In commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the Waseda University Egyptian Archeological Mission led by Dr. Sakuji Yoshimura, a great Egyptian exposition had been held until September 9th at Aizu Museum in Waseda University. I passed through the gate of Waseda University the other day, having a chance to observe carefully with plenty of time.
I had been looking forward to see it since when Dr. Yoshimura was talking about this exposition in June in the talk show on BS Asahi in which I serve as a navigator. I believe that there is no other scientist who has been made the hypotheses in real life with such scale, passion, science, elaborateness and daring, and kept excavating to verify them.
There seems to be many people who don’t regard archeology as science, but excavation requires so many preprocessing in order to pinpoint the place to dig. You can’t just dig and find something. You have to negotiate with local people, narrow the place down with scientific technologies like electromagnetic measuring or satellite photography from outer space. You may also have to consider the history of the field in successive periods from the archeological point of view to narrow the place down of course. The enormous significant fruits found from the five fields, where they excavated after going through all those preprocessing, were displayed in the 40 years Exposition.
As the result of Dr. Yoshimura’s verification of the symmetric hypothesis of the pyramids, he succeeded in completely verifying the second solar boat by electromagnetic measuring. This was an inspiring miracle. We, Japanese people have been familiar with the pyramids of Giza through many movies, expositions and books. It was imprinted inside our subconscious that the more familiar they were, the more we thought it was impossible to make new discoveries anymore in the late 20th century. However, Dr. Yoshimura broke this common sense. He referred to the fact that the entrance of the pyramid was out of the center to the left, and made a hypothesis that there should have been the same device symmetrically on the right. He found the second solar boat from the opposite side where the first boat was discovered, which nobody could have ever imagined.
Above all, what I am most excited about is his hypothesis that the Great Gallery is not just a stairway but a device for the spirits of the dead to gain energy, and the energy body of the spirits of the dead is making amplitude motion by rolling up and down like a snake, to cause the vibration of energy reinforcement. Therefore Dr. Yoshimura has the hypothesis that there is one more Great Gallery on the right side in the Pyramid of Giza, but this hypothesis is pending because he needs a permission from the government of Egypt to verify it and excavate. I can imagine it is not easy to receive a permission to dig a hole in the World Heritage. I wish we could just irradiate terahertz light by better optical equipment than any equipment existing now like a CT scan and prove the symmetry of the inside of the pyramid visibly.
Since it is a battle that who presents what in the archeology conference, I imagine there are many difficulties in excavation such as struggling with time and money, leading hundreds of people, negotiation with local officers who are cunning at times or territorial battles with other investigative teams. However, surviving all these struggles, each of those 250 exhibitions from their excavation is surely the first grade art piece and epoch-making outcome in archeology.
The reason why I respect Dr. Yoshimura so much is that he has raised so many brilliant followers and he invented entirely new way to preserve the excavated treasures while other Western investigative teams sell them to a few privileged riches, separate into pieces or brought back outside the country. Dr. Yoshimura made the treasures the cultural heritages of the nation of Egypt and the resources for conservation research. One can never do this kind of thing if he or she was even a little attached to money or profit-and-loss-conscious. I see Dr. Yoshimura as an unselfish person who has been completely indifferent to gain and will be for his life. There is no wonder why he is respected by so many people and highly trusted by the Egyptian government.
We can easily and pleasantly grasp the Egyptian history that is essentially very difficult from TV now, because Dr. Yoshimura keeps projecting special TV programs constantly. His projects have made very exciting TV shows that get the whole Japanese nation into the thrilling Egyptian history. I think his cheerful and easy-going character, friendly face and incredibly easy explanation made this possible. The one thing we tend to, but must not, forget is that this one of the best archeological scientists in the world is living in Japan. It is really pity that the Nobel Prize is not awarded to this genre. If there was the Nobel Archeology Prize, there is no doubt that Dr. Yoshimura had been awarded.
It takes five to ten years for one excavation, and most of the times they find nothing. From this perspective, I feel that these exhibitions from only 40 years are worth 100 years of excavation.
