Chapter Twelve
THE PYRAMIDS OF GODS AND KINGS
 

"Somewhere in the vaults of the British Museum there is stashed away a clay tablet which was found at Sippar, the "cult center" of Shamash in Mesopotamia. It shows him seated on a throne, under a canopy whose pillar is shaped as a date palm. A king and his son are introduced to Shamash by another deity. In front of the seated god there is mounted upon a pedestal a large emblem of a ray-emitting planet. The inscriptions involve the god Sin (father of Shamash), Shamash himself and his sister Ishtar.

"The theme of the scene - the introduction of kings or priests to a major deity - is a familiar one, and poses no problems. What is unique and puzzling in this depiction are the two gods (almost superimposed upon one another) who, from somewhere outside of where the introduction is taking place, hold (with two pair of hands) two cords leading to the celestial emblem.

"Who are the two Divine Cordholders? What is their function? Are they identically situated, and if so, why do they hold or pull two cords, and not just one? Where are they? What is their connection with Shamash?

"Sippar, scholars know, was the seat of the High Court of Sumer, Shamash was consequently the ultimate lawgiver. Hammurabi, the Babylonian king, famous for his law code, depicted himself receiving the law from an enthroned Shamash. Was the scene with the two Divine Cordholders also connected with lawgiving? In spite of all the speculation, no one so far has come up with an answer.

"The solution, we believe, has been available all along in the very same British Museum - not among its "Assyrian" exhibits, however, but in its Egyptian Department. In a room separate from the mummies and the other remains of the dead and their tombs, there are exhibited pages from the various papyri inscribed with the Book of the Dead. And the answer is right there, for all to see.

"It is a page from the "Papyrus of Queen Nejnet" and the drawing illustrates the final stage of the Pharaoh’s journey in the Duat. The twelve gods who pulled his barge through the subterranean corridors have brought him into the last corridor, the Place of Ascending. There, the "Red Eye of Horus" was waiting. Then, shed of his earthly clothing, the Pharaoh was to ascend heavenward, his Translation spelled out by the beetle hieroglyph ("Rebirth"). Gods standing in two groups pray for his successful arrival at the Imperishable Star.

"And unmistakably, there in the Egyptian depiction, are two Divine Cordholders!

"....They are clearly located outside of the subterranean corridor. Moreover, each side manned by a Cordholder is marked by an omphalos resting upon a platform. And, as the action imparted by the drawing shows, the two divine aides are not simply holding the cords, but are engaged in measuring.

"The discovery should not surprise: have not the verses of the Book of the Dead described how the journeying Pharaoh encounters the gods "who hold the rope in the Duat," and the gods "who hold the measuring cord"?

"A clue in the Book of Enoch now comes to mind. There, it will be recalled, it is related that as he was taken by an angel to visit the earthly paradise in the west, Enoch "saw in those days how long cords were given to angels who took to themselves wings, and they went towards the north." In reply to Enoch’s question, his guiding angel explained: "They have gone off to measure... they shall bring the measure of the Righteous to the Righteous... all these measures shall reveal the secrets of the Earth."

"....The words of the Prophet Habakuk thunder in ours ears...:

The Lord from South shall come,
The Holy One from Mount Paran.
Covered are the heavens with his halo,
His splendor fills the Earth,
His brilliance is like light.
His rays shine forth
from where his power is concealed.
The Word goes before him,
sparks emanate from below.
He pauses to measure the Earth.
He is seen, and the nations tremble.

"Was the measuring of Earth and its "secrets" then related to the powered flight of the gods in Earth’s skies? The Ugaritic texts add a clue as they tell us that, from the peak of Zaphon, Ba’al "a cord strong and supple stretches out, heavenwards (and) to the Seat of Kadesh."

"Whenever these texts report a message from one god to another, the verse begins with the word Hut. Scholars assume that it was a kind of a calling prefix, a kind of "Are you ready to hear me?" But the term could literally mean in the Semitic languages "cord, rope." Scientifically, the term Hut in Egyptian also means "to extend, to stretch out." Heinrich Brugsch, commenting on an Egyptian text dealing with the battles of Horus (Die Sage von der geflugten Sonnenscheibe) pointed out that Hut was also a place name - the abode of the Winged Extenders, as well as the name of the mountain which Horus was imprisoned by Seth.

"....And then we have the depiction from Sippar. It is not puzzling if we recall that in the pre-Diluvial times, when Sumer was the Land of the Gods, Sippar was the Spaceport of the Anunnaki, and Shamash its Commander. Thus viewed, the role of the Divine Measurers will become clear: their cords measured out the path to the Spaceport.

"....With the aid of photographs of Earth from spacecraft of the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), we can view the Near East as the Anunnaki had seen it from their own craft. What vantage points could they choose from which to mark out a triangular landing corridor? Close at hand, to the southeast, rose granite peaks of southern Sinai. Amid the granite core rose the highest peak (now called Mount St. Katherine). It could serve as a natural beacon to outline the southeastern line. But where was the counterpoint in the northwest, on which the northern line of the triangle could be anchored?

"Aboard the Shuttlecraft, the Surveyor - a "Divine Measurer" - glanced at the earth panorama below, then studied his maps again. In the far distance, beyond Baalbek, there loomed the twin-peaked Ararat. He drew a straight line from Ararat through Baalbek, extending it all the way into Egypt.

"He took his compass. With Baalbek as the focal point, he drew an arc through the highest peak of the Sinai peninsula. Where it intersected the Ararat-Baalbek line, he made a cross within a circle. Then he drew two lines of equal length, one connecting Baalbek with the peak in Sinai, the other with the site marked by the cross.

"This he said, will be our triangular Landing Corridor, to lead us straight to Baalbek.

’But sir, one of those aboard said, there is nothing there, where you have made the cross - nothing that can serve as a guiding beacon!’

’We will have to erect there a pyramid, the commander said.’

"And they flew on, to report their decision.

"Had such conversation indeed had taken place aboard a shuttlecraft of the Anunnaki?  We, of course, shall never know (unless a tablet is someday found recording the event); we have merely dramatized some astounding but undeniable facts: (click image right)

*   The unique platform at Baalbek has been there from bygone days, and it is still there intact in its enigmatic immensity.
*   Mount St. Katherine is still there, rising as the highest peak of the Sinai peninsula, hallowed since ancient days, enveloped (together with the twin-peaked neighbour, Mount Mussa) in legends of gods and angels.
*   The Great Pyramid of Giza, with its two companions and the unique Sphinx, is situated precisely on the extended Ararat-Baalbek line, and
*   The distance from Baalbek to Mount St. Katherine and to the Great Pyramid of Giza is exactly the same.

"This, let us add at once, is only part of the amazing grid which - as we shall show - was laid out by the Anunnaki in connection with their post-Diluvial Spaceport. Therefore, whether or not the conversation had taken place aboard a shuttlecraft, we are pretty certain that that is how the pyramids came to be in Egypt.

’There are many pyramids and pyramidical structures in Egypt, dotting the landscape from where the Nile breaks out into its delta in the north, all the way south to (and into) Nubia.

"....These, in turn, consist of two distinct groups: the pyramids clearly identified with rulers of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties (such as Unash, Teti, Pepi, which are elaborately decorated and inscribed with the renowned Pyramid Texts; and the older pyramids attributed to kings of the Third and Fourth Dynasties.

"....The texbooks will tell us that the first of Egypt’s imposing pyramids was built by a king named Zoser, the second Pharaoh of the Third Dynasty (circa 2650 B.C. by most counts). Selecting a site west of Memphis, on the plateau that served as the necropolis (city of the dead) of that ancient capital, he instructed his brilliant scientist and architect named Imhotep to build him a tomb that would surpass all previous tombs. Until then, the royal custom was to carve out a tomb in the rocky ground, bury the king, and then cover the grave with a giant horizontal tombstone called a mastaba that in time grew to substantial dimensions. The ingenious Imhotep, some scholars hold, covered the original mastaba over the tomb of Zoser with layer upon layer of ever smaller mastabas, in two phases, achieving a step pyramid. Beside it, within a large rectangular courtyard, a variety of functional and decorative buildings were erected - chapels, funerary temples, storehouses, attendant’s quarters and so on, the whole area was then surrounded by a magnificent wall. The pyramids and the ruins of some of the adjoining buildings and the wall can still be seen at Sakkara - a name believed to have honored Seker, the "hidden God."

