The Message of the Sphinx
A Quest for the Hidden Legacy of Mankind
by Graham Hancock & Robert Bauval
(362 pages, hb, $27.50)
Crown Publishers, New York, 1996
ISBN 0-517-70503-6
This book delivers! The Sphinx IS over 10,000 years old. The Giza necropolis
DOES express a profound pattern and message across the ages. With the scientific
findings accumulating, it is easy to see why so many researchers (Richard
Hoagland, et al) are struggling with beyond-the-horizen speculations.
Chapter Titles
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Part I Enigmas
1. Horizon Dweller
2. The Riddle of the Sphinx
3. Mystery Piled upon Mystery
4. Stars and Time
Part II Seekers
5. The Case of the Psychic, the Scholar and the Sphinx
6. The Case of the Iron Plate, the Freemasons, the Relics and the
Shafts
7. The Case of the Robot, the Germans and the Door
Part III Duality
8. The Clues of Duality
9. The Sphinx and its Horizons
10. The Quest of the Horus-King
Part IV Map
11. The Unseen Academy
12. Sages and 'Followers'
13. Following the Stars
14. Space-Time Co-ordinates
15. When the Sky Joined the Earth
16. Message in a Bottle?
17. The Place of the 'First Time'
Conclusion
Appendix 1: The Scales of the World
Appendix 2: Precession, Proper Motion and Obliquity
Appendix 3: Correspondence with Mark Lehner
Appendix 4: Harnessing Time with the Stars
Appendix 5: Carbon-dating the Great Pyramid
References
Selected Bibliography
Index
Selected Text
pp. 271, 272
Osiris breathes
Throughout this investigation we have tried to stick to the facts, even
when the facts have been very strange.
When we say that the Sphinx, the three Great Pyramids, the causeways and
other associated monuments of the Giza necropolis form a huge astronomical
diagram we are simply reporting a fact. When we say that this diagram depicts
the skies above Giza in 10,500 BC we are reporting a fact. When we say that
the Sphinx bears erosion marks which indicate that it was carved before
the Sahara became a desert we are reporting a fact. When we say that the
ancient Egyptians attributed their civilization to 'the gods' and to the
'Followers of Horus' we are reporting facts. When we say that these divine
and human civilizers were remembered as having come to the Nile Valley in
Zep Tepi - the 'First Time' - we are reporting a fact. When we say
that the ancient Egyptian records tell us this 'First Time' was an epoch
in the remote past, thousands of years before the era of the Pharaohs, we
are reporting a fact.
Our civilization has had the scientific wherewithal to get to grips with
the many problems of the Giza necropolis for less than two centuries, and
it is only in the last two decades that computer technology has made it
possible for us to reconstruct the ancient skies and see the patterns and
conjunctions that unfolded there. During this period access to the site,
and knowledge about it, has been monopolized by members of the archaeological
and Egyptological professions who have agreed amongst themselves as to the
origin, and age, and function of the monuments. New evidence which does
not support this scholarly consensus, and which might actively undermine
it, has again and again been overlooked, or sidelined, and sometimes even
deliberately concealed from the public. This, we assume, is why everything
to do with the shafts of the Great Pyramid - their stellar alignments, the
iron plate, the relics, and the discovery of the 'door' - has met with such
peculiar and inappropriate responses from Egyptologists and archaeologists.
And we assume that it explains, too, why the same scholars have paid
such scant attention to the solid case that geologists have made for the
vast antiquity of the Sphinx.
The Giza monuments are a legacy for Mankind, preserved almost intact over
thousands of years, and, outside the privileged circles of Egyptology and
archaeology, there is today a broad-based expectation that they might be
about to reveal a remarkable secret. That expectation may or may not prove
to be correct. Nevertheless in an intellectual culture polarized by public
anticipation and orthodox reaction, we feel it is only wise that future
explorations at the necropolis should be conducted with complete 'transparency'
and accountability. In particular the opening of the 'door' inside the southern
shaft of the Queen's Chamber, the videoscopic examination of the northern
shaft, and any further remote-sensing and drilling surveys conducted around
the Sphinx, should be carried out under the scrutiny of the international
mass media and should not again be subjected to bizarre and inexplicable
delays.
We cannot predict what new discoveries will be made by such research, or
even whether any new discoveries will be made. However, after completing
our own archaeoastronomical investigation, and following the quest of the
Horus-King, we are left with an enhanced sense of the tremendous mystery
of this amazing site - a sense that its true story has only just begun to
be told. Looking at the awe-inspiring scale and precision of the monuments
we feel, too, that the purpose of the ancient master-builders was sublime,
and that they did indeed find a way to initiate those who would come after
- thousands of years in the future - by making use of the universal language
of the stars.
They found a way to send a message across the ages in a code so simple and
so self-explanatory that it might rightly be described as an anti-cipher.
Perhaps the time has come to listen to that clear, compelling signal that
beckons to us out of the darkness of prehistory. Perhaps the time has come
to seek the buried treasure of our forgotten genesis and destiny:
Stars fade like memory the instant before dawn. Low in the cast the sun
appears, golden as an opening eye. That which can be named must exist.
That which is named can be written, That which is written shall be
remembered. That which is remembered lives. In the land of Egypt
Osiris breathes . . .
