The Message Of The Sphinx Part 18

In 10,500 bc the star Al Nitak in the belt of Orion was at the lowest alt.i.tude 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 alt.i.tude 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 alt.i.tude of Al Nitak (viewed from the lat.i.tude 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-wors.h.i.+pping 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 lat.i.tude 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 Hanc.o.c.k 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 p.r.o.nouncements ... sp.a.w.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 s.h.i.+rley MacClaine) sp.a.w.ned 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.'

As I recall, although RSI did not appreciate particularly the Cayce involvement, the falling out between RSI and SRI was over fiduciary issues. Why don't you contact SRI and ask them?

p. 93: 'Adding to the intrigue ... yet another project financed by the Edgar Cayce Foundation.'

You do want to hang on to that intrigue! No, this was not yet another project. The down-hole immersion acoustical sounding was done in the last days of SRI's fieldwork at the Sphinx in 1978, not 1982, not another project. I do not have, at present, a copy of this Venture Inward but if it says this is another project in 1982, it is wrong. All that I describe in the quote you excerpted happened the last few days of the 1978 project.

p. 93: 'a survey, as the reader will recall, ... abrupt halt ... Antiquities Organization.'

You seem inclined to see 'abrupt halts'. You should not cite me to verify this point because I was not at these events, but my impression is that Schoch, West, and Dobecki were not thwarted in their first season of work at the Sphinx. Permission for such work is granted or denied by a large committee of the Supreme Council for Antiquities (formerly Egyptian Antiquities Organization).

p. 94: 'Pulling Away. When, exactly, Professor Lehner began to pull away from the influence of the Edgar Cayce Foundation and crossed over into the mainstream of professional Egyptology and its orthodoxy is not especially clear.'

Are you suggesting, based on your own understanding of how belief systems operate, that there are definite lines where 'now you believe' and 'now you don't'? You seem particularly interested in this question. The way you frame it reminds me of the US Congressional hearings on the Watergate cover-up conspiracy: 'What did the President know, and when did he know it?' 'What did Lehner believe, and when did he not believe it?!'

Let me offer some biography to use if you so choose.

I already had doubts when I went to Egypt in 1973, since Cayce's ancient history did not agree much with anthropology courses I took at the University of North Dakota. But as I indicated in my last letter, I did indeed have hopes that evidence could be found of past events bearing some agreement with Cayce's story.

During my two years at the American University in Cairo I majored in anthropology, and took my first courses in Egyptian archaeology and prehistory. I also spent most of my free time at Giza, and I visited other ancient sites and archaeological projects. I did not find 'footprints of the G.o.ds'. By becoming acquainted with a vast amount of previous archaeological research with which the Cayce community and like-minded Egypt-enthusiasts are only minimally familiar, I found the 'footprints' of people-their tool marks, names, family relations.h.i.+ps, skeletons, and material culture.

In 1974 I read social psychologist Leon Festinger's work on 'cognitive dissonance', in particular his book, When Prophecy Fails. Festinger deals with people reacting to conflict between a revealed belief system and empirically derived information, that is, physical evidence. In his work, I recognized many attributes of the Cayce worldview, my own belief, and my growing doubts.

When I returned to Virginia Beach I would outline in lectures and conversations the real achaeological evidence surrounding the Sphinx and the Pyramids and its conflict with the Cayce picture of Egypt. I spoke to my good friends and supporters, like Hugh Lynn and Joseph Jahoda (are your two unnamed ARE men supposed to remain as mysterious as 'The Scholar'?), about my doubts, and how the Cayce community and belief system fits many aspects discussed by Festinger and other social scientists.

In these talks I began to suggest to the Cayce community that they look at the Egypt/Atlantis story as a myth in the sense that Joseph Campbell popularized, or that Carl Jung drew upon in his psychology of archetypes. Although the myth is not literally true, it may in some way be literarily true. The Cayce 'readings' themselves say, in their own way, that the inner world of symbols and archetypes is more 'real' than the particulars of the physical world. I compared Cayce's Hall of Records to the Wizard of Oz. Yes, we all want the 'sound and fury' and powerful wizardry to be real, without having to pay attention to the little man behind the curtain (ourselves). In archaeology, many dilettantes and New Agers want to be on the trail of a lost civilization, aliens, yes, 'the G.o.ds', without having to pay attention to the real people behind time's curtain and without having to deal with the difficult subject matter upon which so-called 'orthodox' scholars base their views.

