SECRET CHAMBERS

Robert Bauval

1

999

THE PRIMEVAL MOUND KNOWN AS THE

OMPHALOS

SECRET CHAMBERS

Robert Bauval

1

999

Page 87/ 88

" Let us examine this / 'Mound' more closely. At the top of the Mound in Fig. 10 are two symbols, one a human head and the other a bell-shaped object (identified, as we have seen earlier, as an omphalos or sacred geodetic marker) which is flanked by two kites.133 The two kites, according to Egyptologist George Hart, symbolise the goddesses Isis and Nephtys134 - again a pictorial depiction of what is in the Shabaka text. Rundle Clark explains further by saying that the omphalos-shaped object is yet another hieroglyphic sign to denote the Primeval Mound.I35 As for the human head that crowns the Pyramid/Mound, the hieroglyphic texts that accompany it state that this is 'the flesh of Isis who is above the sand of the land of Sokar,.I36 Now the name of Isis, like that of Osiris, is a Grecian derivative. The true name of the goddess in the ancient Egyptian language is Ast, which in its oldest form was written with two signs, one of which was a 'throne'. We can now see that the 'throne' of Isis, the omphalos-shaped object and the 'throne' and 'eye' of Osiris all merge in the complex symbolism of the Primeval Mound and, by extension, also of the original Benben/Pyramidion capstone. The star sirius, as we shall see later, is also representative of Isis, and could also be interchanged with these symbols at the top of the 'Mound'. But there is more. according to George Hart again, the Pyramid/Mound is representative of the desert 'tomb of Osiris', i.e. the 'burial place of Osiris' in the 'House of Sokar' in Rostau (i.e. Giza).137 it thus follows that the stepped- pyramid/Mound in which lies the recumbent hawk-headed figure is representative of the 'tomb of Osiris-Sokar' at giza. As for the huge recumbent sphinx called Aker which protects this 'tomb', we have already seen how many agree that it represents the Great Sphinx of Giza (i.e. Rostau). The overall conclusion is thus inevitable: the Egyptians, from the earliest of times, believed that somewhere underneath the bed- rock of Giza, and more specifically somewhere underneath the area where the Great Sphinx stands, was to be found the 'tomb of Osiris'.
Intriguingly, however, all these depictions and interchanging symbols are also extremely suggestive that this tomb is in the form of a pyramidal structure or 'Mound'. Could it not be that the various connections between the 'throne of Isis', the idea of a 'star' and the symbol of the Benben may, in themselves, also point to another secret chamber concealed within the core of the Great Pyramid or Simon Cox's 'Mound'? We shall review the evidence which leads to such an exciting conclusion for the Great Pyramid later on. Meanwhile the reader should also bear in mind that we shall also later see how [1] the goddess Isis was herself identified with the star Sirius whose hieroglyphic name, 'Sept', is composed of the signs denoting a Benben and a 'five-pointed star'; [2] / Page 89 / how the Benben and the five-pointed star meet up in the 'missing' capstone of the Great Pyramid of Giza; and [3] how the southern shaft of the Queen's Chamber in the Pyramid was not only directed to Sirius but that at its end, two hundred feet deep into the heart of the Pyramid, lies a small 'door' which many believe could lead to a secret chamber.
In the meantime I was faced with a web of tantalising and complex ideas which although they were floating next to each other in my mind, nonetheless lacked that catalyst I needed to bring them together. Yet at the same time I could not shake off the strong feeling that here, in this strong brew of symbols, was the rudiments of an arcane 'message' which, like the proverbial X on a treasure map, seemed to mark the location of the Fifth Division of the 'Duat', i.e. the House of Sokar, somewhere. in the Giza necropolis. As strange as it seemed, it was as if I was being 'guided' by the star Sirius whose rays, as it were, illuminated the deep and dormant recesses of my memory. But how could this be? Why did such strange and 'far out' ideas trouble my mind? And why, too, was I making an almost unconscious association of that star with the 'missing' capstone of the Great Pyramid? It did not make any sense. Yet to another side of my mind, a side that responded not with the limitation of the rational process but rather with the intuitive and creative faculties, it did seem to make 'sense'. Was I perhaps being made receptive, in some strange and inexplicable way, to some powerful subliminal message that was locked in the symbolic stellar lore of the ancient Pyramid builders and their cultic images? A 'message' which was not primarily intended for me or indeed for anyone else today, but had been long ago aimed at primed initiates of the Heliopolitan cult? Was I the unsuspecting victim - or beneficiary - of a devastatingly powerful Hermetic device?
It was at that point of impasse in my investigation that I suddenly remembered the so-called 'wider plan' of the star correlation theory presented in my first book, The Orion Mystery. In a section of that book termed 'Signpost to the Benben Stone', I had shown how the vast region which encompassed the Giza necropolis, the temple of Heliopolis and a third site known as the Khem (the Letopolis of the Greeks)138 together defined over the landscape a huge 'Pythagorian' right-angled triangle (see Figs 16 and 19).139 Let us note in passing that the name Khem is extremely reminiscent of the name 'Khemmis', the latter being the place on the west bank of the Nile in the Delta region where, according to Egyptian mythology, Isis gave birth to Horus. 140 I had also suggested that the three corners of this 'Pythagorian' triangle were probably specifically and deliberately marked by [1] the apex of the Great Pyramid; [2] the apex of the Heliopolitan 'Mound' (the Benben); and [3] the apex of a / (page 90 Figure16 0mitted) / Page 91/ tower that had apparently once stood at Khem-Letopolis.141 Much in this curious geometrical arrangement was suggestive that the link between these three sites provided a sort of giant 'signpost' that led to the entrance of the Great Pyramid and, ultimately, through the narrow shafts shooting skywards toward 'the place where Orion is' which the Pyramid Texts tell us is where the 'gates of the Duat', i.e. Rostau, could to be found142:
