It is probably no coincidence. What we have to keep in mind here is that the designers of this great precession time line at Giza set out to mark a very specific moment in time and that they planned to do this using a linear time line (as opposed to our modern circular analog clock). In planning their time line the designers would have understood that any line has three obvious significant points—its beginning, middle, and end. By designing their linear time line around these three significant points they would effectively be highlighting the significance (and nonrandomness) of what they had designed by the very fact that they had chosen to use the three significant points of their time line. This is to say that by using the three significant points on their time line the designers could effectively demonstrate that such an arrangement was not a chance occurrence, that it had been very carefully thought out and executed.
But to use and mark the significant midpoint of the time line (with the Sphinx) would require that at the date this significant event occurred, the designers would need to identify a star (or group of stars) that was precisely at the midpoint of its precessional half-cycle. In selecting such a group of stars the designers could then align their marker (the Sphinx) to the significant midpoint of the Giza time line. The beginning and end of the precession time line would then be marked with culmination markers displaying the minimum and maximum culminations of the chosen star group (i.e., their 12:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m. positions).
Because all stars in the night sky reach their culminations at different times throughout the Great Year (thereby reaching their precessional half-cycle midpoints at different times), the designers would have had relatively few obvious stars (or groups of stars) to choose from, and it just so happened that circa 3980 BCE, when the significant event occurred (or perhaps a half-cycle earlier, ca. 16,940 BCE), Orion’s Belt just happened to be precisely at the midpoint of its precessional journey, and the rest, as they say, is history.
In short, choosing and presenting a star (Al Nitak in Orion’s Belt) that was at the middle of its precessional half-cycle allowed the designers to highlight (with the Sphinx) the significant midpoint on the Giza precession time line, thereby displaying intent, meaning, and purpose; this was no chance occurrence. This is to say that Orion’s Belt was probably selected by the designers of the precession time line for no other reason than the fact that these stars just happened to be midway through their precessional half-cycle at the very time the designers were seeking such a group of stars (i.e., when a significant Earth event occurred). And with the choice of Orion’s Belt to calibrate the precession time line, the Orion’s Belt stars would then become identified with the body of Osiris (i.e., the sixteen pyramid arks that represented the dismembered body of Osiris). Orion’s Belt (or at least Al Nitak), would become the stellar personification of the great god Osiris, known to the ancient Egyptians as Sah.
What all of this suggests, of course, is that we may well have been presented with a means of dating these monuments far beyond the present precessional half-cycle and that we may well be looking at structures at Giza (and elsewhere in Egypt) that are very much older than conventional thought would ever have us believe, even though the ancient Egyptians themselves told us that their civilization was tens of thousands of years older than is presently accepted in conventional circles.
EARTH'S CHANGING POLE
So what does all of this mean, and what relevance does it have to the key question of this chapter—deluge and drought? Simple. One of the most extraordinary and single most devastating events ever to have occurred within the past twenty thousand years on this planet is the relatively sudden and inexplicable meltdown of the great Laurentide and Cordilleran Ice Sheets—an event whose start coincides very well with the midpoint of the precession time line (i.e., the previous half-cycle) circa 16,940 BCE (around nineteen thousand years ago).
Did something happen circa 16,940 BCE to trigger the termination of the Ice Age? Did our ancient forebears witness something in the heavens—a displacement of the stars (thereby the Earth’s pole)—during this distant epoch that brought them to conclude that a great deluge was imminent? And did they take measures in that remote epoch circa 16,940 BCE to attempt to save their world from the ever-rising global seas? Is this when they first built their great pyramid arks?
Many researchers and writers both past and present have often speculated that the sudden termination and (relatively) rapid meltdown of the great ice sheets that once covered North America and Europe some twenty thousand years ago resulted from a sudden and dramatic change in the geographic location of the Earth’s pole, a shift of the polar axis that displaced the great ice sheets into warmer latitudes, where they received more solar radiation from the sun, causing them to go in to relatively rapid meltdown.
