The Message of the Sphinx AKA Keeper of Genesis

by Graham Hancock

  In fact, both Sellers and Davis arrive at the same conclusion, namely that the ‘divider’ of the celestial landscape is the Milky Way, and that which crosses it from one side to the other is the sun. Sellers also observes that the point of ‘crossing’ of the ecliptic path is near the V-shaped Hyades-Taurus constellation.[676]

  If we seek to be precise about these matters we will discover that the point of crossing is in fact a little further east along the ecliptic path, marking a spot on the western shore of the Milky Way where today is found the M1 nebula, also known as the Crab Nebula.[677]

  Sellers, oddly, does not pursue the logical sequence of events in Spell 17, namely that the sun continues along its journey, reaches the ‘other side’ (i.e. the eastern side) of the Milky Way, and thence heads towards the constellation of Leo. Indeed, Spell 17 bids the solar ‘Horus’, i.e. the sun-disc, to ‘run, run to this’ location: ‘How well built is your House, O Atum, how well founded is your mansion, O Double Lion ...’

  Atum or Atum-Re, as was shown in The Orion Mystery, was originally venerated as a ‘pillar’ in Heliopolis which, as many researchers have concluded, was also seen as his ‘phallus’.[678] A somewhat similar ‘pillar’, the so-called Djed pillar, was also associated with Osiris.[679] Bearing this in mind, Spell 17 makes a most telling statement: ‘As for the Lion whose mouth is bright and whose head is shining, he is the Phallus of Osiris. Otherwise said, he is the Phallus of Re ...’[680]

  Earlier in Spell 17 we are specifically informed that Atum is:

  ... in his sun-disc. Otherwise said he is Re when he rises in the eastern horizon of the sky.

  To me belongs yesterday, I know tomorrow.

  What does it mean? As for yesterday, that is Osiris. As for tomorrow, that is Re in which the foes of the Lord Of All were destroyed and Horus was made to rule. Otherwise said: That is the day of the ‘We remain’ festival, when the burial of Osiris was ordered by his father Re.

  The Battle-Ground of the gods was made in accordance with my command.

  What does it mean? It is the West. It was made for the souls of the gods in accordance with the command of Osiris, Lord of the Western Desert. Otherwise said: It means that this is the West, to which Re made every god descend and he fought for the Two [Lands] for it.

  I know that Great God who is in it.

  Who is he? It is Osiris ...[681]

  From this text we can see that a special ‘land of the gods’ was envisaged as having been established in the Western Desert at the time of the burial of Osiris—that is in the far-off epoch of the First Time. This was also the day on which Horus united the Two Lands and inherited this ‘battle ground’ or ‘land of the gods’.

  70. The Djed pillar of Osiris, flanked by Isis and Nepthys. Above it is the symbol of” the Horian sun-god, probably marking the meridian-transit of the solar disc.

  We have seen in earlier chapters how the Memphite Theology in the Shabaka Texts nominates the area in which these ‘unification’ events took place as Ayan near Memphis.[682] Oddly, the process of ‘the Unification of the Two Lands’ is also referred to in these same sources as ‘the Balance of the Two Lands, in which Upper and Lower Egypt have been weighed ...’[683]

  In the present work we have brought forward additional evidence in support of Sellers’s contention that the ‘Two Lands’ in question were indeed ‘sky’ and ‘earth’ and we have also shown that very specific parts of the sky and earth were meant—i.e. the ‘Orion-Leo-Taurus’ sky-region and the ‘Giza-Heliopolis-Memphis’ earth-region.

  But how could these two sky-to-earth regions be ‘balanced’ and ‘weighed’?

  A state of perfect order

  The point of ‘balance’ is defined on the ground as: ‘... Ayan, that was the division of the Two Lands ... in the name of the “White Wall” [Memphis] ...’[684]

  We have seen how this terrestrial location corresponds to a point in the sky along the ecliptic path marking the spot on the western shore of the Milky Way where the M1 Crab Nebula is located.

