There was something different in the Osirian conception of immortality. First, it was a corporeal conception. Whereas the other religious systems involved the ascent of the deceased to heaven or his temporary transformation into another form, the Osirian system is clearly concerned with the body of the dead king and desiderates continued life for his body. Death indeed is not usually admitted. As Osiris, the tired god, was able to revive from his sleep, so the king will awake and stand. . . . Death is really only a sleep, then, a phase of tiredness; and the firm denial of it in other references shows that it is denied both as a state and as an occurrence.
“O king, thou hast not gone away dead; though hast gone away alive. Sit on the throne of Osiris.” (Pyramid Texts 134a–b)
Here then is a doctrine of continued life rather than of resurrection or resuscitation after death. In view of the pretence or euphemism involved one should possibly not object to the common use of the term resurrection as a description of the doctrine, although it is not precisely correct; it is the non-Osirian doctrine, in various forms, which amounts to a belief in resurrection.8
This “Osirian doctrine” as it pertains to the religious rites of the king was unlike earlier Egyptian religious thought; it proposed a wholly corporeal revivication (from sleep) in the present plane of existence rather than a spiritual or metaphysical rebirth in the netherworld. And so, in terms of the pyramids as arks that held within them the means to revive a devastated (injured but not dead) kingdom, it is easy to understand how this Osirian doctrine correlates with such an idea and how the corporeal nature of the Osirian doctrine would, in time, come to influence ancient Egyptian religious thought so profoundly.
This is to say that through the agency of Osiris (i.e., the sixteen-part pyramid arks), the kingdom would have the means to rise again and would do so in this physical realm. The ancient Egyptians did not imagine the revival of their kingdom as some spiritual occurrence; it was to happen in the corporeal world of the future through meticulous contingency planning by physically storing everything that would be needed to revive the kingdom within massive, physical, pyramid arks. And this concept of the kingdom “sleeping” (after the deluge) and being “revived” in this physical realm would become a religious idea that would, in time, be transferred to the king himself; the king would now also have a fully corporeal rebirth in this realm, provided, of course, he was supplied with all the necessary “equipment” to facilitate his revival.
With all their preparations made and having set everything in place to ensure the Earth’s recovery (i.e., its revivication), the ancient Egyptians knew it was now only a matter of time before the gods would bring the kingdom to its knees. And it is a matter of historical fact that the Old Kingdom—whose people built the first, giant pyramids—suddenly collapsed along with most other early Bronze Age cultures. As shown in chapter 7, considerable evidence has come to light in recent years to indicate that the cause of this sudden collapse was a severe drought brought about by sudden and catastrophic climate change whereby many of the cultures at that time—including the Akkadian Empire—simply disappeared from history. Ancient Egypt, however, like a phoenix, was somehow able to rise from the ashes of its demise and rebuild itself. It is my opinion that ancient Egypt was able to do this because, unlike other cultures of the time, ancient Egypt, by planning and implementing a national disaster-recovery system (Project Osiris—the great pyramid arks and their associated chthonic temples), had put in place the means to secure its own preservation and corporeal revival. It is little surprise then that one of the most sacred symbols in ancient Egypt, the pyramid-shaped benben stone, is associated with the bennu bird, a bird that is said to possess the same rebirth qualities as the phoenix.
It is also perfectly understandable, in this context, that the chthonic god Osiris came to be regarded by later dynasties as the god of agriculture and of rebirth and regeneration, because this is precisely what the early, giant pyramid arks (the body of Osiris) actually did; these mounds of creation, this Project Osiris, safeguarded the revival of the ancient Egyptian civilization into a new age.
10
Journey’s end
I always looked for excavations, for the secrets under the sand.
