It is a French engineer, however, Professor Jean Kerisel, who has most vigorously pursued the quest for concealed subterranean chambers. The current President of the a.s.sociation France-Egypte, he was in the pit with his a.s.sistants on 12 October 1992 when a major earthquake occurred, demolishing large parts of Cairo. This experience, he stated later, gave the researchers 'a few very unpleasant moments some 35 metres under the plateau'.[105]

Happily, the Subterranean Chamber did not collapse and Kerisel and his team were able to finish their work. This involved the use of two nondestructive techniques: ground-penetrating radar and microgravimetry. The results were inconclusive in the chamber itself but extremely promising in the horizontal pa.s.sageway that connects it to the end of the Descending Corridor. In Kerisel's own words: 'a structure was detected under the floor of the pa.s.sageway, which could be a corridor oriented SSE-NNW whose ceiling is at the depth that the Descending Corridor would have reached had it been prolonged.'[106]

Nor was this all. A second very clear anomaly, a 'ma.s.s defect' as Kerisel calls it, 'was detected on the western side of the pa.s.sageway six metres before the chamber entrance. According to our calculations, this anomaly corresponds to a vertical shaft at least five metres deep with a section of about 1.40 x 1.40 metres very close to the western wall of the pa.s.sageway.[107]

In short, what Kerisel believes he has identified off the Subterranean Chamber's entrance corridor is something that looks very much like a completely separate pa.s.sageway system, terminating in a vertical shaft. His instruments may have misled him, or, as he himself admits, he may merely have picked up the traces of 'a large volume of limestone dissolved by the action of underground water-in other words a deep cave'.[108] Alternatively, however, if the 'ma.s.s defect' turns out to be a man-made feature, as he strongly suspects, then 'it may lead to very interesting developments'.[109]

Labyrinth

It should be obvious that a civilization that could build up to the height of the Great Pyramid's summit platform, that could create giant stone statues more than 240 feet long, and that could lift the 200-ton blocks of the Valley and Mortuary Temples into place (forming intricate jigsaw-puzzle patterns at heights of 40 feet and more above the ground) would not have experienced any insurmountable difficulty in building down as well. On the contrary, such a civilization could, if it had so wished, have hewn out underground complexes of immense size, connected to one another by labyrinths of tunnels.

The possibility therefore cannot be ruled out that the Subterranean Chamber under the Great Pyramid could be just one of many such deeply buried features. Indeed, as the reader will recall, the seismological work carried out at Giza in the early 1990s by the American geophysicist Thomas Dobecki did indicate the presence of a large and apparently man-made hypogeum in the bedrock beneath the Sphinx. Ultimately only further excavations and research can shed further light on these matters. Meanwhile, however, there is a great deal of evidence from all parts of the necropolis which suggests that the creation of ambitious rock-hewn structures-both above and below the ground-was, indeed, part of the standard repertoire of the Pyramid builders. They also quite frequently chose to mingle rock-hewn and built-up structures-as in the case of the tomb of Khent-Khawes, a supposed Queen of Menkaure, which consists of a natural outcropping sculpted in pyramidial form surmounted by a curious sarcophagus-shaped temple.

A more spectacular and conspicuous mixture of rock-hewn and built-up features occurs at the Pyramid of Khafre. It stands on an artificially levelled 12-acre platform cut bodily out of the plateau-which slopes steeply from north-west to south-east at this point (i.e. it is higher in the west and lower in the east). In consequence the north and west sides of the Pyramid are enclosed within a trench that decreases steadily in height from about 20 feet at the north-west corner to about 10 feet at the southwest corner-and to zero at the north-east and south-east corners. The lower courses of the Pyramid itself on the north and west sides are contoured out of the central mound of bedrock that the builders left in place after hollowing out the trench. On the east and south sides, however, the slope of the plateau falls below the level chosen for the base of the Pyramid. The builders solved this problem by bringing thousands of enormous filling blocks to the site-average weight about 100 tons each-to create an unshakable horizontal foundation. They then went on to lay the first few courses of the monument on the eastern and southern sides using the same unwieldy megaliths. Thereafter they reverted to smaller blocks and in consequence a clear demarcation line is visible between the two types of construction. Like some of the characteristics of the Sphinx and Valley Temples referred to earlier, this demarcation gives the impression not just of different building techniques but actually of two distinctly different stages of building separated by an unknown interval of time.

