Page 424 - Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

Time? And was it from a land such as this, accessible only by boat, that
ibis-masked Thoth had also made his way, crossing seas and oceans to
deliver the priceless gifts of astronomy and earth-measurement to the
primitive inhabitants of the prehistoric Nile Valley?
Whatever the truth behind the tradition, Thoth was remembered and
revered by the Ancient Egyptians as the inventor of mathematics,
astronomy and engineering. ‘It was his will and power’, according to
25
Wallis Budge, ‘that were believed to keep the forces of heaven and earth
in equilibrium. It was his great skill in celestial mathematics which made
proper use of the laws upon which the foundation and maintenance of
the universe rested.’ Thoth was also credited with teaching the ancestral
26
Egyptians the skills of geometry and land-surveying, medicine and
botany. He was believed to have been the inventor ‘of figures, of the
letters of the alphabet, and of the arts of reading and writing’. He was
27
the Great Lord of Magic’ who could move objects with the power of his
28
voice, ‘the author of every work on every branch of knowledge, both
human and divine’.
29
It was to the teachings of Thoth—which they guarded jealously in their
temples and claimed to have been handed down from generation to
generation in the form of forty-two books of instruction —that the
30
Ancient Egyptians ascribed their world-renowned wisdom and knowledge
of the skies. This knowledge was spoken of almost in awe, by the
classical commentators who visited Egypt from the fifth century BC
onwards.
Herodotus, the earliest of these travellers, noted:

The Egyptians were the first to discover the solar year, and to portion out its
course into twelve parts ... It was observation of the course of the stars which led
them to adopt this division ...
31
Plato (fourth century BC) reported that the Egyptians had observed the
stars ‘for ten thousand years’. And later, in the first century BC, Diodorus
32
Siculus left this more detailed account:
The positions and arrangements of the stars as well as their motions have always
been the subject of careful observation among the Egyptians ... From ancient
times to this day they have preserved the records concerning each of these stars
over an incredible number of years ...
33

25 Veronica Ions, Egyptian Mythology, Newnes Books, London, 1986, p. 84.
26 The Gods of the Egyptians, volume I, pp. 407-8.
27 Ibid., volume I, p. 414.
28 Egyptian Mythology, p. 85.
29 The Gods of the Egyptians, volume I, p. 414.
30 Ibid., pp 414-15.
31 The History, 2:4.
Reported in E. M. Antoniadi, L’Astronomie egyptienne, Paris, 1934, pp. 3-4; see also
32
Schwaller, p. 279.
33 Diodorus Siculus, volume I, pp. 279-80.

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