Presumably it was Sekhemkhet, who followed Zoser on the throne, who began to build the second step pyramid, also at Sakkara. It never really got off the ground, for reasons unknown (perhaps the missing ingredient was the enigmatic genius of science and engineering, Imhotep). A third step pyramid.... it is logically attributed by some scholars to the next Pharaoh on the throne, named Khaba.

"....In the absence of evidence (of other Pharaohs) the next in line was Huni. Through much circumstantial evidence, it is held however that he only commenced the construction, and that the attempt to complete the pyramid was undertaken by his successor Sneferu.

This pyramid, according to the texts was a true-pyramid, but was a failure, the outer walls collapsed and "all that remains of that attempt is part of the solid core, with a large mound of debris all around it. However Sneferu ordered two more pyramids, the Bent Pyramid, called so because the builders changed the pyramid’s angle in mid construction, this pyramid still stands. And the Red Pyramid, due to the hue of its stones, rises as a triangle from a square base, by changing the perfect inclination of 52 degrees to that of 44 degrees.

"....Sneferu was the father of Khufu (whom Greek historians called Cheops); it has thus been assumed that the son followed the achievement of his father by building the next true pyramid - only a larger and grander one: the Great Pyramid of Giza. It stands majestically as it has stood for millennia in the company of two other major pyramids, attributed to his successors Chefra (Chephren) and Menka-ra (Mycerinus); they three are surrounded by smaller satellite pyramids, temples, mastabas, tombs and the unique Sphinx.

Though attributed to different rulers, the three obviously were planned and executed as a cohesive group , perfectly aligned not only to the cardinal points of the compass but also with one another. Indeed, triangulations which begin with these three monuments can be extended to measure the whole of Egypt - the whole of Earth, for that matter. This was first realized in modern times by Napoleon’s engineers: they selected the apex of the Great Pyramid as the focal point from which they triangulated and mapped Lower Egypt.

"This was made even easier by the discovery that the site is located, for all intent and purposes, right on the thirtieth parallel (north). The whole Giza complex of massive monuments had been erected at the eastern edge of the Lybian Plateau, which begins in Lybia in the west and stretches to the very banks of the Nile. Though only some 150 feet above the river’s valley below, the Giza site has a commanding and unobstructed view to the four horizons. The Great Pyramid stands at the extreme northeastern edge of a protrusion of the plateau, a few hundred feet to the north and east, sands and mud begin, making such massive structures impossible.

"....The alignment with the cardinal points of the compass, the inclination of the sides at the perfect angle of about 52 degrees (at which the height of the pyramid in relation to its circumference is the same as that of a radius of a circle to its circumference); the square bases, set on perfectly level platforms - all bespeak of a high degree of scientific knowledge of mathematics, astronomy, geometry, geography and of course building and architecture, as well as the administrative ability to mobilize the necessary manpower, to plan and execute such massive and long-term projects. The wonderment only increases as one realizes the interior complexities and precision of the galleries, corridors, chambers, shafts and openings that have been engineered within the pyramids, their hidden entrances (always on the north face), the locking and plugging systems - all unseen from the outside, all in perfect alignment with each other, all executed within these artificial mountains as they were being built layer after layer.

"....On ground that has been artificially leveled, the Great Pyramid rises on a thin platform whose four corners are marked by sockets of no ascertained function. In spite of the passage of millennia, continental shifts, Earth’s wobble around its own axis, earthquake and the immense weight of the pyramid itself, the relatively thin platform (less that twenty-two inches thick) is still undamaged and perfectly level.

"....From a distance, the Great Pyramid and its two companions appear to be true pyramids; but when approached it is realized that they too are a kind of step pyramid, built layer upon layer (scholars call them courses) of stone, each layer smaller than the one below it.) of stone

"....What gave it the smooth, inclined sides were the casing stones with which its sides were covered. These have been removed in Arab times and used for the constructions of nearby Cairo, but a few can still be seen in position near the top of the Second Pyramid....

"....The Giza pyramids are nowadays also minus their apex or capstones which were shaped as pyramidions and may have been either made of metal or covered with a shiny metal - as the similar pyramidion-shaped tips of obelisks were. Who, when and why they were removed from their great heights, no one knows. It is known however that in later times these apex stones, resembling the Ben-Ben at Heliopolis (click image left) were made of special granite and bore appropriate inscriptions. The one from the pyramid of Amen-emkhet at Dahshur, which was found buried some distance away from the pyramid, bore the emblem of the Winged Globe and the inscription (click image right)

The face of king Amen-em-khet is opened,
That he may behold the Lord of the Mountain of Light
When he sails across the sky.

"When Herodotus visited Giza in the fifth century, the capstones are not mentioned, but the pyramids’ sides were still covered with the smooth facings.... It was Herodotus who transmitted the information that the Pharaoh who ordered the Pyramid built was Cheops (Khufu), why and what for, he does not say. Herodotus likewise attributed the Second Pyramid to Chephren (Chefra), "of the same dimensions, except that he lowered the height forty feet," and asserted that Mycerinus (Menkara) "too left a pyramid, but much inferior in size to his father’s - implying but not actually stating, that it was the Third Pyramid of Giza.

"In the first century A.D., the Roman geographer and cartographer Strabo recorded not only a visit to the pyramids, but also his entry to the Great Pyramid through an opening in the north face, hidden by a hinged stone. Going down a long and narrow passage, he reached a pit dug in the bedrock - as other Greek and Roman tourists had done before him.

"The location of this entryway was forgotten in the following centuries, and when the Moslem caliph Al Mamoon attempted to enter the pyramid in 820 A.D., he employed an army of masons, blacksmiths and engineers to pierce the stone and tunnel his way into the pyramid’s core.

"....Blasting through the mass of stones by heating and cooling them until they cracked, by ramming and chiseling, Al Mamoon’s men advanced into the pyramid inch by inch.

They were about to give up, when they heard the sound of a falling stone not far ahead, indicating that some cavity was located there. With renewed vigor, they blasted their way into the original Descending Passage. Climbing up it they reached the original entrance which had evaded them from the outside. Climbing down, they reached the pit described by Strabo, it was empty. A shaft from the pit led nowhere.

"....But Fate wished otherwise. The ramming and blasting by Al Mamoon’s men had loosened the stone, whose falling sound had encouraged them to tunnel on. As they were about to give up, the fallen stone was found lying in the Descending Passage. It had an odd, triangular shape. When the ceiling was examined it was found that the stone served to hide from view a large rectangular granite slab positioned at an angle to the Descending Passage. Did it hide the way to a really secret chamber - one obviously never before visited?

"Unable to move or brake the granite block, Al Mamoon’s men tunneled around it. It turned out that the granite slab was only one of a series of massive granite blocks, followed by limestone ones, that plugged an Ascending Passage - inclined upward at the same 26 degree angle that the Descending Passage was inclined downward (precisely half the angle of the pyramid’s outer inclination). From the top of the Ascending Passage, a horizontal passage led to a squarish room with a gabled roof and an unusual niche on its east wall; it was bare and empty. This chamber has since been found to lie precisely in the middle of the north-south axis of the pyramid - a fact whose significance has not yet been deciphered. The chamber has come to be known as the "Queen’s Chamber"; but the name is based on romantic notions and not on any shred of evidence.

"At the head of the Ascending Passage, there extended for 150 feet and at the same rising angle of 26 degrees a Grand Gallery of intricate and precise construction. Its sunken floor is flanked by two ramps that run the length of the Gallery; in each ramp there are cut a series of evenly spaced rectangular slots, facing each other. The Gallery’s walls rise more than 18 feet in seven corbels, each section extending three inches out above the lower one, so that the Gallery narrows as it rises. At its top, the Gallery’s ceiling is the exact width as the sunken floor between the ramps.

"At the uppermost end of the Gallery, a huge stone formed a platform. Flush with it a short and comparatively narrow and low corridor (only 3.5 feet high) led to an ante-chamber of extremely complex construction, having been equipped to lower with a simple maneuver (the pull of a rope?) three solid granite walls that could vertically plug the passage and block further advance.

