The message of the Sphinx: a quest for the hidden legacy of mankind
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Authors: Graham Hancock; Robert Bauval
Tags: #Great Pyramid (Egypt) - Miscellanea, #Ancient, #Social Science, #Spirit: thought & practice, #Great Pyramid (Egypt), #Sociology, #Middle East, #Body, #Ancient - Egypt, #Antiquities, #Anthropology, #Egypt - Antiquities - Miscellanea, #Great Sphinx (Egypt) - Miscellanea, #Juvenile Nonfiction, #Great Sphinx (Egypt), #spirit: mysticism & self-awareness, #Body & Spirit: General, #Archaeology, #History, #Egypt, #Miscellanea, #Mind, #General, #History: World
The Message of the Sphinx
Also by Robert Bauval
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The Sign and the Seal: A Quest for the Lost Ark of the Covenant
Fingerprints of the Gods: The Evidence of Earth’s Lost Civilization
The Message of the Sphinx
A Quest for the Hidden Legacy of Mankind
Graham Hancock
Robert Bauval
Three Rivers
Press New York
Copyright © 1996 by Graham Hancock and Robert Bauval
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Published by Three Rivers Press, 201 East 50th Street,
New York, New York 10022. Member of the Crown Publishing Group.
Originally published in Great Britain by William Heinemann Ltd.,
and in the United States by Crown Publishers, Inc., in 1996.
Random House, Inc.
New York, Toronto, London, Sydney, Auckland
http://www.randomhouse.com/
THREE RIVERS PRESS and colophon are
trademarks of Crown Publishers, Inc.
Printed in the United States of America
Diagrams by Robert G. Bauval and R. J. Cook
Photographs 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22,
24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30, 31, and 32 by Santha Faiia.
Photographs 11, 12, 15, and 16 courtesy of Rudolph Gantenbrink.
Photograph 29 by Robert G. Bauval.
Photograph 7 courtesy of
Venture Inward
magazine.
Photograph 13 Spiegel TV.
Photograph 14 Antoine Boutros.
Photograph 1 The Lady Sophia Schilizzi.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication
Data is available upon request.
ISBN 0-517-88852-1
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
First Paperback Edition
To the memory of my father Gaston Bauval,
who rests in the land of Egypt.
Robert G. Bauval
To my friend, John Anthony West, for his twenty years of courageous work to prove the geological antiquity of the Sphinx, and for the vast implications of the evidence that he has put before the public. ‘The truth is great and mighty,’ as the ancient texts say. ‘It hath never been broken since the time of Osiris.’
