The Tulli Papyrus is claimed to be a transcription of an Egyptian
papyrus
Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, '' Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'') can also refer to a ...
dating from the reign of
Thutmose III
Thutmose III (variously also spelt Tuthmosis or Thothmes), sometimes called Thutmose the Great, was the sixth pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty. Officially, Thutmose III ruled Egypt for almost 54 years and his reign is usually dated from 28 ...
. The claim originated in a 1953 article published in ''Doubt'', the
Fortean Society The Fortean Society was started in the United States in 1931 during a meeting held in the New York flat of American writer Charles Hoy Fort, in order to promote his ideas. The Fortean Society was primarily based in New York City. Its first presiden ...
magazine, by
Tiffany Thayer
Tiffany Ellsworth Thayer (March 1, 1902 – August 23, 1959) was an American actor, writer, and one of the founding members of the Fortean Society.
Biography
Born in Freeport, Illinois, Thayer quit school at age 15 and worked as an actor, reporte ...
. According to Thayer, the transcription was sent to him by
Boris de Rachewiltz who supposedly found the original transcription of the papyrus among papers left by Alberto Tulli, a deceased
Vatican museum
The Vatican Museums ( it, Musei Vaticani; la, Musea Vaticana) are the public museums of the Vatican City. They display works from the immense collection amassed by the Catholic Church and the papacy throughout the centuries, including several of ...
director. References to "circles of fire" or "fiery discs" allegedly contained in the translation have been interpreted in UFO and
Fortean
Charles Hoy Fort (August 6, 1874 – May 3, 1932) was an American writer and researcher who specialized in anomalous phenomena. The terms "Fortean" and "Forteana" are sometimes used to characterize various such phenomena. Fort's books sold w ...
literature as evidence of ancient
flying saucer
A flying saucer (also referred to as "a flying disc") is a descriptive term for a type of flying craft having a disc or saucer-shaped body, commonly used generically to refer to an anomalous flying object. The term was coined in 1947 but has g ...
s, although
ufologists
This is a list of notable people who are ufologists (UFO researchers).
Argentina
* Juan Posadas, (1912–1981), Trotskyist theorist who blended together Trotskyism and Ufology. Posadas' version of Trotskyism is regarded as its own strai ...
Jacques Vallee and Chris Aubeck have described it as a "hoax". According to Vallee and Aubeck, since Tulli had supposedly copied it during a single viewing of the original papyrus using an "Ancient Egyptian shorthand", and de Rachewiltz had never seen the original, the alleged text likely contained transcription errors, making it impossible to verify.
[Charles Fort. ]
The Info Journal
'. International Fortean Organization.; 1967.
Author
Erich von Daniken
The given name Eric, Erich, Erikk, Erik, Erick, or Eirik is derived from the Old Norse name ''Eiríkr'' (or ''Eríkr'' in Old East Norse due to monophthongization).
The first element, ''ei-'' may be derived from the older Proto-Norse ''* ain ...
included the Tulli Papyrus in his speculations of ancient visitations by extraterrestrials. In the 1968
Condon Report
The Condon Committee was the informal name of the University of Colorado UFO Project, a group funded by the United States Air Force from 1966 to 1968 at the University of Colorado to study unidentified flying objects under the direction of physi ...
, Samuel Rosenberg reported that it was likely that "Tulli was taken in and that the papyrus is a fake".
Rosenberg cited the Tulli Papyrus as an example of stories circulated among UFO book authors "taken from secondary and tertiary sources without any attempt to verify original sources" and concluded that "all accounts of 'UFO-like sightings handed down through the ages' are doubtful – until verified".
[Alt URL]
/ref>
References
External links
by Larry Orcutt.
{{UFOs
Egyptian papyri
Ufology
Hoaxes in the United States