But what significance?
It was a question I would revisit time and time again, seeking an answer. What was abundantly clear to me was that the designers and builders must have placed these peculiar features into these two pyramids for a very specific reason for, in so doing, they were going out of their way to make the construction of these two pyramids so much more difficult for themselves. Why build a complex eight-sided structure when a four-sided pyramid would have been so much simpler? These were clearly no accidents of design. There had to be a reason for them.
Figure 1.3. The Templar Cross
As the sun rose ever higher above and around the eastern horizon, casting more light uniformly onto the southern slope of the Great Pyramid, the two different triangular shadows gradually merged into one, removing the split-face effect from its southern elevation and returning the structure to the conventional four-sided pyramid we are familiar with. But I had witnessed this strange phenomenon with my own eyes and was thrilled at having done so. Having read so much about this effect in numerous books and having puzzled over its purpose for so long, this curious effect was now real to me and not merely some abstract concept that bland words on a page struggled to properly convey. The phenomenon really did exist, and, as far as I was concerned, these subtle and inexplicable features on the four sides of these two pyramids at Giza presented a clue to something of great import, a clue that I believed might hold the key to uncovering the location of the legendary hidden chamber of Osiris, a secret vault that a number of ancient texts (Egyptian, Greek, and Roman) suggested had been buried in remote antiquity and that legend further tells us holds within it the “wisdom of Osiris.”
WHISPERS OF THE CHAMBER
The idea that there is a hidden chamber preserving some form of high wisdom passed down from remote antiquity is as old as Egypt itself, and countless numbers of individuals and groups have sought to discover and prove the existence of such a chamber for almost as long—even into modern times. Understandably, most of the searching for hidden chambers that has taken place—especially in recent times—has focused on the Giza pyramid complex and the area around the Sphinx, much of it driven by the “readings” of the so-called Sleeping Prophet, Edgar Cayce, who in 1932 during one of his readings prophesied, “With the storehouse, or record house (where the records are still to be uncovered), there is a chamber or passage from the right forepaw [of the Sphinx] to this entrance of the record chamber, or record tomb. This may not be entered without an understanding.”4
Of course, had Cayce’s writings been the only source suggesting the existence of a hidden chamber containing ancient records, then the very idea that such might actually be real would seem to exist more in the realm of fantasy than in any actual possibility, and for anyone to embark on a quest to find such a hidden chamber on such a premise would, naturally, be considered something of a romantic, crazy, and somewhat forlorn dream. However, placing Cayce’s unproven “prophecies” aside, we can turn to a number of ancient sources that present us with tantalizing hints as to the presence of a hidden vault somewhere at Giza (or close by), and furthermore, some of these ancient sources also hint as to why it was deemed necessary to create such a secret chamber. As author and researcher Joseph Robert Jochmans explains:
In the Corpus Hermeticum, a body of treatises compiled from older materials toward the beginning of the Christian era, we find in one of these works, the Virgin of the World, the following:
“The sacred symbols of the cosmic elements, the secrets of Osiris, were hidden carefully. Hermes (the Greek equivalent to the ancient Egyptian god, Thoth), before his return to Heaven, invoked a spell on them, and said, O holy books which have been made by my immortal hands, by incorruption’s magic spell remain free from decay throughout eternity and incorrupt by time. Become unseeable, unfindable, from everyone whose foot shall tread the plains of this land, until old Heaven shall bring instruments for you, whom the Creator shall call His souls. Thus spake he, and laying the spells on them by means of his works, he shut them safe away in their rooms. And long has been the time since they were hid away.”
The Roman Marcellinus, in the 4th century, stated: “There are certain subterranean galleries and passages full of windings beneath the pyramids which, it is said, the adepts in the ancient rites (knowing that the flood was coming, and fearing that the memory of the sacred ceremonies would be obliterated), constructed vaults in various places, mining them out of the ground with great labor. . . .”