I shall not be turned back at the gates of the Duat. I ascend to the sky with Orion
 . . . I am one who collects for himself his efflux in front of Rostau . . .143
You will ascend to the sky. . . you being seated upon your iron throne. . . you have traversed the Winding Waterway in the north of the sky as a star. . . the Duat has grasped your hand at the place where Orion is. . .144
In this ground plan, furthermore, I had shown how the Great Pyramid itself represented a star in Orion's belt, Zeta Orionis, and how Khem- Letopolis probably represented the corresponding position of the star Sirius near the west banks of the Milky Way.145 With these thoughts in mind, I also recalled a statement made by the French Egyptologist George Goyon in connection with the Great Pyramid which now, in the light of what has just been said, took on a new and eerie significance. 'The monument,' Goyon had written, 'was placed under the stellar protection of the god Horus. . .,146We shall see later how the 'star' of Horus was, in actual fact, also the star Sirius. Suffice at this stage to mention that in the ancient Pyramid Texts, as well as in all other religious literature of ancient Egypt, the stellar Horus was said to have been born from the 'womb of Sothis', the name given by the Greeks of Egypt to Isis-Sirius. 147 In The Orion Mystery there is an appendix entitled 'The Survival of the Star Religion' where I presented a detailed analysis on how in ancient Egyptian texts - such as the Carsberg I Papyrus, for example - the apparent nine-months (273 days) cycle of the star Sirius measured from its meridian passage was likened to the gestation cycle of the human foetus - which led me to conclude that the 'seeding of the womb of the goddess Sirius-Isis' mentioned in the Pyramid Texts was probably imagined to take place when Sirius was observed at the south meridian at dawn.148 During the Pyramid Age this important event occurred, incidentally, some twenty days before the autumn equinox when the sun was right on top of the 'scales' of the zodiacal constellation of Libra. 149 The zodiacal constellation of Libra was almost certainly associated with the cosmic 'scales' often seen in funerary vignettes depicting the so- called Judgement Scene of the 'weighing of the heart' and where Osiris is / Page 92 / shown seated upon his throne flanked by Isis and Nephtys.150 The alignment of Sirius with the meridian axis of the Great Pyramid and also the southern shaft of the Queen's Chamber thus created a powerful sky- ground ritualistic setting for the 'seeding of the womb of Isis' with the embryo of the future Horus-king.151 I thus postulated that this was a powerful king-making ritual which during the Pyramid Age may well have been enacted inside the Queen's Chamber of the Great Pyramid with an ithyphallic statue of the king (or perhaps even his mummy) placed in front of the opening of the southern shaft.152 And it was this very shaft, as we have said, that led to a 'door' deep within the core of the Pyramid...
The probability for the existence of a secret chamber - or even a second one - at Giza, under the Sphinx or inside the Great Pyramid, is very high indeed. But assuming that secret chambers do exist at Giza, concealed there by the original builders of that site, then what would be their purpose? What cargo could be so precious, so obsessively important to preserve, which could induce a people to undertake such a vast and mind-boggling construction enterprise? What could possibly have been considered so valuable, so meaningful, so vitally necessary to posterity, to have it guarded by such a mighty memorial?
One word springs to mind: 'knowledge'. The knowledge of Thoth.
According to the most conservative estimates, there are 4500 years that separate us from the supposed construction of the Giza necropolis. Could the system of knowledge of those ancients who planned Giza have somehow survived through this immense period of time? And was it inscribed, as all the ancient texts suggest, on tablets and slabs by the hand of the god Thoth himself? Are these safely preserved in hermetically sealed rooms? And, more importantly, is there tangible or scientific evidence to verify such a hypothesis? Has anyone tried? Who? And what have they found?
Yet before we tackle these provocative questions, we need to see how a substantial portion of this legendary 'knowledge' might have been transmitted across the ages through another route - one so well concealed that it has hitherto escaped the attention of the Egyptologists and historians altogether. Concealed, I will suggest, in a 'place' that no one can reach with spade, scalpel or radar, but only through an initiatory process that the 'knowledge' was designed for. Because not all knowledge, as the ancient master initiates knew so well, is something that one merely recorded in books and inscriptions; rather, true knowledge was better 'deposited' in a much vaster crucible and far more sophisti- cated device at their disposal: the memory of man. As we shall now see, / Page 93 /such powerful ideas may, indeed, have been preserved by inserting them, like some archaic intellectual microchip, deep into the body of new belief systems and promising religious and intellectual movements, in order for them to be carried forward through periods of danger and tribulations. And when the 'time was right and good', these ancient ideas could be reawakened from their millennial slumber."

