The Blazing Star of the Nile: Egyptian Stellar Template Gary A. David As above, so below. Most of us have probably heard this hermetic epigram before, or at least the biblical version of it: on earth as it is in heaven. Robert Bauval and Adrian Gilbert tried to prove its verity in their 1994 bestseller The Orion Mystery. In what became known as the Orion Correlation Theory, the co-authors posited an ancient unified ground plan in which the pyramids at Giza form the pattern of Orion s belt. According to their entire configuration described here in the briefest terms, the Great Pyramid (Khufu, Fourth Dynasty) represents Alnitak, the middle pyramid (Khafra, Fourth Dynasty) represents Alnilam, and the slightly offset smaller pyramid (Menkaura, Fourth Dynasty) represents Mintaka.1 In addition, two ruined pyramids one at Abu Ruwash (Djedefra, Fourth Dynasty) to the north and another at Zawyat Al Aryan (Teti, Third Dynasty) to the south respectively correlate to the Saiph (Orion s right foot) and Bellatrix (Orion s left shoulder). Farther south the three main pyramids at Abusir (Sahure, Niuserre, Neferirkare, Fifth Dynasty) correspond to the triangular head of Orion, Meissa. Bauval and Gilbert also believe that the pyramids at Dashur namely, the Red Pyramid and the Bent Pyramid (both Sneferu, first pharaoh of the Fourth Dynasty) represent the Hyades stars of Aldebaran and Epsilon Taurus respectively. The Meidum pyramid (Huni, Third Dynasty) located 45 kilometers south of the Bent Pyramid could possibly correspond to the Pleiades (Seven Sisters). It was first built as a seven-layer step pyramid, but Sneferu later added casing stones in a botched attempt to create a true pyramid with 1 smooth sides. The primary ceremonial center for worship the creator/sun god Atum-Ra was Heliopolis, which the ancient Egyptians called Anu, and the Hebrews in the Bible referred to as On. Located northeast of Giza on the eastern side of the Nile but now surrounded by a suburb of Cairo, this sacred site corresponds either to Regulus, the heart of the fiery lion constellation Leo, or to the summer solstice sunrise point. As Robert Bauval remarks in his book The Egypt Code: It is beyond any doubt that the astronomer-priests of Heliopolis observed in particular the dawn rising of Orion and Canis Major, which took place at the start of the flood season, and equated these astral deities to Osiris and Isis [Asar and Sopdet], the harbingers of rebirth and regeneration. The question must arise, therefore, as to whether or not they observed with which constellation the sun coalesced at this crucial time of year. To be more precise, did the ancient stargazers of Egypt take heed that the summer solstice occurred in the constellation Leo? It would seem very odd if they didn t. 2 In this celestial-terrestrial pattern, Letopolis, which is located due west across the Nile from Heliopolis and due north of the Great Pyramid at Giza, is correlated with Sirius in Canis Major, the most brilliant star in the sky. Letopolis, whose Egyptian name is Sekhem or simply Khem, was the seat of worship for Horus the Elder (Heru-ur).3 Bauval comments on the early role of Horus, as opposed to the later son of Osiris and Isis. From various inscriptions related to the socalled domains and estates of 1st- and 2nd-Dynasty kings, it is obvious that Horus was not, as many Egyptologists insist even now, a solar god in early times, but rather a stellar god, likely representing the bright star Sirius. 4 Some scholars conjecture that an astronomical observatory tower once stood at Letopolis.5 This sacred city was also associated with thunderbolts or meteorites, and that some sort of nocturnal fire offerings was made there. 6 The city of Memphis, reputedly constructed by the First Dynasty pharaoh Menes in about 3000 BC, corresponds to Zeta Tauri, the tip of the left horn of the bull Taurus. Five kilometers to the northwest is the Step Pyramid at Saqqara, constructed in the Third Dynasty by the pharaoh Djoser. One-half kilometer further northwest is the Serapeum, the ceremonial burial ground of the sacrificed Apis bulls (Serapis or Osiris-Apis). Thus, we see the stellar influence of Taurus projected onto the earth. As Gilbert states in his later book Signs in the Sky: It was Bauval s contention that the part of the Milky Way which interested the Egyptians most was the region that runs from the star Sirius along the constellation of Orion on up towards Taurus. This region of the sky seemed to correspond, in the Egyptian mind at least, to the area of the Memphite necropolis, that is to say the span of Old Kingdom burial grounds stretching along the west bank of the Nile from Dashur to Giza and down to Abu Ruwash. At the centre of this area was Giza; this, he determined, was the earthly equivalent of Rostau (Mead s Rusta), the gateway to the Duat or underworld. 7 In a book entitled The Message of the Sphinx, Robert Bauval and co-author Graham Hancock describe the cosmic journey of the Horus-King, or son of the Sun, to the underworld: He is now at the Gateway to Rostau and about to enter the Fifth Division [Hour] of the Duat the holy of 2 holies of the Osirian afterworld Kingdom. Moreover, he is presented with a choice of two ways or roads to reach Rostau: one which is on land and the other in water . 8 If we consider Thoth s well-known proclamation that Egypt is the image of heaven, and the whole Cosmos dwells there, 9 the watery road to the Duat would correspond to the Nile River/Milky Way whereas the earthly road would be the ceremonial pathways from the previously mentioned sacred sites of Heliopolis and Letopolis. To this, Egyptologist Mark Lehner adds: The word for Netherworld was Duat, often written with a star in the circle, a reference to Orion, the stellar expression of Osiris, in the Underworld. Osiris was the Lord of the Duat, which, like the celestial world (and the real Nile Valley) was both a water world and an earthly realm. 