(An aside: So a John West can blast Egyptologists for suppressing the sacred science inherent in Egyptian culture without being able to read Egyptian language-a little like saying one knows Shakespeare's real meaning without reading English. Another pyramid theorist said, in an animated dinner conversation, 'Where's the evidence? The pyramid stands out there with no evidence of how the ancient Egyptians could have built it.' I ticked off four Egyptological t.i.tles-all in English-devoted to ancient Egyptian tools, technology, stone building, and materials and industries. Although he had published a widely acclaimed book with a new theory on the pyramids, he admitted to not having read a single one of these basic works. It would be so much more fun and challenging if such theorists did actually read and absorb such primary sources, and then launched the dialogue.) These ideas were on my mind as I joined my first 'mainstream' excavation in 1976. They are reflected in my statement that the Hall of Records is worth looking for, but not in a tangible way. You know, like the Holy Grail.

In 1977-78 I had the opportunity not only to work with the SRI project at Giza, but also to work with Zahi Hawa.s.s in excavations of ancient deposits neglected by earlier archaeologists in the northeast corner of the Sphinx floor-just beside the north forepaw, and on the floor of the Sphinx Temple. We recovered pottery, parts of stone tools, and other material directly on the floor, filling deep creva.s.ses and nooks and crannies-material in contexts that only make sense as left by the Old Kingdom Sphinx and pyramid builders.

Such findings, and the negative results of the SRI project, sealed it for me. That is, I knew there was an extremely low probability that Cayce's story of Egypt and the Giza monuments (and his ancient 'history' involving Atlantis, etc.) reflected real events.

My interest in the Cayce-like genre of literature as having anything to do with the archaeological record was gone, although I am still interested in this genre as a social and literary phenomenon. My encounters with bedrock reality were far more fascinating. I was excited by the process of reconstructing the past from empirical evidence. I put aside my interest in the dynamics of beliefs, and in general questions of philosophy and religion, as I spent the next decade doing archaeological fieldwork for projects at various places in Egypt. At Giza, my interest and research was no longer premised on Cayce or any similar point of view. In 1982 I carried out the research and writing for an Egyptological monograph on the tomb of Hetepheres (published in 1985 by the German Archaeological Inst.i.tute). Cayce ideas had nothing to do with this work.

Meanwhile Hugh Lynn Cayce (until he died), Charles Thomas Cayce and other members of the Cayce community remained very close friends. Some (but not all) were still interested in contributing to research at Giza. Their support of the Pyramids Radiocarbon Dating Project was a way to do something useful for the archaeology of the pyramids, as well as to test their ideas about the origin and date of the Great Pyramid and Sphinx.

I remember a very personal moment in 1983 when I was working for an expedition at Abydos, the cult center of Osiris in Upper Egypt. The tombs of Egypt's earliest pharaohs were sunk into a spur of low desert far to the west of the cultivation, near the base of the great cleft in the high cliffs, probably seen by the ancients as symbolizing the entrance to the Netherworld. Many centuries later, one of the tombs of a real man who ruled as one of the First Dynasty kings was outfitted as the Tomb of Osiris. Over subsequent centuries hundreds of pilgrims left pottery offerings, resulting in mounds of millions of shards that masked the site, prompting its Arabic name, Umm el-Qa-ab, 'Mother of Pots'. One evening near sunset I walked from the dig house to Umm el-Qa-ab. I stood on the mounds above these tombs and wondered if the ancient pilgrims really believed the G.o.d Osiris himself was buried here, and if 'those who sit near the temple' (as a Zen proverb would say)-the local priests-knew they had simply outfitted one of the First Dynasty tombs of a pharaoh to 'symbolize' the burial of Osiris. I thought of my own pilgrimage that brought me to Egypt in the first place, and the myth of the Hall of Records. I realized that this was part of a world view that had moved far away from me, like a chunk of ice that had separated from a continent and was now melting in a distant sea.

