Page 347 - Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

The way of the jackal

Anubis, guardian of the secrets, god of the funerary chamber, jackal-
headed opener of the ways of the dead, guide and companion of Osiris ...
It was around five o’clock in the afternoon, closing-time at the Cairo
Museum, when Santha pronounced herself satisfied with her photographs
of the sinister black effigy. Down below us guards were whistling and
clapping their hands as they sought to herd the last few sightseers out of
the halls, but up on the second floor of the hundred-year-old building,
where ancient Anubis crouched in his millennial watchfulness, all was
quiet, all was still.
We left the sombre museum and walked down into the sunlight still
bathing Cairo’s bustling Tahrir Square.
Anubis, I reflected, had shared his duties as spirit guide and guardian
of the secret writings with another god whose type and symbol had also
been the jackal and whose name, Upuaut, literally meant Opener of the
Ways. Both these canine deities had been linked since time immemorial
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with the ancient town of Abydos in upper Egypt, the original god of
which, Khenti-Amentiu (the strangely named ‘Foremost of the
Westerners’) had also been represented as a member of the dog family,
usually lying recumbent on a black standard.
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Was there any significance in the repeated recurrence at Abydos of all
this mythical and symbolic doggishness, with its promise of high secrets
waiting to unfold? It seemed worthwhile trying to find out since the
extensive ruins there included the structure known as the Osireion, which
West’s geological research had indicated might be far older than the
archaeologists thought. Besides, I had already arranged to meet West in a
few days in the upper Egyptian town of Luxor, less than 200 kilometres
south of Abydos. Rather than flying directly to Luxor from Cairo, as I had
originally planned, I now realized that it would be perfectly feasible to go
by road and to visit Abydos and a number of other sites along the way.
Our driver, Mohamed Walili, was waiting for us in an underground car-
park just off Tahrir Square. A large genial, elderly man, he owned a
battered white Peugeot taxi normally to be found standing in the rank
outside the Mena House hotel at Giza. Over the last few years, on our
frequent research trips to Cairo, we had struck up a friendship with him
and he now worked with us whenever we were in Egypt. We haggled for
some time about the appropriate daily rate for the long return journey to
Abydos and Luxor. Many matters had to be taken into account, including
the fact that some of the areas we would be passing through had recently
been targets of terrorist attacks by Islamic militants. Eventually we agreed

17 The Gods of the Egyptians, volume II, p. 264.
Blue Guide, Egypt, p. 509; see also From Fetish to God in Ancient Egypt, pp. 211-15;
18
Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection, volume I, p. 31ff; The Encyclopaedia of Ancient
Egypt, p. 197.

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