Page 87

A clue is given by Wallis Budge in his description of the combined god Osiris-Sokar 'in which he appears as a hawk-headed mummy'.

Here we see Sokar-Osiris lying on a catafalque or bed the base of which is shaped like the Aker lion; on one side of the bed stands the goddess Isis, and on the other side Nephtys

Page 91

"Horus was said to have been born from the 'womb of Sothis', the name given by the Greeks of Egypt to Isis-Sirius"

SECRET CHAMBER

THE QUEST FOR THE HALL OF RECORDS

Robert Bauval

1

999

Page 346

A MASTER-PLAN FOR THE THREE PYRAMIDS OF GIZA
BASED ON THE CONFIGURATION OF THE THREE STARS OF THE BELT OF ORION

"The Pyramid Texts embody the remnants of a well-structured star-cult, the main theme of which was the transfiguration of the dead pharaohs into stars <1>. Examination of the Pyramid Texts reveals that the dominant stars of this cult were those of the constellation of Orion. The special attention given to Orion can be understood in several ways: it is the most striking of the constellations, in the archaic Period, it happened to rise in midsummer at dawn (c.2600 BC), as though a celestial herald of the forthcoming yearly nilotic flood. Consequently, the appearance of Orion after a prolongued period of 'invisibility' was taken as the celestial event preluding a new season of rejuvenation and growth of nature as a whole. Mythologically, Orion was thus seen as the celestial representation of Osiris, the god of rebirth/resurrection, and with whom all the dead pharaohs, as star-gods, were identified <2>. Thus the Pyramid Texts proclaim: 'Behold, he has come as Orion, behold Osiris has come as Orion...O king, the sky conceives you with Orion, the dawn-light bears you with Orion, you will regularly ascend with Orion from the eastern region of the sky, you will regularly descend with Orion into the western region of the sky...' (pyr.820-822). 'O king, you are this great star, the companion of Orion, who traverses the sky with Orion, who navigates the Netherworld with Osiris, you ascend from the east of the sky, being renewed in your due season, and rejuvenated in your due time.' (pyr.882). 'Live, be alive! Be young beside your father, beside Orion in the sky...' (pyr. 2180).<3>.