Sorry to be so long-winded. But Graham, I agree with your statement in your last letter that readers should be in possession of the facts to evaluate the opinions of academic authorities.

Sincerely, Mark Lehner PS Details: It probably does not matter much for a popular readers.h.i.+p, but the difference between an a.s.sistant Professor-my t.i.tle at the Oriental Inst.i.tute-and Professor is significant in the tenure-track world. I resigned my fulltime post, but I am still a Visiting a.s.sistant Professor at the University of Chicago and Oriental Inst.i.tute, I return every other year to teach.

cc: Bruce Ludwig Douglas Rawls To: Mark Lehner From: Graham Hanc.o.c.k 8 December 1995 Dear Mark, Thank you for your further letter of 16 November 1995 in response to our revised draft of Chapter 5. We greatly appreciate your openness.

If you have no objections, we propose to publish the revised draft of Chapter 5 as you have seen it and to publish your 16 November 1995 letter in full as an appendix to our book. We consider this to be a fair and reasonable way to present the whole matter to the public. If we don't hear back from you in the next couple of weeks we will a.s.sume this is OK with you.

Merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

Warm best wishes, Graham Hanc.o.c.k PS We remember one Egyptological t.i.tle (not four) that you 'ticked off' during a certain 'animated dinner conversation'. The one t.i.tle was Clarke and Engelbach's Ancient Egyptian Construction and Architecture. We've both read it since and weren't overly impressed. Robert Bauval, as you know, is a construction engineer by training and spent twenty years actually building enormous buildings in the Middle East. In my opinion-Clarke and Engelbach notwithstanding-this gives him a rather good basis from which to engage in 'fun and challenging' dialogue about the construction logistics of the Great Pyramid. There's no subst.i.tute for real experience no matter how many 'primary sources' we 'read and absorb'. (And by the way, in what sense are Clarke and Engelbach a primary source? Were they present when the Pyramid was built? Did they build it?)

Appendix 3

Harnessing Time with the Stars: The Hermetic Axiom 'As Above So Below'

and the Horizon of Giza An observer at Giza, as anywhere else on the globe where the horizontal view is not obstructed, will perceive the landscape as a huge circle whose edge is the horizon with himself at the centre-hence the term 'Horizon' used by the ancients when referring to the Giza necropolis. Making apparent contact with the horizon is the celestial landscape, the latter perceived as a huge circular dome or hemisphere.

The 'below', earth-landscape, is steadfast. The 'above', sky-landscape, however, appears to rotate in perpetual motion around an imaginary axis which pa.s.ses through the two poles of the earth and extends to the 'celestial poles' in the sky. The apparent rotation of the sky makes the celestial orbs-the stars, the sun, the moon and the planets-rise in the east, culminate at the meridian (an imaginary loop running due north-south directly over the observer's head) and set in the west.

Observations of sunrise through the year will fix four distinct points, sometimes called the colures, on the ecliptic path of the sun around the twelve zodiacal constellations. These are the two equinoxes (spring and autumn), and the two solstices (summer and winter). Today these take place in the following zodiacal signs: 1. Spring equinox (21 March) with the sun in Pisces.

2. Summer solstice (21 June) with the sun in Taurus.

3. Autumn equinox (22 September) with the sun in Virgo.

4. Winter solstice (21 December) with the sun in Sagittarius.

The table below shows in which zodiacal signs the four 'colures' fell for a variety of different epochs: EPOCH.

10,000 bc 5000 bc 3000 bc 1000 bc 2500 ad S. Equinox Leo Gemini Taurus Aries Aquarius S. Solstice Scorpio Virgo Leo Cancer Taurus A. Equinox Aquarius Sagittarius Scorpio Libra Leo W. Solstice Taurus Pisces Aquarius Capricorn Scorpio Strictly speaking, the term 'colures' denotes the two great circles of the celestial sphere which are at right angles to each other, pa.s.s through the poles and intersect the two equinox points and the two solstice points respectively.

The diurnal or daily apparent motion of the sun is from east to west. The annual or yearly apparent motion is much slower from west to east against the background of the starry landscape through a path known as the ecliptic, or zodiacal circle (containing the twelve zodiacal signs). Also because of the phenomenon of the precession of the equinoxes, the four points on the colures (the two equinoxes and the two solstices) will appear to drift westwards at the very slow rate of 50.3 arc-seconds per year (a full circuit in approximately 25, 920 years).