  A closer look at the Memphite Theology, however, reveals that while Ayan is envisaged as the pivot or ‘balance point’ of the Two Lands, the actual process of ‘weighing’ is described as taking place somewhere else—specifically in ‘the land ... [of the] burial of Osiris in the House of Sokar ...’[685]

  Since we have already demonstrated that ‘the land of the House of Sokar’ was Rostau, i.e. the Giza necropolis, we can conclude—by a simple transposition of sky-ground terminology—that the ‘weighing’ or ‘balancing’ of the land was somehow done at Giza, and most likely beside or within the Great Pyramid, the original ‘House’ of Sokar-Osiris.[686]

  But why should the Great Pyramid have been seen as an ‘instrument’ by which the ‘Two Lands’—sky and ground—could be ‘balanced’ at a specific spot, i.e. at Ayan-Memphis?

  71. Sun-boat on the back of the double-lion hieroglyph for Aker. [Top] is a scene of revivification, showing the solar path from east to west. Note the hawk’s head beneath the solar disk at the meridian.

  We must remind ourselves that the chronology and context of the ‘unification’ events was set way back in the cosmic landscape of the ‘First Time’. Let us, therefore, transfer the imagery that now confronts us back to the epoch 10,500 bc, and see how the supposed ‘perfect balance’ was achieved at the cosmic ‘Ayan’, i.e. at the location, marked by the M1 Crab Nebula that we have already identified on the ecliptic path.

  The three great Pyramids of Giza, of course, become Orion’s belt at the meridian—with the Great Pyramid itself being represented by its specific celestial counterpart, Al Nitak, the lowest of the three belt stars.

  The diagram reproduced on page 283 [#74] shows Orion’s belt with Al Nitak at the meridian in 10,500 bc. At this precise moment, as we saw in Chapter 17, the vernal-equinox point lay due east, just below Leo. Meanwhile the ‘opposed’ autumnal equinox point lay precisely due west (just below Aquarius). In short, this was a time when the ‘Two Skies’—one on each side of the Milky Way—were in perfect balance, perfectly divided, just as the texts describe.

  Much suggests that the ‘Followers of Horus’ envisaged the ecliptic path of the sun arching like the huge beam of a scale across the visible sky. One end of this beam was marked by Leo at the vernal-equinox point, and the other by Aquarius at the autumnal-equinox point. So, when Al Nitak came to rest at the celestial meridian on the vernal equinox in 10,500 bc the sky could rightly be said to have been in a state of perfect order.

  Maat

  Cosmic Order, in the symbolic terminology of the ancient Egyptians, was known as Maat. The same word also means ‘justice’ and ‘law’—for example the justice that was exercised by the ‘council of gods’ of Heliopolis when they judged in favour of Horus, after his conflict with Seth, and passed on to him the legacy of the Osirian throne.

  The ancient Egyptian religious texts transmit details of one of the high rituals of the Osirian liturgy—the ‘weighing of the soul’ of the dead in the Great Judgement Hall of Osiris. This is a sort of archetypal ‘Judgement of Solomon’, with the weighing being done on the Great Scales of Maat.

  The Papyrus of Ani in the British Museum provides us with a particularly vivid depiction of the Great Judgement Hall, and also of the Great Scales of Maat. These latter have a name—Mekhaat[687]—which means in other contexts ‘the balance of the Earth’.[688]

  72. The Scales of Maat. (Source: British Museum papyrus 9901-3).

  The hieroglyphic determinative sign for the verb ‘to weigh’ shows a triangle, or builder’s ‘square’, with a plumb-bob suspended from the apex[689]—a sign which can also mean to ‘balance the earth’.[690] The triangle distinctly recalls the profile or cross-section of a pyramid.

  As we have seen in Part II of this book, a curious stone sphere, a length of wooden rod, and a bronze hook were found inside the Great Pyramid in 1872, sealed since the time of the construction of the monument in the shafts of the Queen’s Chamber. Mr. Henry Williams Chisho
lm, the Head of the Standards Department of the Board of Trade in London, carefully examined these relics in the year of their discovery and concluded that the sphere was most probably a standard weight and that the rod and hook might also have had functions connected with weighing and measuring. He published these conclusions in the prestigious journal, Nature, on 26 December 1872.

