The Egypt Code Read online

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Title Page

  Praise

  Acknowledgements

  Publisher’s Note

  Introduction

  CHAPTER ONE - The Star at the Head of the Sky

  Saqqara

  The Serdab

  Plough, Dipper or Thigh: It’s all in the Bear

  X Marks the Spot

  The Lady of the Stars

  Orion and Me

  Reconstruction

  CHAPTER TWO - The Quest for Eternity

  A Sense of Eternity

  The Flood

  The East and Dawn

  Year Zero: The Great Return

  The ‘Rebirth’ of Sirius

  The Heliacal Rising of Sirius

  Horus the Son of Osiris

  The Egyptian Phoenix: the Harbinger of Good Tidings

  The Oath of the Horus-King and the Calendar

  The Sothic Cycle and the Wall

  A Jubilee Centre for Eternity?

  The Genesis of the Sothic Cycles

  CHAPTER THREE - The Duat of Memphis

  Musical Chairs with Pyramids

  The Master Plan

  The Observatory of Eudoxus at Letopolis

  The Coalescing of Ra and Horakhti in the East

  The Lifeblood of Egypt

  The House of the Rising Sun

  The Zodiac

  The Image of ‘Horus-of-the-Horizon’

  As Above, So Below

  The Gates of the Duat

  A Journey into the Duat

  CHAPTER FOUR - As Above, So Below

  Looking South

  Explanation of the Third Kind

  A Boring Complication

  The Temples of Satis that followed Sirius

  Tracking Sirius Again: From Rameses II to Augustus Caesar

  Hungarians on Thoth Hill

  A Cosmic Order Fixed at the Time of Creation

  CHAPTER FIVE - The Return of the Phoenix

  The Kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt

  Unification of Earth and Sky

  Astronomical Grounds

  The Father of Archaeoastronomy

  Summer Solstice Sunset or Winter Solstice Sunrise?

  Waiting for the New Age

  Conflict

  The Break with Karnak

  CHAPTER SIX - Lord of Jubilees

  A Desolate Place

  The Great Return

  Distinguished in Jubilees

  The House of Rejoicing

  Jubilee Centres Ad Infinitum

  A Symphony of Light

  The ‘Jubilee Date’ at Giza

  The Hills of Sunrise

  CONCLUSION

  APPENDIX 1 - Running the Heb-sed

  APPENDIX 2 - On the Possible Discovery of Precessional Effects in Ancient Astronomy

  APPENDIX 3 - An Overview of the Orion Correlation Theory (OCT): Was the angle ...

  APPENDIX 4 - The Cosmic Order, the Egyptian Calendar and Christianity

  APPENDIX 5 - The Death of the Living God

  APPENDIX 6 - The Cattle People and the Stars

  APPENDIX 7 - The Lost Kingdom Of Yam: The Search for the Ancestors

  Notes

  Index

  Copyright Page

  For Michele . . .

  Also by Robert Bauval

  Secret Chamber

  The Orion Mystery (with Adrian Gilbert)

  The Message of the Sphinx (with Graham Hancock)

  The Mars Mystery (with Graham Hancock and John Grigsby)

  Talisman (with Graham Hancock)

  Academic Praise for The Orion Correlation Theory

  ‘The theory known as “The Orion correlation theory” was first

  proposed by Robert Bauval in his bestseller The Orion Mystery.

  According to this theory the disposition of the three Giza pyramids

  was inspired by the disposition in the sky of the three stars of

  Orion’s belt, a constellation connected to Osiris (and therefore to the

  after-world) which was extremely important to the Egyptians as

  attested in the Pyramid Texts. And although the validity of this

  theory is still disputed, it is at present the most convincing

  hypothesis aimed to explain the enigmatic and clearly not due to the

  simple chance disposition of the Giza pyramids.’

  Dr Giulio Magli,

  Professor of Applied Mathematics at Milano Politecnico

  ‘I am very much in agreement with your (Bauval’s) contention that the stars in Orion’s belt were an important element in the orientation of the Great Pyramid. I think you (Bauval) have made out a very convincing case that the two other pyramids were also influenced by it.’

  Sir I.E.S. Edwards, CMG, CBE, FBA, Curator of the Egyptian

  Antiquities Department (1947-74), British Museum

  ‘Mr Bauval has performed an important service in giving it (the Orion Correlation Theory) an airing. I’ve no doubt it will be criticised. It’s bound to be. Such things are when they start.’

  Sir I.E.S. Edwards, CMG, CBE, FBA, Curator of the Egyptian

  Antiquities Department (1947-74), British Museum

  ‘I have known Mr Bauval for many years and I have taken an interest in his astronomical studies insofar as they are related to the Giza pyramids. In my opinion he has made a number of interesting discoveries and I believe more are likely to come.’

  Sir I.E.S. Edwards, CMG, CBE, FBA, Curator of the Egyptian

  Antiquities Department (1947-74), British Museum

  ‘I was deeply interested in your recent presentations on astronomy in relation to the Pyramid Texts. You have shown the important role the three stars of Orion’s belt have had to the ancient Egyptians, especially attested in the south shafts in the King’s Chamber (of the Great Pyramid) as well as the important deliberate alignment of the three pyramids of Giza.’

