Page 359 - Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

In my readings—here and there among the most archaic of the
Utterances—I had come across several metaphors that seemed to refer to
the passage of epochs of precessional time. These metaphors stood out
from the surrounding material because they were expressed in what had
become a clear and familiar terminology to me: that of the archaic
scientific language identified by Santillana and von Dechend in Hamlet’s
Mill.
21
The reader may recall that a cosmic ‘diagram’ of the four props of the
sky was one of the standard thought tools employed in that ancient
language. Its purpose was to assist visualisation of the four imaginary
bands conceived as framing, supporting and defining a precessional
world age. These were what astronomers call the ‘equinoctial and
solstitial colures’ and were seen as hooping down from the celestial north
pole and marking the four constellations against the background of
which, for periods of 2160 years at a time, the sun would consistently
rise on the spring and autumn equinoxes and on the winter and summer
solstices.
22
The Pyramid Texts appear to contain several versions of this diagram.
Moreover, as is so often the case with prehistoric myths which transmit
hard astronomical data, the precessional symbolism is interwoven tightly
with violent images of terrestrial destruction—as though to suggest that
the ‘breaking of the mill of heaven’, that is the transition every 2160
years from one zodiacal age to another, could under ill-omened
circumstances bring catastrophic influences to bear on terrestrial events.
Thus it was said that

Ra-Atum, the god who created himself, was originally king over gods and men
together but mankind schemed against his sovereignty, for he began to grow old,
his bones became silver, his flesh gold and his hair [as] lapis lazuli.
23
When he realized what was happening, the ageing Sun God (so
reminiscent of Tonatiuh, the bloodthirsty Fifth Sun of the Aztecs)
determined that he would punish this insurrection by killing off most of
the human race. The instrument of the havoc he unleashed was
symbolized at times as a raging lioness wading in blood and at times as
the fearsome lion-headed goddess Sekhmet who ‘poured fire out of
herself and savaged mankind in an ecstasy of slaughter.
24
The terrible destruction continued unabated for a long period. Then at
last Ra intervened to save the lives of a ‘remnant’, the ancestors of
present humanity. This intervention took the form of a flood which the

288-9, Utt. 675.) Here, as in other contexts, the function of the canine figure seems to
be to serve as a guide to secret hoards of esoteric information often linked to
mathematics and astronomy.
21 See Part V for full details.
Ibid.
22
23 Myth and Symbol in Ancient Egypt, p. 181.
24 The pouring fire allusion is cited in Jean-Pierre Hallet, Pygmy Kitabu, p. 185.

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