"A short corridor, of a height and width similar to the former one then led to a high-ceilinged room constructed of red polished granite - the so called King’s Chamber. It was empty except for a granite block hewed out to suggest a lidless coffer. Its precise workmanship included grooves for a lid or top section. Its measurements, as has since been determined, exhibited knowledge of profound mathematical formulas. But it was found totally empty.

"Was this whole mountain of stone, then, erected to hide an empty "coffer" in an empty chamber? Blackened torch marks and the evidence of Strabo attest that the Descending Passage was visited before; if there had ever been treasure in that subterranean room, it was removed long ago. But the Ascending Passage was most definitely blocked tight when Al Mamoon’s men reached it in the ninth century A.D. The theory of the pyramids as royal tombs held that they were raised to protect the Pharaoh’s mummy and the treasures buried with it from robbers and other uninvited disturbers of his eternal peace. Accordingly, the plugging of the passages is presumed to have taken place as soon as the mummy in its coffin was placed in the burial chamber. Yet there was a plugged passage - with absolutely nothing, except for an empty stone coffer, in the whole pyramid.

"In time, other rulers, scientists, adventurers have entered the pyramid, tunneled and blasted through it, discovering other features of its inner structure - including two sets of shafts which some believe were air ducts (for whom?) and others assert for astronomical observations (by whom?). Although scholars persist in referring to the stone coffer as a sarcophagus (its size could well hold a human body), the fact is that there is nothing, absolutely nothing to support a claim that the Great Pyramid was a royal tomb.

"Indeed the notion that the pyramids were built as Pharaonic tombs has remained unsupported by concrete evidence.

Of Zoser’s Pyramid, Mr. Sitchin explains about other mummies found in later centuries:

"....It is now generally accepted that all these extra mummies (found in Zoser’s Pyramid) and coffins represent intrusive burials, mainly the entombment of the dead from a later time by intruding on the sanctity of the sealed galleries and chambers. But was Zoser himself ever entombed in the pyramid - was there ever an "original burial?"

"....Many eminent Egyptologists now believe that the pyramid was only a symbolic burial place for Zoser, and that the king was buried in the richly decorated Southern Tomb, topped by a large rectangular superstructure with a concave room which also contained the imperative chapel - just as depicted in some Egyptian drawings.

"The step pyramid to have been begun by Zoser’s successor, Sekhemkhet, also contained a "burial chamber." It housed an alabaster "sarcophagus," which was empty. Textbooks tell that the archaeologist who discovered the chamber and the stone coffer (Zakaria Goneim) concluded that the chamber had been penetrated by grave robbers, who stole the mummy and all other contents of the tomb; but that is not entirely true. In fact, Mr. Goneim found the vertically sliding door of the alabaster coffer shut and sealed with plaster, and the remains of a dried-out wreath still rested on top of the coffin. As he later recalled, "hopes were now raised to a high pitch: but when the sarcophagus was opened, it was found to be empty and unused." Had any king been buried there? While some still say yes, others are convinced that the pyramid of Sekhemkhet (jar stoppers bearing his name attest to the identification) was only a cenotaph (an empty, symbolic tomb).

"The third step pyramid, the one attributed to Khaba, also contained a "burial chamber"; it was found to be completely bare: no mummy, not even a sarcophagus. Archaeologists have identified in the same vicinity the subterranean remains of yet another, unfinished pyramid believed to have been begun by Khaba’s successor. Its granite substructure contained an unusual oval "sarcophagus" sunken into the stone floor (as an ultra-modern bathtub). Its lid was still in place, shut tight with cement. There was nothing inside.

"....The next two pyramids are even more embarrassing to the pyramids-as-tombs theory. The two pyramids at Dahshur (the Bent and the Red) were both built by Sneferu. The first has two "burial chambers," the other three. All for Sneferu? If the pyramid was built by each Pharaoh to serve as his tomb, why did Sneferu build two pyramids? Needless to say, the chambers were totally empty when discovered, devoid even of sarcophagi. After some more determined excavations by the Egyptian Antiquities Service in 1947 and again in 1953 (especially in the Red Pyramid) the report admitted that "No trace of a royal tomb has been found there."

And so continues this most interesting chapter. Mr. Sitchin mentions numerous successors, finding nothing in the sarcophagus when discovered, and the repeated findings of later mummies by intrusion. The graphics on the book, of the structures of the pyramids are a great aid to understand the enigmatic complexity of these standing monuments.

Mr. Sitchin thus concludes this chapter:

"Where were the Sixth Dynasty kings really buried? The royal tombs of that dynasty and of earlier ones were all the way south, at Abydos. This, as the other evidence, should have completely dispelled the notion that the tombs were cenotaphs and the pyramids the real tombs; nevertheless, long held beliefs die hard.

"The facts bespeak the opposite. The Old Kingdom pyramids never held a Pharaoh’s body because they were never meant to hold a king’s body. In the Pharaoh’s simulated journey to the Horizon, they were built as beacons to guide his ka to the Stairway to Heaven - just as the pyramids originally raised by gods had served as beacons for the gods when they "sailed across the sky."

"Pharaoh after Pharaoh, we suggest attempted to emulate not the pyramid of Zoser, but the Pyramids of the Gods: the pyramids at Giza.

Return

Chapter Thirteen
FORGING THE PHARAOH’S NAME
 

"Forgery as a means to fame and fortune is not uncommon in commerce and the arts, in science and antiquities. When exposed, it may cause loss and shame. When sustained, it may change the records of history.

"This, we believe, has happened to the Great Pyramid and its presumed builder, the Pharaoh named Khufu.

"Systematic and disciplined archaeological re-examination of pyramid sites that were hurriedly excavated a century and a half ago (many times by treasure hunters), has raised numerous questions regarding some of the earlier conclusions. It has been held that the Pyramid Age began with Zoser’s step pyramid and was marked by successive progression toward a true pyramid, which finally succeeded. But why was it so important to achieve a true pyramid? If the art of pyramid building was progressively improved, why were the many pyramids which followed the Giza pyramids inferior, rather than superior to those of Giza?

"Was Zoser’s step pyramid the model for others, or was it itself an emulation of an earlier model? Scholars now believe that the first, smaller step pyramid that Imhotep built over the mastaba "was cased with beautiful, fine white limestone" (Ahmed Fakhry, The Pyramids), "before this casing was complete, however, he planned another alteration" - the superimposition of an even larger pyramid. However, as new evidence suggests, even that final step pyramid was cased, to look like a true pyramid. The casing uncovered by archaeological missions of Harvard University led by George Reisner, was primitively made of mud bricks, which of course crumbled soon enough - leaving the impression that Zoser built a step pyramid. Moreover, these mud bricks, it was found, were whitewashed to simulate a casing of white limestone.

"Whom then was Zoser trying to emulate? Where had Imhotep seen a true pyramid already up and complete, smooth side and limestone casing and all? And another question: If, as the present theory holds, the attempts at Maidum and Sakkara to build a smooth, 52 degree pyramid had failed, and Sneferu had to "cheat" and build the presumed first true pyramid at an angle of only 43 degree - why did his son at once proceed to build a much larger pyramid at the precarious 52 degree - and supposedly managed to achieve that with no problem at all?

"If the pyramids at Giza were only "usual" pyramids in the successive chain of pyramid-per-Pharaoh - why did Khufu’s son Radedef not build his pyramid next to his father’s at Giza? Remember - the other two Giza pyramids were supposedly not be there yet, so Radedef had the whole site free to build as he pleased. And if his father’s architects and engineers mastered the art of building the Great Pyramid, where were they to help Radedef build a similar imposing pyramid, rather than the inferior and quickly crumbling one that bears his name?

"Was the reason that no other pyramid but the Great Pyramid possessed an Ascending Passage, that its unique Ascending Passage was successfully blocked until A.D. 820 - so that all who emulated this pyramid knew of a Descending Passage only?

"The absence of hieroglyphic inscriptions in the three pyramids of Giza is also a reason for wondering, as James Bonwick did a century ago (Pyramid Facts and Fancies):

"Who can persuade himself that the Egyptians would have left such superb monuments without at least hieroglyphical inscriptions - they who were profuse of hieroglyphics upon all the edifices of any consideration?"

The absence, one must surmise, stems from the fact that the pyramids had either:

• been built before the development of hieroglyphic writing,

• or were not built by the Egyptians.