10 Bauval describes the scenario. The apotheosis of the rebirth ritual (prosaically call the funeral by Egyptologists) took place, according to my own thesis, at the temple of RaHorakhti in Heliopolis. In my mind I see the cortege bearing the king s embalmed corpse place on a boat or ferry (a splendid example of such a solar boat is displayed at Giza) and made to travel from the sun temples at Abu Ghorab along the prescribed solar path, then across the Nile and towards the sanctuary of the phoenix at Heliopolis. There the king s mummy would await the (re)birth of RaHorakhti , which took place at dawn on the day of the heliacal rising of Sirius. 11 3 Regulus in Leo rests on the horizon as Sirius in Canis Major achieves its heliacal rising. Orion hovers above Sirius. The sun is about 10° below the horizon. Ra-Horakhti refers to Horus of the Horizon, which in this case is Leo the celestial lion of the zodiac resting sphinx-like on the horizon in order to guard the eastern gate, while Sirius rises on the summer solstice (i.e. New Year s Day) just a few minutes before the solar disk. At the same time the annual flooding of the Nile begins. (See star chart of 3100 BC above.) We recall that Heliopolis was the site of the Primeval Mound of Creation. When the waters of the abyss began to recede, Atum-Ra in the form of a solar lion or sphinx rose. 12 The Bennu bird then alighted on the meteoric benben stone in the Temple of the Phoenix, initiating the Sothic cycles of 1,460 years each. Niuserre s sun temple at Abu Ghorab is located between Zawyat Al Aryan (Orion s shoulder) and Abusir (Orion s head). Lehner comments on the latter site: Several places in Egypt are named Abusir. The Arabic word derives from the Greek name Busiris, which in turn stems from the ancient Egyptian, Per Wsir, Place of Osiris the multiple Abusirs reflecting the myth of the murder of Osiris, whose body was cut into pieces and buried and different places. 13 Of course, the Pyramid Texts, Book of the Dead, the Coffins Texts, etc. identify the resurrection god Osiris with the constellation Orion. Author William Henry has noted the presence of a quartz crystal platform at Abu Ghorab in front of where an obelisk once stood. This eight-sided stone mandala is aligned to the four directions. He also discusses a number of round stone basins that appear to be machine-tooled, with gear-like notches in some and large, perfectly round holes in others.14 Large quantities of 4 mica, which has piezoelectric properties, has been found onsite, similar to the mica present at the Sun Pyramid at Teotihuacan in Mexico. As the rites of the Egyptian Mysteries performed for the deceased pharaoh in the Temple of the Phoenix were concluded, the mummy would have been carried west of Heliopolis, ferried across the Nile in the bark of millions of years to the Land of the Dead on the west bank, and then taken to Letopolis 16.7 kilometers due west of Heliopolis. Letopolis was the home of the priesthood responsible for the Opening of the Mouth ceremony that was performed on the king s mummy. It was also the home of the four sons of Horus who, in the Pyramid Texts, are said to assist the dead king s ascent to the stars. 15 The tool, called peseshkaf, used to perform this ritual that supposedly imparted the breath of life (hikê) was an adze made of meteoric iron called bja. It was in fact shaped like the Big Dipper (or Plough or Great Bear) constellation, which the Egyptians referred to as Mesekhtiu, literally, bull s thigh. As previously stated, Letopolis is due north of Giza. Thus, standing atop the Great Pyramid one could see the Big Dipper hovering over where the Letopolitan astronomical tower would be, nearly 17 kilometers away. It is reasonable that torches lit on top of the tower would have been visible from Giza. The ancient Egyptians called the circumpolar stars the Imperishable Ones. Hovering about 30° above the horizon, Thuban (Alpha Draconis) was the North Star in 2835 BC. Notice the inner edge of the Big Dipper (Megrez above and Phecda below) is parallel to the meridian and perpendicular to the horizon. The final leg of the pharaoh s funeral procession would have been the land road the route due south from Letopolis to the Great Pyramid. Many modern hypotheses regarding the function of this gargantuan structure point to some sort of sophisticated machine or power plant designed 5 to produce subtle energy from telluric or atmospheric currents. On the other hand, Robert Bauval suggests the astronomical alignments, particularly the so-called airshafts (in reality, star shafts), aided the metaphysical transformation of the pharaoh s mummy into a god-like sidereal entity. A powerful and elaborate sky religion centered on the rebirth of kings among the stars gradually developed around, or at least fundamentally intertwined with, this one vital astronomical observation [namely, the heliacal rising of Sirius on summer solstice]. It would also lead to the design and construction of resurrection machines in the form of the great pyramid complexes of the Old Kingdom, whose ultimate function was to bring about the transfiguration of the king s lifeless body into a living star in the sky. 16 The Great Pyramid, then, perhaps served as a scale model of the Duat, or Halls of Amenti, where the rituals described in various versions of the Book of the Dead were performed. The ba, or soul, in the form of a human-headed hawk perched upon a pylon, watching the jackal-headed Anubis weigh the soul s heart on the scales against Maat, the feather of Truth. Ibis-headed Thoth, god of wisdom, writing, and mathematics, recorded the verdict. If found wanting, the heart was devoured by Ammit, a creature with the head of a crocodile, body of a lion, and hindend of hippopotamus. If the soul was found virtuous and balanced with Maat, the initiate was brought before enthroned Osiris, who held a flail and a crock, and in some depictions a was scepter symbolizing dominion or power. Osiris was backed by his sister/wife and sister-in-law, Isis and Nephthys respectively. The soul was thus essentially home-free in eternity. E. A. Wallis Budge distinguishes between the rewards of the sun god Ra and those of the resurrection god Osiris/Orion. The Egyptians regarded R as the provider for their existence in this world, and Osiris as the cause and source of their lives in the next. It was, as the monuments show, their duty to make offerings to the gods of their country and to honour the local god, but the wise man, in accepting the gifts of R , lived his life in such a way as to secure the acquittal of his soul at the trial to which it would be subjected in the Judgment Hall of Osirirs. 