NEW YORK -- Dr. Ben Carson, the retired neurosurgeon, who is currently leading national polls in the Republican primary race, this week defended a theory he proposed in 1998 -- that the Egyptian pyramids were grain silos for Joseph… from the Bible.
Standing in contrast to hundreds of year’s scientific inquiry, Carson gave a commencement speech at Andrew University in which he announced the pyramids were not elaborate tombs for dead pharaohs, instead providing storage space for the ancients.
"My own personal theory is that Joseph built the pyramids to store grain," Carson said in the speech. "Now, all the archaeologists think that they were made for the pharaohs' graves. But, you know, it would have to be something awfully big -- when you stop and think about it, and I don't think it'd just disappear over the course of time -- to store that much grain."
After BuzzFeed unearthed the video, Carson was asked about the comments, standing by his suggestion in an interview with CBS. "It is still my belief, yes," he told the broadcaster.
Does Carson’s breakthrough hold water? Not according to modern experts, though the theory was once popular among ancient historians. Regardless, Twitter has spent the past few days celebrating the theory with the hashtag #bencarsonwikipedia, a collection offbeat notions about the ancient world and beyond. Here are some of the best: