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'THE
MIDNIGHT SUN'
PREFACE
By
ALAN F. ALFORD
Beneath
the Giza plateau lies a secret tomb, cunningly contrived, that
has remained undisturbed for nearly five thousand years. In
the darkness and stillness of
an eternal night-time, the mummy of an Egyptian king lies in splendid isolation,
adorned with gold and gemstones, and surrounded by his burial treasure. If
our eyes could penetrate the primeval darkness, we might well imagine the king
smiling at the thought that he had cheated the tomb raiders of his own day,
as well as the archaeologists of modern times. But perhaps he will not be smiling
for much longer.
I
am convinced that I have pinpointed the precise location of
the tomb of the greatest of the pyramid builders, Khufu
- the legendary king who built the Great
Pyramid of Giza. If I am right, we may soon witness one of the greatest archaeological
discoveries in history - far surpassing that of the tomb of Tutankhamun in
1922. It would be the first ever discovery of a pyramid builder's
intact tomb, and
would open a unique window on the mysteries of the pyramids, from a time 1,200
years before the birth of Tutankhamun.
Before
we can make this discovery, however, we have to pass a test
- a test of confidence in the hypothesis.
We have to grasp the significance and purpose
of
the pyramids and of the roles played by the mummies for whom they were built.
In short, we have to be initiated into the secrets of the pyramid builders1
religion.
Egypt's
great age of pyramid building began circa 2600 BC when an unknown
genius mastered the seemingly impossible feat of assembling
a pyramid with
smooth
sides and an apex - a 'true pyramid' as it is called today. Until that
momentous breakthrough, the Egyptians had built step pyramids, whose multiple
stages gave
the semblance of a stairway to the heavens.
The
first king to take advantage of the new design was Sneferu,
the founder of the 4th dynasty, who had two
huge pyramids built at Dahshur, each with
a height
of 345 feet. One of these pyramids was presumably his tomb and the other
a cenotaph, though no-one can say for certain which was which.
Sneferu
was followed by his son Khufu, who is credited with building
the
Great Pyramid of Giza. It is the largest true pyramid in Egypt with a
height of 481
feet and a volume of 91 million cubic feet. Its complicated system of
internal passageways culminates in an elegant granite chamber
which contains a broken
and empty sarcophagus. It is here that Khufu's body was supposedly interred
- a theory that this author does not share, for reasons that will shortly
be explained.
The Giza plateau is home to two further pyramids, those of Khafre and
Menkaure. The former stands as high as the Great Pyramid, but a steeper
angle causes
it to have a lesser volume of 78 million cubic feet, while the latter
is much smaller,
with a height of just 213 feet. Both these pyramids were found to contain
empty sarcophagi.
Together,
the three pyramids of Giza contain a staggering 178 million
cubic feet of stone, and weigh an estimated 12 million tons.
They are
testimony
to a profound
belief in the afterlife. But what exactly do these pyramids signify?
It
is a remarkable fact that Egyptologists cannot agree on the
precise meaning of the pyramid. Various theories have been
proposed: that the
pyramid symbolised
the sun's rays sloping down through the clouds, that it symbolised
the newly emerged earth of the creation myth, or that it symbolised
a star.
But none
of these theories has proved satisfactory in itself since all appear
to have some
validity. This confusion has persisted despite the fact that detailed
inscriptions - the so-called Pyramid Texts - are contained on the
internal walls of
eight pyramids of the late-5th and 6th dynasties - enough magic spells
to fill
a 300-page book.
The
real problem lies deeper - in modern conceptions of the ancient
Egyptian religion. Their religion was nothing like ours,
on the surface
at least.
They worshipped One God under many different names. They also worshipped
'him' as a Goddess, or as a 'he-she', i.e. a God and Goddess
merged in a single being. And they worshipped God as a collectivity
of gods
- a multitude of beings
that had issued from him and were united in him. Moreover, unlike
the Supreme Being of modern religions, the God of the Egyptians was
both
transcendent and
immanent in his creation. He was not only invisible, but also visible
- in the sun, the moon, the stars, indeed in all of nature.
Early
Egyptologists struggled to comprehend the Egyptian religion. To
them, it seemed like a mishmash of beliefs, most of which belonged
to
a semi-savage
past.
In order to make sense of it, they focused on the most prominent
cult - that of the sun - which some regarded as the world's first
monotheism.
