Page 351 - Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

remembered by the time Senuseret took the throne in 1971 BC. In that
period (the Twelfth Dynasty) all that was clearly recalled was that the
Benben had been pyramidal in form, thus providing (together with the
pillar on which it stood) a prototype for the shape of all future obelisks.
The name Benben was likewise applied to the pyramidion, or apex stone,
usually placed on top of pyramids. In a symbolic sense, it was also
10
associated closely and directly with Ra-Atum, of whom the ancient texts
said, ‘You became high on the height; you rose up as the Benben stone in
the Mansion of the Phoenix ...’
11
Mansion of the Phoenix described the original temple at Heliopolis
where the Benben had been housed. It reflected the fact that the
mysterious object had also served as an enduring symbol for the mythical
Phoenix, the divine Bennu bird whose appearances and disappearances
were believed to be linked to violent cosmic cycles and to the destruction
and rebirth of world ages.
12

Connections and similarities

Driving through the suburbs of Heliopolis at around 6:30 in the morning I
closed my eyes and tried to summon up a picture of the landscape as it
might have looked in the mythical First Time after the Island of
Creation —the primordial mound of Ra-Atum—had risen out of the flood
13
waters of the Nun. It was tempting to see a connection between this
imagery and the Andean traditions that spoke of the emergence of the
civilizer god Viracocha from the waters of Lake Titicaca after an earth-
destroying flood. Moreover there was the figure of Osiris to consider—a
conspicuously bearded figure, like Viracocha, and like Quetzalcoatl as
well—remembered for having abolished cannibalism among the
Egyptians, for having taught them agriculture and animal husbandry, and
for introducing them to such arts as writing, architecture, and music.
14
The similarities between the Old and New World traditions were hard to
miss but even harder to interpret. It was possible they were just a series
of beguiling coincidences. On the other hand, it was possible that they
might reveal the fingerprints of an ancient and unidentified global
civilization—fingerprints that were essentially the same whether they
appeared in the myths of Central America, or of the high Andes, or of

10 Kingship and the Gods, p. 153.
11 The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts, p. 246.
12 For a more detailed discussion see The Orion Mystery, p. 17. Bauval suggests that the
Benben may have been an oriented meteorite: ‘From depictions it would seem that this
meteorite was from six to fifteen tons in mass ... the frightful spectacle of its fiery fall
would have been very impressive ...’, p. 204.
The Penguin Dictionary of Religions, Penguin Books, London, 1988, p. 166.
13
14 E.g. The Egyptian Book of the Dead, Introduction, p. XLIX; Qsiris And The Egyptian
Resurrection, volume II, pp. 1-11.

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