**Herodotus Said It Was More Impressive Than The Pyramids. But Egypt Said A Labyrinth Didn't Exist. — Transcript & Summary | SozAI** Source: https://sozai.app/transcript/herodotus-pyramids-egypt-labyrinth/ Exploring the lost Egyptian labyrinth at Hawara, once deemed more impressive than the pyramids, with recent scans and excavations revealing its possible existence. ## Key Takeaways - Ancient texts consistently describe a massive labyrinth at Hawara, more impressive than the pyramids. - Modern scanning technologies have detected a large, intact underground structure matching ancient descriptions. - The labyrinth was likely sealed and lost for millennia, with recent excavations finally uncovering physical evidence. - The site may hold pre-pharaonic royal burial chambers, challenging current Egyptian historical timelines. - Continued excavation and research are crucial to fully understand the labyrinth's origins and significance. ## What the video covers - Herodotus described a vast labyrinth at Hawara, Egypt, surpassing even the pyramids, with 3,000 rooms across two levels. - Six ancient writers corroborated Herodotus' descriptions, but the labyrinth disappeared after their time, likely quarried for building materials. - Modern archaeology found only the mudbrick core of Amenemhat III's pyramid, with no sign of the labyrinth until recent scanning technologies were applied. - In 2008, Belgian researcher Louis de Cordier led a collaboration using ground-penetrating radar and electromagnetic scanning, revealing large underground structures. - The Egyptian government initially suppressed the findings, citing national security, but data was later published by de Cordier. - Satellite imaging in 2015 and subsequent scans by multiple international teams confirmed anomalies consistent with a large, multi-level underground complex. - A large metallic anomaly about 40 meters wide was detected at the center of the structure, possibly linked to ancient Egyptian texts describing a sacred object. - In 2026, Egyptian authorities began official excavations at Hawara, confirming the presence of large worked stones at depth as predicted by scans. - The priests Herodotus spoke with claimed the labyrinth was built before Amenemhat III and the pharaohs, suggesting a pre-pharaonic origin. - If excavations confirm these claims, it could significantly alter the understanding of Egyptian history and chronology. ## Chapters 1. 00:00 Introduction and Discovery of the Story 2. 00:24 Herodotus' Description of the Labyrinth 3. 01:03 Ancient Writers and the Lost Structure 4. 01:34 Theories on the Labyrinth's Disappearance 5. 02:12 Modern Scanning Expeditions and Findings 6. 03:35 Suppression and Publication of Scan Data 7. 04:16 Satellite Imaging and Multi-Team Confirmations 8. 04:51 2026 Excavations and Recent Discoveries 9. 06:07 Historical Implications and Future Prospects 10. 07:17 Conclusion and Speculations Answers ## Questions about this video What did Herodotus say about the labyrinth at Hawara? Herodotus described the labyrinth as surpassing even the pyramids, with 3,000 rooms across two levels, half above and half below ground, containing burial vaults of kings predating Amenemhat III. Why was the labyrinth thought to be lost? The labyrinth was believed to have been quarried for building materials during the Ptolemaic period, leaving only the mudbrick core of Amenemhat III's pyramid visible by the 19th century. What recent technologies have been used to investigate the labyrinth? Ground penetrating radar, electromagnetic scanning, and satellite imaging originally developed for military use have been employed by multiple international teams to detect large underground structures at Hawara. ## Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown 00:00 Speaker A I came across this about a week ago when I was watching the Danny Jones podcast. 00:04 Speaker A He had Louis de Cordier on. He's a Belgian researcher who published results of a scanning expedition that the Egyptian government didn't want published. I watched the episode and then I spent about two days going down every thread that I can find on this and 00:16 Speaker A I think it's one of the most important active archaeological stories out there right now, so I wanted to dig in a little bit. It starts with Herodotus. 