Acknowledgment: Mesfin Tadesse is the main author of this post.

The First Pyramids

In Western Australia, a humble youth quietly asked, ‘Where is Ethiopia?’ Mesfin said, ‘In Africa.’ He could have said, ‘That’s where the first pyramids were.’ Mesfin’s 2nd degree was in civil engineering (water-development) at Cairo University, Egypt. His studies in multiple languages revealed that Ethiopian pyramids existed before the famous Egyptian ones. Ancient Abyssinian slaves also built those. Jump to my ditty: “Taking the Credit”.

Yes, Ethiopians built the world’s first pyramid. It was in Ethiopia’s central west at Lake Zuay (Ziway). This was more than 3,000 years before the Christian era (BCE). In the 1970s, Mesfin studied this in his Ethiopian Grade 10 textbook. Westerners then got the communist Derg to ban it.

What were pyramids used for?

Water – nothing else

__Mesfin Tadesse

Pyramids were vaska – water reservoirs that preserved and conserved water. Ancient Abyssinians pioneered water technology. External buildings served to keep water vital and healthy and to reduce evaporation. It passed through a tunnel for filtration. Water processing inside pyramids cooled the water without air conditioning.

Ethiopian Pyramid Construction

In wooden boats, ancient Ethiopians sailed long distances carrying pyramids’ stonemasonry. Chisellers then shaped the blocks. They were specialist stonemasons. It took 12 years to build a single pyramid.

Ethiopian carpenters built the wooden boats. Viewed from the front, their prow formed the character toh, similar in shape to the Orthodox cross. It was an ancient Abyssinian symbol of civilisation and power. Thousands of years later, Christians adopted the symbol, modifying it to a simpler ‘t’. Before that, the Greek philosopher Socrates desired toh for his headstone.

Onsite, stonemasons built scaffolding. Without cement, they locked the blocks together; each block locked uniquely with the next. Stonemasons used special chiselling and shaping. Geometry and algebra were used for the interlocking; and pyramids were built from 3-dimensional and 4-dimensional geometrical designs. No roof, beams, upper beams or columns were needed.

Ethiopian builders did not use reinforcing bars, but structures were made with strong basaltic stone for the first 25 metres; blocks above that were limestone, which was lighter. Nobody today can emulate the safety and durability of pyramid construction. Pyramids survived vibration caused by water flow, earthquakes, earth shakes, landslides and cracks.

Ethiopian Water Preservation Technology

Ethiopian Pyramid Building in Ancient Egypt

Ancient archaeological sites in Egypt bear the answers to perennial questions about who built what. One site is Luxor Temple. The temple’s remains show the Ethiopian character toh, the same as on stonemason’s boats. This indicates that the building’s stonemasons were Ethiopian. They chiselled construction records on edifices, using their own builders’ marks. toh was not an Egyptian hieroglyph.

toh belonged to the ancient Sabaean writing system, which was the basis for Arabic and the Ethiopian languages Hebrew, Ge’ez and Amharic. toh is found elsewhere; in this documentary about the Egyptian Middle Kingdom, 1 frame is of a series of toh – 29.33 minutes into the show. The characters comprise an Abyssinian calendar.

In Egypt, water storage was expensive and difficult. Abay (Blue Nile River) flowed 14,000 kilometres from its source at Lake Tana in Ethiopia. Egypt had temperatures of 40–50 degrees Celsius. 5 months per year the temperature was 50-degrees Celsius. The other 7 months, it was below 45 degrees and above 38 degrees. Consequently, ever since antiquity, 40 per cent of the water in the Nile River has evaporated.

Egyptian pharaohs had Abyssinian engineering geniuses kidnapped from Lake Tana. They first built pyramids in Egypt to conserve water. The Ethiopians used the same water technology and building model as for Lake Zuay in Ethiopia. This incorporated tunnels that let the water rest underground.

Ancient Ethiopians kept the Nile River alive; they greened Egypt’s desert. Egyptians drank cool water all year round.

“Taking the Credit” Poem

An Egyptian with guile
Sailed up the Nile
To its source 
At a lake Abyssinia-ile.

