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On the Names of Sesostris, Vesozes, and Vezosis

6/17/2025

Last week, I wrote a bit about the origins of the name of the first pharaoh in medieval Arabic traditions, Naqrāūs. Well, that led me to the first pharaoh in the Greek tradition, which is a bit of a confusing mess. Herodotus, of course, famously named the first (human) king of Egypt as Menes, but in later Greek traditions, from roughly the fourth century BCE onward, the story changed and Sesostris took that position, establishing a kingship in Egypt after the first king in history, Ninus, did the same in Assyria. Sesostris, in the Greek tradition, was a world-conquering hero whose dominion stretched from Europe to Scythia and whose power was unrivaled.

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On the Origins of Naqraus, the Legendary First Antediluvian King of Egypt

6/11/2025

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For well over a decade now, I’ve had a special interest in the medieval Arabic-language legends of ancient Egypt, particularly their mysterious origins. While the particular story of Sūrīd and his building of the Great Pyramid has received more scholarly attention than the rest, for the most part, it is not a subject that attracts a lot of deep analysis. I was surprised to discover an old 1903 analysis that provided me with an interesting insight into one of the odder parts of the story, at least in a somewhat roundabout way.

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Zahi Hawass Stumbles Through a Discussion of Occult Egyptology on Joe Rogan

5/16/2025

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This week, famed Egyptologist Zahi Hawass was Joe Rogan’s guest on his podcast, and the two spent two hours discussing the history of ancient Egypt and various conspiracy theories that Rogan had heard about Egypt from his friends in the fringe history community. It was Rogan’s first episode with an archaeologist as the sole guest, more than 2,320 episodes and dozens if not hundreds of “alternative” thinker interviews into his run. Unfortunately, it was not the most successful outing for archaeology, as Rogan asked combative questions about conspiracies and Hawass stumbled over some areas he should have recognized after all these years.

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From Iraq, Graham Hancock Announces New Book on Mesopotamian Mysteries

5/13/2025

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Graham Hancock is writing a new book about the history and civilizations of Mesopotamia, according to social media posts by Hancock and by Ammar Karim, an AFP journalist helping Hancock tour Iraq this week. I can’t say I am terribly excited about the book. It’s a natural choice of Hancock, given that Mesopotamian literature contains the oldest extant versions of the Flood myth, his lost civilization ur-text, and the northern reaches of the territory are near enough to Göbekli Tepe for fringe writers like Andrew Collins to conclude that the Sumerians inherited their culture from Göbekli Tepe, whose people were the Nephilim of the Bible.

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Goghgobon and the Hermetic History of Giants

5/10/2025

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Longtime readers will remember that back in 2018, I struggled my way through the Old Castilian of Alfonso X’s General Estoria—learning the language in order to read it—so that I could explore the Hermetic history of the Giants contained in it. As you may recall, this passage relates the story of Asclepius’s encounter with Goghgobon, the last surviving Giant, who tells him about the accomplishments of the Giants before the Flood and translates for him their book of star wisdom written in a forgotten alphabet. Very few scholars have analyzed this passage in any significant detail, likely because it had never been translated into English before I did so, and even the modern Spanish translation is very recent.

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Leo XIV and the End of the "Prophecy of the Popes"

5/9/2025

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With the election of Pope Leo XIV yesterday, the Catholic Church not only entered into a new pontificate, but his reign also should mark the end of a longstanding hoax. The popular “Prophecy of the Popes” attributed to St. Malachy (1094-1148) listed what the document claimed to be all of the popes who would reign from 1139 until the end of the world. Books and documentaries have proliferated about the so-called prophecy, including a 2018 documentary starring former America Unearthed host Scott Wolter. However, with the death of Pope Francis last month and the election of Pope Leo, the number of reigning popes has now exceeded the number of popes prophesied to have served before the end of the world.

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André Thevet and the "Evidence" for Atlantis in America

4/26/2025

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As you know, tracking down primary sources is one of the rabbit holes I can’t escape, so when I started flipping through Lewis Spence’s 1925 book Atlantis in America and came across his evidence that the Native peoples of the Americas had Atlantis traditions, I of course wanted to see the originals for myself. I was particularly taken by a quotation he gave on page 68, which Spence says comes from the “Tupi-Guarani of Brazil” and was recorded by “Thevet.” No other information is given to identify the source of an interesting take about a heavenly fire and a subsequent flood—a story later writers would identify as a comet that destroyed Atlantis:

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Italian Researchers Now Claim Pyramids 38,000 Years Old, Submerged in Great Flood

4/7/2025

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A couple of weeks ago, an Italian team claimed to find a massive set of underground structures far beneath the Giza pyramids, a claim quickly dismissed by archaeologists, who pointed out that the sensing technology used to identify the structures cannot, in fact, be used to identify objects so far beneath the surface. Now the same team, calling itself the Khafre Project, has fully embraced Graham Hancock’s Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis and has gone all-in on bizarre claims that the pyramids were once submerged beneath Noah’s Flood.

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Review of "Odysseus Returns," a PBS Quest to Find the Tomb of Odysseus

8/31/2024

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Promotional image for "Odysseus Returns" featuring Makis Metaxas (PBS)

This week, PBS presented Odysseus Returns, a documentary following the three-decade quest of “amateur historian” Makis Metaxas as he attempts to convince the world that Odysseus was real, that Homer’s island of Ithaca was in fact the neighboring island of Kefalonia in northwest Greece, and that he had seen both the tomb of Odysseus and the Greek hero’s bones. It’s a tall order for a ninety-minute film, and I was disappointed that the somewhat meandering documentary presents only one side of the argument, leaving the audience with the impression that not only is Metaxas right but that the Greek government and archaeologists are conspiring to prevent Odysseus’ tomb from being identified. So much does the film endorse Metaxas’s perspective that PBS affixed a disclaimer to the beginning of the documentary noting that the film’s claims are not the views of the Greek government. Typically, such as disclaimer says something like “not necessarily,” implying some wiggle room, but this one is simply “not.”

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Lue Elizondo Memoir: Dubbed "King of Torture," Haunted by Bubbles, Talks Nephilim

7/26/2024

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Since Ancient Aliens is on hiatus to avoid competing with the Olympics, I thought it would be safe to take my on to the local aquarium. Surely a display of tropical fish must be free of the insidious mythology of space invaders. Ah, but I was wrong. Since last we visited, the aquarium opened a hall of animatronics offering, in either promise or threat, dinosaurs and “legendary creatures.” The disappointing attraction featured credulous displays about griffins and Bigfoot before reaching a crescendo in a hall where Ancient Aliens clips played on a big screen beside this janky diorama of extraterrestrials. It was not worth the upcharge.