In similar fashion, the tenth century Coptic chronicler Al Masudi observed from earlier accounts that in the area of the Sphinx were subterranean doorways to the Giza monuments: “One entered the pyramid through a vaulted underground passage 100 cubits or more long; each pyramid had such a door and entry.”
In later centuries, the medieval Arab chronicler Firouzabadi noted that the chambers of the Sphinx were constructed at the same time as the Great Pyramid: “The Pyramid was erected by Esdris (Hermes or Thoth), to preserve there the sciences, to prevent their destruction. And also, the first priests, by observations of the stars, preserved records of medicine, magic and talismans elsewhere.” Likewise, Ibn Abd Alhokim, who told the story of the antediluvian king Salhouk’s dream of the Flood and his building of the Pyramid to save wisdom, also recounted that Salhouk dug a vault nearby the Pyramid, filling it with all manners of works on mathematics, astronomy and physics: “And they built gates (entrances) of it forty cubits underground, with foundations of massive stones from the Ethiopians, and fastened them together with lead and iron. When Salhouk was finished, he covered it with colored marble from top to bottom and he appointed a solemn festival, at which were present all the inhabitants of the kingdom.”
The Jewish historian Josephus recorded further that Enoch built an underground temple of nine vaults, one beneath the other, placing within tablets of gold. His son, Methuselah, also worked on the project, putting in the brick walls of the vaults according to his father’s plan. As Manly P. Hall noted, the Freemasons predict that someday a man will locate this buried vault.5
The early Arab chronicles further tell us why the ancient Egyptians deemed it necessary to build their monumental pyramids.
There was a king named Surid, the son of Sahaloe, 300 years before the Deluge, who dreamed one night that he saw the earth overturned with its inhabitants, the men cast down on their faces, the stars falling out of the heavens, and striking one against the other, and making horrid and dreadful cries as they fell. He thereupon awoke much troubled. A year after he dreamed again that he saw the fixed stars come down to the earth in the form of white birds, which carried men away, and cast them between two great mountains, which almost joined together and covered them; and then the bright, shining stars became dark and were eclipsed. Next morning he ordered all the princes of the priests, and magicians of all the provinces of Egypt, to meet together; which they did to the number of 130 priests and soothsayers, with whom he went and related to them his dream.
Among others, the priest Aclimon, who was the greatest of all, and resided chiefly in the king’s Court, said thus to him:—I myself had a dream about a year ago which frightened me very much, and which I have not revealed to anyone. I dreamed, said the priest, that I was with your Majesty on the top of the mountain of fire, which is in the midst of Emosos, and that I saw the heaven sink down below its ordinary situation, so that it was near the crown of our heads, covering and surrounding us, like a great basin turned upside down; that the stars were intermingled among men in diverse figures; that the people implored your Majesty’s succor, and ran to you in multitudes as their refuge; that you lifted up your hands above your head, and endeavored to thrust back the heaven, and keep it from coming down so low; and that I, seeing what your Majesty did, did also the same. While we were in that posture, extremely affrighted, I thought we saw a certain part of heaven opening, and a bright light coming out of it; that afterwards the sun rose out of the same place, and we began to implore his assistance; whereupon he
said thus to us: “The heaven will return to its ordinary situation when I shall have performed three hundred courses.” I thereupon awaked extremely affrighted.
The priest having thus spoken, the king commanded them to take the height of the stars, and to consider what accident they portended. Whereupon they declared that they promised first the Deluge, and after that fire. Then he commanded pyramids should be built, that they might remove and secure in them what was of most esteem in their treasuries, with the bodies of the kings, and their wealth, and the aromatic roots which served them, and that they should write their wisdom upon them, that the violence of the water might not destroy it.6
In a similar vein, world-renowned Egyptologist Mark Lehner, Ph.D., writes:
A Coptic legend tells of King Surid who lived three centuries before the flood. His dreams foretold future chaos and only those who joined the Lord of the Boat would escape. . . . Surid may be a corruption of Suphis, a late form of Khufu, his city, Amsus, is Memphis and the Lord of the Boat is an amalgam of Noah’s Ark and the barque of the sun god.
