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

epoch - zep tepi - ‘the First Time’ - stretched from the first stirring of the High God in the Primeval Waters to the settling of Horus upon the throne and the redemption of Osiris. All proper myths relate events or manifestations of this epoch. Anything whose existence or authority had to be justified or explained must be referred to the ‘First Time’. This was true for natural phenomena, rituals, royal insignia, the plans of temples, magical or medical formulae, the hieroglyphic system of writing, the calendar - the whole paraphernalia of the civilization . . . all that was good or efficacious was established on the principles laid down in the ‘First Time’ - which was, therefore, a golden age of absolute perfection - ‘before rage or clamour or strife or uproar had come about’. No death, disease or disaster occurred in this blissful epoch, known variously as ‘the time of Re’, ‘the time of Osiris’, or ‘the time of Horus’. 90
     
     
     
    Would it thus not be in keeping with such potent beliefs to consider that the heb-sed festival was also anchored to the ‘First Time’? Support for this hypothesis comes in the names given to some of the heb-sed festivals, such as zep tepi heb-sed , which translates as ‘the heb-sed of the First Time’ and also zep tepi uahem heb-sed , ‘the repetition of the heb-sed of the First Time’. 91 Now the Sothic cycle, as we have seen, had anchorage points every 1,460 years. Counting back in increments of 1,460 years from AD 139 , we get the anchor dates of 1321 BC; 2781 BC; 4241 BC; 5701 BC; 7160 BC; 8621 BC; 10,081 BC; 11,451 BC and so on. Which of these could be regarded as zep tepi , the ‘First Time’?
     
    If one watches the star Sirius cross the southern meridian over the Great Pyramid, today it will be at 43° above the horizon. Had the observation been made in 2500 BC when the Great Pyramid had just been built, Sirius would have culminated at 36° above the horizon. Going back much further to about 11,500 BC it would culminate 1° above the horizon. Before this epoch it would not have been seen at all. This is because it would have been rising below the horizon. What, then, would have been the reaction of the ancient sky-watchers of Egypt who might have been there to witness the very first appearance of Sirius in the Egyptian sky in about 11,500 BC? Was this event seen as the ‘First Time’?
     
    At precisely the time that Sirius showed itself in the distant south, if the observer turned to look due east he would have witnessed another magnificent constellation also rising. As the astronomer Nancy Hathaway once remarked, ‘Leo resembles the animal after which it is named. A right triangle of stars outline the back legs . . . the front of the constellation, like a giant backward question mark, defines the head, mane, and front legs. At the base of the question mark is Regulus, the heart of the lion . . .’ 92 In other words, Leo resembles a recumbent lion with a bright star, Regulus, on its chest. On the Giza plateau there is a recumbent lion we call the Great Sphinx of Giza. It too is looking due east. Between its paws there is a large stone covered with inscriptions. One line reads: ‘This is the Splendid Place of the First Time’.
     
    I took out a map of the Memphite region showing all the pyramid fields on the west side of the Nile, and on the east side the solar city of Heliopolis from where had emanated, in all probability, the impulse to build all those giant pyramids that were scattered seemingly randomly in the desert. I gazed intently at the location of Heliopolis, then at the Giza pyramids, then at the other pyramid fields further south. There was a ghost hidden in this map. I could feel it, almost see it. Slowly a mist began to lift in my mind and also from the whole Memphite region. Beneath it shimmered a weird starry landscape. Suddenly I knew that I was looking at the ‘Splendid Place of the First Time’ . . .
     

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