Mark Lehner

  Perhaps one of the most famous living experts on the study of the pyramids at Giza today is Mark Lehner. Lehner has devoted twenty-nine years of study and research to the pyramids, first enrolling at the American University in Cairo in 1973 under a grant from the Edgar Cayce Foundation.  Lehner speculated that the people of the lost civilization of Atlantis had entrusted their knowledge and technology to the people of Egypt before their civilization was destroyed. Supposedly the blueprints for the construction of the Great Pyramid at Giza was located in a "Hall of Records" under the right paw of the famed Sphinx. When the theory turned out to have no basis in reality, Lehner still carried with him a fascination with the Sphinx and the pyramids, especially with how they were actually created.

    From 1979 to 1983, Lehner directed projects on the Sphinx and the Isis Temple, and since then, has directed what is known as the Giza Plateau Mapping Project. This project includes mapping the area of the Giza Plateau where the pyramids are found, excavating sites of interest within that area, and publicizing his findings. Lehner worked in the tomb of the Pharaoh Khufu, Khufu's mother (the Queen Mother), the Wall of the Crow, which is thought to be some sort of a gateway to the pyramids of Giza, and more recently has begun excavating a village at Giza thought to have housed the pyramid workers. It is estimated to be about 4,500 years old and could have housed as many as 20,000 workers.

    His publications include The Complete Pyramids: Solving the Ancient Mysteries, published in 1997,  hosting several NOVA productions on the pyramids and a special on FOX television in which he, along with colleague Zahi Hawass will lead a camera crew for a first-time look inside the complex burial shafts of the Queen Mother, at Khufu's Great Pyramid at Giza.

References:

http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/egyptologists.htm 

http://www-oi.uchicago.edu/OI/PROJ/GIZ/NN_Fall92/NN_Fall92.html 

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/pyramid/excavation/lehner.html 

Former Link, http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/08/0805_020805_giza.html (October 2006)

Written by: Matt Iffert, 2002

Edited by: David Gardner 2007