A consensus
then developed that Egyptian religion was a sun cult - a conclusion
that has coloured all subsequent studies of this mighty civilisation.
According
to Egyptology, the sun cult came to prominence during the
4th dynasty - the exact time when the first true pyramids were
conceived
and built. The
giant pyramids of Dahshur and Giza are thus believed to be solar
symbols and monuments
to the sun-god.
But
this view of Egyptian religion hardly does justice to the incredible
achievements of the 4th dynasty kings.
Was Sneferu
inspired to
erect 7.5 million tons of
stone by an epiphany of the sun's rays falling through the
clouds in the shape of a
pyramid? Did his successors at Giza erect 12 million tons of
stone because of their awe of the sun? Surely there has to
be more to
it than that.
I
believe that there was indeed more to it than that.
The
hypothesis presented in this book is that Egyptian religion
was not a cult
of the sun but a 'cult of creation', i.e. a cult whose primary
aim was to celebrate and re-enact perpetually the myth of the
creation of the cosmos.
According
to this myth, the original cosmos had fallen into
a state of darkness and chaos, and would have died had
it not been
revivified
by
a supernatural
power that may best be described as 'the magic of
creation'. As a result, the old cosmos had been reborn
as a new cosmos
of light, in which the sun, moon,
and stars orbited the earth.
The
aim of the Egyptians was to prevent this cosmos from reverting
to its former state
of chaos. Or, to put it another
way, their
abiding task
was
to ensure
that the cosmos would endure for ever.
To
do this, the king was initiated into the magic of creation
and tasked with
re-creating the magic spells
which had
brought the
earth, sun,
moon, and stars
into being.
Creation
had involved death and rebirth, and the Egyptians saw this
as a template for the continuance
of life.
On earth, they
imagined
the river
Nile
to die
and be reborn every year, while in the sky they imagined
the sun and stars to die
and be reborn every day, and the moon to die and
be reborn every month.
The
king's magic was aimed at making every rebirth a re-enactment
of the original rebirth of the
cosmos.
When
the Nile came
forth in its
annual flood, it was
born anew as it had been in the beginning, and
when the sun rose from the
eastern horizon, it was born anew as it had been
on the day of creation. The entire
cosmos
was thus made to endure by rejuvenating itself.
The
king's role did not end with his death, but instead continued
in the afterlife. And it is here that we
find the key to
the meaning and
purpose
of the pyramids.
The
king did not die as an ordinary human being. He died as a god,
just as he had once lived as
a god.
And this
guaranteed that he
would be reborn
as
a god.
A
central element of my hypothesis - which will undoubtedly prove
controversial - is that the
god in question
was the creator-god, and that his death
and rebirth personified the death and rebirth
of the cosmos. By dying in the
image of this
god, Osiris, the king re-enacted the myth of
creation. His mummified
body became one with the primeval earth and
waters in the netherworld, while
his soul went
forth to become the sun, moon, and stars in
the sky.
The
death of the king was thus the life of the cosmos.
Once
he became a part of the cosmos, the reborn king was tasked
with rejuvenating it, to ensure
that it
- and he
- would endure
for ever.
To this end, he
became the director of the stars in their orbits
or the rower of the sun-god in
the barque which encircled the earth. Every day,
like the sun and the stars, he
was reborn and rejuvenated. It was thus said
of the king 'his afterlife is for
ever and eternity'.
The
pyramid was designed to resurrect the king in accordance with
the creation myth. But
its
role did
not end with
the funeral, for
this
was not the rebirth
of a man but a god, whose continued rebirth
was necessary for the sake of the cosmos. The magic
of creation
was thus repeated
at
the pyramid
every day, to
ensure that the king would circulate in the
cosmos for ever.
In
order to carry this off, the king's body had to be mummified
so that it would endure
for eternity,
and buried
in the
earth beneath the pyramid
so
that it became
one with Osiris. The mummy then became the
locus of the soul's rebirth
each night. Having traversed the sky with
the sun and the stars, the soul would
pass into
the earth through mysterious doors and unite
with its body in the tomb. It would then
be recharged by the
magic of
creation, and
would go forth
at dawn
to bring
a new and rejuvenated light to the world.
The
endurance of the mummy was therefore pivotal to the continued
survival of the
soul - and
to the survival
of the cosmos.