Graham Hancock
Contents
The stones of darkness and the shadow of death
Lion on the ground, lion in the sky
The British Museum and the missing cigar box
Golden Age and the entry of evil
The ‘Two Horizons’ of Heliopolis
Geographical and cosmological context
Child of the Sun, son of Osiris
The High Road and the Low Road
Line Illustrations
1. Profile of the Great Sphinx from the south.
2. Overhead view of the principal monuments of the Giza necropolis.
3. The Great Sphinx and the architectural complex that surrounds it.
4. The artificial ‘Horizon of Giza’.
5. Geodetic location of the Great Pyramid of Giza.
6. Cross-section of the Great Pyramid of Egypt.
7. Internal corridors and passageways of the three Pyramids of Giza.
8. Principal internal features of the Great Pyramid.
9. Detail of the corridors, chambers and shafts of the Great Pyramid
10. The complex internal design of the Great Pyramid.
11. The King’s and Queen’s Chambers and their four shafts.
12. Details of the Queen’s Chamber and its shafts.
13. Queen’s Chamber wall and shaft mouth.
14. Construction details of the Great Pyramid shafts.
15. The summer solstice as seen from Giza.
16. The trajectory of the sun on the summer solstice.
17. The trajectory of the sun on the equinox.
18. The trajectory of the sun on the winter solstice.
19. The horizon of Giza and the meridian of the Great Pyramid.
20. Culmination (meridian-transit) of Orion’s belt
circa
2500 BC.
21. Orion and Osiris.
22. The stellar alignments of the Great Pyramid’s four shafts.
23. Orion’s belt crossing the meridian of the Great Pyramid in 2500 BC.
24. The sky-ground image of Giza-Orion’s belt in 10,500 BC.
25. The 10,500 BC ‘lock’ with Giza.
26. Artist’s impression of Orion’s precessional cycle at meridian.
27. The trajectory of Orion’s belt throughout the ages.
28. Pre-dawn at the spring (vernal) equinox in 10,500 BC.
29. Superimposed images of the rising of Leo in 2500 BC and 10,500 BC.
30. Sunrise at the spring (vernal) equinox in 10,500 BC.
31. Artist’s impression of the ‘First Time’ of Osiris-Orion.
32. ‘Sah’ (Osiris-Orion), the ‘Far Strider’.
33. Detail of Queen’s Chamber shaft.
34. The Memphite necropolis.
35. Sunrise at solstices and equinoxes as seen from Giza.
36. The sky region of the
Duat.
37. Map of the apex region of the Nile Delta.
38. The ‘Land of Sokar’ in the Fifth Division of the
Duat.
39. The Fifth Division of the
Duat.
40. The summer solstice as seen from Giza
circa
2500 BC.
41. The Denderah Zodiac.
42. Horakhti, ‘Horus-of-the-Horizon’.
43. Artist’s impression of ‘reconstructed’ Sphinx.
44. The
Duat
sky-region at dawn throughout the year,
circa
2500 BC.
45. The ‘solar’ Horus crossing the Milky Way.
46. The ‘solar’ Horus in the paws of Leo.
47. The ‘astral’ Kingdom of Osiris in Rostau.
48. The Horus-King being led into the Great Pyramid.
49. The ‘astral’ Great Pyramid and its stargates.
50. The rising of Leo at the summer solstice
circa
2500 BC.
51. The summer solstice
circa
2500 BC.
52. The Horus-King statue between the paws of the Sphinx.
53. Osiris-Orion showing the way to his ‘Followers’, the Horus-Kings.
54. Artist’s impression of the ‘Mansion of the Phoenix’.
55. Osiris-Orion, Isis-Sirius and the Horus-Kings.
56. Great conjunction of the ancient skies at the spring (vernal) equinox
circa
10,500 BC
57. The sky-
Duat
and the ground-
Duat
of Osiris.
58. The ‘drift’ of Orion from 10,500 BC to 2500 BC.
59. The setting of Orion’s belt and the ‘satellite’ pyramids of the ‘horizon’ of Giza in 10,500 BC.
60. Artist’s impression of the ‘First Time’ of Sirius, in the epoch of 10,500 BC.
61. The course of the sun throughout the year as viewed from the latitude of Giza.
62. The 14 degree north of east alignment of the Khufu causeway at the north cross-quarter sunrise.
63. The due east (equinox) alignment of the Menkaure causeway.
64. The 14 degree south of east alignment of the Khafre causeway at the ‘south’ cross-quarter sunrise.
65. The rising of Leo and the ‘south’ cross-quarter sunrise in 10,500 BC.
66. Hor-em-akhet (Sphinx) gazing at Horakhti (Leo) at the ‘south’ cross-quarter sunrise in 10,500 BC.
67. Profile of the Great Sphinx in the ‘ground-horizon’ of Giza.
68. The place-time datum of 10,500 BC under ‘Leo’.
69. Possible locations of an underground system of passageways and chambers beneath the Great Sphinx.
70. The Djed pillar of Osiris, flanked by Isis and Nepthys.
71. Sun-boat on the back of the double-lion hieroglyph for Aker; Great Pyramid looking west; Osirian Djed pillar looking west.
72. The Scales of
Maat.
73. Cross-sections of the Great Pyramid showing the ‘balancing’ of the monument with the star-shafts.
74. The ‘scales’ of Orion at the ‘nadir’ and ‘apex’ of the current Precessional Cycle and the ages of Leo (10,500 BC) and Aquarius (2450 AD).