The mystery of the shafts

There is one other anomalous feature of the Giza necropolis which we have not yet mentioned but with which we shall close this chapter as it leads us on to the next stage of our investigation. This feature is confined to the Great Pyramid and is unique in ancient Egyptian architecture. It takes the form of four narrow shafts-usually described by Egyptologists as 'ventilation channels'-two of which emanate respectively from the northern and southern walls of the King's Chamber and the other two from the northern and southern walls of the Queen's Chamber.

The four shafts have an average cross-section of 23 x 22 cm. and lengths that vary from about 24 metres (northern shaft of the Queen's Chamber) to about 65 metres (northern shaft of the King's Chamber). They are all inclined to the horizontal plane of the Pyramid and their angles of slope vary from 32 degrees 28 minutes (northern shaft of the King's Chamber) to 45 degrees 14 minutes (southern shaft of the King's Chamber). The shafts were constructed in a step-by-step manner as the Pyramid rose in height (i.e. they were not drilled through the masonry as some have supposed) and they reveal the use of very complex and sophisticated engineering and levelling techniques.

It has been suggested that the reason for their inclination was to find the 'shortest route' to the outside of the Pyramid and this has been taken to imply that the ancient builders wanted to 'save' work and time. However, such geometrical logic goes very much against engineering logic-for the simple reason that building shafts on an incline would not save time or work at all. Quite the contrary: no construction engineer or builder could possibly agree that the 'shortest route' is the best route in this case-even though it may seem so to those looking only at the geometry. The truth, as Egyptian architect Dr. Alexander Badawy first noted in the 1960s, is that to build inclined shafts rather than to have simple horizontal channels leading to the outside of the Pyramid would create many difficulties-and especially so when we consider the high precision and rigid consistency of the inclinations.[110]

11. The King's and Queen's Chambers and their four shafts. Note that the shafts of the Queen's Chamber were not originally cut through into the chamber but stopped short several inches from the inner walls. The shafts were opened in 1872 by the British engineer Waynman Dixon.

To build inclined shafts rather than horizontal ones entails five tedious operations. First, the base course must be prepared; this calls for the shaping of special blocks with their upper faces sloping to serve as the 'floor' of each shaft. Secondly, more special blocks have to be prepared with U-shaped inner faces to form the profile, i.e., the 'walls' and 'ceilings' of the shafts. Thirdly, yet more special blocks have to be cut with their undersides inclined in order to cover the sides of the shafts. Fourthly, the tops of the shafts must be covered with other special blocks with sloping undersides. Fifthly, the main masonry courses of the Pyramid have to be integrated with these special design features along the entire lengths of the shafts.

12. Details of the Queen's Chamber and its shafts.

If ventilation was really the objective then the question that must be asked is this: why opt for such complications and difficulties when an effective flow of air could have been provided for the chambers in a much simpler way? From an engineer's point of view the obvious solution would have been to leave a masonry joint open-say 20 cm.-running horizontally from the top of each chamber right to the outside of the monument. In this case no special cutting of blocks would have been necessary, nor indeed any tedious alignments or levelling work.

In other words the 'shortest route' is not by any means the best route for the practical purposes of ventilation and, besides, it should be obvious that the Pyramid builders were not interested in time/energy-saving schemes-otherwise they would not have favoured such gigantic, multimillion-ton monuments in the first place. It therefore follows that we are unlikely to be rewarded in seeking an explanation for the precise north-south alignments of these steeply inclined shafts in terms of a time/energy-saving rationale based on quaint geometrical figures.

13. Queen's Chamber wall and shaft mouth.

Any doubt over this issue can be resolved by a close study of the shafts of the Queen's Chamber. Unlike the King's Chamber shafts, those in the Queen's Chamber (a) do not exit on the outside of the monument and (b) were not originally cut through the Chamber's limestone walls. Instead the builders left the last five inches intact in the last block over the mouth of each of the shafts-thus rendering them invisible and inaccessible to any casual intruder. With the help of a steel chisel, they were finally discovered in 1872 by the British engineer Waynman Dixon, a Freemason whose curiosity had been aroused by the shafts in the King's Chamber and who decided to look for similar features in the Queen's Chamber.

