Before the Pyramids: Cracking Archaeology's Greatest Mystery Read online

  BEFORE THE

  PYRAMIDS

  Christopher Knight is a businessman and marketing consultant who began his writing career after 20 years of research into the origins of Freemasonic rituals. His first book, The Hiram Key (co-authored with Robert Lomas and published in 1996) became an instant bestseller. It has since been translated into over 40 languages, selling more than a million copies worldwide. He is co-author, with Alan Butler, of the best-selling Civilization One, Who Built the Moon? and The Hiram Key Revisited.

  Alan Butler is a professional writer who has always possessed an absolute fascination for history. Originally an engineer, he set out on a two-decade search that led to the unravelling of some of the most important details regarding prehistoric knowledge and achievement in Europe. Alan has been writing on the subject of astrology since his early twenties and can probably claim to be the most published writer on the subject in Britain. His historical studies extend to in-depth research into the Cistercian monastic movement and the order of the Knights Templar, about which he has also written extensively. In addition to his interests in astrology and history, Alan Butler is also a time-served dramatist who has written many plays. He scored a significant success with Aiden Dooley’s Homecoming, written in 2003 for BBC radio.

  By the same authors

  Previous books by Christopher Knight

  (co-authored with Robert Lomas)

  The Hiram Key

  The Second Messiah

  Uriel’s Machine

  The Book of Hiram

  Previous books by Alan Butler

  The Bronze Age Computer Disc

  The Warriors and the Bankers

  The Templar Continuum

  The Goddess, the Grail and the Lodge

  By Christopher Knight and Alan Butler

  Civilization One

  Who Built the Moon?

  Solomon’s Power Brokers

  (published in paperback as The Hiram Key Revisited)

  BEFORE THE

  PYRAMIDS

  CRACKING ARCHAEOLOGY’S GREATEST MYSTERY

  CHRISTOPHER KNIGHT

  AND ALAN BUTLER

  Dedicated to my dear uncle, Father Thomas Crean, a priest of great humility and remarkable insight, who has spent a lifetime helping others around the world.

  CK

  Dedicated to Josephine, Julie, Martin, Philip, Sarah, Carolyn and Cathy, my much loved stepchildren and nieces.

  AB

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgements

  List of Figures

  Introduction

  1 The Giza Enigma

  2 Star Watchers

  3 The Silent Stones Speak

  4 The Circles of the Sky

  5 Giant Henges and Their Uses

  6 Searching for Sirius

  7 Overturning Old Ideas

  8 Squaring the Circle

  9 Sailing to the Stars

  10 Revelation in Rome

  11 Celts, Druids and Freemasonry

  12 A New Jerusalem

  13 The Founding Fathers

  14 The Proportions of the Gods

  Appendices

  1 The Planning of the Thornborough Henge Complex

  2 Placing the Middle Henge

  3 Fixing the Dogleg

  4 Using the Megalithic Pendulum

  5 The Minoan Foot and the Standard Foot

  6 Estimating the Circumference of the Earth – James Russell BSc C. Eng. M.I.E.I.

  7 The Megalithic System Explained

  8 The Pentagon and the 32nd Degree of Scottish Rite Freemasonry

  9 The Centre of the District of Columbia

  10 Thinking Styles and Academic Objectivity

  Endnotes

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  First and foremost, of course, we wish to acknowledge the patience, tolerance and invaluable assistance of our wives Caroline and Kate.

  We have many friends who have helped us across the years, academics, mathematicians, engineers, astronomers, biblical scholars and even some archaeologists. We thank you all but we would like to record our special thanks to the following people:

  The late Professor Alexander Thom, without whose lifetime’s work and rigorous surveying none of our own research or investigations would have been possible;

  Edmund Sixsmith, a London-based civil engineer and long-time champion of Alexander Thom who has picked up the gauntlet for our cause to push for a proper academic debate on our reconstruction of a super-science from prehistory, which he has designated the ‘Knight & Butler Symmetries’;

  James Russell, a civil engineer from Northern Ireland who has conducted a range of highly impressive experiments to demonstrate how Neolithic astronomers would have measured the dimensions of the Earth with great accuracy;

  Professor Philip Davies, a biblical scholar who has provided expert opinion over the years and has helped in every way he can, including introducing us to other experts;

  Dr Jack Miller, a Cambridge University geologist who first alerted us to the reality of Noah’s Flood and to the fact that Rosslyn could never have been part of an intended collegiate church;

  Professor Archie Roy, the astronomer who was first to confirm that our suggested pendulum method of timing stars explains the Megalithic Yard;

  Robert Bauval, freethinking gentleman Egyptologist who first identified the correlation of Orion’s Belt with the Giza pyramids and has been very supportive of our investigations;

  Dr Thomas Brophy, an astrophysicist for sharing his discoveries of super-ancient astronomical observatories in the Sahara;

  Michael Mann, our publisher for his ongoing support and continued wise guidance;

  Penny Stopa, our ever patient publishing manager who managed to deal with a very late manuscript when new discoveries impinged on deadlines. Our thanks also go to Shelagh Boyd, out tireless editor, and Paul Saunders who ‘set’ above and beyond the call of duty.

