44. Position of the Duat sky-region at dawn at various times of the year in the epoch of 2500 bc, the Pyramid Age. The Duat was considered to become active only at the summer solstice in mid-June when the stars of Orion and Sirius rose heliacally. Some 70 days prior to this crucial observational moment the Duat was ‘locked’ below the horizon and thus, in a sense, directly ‘underneath’ the Giza necropolis.
We know, of course, that the ‘path’ of the sun (which astronomers call the ecliptic) passes through twelve distinct constellations in the course of a complete year—the constellations of the zodiac. Circa 2500 bc, therefore, let us see where the sun would have been along the ecliptic path some seventy days before the heliacal rising of Sirius. It would, we discover, have been near the head of Taurus (the Hyades) and poised on the right bank of the Milky Way.[427]
In the ritual or drama performed by the king, is it not possible that this celestial event was the source of the imagery of the cosmic Horus about to ‘board’ a cosmic ‘bark’ with the sun-god in order to cross a waterway (the ‘Winding Waterway’, i.e. the Milky Way):[428]
The king embarks with Re on this great bark of his, he navigates in it to the horizon with him ...[429]
The king shall go aboard the bark like Re on the banks of the Winding Waterway ...[430]
The Winding Waterway is flooded ... you cross thereon to the horizon, to the place where the gods were born ... your sister [companion] is Sothis ...[431]
May you cross the Winding Waterway ... may you fall in the eastern side of the sky, may you sit in the ... horizon ...[432]
He [Horus] goes aboard the bark like Re at the banks of the Winding Waterway ...[433]
As we wind the ancient skies a little forward in time on our computer we discover that twenty-five days after being stationed near the Hyades-Taurus on the right bank of the cosmic river the sun has indeed ‘crossed’ the Milky Way and is now ‘sailing’ eastwards along the ecliptic path in the direction of the great zodiacal constellation of Leo—seen as a huge ‘crouching lion’ in the sky. We are now just a little over six weeks away from the summer solstice:
The reed-floats of the sky are set down for me that I may cross on them to the horizon, to Horakhti ... to yonder eastern side of the sky ... Summons is made to me by Re ... as Horus, as the Horizon Dweller ...[434]
The doors of the sky are thrown open for Horakhti ... the doors ‘of the sky are thrown open at dawn for Horus of the East ...[435]
... go to ... Horakhti at the horizon ... on the eastern side of the sky where the gods are born.[436]
Following this extremely clear and specific instruction to ‘go to Horakhti’ at the horizon (there to meet the sunrise) we continue our eastward journey along the ecliptic path with a sense that we are rapidly converging upon a vital ‘station’ in the quest of the Horus-King.
45. Epoch of 2500 bc, the Pyramid Age, seventy days before the summer solstice: an initiate tracking the journey of the ‘solar’ Horus, the disc of the sun, from its station on the right ‘bank’ of the Milky Way.
46. Epoch of 2500 bc, the Pyramid Age: an initiate tracking the journey of the ‘solar’ Horus, the disc of the sun, to its conjunction with Regulus, the heart-star of Leo, at dawn on the summer solstice. The ritual leaves no room for doubt that the enigmatic figure of Horakhti, so frequently referred to in the Pyramid Texts, is none other than the constellation of Leo.
The weeks pass in seconds on our computer screen and when we at last ‘reach the eastern side of the sky’—at the horizon, at the highly significant moment when ‘the gods are born’, i.e. at the exact time of rising of the star Sirius—we see that a very powerful celestial conjunction has occurred: the sun (which is now at the summer solstice point) stands exactly between the ‘paws’ of Leo.[437] The solar disc is positioned near the breast of the cosmic lion where it seems to merge with the bright star Regulus—the ‘star of Kings’.[438]
The great celestial ‘journey’ performed by the cosmic Horus-King along the ecliptic path therefore turns out to lead quite unambiguously to one very specific place in the heavenly landscape: between the ‘paws’ of Leo and right in front of its ‘breast’.
The implications are obvious.