These apparent cyclical motions of the sky are, of course, caused not by the sky itself moving but by the earth's own spin on its axis in one day, its...o...b..tal revolution around the sun in one year, and its slow wobble-like motion in one Great Year (of 25,920 'solar' years). As we have already said, the most noticeable effect of the latter is that the four points on the colures which mark the two equinoxes and the two solstices on the ecliptic, will drift in clockwise direction along the great ecliptic or 'zodiacal' circle.

Every day there is a moment when these four points on the colures find themselves in precise alignment with the four cardinal points of the terrestrial globe defined by the directions due east, due south, due west and due north on the circle of the horizon. This is when it can be said that the sky and earth are a 'reflection' of each other. In archaic terminology, this is when the 'Hermetic' axiom of 'as above so below' can be most faithfully expressed.

At this exact moment the colure containing the two solstice points will be looping above the head of the observer from north to south, and thus becomes the prime meridian of the observer. The colure which contains the two equinox points will loop from east to west and will intersect the horizon at due east to due west, and thus define the parallel of the observer. Again, using archaic terminology, this is when the observer is at the 'centre of the visible universe'.

A simple yet quite precise way of knowing when this idealistic 'as above so below' conjunction takes place is to make use of a bright star that sits on the colure containing the two solstice points. The choice of a bright star on the colure as near to the winter solstice point as possible, will permit the observer to lock the sky in the most favourable condition possible: the precise moment of the rising of the vernal (spring) point in the east. This is simply achieved by waiting for the star in question to transit the south meridian. When this happens, the winter solstice point is due south, and all the other colures lock to the remaining cardinal directions.

The effect of the precession of the vernal point, however, will cause the chosen star to change position with time. After a century or so the star can no longer be used.

The Great Pyramid is often said to be perfectly set to the four cardinal points. What seems more likely, as we shall see, is that it is set perfectly to the four colure points when they transit the cardinal directions. The setting-out of the Pyramid, therefore, is not merely directional but also, and perhaps more especially, dependent on 'time'.

In 1934 the French astronomer E.M. Antoniadi correctly noted that the 'astronomical character of the pyramids (of Giza) is established by the following facts: 1. They are almost exactly, and intentionally, on the thirtieth parallel of the lat.i.tude North.

2. They are marvellously orientated on the cardinal points.

3. Their inclined pa.s.sageways were, with their closing, colossal meridian instruments, by far the largest ever constructed.'[703]

These confirmed facts, and also the fact that the Great Pyramid is a near-perfect mathematical model of the celestial dome or hemisphere, make this monument a material and earthly representation of the sky-landscape. When linked to a specific star, however, the element of 'time' is introduced into the equation.

We recall that the ancient builders fixed the main north-south axis of the Great Pyramid to the south meridian transit of the bright star Alnitak, the lowest of the three stars in Orion's belt. We also recall that the general layout of the three Pyramids of Giza is at 45 degrees to the meridian axis and that this peculiarity, in turn, is reflected in the sky-image of the three stars in Orion's belt as they appeared in c. 10,500 bc. This was no arbitrary date, however, because it denoted the lowest point or 'First Time' in the precessional cycle of Orion. To the ancients, Orion was 'Osiris', and the latter, too, had a 'First Time' or genesis.

Computer reconstructions of the ancient skies of 10,500 bc show that the star Alnitak was located precisely on the colure containing the two solstice points, and nearer to the winter solstice. If an observer was there to 'lock' the perfect 'as above so below' condition in 10,500 bc, the image of the sky containing the star Alnitak would convert into a 'hologram' on the ground precisely in the manner we find at Giza today. That such a perfect sky-to-earth correlation cannot be the result of some incredible 'coincidence' is confirmed by the equinoctial rising of Leo, which took place in precisely the same epoch of 10,500 bc and precisely when the star Alnitak transited the south meridian. This brought the vernal (spring) equinox point in perfect alignment with the Great Sphinx, the terrestrial counterpart of the image of Leo. The conclusion thus seems inevitable: the ancients appear to have established a global prime-meridian at Giza locked into the time frame of 10,500 bc.