17 An apocryphal text titled The Emerald Tablets of Thoth the Atlantean was reputedly translated by Dr. M. Doreal. The preface to this hermetic opus states the following: The history of the tablets translated in the following pages is strange and beyond the belief of modern scientists. Their antiquity is stupendous, dating back some 36,000 years B.C. The writer is Thoth, an Atlantean Priest-King, who founded a colony in ancient Egypt after the sinking of the mother country. He was the builder of the Great Pyramid of Giza, erroneously attributed to Cheops. In it he incorporated his knowledge of the ancient wisdom and also securely secreted records and instruments of ancient Atlantis. For some 16,000 years, he ruled the ancient race of Egypt, from approximately 52,000 B.C. to 36,000 B.C. At that time, the ancient barbarous race among which he and his followers had settled had been raised to a high degree of civilization. Thoth was an immortal, that is, he had conquered death, passing only when he willed and even then not through death. His vast wisdom made him ruler over the various Atlantean colonies, including the ones in South and Central America. When the time came for him to leave Egypt, he erected the Great Pyramid over the entrance to the Great Halls of Amenti, placed in it his records, and appointed guards for his secrets from among the highest of his people. In later times, the descendants of these guards became the pyramid priests, by which Thoth was deified as the God of Wisdom, The Recorder, by those in the age of darkness which followed his passing. In legend, 6 the Halls of Amenti became the underworld, the Halls of the gods, where the soul passed after death for judgment. 18 Scenes from the Papyrus of Ani in The Egyptian Book of the Dead. As we view the template of the Egyptian Star Correlation, we see various body parts of Orion/Osiris scattered across the pyramid field, as well as sites corresponding to Taurus, Gemini, 7 Leo, and Canis Major. A five-pointed star, which is the hieroglyphic symbol of asterisms in general, takes shape in the desert. In the lore of Freemasonry, many sources refer to Sirius as the Blazing Star. This pentagonal figure, depicted in every lodge and acknowledged in every initiation ceremony in the world, represents the more evolved human qualities of prudence, foresight, supreme reason, and omniscience symbolically, the fiery eye of the pyramid, most recently depicted, with some irony, on the back of the U.S. one-dollar bill. In his tome Morals and Dogma, Albert Pike suggests that Sirius was the star that the Magi followed to the location of the Nativity. (Many scholars have associated these three kings with Orion s belt.) The Star which guided them is that same Blazing Star, the image whereof we find in all initiations. To the Alchemists it is the sign of the Quintessence; to the Magists, the Grand Arcanum; to the Kabalists, the Sacred Pentagram. The study of this Pentagram could not but lead the Magi to the knowledge of the New Name which was about to raise itself above all names, and cause all creatures capable of adoration to bend the knee. 19 8 Inside the star template projected on the Egyptian desert is a nearly perfect square that can be conceptualized as a two-dimensional pyramid. The apex of this pyramid, which is halfway between Giza and Heliopolis rests on Gezira Island in the Nile, less than two kilometers northwest of the Egyptian Museum and Tahrir Square. In ancient times this strategic location was possibly a site of ceremonial importance. We see that if the two diagonal lines of the square are extended northward, they frame the Nile Delta quite precisely, with Alexandria to the west and Port Said to the east on the Mediterranean. The latter site is where the Suez Canal meets the Mediterranean. Plutarch claims that both the birthplace and grave of Osiris was located at Busiris (Pa-Asar), located 116 kilometers north of Saqarra. But Eudoxus states that though there are many socalled Tombs in Egypt, yet that the true monument was erected at Busiris, for that was the birthplace of Osiris; for thy; name Taphosiris requires no explanation since the name itself means Tomb of Osiris. 20 Greek mathematician Eudoxus of Cnidus (408 BC 355 BC) made celestial observations for a few years around 370 BC at the aforementioned astronomical tower of Letopolis. The ancient port city of Canopus (called Peguat by the Egyptians) may in the stellar template correspond to Canopus, the second brightest star in the heavens after Sirius, located in the constellation Carina. The late author Philip Coppens comments on the historical importance of this prosperous port. The first mention of Canopus as a town is made by Aeschylus as the place where Io arrived. Herodotus wrote about Herakleion and its temple dedicated to Hercules. The sites were named in Greek tragedies and they form the setting for the Greek myth of Menelaus, king of Sparta, who stopped in Herakleion during his return from Troy with his wife Helena. It was an island off the coast near Canopus that was called the Island of Helen, after Helen of Troy. It was here that his helmsman Canopus was bitten by a viper and subsequently transformed into a god. Canopus and his wife Menouthis were immortalised by two cities that bore their names. Authors such as Strabo described the geographic location of the cities and their rich lifestyle, while others, such as Seneca, condemned their moral corruption. They were suburbs of Alexandria and seem to have been the antique equivalent of what Las Vegas was for Los Angeles: a place to relax And just like Las Vegas, though very close to Alexandria, Canopus was administratively independent of the Egyptian capital. 