The Egypt Code by Robert Bauval Read Free Book Online Page A

rising of Sirius in the east, if one turned north one would see the star Al Kaid in the bull’s thigh (the Plough) positioned at about 4° 35′ to the east of north and some 16° above the horizon - the very same spot in the northern sky which was in alignment with the ka statue in the serdab , the latter being part of the Step Pyramid bearing the name ‘Horus is the Star at the Head of the Sky’. And although looking at this spot in the sky in isolation does not appear at first to have any particular significance, it becomes a sort of ‘trigger’ when occupied by the star Al Kaid, the ‘hoof’ of the celestial bull, to induce, as it were, the rebirth of Sirius, the star of Horus.
     
    Clearly the term ‘Horus is the Star’ is the same as Horus- spd , i.e. Horus-Sirius. Could the Step Pyramid complex, then, be a sort of architectural symbol of Sirius and its special cycles?
     
    How?
     
    Why?
     

The Sothic Cycle and the Wall
     
    Since the mid-1980s I have been using the facilities of the library of the Griffith Institute at Oxford (now part of the new Sackler’s Library). The Griffith is conveniently located less than an hour’s drive from my home, and it has the advantage of being part of the Ashmolean Museum which has an excellent collection of Egyptian antiquities. I have known its director, Dr Jaromir Malek, since 1987. 70 The Griffith Institute has a wide range of books, monographs and articles on Egyptology, and there is a large section on pyramid research and exploration that I particularly enjoy. It was during one of my browsing sessions there that I pulled out by chance a book written by a French researcher. As I was about to put it back in its place, fate would have it that it fell from my hands and lay open at a page with the title: ‘Le complexe calendaire de Djeser à Saqqara’ (The calendrical complex of Djoser at Saqqara). I was, of course, immediately intrigued by this title. There was, to my surprise, a diagram of the boundary wall of the complex with the number 1,461 next to it. I immediately made a photocopy of this diagram and took it home with me.
     

    Details of the boundary wall of the Djoser complex
     
    Looking more closely at the curious architectural features of the boundary wall of the complex based on a reconstructed plan by Jean-Philippe Lauer, it could be easily deduced that there was a total of 192 recesses and protrusions, 14 false doors, four corner bastions and one main entrance. Few researchers, however, had paid much attention to the hundreds of slender horizontal panels that were also an integral part of the design. What was most intriguing about these panels was that the west side of the boundary wall contained 1,461 of them, and the east side 1,459. The uncanny similarity of these values to the Sothic cycle of 1,460-1 years was obvious. In my mind this could not be a coincidence, not with the conclusions I had arrived at regarding the connection between the Step Pyramid and Sirius. But what could be the meaning and purpose of it?
     

The Genesis of the Sothic Cycles
     
    Although it is true to say that the ancient Egyptians believed in eternity and sought to connect with it in every way they could, it is also true that they believed in a beginning of time which they called zep tepi , literally ‘the first time’, and which was intrinsically tied to their beliefs in creation and the return of the phoenix.
     
    The Egyptologist Richard Wilkinson was of the opinion that from very early times ‘three great themes - original cosmic structure, ongoing cosmic function and cosmic regeneration - may be seen to be recurrent in Egyptian temple symbolism’, 88 and his colleague R.T. Rundle Clark also concluded that all rituals and feasts were ‘a repetition of an event that took place at the beginning of the world.’ 89 Also according to Clark:
    The basic principles of life, nature and society were determined by the gods long ago, before the establishment of kingship. This