Confessions of an Egyptologist

Bestselling author Erich von Däniken shares the story of a 16-year-old grave-diver who discovered a mysterious labyrinth of the old kings under one of the pyramids of Saqqara.

In Confessions of an Egyptologist, Erich von Däniken tells the story of his friend, Adel H., an Egyptologist who, as a 16-year-old boy, was trapped for days under the Step Pyramid of Saqqara. Based on conversations with Adel H., von Däniken recounts the boy's desperate search for a way out of the underground world, exploring passageways and chambers, and encountering sights he describes as 'impossible' that are completely unknown to the professional world. Adel experienced extraordinary events, blending the spirit realm with reality, which are described here for the first time. According to Adel, 'The story of Egypt has two sides - the official one and the unknown one.'

It is secrets like these, the sights and events Adel experiences underground, that von Däniken explores throughout the book. He suggests that the Great Pyramid of Giza is more than just a monument, proposing it as a vast library created for future generations. Von Däniken supports his claim with quotes from surviving ancient texts and questions who could have been behind the destruction of millennia's worth of knowledge and books. This wasn't just a few thousand texts, but millions. He documents the fanatical destructive rage of past peoples, arguing that, if even one ten-thousandth of the former writings survived, our understanding of human prehistory would be drastically different.