Page 326 - Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

Gathering as much dignity as I could muster, I stood upright, smiling
and dusting myself off. The Japanese stepped back and I climbed out of
the sarcophagus. Cultivating a businesslike manner, as though I did
things like this all the time, I strolled to the point two-thirds of the way
along the northern wall of the King’s Chamber where the entrance to
what Egyptologists refer to as the ‘northern ventilation shaft’ is located,
and began to examine it minutely.
Some 8 inches wide by 9 inches high, it was, I knew, more than 200 feet
in length and emerged into open air at the pyramid’s 103rd course of
masonry. Presumably by design rather than by accident, it pointed to the
circumpolar regions of the northern heavens at an angle of 32° 30’. This,
in the Pyramid Age around 2500 BC, would have meant that it was
directed on the upper culmination of Alpha Draconis, a prominent star in
the constellation of Draco.
23
Much to my relief the Japanese rapidly completed their tour of the
King’s Chamber and left, stooping, without a backward glance. As soon
as they had gone I crossed over to the other side of the room to take a
look at the southern shaft. Since I had last been here some months
before, its appearance had changed horribly. Its mouth now contained a
massive electrical air-conditioning unit installed by Rudolf Gantenbrink,
who even now was turning his attentions to the neglected shafts of the
Queen’s Chamber.
Since Egyptologists were satisfied that the King’s Chamber shafts had
been built for ventilation purposes, they saw nothing untoward in using
modern technology to improve the efficiency of this task. Yet wouldn’t
horizontal shafts have been more effective than sloping ones if their
primary purpose had been ventilation, and easier to build? It was
24
therefore unlikely to be an accident that the southern shaft of the King’s
Chamber targeted the southern heavens at 45°. During the Pyramid Age
this was the location for the meridian transit of Zeta Orionis, the lowest
of the three stars of Orion’s Belt —an alignment, I was to discover in due
25
course, that would turn out to be of the utmost significance for future
pyramid research.

The game-master

Now that I had the Chamber to myself again, I walked over to the western
wall, on the far side of the sarcophagus, and turned to face east.
The huge room had an endless capacity to generate indications of
mathematical game-playing. For example, its height (19 feet 1 inch) was

Robert Bauval, Discussions in Egyptology No. 29, 1994.
23
24 Ibid.
25 Ibid. See also The Orion Mystery, p. 172.

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