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Know_files/FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS.pdf - D Ank Unlimited

Know_files/FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS.pdf - D Ank Unlimited

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Graham Hancock – <strong>FINGERPRINTS</strong> <strong>OF</strong> <strong>THE</strong> <strong>GODS</strong><br />

Dynasty Pharaoh Khafre (Chephren). This stunning monument, second<br />

only in size and majesty to the Great Pyramid itself (being just a few feet<br />

shorter and 48 feet narrower at the base) appeared lit up, as though<br />

energized from within, by a pale and unearthly fire. Behind it in the<br />

distance, slightly offset among the dark desert shadows, was the smaller<br />

Pyramid of Menkaure (Mycerinus), measuring 356 feet along each side<br />

and some 215 feet in height. 17<br />

For a moment, against the glittering backdrop of the inky sky, I<br />

experienced the illusion of being in motion, of standing at the stern of<br />

some great ship of the heavens and looking back at two other vessels<br />

which seemed to follow in my wake, strung out in battle order behind me.<br />

So where was this convoy going, this squadron of pyramids? And were<br />

the prodigious structures all the work of megalomaniac pharaohs, as the<br />

Egyptologists believed? Or had they been designed by mysterious hands<br />

to voyage eternally through time and space towards some as yet<br />

unidentified objective?<br />

From this altitude, though the southern sky was partially occluded by<br />

the vast bulk of the Pyramid of Khafre, I could see all the western sky as it<br />

arched down from the celestial north pole towards the distant rim of the<br />

revolving planet. Polaris, the Pole Star, was far to my right, in the<br />

constellation of the Little Bear. Low on the horizon, about ten degrees<br />

north of west, Regulus, the paw-star of the imperial constellation of Leo,<br />

was about to set.<br />

Under Egyptian skies<br />

Just above the 150th course, Ali hissed at us to keep our heads down. A<br />

police car had come into view around the north-western corner of the<br />

Great Pyramid and was now proceeding along the western flank of the<br />

monument with its blue light slowly flashing. We stayed motionless in the<br />

shadows until the car had passed. Then we began to climb again, with a<br />

renewed sense of urgency, heading as fast as we could towards the<br />

summit, which we now imagined we could see jutting out above the misty<br />

predawn haze.<br />

For what seemed like five minutes we climbed without stopping. When I<br />

looked up, however, the top of the Pyramid still seemed as far away as<br />

ever. We climbed again, panting and sweating, and once again the<br />

summit drew back before us like some legendary Welsh peak. Then, just<br />

when we’d resigned ourselves to an endless succession of such<br />

disappointments, we found ourselves at the top, under a breathtaking<br />

canopy of stars, more than 450 feet above the surrounding plateau on<br />

the most extraordinary viewing platform in the world. To our north and<br />

east, sprawled out across the wide, sloping valley of the River Nile, lay the<br />

17 The Pyramids of Egypt, p. 125.<br />

279

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