 The Egyptian knew Orion under the name of 'Sah'. They imagined 'Sah' as a male anthropomorphic figure undoubtedly representing Osiris. Several drawings of 'Sah' dating from the New Kingdom are known, notably from the tomb of Senmut (south hall ceiling), where 'Sah' is depicted as a man standing on a boat, holding the Ankh symbol in one hand and a staff in the other, above his head are three large stars in a row, the topmost star slightly deviated to the left (see plates)<4>. There can be little doubt that these three stars are Zeta, Epsilon and Delta Orionis -the Belt Of Orion- which form the same characteristic pattern at the centre of the constellation <5>. It is to be noted that this pattern has not perceptibly changed since the time of the Pyramid Age (c.2700 BC-2150 BC). This is because these three stars are well-over 1000 light-years away, and consequently no proper motion is normally registered for them. In any case, any undetected annual proper motion would probably be below the l/lOOOth of a second level, thus far too small for the span of time considered to cause any perceptible change in the pattern of the three stars <6>. In short, the characteristic pattern formed by the three stars of the belt of Orion appears the same to us as it did to the Egyptians who built the Great Pyramid (c.2600 BC).

OXFORD DICTIONARY OF ASTRONOMY

Ian Redpath

1997

Page 52

"Betelgeuse The star AlphaOrionis, the tenth-brightest star in the sky. It is an M2 supergiant and a semiregular variable, fluctuating between magnitudes 0.0 and 1.3 in a period of several years, with an average magnitude of 0.5. Its distance and luminosity are poorly determined. Some estimates place it around 400 l.y. away, much closer than the stars in the Orion Association, with a luminosity 5000 times the Sun's. But if it is at the same distance as the Orion Nebula, 1400 1.y., its true luminosity would be over 50000 times the Sun's. Betelgeuse is an extremely large star, hundreds of times the diameter of the Sun. Its variations in brightness occur as it swells and contracts in size.

Page 341

"Orion (abbr. Ori, gen. Orionis) A magnificent constellation on the celestial equator, representing a great hunter of Greek mythology. Orion is outlined by the prominent stars *Betelgeuse (Alpha Orionis), *Rigel (Beta Orionis, the / Page 342 / Orion Arm 342
constellation's brightest star), *Bellatrix (GammaOrionis), and *Saiph (Kappa Orionis). A line of three stars, * Alnilam (Epsilon Orionis), * Alnitak (Zeta Orionis). and *Mintaka (Delta Orionis), make up the Belt of Orion. The famous *Orion Nebula, M42, contains the multiple star known as the *Trapezium. On the southern edge of the Orion Nebula is the double star Iota Orionis, magnitudes 2.8 and 6.9. North of the Orion Nebula is another bright nebula, NGC 1977, and
further north again is the 5th-magnitude open cluster NGC 1981. 'Phis complex of nebulosity and clusters forms the Sword of Orion, hanging from Orion's belt.
Sigma Orionis is an impressive multiple star of magnitudes 3.8, 6.6, 6.7, and 8.8. Eta Orionis is a close double, magnitudes 3.8 and 4.8. The dark *Horsehead Nebula intrudes into a faint strip of nebulosity, IC 434, which runs south of Alnitak. The *Orionid meteors radiate from the constellation every October.

Orion Arm The local spiral arm of our Galaxy. The Sun lies near its inner edge, that is, towards the galactic centre. All the main  naked eye stars are part of the Orion arm, including those of Orion itself, The arm stretches towards Cygnus in one direction, and towards Puppis and Vela in the opposite direction. Features in the Orion Arm include the *Gum Nebula, the *Orion Nebula, the *North America Nebula, the *Cygnus Loop, and the *Great Rift. The Orion arm was once thought to be a connecting link between larger structures in our Galaxy; hence it is sometimes also known as the Orion Spur.