21 9 10 Corresponding to the star Regulus in Leo, Heliopolis is perhaps the primum datum, or key geomantic locus from which an ancient grid system was laid out. At this sacred city the earliest obelisk erected in Egypt still stands 120 tons of red granite rising 67 feet high. Sunusret I (aka Sosostris aka Usertsen), the second pharaoh of the 12 th Dynasty (1971 1926 BC), commissioned it for his jubilee sed celebration commemorating the 30th year of his reign. He refurbished the Temple of Atum-Ra but also fortified the cult of Osiris at Heliopolis. This expansionist ruler sent a garrison south into Nubia in order to establish the southern border of Egypt near the Second Cataract, where he erected a victory stele at Buhen. He exerted control over the land of Kush from the Second to the Third Cataract, and his name was been found on the island of Argo (near modern-day Dongola in northern Sudan). In addition, he established diplomatic relations with Canaan and Syria, even as far north as the city of Ugarit, which may explain the northeastward vector into the Levant, which we shall subsequently examine. 22 Sunusret s tomb pyramid is located 34.5 kilometers south of the Step Pyramid at Saqqara, being three-quarters of one degree east of due south (179.25° azimuth). 11 12 If the Blazing Star becomes the apex of a larger pyramid with a perimeter of 1,000 kilometers (250 k.) on each side, then the diagonals can be extended to four significant points at approximate azimuths of 45°, 135°, 225°, and 315°. It is certainly more than a coincidence that the line between the Great Pyramid at Giza and Heliopolis forms the hypotenuse of a right triangle that is oriented to the cardinal directions. In his book Axis Mundi, Bradbury Cort Lindahl extends this 45-degree vector from Giza via Heliopolis to the megalithic site of Baalbek in Lebanon a total of 655 kilometers (407 miles). The spatial relationship of the Great Pyramid of Giza and the Hexagon of Baalbek may have been the earliest model for the grid of latitude and longitude that is used today on maps and globes. The positions and orientation of both structures display the near-perfect dimensions of the hypotenuse of the rectangle of lat/long that separate the two sites. 23 The more ancient portion of Baalbek was built with some of the largest stone blocks ever cut in the world. Extracted and hauled from a quarry many miles away, these megaliths, some weighing more than 1,000 tons, had been lifted 22 feet above ground level and fitted so that a knife-blade could not be inserted between them much like the Great Pyramid. The gigantic stones form a substructure almost 300 yards long, serving as an artificial acropolis upon which the later temples were built. The name Baalbek means Lord of the Bekaa, referring to the valley in which it sits. Under the rule of the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt, it was called Heliopolis, perhaps reflecting the namesake of the sun temple located in a suburb of modern-day Cairo. Romans subsequently erected a Temple of Jupiter that included 84 granite columns soaring 65 feet tall. Imported from Aswan in Upper Egypt, this granite was the same material that was used in the King s Chamber of the Great Pyramid.24 Lindahl also mentions that a line extended from Giza via Heliopolis and Baalbek traverses saline Lake Van and terminates at Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey, the spot where Noah s Ark reputedly came to rest.25 Scholar Andrew Collins speculates that this area may have been the home of the biblical Watchers. 13 Did the Garden of Eden, the birthplace of the human race, as well as the seven heavens visited by Enoch, once exist in the vicinity of Lake Van? Very possibly. Armenian legend asserts that the Garden of Eden now lies at the bottom of Lake Van , after it was submerged beneath the waves at the time of the Great Flood. What is more, the lake is also connected with the descendants of Noah. On the lake s west bank is the province of Tarawan, where, according to the fifth-century AD Armenian historian Moses of Khorenats i, Noah s son Sem (Shem) had settled temporarily after the Ark had come to rest on the mountains of Ararat. 26 The south-eastward vector of 135° leads to the Kaaba in Mecca. Similar to the benben stone in the Temple of the Phoenix at Heliopolis, the eastern cornerstone of the Kaaba at the center the Grand Mosque (axis mundi) in Mecca holds the Black Stone reputedly a meteorite encased in a silver frame. Legends say it fell to earth in order to show Adam where to build the world s first altar. However, the south-eastwardly trending line that runs from Letopolis to Mecca for nearly 1,300 kilometers is more exactly 136.06° azimuth. If we extend a line from Letopolis at a 135.30° azimuth for 2,184.5 kilometers, we directly arrive at Awwam, the so-called Temple of the Moon. This is speculated to have been the fabled Temple of Sheba, also known as the Mahram Bilqis near the town of Ma rib in Yemen. Canadian archaeologist Bill Glanzman has measured this ovoid structure at 314.3 feet across. Its walls at one time rose to 53 feet high, enclosing an area 54,960 square feet two times