Archived Article
South African Satire
Issue 11, May 2004
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Archeologists Discover Reason For Pyramids
The Giza discovery has ended thousands of years of speculation regarding the exact reasons for the pyramids. It has also turned conventional archeological theory on the pyramids on its head. In fact, what could well be described as the biggest, longest, and most well thought out practical joke has made a fool of hundreds of experts, academics and alien conspiracy theorists.
“From our interpretation of the text it seems that the pharaohs weren’t sure how long they would spend in their death-chambers before moving on to the afterlife. So, endowed with a particularly sadistic sense of humour, they constructed the pyramids with the express purpose of fooling all and sundry into believing they had some higher purpose. All that the pyramids were really supposed to do was to give the pharaohs and the joke god, Ha, an opportunity to laugh at everyone who died trying to loot them and come up with fancy explanations for their purpose, design etc. I guess they must all still be laughing,” said Pearce, Professor Emeritus of Archaeology at Oxford University.
The text describes in detail how the pharaohs commissioned their brightest minds, from priests to astronomers, to come up with the idea of the pyramids.
“Even though it’s all a big joke now, we at least
know that the Egyptians were quite advanced astronomers,” said Brandon Willard, one
of Prof Pearce’s doctoral students and co-discoverer of the ‘Joke Stone’,
as it’s fast becoming known in archaeological circles. “Apparently they
deliberately aligned the pyramids with certain constellations in order to fool people into
thinking there was some kind of ‘big heavenly connection’, if my translation is
correct.”“The idea of the pyramids’ curse is also explained as a piece of disinformation spread by priests as part of the joke,” said Willard.
The Joke Stone has not made a fool of all the scholars of ancient Egypt though; it apparently also confirmed that tens of thousands of peasants used the rope and log method to haul the giant limestone blocks making up the pyramids.
“We think that Ha was a particularly callous god. The stone says that most of the peasants that built the pyramids either died or suffered with lifelong, debilitating backache, but – and this is the shocking part – it says that their suffering pleased Ha because it was all in the name of humour,” said Pearce.
The academic community at large has not reacted positively to the discovery.
“Perhaps the only fool is Pearce,” said Prof Gary Hackert of Cambridge University. “If you ask me, whoever wrote that stone was playing a joke themselves. They are looking down at Pearce from the heavens and laughing their proverbial arses off.”
Pearce stood by his claim that the stone was authentic and not a joke itself.
“My esteemed colleague at Cambridge is just worried about losing his research grants. If the pyramids are a joke, then so is most of his research, as well the justification for his research budget. He hasn’t even seen the stone himself. It’s just too detailed to be a joke,” said Pearce.
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