"These are some of the points that strengthen our belief that when Zoser and his successors began the custom of pyramid building, they set out to emulate the models that had already existed: the pyramids of Giza. They were not improvements on Zoser’s earlier efforts; rather, they were prototypes which Zoser, and Pharaohs after him, attempted to emulate.

"Some scholars have suggested that the small satellite pyramids at Giza were really scale models (about 1.5) that were used by the ancients exactly as today’s architects use scale models for evaluation and guidance, but it is now known that they were later augmentations. However, we think that there was indeed such a scale model; the Third Pyramid, with its obvious structural experiments. Then, we believe, the larger two were built as a pair of guiding beacons for the Anunnaki.

"But what about Menkara, Chefra and Khufu, who (we have been told by Herodotus) were the builders of these pyramids?

"Well indeed - what about them? The temples and causeway attached to the Third Pyramid do bear evidence that their builder was Menkara - evidence that includes inscriptions bearing his name and several exquisite statues showing him embraced by Hathor and another goddess. But all that this attests to is that Menkara built these auxiliary structures, associating himself with the pyramid - not that he built it. The Anunnaki, it is logical to assume, needed only the pyramids - and would not have built temples to worship themselves, only a Pharaoh required a funerary temple and a mortuary temple and the other structures associated with his journey to the gods.

"Inside the Third Pyramid proper, not an inscription, not a statue, not a decorated wall have been found; just stark, austere precision."

There were artifacts and mummies found with Menkara’s name, but when analyzed, these showed to be false pretenses.

"The Second Pyramid is likewise completely bare. There is nothing at all to indicate that Chefra built it.

"What then about Khufu?

"With one exception, which we will expose as a probable forgery, the only claim that he built the Great Pyramid is reported by Herodotus (and, based on his writings, by a Roman historian) Herodotus described him as a ruler who employed his people for thirty years to build the causeway and the pyramid. Yet by every other account, Khufu reigned for only twenty-three years. If he were such a grandiose builder, blessed with the greatest of architects and masons, where are his other monuments, where are his bigger-than-life statues?

"There are none, and it would seem from the absence of such commemorative remains, that Khufu was a very poor builder, not a majestic one."

And so it is found that in reviewing the different Pharaohs, they had built their temples, satellite buildings, and causeways, surrounding the pyramids of Giza already in existence.

Therefore:

"With the ready-made pyramids thus taken, the Pharaohs who followed were forced to obtain pyramids the hard way: by trying to build them.... As those who had tried this before (Zoser, Sneferu, Radedef), their own efforts too ended with inferior emulations of the three olden pyramids.

"At first blush, our suggestion that Khufu (as the other two) had nothing to do with building the pyramid associated with him may sound very farfetched. It is hardly so. In evidence, we call upon Khufu himself.

"Whether Khufu had really built the Great Pyramid was a question that began to perplex serious Egyptologists more than a century and a quarter ago, when the only object mentioning Khufu and connecting him with the pyramid was discovered. Puzzlingly, it affirmed that he had not built it: it already existed when he reigned!

"The damning evidence is a limestone stela which was discovered by Auguste Mariette in the 1850s in the ruins of the temple of Isis, near the Great Pyramid. Its inscription identifies it as a self-laudatory monument by Khufu, erected to commemorate the restoration by him of the temple of Isis and of images and emblems of the gods which Khufu found inside the crumbling temple. The opening verses unmistakably identify Khufu by his cartouche.

"The common opening, invoking Horus and proclaiming long life for the king, then packs explosive statements:

He founded.... the House.... of Isis.... Mistress of the pyramid.... beside the House of the Sphinx....

"According to the inscription on this stela (which is in the Cairo Museum), the Great Pyramid was already standing when Khufu arrived on the scene. Its mistress was the goddess Isis - it belonged to this goddess and not to Khufu.

"Furthermore, the Sphinx too - which has been attributed to Chefra, who presumably built it together with the Second Pyramid - was also already crouching at its present location. The continuation of the inscription pinpoints the position of the Sphinx accurately, and records the fact that part of it was damaged by lightning - a damage perceivable to this very day.

"....The "Inventory Stela," as it came to be called, bears all the marks of authenticity. Yet scholars at the time of its discovery (and many ever since) have been unable to reconcile themselves to its unavoidable conclusions.

Unwilling to upset the whole structure of Pyramidology, they proclaimed the Inventory Stela a forgery - an inscription made "long after the death of Khufu" (to quote Selim Hassan, Excavations at Giza), but invoking his name "to support some fictitious claim of the local priests."

Other Egyptologists however, gave credit to the Inventory Stela (click image right) "and Maspero (Gaston) accepted the contents of the Stela as factual data concerning the life and activities of Khufu."

"Why then the reluctance to call the artifact authentic?

"The Inventory Stela was condemned as a forgery because only a decade or so earlier the identification of Khufu as the builder of the Great Pyramid appeared to have been indisputably established. The seemingly conclusive evidence was markings in red paint, discovered in sealed chambers above the King’s Chamber, which could be interpreted as mason’s markings made in the eighteenth year of the reign of Khufu. Since the chambers were not entered until discovered in 1837, the markings must have been authentic; and if the Inventory Stela offered contradictory information, the Stela must have been a forgery.

"But as we probe the circumstances of the red-paint markings and ascertain whose the discoveres were - an inquiry somehow never undertaken before - the conclusion that emerges is this: if a forgery had taken place, it occurred not in ancient times, but in the year A.D.1837, and the forgers were not "some local priests" but two (or three) unscrupulous Englishmen....

"The story begins with the arrival in Egypt on December 29, 1835 of Colonel Richard Howard Vyse, a "black sheep" of an aristocratic English family.... He was especially thrilled by the tales and theories of one Giovanni Battista Caviglia, who had been searching for a hidden chamber inside the Great Pyramid.... Caviglia rejected to have Vyse as co-discoverer.... Vyse had befriended a crafty go-between by the name J.R. Hill, then a copper mill superintendent. Now he was introduced to a "Mr. Sloane," who whispered that there were ways to get a Firman - a concession decree - from the Egyptian Government to sole excavations rights at Giza."

Vyse did not get the rights. But Sloane and Col. Campbell, the British Consul did, with Caviglia as work’s supervisor.

"But instead of searching for the hidden chamber, Caviglia and his workmen were busy digging up mummies from tombs around the pyramids.

"The excavations at the tombs showed that the ancient masons sometimes marked the pre-cut stones with red paint. Such markings, Caviglia said, he found at the base of the Second Pyramid, but when examined with Vyse, the "red paint" turned out to be natural discolorations in the stone.

"What about the Great Pyramid? Caviglia, working there to discover where the "air channels" were leading from the "King’s Chamber," was more than ever convinced that there were hidden secrets chambers higher up. One such compartment, reachable via a crawlway, was discovered by Nathaniel Davison in 1765.

Caviglia however, was more interested in searching for mummies, which every museum then desired.

"....On February 11, the two had a violent argument. On the twelfth, Caviglia made major discoveries on Campbell’s Tomb (named by Caviglia): a sarcophagus inscribed with hieroglyphics and masons’ red-paint markings on the stone walls of the tomb. On the thirteenth....

Caviglia was discharged and ordered away from the site. Caviglia returned for his belongings. He made many "dishonorable accusations" against Vyse.

"Was the row a genuine disagreement, or did Vyse artificially bring matters to a head to get Caviglia off the site?

Plots followed, dismissals, new men coming and going from and to the works. Mr. Sitchin gives a detailed story of all the dealings of these men.

Hidden Chambers were discovered in the pyramid, but as usual they were all empty. When Vyse was satisfied:

"His work was done, he found hitherto unknown chambers, and he proved the identity of the builder of the Great Pyramid, for within the cartouches (found) was written the royal name Kh-u-f-u.

"To this discovery, every textbook has been attesting to this very day.

"The impact of Vyse’s discoveries was great, and their acceptance assured, that he managed to quickly obtain a confirmation from the experts of the British Museum in London.

"When the facsimiles made by Mr. Hill reached the Museum, and when their analysis reached Vyse, is not clear, but he made the Museum’s opinion (by the hand of its hieroglyphics expert Samuel Birch) part of his chronicle of May 27, 1837. On the face of it, the long analysis confirmed Vyse’s expectations: the names in the cartouches could be real as Khufu or variations thereof: just as Herodotus had written, Cheops was the builder of the Great Pyramid.