the 14 size of the Parthenon. Author, archaeologist, and filmmaker Nicholas Clapp visited the Yemeni site when kidnapping of Western tourists was common but before jihadists made such a trip suicidal. Open to the sky, this stone structure may have served as a Sabean star-gazing platform. Ricardo [a member of Clapp s team] thought the wall might be defensive, as befits the name Awwam, place of refuge. I wondered if it might have served to block out the view of surrounding mountains, so that priests and pilgrims would gaze toward the heavens and the passage of the gods of the sun, moon, and stars. If that were the case, the temple could have functioned as a Sabean astronomical-astrological observatory. Clapp further speculates that the enclosure might have contained a sacred pool, a prototype of the sacred cube at Mecca, or even the tomb of the legendary queen herself. Near the ellipse a labyrinth of mausoleums was unearthed, containing thousands of shrouded burials. 27 Some believe the structure may have been built between the 7 th and 5th centuries BC by Mukarrib ( ruler ) Yada`'il Dharih.28 This post-dates by a few centuries the biblical Solomon and Sheba, circa 950 BC. However, southern Arabian script found nearby has recently been dated back to 1200 BC. Clapp contends that Awwam was constructed perhaps when Sheba was coregent during the reign of either Dhamar alay A (970 BC 955 BC) or his son Yakrubmalik A (955 BC 940 BC).29 The temple-complex was part of a man-made oasis called the Garden of Two Paradises a reference to the dams that once made possible a sophisticated irrigation system. The site encompassed over 250 acres and could possibly support a population of 20,000 or more. In the 1980s German archaeologist Jürgen Schmidt determined that the amount of deposited silt there indicated the artificial irrigation system had been used as early as 3200 BC and certainly well in place by 2400 BC.30 This suggests that the ancient Egyptians may have known about the lush region, given that the Punt expedition of pharaoh Sahure took place about 2480 BC. In his fine book The Lost City of Solomon and Sheba, Robin Brown-Lowe draws a parallel between Awwam and Great Zimbabwe in the country formerly known as Rhodesia. The most startling comparison of all is, of course, the temple of Awwam, buried in the desert at the ancient Sabaean capital of Marib in Yemen. It is a great stone ellipse, of a size, shape, system of curved walls, and orientation practically indistinguishable from Great Zimbabwe s Elliptical Building or temple. Great Zimbabwe has two rows of chevron patterns round a fourth part of the main wall. A pattern in the stone on the Marib wall is identically positioned. Inscribed walls at both sites are well built, while the reverse faces are rough. The two temples are both the product of gold-rich societies. 31 Thus, the ultimate lure for ancient Egypt may have been gold rather than spices. Incidentally, the Great Pyramid and the Great Zimbabwe are nearly on the same meridian. The longitude of GP is 31° 08 02 E; the longitude of GZ is 30° 56 03 E a difference of about 12 minutes of arc. In other words, Great Zimbabwe is just 13.8 statute miles (22.2 kilometers) west of the Great Pyramid but 3,455 miles (5,560 kilometers) south of it. The so-called Temple of the Moon at Ma rib, or Ilumqah (also referred to as Almaqah), may have been dedicated instead to the solar god. This deity associated with a bull s head and the vine motif points to the Dionysian archetype a warrior figure wielding a sickle-shaped weapon.32 Returning to our Blazing Star of Egypt, we find that the northwestward vector points to the island of Crete, near the Minoan site of Phaistos and a spot just west of Knossos. (If this 315° azimuth line is extended father northwest, it passes within 75 kilometers of Rome, and, as Lindahl has noted, ends at the Tower of Pisa in Italy.33) The Minoan culture began about the same time as the unification of Egypt, circa 3100 BC. The artifacts archaeologists have found 15 include copper double-axes, which are a symbol of Orion (Osiris), and terracotta figurines of the Earth Goddess (proto-Isis). Unfortified palaces began to be built in Phaistos, Knossos, and Mallia about 2000 BC. Interior rooms were arranged around central hypostyle halls similar to those in Egyptian temples. Polychrome pottery in the Kamares style (named after a cave in which some of the artifacts were found) was decorated with naturalistic designs, such as flowers, plants, stars, fish, dolphins, spirals, etc. Some of these vases were unearthed in Egyptian tombs, proving a direct trade link between the two cultures. The spontaneous naturalism of the pottery extended to vividly colored fresco murals found in the palaces. One Minoan custom that may have had religious connotations was bull-leaping. Athletic acrobats, both male and female, would grab the horns of the bull and fearlessly somersault over the animal. These horns of consecration may ultimately be related to the Memphis Apis (bull) cult previously mentioned.34 Cyclopean stones at Baalbek, Lebanon. 16 Square columns at Awwam, Yemen. Photo courtesy of Bernard Gagnon, 1986. 