The enigmatic figure of Horakhti, whose identity we have been attempting to establish, can be none other than the constellation of Leo—the giant cosmic lion, or sphinx, who stands at the gates of the sky-Duat and who assumes the name of ‘Horus-of-the-Horizon’.
Let us now transpose the Horus-King to the land and follow his journey to the earthly ‘Horus-in-the-Horizon’—by whom, of course, we mean Hor-em-Akhet, the Great Sphinx in the ‘horizon’ of Giza.
The High Road and the Low Road
The Horus-King stands on the east bank of the Nile, near the royal residence.[439] After completing certain rituals he boards a great ‘solar boat’[440]—perhaps the very boat that was found in 1954 buried in a pit near the south face of the Great Pyramid—and is taken to the west bank of the river in the valley beneath the Giza plateau. He disembarks, makes his way up to the Temple of the Sphinx, and walks between the paws of the great statue to stand in front of its breast.
He is now at the Gateway to Rostau[441] and about to enter the Fifth Division of the Duat—the holy of holies of the Osirian afterworld Kingdom. Moreover, he is presented with a choice of ‘two ways’ or ‘roads’ to reach Rostau: one which is on ‘land’ and the other in ‘water’.[442]
47. The ‘astral’ Kingdom of Osiris in Rostau. Artist’s impression of the correlation of the three Giza Pyramids and the three stars of Orion’s belt in Zep Tepi, the ‘First Time’.
The eminent German philologist, Adolf Erman, explains:
Whoever enters the realms of the dead by the sacred place of Rostau has, as we learn from a map of the Hereafter, two routes open to him, which would lead him to the land of the blessed, one by water, the other by land. Both are zigzag, and a traveller cannot change from one to the other, for between them lies a sea of fire ... Also before entering upon either of these routes there is a gate of fire to be passed ...[443]
Having made his choice, the Horus-King demands to be taken to see ‘his father’ Osiris in his astral form. A mediator or priest reports to Osiris and states:
It is not I who asks that he may see you in this form of yours which has come into being for you; O Osiris, someone asks that he may see you in this form of yours which has come into being for you; it is your son who asks ... it is Horus who asks that he may see you in this form ... a loving son ...[444]
48. Artist’s impression of the original Horus leading the way for the Horus-King initiate into the place where the ‘Seat’ of Osiris is to be found in the astral Pyramid of final initiation.
Horus then declares to the council of the gods:
The sky quivers, the earth shakes before me, for I am a magician, I possess magic. I have come that I may glorify Orion, that I may set Osiris at the head ...[445]
I have come to you, my father, I have come to you, Osiris ...[446]
Next, in a most telling manner, the council of the gods issues the following instruction:
O Horus, the King [your father] is Osiris, this Pyramid of the King is Osiris, this construction of his is Osiris; betake yourself to it ...[447]
And further light may be shed on the identity of the Osiris-Pyramid by a passage from the Book of What is in the Duat which speaks of a mysterious ‘district’ in the Duat: ‘which is 440 cubits in length and 440 cubits in breadth’.[448] Can it be a coincidence, since the Egyptian royal cubit is equivalent to 20.6 inches and 440 cubits therefore amounts to just over 755 feet, that the dimensions given are identical to those of the Great Pyramid’s square base?[449]
At any rate, after passing through more ordeals and adventures, the questing Horus-King finally reaches Osiris-Orion and finds him listless in the tenebrous underworld of his Pyramid. At this vital juncture, the questor’s role is to bid his ‘father Osiris’ to awake and be reborn—i.e., in dualistic astronomi
cal terms, to rise anew in the east at dawn as Orion: ‘Awake for Horus! ... Raise yourself! ... The gates of the Duat are opened for you ... Spiritualize yourself ... May a stairway to the Duat be set up for you to the place where Orion is ...’[450]
Where, then, near or under the Sphinx can we find the ‘two ways’ or the ‘two roads’ of Rostau?
And why should the Horus-King be made to choose between them?