Another popular Arab legend maintained that the Great Pyramid was the tomb of Hermes—the Greek counterpart of the Egyptian Thoth—who, like Surid, built pyramids to hide literature and science from the uninitiated and preserve them through the flood. . . .
Embellishments of the Arab legends abounded, including of the Surid story. The 15th century historian al-Maqrizi reported that the king decorated the walls and the ceilings of his pyramid chambers with representations of the stars and planets and all the sciences, and placed treasures within such. . . . Maqrizi also says that, according to the Copts, Surid was buried in the pyramid surrounded by all his possessions. If Surid is a memory of Khufu, this may not be so far from the truth.7
While parts of these Arab legends are presented in the form of a dream, it is important to note that the king (Surid) related this dream to his advisors and, having so done, he then ordered that they “take the height of the stars.” Upon doing this it is clear that the astronomer-priests found something unusual and troublesome in the heavens as they advise the king that three hundred years hence the land will be devastated by a great deluge and fire (drought). This activity of the priests in measuring the height of the stars was not a part of the king’s dream; the king ordered this to be done afterward. And it was only upon hearing this deeply troublesome news of deluge and drought from his astronomer-priests that the king then ordered the construction of the pyramids to safeguard in them that which was of most esteem in the kingdom. Again, the deluge and fire and the subsequent order to construct the pyramids were not part of the king’s original dream.
But why should parts of this Arab legend be relayed in the form of the “king’s dream”? To people of the ancient world dreams were very motivational; the king certainly took them seriously as it was believed that dreams were in fact “messages from the gods.” As such dreams (or messages from the gods) given to the king acted in a sense to confer the “power of the gods” on the king himself. For this reason this story of Surid’s dream may have come down to us in this form; the vehicle of relating the story via the “king’s dream” demonstrates the power of the king, that the king himself was a god and possessed the power of the gods, that through his dreams he received their “messages.” In short, through these “dreams” the king possessed the power of the gods. We are reminded here, of course, of the Bible story of Joseph interpreting the pharaoh’s dream, and upon hearing Joseph’s interpretation of his dream, the Pharaoh then ordered the construction of large granaries—all on the basis of a dream, a “message from the gods.”
In a similar vein, researcher and author Gary Osborn writes:
The Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus (born circa 330 AD) speculated that the pyramids were vaults containing ancient wisdom.
Then there’s the journals of a Moroccan named Ibn Battuta. Between 1325 and 1355 Battuta trekked back-and-forth through the lands of Islam. Apparently he claims to have travelled more than 75,000 miles by foot and on camel. He learned of many things from the wise men and mystics he met while travelling, and wrote everything down in his journal. He especially wrote of a man named Hermes Trismegistus whose wisdom made him equatable with the god Thoth, and whom Battuta learned was also the Hebrew Enoch.
This man, he writes, who “having ascertained from the appearance of the stars that the deluge would take place, built the pyramids to contain books of science and knowledge, and other matters worth preserving from oblivion and ruin.”
Then there’s Sir John Mandeville. His book “The Travels” (c. 1366) included descriptions of the pyramids, which the author suggests were the “granaries of Joseph”:
“And now also I shall speak of another thing that is beyond Babylon, above the flood of the Nile, toward the desert between Africa and Egypt; that is to say, of the garners [granaries] of Joseph, that he let make for to keep the grains for the peril of the dear years. And they be made of stone, full well made of masons’ craft; of which two be marvelously great and high, and the other ne be not so great. And every garner hath a gate for to enter within, a little high from the earth; for the land is wasted and fallen since the garners were made. And within they be all full of serpents. And above the garners without be many scriptures of diverse languages. And some men say, that they be sepulchers of great lords, that were sometime, but that is not true, for all the common rumor and speech is of all the people there, both far and near, that they be the garners of Joseph; and so find they in their scriptures, and in their chronicles. On the other part, if they were sepulchers, they should not be void within, ne they should have no gates for to enter within; for ye may well know, that tombs and sepulchers be not made of such greatness, nor of such highness; wherefore it is not to believe, that they be tombs or sepulchers.”
