Black Genesis (30 page)

THE GREAT WALL OF TIME

In
The Egypt Code,
we demonstrated that evidence of both the Sothic cycle and precession involving the star Sirius could be found in the elaborate design of the step pyramid complex of King Djoser at Saqqara or, more precisely, in the design of the gigantic boundary wall that surrounds the complex (see figure 6.4). The step pyramid complex is dated to about 2650 BCE and is said to be the very first major architectural complex of ancient Egypt and, according to many, the oldest in the whole world. It is one of those curious facts of history that we actually know the name and function of the architect who was responsible for its design: his name was Imhotep, and he was vizier to King Djoser. According to professor I. E. S. Edwards, “Imhotep's title ‘Chief of the Observers,' which became the regular title of the high priest of Heliopolis, may itself suggest an occupation connected with astral, rather than solar observation. . . . It is significant that the high priest of the centre of the sun-cult at Heliopolis bore the title ‘Chief of the Astronomers' and was represented wearing a mantle adorned with
stars.”
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Figure 6.4. Djoser step pyramid complex and Saqqara, showing the massive wall enclosing the compound. Inset: Detail of the reconstructed portion of the paneled wall around the main entrance.

In the recently built museum at the reception area at Saqqara, Imhotep is given a place of honor, and there are several statues representing this Leonardo da Vinci of the ancient world. His name, titles, and functions are attested on the pedestal of a statue of King Djoser. As we have seen, it seems certain that a calendar based on the heliacal rising of Sirius was used since earliest time in Egypt and was referred to sometimes as the Sothic calendar. It also seems certain that this calendar was eventually formally adopted by the Heliopolitan priests, who pinned it to their own newly devised civil calendar, when a Sothic cycle was made to begin with the New Year's Day of 1 Thoth. It is thus quite possible that it was Imhotep who introduced the Sothic calendar based on the cycles of Sirius, or, as we now strongly suspect, merely formalized it from an earlier calendar that was already in place with the prehistoric star people of Nabta Playa. At any rate, much evidence supports the view that a Sothic calendar ran parallel to a civil calendar so that they both resynchronized every 1,460 years—that is, every Sothic cycle. According to the science historian Gerald J. Whitrow, “there is reason to associate this with the minister of king Djoser of the Third Dynasty known as
Imhotep.”
⁶⁵
Bearing this in mind and also recalling that Imhotep was the architect of the very first pyramid complex in Egypt, we would expect to find some indication of the Sothic cycle in the design of his masterpiece, the step pyramid complex at Saqqara.

In
The Egypt Code
we discuss at length the design of the step pyramid complex and the intense astronomical and calendrical quality that it exhibits. Intriguing is a very curious architectural feature called a serdab that is linked to the north face of the step pyramid itself. The serdab consists of a small stone cubicle that is inclined against the slope of the lowest tier of the step pyramid at an angle of about 15 degrees and oriented about 4.5 degrees east of due north. The peculiarity of this cubicle is that inside it was a seated statue of King Djoser, which faces north and seems to look out of the cubicle through two peepholes cut into its north wall. The consensus among Egyptologists today is that the statue was meant to be gazing into the circumpolar region of the sky, where could be found the important constellation of the Big Dipper. Our calculations showed that circa 2650 BCE, when the step pyramid was constructed, the exact spot in the sky on which the gaze of the statue of Djoser seems transfixed was occupied once every twenty-four hours by the star Alkaid, the lowest star in the Big Dipper, which marked the hoof of the Bull's Thigh asterism of the ancient Egyptians. Perhaps the reason behind this alignment was to mark the rising time of the star Sirius in the east. In other words, precisely when the hoof star Alkaid aligned itself with the direction of gaze of the statue in the north, the star Sirius would be seen rising in the east. It is interesting to consider again, as we did in chapter 4, why Imhotep chose to orient Djoser's statue to gaze at the hoof star, Alkaid, instead of the brighter, upper thigh star Dubhe.

The tracking of the rising of Sirius with the Big Dipper would come naturally to an avid stargazer living in Egypt at the time of Imhotep, mainly because an interesting simultaneous alignment took place each day between the culmination of Sirius on the south meridian and the culmination of the brightest star in the Big Dipper, Dubhe, on the north meridian. We will recall from chapter 4 that two important stars tracked by the prehistoric stargazers of Nabta Playa were Dubhe and Sirius. Once such a conjunction is noticed, a person such as Imhotep, who was adept in geometry and astronomy, would realize very quickly that the perpetual circular trajectory of the Big Dipper around the north celestial pole could be used as a sort of dial to mark the rising, culmination, and setting of the star Sirius.