00:24 Speaker A Around 450 BC, Herodotus traveled through Egypt, but he'd already seen the pyramids, so he went to a place called Hawara in the Fayum region about 60 miles southeast of Cairo and he wrote this. It surpasses even the pyramids. It 00:37 Speaker A has 12 courts covered with gates facing one another, six on the north and six on the south. Inside it's beyond words, passages and chambers winding endlessly, halls upon halls. He counted 3,000 rooms across two levels, roughly half above 00:52 Speaker A ground and half below. The underground section was sealed and the priest that was showing him around told him that nobody was allowed down there. And when he asked why, they said, "Those chambers held the burial vaults of the kings who 01:03 Speaker A built the place originally, before Amenemhat III, before the pharaohs, before whoever was there before all that." Now, Herodotus alone, you might want to take with a grain of salt. He was known to embellish a little bit, but he wasn't the only one who went there. 01:17 Speaker A There were six ancient writers across several centuries and they all physically walked through the structure and they all described the same thing. 01:24 Speaker A More impressive than the pyramids, more complex than anything in Greece, a building so large and intricate that none of them can even find the right words for it. And across those six writers, there was no contradictions. 01:34 Speaker A All of them said the same thing about what they saw while they were physically standing there. And at some point after that, the structure was just gone. When and why is pretty unclear. The theory that latched on is that the building was 01:45 Speaker A quarried for building material during the Ptolemaic period and the stone was hauled off and reused elsewhere. That would explain why the excavation in Hawara in 1888 found only the eroded mud brick core of Amenemhat III's pyramid and some scattered stonework. They 02:00 Speaker A didn't find anything resembling 3,000 rooms, so the researcher Petrie concluded that the labyrinth was gone and that held up for well over a century. Here's the thing about the quarrying theory though. Herodotus counted the rooms, Strabo wrote about 02:12 Speaker A the ceiling heights, Pliny wrote about the light in the upper chambers. You can't observe any of that if the building is rubble, so whatever happened happened after Herodotus visited in 450 BC. And Herodotus was already living in what most people would consider an 02:26 Speaker A ancient world. That's how old this thing was when it disappeared. Louis de Cordier is a Belgian visual artist. He knows he's not an archaeologist or a scientist, so what he did in 2008 was bring together people who are. He 02:38 Speaker A organized the collaboration between Egypt's own National Research Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics, Ghent University in Belgium and his own foundation. They got official permission from the Egyptian Council of Antiquities under Zahi Hawass and went to Hawara with ground penetrating radar and 02:54 Speaker A electromagnetic scanning equipment. Side note, it's kind of funny how Hawass said he doesn't believe in any of this technology. He said the data's wrong and it's when he was on Rogan talking about what they found under the Giza Plateau from the Bondi scans. He 03:08 Speaker A called the radar scanning technology impossible and meaningless and then Egypt proceeded to officially excavate at Hawara based partly on radar scanning data. I don't have great confidence in that guy and if you watch the podcast when he was on Rogan, you 03:20 Speaker A would understand why. At 8 to 12 meters below the surface, the scans found vertical walls forming room-like spaces spread across an area the size of 10 football fields. Right where every ancient description says the labyrinth should be. Petrie had found a large horizontal 03:35 Speaker A stone feature during his dig decades earlier and figured it was the foundation of the destroyed complex. The 2008 scans suggested it might actually be a ceiling, which would mean that the structure underneath is intact, sealed in and sitting there in groundwater 03:48 Speaker A below the surface. They presented the findings publicly at Ghent University in 2008. And a few weeks after that, Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities sent a word to stop all communication about the findings. "National security," they said. De Cordier waited two years for 04:04 Speaker A Egypt to release the data officially, but by June of 2010, it was clear that that wasn't happening. So, he posted everything on his own website, and thank you for that. In 2015, a company called Merlin Burrows ran satellite imaging 04:16 Speaker A over Hawara using technology originally developed to locate nuclear submarines and underground bunkers. They found what appeared to be a large rectangular structure underground consistent with the 2008 findings. That work carried with it a 10-year non-disclosure agreement that expired in 2025, which is 04:33 Speaker A a big part of why this story is coming