The Secret Chamber of Osiris: Lost Knowledge of the Sixteen Pyramids (4 page)

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.

In short, if the ancient accounts are correct, then it seems that the ancient Egyptians
believed
their civilization was in great peril from deluge and drought and sought to take what they believed was the best possible course of action in an attempt to try to at least secure the recovery of their kingdom after the anticipated disaster; that is, they initiated their Project Osiris and built their pyramid arks as part of a precautionary national disaster-recovery plan.

THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN

Of course, in planning and building their pyramid arks or “recovery vaults” it stands to reason that whatever was created would need to be constructed to be as strong as possible to withstand the full force of nature and built as large as possible to ensure maximum visibility from great distances in order that they could be found as quickly as possible (sooner rather than later). There would be little point in placing such arks underground or within a natural mountain, because such natural features simply would not stand out in the natural environment and would most likely result in the arks
never
being found. The arks needed to be
artificial mountains
in order to be obvious, to stand out in the natural environment. And as stated previously, they also needed to be built as strong and as secure as possible to withstand the full force of nature (a great deluge and drought), requiring innovative engineering in the use of truly colossal stone blocks. The combined storage capacity of the arks’ internal chambers would require sufficient volume to store as much “recovery goods” as possible from which to reseed the kingdom.

But while the early, giant pyramid arks (being so highly visible) would have been easily seen and, therefore, found relatively quickly (thus facilitating the quick recovery of essential items such as tools, seeds, storage and distribution vessels, etc.), this would have satisfied only one requirement of the recovery plan—providing quick access to those items that were absolutely essential for survival; that is, the production of a sustainable food supply. But what of other items such as ancient records and other “secondary treasures” that, while important and precious to the civilization in their own right, were not actually regarded as vital for immediate survival? After all, when there is no food such “precious” items are of little use or value. A trinket of gold cannot be eaten.

It would have made little sense to store such secondary precious items in the highly visible pyramid arks because, were this to have been done, then it would have been known to the builders (i.e., the population at large) that such secondary treasures had been placed within the structures along with the primary recovery items and would have made the pyramid arks targets for thieves the moment they were sealed, thereby compromising the viability of the essential, primary recovery items that had been placed within. However, were it known to the builders that the pyramids would be storing
only
the essential recovery items (e.g., seeds, storage and distribution vessels, tools, etc.), then the populace would realize that the reward for breaching the colossal pyramid arks would hardly be commensurate with the great effort involved. No one would bother raiding the pyramid arks for such items, because it would be easier by far to simply nip down to the local market for seeds, tools, and such.

A far better and more logical solution for the safe and secure storage of nonvital but otherwise precious cultural items would be to store these secondary items in another type of recovery vault that was not a highly visible pyramid ark but rather a hidden chamber deep underground, a vault that would have no directly visible marker indicating its location, a secret chamber that would become engulfed and lost to the Egyptian sands. In short, it would make more sense to store such secondary valuable items within a chamber that was hidden and undiscoverable—just as some of the ancient texts describe.

FOUND BY THREE

Of course, simple logic dictates that there would have to be
some
means created by the designers that would assist in the relocation of such a hidden chamber. It would not make sense for the builders to place their nonvital but otherwise precious cultural items into a vault deep underground, cover it completely with rock and sand, and merely
hope
that someday it may be recovered by accident or good fortune. It stands to reason that the designers would not have relinquished the rediscovery of their hidden vault containing items of great cultural value merely to chance and would have gone out of their way to create and include some means by which the precise whereabouts of the hid-den underground vault could be determined and the precious cultural items contained therein recovered. In this regard, Jochmans further writes:

In another Egyptian text, known today as the Westcar Papyrus, which bears evidence of dating to the Fourth Dynasty, is the story of an enigmatic sage named Djeda who could not only perform miraculous feats of magic, but who also possessed certain information concerning what he called the secret chambers of the books of Thoth. In the narrative, Djeda told Pharaoh Khufu the location of specific keys that will one day open the hidden place, which he described as follows:

In the city of Ani (Heliopolis) is a temple called the House of Sapti, referring to Septi, the fifth Pharaoh of the First Dynasty, who reigned about 3000 B.C. Within the temple is a special library room where the scrolls of inventory are kept. The walls of this room are made of sandstone blocks, and either within or behind one of these blocks is a secret niche containing a small box made of flint or whetstone. It is within this box that the ipwt-seals or keys that will open the secret chambers of Thoth, the Hall of Records, may still be hidden.