14. Construction details of the Great Pyramid's shafts. At least four different kinds of blocks (A, B, C and D), continuing the full length of the shafts, were required for the successful completion of these mysterious features of the Pyramid. The engineering problems would have been immense. The notion that the primary purpose of the shafts was for ventilation is disproved by the fact that the Queen's Chamber shafts were originally closed at both ends and by the complexity of the design-which would not have been necessary if simple ventilation had been the objective.

In later chapters we will be considering the implications of Dixon's 1872 discovery, and the follow-up to it. The point that we wish to make here, however, is the obvious one that shafts which were originally closed at both ends could not possibly have been used, or intended, for ventilation. They must, therefore, have had some higher purpose-one that was thought by the builders to justify the enormous care, skill and effort involved in constructing them.

As we shall see, that 'higher purpose' can now be identified with certainty.

Chapter 4.

Stars and Time.

'The various apparent movements of the heavenly bodies which are produced by the rotation and revolution of the earth, and the effects of precession, were familiar to the Egyptians ... They carefully studied what they saw, and put their knowledge together in the most convenient fashion, a.s.sociating it with their strange imaginings and their system of worship ...'

J. Norman Lockyer, The Dawn Of Astronomy, 1894 It is humbling and awe-inspiring to stand at dawn between the paws of the Great Sphinx of Egypt and to look up as the rising sun illuminates its face. The colossal statue seems ancient-almost as old, one might imagine, as time itself. And, as we saw in Chapter 2, a mounting body of geological evidence suggests that it is ancient-vastly older than the 4500 years allocated to it by Egyptologists and perhaps dating back as far as the last Ice Age when no civilization capable of fashioning such a monument is supposed to have existed.

Such notions are of course controversial and hotly disputed. Moreover, as should be obvious by now, geology is incapable of providing us with a precise chronology and is particularly limited by the present state of our knowledge of palaeo-climatology. Indeed, the most we can say, on the sole basis of the monument's erosion patterns, is that it does appear to have been carved at a much earlier date than Egyptologists believe but that its antiquity could range anywhere between 15,000 bc and 5000 bc.

There is, however, another science which, provided one essential precondition is fulfilled, can provide a much more accurate dating-to within a few decades-of uninscribed ancient stone monuments. This is the science of archaeoastronomy. The precondition upon which it depends for its successful functioning is that the monuments studied should have been accurately aligned to the stars or to the rising points of the sun by their builders.

15. On the summer solstice at the lat.i.tude of Giza the sun rises 28 degrees north of east, on the winter solstice it rises 28 degrees south of east and on the equinoxes it rises due east. The Great Sphinx of Giza is an astronomical monument orientated perfectly towards due east and thus serves as a superb equinoctial marker or 'pointer'.

The Great Sphinx fulfils this precondition. It lies exactly along the east-west axis of the Giza necropolis with its patient and eternal gaze set perfectly towards due east. It is, therefore, a superb 'equinoctial marker': its eyes target the exact position of sunrise at dawn on the spring equinox.

To clarify matters a little, astronomers speak of four 'cardinal moments' in the year: the summer solstice-the longest day in the northern hemisphere-when the earth's north pole points most directly at the sun, the winter solstice, the shortest day, when the pole points most directly away from the sun, and the spring and autumn equinoxes when the earth lies broadside-on to the sun and when night and day are of equal length.

On the summer solstice at the lat.i.tude of Giza, the sun rises about 28 degrees north of east. On the winter solstice it rises about 28 degrees south of east. By contrast, the main characteristic of the equinoxes (here and everywhere else around the globe) is that the sun always rises due east providing a sure and accurate geodetic reference to one of the cardinal directions.

It is towards this reference point, with high precision, that the gaze of the Sphinx is set-not by accident, but by design, and as part of a vast, archaic astronomical plan of uncanny accuracy and intelligence.