"But in the excitement which understandably followed, little attention was paid to the many if’s and but’s in the Museum’s opinion. It also contained the clue that tipped us off to the forgery: the forger’s clumsy mistake.

"To begin with, Mr. Birch was uneasy about the orthography and script of the many markings. "The symbols or hieroglyphs traced in red by the sculptor, or mason, upon the stones in the chambers of the Great Pyramid are apparently quarry marks," he observed in his opening paragraph; the qualification at once followed: "Although not very legible, owing to their having been written in semi-hieratic or linear-hieroglyphic characters, they possess points of considerable interest...."

"What puzzled Mr. Birch was that markings presumably from the beginning of the Fourth Dynasty were made in a script that started to appear only centuries later. Originating as pictographs - "written pictures" - the writing of hieroglyphic symbols required great skill and long training, so, in time, in commercial transactions, a more quickly written and simpler, more linear script referred to as hieratic came into use. The hieroglyphic symbols discovered by Vyse thus belonged to another period. They were also very indistinct and Mr. Birch had great difficulty in reading them:

"The meaning of the hieroglyphics following the prenomen in the same linear hand as the cartouche, is not very obvious ....The symbols following the name are very indistinct."

Many of them looked to him "written in characters very nearly hieratic" - from an even much later period that the semi-hieratic characters. Some of the symbols were very unusual, never seen in any other inscription in Egypt:

"The cartouche of Suphis" (Cheops), he wrote, "is followed by a hieroglyphic which it would be difficult to find a parallel." Other symbols were "equally difficult of solution."

"Mr. Birch was also puzzled by "a curious sequence of symbols" in the upper-most, vaulted chamber (named by Vyse "Campbell’s Chamber"). There, the hieroglyphic symbol for "good, gracious" was used as a numeral - a usage never discovered before or since. Those unusually written numerals were assumed to mean "eighteenth year" (of Khufu’s reign).

"....Whoever daubed the red-paint markings reported by Vyse had thus employed a writing method (linear), scripts (semi-hieratic and hieratic) and titles from various periods - but none from the time of Khufu, and all from later periods. Their writer was also not too literate: many of his hieroglyphics were either unclear, incomplete, out of place, erroneously employed or completely unknown.

Turning to the main issue on which he was requested to give an opinion - the identity of the Pharaoh named in the inscriptions - Birch threw a bombshell: there were two and not just one, royal names within the pyramid!

"Was it possible that two kings had built the same pyramid? And if so, who were they?

"One cartouche was then read Saufou or Shoufou; the other included the ram symbol of the Khnum and was then read Senekhuf or Seneshoufou.

After some considerations:

"....Conceding that the two names could have stood for what the ancient King Lists had called Suphis I (Cheops) and Suphis II (Chephren), Birch tried to resolve the problem by wondering whether both names, somehow, belonged to Cheops alone - one as his actual name, the other as his "prenomen." But his final conclusion was that "the presence of this (second) name, as a quarry-mark in the Great Pyramid, is an additional embarrassment" on top of the other embarrassing features of the inscriptions.

"....England’s most noted Egyptologist, Flinders Petrie, spent months measuring the pyramids a half century later. "The most destructive theory about this king (Khnem-khuf) (as it is nowadays read) is that he is identical with Khufu." Petrie wrote in The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh, giving the many reasons voiced by then by other Egyptologists against such a theory. For any number of reasons, Petrie showed, the two names belonged to separate kings. Why then did both names appeared within the Great Pyramid in the locations in which they did? Petrie believed that the only plausible explanation would be that Cheops and Chephren were co-regents, reigning together.

"Since no evidence to support Petrie’s theory has been found, Gaston Maspero wrote almost a century after the discovery by Vyse that "the existence of the two cartouches Khufui and Khnem-Khufui on the same monuments has caused much embarrassment to Egyptologists" (The Dawn of Civilization). The problem, in spite of all suggested solutions, is still and embarrassing one.

"But a solution, we believe, can be offered - if we stop attributing the inscriptions to ancient masons, and begin to look at the facts.

"The pyramids of Giza are unique, among other things, for the complete absence of any decoration or inscriptions within them - with the outstanding exception of the inscriptions found by Vyse. Why the exception? If the masons felt no qualms about daubing in red paint inscriptions upon the blocks of stone hidden away in the compartments above the "King’s Chamber" why were there absolutely no such inscriptions found in the first compartments, the one discovered by Davison in 1765 - but only in the compartments found by Vyse?

"....The cartouches and royal titles daubed upon the walls of the compartments were imprecise, crude and extra large.... They are in sharp contrast to the precision and delicacy and perfect sense of proportion of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, evident in the true masons’ markings found in those same compartments.

After some more comparisons, Mr. Sitchin continues:

"....In other words: cannot all the puzzles be solved, if we assume that the inscriptions were not made in antiquity, when the pyramid was being built, but only after Vyse had blasted his way into the compartment?

"....We know from Vyse’s chronicles that, by day, he had sent in Mr. Hill to inscribe the chambers with the name of the Duke of Wellington and Admiral Nelson, heroes of the victories over Napoleon. By night, we suspect, Mr. Hill also entered the chambers- to "christen" the pyramid with the cartouches of its presumed ancient builder.

"....Having looked up Wilkinson’s Materia Hieroglyphica (the one and only book repeatedly mentioned in Vyse’s chronicles, (Sir) John Gardner Wilkinson), we can sympathize with Vyse and Hill: its text and presentation are disorganized, and its plates reproducing cartouches are small, ill-copied and badly printed. Wilkinson appears to have been uncertain not only regarding the reading of royal names, but also regarding the correct manner by which hieroglyphs carved or sculptured on stone should be transcribed in linear writing. The problem was most acute concerning the disk sign, which on such monuments appeared as either a solid disk, or as a void sphere, and in linear (or brushed-of) writing as a circle with a dot in its center. In his works, he transcribed the royal cartouches in question in some instances as a solid disk, and in others as a circle with a dot in the center.

Mr. Sitchin’s research in this matter of authenticity of forgery does not end here. Several more pages are dedicated on his book regarding the doings of Vyse-Hill-Perry and others, but in conclusion to this chapter he continues:

"(While most Egyptologists have accepted without further investigation the claim that Khufu’s name was inscribed in the Great Pyramid, the works of Sir Alan Gardiner suggest that he had doubts on the subject. In his Egypt of the Pharaohs, he reproduced royal cartouches with a clear distinction between the hieroglyphs of Ra and Kh. The cartouche of Cheops, he wrote, "is found in various quarries, in the tombs of his kinfolk and nobles, and in certain writing of later date." Conspicuous by its absence in this list is the inscription in the Great Pyramid.... Also omitted by Sir Alan were any mention of Vyse’s discoveries in the Third Pyramid and even of Vyse’s name as such)."

"If the proof of the construction of the Giza pyramids by the presumed Pharaohs stands shattered, there is no longer reason to suspect the authenticity of the Inventory Stela, which stated that the pyramids and the Sphinx were already there when Khufu came to pay homage to Isis and Osiris.

"There is nothing left to contradict our contention that these three pyramids were built by the "gods." On the contrary: everything about them suggests that they were not conceived by men for men’s use.

"We shall proceed to show how they were part of the Guidance Grid that served the Spaceport of the Nefilim."

Return

Chapter Fourteen
THE GAZE OF THE SPHINX
 

"In time, the pyramids of Giza were made part of the Landing Grid which had the peaks of Ararat as its focal point, incorporated Jerusalem as a Mission Control Center, and guided the space vehicles to the Spaceport in the Sinai peninsula.

"But at first, the pyramids themselves had to serve as guiding beacons, simply by virtue of their location, alignment and shape. All Pyramids, as we have seen, were at their core step pyramids - emulating the ziggurats of Mesopotamia. But when the "gods who came from heaven" experimented with their scale model at Giza (the Third Pyramid), they may have found that the silhouette of the ziggurat and the shadow it cast upon the undulating rocks and ever-shifting sands were too blurred and inaccurate to serve as a reliable Pointer-of- the-Way. By casing the stepped core to achieve a "true" pyramid, and using white (light-reflecting) limestone for the casing, a perfect play of light and shadow was achieved, providing clear orientation.