  Similar views were held by the Astronomer Royal of Scotland, Charles Piazzi Smyth, who also examined the relics in 1872.[691]

  And a certain Mr. E. H. Pringle suggested in a letter to Nature that the stone sphere could have been a ‘mason’s plumb-bob’ and that the ‘bronze hook and the cedar rod may have formed part of the same tool’.[692]

  A ‘plumb-bob’ of some sort must have been used to align the slopes of the shafts. And we have also seen how a ‘plumb-bob’ was used in the hieroglyphic sign meaning ‘weighing’ and, by extension, ‘the balance’.

  Perhaps the Great Pyramid—the terrestrial counterpart of the star Al Nitak—was seen as a weighing device or ‘instrument’ playing its part in some as yet unexplained attempt to restore the ‘balance’ or cosmic order of the world, i.e. Maat, as it was in the ‘First Time’. Let us consider this possibility.

  Juggling for balance

  We saw in Chapter 3 that the Great Pyramid functions as a mathematical scale model of the northern hemisphere of the earth on a scale of 1:43,200.[693] By transposition and extension, therefore, it should be obvious that the monument can also serve as an architectural and mathematical representation of the northern hemisphere of the sky.[694]

  Now if we look at a cross-section of the Great Pyramid, we notice that each of its two sets of ‘star-shafts’—i.e. the northern and the southern in the King’s and Queen’s Chambers respectively—are theoretically intended to emerge at the same heights on the north and south faces of the monument. They appear to hang out like gigantic arms balancing, as it were, the whole geometrical scheme of the Pyramid. But there is something curious about the position of the two chambers from which these shafts emanate. The Queen’s Chamber lies along the centre-line of the Pyramid. The King’s Chamber, on the other hand, is offset somewhat to the south of the centre-line—almost as though the ‘counterweight’ on a huge set of scales had been slid to the left in order to achieve ‘balance’.

  The consequences of this curious architectural anomaly are as follows:

  1. Queen’s Chamber: the ‘designed’ average angle of the two shafts is 38 degrees 08’, thus forming a right angle with the faces of the pyramid (51 degrees 52’ + 38 degrees 08’ = 90 degrees).[695]

  2. King’s Chamber: the ‘designed’ angle of the southern shaft is 45 degrees 00’ and that of the northern shaft is 32 degrees 30’. This counteracts the effects of the offset of the chamber and restores the ‘balance’ of the general geometrical design.

  73. Cross-sections of the Great Pyramid showing the ‘balancing’ of the monument with the star-shafts.

  The altitude of Al Nitak at the meridian in 2500 bc was 45 degrees—in line with the southern shaft of the King’s Chamber. The reader will recall that the vernal point in this epoch was just over the Hyades-Taurus, whose terrestrial counterpart we have identified as the region of the Dahshur Pyramids.[696]

  But let us see in what epoch Al Nitak would have crossed the meridian at 38 degrees 08’ altitude—i.e. in alignment with the southern shaft of the Queen’s Chamber?

  Precessional calculations show that such an alignment would have occurred in circa 3850 bc—a date that is extremely close to that favoured by many earlier Egyptologists for the epoch of the ‘Unification’ which was supposedly sealed at Ayan-Memphis.[697] It is therefore surely of interest to note that in 3850 bc the vernal point was positioned near the M1 Crab Nebula, the spot on the celestial landscape—and along the ecliptic path—that we have identified as the sky-counterpart of Ayan-Memphis.

  Three Wise Men

  In 10,500 bc the star Al Nitak in the belt of Orion was at the lowest altitude of its precessional cycle and Leo housed the vernal-equinox point. In our own epoch—the epoch of ad 2000—the other extreme of the curious ‘balancing mechanism’ of Giza is about to be reached: Al Nitak today stands within a few arc seconds of the highest altitude that it will attain in its precessional cycle and the vernal point is about to drift into the constellation of Aquarius. Between the ‘First Time’ and the ‘Last Time’, in other words, the skies have reversed themselves—literally flipped left to right—with Aquarius now marking the vernal equinox and Leo marking the autumnal equinox.