Observatory

Thousands of years ago, under the clear skies of a younger world, Egypt's Giza plateau must have been the ultimate observatory. From the high ground half a mile to the west of the Sphinx on which the three princ.i.p.al Pyramids stand, there would have been a faultless 360-degree view around an enormous circular horizon-a prospect that would have invited observations of the rising and setting points of the sun throughout the year, and also of the rising and setting points of the stars. It is certain, furthermore, whatever the other functions of the necropolis, that it was indeed used for practical and precise observational astronomy of the kind developed by navigators to pinpoint the positions of ships on the open ocean. Like the ability to keep strictly to a chosen course, the fabulous accuracy with which the princ.i.p.al monuments of Giza are aligned to true north, south, east and west could not have been achieved by any other science.[111]

Details of these alignments have already been given in Chapter 3. It is therefore sufficient here to remind ourselves that the Great Pyramid stands at a point on the earth's surface exactly one third of the way between the equator and the north pole (i.e. astride lat.i.tude 30) and that its 'meridional' (i.e. north-south) axis is aligned to within three-sixtieths of a single degree of true north-south. It is a small but significant point that this alignment is more accurate than that of the Meridian Building at the Greenwich Observatory in London-which is offset by an error of nine-sixtieths of a degree. In our opinion, such precision const.i.tutes a 'fact' which archaeologists and Egyptologists have never seriously considered, i.e. that the Great Pyramid, with its 13-acre footprint and six million tons of ma.s.s, could only have been surveyed and set out by master astronomers.[112]

16. The trajectory of the sun on the summer solstice, with its culmination point (highest alt.i.tude) being attained at meridian transit.

17. The trajectory of the sun on the equinox.

18. The trajectory of the sun on the winter solstice.

It is our conviction that this 'astronomical factor' deserves to be given much greater prominence than it has. .h.i.therto been accorded by Egyptologists. Moreover, thanks to the recent development of sophisticated star-mapping computer programs, it is possible for us to simulate the skies over Giza in any epoch during the past 30,000 years and thus to recreate the celestial environment in which the Pyramid builders worked.

Standing as it were beneath those ancient skies, initiated by microchip into the cosmic secret of the changing positions of the stars, certain features of the key monuments-features that are of no significance from the purely archaeological or Egyptological perspective-begin to take on a peculiar meaning.

Targeting Stars

Let us begin with the four mysterious shafts emanating from the King's and Queen's Chambers of the Great Pyramid, the engineering aspects of which we considered at the end of the previous chapter. As we have seen, two of these shafts are aligned perfectly to due north and the other two perfectly to due south. They thus target, at varying alt.i.tudes, what astronomers refer to as the 'meridian'-an imaginary line 'dividing the sky' that is best envisaged as a hoop connecting the north and south poles and pa.s.sing directly over the observer's head. It is as they cross this imaginary line ('transit the meridian') that the stars (and also the sun, moon and planets) are said to 'culminate'-that is, reach their maximum alt.i.tude above the horizon.

19. The horizon of Giza and the meridian of the Great Pyramid.

20. Culmination (meridian-transit) of Orion's belt circa 2500 bc. In this epoch the belt stars crossed the meridian at alt.i.tude 45 degrees, targeted by the southern shaft of the King's Chamber.

21. For the ancient Egyptians the constellation of Orion, and particularly its three prominent belt stars, were strongly a.s.sociated with Osiris, the G.o.d of resurrection and rebirth.

22. The stellar alignments of the Great Pyramid's four shafts in the epoch of 2500 bc.

The Great Pyramid has numerous features which leave us without any doubt that its designers paid careful attention to the stars and tracked their transit at the meridian. The mouth of the original entrance corridor, for example, targets the meridian with the precision of the barrel of an artillery piece. All the internal pa.s.sageways, too, run perfectly north-south, thus making the whole monument, as many astronomers have noted, an obvious 'meridional instrument'.[113] Most conclusive of all, however, is the fine accuracy of the four shafts. Recent investigations have established beyond any shadow of doubt that in circa 2500 bc-the era recognized by Egyptologists as the 'Pyramid Age'-each one of these shafts targeted a special star as it culminated at the meridian: From the Queen's Chamber, the northern shaft is angled at 39 degrees and was aimed at the star Kochab (Beta Ursa Minor) in the constellation of the Little Bear-a star a.s.sociated by the ancients with 'cosmic regeneration' and the immortality of the soul. The southern shaft, on the other hand, which is angled at 39 degrees 30', was aimed at the bright star Sirius (Alpha Canis Major) in the constellation of the Great Dog. This star the ancients a.s.sociated with the G.o.ddess Isis, cosmic mother of the kings of Egypt.[114]

