By: Leela Xie

In August 2022 Uri Geller, the world’s most famous spoon bender and legendary “psychic,” declared the island of Lamb to be a micronation after 13 years of ownership. The previously privately owned island, located next to Scotland, was changed to a micronation after Uri Geller said that “Lamb is a place like no other” and “deserves its own identity.” The now micronation sports a flag, constitution, and anthem.

While Scotland is now debating its own road to future independence, the arrival of the football pitch-sized “Republic of Lamb” means that its massive neighbor has just gotten a little bit smaller, in theory.

The island of Lamb is not the first of the so-called micronations. There have been dozens of micronations reported dating as far back as the 19th century, some serious, many not. Some micronations have issued their own stamps, currencies, and citizenships (with almost 58,000 people who registered online, the short-lived Kingdom of Lovely, developed out of a TV show and located in an East London apartment, could possibly claim the title of most citizens).

Geller’s micronation is also giving citizenship, with all profits benefiting Save a Child’s Heart, an Israeli charity organization that treats children from all around the world with heart ailments.

Geller envisions the Island of Lamb as an “emblem of peace,” with membership based solely on “a wish to exist in harmony with fellow Lamb compatriots.” The island, however, is not permitted to be settled, and its sole inhabitants are puffins, guillemots, a variety of other marine birds, and, most recently, a lonely rat.

“I always wanted to own an island, like James Bond,” recalls Geller, 75, who discovered Lamb when he read about it in The Times newspaper.

But it was the intriguing, if not dubious, accusation of an amateur historian that peaked Geller’s curiosity and convinced him he had to have it. Because, according to Scottish-born investigator Jeff Nisbet, Lamb displays odd resemblances to the Giza pyramids.

Nisbet referred to the arrangement of Lamb and the two islands on either side, which he said mirrored the three pyramids accurately. Mathematicians and Egyptologists have long been fascinated by the pyramids’ exact geometric design.

In truth, Nisbet was not the only one to propose Scottish ties to ancient Egypt. According to a 15th-century Scottish chronicle, which the National Library of Scotland describes as “perhaps the most important medieval account of early Scottish history,” Egypt gave birth to the Scottish nation. It states that Scotland was created by Princess Scota, the exiled daughter of Pharaoh, whose army perished while following Moses and the Israelites over the Red Sea, according to the biblical story.