"The Pharaohs discovered Australia"

Never ending amusement in Muslim media.

During a recent TV debate on the destruction of antiquities by ISIS, Syrian political analyst Yahya Badr said that the Egyptian people was entitled to claim legal rights in Australia, since inscriptions in ancient hieroglyphics had been found near Sydney, indicating that the grandson of a pharoah had landed there. On the show, which aired on the Turkish TRT TV channel on March 6, Badr was introduced as owning the patent to mummy technology.

It sounds like Egyptians discovered America, too.

Australian media describe the hieroglyphics as fake.

ACADEMICS, archaeologists and other authorities believe Dr Hans-Dieter von Senff crosses the line from fact to fantasy in claiming Egyptians lived in the hills overlooking Woy Woy about 5000 years ago.

Despite precious little scholarly or government support from anywhere between Cairo and Sydney, the self-described ‘‘amateur Egyptologist’’ from Swansea is sticking to his theory.

The 72-year-old issued a media release nationally this week announcing the discovery of a mysterious stone chamber in a bushland setting at Kariong.

The site is already notorious due to about 100 hieroglyphic-style carvings on two sandstone walls.

About 15 metres long, the parallel walls feature depictions of owls, chickens, dogs, boats and stick men, among other things.

The NSW government doesn’t subscribe to any walk or talk like Egyptians.

Taking advice from Professor Nageeb Kanawati of Macquarie University and rock art conservation specialist David Lambert, the National Parks and Wildlife Service ‘‘believes that the hieroglyphs are not genuine and were constructed in the early 1980s’’.

Dr von Senff, a bus driver, graduated from the University of Newcastle with a PhD in 2006.

His doctoral thesis dealt with the problems of German reunification from a historical and literary perspective.