Sphinx of Giza
Legacy of an Ancient Civilization 10,500 BCE
Working from the premise that the Giza complex encodes a message, they begin with recently discovered geological evidence indicating that the deep erosion patterns on the flanks of the Sphinx were caused by 1000 years of heavy rain. Such conditions last existed in Egypt at the end of the last ice age, about 10,000-9,000 BC, meaning that the Sphinx may be more than 12,000 years old (not the generally accepted 4500 years). The authors go on to suggest, using computer simulations of the sky, that the pyramids, representing the three stars of Orion's Belt, along with associated causeways and alignments, constitute a record in stone of the celestial array at the vernal equinox in 10,500 BC. This moment, they contend, represents Zep Tepi, the "First Time," often referred to in the hieroglyphic record. They claim that the initiation rituals of the Egyptian pharaohs replicate on Earth the sun's journey through the stars in this remote era, and they suggest that the "Hall of Records" of a lost civilization may be located by treating the Giza Plateau as a template of these same ancient skies.
"Fingerprints of the Gods", suggested that the ground-plan of the Giza monuments might have been devised in 10,500 BC but that the monuments themselves could have been built over an 8000-year period (from 10,500 BC down to 2500 BC). Graham Hancock pointed out that the Great Pyramid's famous star shafts unequivocally link the monument to the epoch of 2500 BC and that the construction levels through which the shafts run might be explained as "the later work of the same long-lived cult that laid out the Giza ground-plan in 10,450 BC.'
Robert Bauval and Graham Hancock have jointly evolved a tentative 'theory of Giza' over the past five years of our work together. Briefly this theory -- which we offer as a serious alternative to the orthodox 'tombs and tombs only' hypothesis -- is that the three great pyramids of Giza, and the Great Sphinx, form a symbolic architectural model of some of the principal stars of the Duat sky-region (through which the Pharaohs believed that their souls would travel after death) as that sky-region appeared at dawn on the spring equinox in the epoch of 10,500 BC. Citing the geological findings of John Anthony West and Robert Schoch, Graham Hancock have argued, and continue to maintain, that the Great Sphinx and its associated megalithic structures may actually have been built in that distant epoch. We have also argued, and continue to maintain, that the three great pyramids in general are likely to be much younger than the Sphinx and that they should probably be assigned to the Fourth Dynasty (rather than to any other period) because of the alignments of the star shafts.
Ultimately, however, Graham Hancock hypothesis does not stand or fall on the precise dates at which individual monuments were built. A symbolic architectural model of the Duat sky region as it last appeared in 10,500 BC could theoretically have been designed in any epoch (I repeat, in any epoch) by any culture possessing a knowledge of the astronomical cycle of precession and of how it alters stellar positions over long periods of time.
In short, we are more interested in why such a model was built than when it was built.
For the record Graham Hancock believe that Khufu did build the Great Pyramid - or anyway most of it (perhaps the subterranean chamber and some other rock-hewn parts of the structure may be earlier).
For the record Graham Hancock does not believe that Khufu built the Pyramid as his tomb. The very fact that his name only appears within the monument in the form of quarry marks accidentally left behind in inaccessible chambers goes to prove that he was not such an ego-maniac. Hancock think that he built it for another purpose altogether - a far loftier and much more mysterious purpose.