17 Phaistos Disk from Crete. The hieroglyphic-like symbols that are arranged in a spiral have not been deciphered. The final vector between Heliopolis and the Great Pyramid ranges southwest at the azimuth of 225°. It passes north of Gilf Kebir, a plateau containing numerous examples of pre-Dynastic rock art, and Unwainat, a circular mountain range on the borders of Egypt, Libya, and Sudan. This region contains the so-called Libyan Desert Glass (LDG) thousands of tons of greenish-yellow glass scattered across the Great Sand Sea. Prehistoric people used the shiny material for sharp-edged tools and jewelry. A stunning pectoral once worn by Tutankhamen has at its center a scarab exquisitely carved from the glass. LDG is extremely pure 98% silica. Some believe it was created by the one or more meteorites, or a meteor that detonated above the ground similar to the 1908 Tunguska aerial burst in Siberia. Within the last decade Dr. Farouk El-Baz of Boston University recognized from satellite photos of the area a double-ringed crater 31 kilometers in diameter the largest in the Sahara. He suggests that the desert was impacted by a meteor measuring as large as the entire Barringer Crater in Arizona (1.2 kilometers across). Thus, he named it Kebira ( large ) Crater, which he believes may have been responsible for the LDG. However, El-Baz did not actually do any fieldwork to confirm his hypothesis. As a result, other scientists contend that the crater was not caused by meteoric impact but instead by hydrothermal or volcanic processes. Alternative researcher David Hatcher Childress claims that a nuclear war in ancient times, as described in the Hindu text the Mahabharata, may have vitrified the sand into glass.35 18 Tutankhamen s pectoral with scarab carved from Libyan Desert Glass. Note triad (Orion s belt?) in crescent above, probably Thoth and Horus flanking Osiris. 19 Kebira Crater, along eastern border of Libya. Robert Bauval in his book Black Genesis, co-authored by Thomas Brophy, Ph.D., speculates on the origin of the proto-Egyptian culture. Although the answer is still unclear, all the evidence points to the possibility that the Kiffian and Tenere of Niger, the Napta Playa pastoralists, and the precattle and cattle herders of Gilf Kebir and Uwainat all had a common ancestor source in the Tibesti-Ennedi region on Chad. The evidence to date compels us to conclude that the original sub-Saharan Black race that first settled in the Chad highlands subsequently gave rise to the cattle people of the lower Sahara, who, in turn, spawned the great Egyptian civilization when they finally migrated into the Nile Valley as the Sahara became superarid. All the evidence seems to point to a northward spreading of a Black African people from the Chad highlands into the green Sahara during the humid period that started around 12,000 BCE. These people, it seemed, roamed the vast open spaces in search of water and grazing grounds as they gradually changed their habits from hunters to pastoralists. This conversion caused them also to change their appearance and traditions, and it contributed to them acquiring an increasingly complex knowledge of astronomy and navigation which were all imposed on them by the changing climate and the gradual drying of the Sahara. 36 The Kiffians were tall hunters of the lush Saharan savannah who lived 8,000 to 10,000 years ago, followed by the Tenere, who were cattle-herders and fishermen. About one hundred miles west of Aswan in the Sahara Desert lay Napta Playa, possibly the oldest astronomical observatory in the world. Only 10 to 11 feet in diameter, this megalithic calendar circle has a 20 north/south line-of-sight as well as a summer solstice sunrise alignment. According to former NASA physicist Thomas G. Brophy, Ph.D., three stones inside the circle mirror the pattern of Orion s belt at the meridian for this season during the period 6,400 BC to 4900 BC. Three other interior stones represent the shoulders and head of the constellation for the astoundingly early date of 16,500 BC. Another set of megaliths south of the circle aligns to the vernal equinox heliacal rising in 6300 BC of six key stars in Orion (Alnitak, Alnilam, Mintaka, Betelgeuse, Bellatrix, and Meissa). This vernal equinox heliacal rising happens only once per precessional cycle (nearly 26,000 years). The southwestern vector (225° azimuth) runs between the Tibesti Mountains and the faunarich Ennedi Plateau. At the southeastern edge of the former massif, a snow-dusted volcanic cone with two nested calderas named Emi Koussi is the highest elevation in the Sahara. An extension of the southwestwardly trending line traverses Lake Chad on the southwestern border of Chad and the northeastern border of Nigeria. Extend the line another eleven hundred kilometers, and we arrive at an intriguing destination. Professor Catherine Acholonu, Ph.D. (1951 2014) comments: Robert Bauval s Black Genesis: Prehistoric: Origins of Ancient Egypt co-authored with Thomas Brophy demonstrated conclusively that ancient Egyptians were West Africans who migrated into Egypt from the Chad area. Chad has a direct boundary with Nigeria. Had Bauval and Brophy continued their search beyond Chad, they would have found ample evidence of the true land of the ancient Egyptians in Nigeria, for it was the Niger, and not the Nile that was the source of Egyptian civilization. 37 The southwestward vector originates from Heliopolis, transects the Great Pyramid, passes south of the Tibesti Mountains, transects Lake Chad, passes through eastern Nigeria, and terminates at the port city of Oron (orthographically similar to Orion ). Well beyond the scope of this essay would be a detailed discussion of the late Professor Acholonu s primary thesis: i.e. Nigeria is the root civilization that eventually branched off into most of the major cultures in the world, including Sumer, Egypt, and the Indus River Valley. (See in particular her final book in the African Renaissance Series, Eden In Sumer on the Niger, cited below.) 