The
pyramid was built to protect the mummy and it too was created
to last for eternity.
A spell
in
the Pyramid
Texts
beseeches
the creator-god
to 'set
your protection over this king, over
this pyramid of his... prevent anything
evil
from happening against it for ever'.
Much of the pyramid's power seems to
have derived from its smooth, flowing
shape, which was probably intended to
symbolise
the cosmos in its moment of coming-into-being.
This
brings us back to the Great Pyramid
and to an anomaly that can no longer
be ignored. Since
the
earliest days
of Egyptology it has
been
assumed that
Khufu was laid to rest in the granite
chamber which houses the
broken sarcophagus. However, this chamber
is
located at a height of 140
feet in the pyramid's
superstructure - in contravention of
the custom, and indeed the fundamental
rule,
that the
mummy
should be buried in the earth. According
to Egyptologists, Khufu broke with
convention in order to thwart
the tomb raiders, who
would never
have conceived
of searching
for an elevated tomb chamber. This
is permissible under the theory that Egyptian
religion
was a sun cult and
the pyramid
a monument
to the sun-god.
However,
if Egyptian religion was a cult of creation and the pyramid
a
monument
to the
creation, as
I believe it
was, then
it is inconceivable
that Khufu
would have had himself buried anywhere
but in the earth - below the Great
Pyramid - in accordance with the
axiom 'the
body to earth, the spirit to the
sky'.
This
approach requires us to abandon all previous notions of the
Great
Pyramid's passages and
chambers, and explore
the
possibilities of a
sub-pyramid burial.
When we do so, a pattern emerges
which is suggestive of a burial
in the most
remote
recess of the
monument - a
small
cave which
has been
almost
totally
neglected by archaeologists.
Today,
this cave stands empty and there are indications that something
was
dug up and
removed by tomb
raiders in antiquity.
But this may
be exactly what Khufu
wanted us to think. For when we
cast our eye around this cave, we find
a number of perplexing anomalies,
which
suggest the presence of further,
hidden caves
nearby. It is in these caves, I
believe, that Khufu has lain in peace for
more than four
thousand years,
sealed
behind
a 'door' whose position I
have pinpointed.
This
all hinges on the cult of
creation hypothesis, which is
the primary
focus of this book.
In one sense, this
theory is
not so
controversial: the importance
of the creation myth is well
known to scholars. In another sense,
however, it is controversial.
The problem
is that
the creation myth is a muddle.
It does not exist as a coherent
narrative
but
as a collection of fragments,
drawn from several
different traditions
which
appear in some
respects to be
inconsistent. Scholars have thus
developed a jaundiced view of
the creation myth,
and do not consider it worthy
as the basis for
a religion.
I
have therefore devoted much of this book to a reconstruction
of
the creation
myth
- joining
together
the known
fragments, discovering new
fragments,
elucidating the key principles,
ironing out the inconsistencies,
and filling
in the gaps
- to the extent that it can
plausibly
bear the
burden of the cult of creation
that I wish to place upon
it. The
resulting picture
is
a surprisingly
sophisticated 'physics
of creation'.
But
there is more to this book than reassembling
a creation
myth and
discovering a hidden
tomb. It is
also about
reuniting us
with our religious
heritage
and opening our eyes to some
simple but profound truths.
There is much
for us
to learn from the religious
philosophy of
the
Egyptians, and if this book
helps to bring this perennial
wisdom to a
wider audience
then
- archaeological
discoveries notwithstanding
-
the effort involved in writing
it will
have been
absolutely worthwhile.
Important
Reading Note
In writing this book, I have
tried to strike a balance
between satisfying
the
requirements
of
the academic
specialists -
at whom the argument
is primarily directed -
and keeping things accessible
for the general
reader. The latter
may find the detailed arguments
to be
beyond his immediate needs,
in which case he
may pick up the gist of
the hypothesis from this preface,
and chapters
one, fifteen and
sixteen,
together with
the key point
summaries
for the chapters
in between.
If he feels a little more
ambitious, he could also
read chapter
seven, which provides
a
detailed interpretation
of the rituals
and spells
performed at
the
pyramids. Then, if he wishes
to mix it with the specialists,
he
can go
for the
whole
deal.
ALAN
F. ALFORD, Walsall, England, October 2004. |
