Is it possible that there was once a black pyramid in Egypt that has been lost to history? That’s correct, a fourth BLACK PYRAMID was aligned with the three stone masses that are presently on the Giza plateau, according to Frederic Louis Norden, an 18th-century Danish naval commander, geographer, and explorer.
The Giza Plateau, located west of Cairo, is renowned for housing Egypt’s four most recognizable monuments: the Great Sphinx, three pyramids, and the only ancient global wonder that has survived to our day, the Sphinx. Any self-respecting tourist or global traveler should have this book.
New tombs and magnificent items from ancient Egypt continue to be discovered by archaeologists digging the plateau. This historic location has so much more to offer and has yet to reveal all of its ancient mysteries.
We know that there are three pyramids, ascribed to the pharaohs by archaeological officialism – capriciously it is worth noting – as Cheops, Khafre, and Menkaure, the last being the smallest, and with no apparent indications of a fourth pyramidal sister… Not in stone, at least.
On paper, the presence of a fourth pyramid at Giza was recorded by Danish explorer Frederic Louis Norden (1708-1742), who was part of a trip to Egypt arranged by Frenchman Pierre Joseph le Roux d’Esneval at the request of Danish King Christian VI.
Norden was no inexperienced adventurer. He was an experienced naval commander, geographer, and archaeological explorer who had studied fortifications in nations such as Holland, France, Italy, and Malta prior to his journey to Egypt in 1737.
The captain recorded and sketched everything he saw and experienced in Egypt, including pharaonic monuments, architecture, installations, and maps, when he arrived. He created almost 200 drawings, which are included in his book Voyage d’Egypte et de Nubie (available for download under these lines).
Modern scholars have been perplexed by several of his drawings. What is the cause behind this? At Giza, Norden drew a picture of a fourth pyramid.
“There are four of them,” the captain says in his notes, “and while there maybe seven or eight more in the area, they are nothing compared to the first (…).” The two northern pyramids, which are 500 feet perpendicular, are the biggest. The other two are considerably smaller, but they have certain unique characteristics that merit your attention and appreciation.
He emphasizes the unusual summit of the old building while discussing the fourth pyramid. “A stone blacker than ordinary granite,” it seemed to be.
The fourth pyramid is just around thirty meters apart from the third. It has no cover, is closed, and appears similar to the others, except it lacks the temple of the first. “However, it has one noteworthy feature: the summit is topped by a single huge stone that seems to have functioned as a pedestal,” Captain Norden says.
We now know that Giza does not have the fourth pyramid. Some claim that satellite photos show the presence of many massive Egyptian pyramids buried under the sand, although this may not have been the case during Norden’s trip. So how did he manage to record four Giza pyramids when there are only three?
The majority of contemporary academics believe the captain misidentified one of Menkaure’s subsidiary pyramids as a fourth great pyramid. However, even if this is correct, it still doesn’t explain why Norden said the fourth pyramid was black. Menkaure’s satellite pyramids, dubbed the red pyramid because of their initial covering, were not constructed of black stones, as is often assumed.
We have relatively limited choices as a result of this reality. One possibility is that there was a mistake in the translation. The text of Captain Norden was first written in French and then translated into English. Perhaps he never meant to suggest that the fourth pyramid was black, but rather that it was darker than the others.
Another option is that he observed a black pyramid that is no longer there. The ancient structure was perhaps destroyed or utilized as a quarry for homes or structures in Cairo.
Although a pyramid cannot vanish into thin air, there is no reason to disbelieve Captain Norden’s claims. It seems that this explorer saw something and recorded his findings, but we are unable to answer this ancient Egyptian enigma.
Perhaps — and only perhaps — it met the same fate as the rumored second Great Sphinx, which might have accompanied the one we see today and whose Negroid, nearly Olmec-headed visage is also thought to be unoriginal.
