Page 361 - Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

signalled here ...
With a cow involved it could have been the Age of Taurus, although the
Egyptians knew the difference between bulls and cows as well as anyone.
But a much more likely contender—at any rate on purely symbolic
grounds—is the age of Leo, from approximately 10,970 to 8810 BC. The
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reason is that Sekhmet, the agent of the destruction of Mankind referred
to in the myth, was leonine in form. What better way to symbolize the
troubled birth of the new world age of Leo than to depict its harbinger as
a rampaging lion, particularly since the Age of Leo coincided with the
final ferocious meltdown of the last Ice Age, during which huge numbers
of animal species all over the earth were suddenly and violently rendered
extinct.’ Mankind survived the immense floods and earthquakes and
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rapid changes of climate that took place, but very probably in much
reduced numbers and much reduced circumstances.

The train of the Sun and the dweller in Sirius

Of course the ability to recognize and define precessional world ages in
myth implies that the Ancient Egyptians possessed better observational
astronomy and a more sophisticated understanding of the mechanics of
the solar system than any ancient people have hitherto been credited
with. There is no doubt that knowledge of this calibre, if it existed at all,
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would have been highly regarded by the Ancient Egyptians, who would
have transmitted it from generation to generation in a secretive manner.
Indeed, it would have ranked among the highest arcana entrusted to the
keeping of the priestly elite at Heliopolis and would have been passed on,
in the main, through an oral and initiatory tradition. If, by chance it had
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found its way into the Pyramid Texts, is it not likely that its form would
have been veiled by metaphors and allegories?
I walked slowly across the dusty floor of the tomb chamber of Unas,
noting the heavy stillness in the air, casting my eyes over the faded blue
and gold inscriptions. Expressed in coded language several millennia
before Copernicus and Galileo, some of the passages inscribed on these
walls seemed to offer clues to the true heliocentric nature of the solar
system.

31 Skyglobe 3.6.
32 See Part IV.
33 For a detailed discussion see Sacred Science: The King of Pharaonic Theocracy.
34 The issue of priestly secrecy and the oral tradition is discussed at length in From
Fetish to God in Ancient Egypt, e.g. p. 43: ‘It is impossible to think that the highest order
of the priests did not possess esoteric knowledge which they guarded with the greatest
care. Each priesthood ... possessed a “Gnosis”, a “superiority of knowledge”, which they
never put into writing ... It is therefore absurd to expect to find in Egyptian papyri
descriptions of the secrets which formed the esoteric knowledge of the priests.’ See also
page 27, and Sacred Science, pp. 273-4.

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