All this implies, however, that the ancients were somehow attempting to 'navigate' not only in distance ('s.p.a.ce') but also in 'time'. What did they have in mind? How can 'time' be navigated?

Hypothetically at least, a time-related apparatus locked into the colures of 10,500 bc would present the 'reincarnated' Horus-King with a subliminal landscape or 'magical theatre', at the height of his extensive initiation, to work out intuitively how far in time his 'soul' had travelled from its point of genesis. In Parts III and IV of this book we have shown how the Horus-King may have used the phenomenon of the precession of the equinoxes to perform such a task by inducing his mind to undertake a journey or quest to find his 'ancestors' using the subliminal architectural setting or 'cosmic ambiance' of Giza as some sort of 'star-memory' device. Today we use a computer to re-create the ancient skies on a television monitor. We are suggesting that the Horus-King initiate could perform this task intuitively with the 'computer' of his mind and the 'monitor' of his inner perception. This conclusion does not present a problem to us. We have found that by fully familiarizing ourselves with the apparent motions of the skies and by constantly reconstructing ancient skies with the aid of computers, images, coordinates and epochs subliminally enter the mind and become logged in the memory. We have discovered for ourselves that these 'files' are easily retrieved at will without the mechanistic aid of the computer. Hypothetically then, with such 'star-memory' logged in the mind, should we suddenly find ourselves flung into a future 'time zone', say ad 6000, we could relatively easily 'work out' how far ahead in time we had moved.

By extension of such rhetoric, therefore, it could be said that the function of the Giza blueprint is to provide a virtually indestructible 'holographic' apparatus for the use of 'reincarnated' or 'reborn' ent.i.ties of the Horian lineage in order to induce 'remembrance' of a 'divine' genetic origin in Egypt in the time-frame of 10,500 bc. The ultimate function, however, appears to have been to perpetuate the 'immortality' of their souls into 'time'-in short, the ultimate gnostic experience entailing the release of the spiritual part of the living ent.i.ty from its material, inert, part. To put it in other terms, 'living' man is the result of a holographic union between matter and spirit. It would very much appear that the 'Followers of Horus' understood the cosmic mechanism to somehow re-separate the two.

Such questions, we are well aware, lead us into the misty realm of metaphysics, extrasensory perception and psychic thinking from which we have tried to steer clear. Nonetheless, we must respond to our intuitive feeling that a form of metaphysical thinking very much like this was used by those mysterious 'Followers of Horus' who set their initiatory and 'astronomical' academy at Heliopolis-and whose genius resulted in the construction of the amazing 'holographic' star/stone (spirit/matter) apparatus of Giza. All references in the ancient texts to this mysterious brotherhood suggest that we are dealing not with 'priests' but with high adepts who fully understood the working of the human psyche and the subliminal techniques needed to evoke 'remote memory' through deep-felt inner perceptions of 'time'. The esoteric teachings and initiations into such cosmic mysteries using the skies are certainly not prosaic ones, as Egyptologists maintain, to develop and refine calendrical systems for 'land irrigation' and 'religious ceremonies', but far more subtle: somehow to reach and harness the extrasensory capabilities of the human mind in order to link up to the invisible and immaterial, yet very perceptible, 'flux of time'.

The questions, for those looking for 'scientific' explanations, can be formulated in another way: Do we humans carry 'remote memory files' locked in our genes? And if so, can it not be possible that such 'files' could be retrieved by using the correct subliminal keys?

More provocative still: is our 'consciousness' umbilically linked to 'time' such that it merely pa.s.ses through biological matter, ourselves, like a thread pa.s.sing through pearls and stones?