George Sandys, (1578–1644) who had entered Oxford in 1589, was the youngest of the seven sons of Edwin Sandys, the former Bishop of London and Archbishop of York. The Sandys lineage has a colorful past—many of them maintaining high-standing positions in both state religion and politics.
Nothing more is known of George Sandys until 1610, when seeking adventure, he left England on a grand tour of the east, spending a year in Turkey, Palestine and Egypt. Sandys was one of the first educated Europeans to enter the Great Pyramid, remarking that, “contrary to popular opinion, the pyramids are the tombs of kings.”
It seems that this [issue] was being argued even then and that popular opinion at the time was that the pyramids were NOT tombs.8
Of this anticipated deluge, the ancient Egyptians themselves tell us this:
Then Thoth, being the tongue of the Great God declares that, acting for the Lord Tem, he is going to make a Flood. He says: “I am going to blot out everything that I have made. This Earth shall enter into (i.e., be absorbed in) the watery abyss of Nu (or Nunu) by means of a raging flood, and will become even as it was in primeval time. I myself shall remain together with Osiris, but I shall transform myself into a small serpent, which can be neither comprehended nor seen.” Budge explains “. . . one day the Nile will rise and cover all Egypt with water, and drown the whole country; then, as in the beginning, there will be nothing to be seen except water.”9
What all of this alludes to is that there seems to have been an ancient tradition that associates the construction of the earliest pyramids (the giant pyramids) of ancient Egypt as providing some form of protection (a form of “doomsday vault” or “ark”) against an anticipated deluge that the ancient Egyptians believed would destroy their entire kingdom, a great deluge that they believed to be imminent after they had observed that the path of the stars had changed from their normal course (i.e., that the Earth’s axis had been disturbed in some way). In building these giant, immovable “storehouses,” the ancient Egyptians could place within them everything that would be needed to help ensure that their kingdom and culture could revive and reconstitute itself after the worst effects of this anticipated deluge had passed.
/> In summary, anticipating an impending natural disaster that they feared would completely destroy their civilization, the ancient Egyptians set in motion a “national disaster-recovery plan” (Project Osiris?) that saw them, over a few generations, complete a series of pyramids (about sixteen in total) that would essentially serve as arks that they hoped would bring about their cultural revival after the worst effects of the anticipated cataclysm had subsided, a concept that is not too dissimilar to our modern Svalbard Global Seed Vault in the Arctic Circle, which was secured in 2008.
What is important to understand here is that the catalyst event that so motivated the ancient Egyptians to initiate this national disaster-recovery project (i.e., the building of the first pyramids) was quite separate from the anticipated disaster that the king and his astronomer-priests believed was to follow and that the pyramids were built to survive. As stated, the catalyst event that initiated the construction of the pyramids (according to these ancient sources) seems to have been a sudden change in the course of the heavens (i.e., a disturbance of the Earth’s rotational axis), and the king, in asking his advisors what this change in the heavens would mean, was told that it would (some three hundred years in the future) result in a great deluge and fire (drought). It was only upon hearing of this impending disaster that the king then ordered the immediate construction of the pyramids as places in which to secure those items that were deemed most important to enable the kingdom to flourish again after the worst effects of the anticipated future calamities had passed.
But did the king’s astronomer-priests actually observe some abnormal change in the heavens? Was the Earth’s rotational axis disturbed in some way, causing the stars to change their course, and was this event followed three hundred years later by a great deluge and drought? Well, something seems to have happened, and this will be discussed in chapter 7. The simple point here, however, is that whether the anticipated disaster actually came to pass is actually neither here nor there; the key point is that the ancient Egyptians as a result of their observations of the heavens, believed a disaster was imminent and were motivated enough by this belief to put in place measures to try to protect themselves against its catastrophic effects, to try to put in place the means through which their kingdom could recover after its coming demise.
The Secret Chamber of Osiris: Lost Knowledge of the Sixteen Pyramids Page 3