Orion Association A large association of very young stars of spectral types O and B, centred on the *Orion Nebula, 1500 l.y. away. It is about 400 l.y. across and contains all the main stars of Orion, except Betelgeuse. The area is still partly shrouded in gas from which stars continue to form.

Orionid meteors A meteor shower showing modefate activity between October 15 and November 2. The activity pattern is complex, with sevefal peaks and troughs, presumably reflecting the filamentary nature of the meteor stream laid down over several perihelion returns by *Halley's Comet. A broad maximum, with ZHR reaching 30, is seen fora couple ot'days around October 21, from a radiant at RA 6h 24m, dec. +150 (between Betelgeuse and Gamma Geminorum). Orionid meteors are very swift (geocentric velocity 66 km/s), and a high proportion leave persistent trains, but most are faint.

Orion Molecular Clouds A group of large clouds of gas and dust 1500 l.y. away in the constellation Orion, the nearest examples of * giant molecular clouds. Each cloud is over 100 l.y. across and contains more than 100000 solar masses of gas, mostly in the form of hydrogen molecules. The young stars of Orion formed from these clouds within the last 10 million years. New stars are still forming in dense molecular cores within the clouds, hidden from sight by the dust, but detectable as sources of infrared and molecular radiation. The best-known molecular cores are designated OMC-l and OMC-2.

Orion Nebula A large and bright nebula, 1500l.y. away in the constellation Orion; also known as M42 or NGC 1976. The nebula covers more than 10 x 1. of sky and is faintly visible to the naked eye as a fuzzy patch around the multiple star Theta 1 Orionis, also known as the *Trapezium, The ultraviolet light from the Trapezium stars ionizes the nebula. The Orion Nebula is over 20 l.y. in diameter, and contains several hundred solar massesot' ionized gas. It forms al hot blister on the near side of one of the massive *Orion Molecular Clouds.
Orion Spur Alternative name for the *Orion Arm of our Galaxy, given when it was thought to be a branch of the *Perseus Arm.

GREEK ALPHABET OF TWENTY FOUR

X

ORIONIS

GREEK ALPHABET OF EIGHTEEN

X

ORIONIS

MAN AND THE STARS

CONTACT AND COMMUNICATION WITH OTHER INTELLIGENCE

THE MYSTERIOUS SIGNALS FROM OUTER SPACE

Duncan Lunan 1974

'A. The ''Foreseedble'' Mission
1; Will There Be Suitable Planets?

Witness this;new-made World, another Heaven
From Heaven-gate not far, founded in view
On the clear hyaline, the glassy sea:
Of amplitude almost immense,with stars
Numerous, and every star perhap's a world
Of destined habitation...
Milton Paradise Lost Book 7, II. 617 - 62

Page 3

"At present we can only guess whether any stars within twelve light-years - or anywhere else, for that matter will be found to posses habital planets. Taking various items of knowledge and hypotheses into account we cap try to make that guess an informed one - but it remains an a guess, even;,when probability values are assigned to it, as in Dole's Habitable Planets.for Man (a Rand Corporation study, 1964). Most of our present knowledge relates. to' stars, rather than to the formation of planets and the conditions on them. Only, a few stars other, than , our Sun are known to have planets at all: the discovery of even one other planetry system, however has profound implications for scientificand philosophic thought. ,"

CHAPTER

13

DID ANYONE FOLLOW IT UP

Oh whistle and I'll come tae you my lad. . .