  Jean Kerisel, Professeur Honoraire à l’Ecole Nationale des Ponts et

  Chaussées, President des Ingénieurs et Scientifiques de France

  All reasonable effort has been made to obtain official permissions to reproduce some of the above illustrations. Credit and thanks go to: Anne-Sophie Bomhard (Illus. 4); reproduced with the kind permission of David Jeffreys (Illus. 6); reproduced with the kind permission of IFAO (Illus. 7 & 8); reproduced with the kind permission of SFE and Sylvie Cauville (Illus. 9); Ron Wells (Illus. 10 & 11); EES (Illus. 12).

  Acknowledgements

  During the last twenty-five years my quest has been to bring to life again the old sky-religion of Egypt and to show how it inspired the Egyptians to turn their land into an ‘image of heaven’. I published the initial result of my findings in 1994 in The Orion Mystery which received the backing of the BBC2 Everyman documentary The Great Pyramid: Gateway to the Stars. In the course of the next few years three other books on the sky-religion of Egypt were to follow. The Egypt Code is the culmination of my quarter-century of research and I, therefore, decided to write it on location. And so, in February 2005, I moved into a rented apartment in the leafy suburb of Hadayek El Ahram, less than a kilometre from the Giza Pyramids. Armed with a good desktop computer with DSL Internet connection, and also a wide selection of Egyptological books and articles, I spent the next eight months putting into book form the research material that I had compiled over the many years while in the UK. Writing this genre of non-fiction is not an easy task, but thankfully I was constantly inspired by the sight of the Great Pyramid from my office window. I am not sure how one can thank an inert mass of stone that stares implacably at you all day and all night. But somehow I feel a strange sense of gratitude towards it.

  I would like to also thank the many colleagues and friends who help me
throughout my quest. My foremost thanks go to my wife, Michele, for her enduring patience, her tolerance and her unflinching support. It is not easy to live with a man whose mind is partly straddled in ancient Egypt. I also thank my two wonderful children, Candice and Jonathan, and to the former for making me in the course of researching this book a proud grandfather. I am grateful, too, to my brother, Jean-Paul, my twin sister, Thérèse, and my mother Yvonne for always being there when I needed them. I also thank the astronomers Mary Bruck (Edinburgh), Archie Roy (Glasgow), John Brown (Astronomer Royal for Scotland), Chandra Wickramasinghe (Cardiff), Percy Seymour (Plymouth) and Gulio Magli (Milan) for their collegial interest and their constructive criticism. The authors Graham Hancock (Bath), Colin Wilson (Devon), Ahmed Osman (London), John Gordon (Surrey), Michael Baigent (Bath), Robert Lomas (Bradford), Yuri Stoyanov (Jerusalem), Timothy Freke (Glastonbury) and John West (New York) for their friendship and helpful advice. My friends Khaled Abdel Bary (Giza), Hoda Hakim (Cairo), Roger Bilboul (London), Chafik and Racha Kotry (Alexandria), Mohamad and Nayra Ezzat (Alexandria), John and Josette Orphanidis (Athens), Gouda Fayed (Giza, Nazlet El Salman), Javier and Eva Sierra (Malaga), Adriano Forgione (Rome), Arianna Mendo (Torino), Sandro Mainardi (Florence), Roel Oostra (Hilversum), Andrea and Patrizia Vitussi (Trieste), Deborah Signoretti (Rome), Marilena Lancetti (Bologna), Linda and Max Bauval (Hawaii), Robert Berube (Quebec), Mark Scurry (Melbourne), and Sherif El Sebai (Helipolis), Mahmoud Marai (Maadi), Olfat Eltohamy (Heliopolis) for their much appreciated Egyptian warmth and their good humour. I want to express my deep debt of gratitude to my literary agents Bill Hamilton and Sara Fisher of A.M. Heath & Co. Ltd. who have always been there to encourage and advise me, and to listen to my enthusiastic rambles. The same gratitude also goes to my editor and friend in the USA, Gary Baddeley, for his patience, support and invaluable help. Finally I give thanks to all my readers, old and new, and hope that The Egypt Code will be as rewarding for them to read as it was for me to write.

  Robert G. Bauval

  Cairo, The Pyramids, April 2008

  Publisher’s Note

  It is my privilege to be allowed to write a few words at the beginning of a truly remarkable book by an equally remarkable man. While it is Robert Bauval to whom I owe thanks for allowing me these words, I must thank Graham Hancock for the route by which they arrived here.

  As many of you will know, Robert and Graham have written three books together: The Message of the Sphinx: A Quest for the Hidden Legacy of Mankind, The Mars Mystery: A Tale Of The End Of Two Worlds and Talisman: Sacred Cities, Secret Faith. They are a double act bar none, each a perfect foil for the other, in person as well as in their books. In 2005 Graham Hancock was true to his brave and pioneering spirit when he chose a new publisher in the United States for his groundbreaking new work, Supernatural: Meetings With The Ancient Teachers Of Mankind. I can only assume that we must have fulfilled at least some of his expectations when he (and I must include here also Bill Hamilton, who superbly shepherds Graham and Robert through the vicissitudes of publishing) recommended us to Robert Bauval.