From the King's Chamber, the northern shaft is angled at 32 degrees 28' and was aimed at the ancient Pole star, Thuban (Alpha Draconis) in the constellation of the Dragon-a.s.sociated by the Pharaohs with notions of 'cosmic pregnancy and gestation'. The southern shaft, which is angled at 45 degrees 14', was aimed at Al Nitak (Zeta Orionis), the brightest (and also the lowest) of the three stars of Orion's belt-which the ancient Egyptians identified with Osiris, their high G.o.d of resurrection and rebirth and the legendary bringer of civilization to the Nile Valley in a remote epoch referred to as Zep Tepi, the 'First Time'.[115]

Because we can reconstruct the ancient skies over Giza with modern computers we can demonstrate the spot-on alignments of the four shafts to the four stars circa 2500 bc. What the same computers also show us is that these alignments were rare and fleeting, only valid for a century or so, before the continuous gradual change effected in stellar alt.i.tudes by the pa.s.sage of time altered the positions at which the stars transited the meridian.

This phenomenon, the result of a slow and stately wobble in the axis of the earth, is known technically as precession. Over a cycle of 25,920 years it causes the infinitely-extended north pole of our planet's spin axis to trace out a great circle in the heavens. The main astronomical effects of this motion are: 1. an equally slow and stately change in the celestial north pole-which sometimes coincides with a 'pole star' (and sometimes with empty s.p.a.ce) as it progresses eternally around its 25,920-year cycle; 2. changes in the alt.i.tude of all stars above the horizon as they cross the observer's meridian at any given lat.i.tude; 3. changes in the constellations against the background of which the sun rises due east at dawn on the spring equinox (naturally precession also changes the constellations that mark the autumnal equinox-and the winter and summer solstices as well).

The rate of precessional change is constant and predictable for each of these key astronomical effects and can be calculated backwards and forwards in time across the entire star-field. This means, for example, that if we were to observe a specific bright star-say Al Nitak in Orion's belt-from a given place today, and if we were to record its alt.i.tude at the meridian, then provided such a record was to be found and understood thousands of years hence it could be used to determine the epoch or 'time' when the original observation was made.

The same logic can be applied to the four meridional shafts emanating from the King's and Queen's Chambers. Their alignments at 2500 bc-on four stars that were of ritual importance within the 'Osiris cycle' of beliefs-cannot possibly have been accidental. On the contrary, it is obvious that we are confronted here by the products of a conscious and careful design. This in turn makes it equally obvious that the Great Pyramid must have some extremely strong connection with the epoch of 2500 bc-the approximate date at which all orthodox Egyptologists and archaeologists in fact believe it to have been built.

In short, the four star-shafts serve as precise time-markers by which, in theory at least, we should be able once and for all to confirm the date for the construction of the last-surviving wonder of the ancient world. This would be highly desirable since, in the absence of other objective means of dating the monument, controversy continues to linger over its exact age. However, the archaeoastronomical picture is rather more complicated than it seems.

The Companions of Osiris

The complication arises from the strong correlation, first demonstrated in The Orion Mystery, between the three belt stars of the Orion constellation and the ground-plan of the three Pyramids of Giza. An overhead view shows that the Great Pyramid and the second Pyramid stretch out along a diagonal running 45 degrees to the south and west of the former's eastern face. The third Pyramid, however, is offset somewhat to the east of this line. The resulting pattern mimics the sky where the three stars of Orion's belt also stretch out along a 'faulty' diagonal. The first two stars (AI Nitak and Al Nilam) are in direct alignment, like the first and second Pyramids, and the third star (Mintaka) lies offset somewhat to the east of the axis formed by the other two.[116]