To Ethiopia's Jews
He said, 'Hey, youse!
'My pharaoh wants pyramids. 
'Don't refuse'.

'They're too heavy to cart
'And building's an art
'Stonemasonry, trigonometry
'For a start'.

'Aargh, that's too hard for me
'We'll enslave you; you'll see
'We get the credit
'From BC to AD'.

—Ianet, 2018

Today, Egypt gets the credit for the wonders that are pyramids or vaska; not Ethiopia. Instead, Egypt and others attack her over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile River.

Pyramids Preserved History

Abyssinian slaves built the pyramids of Giza. gize is Ethiopian Ge’ez and Amharic for ‘time’

When Egyptians died, mourners placed gold on their chin so that the gods would find them. Pyramids preserved everything well, so pharaohs began to use them for their mausoleums. This also preserved historical material: bodies, tools and royal property. In 2589–2504 BCE, Abyssinian slaves built the pyramids of Giza. gize is Ethiopian Ge’ez and Amharic for ‘time’.

Later, Abyssinian inhabitants of Nubian Meroe built pyramids on the Blue Nile in present-day Sudan. During the ascendancy of Iran or Persia, rich sultans used pyramid water like holy water for healing. If they drank Nile River water, it gave them energy and greatness.

Nefertiti was the Ethiopian-born wife of Egyptian King Akhenaten in the 14^th century BCE. She was human trafficked. Egyptians captured her at Gojjam in Ethiopia’s north. They kidnapped her with friends. When the young girl cried, her nose ran, so they said, ‘Do not be neftu.’ ‘Don’t be a runny-nose.’ Nefertiti is a corruption of a mere nickname.

Egyptians still marvel over the mystery of pyramids. Ethiopians do not need to ask how their Abyssinian ancestors built them. Today in Ethiopia, they continue to maintain their pyramids. Vaska water-reservoir construction and technology was always theirs.

Thousands of years after Nefertiti, the Blue Nile River no longer reaches Luxor. Today, everybody knows and visits the ruins of Giza, its Ethiopian stonemasons long gone. The resting place of Egyptian pharaohs is a massive tourist attraction.

Egypt was colonised by the Derbush—later Turkey—and by Persia, France and England. Her society changed and became enslaved. Unpaid, people were exploited as soldiers to invade other countries during the height of colonialism. Europeans used them as human shields at the battlefront. Iraq’s Babylonia collapsed. Then Iran weakened. Today, Egypt is a bridge for European exploitation, such as the US invasion of Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Yemen.

Egyptians still marvel over the mystery of pyramids. Ethiopians do not need to ask how their Abyssinian ancestors built them. Today in Ethiopia, they continue to maintain their pyramids. Vaska water-reservoir construction and technology was always theirs.

Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD)

The corrupt stole evidence of the origin of pyramids; they sold ancient texts to European tourists and workers such as geologists. There are no extant texts available to Ethiopians. In Amharic documentaries, Ethiopian historians present evidence of pyramids being built by Ethiopians in Egypt and Ethiopia.

Better known are Ethiopia’s dams. GERD, on the Blue Nile, is Hidassie in Amharic. 72 kilometres, with walls as high as 800 metres, it is bigger than Egypt’s Aswan Dam, which Kruschev funded in the mid-1970s. Once full, Hidassie will create 71 small islands. Hidassie will fill: Ethiopians have sacrificed so much for this. What does Egypt do? It gives Ethiopia grief over this dam that does not affect Egyptian and Sudanese water supply.

Resources

• BBC News. Africa. “Gift of the Nile: History of Africa with Zeinabe Badawi”. Episode 3. YouTube, April 10, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4EjZpIF71Y
• Wikimedia Commons. [Neffertiti]. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wiki_nefertiti_bittidjz.jpg
• Feta Squad. [Pyramid]. March 21, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QheJx4DBxw
• Axum Tube. [Where are Pyramids Found?]. June 08, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cms3Qq9O3LQ
• Mereja Today. “Ethiopia Breaking News”. June 30, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUHR5mdHSf0

Featured image: Pexels. “All Gizah Pyramids”. Wikimedia Commons. “Egypt Luxor Locator Map”. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egypt_Luxor_locator_map.svg

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