ZAHI HAWASS1
Time was running out. It was a little after 8:00 a.m., and I was scheduled to depart Egypt at 4:00 p.m. that afternoon, and still I had not been able to achieve my goal. Squatting on the floor of my hotel room, surrounded by all manner of maps of Giza and Cairo, I tried to find an alternative route to the apex point to the southwest of the plateau. For certain the direct approach crossing the Giza plateau itself was simply not possible, with Zahi’s Wall and the guards patrolling it being something of an insurmountable obstacle. I would have to circumvent the plateau and approach the apex location from the opposite direction in the south. My close brush with the Egyptian authorities the previous day remained all too vivid in my mind, a reminder, should I have needed it, of just how difficult my task would be. I had managed to talk my way out of trouble on that occasion but knew that you can only push your luck so far; next time I might not be so fortunate.
But I had come so far and had literally been within a few hundred yards of my goal, the apex point, only to be thwarted at the very last moment. Lying on the floor beside me was my small granite pyramid, my little gift to Osiris. Looking at it now brought mixed feelings of failure but also of resolve. I glanced at the table clock. There was time enough yet, and I felt I had to give it one more try for I did not know how long it would be before I could visit Egypt again.
So, once more, time was of the essence. Having ensured that all my belongings had been packed and left with the concierge (I had to be back to the hotel by 2:00 p.m. at the latest), I set off from my hotel around 9:00 a.m., my resolve gaining new impetus with the added time constraint.
Again it was a very typical Egyptian day—blue skies, hot sunshine, and a cacophony of noise. There would be no taxi this time. My plan was to walk alongside the perimeter of the plateau, heading south until I was in line with the apex location, and hope that I would find some opening in the perimeter security fence around that location.
Once again it would be a long and uncomfortable walk—several kilometers in the blazing sunshine. But at least this time by following the main road south, I would not feel so alone, with the occasional local Egyptian passing by, going about his or her everyday life. After about an hour following the perimeter security fence of the plateau, I was beginning to get the distinct impression that it was never going to end; it just kept going and going and going. This wasn’t looking promising. Beyond the perimeter fence I could now see a part of the wall with manned security watchtowers stretching across the sand dunes (see figure 10.1). It seemed that the Egyptians authorities certainly took the security of the plateau very seriously indeed.
But I persevered. I knew that I could only walk on for about another hour, whereupon I would have no option but to turn around to make the two-hour walk back to my hotel, have a quick shower, and head for the airport. As each minute ticked passed and there was little sign of any clear opening in the security fence, I grew increasingly anxious. I just kept walking and looking, catching fleeting glimpses of the pyramids in the distance beyond great dunes of sand.
Figure 10.1. Security walls, fences, and towers around Giza
Soon I had reached my point of no return. Two hours and several kilometers had now passed, and still there was no gap to be found in the perimeter fence. I reckoned by now I was probably almost in line with the apex location, which would have been almost exactly due east of where I was standing; if only I could get myself inside the security fence, I would have been able to walk to my destination in a matter of about five minutes or so.
But there was simply no opening to be found anywhere; this fence just went on and on for as far as the eye could see. But I walked on for about a minute more and, amazingly, came across a gate. My heart leaped with joy—only to be instantly crushed when I
noticed the heavy chain and padlock that were securing it tightly shut.
Inside the security fence, about twenty yards beyond the security gate, I could see three local Egyptian men digging up a road. Things were becoming desperate now, and time was a commodity that had essentially run out. I thought that perhaps the men had a key to the gate and, with the help of some baksheesh, might be persuaded to open it and allow me entry. I tentatively called out to them. At first they ignored my calls, but as I persisted, one of them eventually came over.
I could barely speak a word of Arabic, so the only thing I could think of was to take out my small granite pyramid. When the man arrived I showed him the granite stone and pointed to the hill beyond where he was working. He smiled at me and shrugged his shoulders. He had no idea what I was meaning. Why would he? I grabbed a handful of dollars from my pocket and took hold of the chain and lock, shaking them and displaying the dollars. He seemed to get the message and kept smiling at me. He could either open the gate—or not. After some anxious moments of deliberation, he simply turned around and walked back to join his colleagues, leaving me utterly crushed and deflated.
