Page 435 - Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

just scratched the surface and that much more will emerge from the
geology and the astronomy in the future. In addition, nobody’s yet made
a really detailed study of the Pyramid Texts from anything other than the
so-called “anthropological” perspective, which means a preconceived
notion that the priests of Heliopolis were a bunch of half-civilized witch-
doctors who wanted to live for ever ... Actually they did want to live for
ever but they certainly weren’t witch-doctors ... They were highly civilized,
highly initiated men and they were, in their own fashion, scientists, as we
can judge from their works. Therefore I suggest that it’s as scientific or at
least quasi-scientific documents that the Pyramid Texts need to be read,
not as mumbo-jumbo. I’m already satisfied that they respond to
precessional astronomy. There may be other keys too: mathematics,
geometry—particularly geometry ... Symbolism ... What’s needed is a
multi-disciplinary approach to understanding the Pyramid Texts ... and to
understanding the pyramids themselves. Astronomers, mathematicians,
geologists, engineers, architects, even philosophers to deal with the
symbolism—everybody who can bring a fresh eye and fresh skills to bear
on these very important problems should be encouraged to do so.’
‘Why do you feel the problems are so important?’
‘Because they have a colossal bearing on our understanding of the past
of our own species. The very careful, very precise site-planning and
setting-out that appears to have been done here in 10,450 BC could only
have been the work of a highly-evolved, probably technological
civilization. ...’
‘Whereas no such civilization is supposed to have existed anywhere on
earth in that epoch ...’
‘Exactly. It was the Stone Age. Human society was supposed to have
been at a very primitive level, with our ancestors wearing skins,
sheltering in caves, following a hunting-gathering way of life and so on
and so forth. So its rather unsettling to discover that civilized people
seem to have been present in Giza in 10,450 BC, who understood the
obscure science of precession extremely well, who had the technical
capacity to work out that they were witnessing the lowest point in Orion’s
precessional cycle—and thus the beginning of the constellation’s 13,000
year upwards journey—and who set out to create a permanent memorial
of that moment here on the plateau. By putting Orion’s Belt on the
ground in the way they did they knew that they were freezing a very
specific moment in time.’
A perverse thought occurred to me: ‘How can we be so sure that the
moment that they were freezing was 10,450 BC? After all, Orion’s Belt
takes up that same configuration in the southern sky, west of the Milky
Way at 11-plus degrees above the horizon, once every 26,000 years. So
why shouldn’t they have been immortalizing 36,450 BC or even the
precessional cycle that began 26,000 years before that?’
Robert was clearly ready for this question. ‘Some ancient records do

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