  We wonder whether it is possible that the sages of Heliopolis, working at the dawn of history, could somehow have created an archetypal ‘device’, a device designed to trigger off messianic events across the ‘Ages’—the Pyramid Age when the vernal point was in Taurus, for example, the Christic Age in Pisces,[698] and perhaps even a ‘New Age’ in Aquarius?

  We note in this connection that in circa 330 bc, when the vernal point was beginning its precessional drift into the ‘Age of Pisces’, the altitude of Al Nitak (viewed from the latitude of Giza) was 51 degrees 52’—the angle of slope of the Great Pyramid. At this time the conquests of Alexander the Great (356-323 bc), and the resulting merger of the Eastern and Western worlds, triggered great expectations of a messianic ‘Return’ in the East. First at Alexandria, then across the Levant, a general agitation began, as if triggered by some prophetic ‘device’, which culminated in the great messianic events of Christianity.[699]

  74a. The sky as will be seen in 2450 ad at the ‘Last Time’ of Orion. Note the vernal (spring) equinox in the west.

  74b. The sky as was seen in 10,500 bc at the ‘First Time’ of Orion. Note the vernal (spring) equinox to the east.

  The three stars of Orion’s belt are depicted in the folklore of many countries as the heraldic ‘Three Wise Men’, or ‘Kings’, or ‘Magi’ from the East, who feature in the Christic nativity story.[700] Interestingly, as we saw in Part I, the star-worshipping Sabians of Harran—archetypal Magi—appear to have performed annual pilgrimages to Giza from at least as far back as the second millennium bc until as late as the eleventh century ad.[701] Interestingly, too, as seen from Harran—which is east of Bethlehem and at a higher latitude than Giza—the belt star Al Nitak would have culminated at the meridian at 51 degrees 52’ in 4 bc, the generally accepted birth year of Christ. In that year also the ‘birth star’ Sirius would have risen and been brightly visible in the east as the sun set at dusk.[702]

  Is there something—some ancient tradition, veiled, but still very much alive, that is subtly carrying blueprints and plans across the ages aimed at generating messianic fervour, and changing the course of history, at certain crucial moments which are ‘written in the stars’?

  And is such a moment now approaching?

  Is the ‘device’ about to reactivate itself?

  We shall return to these questions in our next book.

  Appendix 2

  Correspondence with Mark Lehner

  Concerning Chapter 5

  The Egyptologist Mark Lehner was sent the first draft of Chapter 5 of this book, a chapter that largely concerns himself. His comments and corrections were taken into account, and the draft was rewritten in the form that is published herewith. When Dr. Lehner was sent the revised draft he wrote us the following letter making further comments which we agreed to reproduce in full as an Appendix. Our own reply to Dr. Lehner’s letter is also appended.

  From: Mark Lehner

  To: Mr. Robert G. Bauval and Mr. Graham Hancock

  November 16, 1995

  Dear Graham and Robert,

  Thank you for your letter of 12 November 1995 and for the second draft of your Chapter 5, ‘The Case of the Psychic, the Scholar And the Sphinx’(!). It appears to be much more accurate than the first draft concerning the events of which I was a part.

  I have the following observations to make and corrections to suggest (again open to the public):

  p. 86: ‘his pronouncements ... spaw
ned multi-million dollar industry ... embroiled ... with mainstream Egyptological research ... first learned about ... when reviewing ... Mark Lehner.’

  Do you mean to convey that Cayce alone (without theosophy, anthroposophy, freemasonry, astrology, sacred metrology, channeling, UFO aficionados, and Shirley MacClaine) spawned a multi-million dollar industry that fed directly into my involvement with Egyptology? That would be a little absurd.

  p. 92: ‘The equipment for RSI’s work ... Immediately afterwards the project was stopped.’

  This is still not quite right. The drilling equipment was tested and used elsewhere, for example, west of the Second Pyramid, before it was brought down for the two holes in the Sphinx Temple. The project was not stopped immediately afterwards. RSI/SRI drilled two more holes in the southeast corner of the floor of the Sphinx and under the south forepaw of the Sphinx. Then the project kind of fizzled to an end because of the falling out between RSI and SRI and, as I remember, because the SRI team had been in Egypt for a couple of months or more and had other work.

  p. 92: ‘did not appreciate ... led to ... falling out between RSI and SRI.’