The visual correlation, once observed, is obvious and striking on its own. Additional confirmation of its symbolic significance, however, is provided by the Milky Way, which the ancient Egyptians regarded as a kind of 'Celestial Nile' and which was spoken of in archaic funerary texts as the 'Winding Waterway'.[117] In the heavenly vault the belt stars of Orion lie to the west of the Milky Way, as though overlooking its banks; on the ground the Pyramids stand perched above the west bank of the Nile.[118]

Faced by such symmetry, and by such a complex pattern of interlocking architectural and religious ideas, it is hard to resist the conclusion that the Pyramids of Giza represent a successful attempt to build Orion's belt on the ground. This makes all the more sense when we recall the firm identification of the Orion constellation with the high G.o.d Osiris.

But bearing in mind the changes induced by the phenomenon of precession we must also ask: 'Orion's belt when?' 'Orion's belt in what epoch?'

A perfect match

From the evidence of the shafts we have seen how the Great Pyramid is 'precessionally anch.o.r.ed' to Orion's belt in 2500 bc (because in this epoch the southern shaft of the King's Chamber targeted the meridian-transit of Al Nitak, the Great Pyramid's celestial counterpart). If we set our precessional computer to reconstruct the ancient skies over Giza, however, turn our attention to the pattern formed on the ground by all three of the Pyramids in 2500 bc, simulate the nightly pa.s.sage of the belt stars across the roof of the celestial sphere and bring them to rest at the point of Al Nitak's meridian-transit (45 degrees above the southern horizon, where it is targeted by the King's Chamber shaft), it becomes apparent that something is not quite right.

23. Orion's belt crossing the meridian of the Great Pyramid in 2500 bc with the star Al Nitak, the Great Pyramid's celestial counterpart, in perfect alignment with the southern shaft of the King's Chamber at an alt.i.tude of 45 degrees. However, note how the belt stars and the Milky Way appear out of kilter and askew in relation to the ground plan of the three Pyramids and the Nile. The sky-ground images are, of course, similar, but there is a sense that the sky image needs somehow to be 'twisted' in an anti-clockwise direction to get the perfect match. This can only be achieved by going back in time-by looking at the sky above Giza in a far earlier epoch ...

24. The perfect match of sky-ground images is achieved in 10,500 bc when the pattern of the Milky Way and of the three stars of Orion's belt at meridian transit is precisely matched by the course of the Nile and the pattern of the three great Pyramids on the ground.

We should expect to see a perfect meridian-to-meridian alignment at this point. Instead we notice that the dominant axis of the three stars and the Milky Way lies tilted conspicuously askew relative to the dominant axis of the three Pyramids and the Nile. These latter, of course, are fixed in their places. What is required, therefore, in order to achieve the 'ideal' sky-ground arrangement, is somehow to 'rotate' the heavens in an anticlockwise direction.

The vast cosmic engine of the earth's axial wobble offers us a mechanism by which this can be done: we need only instruct our computer to track the precessionally induced movements of the stars backwards in time.

As it does so, millennium by millennium, we observe that the orientation of Orion's belt at culmination is slowly rotating anti-clockwise and thus approaching ever closer to our desired meridian-to-meridian match. It is not until 10,500 bc, however-8000 years before the 'Pyramid Age'-that the perfect correlation is finally achieved with the Nile mirroring the Milky Way and with the three Pyramids and the belt stars identically disposed in relation to the meridian.[119]

Rising stars

There is a feature of this 10,500 bc correlation which suggests strongly that coincidence is not involved. The pattern that is frozen into monumental architecture in the form of the Pyramids marks a very significant moment in the 25,920-year precessional cycle of the three stars of Orion's belt-one that is unlikely to have been randomly selected by the Pyramid builders.