Robert Burns

Page 323
.
"The problems in looking for evidence of past contact are different from those of conventional archaeology. Yet that science has been rocked by the discovery of whole Cities, even civilizations, whose existence was legendary or unknown... It is far more likely that a landing site, a research 'base or even a "foreseeable" colony might not be found, or if found, might not be recognized; perhaps because the high-technology artifacts had corroded away, perhaps because the tech-niques used were unfamiliar, perhaps because the major evidence was removed or destroyed to protect the local populace from biological or other dangers. Other kinds of evidence - eyewitness testimony, hearsay, circumstantial-are corrupted to an unknown degree, either by the conceptual framework of the reporter ("interpreting the alien in our terms," as Chris would say,) or by distortion in repetition; or both.
In "Direct Contact 'Between Civilizations. . ."1 Sagan said that wonderful doings by beings descending from the sky are not enough. Primitive man found ,it "at least mildly satisfying" to have deities, and put them in the sky, because if they were in the next country, it would be "easy to disprove their existence by taking a walk." Looking for historical contact, we want (1) an account committed to written record soon after, (2) major change effected in the contacted society by the encounter, (3) no attempt to conceal the extraterrestrial nature of the contact.
Now, if we adopted,such strict criteria, we probably / Page 324 / would be left with no more possible instances than the one actual contact Sagan thinks we may have had with Galactic civilization. The only example Sagan himself puts forward isn't entirely in the clear (see case 8 below). We might very well exclude genuine contacts, if for instance they happened before the invention of writing; were too small to change the society concerned, or were taken for divine in spite of the best efforts of the visitors. If there have been a significant number of contacts in history, that does not matter: let us say we have ten possible contacts, of which seven are doubtful and in fact only six are genuine:We'll get a more accurate picture of events from three good instances than from ten (or even four) of which one or more are false. But if as Sagan himself believes there have been very few contacts, perhaps only one, we may have to cast our net wider."

Page 333

" 8. Sumeria and Egypt-the patrons of learning. The one case noted by Sagan and Shlovskii as a possible 'contact was the origin of Sumerian civilization. Not all their criteria for historical contact were fulfilled, since we have no contemporary records of the events, but records which do refer to them (e.g., the Gilgamesh legends) are among the oldest written texts in the world. The other criteria are satisfied: the beings are never described as gods, and supposedly had a lasting effect on the society (societies, as we shall see) affected by the contact. '
Over several generations before the Flood, according to the historian Berossus,17 seven beings of great wisdom, "animals endowed with reason," came up from the sea bordering Babylonia, i.e., from the Persian Gulf.
The first of 'these, Oannes, had a fish's head with a man's head below it, a fish's body according to one text, and a man's feet subjoined to a fish's tail. He took no food while on land and returned to the sea at night; his voice and language was that of a man; he taught letters, sciences, building, geometry, biology, farming, and supposedly religion, mythology, and law-"everything which could tend to so often manners and humanize their lives."
Berossus wrote in 250 B.C., but we know the Seven Sages story was 2,000-4,000 years older. He said that a representation of Oannes was preserved until his own day; however, the-Seven Sages first appear on Assyrian cylinder seals between 1000 and 800 B.C., according to Frankfort's Cylinder Seals,18 and there 18 no earlier known precedent for it. Tomas points out, however, / Page 334 / that the fish's head above the man's has a remarkable resemblance to an astronaut's helmet, open (or a frogman's goggles, pushed up put of the way. The fish-man never takes part .in the combat scenes of the other mythological figures. A curious slip-up has apparently occurred in "Intelligent Life in the Universe," where 'Sagan and Shlovskii reproduce Frankfort's plate,33(b) and (g); one shows the "goat-fish" symbol of the water god Ea, the other a dragon bearing the symbols of Jupiter (Marduk) and Mercury (Nabu). Plate 34 (b) and some drawings in the text are the ones which represent Oannes; perhaps their edition of Cylinder Seals, like the one I consulted, had some faulty plate references.
The same characters, as it seems, appear in. Egyptian mythology as the Seven Wise Ones of the goddess Mehurt or Hetep-sekhus, who as "The Eye of Ra"'~ associated with the Moon,19 as well as. representing the watery abyss of heaven.2o The Seven Wise Ones came out of the water, from the pupil of the Eye of Ra, and taking the form of seven hawks, they flew upward to the sky to preside with Thoth (the counter of stars, measurer and enumerator of the Earth, lord of books, scribe of the gods) over learning and letters.
Now, in The Book of the Dead, chapter XVII, there isa complicated passage involving the sovereign princes who stand behind Osiris in the Underworld and purify souls brought before him of their sins and crimes. Those princes are Kestha, Hapi, Taumutef, and Qebhsennuf (the gods of the pardinal points), in association with Thoth, Astes (the lord of the Underworld), and Sebek, who with his company dwells in water, does away with sins and crimes and follows Hetep-sekhus, the Eye of Ra. . . . Perhaps because he feared the reader might be in difficulties, the author then gives (v. 99) two alternative sets of seven names for these beings, who were ap-pointed to guard the body of Osiris on Earth. Just to get it clear, there are seven of them, dwelling iti water or in watery sky, associated with (or includi,ngl Thoth and following Meh-urt.
The sovereign princes are introduced, however, as / Page 335 / those who destroyed the faults of the Seven Spirits. These seven, who are among the followers , of Osiris, are the "khus" or spirits of the Great Bear, which -the ancient Egyptians called "the Thigh." The princes be-ehind Osiris are "behind the Thigh in the Northern sky" - in other words, unless I've got this entirely wrong, they are identified with the stars of Bootes.
As I said, two alternative sets of names for them fol-low. (The translation says they're the names of the Seven Spirits, but they're distinguished from them ip. v., 90-92.) One is essentially the list we have: the cardinal points, plus Horus-in-Blindness (Thoth), and two others (I don't know if they're alternative names for Astes and Sebek). The other list is as follows:

1. Netcheh-netcheh (the first, the leader, or the glorious one).
2. Aatqetqet (he who is mighty in revolving).
3. Anertanef-bes-f-khenti-heh-f (the dweller in the flame giveth not his flame) .
4. Aq-her-ami-unnut-f (he ehtereth in his hour).
5. Teshermaati-ami-het-Anes (the red-eyed 'One in the house of Anes). ,
6. Ubes-hra-per-em-khet-khet (the fiery face who cometeth onward and retreateth).
7. Maa-em-kerh-an-nef-em-rhru (he seeth in the dark and bringeth in the day).

That's an interesting set of names. If number 5 were Arcturus (the Aries bandlet were apparently the seven guardians of Osiris' body), and riumber 7 were Delta Bootis, the easternmost star of the constellation, tben number 1 with its double-barreled name could be Epsilon, number 2 could be Gamma, which is an A 7 giant, and number 6 Zeta, which is a binary with a very eccentric orbit and a period of 130.years.
"The dweller in the flame" is the dragon the Sun god Ra defeats each day at sunset. Since it is described as 30 cubits long, the first 8 ,covered with flints and shining metal, W. R. Drake suggests it might be a spaceship, but in context that isn't convincing. Perhaps, howevr, the name identifies Eta, the westernmost star / Page 336 / in Bootes (i.e., nearest sunset, taking east as left and
west as right). Then number 4, who "entereth in his hour," is Nekkar, the Crown Star at the head of. the constellation. We then have all seven names as descrip-tions of the Bootes stars-but two of them could be telescopic descriptions, with Netcheh-netcheh Epsilon?) at the top of the list.
(Incidentally, these names are not the stars of Ursa Minor.. Although "he who is mighty in revolving" could be Polaris and "the red-eyed one" would then be Kochab, the Book of the Dead was already old in 2500 B.C. when Thuban (Alpha Draconis) was still the Pole Star. The stars of Ursa Minor would then be opposite the Thigh in the northern heavens, not behind it. R.Brown suggests that in.Sumeria the Seven Great Ones, the divine judges, may have been associated with Ursa Minor, but it's not certain: other writers feel such an identification could not have been made until much later,21 if it ever was.)
So there seem to be, no convincing signs of contact prior to, the supposed arrival of the space probe; the best indications thereafter, the Hapgood maps, suggest a survey of the Earth not long after the probe's arrival, and an update concentrating especially on the Mediterranean area thousands of years later; the origin of civilization in theMiddle East after 4000 B.C. is attributed to beings who came from the sea (after a splashdown?), finally went into the sky, and are apparently associated with the stars of Bootes. Let's therefore have some fun with the other" possible contact i,ndications (large pinches of salt will be in order.)
9. The Deluge., It is now generally. accepted that there was a drastic flood in Sumeria, at about 40.00 BC. The conventional explanation,,is that the Flood legends are of an extreme river flood in, the Tigris-Euphrates valley.22 But the Flood in question would have had to be colossal to deposit the eight to eleven feet of mud found by Wooley at Ur; corresponding layers are found at other sites. Traces of habitation are found above the mud and below, but not in it. Isaac Asimov therefore suggested 23 that there might, statistically,' have been / Page 337 one sizable meteorite impact in. coastal waters during recorded history, and it might well have been in the Persian Gulf-in those almost landlocked waters a tert;ible tidal wave would have been.generated, perhaps hurling enough water up the Euphrates valley for it to take days to subside. In the biblical account "The same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened" -there would of course have been torrential rain after a sea impact, but it seems that the body of the Flood came from the sea itself
The records of the Flood handed down by neighbor-ing cultures are equally dramatic, and in some ways even more interesting. The oldest of them, the Sumerian account, says that the Flood began with. "all the wind-storms, exceedingly powerful, attacking as one"24; the later Babylonian account, in the Gilgamesh epic,. is more speciffic "with the first glow of dawn, a black cloud rose up from the horizon. Inside it Adad (stormgod) thunders. . ." Shockwaves'came,ahead of it; the god of the underworld tore out the posts of the world dam (i.e., there was a ground shock as .well?); the Annunaki (gods) lifted up "the torches, setting the land ablaze with their glare"; and the south storm drove the waters inland as the clouds blotted out the daylight. The south storm: from the direction-of the sea, not from the mountains as in river floods. The Indian account, carried by Aryan migration from Iran, reads, "The / Page 338 / sea, overwhelming its shores, deluged the whole earth, and it was soon perceived to be augmented by showers from immense c1ouds."25 (Muir's Original Sanskrit Texts has the events the other way around, but mentions volcanic eruptions before the deluge.26) The Chinese legend, which may also have come from ancient Sumeria by cultural migration, specifically attributes the Flood to an impact, in which the demon Kung-Kung or Kong Kong butted and broke the northwest pillar of the sky, tilting earth and heaven toward each other.27 In Egyptian Coptic tradition the disaster began with stars falling on earth, "personages from heaven"striking down people with iron maces, and fire from the constellation Leo.28 (The ancient Egyptians knew iron chiefly from meteorites.) In Hittite myth, the Moon god Kashku fell fromi heaven, and the storm god Taru sent rainstorms and winds after him.24