It has long been appreciated by students of intellectual history that monumental architecture and archetypal images can serve as powerful subliminal devices to evoke dormant 'memory' in the minds of those who are made receptive through initiation. The murals and panels of gothic cathedrals or the painted ceilings such as those in the Sistine Chapel are but obvious examples of such powerful mind-games-aptly called 'silent poetry' by the fourth-century bc poet, Simonides of Ceos. These ancient memory-aids, and the techniques refined for using them, which are loosely termed 'mnemotechnics' today, were the subject of a major thesis by Dame Frances A. Yates in 1966 ent.i.tled The Art of Memory. In this book Yates shows that powerful cerebral techniques were taught in ancient Greece which were rooted in the so-called 'Egyptian hermetic tradition'.[704] Recently, the author Murry Hope, in a thesis ent.i.tled Time the Ultimate Energy, tackled the complex subject of 'time travel' as a form of energy, and suggested that pre-dynastic Egyptian adepts may have understood and harnessed 'time' through a yet-to-be discovered ability to break away from the confines of biological 'time' and into another mental realm of time-perception. Murry Hope termed this realm 'Outer Time'. Likewise, in another recent study, From Atlantis to the Sphinx, the author and philosopher Colin Wilson boldly proposes that the ancients may have cultivated powerful extrasensory capabilities through 'a different knowledge system' based on intuitive thinking (as opposed to rationalistic or 'solar' thinking) in order to enter higher states of consciousness. Such higher consciousness might have been the key into altered perceptions of 'time'.

That such untapped abilities to perceive dilated time-fields might be an intrinsic part of human mental machinery was very seriously investigated by one of America's most prestigious scientific foundations, the Stanford Research Inst.i.tute in California-better known as SRI International. In 1972 SRI International was recruited as main consultant for the so-called remote viewing programmes run by the CIA and other government agencies including the US navy, the US army and the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). These programmes were managed by a highly respected physicist, Dr. Hal Puthoff, who sought out and employed renowned psychics (called 'remote viewers' in SRI jargon) to 'locate' enemy military targets and installations using extrasensory capabilities.

The reader will recall that SRI International (which has been described as 'America's second largest think-tank') was also, in 1973, involved in high-tech archaeological projects in Egypt and, at least on one occasion, worked in partic.i.p.ation with the Edgar Cayce Foundation (ECF) in a series of remote sensing projects at Giza (see Chapter 5).

Many 'remote viewers' involved in the remote viewing programmes, such as the psychic Ingo Swann and Nel Riley, the latter a sergeant in the US army, openly claimed to have the inner abilities to undertake a form of 'time travel' into any remote locations on the globe. Such claims are in many ways reminiscent of those made by the Edgar Cayce adepts who maintain that, when in an altered state of consciousness such as deep trance or hypnosis, they can 'remember' past lives, i.e. 'time travel' mentally to remote locations. Cayce himself, who is dubbed America's best-known medium and psychic, claimed to have had a previous life in Egypt in 10,500 bc-a claim which at one time, as we have seen in Chapter 5, was considered worthy of investigation by Egyptologist Mark Lehner in the early 1970s within the framework of his scientific research at Giza.

Appendix 4

Carbon-dating the Great Pyramid: Implications of a little-known Study The evidence presented in this book concerning the origins and antiquity of the monuments of the Giza necropolis suggests that the genesis and original planning and layout of the site may be dated, using the tools of modern computer-aided archaeoastronomy, to the epoch of 10,500 bc. We have also argued, on the basis of a combination of geological, architectural and archaeoastronomical indicators, that the Great Sphinx, its a.s.sociated megalithic 'temples', and at least the lower courses of the so-called 'Pyramid of Khafre', may in fact have been built at that exceedingly remote date.

It is important to note that we do not date the construction of the Great Pyramid to 10,500 bc. On the contrary, we point out that its internal astronomical alignments-the star-shafts of the King's and Queen's Chambers-are consistent with a completion date during ancient Egypt's 'Old Kingdom', somewhere around 2500 bc. Such a date should, in itself, be uncontroversial since it in no way contradicts the scholarly consensus that the monument was built by Khufu, the second Pharaoh of the Fourth Dynasty, who ruled from 2551-2528 bc.[705] What places our theory in sharp contradiction to the orthodox view, however, is our suggestion that the mysterious structures of the Giza necropolis may all be the result of an enormously long-drawn-out period of architectural elaboration and development-a period that had its genesis in 10,500 bc, that came to an end with the completion of the Great Pyramid come 8000 years later in 2500 bc, and that was guided throughout by a unified master-plan.