Most modern scientists, however, dismiss such dramatic pole shifts as impossible, insisting that the Earth’s equatorial bulge is simply too great a stabilizing influence for the Earth’s polar axis to be rapidly altered in any significant way. At the same time, however, science does accept that the Earth’s polar axis can—and does—change its location (albeit very slowly) by around 1 degree every million years. This imperceptibly slow geographic relocation of the Earth’s polar axis is known as true polar wander.
True polar wander does not require the Earth itself to tilt nor does it require the Earth’s crust to slide over the inner lithosphere, as in Earth crust displacement theory. To understand true polar wander, we can imagine a ball of plasticine with a rod pushed through its center, representing the Earth’s axis of rotation. We can then draw horizontal lines around the ball (i.e., perpendicular to the rod) representing lines of latitude. If you then tilt the rod forward, the entire ball will tilt with the rod. In such a tilt all latitudes remain exactly the same distance from the pole as before, although some latitudes will have tilted more toward the sun and will receive more solar radiation, while other latitudes will have done the opposite.
Now imagine a scenario whereby the plasticine ball stays in place but the rod (i.e., the polar axis) slides through the plasticine ball to another location. This is true polar wander, and it results in latitude changes because some latitudes will now be nearer to the rod (the pole) while others will be farther away, resulting in a changed geographic location (relative to the pole) and, consequently, a changed climate to just about every place on the planet.
But what if true polar wander could occur at a much faster rate than ever thought possible? This is essentially the theory put forward by physicists W. Woelfli and W. Baltensperger, who write:
A rapid geographical shift of the poles is physically possible. At present, the Earth is in hydrostatic equilibrium. Since it rotates, its radius is larger at the equator (by 21 km) than at the poles. The rotational motion of an object is governed by its inertial tensor. In a coordinate system fixed to the object and with the origin at the center of mass, this tensor is obtained by an integration over the density times a bilinear expression of the cartesian components. At present, due to the equatorial bulge, one of the main axes of Earth’s inertial tensor is longer than the other two, and its direction coincides with that of the rotation axis. This is a stable situation. For a polar shift, a further deformation of the Earth is required. The ensuing motion leads to new geographic positions of the North and South Poles.
During the shift, the direction of the angular momentum vector remains strictly fixed relative to the stars, as required by conservation laws. What turns is the globe relative to the rotation axis.19
In an accompanying paper, the same physicists also write the following:
As is well known, during the Last Glacial Maximum, about 20,000 years ago, the ice was asymmetrically distributed around the present North Pole. It reached the region of New York, while east Siberia remained ice free. Mammoths lived in arctic regions of east Siberia, where now their food cannot grow. Therefore the globe must have been turned in such a way that the North Pole was in Greenland.
The required rapid geogr
aphic pole shift at the end of the ice ages has been shown to be physically possible, on condition that an astronomical object of planetary size in an extremely eccentric orbit existed.20
Essentially the rapid true polar wander described by Woelfli and Baltensperger commenced from near central Greenland, which, about twenty thousand years ago, happened to be the approximate geographic center of the massive ice sheets at their maximum extent. As the Greenland pole rapidly migrated northward, it did so in a spiral fashion (figure 7.8), eventually coming to settle at its present location, around 18 degrees (1,253 miles) farther north in the Arctic Sea. This migration of the pole resulted in a relative displacement of the great ice sheets farther southward into much warmer latitudes. Naturally, the same would also be true of the South Pole in Antarctica, which would have been displaced by the same amount.
Figure 7.8. The former Greenland pole migrates in a spiral fashion to the present Arctic Sea pole.
The intriguing aspect of this proposed shift of the pole by around 18 degrees from central Greenland to the Arctic Sea is the effect a relocation of this magnitude of the pole would have had at Giza and the possibility that this effect seems to have been recorded in the Great Pyramid. As stated, different parts of the globe would be displaced or relocated by differing degrees, so, while the pole itself was relocated by around 18 degrees from central Greenland to the Arctic Sea, at Giza (as a result of the Earth’s rotational axis of 23.5°), the latitudinal relocation would only have been around 6 degrees (figure 7.9).