ANU 1 14 21 21 14 1 UNA

ANU 1 5 3 ANU 1 5 3

ANU 9 9 UNA

A few people had a miraculous escape, however, in an ark which was carried up into the mountains (away from the sea, as Asimov pointed out). In the Sumerian and Babylonian versions the god Anu gives the necessary warning and instructions, 'speaking through a wall; in the Bible, God spoke directly to Noah; Berossus has the king warned by Cronus in a vision; but the Indian account brings in people we've met before. A talking fish came up out of the sea, an avatar (incarnation) of / Page 339 / the god Vishnu but not identified with any god in some versions; and it gave the ark to the king, who took with, him the seven rishis, or sages, identified with the stars of the Great Bear;
The ark was an odd boat. It had a sealed hull, as Jean Sendy points out,29 in an age when oars and sails were the only propulsion. known; it had a door in the side, so the occupants had to push birds out to see if they were on dry ground in three of the versions -it floated two-thirds under water, according to the Gilgamesh Epic); but it also had a top hatch or window, which wasn't opened until it first touched ground; in the Indian text, it was met and towed out of the floodwaters by the wonderful fish. Although unpowered and,unsteerable, ill the Berossus account it had a pilot, and all seven sages aboard with king Manu in the Indian version.
If we were going to associate the ark with anything in modem technology, it would be a larger version of the Apollo capsule. There may have been visitors on the spot; who were warned of the coming disaster and took the local ruler and his family into the capsule before the tidal wave reached them (and tha twould have been one chance in a million); or the contact team may already have left, and passed down the word, by radio. The Sumerian translation has the god Anu say, making plans at the outset "I will return the people to their settlements. . ." but according to a footnote the word "I"appears plural, the word "return" is uncertain, and / Page 340 / the word "to" appears to be "from" - in other words the divine intention could be to save as many people as possible in the Sumerian and Gilgamesh accounts, the king and his family (and the pilot in Berossus ) are taken away by the gods after they leave the Ark and set up an altar , from which the king's voice tell the other occupants to go back to the coastal city, recover buried records, and start again. Sacred books are also recovered in the Indian story"