To get a clear grasp of what is involved here let us call up a computer simulation of the skies over Giza in our own epoch, circa ad 2000. Looking due south we note that Al Nitak crosses the meridian at an alt.i.tude of 58 degrees 06' above the horizon. This, as it happens, is within 8 minutes of the highest alt.i.tude that this star will attain in its precessional cycle, i.e. 58 degrees 14' (to be reached at around ad 2500).[120]

Let us now project our simulation backwards in time and recreate the sky as we would see it if we were standing in the same position at around 10,500 bc-i.e. just under 13,000 years, or half a precessional cycle, earlier. In this remote epoch we discover that Al Nitak crosses the meridian at an alt.i.tude of only 9 degrees 20' above the horizon.[121]

25. By mimicking the sky pattern of Orion's belt in 10,500 bc the three great Pyramids of Giza mark a very significant moment in the 20,000-year precessional cycle of these stars-the lowest point in their slide up and down the meridian, when (as seen from the lat.i.tude of Giza) they culminated at an alt.i.tude of 9 degrees 20 minutes above the horizon (C). In 2500 bc they culminated at alt.i.tude 45 degrees (B). In our own epoch, 2000 ad (A) they are approaching the highest alt.i.tude that they will attain in their precessional cycle-58 degrees 06 minutes above the horizon at meridian transit.

It will never fall lower, the epoch of 10,500 bc marks the nadir of the star's precessionally induced slide up and down the meridian (just as the epoch of AD 2500 marks its zenith). Like a slowly moving lever in a narrow vertical slot, it takes 12,960 years to descend from top to bottom, and a further 12,960 years to ascend from bottom to top again.[122]

By exactly mimicking the disposition of the belt stars in the sky in 10,500 bc the layout of the Pyramids on the ground thus not only signifies a specific epoch but also rather precisely and surgically marks the beginning of a precessional half-cycle.

Lion on the ground, lion in the sky

As was pointed out in Fingerprints, of the G.o.ds, the same role is played by the Great Sphinx-which gazes directly at the equinoctial rising point of the sun in any and every epoch, past, present and future, for ever.

26. Artist's impression showing the precessional cycle of Orion's belt up and down the meridian. The pattern of the stars in 10,500 bc marks the beginning, or 'First Time', of the cycle. It is this pattern that is reproduced on the ground by the three great Pyramids of Giza.

27. The rising points and trajectory of Orion's belt in (A) 2000 ad, (B) 2500 bc, (C) 10,500 bc.

This orientation provides us with an astronomical basis for dating the monument because it is known that the attention of astronomers in ancient times was particularly focused on the zodiacal constellation-considered to define the astrological 'Age'-that rose just ahead of the sun in the eastern sky at dawn on the spring equinox.[123] The same phenomenon of the earth's axial precession that affects the alt.i.tude of stars at the meridian also affects these famous constellations-Leo, Cancer, Gemini, Taurus, Aries, Pisces, Aquarius, etc., etc-the co-ordinates of which, in relation to the rising point of the equinoctial sun, undergo slow but continuous precessionally induced changes. The result is a hard-to-observe astronomical phenomenon, known as the precession of the equinoxes, which manifests as a gradual circulation of the equinoctial point around all twelve 'houses' of the zodiac. In the words of historians of science Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend, whose essay Hamlet's Mill is a ground-breaking study of archaic precessional mythology: The constellation that rose in the east just before the sun (that is, rose heliacally) marked the 'place' where the sun rested ... It was known as the sun's 'carrier', and as the main 'pillar' of the sky. ... The sun's position among the constellations at the vernal [spring] equinox was the pointer that indicated the 'hours' of the precessional cycle-very long hours indeed, the equinoctial sun occupying each zodiacal constellation for just under 2200 years.[124]

In our own epoch the sun on the spring equinox rises against the stellar background of the constellation of Pisces, as it has done for approximately the last 2000 years. The 'Age of Pisces', however, is now approaching its end and the vernal sun will soon pa.s.s out of the sector of the Fishes and begin to rise against the new background of Aquarius. To be precise, it takes exactly 2160 years for the equinoctial point to pa.s.s completely through one constellation or 'house' of the zodiac.

With this process in mind, let us now reverse Santillana and von Dechend's 'precessional clock'. Pa.s.sing back through the Age of Pisces (and the Age of Aries that preceded it) we find that in the epoch of 2500 bc, when the Sphinx is conventionally a.s.sumed to have been built, it was the constellation of Taurus that housed the sun on the spring equinox.

It is here that the crux of the problem lies. To state the case briefly: 1. The Sphinx, as we have seen, is an equinoctial marker-or 'pointer'.