Keeper of Genesis [UK] / The Message of the Sphinx [US] (1997)
by Graham Hancock, and Robert Bauval
Start the book in the early evening and continue uninterrupted till you complete it in the small hours. The effect is wonderful … Your entire world-view has been shifted a hundred yards to the right. You fall asleep thinking that nothing will ever be the same again.
“Is the Sphinx of prehistoric origin? Why was it built? In this provocative, rigorously argued report, revisionist Egyptologists Hancock (The Fingerprints of the Gods) and Bauval (The Orion Mystery) join forces to answer these questions and more as they examine the Sphinx and its relation to the other monuments of the Giza plateau. Working from the premise that the Giza complex encodes a message, they begin with recently discovered geological evidence indicating that the deep erosion patterns on the flanks of the Sphinx were caused by 1000 years of heavy rain. Such conditions last existed in Egypt at the end of the last ice age, about 10,000-9,000 B.C., meaning that the Sphinx may be more than 12,000 years old (not the generally accepted 4500 years).
“The authors go on to suggest, using computer simulations of the sky, that the pyramids, representing the three stars of Orion’s Belt, along with associated causeways and alignments, constitute a record in stone of the celestial array at the vernal equinox in 10,500 B.C. This moment, they contend, represents Zep Tepi, the “First Time,” often referred to in the hieroglyphic record. They show how the initiation rituals of the Egyptian pharaohs replicate on Earth the sun’s journey through the stars in this remote era, and they suggest that the “Hall of Records” of a lost civilization may be located by treating the Giza Plateau as a template of these same ancient skies. These daring, well-argued theories will raise the hackles of orthodox Egyptologists? But that doesn’t mean they’re wrong.”
-Publisher’s Weekly
Contents
Part I Enigmas
- Horizon Dweller
- The Riddle of the Sphinx
- Mystery Piled upon Mystery
- Stars and Time
Part II Seekers
- The Case of the Psychic, the Scholar and the Sphinx
- The Case of the Iron Plate, the Freemasons, the Relics and the Shafts
- The Case of the Robot, the Germans and the Door
Part III Duality
- The Clues of Duality
- The Sphinx and its Horizons
- The Quest of the Horus-King
Part IV Map
- The Unseen Academy
- Sages and "Followers"
- Following the Stars
- Space-Time Co-ordinates
- When the Sky Joined the Earth
- Message in a Bottle?
- 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