"....In 1882, Robert Ballard, in The Solution of the Pyramid Problem, he also showed that the pyramids were aligned with each other in the basic Pythagorean right-angled triangles, whose sides were proportionate to each other as 3.4.5. Pyramidologists have also noticed that the shadows cast by the pyramids could serve as a giant sundial, the direction and length of the shadows indicating time of year and of day.

"Even more important, however, was how the silhouettes and shadows of the pyramids appeared to an observer from the skies.... the true shape of the pyramids casts arrowlike shadows, which were as unmistakable direction pointers.

"When all was ready to establish a proper Spaceport, it required a much longer Landing Corridor than the one which served Baalbek. For their previous Spaceport in Mesopotamia, the Anunnaki (the biblical Nefilim) chose the most conspicuous mountain in the Near East - Mount Ararat - as their focal point. It should not be surprising that out of the same consideration they again selected it as the focal point of their new Spaceport.

NOTE If the reader wishes at this stage can go back to chapter 11 "The Elusive Mount," to read the building of the Spaceport beacons, (pyramids).

"Mount Katherine may have been suitable for a short Landing Corridor focused on Baalbek; but for the distant focal point of Ararat, a much more distinct and unmistakable landmark was required. We believe that for the same reasons as the Palmer’s (he led the British Ordinance Survey Mission and they chose Mount Umm Shumar as their geodesic landmark for surveying and measuring the peninsula), the Anunnaki selected Mount Umm Shumar as the anchor of the southeastern outline of the new Landing Corridor.

"Much about this mount and its location is intriguing. To begin with, its name - puzzling or highly significant - means "Mother of Sumer." It is a title which was applied at Ur to Ningal, spouse of Sin....

"....Mount Umm Shumar is situated at the age of the mass of granite. The sandy beaches there, on the Gulf of Suez, have several natural hot springs. Was it there that Ashera spent her winters, residing "by the sea"? From there, it is really only "a she-ass’ ride" away to Mount Umm Shumar - a ride so vividly described in the Ugaritic texts when Asherah went calling on El at his Mount.

"Just a few miles down the coast from the Hot Springs is the peninsula’s most important port city on these coasts -the port city of el-Tor..... The place has served as Sinai’s most important gulf port from earliest times, and we wonder if it was not the Tilmun-city (as distinct from Tilmun-land) spoken of in Sumerian texts. It could well have been the port which Gilgamesh planned to reach by ship, from where his comrade Enkidu could go to the nearby mines (in which he was doomed to slave for the rest of his life); while he (Gilgamesh) could proceed to the "Landing Place, where the Shems are raised."

"The peaks of the peninsula’s granite core which face the Gulf of Suez bear names that make one stop and wonder. One mount bears the name "Mount of the Blessed Mother"; closer to mount Umm Shumar, Mount Teman (The "Southern") raises its head. The name brings the verses of Habakuk:

"El from Teman shall come ... Covered are the heavens with his halo; His splendor fills the Earth ... The Word goes before him, sparks emanate from below; He pauses to measure the Earth ...

"Was the prophet referring to the mount that still bears the very name - Teman - the southern neighbor of Mount "Mother of Summer?" Since there is no other mountain bearing such a name, the identification seems more than plausible.

"Does Mount Umm Shumar fit into the Landing Grid and the network of sacred sites developed by the Anunnaki?

"We suggest that this mount substituted for Mt. Katherine when the final Landing Corridor was worked out, acting as the anchor for the southeastern line of the Corridor which was focused on Ararat. But if so, where was the complementary anchor for the northeaster line?

"It is no coincidence, we suggest, that Heliopolis was built where it was. It lies on the original Ararat-Baalbek-Giza line. But it is so located, that it is equidistant from Ararat as Umm Shumar is! Its location was determined, we suggest, by measuring off the distance from Ararat to Umm Shumar - then marking off an equidistant point of the Ararat-Baalbek-Giza line.

"As we unfold the amazing network of natural and artificial peaks that have been incorporated into the landing and communications grid of the Anunnaki, one must ponder whether they served as guiding beacons by height and shape alone. Were they not also equipped with some kind of guidance instruments?

Among other views:

"....Although the academic establishment has been loath to digress from the "pyramids as tombs" theory, Virginia Trimble and Alexander Badawy concluded in the Bulletin’s 1964 issues that the "air shafts" had astronomical functions, having been "beyond doubt inclined within 1 degree toward the circumpolar stars."

"Without doubting that the direction and inclination of the shafts must have been premeditated, we are no less intrigued by the founding that once air flowed into the "King’s Chamber," the temperature within remained at a constant 68 degrees Fahrenheit no matter what the weather outside was.

All these findings seem to confirm the conclusions of E.F. Jonard (a member of Napoleon’s team of scientists), who suggested that the King’s Chamber and its "sarcophagus" were not intended for burial, but as a depository of weight and measurement standards, which even in modern times are kept in a stable environment of temperature and moisture.

"Jonard could no have possibly imagine - back in 1824 - delicate space guidance instruments, rather than mundane units of a meter and a kilogram. But we, of course, can.

"When Flinders Petrie (The Pyramids and the Temple at Gizeh) minutely examined the "King’s Chamber" and the stone "coffer" within it, he found that both were built in accord with the dimensions of perfect Pythagorean triangles. To cut the coffer out of a solid stone block, he estimated, a saw was needed with nine foot blades whose teeth were diamond-tipped. To hollow it out, diamond tipped drills were needed, applied with a pressure of two tons. How all this was achieved was beyond him. And what was the purpose? He lifted the coffer to see whether it hid some aperture (it did not); when the coffer was struck, it emitted a deep, bell-like sound that reverberated throughout the pyramid. This bell-like quality of the coffer was reported by earlier investigators. Were the "King’s Chamber" and its "coffer" meant, then, to serve as sound-emitters or echo-chambers?

"Even nowadays, landing guidance equipment at airports emits electronic signals which instruments in an approaching aircraft translate into a pleasant buzz if on course, it changes into an alarming beep if the plane veers off course. We can safely assume that, as soon as possible after the Deluge, new guidance equipment was brought down to Earth. The Egyptian depictions of the Divine Cordholders indicates that "Stones of Splendor" were installed at both anchor-points of the Landing Corridor, our guess is that the purpose of the various chambers within the pyramid was to house such guidance and communications equipment.

"Was Shad El - the "Mountain of El" - likewise equipped?

"The Ugaritic texts invariably employed the phrase "penetrate the Shad of El" when describing the coming of other gods unto the presence of El "within his seven chambers." This implied that these chambers were inside the mountain - as were the chambers inside the artificial mountain of the Great Pyramid. Historians of the first Christian centuries reported that the people who dwelled in the Sinai and its bordering areas at Palestine and North Arabia worshipped the god Dushara (Lord of the Mountains) and his spouse Allat, "Mother of the Gods." They were of course the male El and the female Elat, his spouse Ashera. The secret object of Dushara was, fortunately, depicted on a coin struck by the Roman governor of those provinces. Curiously, it resembles the enigmatic chambers within the Great Pyramid - an inclined stairway ("Ascending Gallery") leading to a chamber between massive stones ("the King’s Chamber"). Above it, a series of stones re-create the pyramid’s "relieving chambers."

"Since the Ascending Passages of the Great Pyramid - which are unique to it - were plugged tight when Al Mamoon’s men broke into it, the question is: Who, in antiquity, did know, and emulated, the inner construction within the pyramid? The answer can only be: the architects and builders of the Great Pyramid, who possessed such knowledge. Only they could duplicate such construction elsewhere - at Baalbek or within the mountain of El.

"And so it was, that although the Mount of the Exodus was elsewhere, in the northern half of the peninsula, the people of the area transmitted from generation to generation the recollection of sacred mountains among the peninsula’s southern peaks. They were the mountains that, by their sheer height and location, and by virtue of the instruments installed within them, served as beacons for the "Riders of the Clouds."

"....When the Anunnaki had landed on Earth and proceeded to establish their facilities and Spaceport in Mesopotamia, Mission Control Center was at Nippur, "The Place of the Crossing." Its "sacred" or Restricted Precinct was under the absolute control of Enlil, it was called the KI.UR ("Earth City"). In its midst, atop an artificial raised platform, was the DUR.AN.KI - "The Bond of Heaven and Earth." It was, the Sumerian texts related, a "heavenward tall pillar reaching to the sky." Firmly set upon the "platform which cannot be overturned," this pillar was used by Enlil "to pronounce the word" heavenward.