The Big Dipper contains seven bright stars, with the two brightest being Dubhe and Alkaid. These stars appear to revolve around a fixed point, the north celestial pole, in one full day—in other words, they travel in a circular, counterclockwise direction, a bit like the hand of a clock moving backward for twelve hours. If we observe the specific constellations night after night, month after month, and year after year, their cycles eventually become second nature to us and become ingrained in our memory. What Imhotep could not help but notice was that when Sirius rose in the east, the star Alkaid was at about 4.5 degrees east of the meridian. The important pieces for our arugument that Imhotep had to note were (1) when the star Dubhe was at north meridian, the star Sirius was at south meridian, and (2) when the star Alkaid was about 4.5 degrees east of north (and at altitude 15 degrees—the line of sight of Djoser's statue in the small stone cubicle at Saqqara), the star Sirius was rising in the east. If Imhotep was to have access to earlier observations such as, say, those made at Elephantine centuries before or even earlier ones made at Nabta Playa, he would have realized that the position of the star Sirius had changed due to the precession. As we saw in chapter 4, this may explain why Imhotep directed the serdab toward Alkaid rather than to Dubhe. Imhotep, as the designer of the first major architectural complex of Old Kingdom Egypt, may have been paying homage to his distant ancestors who originated this astral ritual at Nabta Playa when the hoof star Alkaid moved into place to initiate the Bull's Thigh constellation as the circumpolar star group that would herald the rise of Sirius. Had he known of an earlier, 365-day calendar, Imhotep would also have realized that New Year's Day had drifted from the heliacal rising of Sirius at the rate of about one day every four years and would synchronize again about every 1,460 years (every Sothic cycle). In addition, the fact that a Sothic cycle had begun in Imhotep's lifetime or just before would certainly have induced him to commemorate this event in his great architectural design of the step pyramid complex. It should come as no surprise, then, that the number 1,460, as we will see, comes up in the design of the massive boundary wall that surrounds the step pyramid complex.

The step pyramid complex of Djoser was named Horus Is the Star at the Head of the
Sky,
⁶⁶
which alone implies some cosmic function related to the principal or brightest star in the sky, which can be only Sirius. This is confirmed by the fact that the god Horus, in very early times, was also identified with this
star.
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The most impressive feature of the step pyramid complex other than the pyramid itself is the huge 10-meter-high (33-feet-high) boundary wall that once enclosed the entire complex. It is a rectangle 550 meters (1,804 feet) long and 220 meters (722 feet) wide, and even today it would be considered a masterpiece of architecture. Rather than simply making the wall with a smooth face, Imhotep incorporated in its design an elaborate system of recesses and protrusions, massive bastions and false doors. There are no less than 192 recesses and protrusions, 14 false doors, 4 corner bastions, and a main monumental entrance. On all of these features there are vertical panels, each some 20 centimeters (8 inches) wide, 3 centimeters (about 1 inch) deep, and several meters high, some cut into the wall, others flush with it. The west wall contains 1,461 panels and the east side contains 1,458 or 1,459 panels. The south side and north side each contain 732 panels, thus a total of 366 × 4 = 1,464. These numbers, to say the least, speak of calendrical meaning that is specifically related to Sirius, which is very near the Sothic cycle duration (1460 - 1), and 366 implies the sidereal year.
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Let us see why.

Sufi Tradition and the Wall

We can note that the design of this massive temple complex enclosure recalls the words of one of our teachers of the ancient meditation technique of
sufi zikr
: the design of all Persian rugs harks back to a very ancient spiritual tradition. If we look at the design of any Persian rug, it always consists of a gardenlike complex enclosed by a very elaborate wall with many recesses and complex meanderings. This design, the sufi said, is a representation of the primordial garden enclosed by a wall with 125,000 doors—and each door, it is said, represents a new way to enter the garden, which opens up each time another human becomes fully enlightened (through sufi or any other yogic practice). The sufi tradition, it is claimed, originates from extremely ancient times. It is interesting to speculate that the geniuspriest Imhotep designed the giant Djoser complex enclosure wall as astronomical-calendrical and developmental-spiritual—thus symbolizing the connection among humans, mind, and cosmos on both a subtle level and in enormous monumental architecture that exists out in plain sight.

First, and most obviously, we consider the number 1,461. As we've noted, the solar year is not exactly 365 days, but has an extra 0.242 day or, approximately, an extra quarter day (as does the Julian year we use today—which is exactly 365.25 years). A peculiarity of the star Sirius, which was apparently known to the ancient Egyptians, was that its yearly cycle was nearly 365.25 days during Old Kingdom times, thus making a Sothic cycle of 365.25 × 4 = 1,461,
⁶⁸
the same length as the solar-year return cycle and also the number of panels on the west side of the boundary wall of the step pyramid
complex.
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What, however, of the east wall of the step pyramid complex, which has 1,458 or 1,459 panels, and the north and south walls, which each have 732 panels? The answer emerges if we look in more detail at Sothic cycles. Many historians of astronomy and Egyptian chronologists have often pointed out that the length of the true astronomical Sothic cycle for the heliacal rising of Sirius to return to the exact point in the sidereal year varies slightly, and, according to the British astronomer M. F. Ingham, it ranged during dynastic Egyptian times from 1,450 years to 1,460
years.
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In appendix 2 we see the nature of Sothic cycles and calculate the length of the Sothic cycles in Old Kingdom times, independently testing Ingham's values by using a slightly different method: we set the year 2781 BCE, the day of summer solstice, as the starting point for a Sothic cycle and to constrain a definition for heliacal rising of Sirius. We then find that the Sothic cycle immediately preceding 2781 BCE was 1,459 Egyptian civil calendar years (1,458 Julian years), and the Sothic cycle starting at 2781 BCE was 1,457 Egyptian civil calendar years. Both those values essentially agree with Ingham's calculations. We conclude, then, that the east wall represents the exact Sothic cycle duration up to the design and construction of the complex, which itself commemorates or inaugurates the correspondence of the heliacal rising of Sirius with the summer solstice (an event that happens only once every twenty-six thousand years). Thus the 1,461-panel wall may reflect a standardized or general public knowledge cycle, and the 1,459-panel wall could reflect the esoteric knowledge of the exact natural cycle known only to initiates such as Imhotep.