When Khufu asked Djeda to bring these keys to him, the sage replied he did not have the power to do so, but prophesied that he who some day would find the keys would be one of three sons born to Rad-dedet, the wife of the chief priest of Ra in Heliopolis, Lord of Sakhbu (the second Lower Egyptian nome or district in the Nile Delta), and that the three would be born on the 15th day of the month of Tybi (our October–November).

Now it is generally interpreted that the three mentioned were the first three Pharaohs of the succeeding Fifth Dynasty. But because much of Egyptian literature is multi-leveled in its symbolism, there is reason to believe that a more hidden meaning may have been intended, that the three enigmatic brothers may also be those yet future individuals who will one day find and open the Hall of Records.
¹⁰

When I first read this tale or myth of Djeda and the other accounts of hidden chambers in or around Giza, it immediately struck me that the “three enigmatic brothers” in question that would one day find the hidden chamber may not actually be pharaohs per se, or even people, but rather the three giant pyramids (attributed to three pharaohs) at Giza. This is to say that the three giant pyramids at Giza may allegorically represent the three brothers or three kings. In this regard we are further reminded of the words of the nineteenth-century antiquarian Gerald Massey, who wrote, “For the ‘Three Kings’ is still a name of the three stars of Orion’s Belt.”
¹¹

If the three grand pyramids at Giza are a symbolic representation of Orion’s Belt (as proposed by Robert Bauval and Adrian Gilbert in their book
The Orion Mystery
), then, by extension, these structures can surely also be considered as the “Three Kings.” It is noteworthy here to point out that, in the Northern Hemisphere, Orion’s Belt is best observed in the autumn months (from around October to November), when it is more easily seen. Could it be that this most prominent appearance of Orion in October and November is an allegory of Djeda’s “the three would be born on the 15th day of the month of Tybi [our October– November].” And if these Three Kings (i.e., three pyramids of Giza) might have held the secret wisdom as to the whereabouts of a hidden ark or vault, then it is not unreasonable that they might also have been considered as “Three Wise Men.” In this regard, Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince write:

We were also struck by this statement in Cocteau’s journal, about a night-time visit to the pyramids of Giza:

“In the sky lies the unharnessed Wain, shafts pointing upwards. Strange stopping place! The Three Wise Men have struck their tents of stone, stretched from base to point, one side in the shadow and the other three smoothed by the moon. They sleep while their dog lies awake. Their watch dog is the Sphinx.” [
Cocteau Maalesh: A Theatrical Tour in the Middle East
. Paris: Gallimard, 1949, 37.]

“Three Wise Men” is the French term for the three stars we know as Orion’s Belt. There was a media sensation when Robert Bauval and Adrian Gilbert’s
The Orion Mystery
was published in 1994, arguing that the three pyramids of Giza were built specifically to represent Orion’s Belt. Yet here we have Cocteau, in 1949, apparently taking the connection for granted!
¹²

So Djeda’s story may indeed be allegorical in nature and a more hidden meaning intended, as Jochmans believes. And it may also be that the means by which to locate the hidden chamber is presented to us in plain sight, right under our very noses, by three of the largest man-made monuments on Earth—the Three Brothers, Three Kings, or Three Wise Men.

In building their great pyramid arks to contain vital recovery items, the designers may
also
have used these very same structures, the three giant Giza pyramids, in a quite ingenious way to encode the precise location of the legendary hidden chamber of Osiris, the ancient Egyptian god who is personified by the constellation of Orion, known across the ages as the Three Kings and the Three Wise Men. And the “keys” to determine the whereabouts of the hidden vault?

The
concavities
of the Giza pyramids!

It is often said that seeing is believing. Well, for me, seeing with my own eyes on that chilly spring equinox dawn the shaded triangles formed by the concavities of the Great Pyramid sent a ripple of excitement and anticipation running down my spine; yes, they were a trick of the light, but nonetheless, they really did exist. No doubt. And, as noted already, they obviously existed for a reason whose importance seems to have far outweighed the considerable additional construction burden their inclusion would have posed the builders. There was a
reason
for them; they were the
keys.

For the first time since formulating my theory on the concavities of the Giza pyramids I was beginning to feel that I had reason to believe that the understanding and rationale I had come to regarding these odd features were more than simply a leap of faith, that quite possibly I was on the right track and that my journey here to Egypt to search for (and hopefully discover) the legendary hidden chamber of Osiris might bring more success than I had ever dared to imagine. I was, after all, pursuing a mere theory and was still a very long way from proving its veracity. But the concavities
were
real, and observing their effect with my own eyes offered me hope, raised my expectation of success, even if only a little. The presence of these enigmatic features in G1 and G3 was perhaps to provide an ever-so-subtle hint, but their significance, if I was right, would be truly monumental.