Page 250 - Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

markers’ which they have identified as likely to suggest the presence, in
ancient myths, of scientific information concerning precession of the
equinoxes. These markers may have had meanings of their own or been
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intended simply to alert the target audience that a piece of hard data was
coming up in the story being told. Beguilingly, sometimes they may also
have been designed to serve as ‘openers of the way’—conduits to enable
initiates to follow the trail of scientific information from one myth to
another.
Thus, even though none of the familiar mills and whirlpools is in sight,
we should perhaps sit up and pay attention when we learn that Orion, the
great hunter of Greek myth, was the owner of a dog. When Orion tried to
ravish the virgin goddess Artemis she produced a scorpion from the earth
which killed him and the dog. Orion was transported to the skies where
he became the constellation that bears his name today; his dog was
transformed into Sirius, the Dog Star.
38
Precisely the same identification of Sirius was made by the ancient
Egyptians, who linked the Orion constellation specifically to their god
39
Osiris. It is in Ancient Egypt too that the character of the faithful
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celestial dog achieves its fullest and most explicit mythical elaboration in
the form of Upuaut, a jackal-headed deity whose name means ‘Opener of
the Ways’. If we follow this way opener to Egypt, turn our eyes to the
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constellation of Orion, and enter the potent myth of Osiris, we find
ourselves enveloped in a net of familiar symbols.
The reader will recall that the myth presents Osiris as the victim of a
plot. The conspirators initially dispose of him by sealing him in a box and
casting him adrift on the waters of the Nile. In this respect does he not
resemble Utnapishtim, and Noah and Coxcoxtli and all the other deluge
heroes in their arks (or boxes, or chests) riding out the waters of the
flood?
Another familiar element is the classic precessional image of the world-
tree and/or roof-pillar (in this case combined). The myth tells us how
Osiris, still sealed inside his coffer, is carried out into the sea and washed
up at Byblos. The waves lay him to rest among the branches of a tamarisk
tree, which rapidly grows to a magnificent size, enclosing the coffer
within its trunk. The king of the country, who much admires the
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tamarisk tree, cuts it down and fashions the part which contains Osiris
into a roof pillar for his palace. Later Isis, the wife of Osiris, removes her

37 Ibid., pp. 7, 31.
38 World Mythology, p. 139. It should also be noted that, like Samson, Orion was blind—
the only blind figure in constellation mythology. See Hamlet’s Mill, pp. 177-8.
39 Mercer, The Religion of Ancient Egypt, London, 1946, pp. 25, 112.
40 Ibid. Death of Gods in Ancient Egypt, p. 39: ‘the ancient Egyptians are known to have
identified Orion with Osiris’.
Also rendered Wapwewet and Ap-uaut. See, for example, E. A. Wallis Budge, Gods of
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the Egyptians, Methuen and Co., London, 1904, vol. II, pp. 366-7.
42 The Egyptian Book of the Dead, Introduction, p. L.

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