21 Professor Acholonu states that the original Duat, or underworld, was located in the village of Lejja, also recently determined to be the oldest iron ore-smelting site in the world (circa 2000 BC).38 In the midst of the slag pile is a hole in the ground referred to as Onu, or Mouth of the Earth. Note the similarity between this Igbo word and the Egyptian word for Heliopolis, Anu. The reason for the villagers claim that the hole in the shrine leads into a bottomless pit, is because nothing that falls into the pit ever makes a falling sound, nor is ever seen again. It is a place of utter darkness and eerie silence. In this tiny Nigerian village there is even a dilapidated model of the conical Egyptian benben stone made of mud and round blocks of iron slag.39. It was here, not the Siwa Oasis in Libya, where Acholonu believes that Alexander the Great journeyed to the Land of the Dead and encountered the spirits of a number of deceased historical figures. It is said that travelling through the region of Waters of Life and the Niger Delta in Eden, Alexander the Great (first half of the first millennium B.C.) entered a royal city called Shamar on his way to the Gate of the terrestrial Paradise! We think that the existence of an ancient city in South-Eastern Nigeria by the name Shamar (an obvious cognate of the words Shumer and Sumer), is a confirmation of our already established thesis that ancient Sumer, the original home of the refugees of Babylon and Mesopotamia who settled in the Middle East, was ancient Nigeria. There are so many versions of Alexander s journey and all agree that he entered the Underworld Paradise, at least for a short while, and that there he saw a starlit haze, and the rooftops were shining, as if lit by stars. The eternal forms of the gods were physically manifest; a crowd was serving (them) in silence. He saw some reclining figures whose eyes were shining like beams of light. Among the beings whom the texts claim that Alexander saw were King Sosostris, an African world conqueror, Serapis or Dionysius (a name for Osiris), Enoch and Elijah. 40 Sosostris (or Senusret) is, of course, the 12 th Dynasty pharaoh discussed above. We recall that he the erected the obelisk at Heliopolis and also made forays south into Nubia and Sudan and north into the Levant. But who was he and whence did he hail? Fortunately we have sculptures of the ruler. 22 This powerful sovereign certainly does not display a Mediterranean or Middle Eastern physiognomy but in fact clearly shows black or Negroid characteristics. Was he born far south of Heliopolis in Nubia or the Kushite Kingdom in Sudan? Or did he originate in Western Africa where, Professor Acholonu claims, a major civilization flourished after the end of the Ice Age? Until the mummy of Sosostris I is DNA-tested, these questions will remain in the realm of speculation. In this essay we have seen that the Egyptian Star Correlation projected on the desert near modern-day Cairo is comprised of four key constellations: 1. Orion (Giza pyramids = belt stars; Abu Ruwash = Saiph; Zawyat Al Aryan = Bellatrix; Abusir = Meissa) 2. Canis Major (Sirius = Letopolis) 3. Leo (Regulus = Heliopolis) and 4. Gemini (Pollux and Castor = the limestone quarries of Mokattam and Tura). Add a final locus of Saqqara and the Blazing Star of the Nile is formed a five-pointed celestial symbol of transcendence and immortality. In addition, the constellations Taurus hovers off to the south (Aldebaran = the Red Pyramid; Epsilon Tauri = the Bent Pyramid; Zeta Tauri = Memphis). Moreover, a square formed by four of the five points is oriented to the cardinal directions. The hypotenuse shared by its two right triangles is a line from Giza to Heliopolis (azimuth 45°). This extended vector points northeast to Baalbek and ultimately Mount Ararat. The 135° vector (Letopolis to Mokattam/Tura) points southeast to Mecca in Saudi Arabia and to Awwam in Yemen. The 225° vector (Heliopolis to Giza) points southwest to the Libyan Desert Glass region and ultimately the Igbo territory of the Niger Delta. The 315° vector (Mokattam/Tura to Letopolis) points northwest to Minoan Crete and perhaps the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy. 23 The geodetic construction of Duat template ranged from Heliopolis and Letopolis south to Memphis. The pattern consisted of pyramids, temples, obelisks, astronomical observatories, and sacred quarries, each corresponding to a specific constellation. The ancient Egyptians erected a scale model of the celestial Afterlife in the form of the Blazing Star, itself a symbol of the primary goddess Isis. Her star rose just a few minutes before the sun (namely, its heliacal rising) after an absence of 70 days, which just happens to be the exact period of the mummification process. This solar-stellar event coincided with the annual flooding of the Nile, the beginning of the New Year, and the rebirth of the all life human, animal, and vegetable. Orion has become encircled by the Duat, as the Living One [the Sun] became clean in the Akhet; Sothis [Sirius, spdt Sharp ] has become encircled by the Duat, as the Living One became clean in the Akhet 41 Copyright © 2014 Gary A. David ENDNOTES 1. Robert Bauval and Adrian Gilbert, The Orion Mystery: Unlocking the Secrets of the Pyramids (New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1994), pp. 125 ff. For the sake of clarity, I am using the current standard dating of mainstream Egyptology, although I am well aware of various controversies involving the pre-Dynastic/Dynastic timeline. In addition, two independent Egyptologists, Larry Dean Hunter and Michael Arbuthnot, have claimed in the past that they found most of the stars in Orion represented by constructions on the Egyptian landscape. However, their terrestrial correlations are somewhat different than those originally put forth by Bauval and Gilbert. Click on Research/Articles tab of the Team Atlantis website, then click on The Orion Pyramid Theory. https://web.archive.org/web/20020909110157/http://www.teamatlantis.com/yucatan_test/frameset_kurt1.html 2. Robert Bauval, The Egypt Code (London: Century/Random House), 2006), pp. 80-81. 3. E. A. Wallis Budge, The Book of the Dead: The Hieroglyphic Transcript and Translation into English of the Ancient Egyptian Papyrus of Ani (New York: Gramercy Books, 1999, 1960, 1895), p. 206. 4. Robert Bauval and Thomas Brophy, Imhotep: The African Architect of the Cosmos (San Francisco: Disinformation Books, 2013), p. 66. 