Giza is presently almost exactly 60 degrees distant from the present Arctic Sea pole (4,158 miles). However, when the pole was centered in Greenland, as proposed by Woelfli and Baltensperger, Giza was then only around 54 degrees (3,736 miles) from the pole (i.e., Giza was around 6° nearer to the pole in relative latitude, at around 36° N). However, as the pole rapidly migrated to the Arctic Sea (in its spiral motion), Giza’s relative latitude to the migrating pole would have fluctuated, at times being closer and at other times being farther away from the pole. This fluctuation would, of course, have had serious environmental consequences on the ground, causing the climate in Egypt and the wider Near East (and, indeed, all over the planet) to fluctuate wildly between wet and arid conditions until, eventually, the pole settled in the Arctic Sea, leaving Giza high and dry at 30 degrees N latitude—a relative latitudinal relocation of some 6 degrees nearer to the equator from its former latitude of around 36 degrees N.
But what evidence is there that the ancient Egyptians actually observed this 6-degree change in the latitude of Giza? Such a relocation of the Earth’s polar axis would, naturally, have had reciprocal consequences in the heavens; to a ground-based observer, the stars would appear to have changed their relative positions in response to the relocated rotational axis of the Earth.
Figure 7.9. Giza was formerly only 54° from the Greenland pole but is now 60° distant. Image by Scott Creighton (based on original by Walter Baltensperger).
It is a curious thing that around the midpoint of the Giza precession time line (ca. 16,940 BCE; around 19,000 BP), the star Al Nitak in Orion’s Belt (the Great Pyramid’s stellar counterpart) would have reached a maximum altitude on the meridian (due south) of around 39 degrees above the local horizon. Now, if the Earth’s polar axis had been relocated at this time from central Greenland to the Arctic Sea (an 18 degrees relocation of the pole), then this would have resulted in the star Al Nitak appearing (from the latitude of Giza) to have rapidly risen from an altitude of around 39 degrees on the southern meridian up to an altitude of around 45 degrees. And quite remarkably, this shift in altitude of Al Nitak from an altitude of around 39 degrees up to an altitude of around 45 degrees (a shift of some 6°) seems to have been recorded within the star shafts of the Great Pyramid (figure 7.10).
In the diagram in figure 7.10, we observe that the Great Pyramid’s stellar counterpart, Al Nitak in Orion’s Belt, is targeted by the southern shaft of the Queen’s Chamber at an angle of around 39 degrees (its preshift altitude when the pole was in central Greenland). The northern shaft of the Queen’s Chamber targets Al Nitak’s “mirror position” in the northern sky, also at an altitude of around 39 degrees. When we now consider the southern shaft of the King’s Chamber we find that it targets Al Nitak at an altitude of around 45 degrees (its postshift altitude with the pole now relocated 18 degrees north to its present location in the Arctic Sea). This represents a rise in altitude of Al Nitak of some 6 degrees (39° + 6° = 45°) and is what we would expect to observe at Giza as a result of an 18 degrees or so relocation of the pole from central Greenland to the Arctic Sea. Conversely, the northern “mirror shaft” of the King’s Chamber drops from the northern “mirror shaft” in the Queen’s Chamber by 6 degrees to around 33 degrees altitude (39° − 6° = 33°).
Figure 7.10. The shafts of the Great Pyramid indicate a 6° shift in the altitude of Al Nitak in Orion’s Belt.
In addition, that we actually observe that the trajectories of the northern shafts cross over, while the southern shaft trajectories do not, is exactly what we might expect of a “heavens in motion” scenario; that is, the Earth’s polar axis migrating to a new geographical location, thereby giving the appearance to a ground-based observer that the stars themselves were departing from their normal course. Indeed, had the Earth’s polar axis migrated in the opposite direction (from the Arctic Sea to central Greenland) then we would have found that it was the southern shaft trajectories that crossed over, while the northern shaft trajectories did not. This is to say that the builders would have constructed the star shafts the precise opposite to how they are today.