"....A Mission Control Center, similar to the one that had served the landing path in pre-Diluvian Mesopotamia, had to be established for the Spaceport in the Sinai. Where?

"Our answer is in Jerusalem.

"Hallowed to Jew, Christian and Muslim alike, its very atmosphere charged with some inexplicably unearthly mystery, it had been a sacred city even before King David established her as his capital and Solomon built there the Lord’s Abode. When the Patriarch Abraham reached its gates, it was already a well-established center to "El the Supreme, the Righteous One of Heaven and Earth." Its earliest known name was Ur-Shalem - "City of the Completed Cycle" - a name which suggests an association with orbital matters, or with the God of Orbits. As to who Shalem might have been, scholars have offered various theories, some of them (per Benjamin Mazar in "Jerusalem before the David Kingship") name Enlil’s grandson Shamash; others prefer Enlil’s son Ninib. In all theories, however, the association of Jerusalem’s roots with the Mesopotamian pantheon is undisputed.

"From its beginnings, Jerusalem encompassed three mountain peaks; from north to south, they were Mount Zephim, Mount Moriah and Mount Zion. Their names bespoke their functions: The northernmost was the "Mount of Observers" (it is now called in English Mount Scopus); the middle one was the "Mount of Directing"; the southernmost was the "Mount of the Signal." They are still so called in spite of the passage of millennia.

"....Of the three Mounts of Jerusalem, that of Moriah has been the most sacred....

"....The large horizontal platform atop Mount Moriah - reminiscent in layout of the one at Baalbek, though much smaller - has been called "The Temple Mount," for it had served as the site of the Jewish Temple of Jerusalem. It is now occupied by several Muslim shrines, the most renowned of which is the Dome of the Rock. The Dome was carried off by the Caliph Abd al-Malik (seventh century A.D.) from Baalbek....

"....Muslims believe that it was from the Sacred Rock that their prophet Muhammed was taken aloft to visit Heaven.... by the angel Gabriel from Mecca to Jerusalem, with a stopover at Mount Sinai, then he was taken aloft by the angel, ascending heavenward via a "Ladder of Light." Passing through the Seven Heavens.... after receiving divine instructions (from God).... He was returned the same way, riding the angel’s winged horse.

"....We do know, however, that the First Temple was built by King Solomon upon Mount Moriah at an exact spot and following precise instructions provided by the Lord. The Holy-of-Hollies was built upon the Sacred Rock: its innermost chamber, completely gilded, was taken up by two large Cherubim (winged Sphinx-like beings) also made of gold, their wings touching the walls and each other’s, between them was placed the Ark of the Testament, from within which the Lord Addressed Moses in the desert. Completely insulated from the outside, the gold covered Holy-of-Hollies was called in the Old Testament the Dvir - literally, "The Speaker."

"The suggestion that Jerusalem was a "divine" communication center, a place where a "Stone of Splendor" was secreted, and from which the Word or Voice of the Lord beamed far and wide, is not as preposterous as it may sound.... was not at all alien to the Old Testament. In fact, the possession by the Lord of such a capability, and the selection of Jerusalem as the communication center, were considered to the attestations of Yahweh’s and Jerusalem’s supremacy. "I shall answer the Heavens, and they shall respond to Earth...."

"....Ba’al, the Lord of the facilities at Baalbek, had boasted that his voice could be heard at Kadesh, the gateway city to the Precinct of the gods in the "Wilderness" of central Sinai....

"....The capabilities acquired by Ba’al when he installed the "Stones of Splendor" at Baalbek were described in the Ugaritic texts as the ability to put "one lip to Earth, one lip to Heaven." The symbol for this communication devices , as we have seen, were the doves. Both symbolism and terminology are incorporated in the verses of Psalm 68, which describe the flying arrival of the Lord....

"....With the restoration of the Temple at Jerusalem, the Prophets promised, "the word of Yahweh from Jerusalem shall issue." Jerusalem would be re-established as a world center, sought by all the nations. Conveying the Lord’s promise, Isaiah reassured the people that not only the "probing stone" but also the "measuring" functions would be restored.

"....To have served as a Mission Control Center, Jerusalem - as Nippur - had to be located on the long central line bisecting the Landing Corridor. Its hallowed tradition affirm such a position, and the evidence suggests that it was that sacred rock which marked the precise geodesic center.

"....The Prophet Ezequiel referred to the people of Israel as "residing upon the Navel of the Earth." The term as we have seen, meant that Jerusalem was a focal communication center, from which "cords" were drawn to other anchor points of the Landing Grid. It was thus no coincidence that the Hebrew word for the sacred rock was Eben Sheti’yah - a term which Jewish sages held to have meant "stone from which the world was woven."

"....But as suggestive as all these terms and legends are, the decisive question is this: did Jerusalem in fact lie on the central line which bisected the Landing Corridor, focused on Ararat and outlined by the Giza pyramids and Mount Umm Shumar?

"The decisive answer is: Yes. Jerusalem lies precisely on that line!

"As was the case with the pyramids of Giza, so do we discover in the case of the Divine Grid more and more amazing alignments and triangulations. Jerusalem, we find, also lies precisely where the Baalbek-Katherine line intersects the flight path’s central line based on Ararat. Heliopolis, we find is precisely equidistant from Jerusalem as Mount Umm Shumar. And the diagonals drawn from Jerusalem to Heliopolis and to Umm Shumar form an accurate 45 degree right angle.

"These links between Jerusalem, Baalbek (The Crest of Zaphon) and Giza (Memphis) were known, and hailed, in biblical times.... The Book of Jubilees held,

The Garden of Eternity, the most sacred,
is the dwelling of the Lord;
And Mount Sinai, in the center of the desert;
And Mount Zion, the center of the Navel of the Earth.
These three were created as holy places,
FACING EACH OTHER.

"Somewhere along the "Line of Jerusalem" the central flight line that was anchored on Mount Ararat, the Spaceport itself had to be located. There, too, the final beacon had to be located: "Mount Sinai, in the center of the desert."

"It is here, we suggest, that the dividing line which we now call the Thirtieth Parallel (north) had come into play.

"We know from Sumerian astronomical texts that the skies enveloping Earth were so divided as to separate the northern "way" (allotted to Enlil) from the southern "way" (allotted to Ea) with a wide central band considered the "Way of Anu." It is only natural to assume that a dividing line between the two rival brothers should also have been established after the Deluge, when the settled Earth was divided into the Four Regions, and that, as in pre-Diluvial times, the Thirtieth Parallel (north and south) served as demarcation lines.

"Was it mere coincidence, or a deliberate compromise between the two brothers and their feuding descendants, that in each of the three regions given to Mankind, the sacred city was located on the Thirtieth Parallel?

"The Sumerian texts state that "When Kingship was lowered from Heaven" after the Deluge, "Kingship was at Eridu." Eridu was situated astride the Thirtieth Parallel as close to it as the marshy waters of the Persian Gulf had permitted....

"....In the Second Region.... Heliopolis for ever remained the sacred city.... was located astride the Thirtieth Parallel, as close to it as the Nile’s delta permitted!

"When the Third Region, the Indus Valley Civilization, followed, its secular center was on the shores of the Indian Ocean, but its sacred city - Harappa - was hundreds of miles away to the north - right on the Thirtieth Parallel.

"The imperative of the northern Thirtieth Parallel appears to have continued in the millennia that followed. Circa 600 B.C. the Persian kings augmented the royal capital with a city "Sacred unto all Nations." The place selected for its construction was a remote and uninhabited site. There, literally in the middle of nowhere, a great horizontal platform was laid out. Upon it, palaces with magnificent staircases and many auxiliary shrines and structures were erected - all honoring the God of the Winged Globe. The Greeks called the place Persepolis ("City of the Persians").... And it was located astride the Thirtieth Parallel.

"No one knows for sure when Lhasa in Tibet - the sacred city of Buddhism - was founded. But it is a fact that Lhasa too - as Eridu, Heliopolis, Harappa and Persepolis were - was situated on the same Thirtieth Parallel.