5. Bauval, The Egypt Code, op. cit., p. 75. 6. Immanuel Velikovsky, Worlds In Collision (New York: Pocket Books, 1977, 1950), pp. 238-239; Budge, The Book of the Dead, op. cit., p. 358, note 5. 7. Adrian Gilbert, Signs in the Sky (London: Bantam Press, 2000), p. 65. 8. Graham Hancock and Robert Bauval, The Message of the Sphinx: A Quest For the Hidden Legacy of Mankind (New York: Three Rivers Press, 1996), p. 175. 9. Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy, The Hermetica: The Lost Wisdom of the Pharaohs (London Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin), 1999, 19970, p. 5. 10. Mark Lehner, The Complete Pyramids: Solving the Ancient Mysteries (London: Thames & Hudson Ltd, 1997), p. 29. 11. Bauval, The Egypt Code, op. cit., pp. 105-106. 12. Bauval and Brophy, Imhotep, op. cit., pp. 30-31. 13. Lehner, The Complete Pyramids, op. cit., p. 142. 14. William Henry, Place of the Gods: the Stargate at Abu Ghorab, Egypt, http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/stargate/stargate10.htm. 15. Bauval and Brophy, Imhotep, op. cit., p. 53. 16. Bauval and Brophy, ibid., p. 13. 17. E. A. Wallis Budge, The Dwellers On the Nile: The Life, History, Religion and Literature of the Ancient Egyptians (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1977, 1926, pp. 218-219. 24 18. The Emerald Tablets of Thoth the Atlantean, translated by Dr. M. Doreal, http://www.horuscentre.org/library/Hermetism/The_Emerald_Tablets_Of_Thoth.pdf. 19. Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (Charleston, South Carolina: A. .M. . 5632, 1928, 1906, 1871), p. 842. 20. Plutarch s Morals: Theosophical Essays, translated by Charles William King, 1908, www.sacred-texts.com. 21. Philip Coppens, The Canopus Revelation: Stargate of the Gods and the Ark of Osiris (the Netherlands: Frontier Publishing/Adventures Unlimited Press, 2004), pp. 36-37. 22. Nicolas Grimal, A History of Ancient Egypt (Oxford, UK: Blackwell Ppublishers Ltd, 1994, 1988), pp. 164-165; http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/senusret1.htm; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senusret_I. 23. Bradbury Cort Lindahl, Axis Mundi (Charleston, South Carolina: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2012), p. 146, 24. Julian Huxley, From an Antique Land: Ancient and Modern in the Middle East (Boston: Beacon Press, 1966), pp. 58-62; Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol. I, 15th Edition (Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 1979), p. 704. 25. Lindahl, Axis Mundi, op. cit., p. 186. 26. Andrew Collins, From the Ashes of Angels: the Forbidden Legacy of a Fallen Race (Rochester, Vermont: Bear & Co., 2001, 1996), pp. 164-165. 27. Nicholas Clapp, Sheba: Through the Desert in Search of the Legendary Queen (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2001), p. 193, p. 207, p. 195, pp. 291-292. 28. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Awwam. 29. Clapp, Sheba, op. cit., p. 204, p. 205. 30. Clapp. ibid., p. 282, p. 184, p. 217. 31. Robin Brown-Lowe, The Lost City of Solomon and Sheba: An African Mystery (UK: Sutton Publishing Limited, 2003), p. 202. See a chapter on Great Zimbabwe in my book Mirrors of Orion: Star Knowledge of the Ancient World, http://www.amazon.com/Mirrors-Orion-Knowledge-AncientWorld/dp/1494926768/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1410827362&sr=1-1&keywords=mirrors+of+orion. 32. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almaqah; http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Sources/Allah/moongod.html. 33. Lindahl, Axis Mundi, op. cit., p. 179. 34. Larousse Encyclopedia of Archaeology, edited by Gilbert Charles-Picard, translated by Anne Ward (New York: G. P. Putnam s Sons, 1972, 1969), pp. 247-259. 35. http://www.bu.edu/news/2006/03/03/bu-scientists-discover-largest-crater-in-the-sahara/. ; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kebira_Crater ; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libyan_desert_glass ; http://www.worldmysteries.com/pex_6.htm. 36. Robert Bauval and Thomas Brophy, Ph.D., Black Genesis: The Prehistoric Origins of Ancient Egypt (Rochester, Vermont: Bear & Company, 2011), pp. 191-192. 37. Catherine Obianuju Acholonu and Sidney Louis Davis, Eden In Sumer on the Niger: Archaeology, Linguistic and Recorded Evidence of 450,000 Years of Atlantis, Eden and Sumer in West Africa (Abuja, Nigeria: A CARC Publication, 2013), pp. 17-18. 38. Gary A. David, Mirrors of Orion: Star Knowledge of the Ancient World (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014), pp. 113-114. http://www.amazon.com/Mirrors-Orion-Knowledge-AncientWorld/dp/1494926768/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1411102455&sr=1-1&keywords=Mirrors+of+Orion ; http://catherineacholonu.wordpress.com/2013/03/24/105/. 39. Acholonu and Davis, Eden In Sumer on the Niger, op. cit., p. 109. 40. Acholonu and Davis, ibid., p. 207. Here Acholonu briefly quotes Zecharia Sitchen, The Stairway to Heaven (New York: Avon Books, 1980), p. Also consult the website of the Catherine Acholonu Research Centre, http://carcafriculture.org/index.htm. 41. The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts, translated by James P. Allen (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005), p. 32. Akhet ( Place of Becoming Akh ). The latter half of the Duat, lying between the Duat s center, where the Sun unites with Osiris in the middle of the night, and the visible horizon, above which the Sun rises at dawn. In the Pyramid Texts, associated with the antechamber of the pyramid. Ibid., Glossary, p. 425. http://cotw.us/files_/Writings%20From%20The%20Ancient%20World%20%20The%20Ancient%20Egyptian%20Pyramid%20Texts.pdf Copyright © 2014 Gary A. David. All rights reserved. Email: garydavid52@hotmail.com Website: www.theorionzone.com 25