Subterranean world
One of the ancient names of the Giza necropolis, as we have seen, was Akhet Khufu—Kherit-Neter-Akhet-Khufu in full, usually rendered into English as ‘the necropolis of the Horizon of Khufu’. In his dictionary of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, Sir E. A. Wallis Budge translates the word Kherit-Neter as ‘cemetery, necropolis’.[451] Selim Hassan, however, points out that Kherit-Neter can have the alternative meaning of ‘under, or belonging to a God’.[452] And Budge adds that Kherit can also mean ‘estate’ and that the root of the word, i.e. Kher, can mean ‘under something’, ‘the lower part’ or ‘downwards’.[453]
In addition, as Hassan also reminds us, Kherit ‘may be applied to the Underworld [Duat], perhaps as a lingering memory of the conception of Rostau as the Kingdom of Osiris in the tomb’.[454] Could such nuances imply more than a lingering memory? In other words, is it not possible, as we have already suggested in Part I, that under the necropolis-‘horizon’ of Giza there could be an ‘estate’ of some kind—perhaps a network of subterranean chambers and passageways?
In his Handbook of Egyptian Religion, the German Egyptologist Adolf Erman wrote that: ‘the celebrated shrine Rostau, the gates of the ways, led directly to the underworld. It is possible that part of this shrine has survived in the so-called Temple of the Sphinx ...’[455]
Furthermore, commenting on the word ‘Rostau’, R. O. Faulkner, the translator of the Pyramid Texts, says that this is also ‘the term for a ramp or slide for moving the sarcophagus into a tomb, transferred to a region of the beyond’.[456] Dr. I. E. S. Edwards, on the other hand, says that the causeway which links a pyramid complex with its valley temple ‘was called “place of the haul” or “entrance of the haul” (Rostau) because it was the way along which sledges bearing the body of the dead king and his personal possessions would be hauled at his funeral’.[457]
Linking the Valley Temple near the Sphinx with the central Pyramid on the Giza plateau, as the reader will recall, are the remains of an enormous causeway. Might not this causeway or ‘road’ be one of the ‘ways’ to the heartland of Rostau described in the ancient texts? Such causeways—though now in all cases fallen into ruin—were originally rectangular tunnels roofed over with limestone slabs and decorated with star-spangled ceilings.[458] It is easy to see how symbolism of this kind would have been be appropriate in the context of the Horus-King’s cosmic quest to find the astral form of Osiris.
The causeway of the Sphinx runs to the immediate south of the monument at about the level of its shoulder and thence slopes gently upwards in a westerly direction towards the great ‘Mortuary Temple’ that stands outside the east face of the central Pyramid of Giza. Being in every sense ‘dry’, it makes sense to consider this causeway as being the ‘road by land’ to Rostau.
But where might the other ‘road’ be located—the ‘way through water’? There may be an important clue in the Book of What is in the Duat. In this eerie text there is a depiction of the hermetically sealed chamber of the ‘Kingdom of Sokar’—Sokar-Osiris—which is also the Fifth Division of the Duat. The depiction shows a tunnel filled with water passing under the paws of a large Sphinx (see page 148). The tunnel slopes gently upwards leading, finally, to the Sixth Division.
Interestingly enough, as we saw in Part I, geologists working around the Great Sphinx in the early 1990s identified a large rectangular chamber and other ‘anomalies’ in the bedrock directly beneath the monument’s paws. Interestingly, too, it is well known that far below the Sphinx is an underground watertable which has been constantly replenished since times immemorial by capillary action from the Nile.[459]
Tunnel
Dr. Jean Kerisel, the eminent French engineer whose work in the Subterranean Chamber of the Great Pyramid we are already familiar with,[460] has recently taken the geological evidence further by suggesting that the Sphinx may stand over the entrance to a 700-metre-long tunnel leading to the Great Pyramid—a tunnel that was once filled or partially filled with water.[461]
Could such a tunnel be the other ‘way’ that the Horus-King had to take to ‘see the astral form of his Father’, i.e. Orion? The fact that inside the King’s Chamber of the Great Pyramid is, indeed, a star-shaft pointed directly at Orion’s belt—the ‘Rostau’ in the sky—adds cogency to notions of some sort of underground access route that might have been used by initiates to journey in secret from the Sphinx to the inner passages and chambers of the Pyramid.