In short, the shift of the heavens at Giza by 6 degrees as shown by the four star shafts of the Great Pyramid would seem to corroborate the 18-degree shift of the Earth’s polar axis from Central Greenland to the Arctic Sea, as proposed by the research of Woelfli and Baltensperger. And, of course, if this is correct, it provides evidence that the Giza pyramids are much older than conventional Egyptology would have us believe and of which—as has been shown—some physical evidence suggests.
And how extraordinary is it that one precessional half-cycle later, circa 3,980 BCE, another natural disaster seems to have occurred in Egypt that, if the research of Australian astronomer George F. Dodwell is correct, also seems to have involved a disturbance of the Earth’s polar axis, an event that brought about a drought so severe that the kingdom of ancient Egypt would eventually collapse.21 Were the early, giant pyramids, as some evidence suggests, merely repaired by the Egyptians of this later period in anticipation of the second strike of the clock when Al Nitak made its second pass (its return swing) through the significant midpoint of the Giza precession time line, the flipside of the great deluge—a deadly drought?
Deluge and drought—two halves of the same significant midpoint on the Giza precessional time line, circa 16,940 BCE and circa 3980 BCE. Might this perhaps also explain why the Sphinx has the head of a man (symbolizing the age of Aquarius/water, circa 23,420 BCE) while having also the body of a lion (symbolizing the age of Leo/fire ca. 10,460 BCE)? Aquarius and Leo. Water and fire. Deluge and drought. Endless cycles of natural destruction whose pivotal moments—the midpoints between the two ages of Leo and Aquarius—may have been marked out for us on the ground at Giza in a great precession time line and perhaps also in the form of the Sphinx, which indicates these two ages.
ARK FOR ART'S SAKE
Many will be familiar with the biblical story of Noah and the Flood. But there are numerous similar stories from cultures all around the world whereby a good and righteous man is forewarned of an impending deluge that is to be sent forth by God or the gods in order to “cleanse” the world and he is told to build an ark in order to salvage a remnant of humanity (and other creatures).
In medieval art Noah’s Ark is typically portrayed as some kind of massive wooden boat, sometimes with multiple decks (see figure 7.11), but, curiously, this is not how the Ark was always perceived or portrayed in art.
F
igure 7.11. Animals enter Noah’s Ark, Aurelio Luini, 1555.
The bronze panel in figure 7.12 that depicts Noah’s Ark and the Flood comes from the Gates of Paradise doors on Italy’s Florence Baptistery. The doors were designed by Lorenzo Ghiberti in the fifteenth century; the images depict a series of biblical events. As Gwynne Ann Dilbeck notes in her art history dissertation:
Origen’s homilies were incorporated into the lectionaries of Renaissance Florence for use in liturgical services. In addition, his understanding that Noah’s Ark took the form of a pyramid informs the shape of the Ark in Ghiberti’s Noah panel.
The panel of Noah does not portray the more common image of the Flood, which seems strange given that the Flood is interpreted as a parallel to the sacrament of baptism. However, in Ghiberti’s narrative panel the waters have receded, leaving the past washed away. In the middle section the family and animals of Noah are represented exiting the Ark, which takes the form of a pyramid [figure 7.12]. Their salvation is underlined by the dead body lying at their feet. The two scenes in the foreground depict Noah’s sacrifice and his drunkenness. The sloping sides of the Ark serve to frame and draw attention to the foreground scenes, and the three episodes themselves form a pyramid in the composition.22
Figure 7.12. Depiction of Lorenzo Ghiberti’s Noah and the Flood from the Gates of Paradise in the Florence Baptistery, Italy. Pyramid outline enhanced by Scott Creighton to original photo by Ricardo André Frantz.
The Secret Chamber of Osiris: Lost Knowledge of the Sixteen Pyramids Page 17
