? Did a hardy band of Egyptian sailors really set out from Early Bronze Age Egypt and ply the open waters of the ocean for thousands of miles to travel to Australia? Logic and reason would tell you, no.

Logic and reason would be correct, of course.

This is absurd on the face of it. Nevertheless, the Gosford hoax has a zealously loyal band of believers, most of whom seem to be a number of Australians who passionately build on the hoax to deliver it to us as authentic. Whether some or most of these Australian believers had anything to do with the creation of the hoax is not clear, and it’s not even clear if they honestly believe in it themselves, but goodness, do they rise up in defense of it!

So in honor of the Gosford Glyphs I’m writing this article to explain and demonstrate in no uncertain terms why they’re so obviously a fraud. If nothing else, my humble article will be one more voice of reason out there on the Net. There is too much material to cover in one segment, so I intend to break it up into more than one entry.

To begin, let’s introduce a couple of the modern players who defend the Gosford Glyphs. The above translation was concocted by an Australian named Ray Johnson, who passed away some years ago. You will see on any number of web pages mentioning that Mr. Johnson was an Egyptologist. This is not accurate. By the statements Johnson made and by the things he wrote, it is abundantly clear that Johnson did not possess much understanding of pharaonic Egypt and definitely did not understand the protocols and techniques necessary to translate hieroglyphs.

You will see any number of people who promote the Gosford Glyphs proclaiming themselves to be archaeologists and/or Egyptologists, when it’s clear none of these people possess any credentials in those fields. You’ll also notice they love attaching “Ph.D.” to their names. While I’ve spent years studying Egyptian hieroglyphs myself, and have worked hard on my ability to conduct translations, I have no problem stating outright that I am neither an archaeologist nor an Egyptologist. Honesty is critical in historical studies and research, so few things push my buttons like folks who enjoy pretending to be things they are not.

Some of the characters in this Gosford drama have written documents you can find and download on the internet. They’re in this format, of course, because no publisher would dare to touch them. I am not interested in promoting their work or linking you to their “papers,” so I leave it to you to hunt them down, if you wish to.

Ray Johnson is obviously something of a cult hero to these fringies. They proudly refer to him as an Australian Egyptologist and intimate that Johnson performed cutting-edge linguistic research at the Gosford site. As laughable as the whole thing is, admittedly I’ve taken the time to download and read their papers. There is immediate confusion with the name Ray Johnson, and to me this is troublesome.

Many people familiar with the field of Egyptology will probably have encountered an Egyptologist named Ray Johnson. Indeed there is one. Dr. Ray Johnson is from the University of Chicago, Oriental Institute, and is the director of the Chicago House in Luxor, Egypt. Dr. Johnson is a leader in the field of Egyptian epigraphy.

It must be stressed that the Australian Ray Johnson and the University of Chicago Ray Johnson are two different men. Do the acolytes of the Australian Johnson make this clear? One would think so, especially given the fact that the Australian Johnson is deceased and the University of Chicago Johnson is still very much with us (he was one of the speakers around five years ago at the Oriental Institute when I was training to be a docent there). But it’s not always that clear, in fact.

One of those papers you can download from the internet is called “Burial Site of Lord Nefer-Ti-Ru,” by an individual called Dr. R.M. de Jonge. The manner in which de Jonge provides citations and references is very loose and free, and at least two different references definitely refer to the University of Chicago Ray Johnson in a manner that seems to imply he was involved with the study of the Gosford Glyphs. I can’t outright state that de Jonge is trying to pull a trick on us because it might be nothing more than a case of an individual not knowing how to cite properly.

This matter was brought to the attention of the University of Chicago Ray Johnson, who kindly replied by email and explained:

That Ray Johnson is not me. I have never translated any faux Egyptian hieroglyphic inscriptions in Australia (those rock inscriptions were clearly not done by any ancient Egyptians). That Ray Johnson, whoever he is/was, has/had no association with the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, and I suspect is not an Egyptologist…

That’s clear enough, then. But the real Dr. Ray Johnson is not the only Egyptologist who’s weighed in on this issue. Professor Nageeb Kanawati, from the Department of Egyptology at Macquarie University, stated in May 2011:

…A few years ago I examined, only from photographs, these so-called Egyptian inscriptions at Kariong, and am sure that they mean nothing and are mere scratches made by a amateur…

Additionally, another Australian Egyptologist named Dr. Gregory Gilbert, noted in 2000:

I recognise these photographs as being from an Australian rock depiction which supposedly has evidence of Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. I believe that the inscription is a modern forgery, and not a good one at that.

I bother to share the words of these three Egyptologists because one of the claims of the fringies who so ardently support the Gosford Glyphs is that they’ve never received attention from academia and that all counterarguments are sloppy and incorrect. In other words, they present their own work as infallible while all negative comments are inherently flawed. As arrogant and unrealistic as this is, it is a common tactic of fringe adherents.

Incidentally, another big promoter of Gosford is an Australian named Rex Gilroy. He has his own website. I’m sure pretty much everyone living in Australia must know of Rex Gilroy, and no doubt many fringies enjoy his work. Gilroy argues that not only Egyptians but Phoenicians were ancient visitors to his land. Then again, Mr. Gilroy also argues in favor of UFOs and the Australian version of Bigfoot (Yowie), so I don’t know how credible he is to begin with. I’ll bet he’s a hell of a story teller, however.

In my next installment I’ll break down the specifics of the Gosford Glyphs: when they actually date to, the nature of the hieroglyphs, the story the Australian Ray Johnson concocted, and how we know for certain all of this is just a tremendous load of bull-flop.

On a closing note, the photos I’m sharing in the Gosford articles are used with the permission of Steve S., author of a terrific Australian blog named All things Woy (LINK). More than probably anyone Steve has documented the Gosford phenomenon, its origins, its development, and its investigations. I’m indebted to Steve and highly recommend his blog.