back so hard within the last year or so. 04:37 Speaker A Since then, the Khafre Project led by Filippo Biondi has also scanned Hawara, and Polish and Egyptian teams from the University of Wrocław and Cairo University have found similar anomalies in the same area. Four separate scanning technologies from four organizations all 04:51 Speaker A finding the same thing in the same place. Something large with what appeared to be four underground levels with chambers still intact below the surface. One of those missions also found something at the center of the structure, a large anomaly reading as 05:04 Speaker A metallic about 40 meters across. Sitting in what looks like a purpose-built chamber around it. Military databases cataloging underground structures worldwide apparently have nothing comparable. Some researchers have connected it to ancient Egyptian texts describing a large circular sacred object at the heart of 05:20 Speaker A the complex. What it actually is, nobody can actually say with certainty until they dig down there and put their eyes on it. And even then, there'll probably be questions. On May 7th, 2026, Egypt's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities 05:32 Speaker A confirmed new fieldwork at Hawara. Egyptian-led with Ashraf Saby, the Director of General Fayoum Antiquities, running the mission. In June 2026, a researcher named Mohamed Ibrahim got access to the dig and filmed it. In July 2026, the footage went up that showed a 05:48 Speaker A huge work stones at depth right where the scans said they would be. After 17 years of Egypt saying that there's nothing significant down there, they're finally digging. The thing that stands out to me is what the priest told Herodotus about 06:02 Speaker A why the underground section was sealed. They said the vault held the kings that built the labyrinth in the first place. 06:07 Speaker A Amenemhat III built his pyramid at Hawara around 1850 BC. That's already 1,400 years before Herodotus showed up and asked about it. But the priests weren't describing Amenemhat III as the original builder. They were telling Herodotus that he built around something 06:22 Speaker A that was already there. Something whose builders were already there before the pharaonic period. Six writers described this building across several centuries. 06:30 Speaker A The location matches. The scale matches what the scans are showing underground. Everything they could physically walk through and observe has been consistent with what archaeology and scanning have found. And the priests were on point about all of it. So, when those same 06:42 Speaker A priests said the sealed underground section held the kings who came before the pharaohs, we have to assume that that is also correct. If the 2026 excavations reach those chambers and confirm what those priests were saying, it doesn't just nudge the Egyptian 06:55 Speaker A timeline back a bit. It completely rewrites eve 07:07 Speaker A is who were the builders? What's in the part that was sealed off even to Herodotus? And what is the metal object sitting at the center of this structure? 07:15 Speaker A What if the labyrinth wasn't built around kings who lived and died in Egypt? What if it was built around the place where they arrived? The 40-m metallic object sitting at the center of this structure with a purpose-built structure around it is like something 07:28 Speaker A you'd build around something that was already there. Something that came down at that location and stayed. Maybe that's how the kings arrived in the first place. And then they built around it and treated it as a sacred site. 07:38 Speaker A That's more of a thought than anything. I don't have any evidence to back that up. But what made me think of it was all the talk recently about we have these underground UFOs that crashed that are too large to move, so what do we do? We 07:49 Speaker A built structures around them. It's more on the tin foil hat side, but I guess anything could be possible. What do you think they're going to find down there? And do you think they're going to go deep enough to figure out what that 07:58 Speaker A metallic object is? And more importantly, if they do figure it out, are they even going to tell us? Hawass has a pretty good track record of gatekeeping information, just purely denying the facts, so who knows? As always, thank you so much for your time. 08:09 Speaker A I really do appreciate you watching. If you haven't done so already, please subscribe, like, leave that comment. I love to hear your thoughts on what you think they're going to find down there. 08:17 Speaker A Until next time, I'll talk to you later. 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