Re-Writing Australia’s History: The Egyptian Connection

By Steve Strong

Guest Writer for Wake Up World

The Kariong Glyphs site is the most argued over and controversial archaeological site in Australia. Decried as utterly bogus by authorities and sceptics, it is an archaeological ‘poison chalice.’ My colleagues and I have been denounced as “dumb and dumber,” “liars,” motivated by “money” while working in an “unscientific” manner driven by an unstated “agenda,” simply because we find fault in every explanation of a hoax and merit in the notion that some of hieroglyphs were carved by ancient Egyptians.

Found in the Central Coast of NSW, there are two sandstone walls at a site that is still extremely difficult to locate. These walls have close to 300 engravings. Some claim they are a random mixture of ancient scripts done recently, others believe they are a genuine example of the earliest style of Egyptian writing (Proto-Egyptian). There are so many rumours and stories accounting for their presence, too many to canvas now, but there are a couple of explanations that seem to be the most convenient, and have become the “accepted versions”.Without doubt the two most popular offerings relate to them merely being the scratchings of a “deranged Yugoslav” concocted in the late 70’s, or the actions and chisels of mischievous archaeology students from Sydney University in the early 80’s. According to National Parks and Wildlife Service, the engravings were created no earlier than 1983.

Such was the passionate and widespread conviction that the site is a hoax, my colleagues and I could never commit ourselves fully to believe it was a genuine ancient Egyptian artefact. On previous visits to the walls we had devoted less than five minutes to actually examining the hieroglyphs; it was far safer to focus on all the archaeology with Egyptian undertones surrounding the site and let others argue over who and when. That was before. Once we began filming an interview with the two Original spokespeople for the site (Egyptians in Australia-Part 2), everything changed. Until that day we had listed the Kariong Glyphs as ‘number 52′ in our collection of 60 odd pieces of evidence substantiating an ancient Egyptian presence in Australia. After speaking to Aunty Beve and David Fitzgerald, the glyphs have been repositioned at ‘number 1′ with daylight running a distant second.

Aunty Beve is one of the last Darkinjung Elders. She is the keeper of the women’s stories and one of the very few who has the right to speak on Original Lore and Dreaming stories in this tribal region. Her word on such matters can not be challenged. Up until now, whenever asked about an Egyptian involvement in creating the hieroglyphs in the area, Aunty Beve always refused to make any public statement.

This time she broke her silence.

She revealed that the engravings on the two walls were created by “Old Egyptians,” noting that her ancestors “all told us that story.” She also explained why many of the carvings look incredibly fresh and well tended, and certainly don’t exhibit thousands of years’ wear and tear or build up of rock varnish, as one would expect;- In ancient times the women would use their urine to clean the engravings on a regular basis. Aunty Beve went even further in noting there are other carved hieroglyphs in the region (of which we are aware of two) that are “far older” and are “not Egyptian,” but were created by Australians! Could this mean the Egyptians learnt the art of writing with hieroglyphs whilst in Australia while under Original tutelage?

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