Once again I was probably less than a few hundred yards from my destination, and once again I had been thwarted with security fences. It seemed peculiarly ironic that only a few days before I had stood in the Sphinx enclosure, one of the most secure and difficult-to-access sites in all Egypt, yet I could not find access to a barren, unremarkable part of the Egyptian desert. I stood for a minute or so simply gaping through the locked gate at the small hill in the distance—my goal. I looked down at my gift to Osiris—so near and yet so far. Disappointed and dejected, I returned the small pyramid stone to my backpack and, with a heavy heart, about-turned on the road, headed back to my hotel, to the airport, and home to Scotland.
Upon returning home I wrote about my experience on my Abovetopsecret.com web forum. I also wrote to Hawass, explaining the centroid theory and how the three pyramids “pointed” to a specific location to the southwest of the plateau and that this might be an area of interest worth excavating. You can imagine my surprise when—only months after making this possible location public—this precise area of the Egyptian desert (an unremarkable area that had remained undisturbed probably since Egypt was formed millions of years ago) was now the site of a major excavation (see figures 10.2a–d).
Figure 10.2a. The undisturbed Apex location of the Great Giza Triangle as of February 2009, before excavation begins.
Figure 10.2b. Excavation of the Apex location begins in March 2009.
Figure 10.2c. Excavation around the Apex Point continues in June 2009.
Figure 10.2d. Excavation around the Apex Point is completed, June 2009.
Having learned of this major excavation activity at the very location of the apex point, I wrote to Hawass and asked if he knew the purpose of this digging. He did not reply. A short time after posting the images in figure 10.2 on the Official Graham Hancock Website (www.grahamhancock.com), a poster there, Dennis Payne, sent me some gamma-filtered images of the apex location, pointing out some underground features that appear fairly geometric in shape, like underground chambers of some kind (figure 10.3a–b).
Figure 10.3a–b. Gamma-filtered images of the apex location show what appears to be a geometric formation beneath the surface.
What might the purpose of such intensive excavating in this area have been? Is it but a mere coincidence that this area was majorly excavated only months after I had made Hawass aware of this location and had also published that information on Abovetopsecret.com and Graham Hancock’s website, explaining why this area might be of great historical significance? Might this area really be the secret location of the legendary Chamber of Osiris? And might the Egyptian authorities have discovered the lost ark of the gods, the missing part of the “body” of Osiris?
Perhaps only time will tell.
HYMN TO OSIRIS
“Homage to thee, Osiris, Lord of eternity, King of the Gods, whose names are manifold, whose forms are holy, thou being of hidden form in the temples, whose Ka is holy. . . . Thou makest thy soul to be raised up. Thou art the Lord of the Great House in Khemenu. . . . Thy name is established in the mouths of men. Thou art the substance of Two Lands. Thou art Tem, the feeder of Kau, the Governor of the Companies of the gods. Thou art the beneficent Spirit among the spirits. The god of the Celestial Ocean draweth from thee his waters. Thou sendest forth the north wind at eventide, and breath from thy nostrils to the satisfaction of thy heart. Thy heart reneweth its youth. . . . The stars in the celestial heights are obedient unto thee, and the great doors of the sky open themselves before thee. Thou art he to whom praises are ascribed in the southern heaven, and thanks are given for thee in the northern heaven. The imperishable stars are under thy supervision, and the stars which never set are thy thrones.”2
Footnotes
*1. “jmAt” is the transliteration from the original hieroglyphs. The word remains in its raw, transliterated form within this passage of text because Egyptology has not been able to interpret what this word actually means.
*2. The vowels represented in ancient Egyptian words such as kh t (akhet) are added by modern scholars purely for convenience. Theoretically the ancient Egyptian word we write as “akhet” might actually have been spoken by an ancient Egyptian as “ukhoti” or “eekhita” or some other variation. We have simply no way of really knowing what vowels were employed by the ancient Egyptians or how their words actually sounded, so modern scholars developed a fairly arbitrary convention to insert vowels into Egyptian script to facilitate its pronunciation.
*3. See Vyse, “Operations,” Vol. 1, 279, 285.
*4. It is quite possible to test ochre paint, because the binding agent used in ancient times would have been organic materials such as fish oil, honey, or gum.