"The sanctity of the Thirtieth Parallel must be traced back to the origins of the Sacred Grid, when the divine measurers determined the location of the pyramids of Giza also on the Thirtieth Parallel. Could the gods have given up this "sanctity" or neutrality of the Thirtieth Parallel when it came to their most vital installation - the Spaceport - in their own Fourth Region, in the Sinai Peninsula?

"It is there that we ought to seek a final clue from the remaining enigma of Giza - its Great Sphinx. Its body is that of a crouching lion, its head of a man wearing the royal headdress. When and by whom was it erected? And to what purpose? Whose image does it bear? And why is it where it is, alone, and nowhere else?

"The questions have been many, the answers very few. But one thing is certain: it gazes precisely eastward, along the Thirtieth Parallel.

"This precise alignment and gaze eastward along the Divine Parallel were emphasized in antiquity by a series of structures that extended from in front of the Sphinx eastward precisely along an east-west axis.

"When Napoleon and his men saw the Sphinx at the turn of the eighteenth century, only its head and shoulders protruded above the desert sands; it was in that state that the Sphinx was depicted and known for the better part of the century that followed. It took repeated and systematic excavations to reveal its full colossal size (240 feet long, 65 feet high) and shape and to confirm what ancient historians had written: that it was a single piece of sculpture, carved by some giant hand out of the natural rock. It was non other than Capt. Caviglia, whom Col. Vyse forced out of Giza, who had uncovered during 1816-1818 not only a good part of the body and extended paws of the Sphinx, but also the temples, sanctuaries, altars and stelas that were erected in front of it.

Among several features uncovered, "there, a structure whose function was to support two columns was so situated that the eastward gaze of the Sphinx passed precisely between the two columns."

Romans and Greeks, continued the tradition of the Pharaohs:

"....to visit and pay homage to the Sphinx, leaving behind appropriate inscriptions. They affirmed the belief, which continued into Arab times, that the Sphinx was the work of the gods themselves; it was deemed to be the harbinger of a future messianic era of peace. An inscription by the notorious emperor Nero called the Sphinx "Armachis," Overseer and Savior."

".... As the "Inventory Stela" attests, the Sphinx had already stood at Giza in the time of Khufu, a predecessor of Chefra. Like several Pharaohs after him, so did Khufu take credit for removing the sand that encroached upon the Sphinx. From this it must be deduced that the Sphinx was already an olden monument in Khufu’s time. What earlier Pharaoh, then, had erected it, implanting upon it his own image?

"The answer is that the image is not of any Pharaoh, but of a god, and that in all probability, the gods and not a mortal king had erected the Sphinx.

Among other inscriptions, Mr. Sitchin mentions:

"....In the Inventory Stela, Khufu called the Sphinx "Guardian of the Aeter," who guides the Winds with his gaze. It was, as he clearly wrote, the image of a god:

This figure of the god
will exist to eternity;
Always having its face
watching towards the east.

"In his inscription, Khufu mentions that a very old sycamore tree that grew near the Sphinx was damaged "When the Lord of Heaven descended upon the Place of Hor-em-Akhet," "the Falcon-god of the Horizon." This indeed was the most frequent name of the Sphinx in Pharaonic inscriptions; his other epithets being Ruti ("The Lion") and Hul (meaning, perhaps, "The Eternal").

Although excavators, like Caviglia and Perring, have tried to find "secret chambers" under the Sphinx, none has been found.

"Even more responsible researchers, such as Auguste Mariette in 1853, shared the general opinion that there is a hidden chamber concealed in or under the Sphinx..... The searchers have surmised that if the Sphinx itself could have been almost hidden from sight by the encroaching sands, so much so could the sands of desert and time completely hide any substructure.
 

"The most ancient inscriptions seem to suggest that there indeed existed not one, but two secret chambers under the Sphinx - perhaps reachable through an entrance hidden under the paws of the monument. A hymn from the time of the Eighteenth Dynasty, moreover, reveals that the two "caverns" under the Sphinx enabled it to serve as communications center!

"The God Amen, the inscription said, assuming the functions of the heavenly Hor-Akhti, attained "perception in his heart, command in his lips ... when he enters the two caverns which are under his (the Sphinx’s) feet." Then,

A message is sent from heaven;
It is heard in Heliopolis,
and it is repeated in Memphis by the Fair of Face.
It is composed in a dispatch by the writing of Thoth,
with regard to the city of Amen (Thebes) ...
The matter is answered in Thebes,
A statement is issued ... a message is sent.
The gods are acting according to command.

"In the days of the Pharaohs it was believed that the Sphinx - though sculptured out of stone - could somehow hear and speak....

"....Many unusual "Ear Tablets" and depictions of the Twin Doves - a symbol associated with oracle sites - were found in the temples surrounding the Sphinx. Like the ancient inscriptions, they also attest to the belief that somehow the Sphinx could transmit Divine Messages. Although the efforts to dig under the Sphinx have not been successful, one cannot rule out the possibility that the subterranean chambers which the gods had entered with "command in their lips" would still be found.

"It is clear from numerous funerary texts that the Sphinx was considered to have been the "Sacred Guide" who guided the deceased from "yesterday" to "tomorrow...."

"...A stela erected by one Pa-Ra-Emheb, who directed works of restoration at the site of the Sphinx in Pharaonic times, contains telltale verses in adoration of the Sphinx; their similarity to biblical Psalms is truly tantalizing. The inscriptions mention the extensions of cords "for the plan," the making of "secret things" in the subterranean realm; they speak of the "crossing of the sky" in a Celestial Barge, and of a "protected place" in the "sacred desert." It even employs the term Sheti.ta to denote the "Place of the Hidden Name" in the Sacred Desert....

"....To the Hebrew Prophets, the Sheti - the central Flight Line passing through Jerusalem - was the Divine Line, the direction to watch: "within it did the Lord come from sacred Sinai."

"But to the Egyptians, as the above inscription declared, Sheti.ta was the "Place of the Hidden Name." It was in the "Sacred Desert" - which is exactly what the biblical name "Desert of Kadesh" has meant. And to it, the "cords of the plan" were extended from the Sphinx. There, Paraemheb had seen the King of the Gods ascend by day, the words are almost identical to those of Gilgamesh, arriving to Mount Mashu, "where daily the Shems he watched, as they depart and come in ... watched over Shamash as he ascends and descends."

"It was the Protected Place, the Place of Ascent. Those who were to reach it were guided there by the Sphinx; for its gaze led eastward, exactly along the Thirtieth Parallel.

"It was there the two lines intersected, we suggest - where the Line of Jerusalem intersected the Thirtieth Parallel that the Gates of Heaven and Earth were located; the Spaceport of the gods.

At this point, Mr. Sitchin explains a chart which appears on his book, the sacred cities, and alignments:

"....As we fill in our chart, the masterful Grid conceived by the Anunnaki unfolds before our very eyes; and we are truly astounded by its precision, simple beauty, and the artful combination of basic geometry with the landmarks provided by nature.

"....Were other sacred cities and oracle sites in Egypt, such as the great Thebes and Edfu, located where they were at a king’s whim, at an attractive bend of the Nile - or where alignments of the Grid had dictated?

"Indeed, were we to study all these sites, all of Earth would probably be encompassed. But was that not what Ba’al had already known when he established his clandestine facilities at Baalbek? For his aim, we recall, was to communicate with and dominate, not just the nearby lands, but all of Earth.

"This the biblical Lord too must have known, for when Job sought to unravel the "wonders of El," the Lord "answered him from within the whirlpool," and countered questions with questions:

Let me ask thee, and answer thou me;
Where wast thou,
when the Earth’s foundation I laid out?
Say, if thou knowest science:
Who hath measured it (the Earth), that it be known?
Or who hath streched a cord upon it?
By what were its platforms wrought?
Who hath cast its Stone of Corners?

"Then the Lord answered His own questions. All these acts of Earth measuring, the laying out of platforms, the setting up of the Stone of Corners were done, He said:

When the morning stars rejoiced together
And all the sons of the gods shouted for joy.

"Man as wise as he might have been, had no hand in all that. Baalbek, the Pyramids, the Spaceport - all were meant for the gods alone. But Man, ever searching for Immortality, has never ceased to follow the gaze of the Sphinx.

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