According to orthodox Egyptologists, the Great Pyramid is the result of only just over 100 years of architectural development, beginning with the construction of the step-pyramid of Zoser at Saqqara not earlier than 2630 bc, pa.s.sing through a number of 'experimental' models of true Pyramids (one at Meidum and at two Dashour, all attributed to Khufu's father Sneferu) and leading inexorably to the technological mastery of the Great Pyramid not earlier than 2551 bc (the date of Khufu's own ascension to the throne). An evolutionary 'sequence' in pyramid-construction thus lies at the heart of the orthodox Egyptological theory-a sequence in which the Great Pyramid is seen as having evolved from (and thus having been preceded by) the four earlier pyramids.[706]

But suppose those four pyramids were proved to be not earlier but later structures? Suppose, for example, that objective and unambiguous archaeological evidence were to emerge-say, reliable carbon-dated samples-which indicated that work on the Great Pyramid had in fact begun some 1300 years before the birth of Khufu and that the monument had stood substantially complete some 300 years before his accession to the throne? Such evidence, if it existed, would render obsolete the orthodox Egyptological theory about the origins, function and dating of the Great Pyramid since it would destroy the Saqqaraa Meiduma Dashoura Giza 'sequence' by making the technologically-advanced Great Pyramid far older than its supposed oldest 'ancestor', the far more rudimentary step-pyramid of Zoser. With the sequence no longer valid, it would then be even more difficult than it, is at present for scholars to explain the immense architectural competence and precision of the Great Pyramid (since it defies reason to suppose that such advanced and sophisticated work could have been undertaken by builders with no prior knowledge of monumental architecture).

Curiously, objective evidence does exist which casts serious doubt on the orthodox archaeological sequence. This evidence was procured and published in 1986 by the Pyramids Carbon-dating Project, directed by Mark Lehner (and referred to in pa.s.sing in his correspondence with us, see Appendix III above). With funding from the Edgar Cayce Foundation, Lehner collected fifteen samples of ancient mortar from the masonry of the Great Pyramid. These samples of mortar were chosen because they contained fragments of organic material which, unlike natural stone, would be susceptible to carbon-dating. Two of the samples were tested in the Radiocarbon Laboratory of the Southern Methodist University in Dallas Texas and the other thirteen were taken to laboratories in Zurich, Switzerland, for dating by the more sophisticated accelerator method. According to proper procedure, the results were then calibrated and confirmed with respect to tree-ring samples.[707]

The outcome was surprising. As Mark Lehner commented at the time: The dates run from 3809 bc to 2869 bc. So generally the dates are ... significantly earlier than the best Egyptological date for Khufu ... In short, the radiocarbon dates, depending on which sample you note, suggest that the Egyptological chronology is anything from 200 to 1200 years off. You can look at this almost like a bell curve, and when you cut it down the middle you can summarize the results by saying our dates are 400 to 450 years too early for the Old Kingdom Pyramids, especially those of the Fourth Dynasty ... Now this is really radical ... I mean it'll make a big stink. The Giza pyramid is 400 years older than Egyptologists believe.[708]

Despite Lehner's insistence that the carbon-dating was conducted according to rigorous scientific procedures[709] (enough, normally, to qualify these dates for full acceptance by scholars) it is a strange fact that almost no 'stink' at all has been caused by his study. On the contrary, its implications have been and continue to be universally ignored by Egyptologists and have not been widely published or considered in either the academic or the popular press. We are at a loss to explain this apparent failure of scholars.h.i.+p and are equally unable to understand why there has been no move to extract and carbon-date further samples of the Great Pyramid's mortar in order to test Lehner's potentially revolutionary results.

What has to be considered, however, is the unsettling possibility that some kind of pattern may underlie these strange oversights.

As we reported in Chapter 6, a piece of wood that had been sealed inside the shafts of the Queen's Chamber since completion of construction work on that room, was amongst the unique collection of relics brought out of the Great Pyramid in 1872 by the British engineer Waynman Dixon. The other two 'Dixon relics'-the small metal hook and the stone sphere-have been located after having been 'misplaced' by the British Museum for a very long while. The whereabouts of the piece of wood, however, is today unknown.[710]