†1. It should be noted here that we could crosscheck the orientations of only twenty-five of the twenty-eight facsimiles against Mr. Perring’s plan drawing because Mr. Hill had drawn some glyphs that Mr. Perring had missed and vice versa, and thus the orientations could not be compared. Also, the orientations of some of Mr. Hill’s drawings were compared against some fairly recent photos of the glyphs made by Colette Dowell and Robert Schoch, for which we were grateful.
Endnotes
FOREWORD
1. Honore, Slow Fix, epigraph.
2. Ibid., 280.
CHAPTER 1. LEGENDS OF SECRET CHAMBERS
1. Lepre, Egyptian Pyramids, 65.
2. Petrie, Pyramids and Temples, 421.
3. Higgins, Ancient Freemasonry, 105.
4. Cayce, Edgar Casey’s Egypt, 207.
5. Joseph Robert Jochmans, “1995: The Hall of Records: Will the Legendary Egyptian Treasure Trove Be Rediscovered?” www.think-aboutit.com/1995-hall-records (accessed June 2, 2014).
6. Murtadi, Egyptian History.
7. Lehner, Complete Pyramids, 40–41.
8. Gary Osborn, “Re: IT’S TIME,” Mysteries message board at the Official Graham Hancock Website, April 20, 2012, 6:45 p.m., www.grahamhancock.com/phorum/read.php?f=1&i=312995&t=312274#reply_312995 (accessed May 30, 2014).
9. Budge, Fetish to God, 198.
10. Joseph Robert Jochmans, “1995: The Hall of Records: Will the Legendary Egyptian Treasure Trove Be Rediscovered?” www.think-aboutit.com/1995-hall-records (accessed July 7, 2014).
11. Massey, Gerald Massey’s Lectures, 7.
12. Picknett and Prince, Sion Revelation, 383–84.
CHAPTER 2. IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE ANCIENTS
1. Doreal, Emerald Tablets, 378.
2. Pyramid Texts, 1657.
3. Plutarch, Isis and Osiris, vol. 5, Moralia, 45.
CHAPTER 3. A WRONG TURN
1. Zivie-Coche, Sphinx, 102.
2. Lepre, Egyptian Pyramids, 268.
3. “Kawab,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kawab (accessed August 8, 2014).
4. Ibid.
5. “Meresankh II,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org
/wiki/Meresankh_II (accessed August 8, 2014).
6. “Minkhaf I,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minkhaf_I (accessed August 8, 2014).
7. Brian Alm, “Ancient Egyptian Religion, Part 7—Roots Too Deep to Dislodge,” Egyptological, August 2012, http://egyptological.com/2012/08/14/ancient-egyptian-religion-part-7-roots-too-deep-to-dislodge-9777 (accessed May 30, 2014).
8. Lehner, Complete Pyramids, 134.
9. Smyth, Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid, 358.
10. Philip A. Femano, “The Granite Plugs of the Great Pyramid,” Egyptological, September 2011, http://egyptological.com/2011/09/09/the-granite-plugs-of-the-great-pyramid-5415 (accessed May 30, 2014).
CHAPTER 4. BARRIERS TO DISCOVERY
1. Mohamed Al Fayed, “Tartan’s Egyptian Connections,” www.alfayed.com/news-and-opinion/copy-of-christmas-parade-2009.aspx.
2. Evans, Kingdom of the Ark, 280.
3. Zahi Hawass, private communication with Scott Creighton.
4. “Pyramid Revamp Fences Out Hawkers,” BBC News, August 12, 2008, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7556225.stm (accessed May 30, 2014).
CHAPTER 5. THOTH: HARBINGER OF THE DELUGE
1. Budge, Legends of the Gods, xxxi–xxxii.
2. Budge, From Fetish to God, 198.
3. Assmann, Mind of Egypt, 58.
4. Naydler, Temple of the Cosmos, 207.
5. Lehner, Complete Pyramids, 24.
The Secret Chamber of Osiris: Lost Knowledge of the Sixteen Pyramids Page 21
