Robert Bauval - The Egypt Code

Table of Contents

For Michele...

Also by Robert Bauval

Secret Chamber
The Orion Mystery (with Adrian Gilbert)
The Message of the Sphinx (with Graham Hancock)
The Mars Mystery (with Graham Hancock and John Grigsby)
Talisman (with Graham Hancock)

The theory known as The Orion correlation theory was first
proposed by Robert Bauval in his bestseller The Orion Mystery.
According to this theory the disposition of the three Giza pyramids
was inspired by the disposition in the sky of the three stars of
Orions belt, a constellation connected to Osiris (and therefore to the
after-world) which was extremely important to the Egyptians as
attested in the Pyramid Texts. And although the validity of this
theory is still disputed, it is at present the most convincing
hypothesis aimed to explain the enigmatic and clearly not due to the
simple chance disposition of the Giza pyramids.

Dr Giulio Magli,
Professor of Applied Mathematics at Milano Politecnico

I am very much in agreement with your (Bauvals) contention that the stars in Orions belt were an important element in the orientation of the Great Pyramid. I think you (Bauval) have made out a very convincing case that the two other pyramids were also influenced by it.

Sir I.E.S. Edwards, CMG, CBE, FBA, Curator of the Egyptian
Antiquities Department (1947-74), British Museum

Mr Bauval has performed an important service in giving it (the Orion Correlation Theory) an airing. Ive no doubt it will be criticised. Its bound to be. Such things are when they start.

Sir I.E.S. Edwards, CMG, CBE, FBA, Curator of the Egyptian
Antiquities Department (1947-74), British Museum

I have known Mr Bauval for many years and I have taken an interest in his astronomical studies insofar as they are related to the Giza pyramids. In my opinion he has made a number of interesting discoveries and I believe more are likely to come.

Sir I.E.S. Edwards, CMG, CBE, FBA, Curator of the Egyptian
Antiquities Department (1947-74), British Museum

I was deeply interested in your recent presentations on astronomy in relation to the Pyramid Texts. You have shown the important role the three stars of Orions belt have had to the ancient Egyptians, especially attested in the south shafts in the Kings Chamber (of the Great Pyramid) as well as the important deliberate alignment of the three pyramids of Giza.

Jean Kerisel, Professeur Honoraire lEcole Nationale des Ponts et
Chausses, President des Ingnieurs et Scientifiques de France

All reasonable effort has been made to obtain official permissions to reproduce some of the above illustrations. Credit and thanks go to: Anne-Sophie Bomhard (Illus. 4); reproduced with the kind permission of David Jeffreys (Illus. 6); reproduced with the kind permission of IFAO (Illus. 7 & 8); reproduced with the kind permission of SFE and Sylvie Cauville (Illus. 9); Ron Wells (Illus. 10 & 11); EES (Illus. 12).

During the last twenty-five years my quest has been to bring to life again the old sky-religion of Egypt and to show how it inspired the Egyptians to turn their land into an image of heaven. I published the initial result of my findings in 1994 in The Orion Mystery which received the backing of the BBC2 Everyman documentary The Great Pyramid: Gateway to the Stars. In the course of the next few years three other books on the sky-religion of Egypt were to follow. The Egypt Code is the culmination of my quarter-century of research and I, therefore, decided to write it on location. And so, in February 2005, I moved into a rented apartment in the leafy suburb of Hadayek El Ahram, less than a kilometre from the Giza Pyramids. Armed with a good desktop computer with DSL Internet connection, and also a wide selection of Egyptological books and articles, I spent the next eight months putting into book form the research material that I had compiled over the many years while in the UK. Writing this genre of non-fiction is not an easy task, but thankfully I was constantly inspired by the sight of the Great Pyramid from my office window. I am not sure how one can thank an inert mass of stone that stares implacably at you all day and all night. But somehow I feel a strange sense of gratitude towards it.

I would like to also thank the many colleagues and friends who help me throughout my quest. My foremost thanks go to my wife, Michele, for her enduring patience, her tolerance and her unflinching support. It is not easy to live with a man whose mind is partly straddled in ancient Egypt. I also thank my two wonderful children, Candice and Jonathan, and to the former for making me in the course of researching this book a proud grandfather. I am grateful, too, to my brother, Jean-Paul, my twin sister, Thrse, and my mother Yvonne for always being there when I needed them. I also thank the astronomers Mary Bruck (Edinburgh), Archie Roy (Glasgow), John Brown (Astronomer Royal for Scotland), Chandra Wickramasinghe (Cardiff), Percy Seymour (Plymouth) and Gulio Magli (Milan) for their collegial interest and their constructive criticism. The authors Graham Hancock (Bath), Colin Wilson (Devon), Ahmed Osman (London), John Gordon (Surrey), Michael Baigent (Bath), Robert Lomas (Bradford), Yuri Stoyanov (Jerusalem), Timothy Freke (Glastonbury) and John West (New York) for their friendship and helpful advice. My friends Khaled Abdel Bary (Giza), Hoda Hakim (Cairo), Roger Bilboul (London), Chafik and Racha Kotry (Alexandria), Mohamad and Nayra Ezzat (Alexandria), John and Josette Orphanidis (Athens), Gouda Fayed (Giza, Nazlet El Salman), Javier and Eva Sierra (Malaga), Adriano Forgione (Rome), Arianna Mendo (Torino), Sandro Mainardi (Florence), Roel Oostra (Hilversum), Andrea and Patrizia Vitussi (Trieste), Deborah Signoretti (Rome), Marilena Lancetti (Bologna), Linda and Max Bauval (Hawaii), Robert Berube (Quebec), Mark Scurry (Melbourne), and Sherif El Sebai (Helipolis), Mahmoud Marai (Maadi), Olfat Eltohamy (Heliopolis) for their much appreciated Egyptian warmth and their good humour. I want to express my deep debt of gratitude to my literary agents Bill Hamilton and Sara Fisher of A.M. Heath & Co. Ltd. who have always been there to encourage and advise me, and to listen to my enthusiastic rambles. The same gratitude also goes to my editor and friend in the USA, Gary Baddeley, for his patience, support and invaluable help. Finally I give thanks to all my readers, old and new, and hope that The Egypt Code will be as rewarding for them to read as it was for me to write.

Robert G. Bauval
Cairo, The Pyramids, April 2008

It is my privilege to be allowed to write a few words at the beginning of a truly remarkable book by an equally remarkable man. While it is Robert Bauval to whom I owe thanks for allowing me these words, I must thank Graham Hancock for the route by which they arrived here.

As many of you will know, Robert and Graham have written three books together: The Message of the Sphinx: A Quest for the Hidden Legacy of Mankind, The Mars Mystery: A Tale Of The End Of Two Worlds and Talisman: Sacred Cities, Secret Faith. They are a double act bar none, each a perfect foil for the other, in person as well as in their books. In 2005 Graham Hancock was true to his brave and pioneering spirit when he chose a new publisher in the United States for his groundbreaking new work,