Furthermore, in the Pyramid Texts we often hear of a ‘Causeway of Happiness’ which is in the ‘North of the Field of Offerings’. And in the following passage the Horus-King seems to be standing at the entrance of such a ‘causeway’ at exactly the time Sirius is performing its heliacal rising, i.e. ‘Heralding the New Year’ 70 days after the sun’s crossing of the Milky Way:
I am the herald of the Year, O Osiris, I have come on business of your father Geb [the earth-god] ... I speak to you, I have made you enduring. ‘Causeway of Happiness’ is the name of this causeway north of the Field of Offerings. Stand Up, Osiris, and commend me to those who are in charge of the ‘Causeway of Happiness’ north of the Field of Offerings just as you commended Horus to Isis on that day on which you made her pregnant ...[462]
The ‘Field of Offerings’ had a celestial location in the Duat somewhere near Orion.[463] Dualistic logic therefore suggests that its earthly counterpart must have been a place where ‘offerings’ were made by the Horus-King when he was about to enter the Giza necropolis. With this in mind, it is surely of relevance that many of the New Kingdom sphinx stelae found at Giza, including the granite stela of Thutmosis IV that stands between the paws of the Sphinx itself, do in fact show the Horus-Kings making offerings in a temple in front of the monument.[464] Furthermore, as the text quoted above makes clear, the ‘Causeway of Happiness’ ran to the north of the ‘Field of Offerings’. An underground ‘causeway’ running north-west from the temple of the Sphinx would lead to the Great Pyramid.
So could Kerisel’s bold hypothesis be right?[465] Could such an underground system exist at Giza?
Stargate
These are questions that we shall return to in Part IV. Meanwhile what are we to make of the mention of Isis and her pregnancy that also appears in the above text?
In The Orion Mystery it has been shown that the Great Pyramid’s so-called Queen’s Chamber could have been used for a symbolic ‘copulation’ or ‘seeding’ ritual involving the person of the Horus-King on the one hand and the goddess Isis in her astral form (i.e. the star Sirius) on the other. In terms of sky-ground dualism the two might have been thought of as being ‘connected’ through the Chamber’s southern star-shaft, which was targeted on the meridian-transit of Sirius in the Pyramid Age.[466] This hypothesis is strengthened by the fact that such a copulation ritual is found clearly depicted in the Pyramid Texts and that the moment when Osiris supposedly made Isis ‘pregnant’ is specified as being when Sirius crossed the meridian at dawn.[467] The texts also state of Osiris-Orion: ‘Your sister Isis comes to you rejoicing for love of you. You have placed her on your phallus and your seed issues in her, she being ready as “Sothis” [Sirius] ...’[468]
49. Artist’s impression of the ‘cosmic’ Great Pyramid superimposing the star Sirius over the position of the ‘gate’ in the Sirius star-shaft.
Was the Horus-King, then, somehow meant to find his way under and into the Great Pyramid and thence to its upper chambers with their star-shafts?
And what might really be the significance of Rudolf Gantenbrink’s recent discovery, which we have considered at length in Part II, of
a mysterious ‘gate’ or ‘doorway’ deep inside one of those shafts—the very shaft that targeted the meridian-transit of Sirius in the Pyramid Age?
Last but not least, is it a coincidence that the ancient Egyptian word sba, ‘star’, also carries the meanings ‘gate’, ‘folding door’ and ‘great door of heaven’?[469]
Again, these are matters on which we shall have to postpone further conjecture until Part IV. Meanwhile let us return to the quest to unite sky and ground—thus winning the Grail of immortality—in which all the Horus-Kings of ancient Egypt participated.
The Splendid Place of the ‘First Time’
We left the cosmic Horus-King standing in the sky with the solar disc between the ‘paws’ of the celestial lion, the constellation of Leo—on the spot marked by the star Regulus.
In the Pyramid Age Regulus rose at approximately 28 degrees north of due east.[470] It is from this spot therefore that the Horus-King in the sky must somehow travel—on one of the ‘roads’ to Rostau—to reach Orion’s belt.
Now we transpose again to the Horus-King in his earthly form at Giza, standing between the paws of the great Sphinx.