  I first read The Egypt Code in early 2007 and was immediately intrigued by this tightly written account of Robert’s successful fifteen-year odyssey seeking to expand his famous Orion Correlation Theory into a comprehensive Star Correlation Theory. While I was able to strike up a good telephone and email conversation with Robert, in truth I really wanted to meet him in person before taking on the responsibility of becoming his American publisher.

  I was presented with an opportunity to do so in October of that year at the fourth annual Conference on Precession and Ancient Knowledge, held at the University of San Diego in California. There I learned that Bauval is both a compelling public speaker and a truly engaging personality, of the kind that effortlessly dominates a crowded room or dining table.

  It was here, too, that Robert first told me of his plans to organize an imperiously titled “Grand Gathering of Souls” at the foot of the Sphinx in Giza on the spring equinox of 2008. Lured by his vivid descriptions of hours of private time inside the Great Pyramid and an extraordinary chance to witness for myself the alignments of the various pyramids and temples of ancient Egypt that form the Grand Unified Plan laid out in this book, I proceeded to pursue Robert for the next few months, willing him to make the Gathering a reality.

  Just as the winners of Oscars at the Academy Awards struggle to recite complete lists of all the people whom they must thank for making their dreams come true, there were innumerable people who worked extraordinarily hard to make Robert’s dream of the Grand Gathering a reality, but it is impossible to name them all here! Nonetheless, special mention must go to Robert’s true partner in enabling the Gathering: Khaled Abdel Bary. A businessman with successful ventures around the world, Bary (as he encouraged us to call him) not only took on the financial risk of the undertaking, but also facilitated our very privileged access to buildings that are ordinarily off limits to even the most connected of visitors and locals alike. (If you ever visit Cairo you must visit his splendid restaurant, simply named Barry’s, with an unequaled view overlooking the Giza pyramids.)

  The tour would not only encompass the Memphite Necropolis but also feature a Nile cruise through Upper Egypt, from Aswan to Luxor. Bearing in mind that I would likely never again have an opportunity to see Egypt in such erudite company, I took my wife and two children to join Robert, his wife Michele and daughter Candice (who helped organize the tour), Graham Hancock and his wife Santha Faiia, and twenty or so others on this aptly named Grand Gathering of Souls.

  Rather than gush over each and every detail of a packed itinerary, I humbly suggest to you that if you enjoy this book, you owe it to yourself to try to get to Egypt for the next of what is planned to be a series of similar tours on the equinox and solstice dates - and live the book with Robert and others who undoubtedly will have their own extraordinary insights and contributions. (Naturally, it is a self-selecting group of individuals who will invest the time, effort and money to be there.) The website to visit for more information is at www.robertbauval.co.uk.

  I very much hope you will enjoy The Egypt Code as much as I did … and eventually find your way to Egypt to see for yourself the evidence that Robert lays out within these pages.

  Gary Baddeley, publisher

  Introduction

  What are the pyramids for?!!

  Emma Freud BBC2 Everyman documentary The Great Pyramid:

  Gateway to the stars December 1993

  This king is Osiris, this pyramid of this king is Osiris, this construction of his is Osiris …

  Pyramid Texts 1657

  Behold, he has come as Orion, Osiris has come as Orion …

  Pyramid Texts 820

  Cosmic Ambience

  What are Egypt’s Old Kingdom pyramids for? What possible purpose could they have had? Why do they have low tunnels, long narrow shafts leading nowhere, and corridors, galleries and chambers that are stark and empty? Why were they astronomically aligned to the stars? Why are they scattered in clusters along a 40 kilometre strip of desert? And, more intriguingly, why are some devoid of texts while others have their walls fully covered with texts that speak of the cycles of the sun and the stars? Until very recently the standard theory dished out by Egyptologists was that the pyramids were tombs, large sepulchres principally meant to house the body of dead kings. As for their elaborate internal systems of tunnels, shafts, corridors and chambers, these were intended to mainly to confuse and outsmart tomb-robbers, while their astronomical alignments were either meaningless or just a fluke. Amazingly, such views went mostly unchallenged for nearly two centuries, this in spite of the maddening detail that no bodies of kings (not a skeleton or skull or even a bone splinter) was ever found inside a pyramid or, for that matter, outside it. And more maddening still, no one had an explanation why, if they were ‘tombs’, these pyramids were not placed into a single well-defined cemetery but instead were scattered in small clusters in a vast desert plain west
of the River Nile like strange volcanic islands in a sea of sand. Yet, oddly enough, the clues that suggested a much higher purpose than just ‘tombs’ were plentiful and always there for all to see and evaluate. And these clues screamed of a connection with the stars. For example:1. The base of each pyramid was aligned to the astronomical directions using star alignments.

  2. The largest of the pyramids contained ‘air-shafts’ oriented towards important star systems such as Orion, Sirius and the circumpolar constellations (viz. the pyramid of Khufu at Giza).