  LIST OF FIGURES

  1 Diagrams showing the evolution of the pyramids

  2 Giza pyramids showing offset

  3 Stars of Orion’s Belt showing offset

  4 Orion’s Belt superimposed onto the Giza pyramids

  5 Type IIA henge

  6 Thornborough central henge

  7 A simple pendulum

  8 Thornborough henges circa 3500 BC

  9 Thornborough henges with Orion’s Belt superimposed

  10 Stars rising on an undulating horizon

  11 Earth precession of the equinoxes

  12 Orion’s Belt lining up towards Sirius

  13 The spin of the Earth

  14 The relationship between the Megalithic Yard and the Egyptian remen

  15 The ‘crystal sphere’

  16 Solar boats in the sky

  17 Pyramids and back sight

  18 The Pentagon, Washington DC

  19 Dimensions of the Pentagon, Washington DC

  20 The Scottish Rite Masonic Camp with pentagon and triangle

  21 The Pentagon with an equilateral triangle

  22 Masonic symbol for the 33rd degree of Scottish Rite Freemasonry

  23 Masonic regalia from the 13th degree of Scottish Rite Freemasonry

  24 Wooden stake with crossbar

  25 Braced wooden frame for tracking planets or stars

  26 Horizontal method apparatus

  27 Vertical apparatus: two required, located 20 to 40 miles apart, due east/west of each other on any line of latitude

  28 Apparatus to establish latitude

  29 Pentacle drawn within the corners of a pentagon

  INTRODUC
TION

  This is an unusual book. It has caught us, its co-authors, completely by surprise.

  Our intention was to catalogue an account of our researches into measurement systems used in Neolithic Britain, but what we ended up with is a story of the transmission of hugely ancient knowledge and priceless artefacts, spanning several millennia and culminating with 20th century power-play at the highest level. We began with an important archaeological breakthrough but ended with what our publishers believe is a full-blooded rival for any Dan Brown novel. However, the difference between our work and a novel is that everything contained in these pages is true – fully testable and checkable. And anyone with internet access will be able to put us to the test very quickly indeed.

  For the last ten years we have been doing our best to reconstruct a stunningly accurate and elegant system of astronomy-based measurements used in Stone Age Britain. This research suddenly exploded when we found a direct connection between the astronomer-priests of Stone Age Britain and the pyramid builders of ancient Egypt from the third millennium BC. Then, due to a chance connection we came to lift the lid on a careful and secret plan to create a ‘New Jerusalem’ in the New World – using knowledge that may well have originated an incredible 18,000 years earlier. That new city was Washington DC.

  We have pinpointed a small, deliberately carved stone in the centre of Washington DC that is a most important key – a marker in the ground that Thomas Jefferson declared to be point zero on the face of the globe and which Franklin D Roosevelt much later used as the datum point for the location of the Pentagon. We believe that there is a chamber beneath this stone that holds a great secret known only to an elite group that is always made up of exactly 33 men.

  The findings in this book have ended up as nothing less than sensational. The evidence we put forward is easy to follow and to check out by anyone – without specialist knowledge. This is bad news for us in one respect, because the archaeological establishment may use the ‘sensational’ revelations in this book as an excuse to ignore our key findings and to declare them non-academic. If this is the case it is a shame, but we hope that the high-profile nature of the ‘conspiracy’ we have uncovered will force through a very public debate on the origins of civilization that is long overdue. We are fully aware that this book will be attacked – most likely by people who have not read it. The individual who does not like change will skim the pages and pull out unusual findings and scoff. We will ignore unsubstantiated comments but we will welcome constructive criticism and vigorous debate – as long as it is based on facts and not preconceived ideas or prejudice.

  Because of the nature of our Washington findings we will be accused of being ‘conspiracy theorists’. It has become fashionable in some quarters to believe that this label automatically invalidates all evidence. This is not the case. There are two kinds of people who deny that conspiracies exist – conspirators and the naive!

  There is nothing remotely odd about conspiracy. It is merely two or more people acting together in an undeclared way to bring benefit to themselves – and perhaps others. There are criminal conspiracies, unsavoury conspiracies, benign conspiracies and, we believe, benevolent conspiracies. The key component is simply secrecy. Did Bernard Madoff act alone in his Ponzi scheme that lifted billions of dollars from the wallets of the wealthy? If he was not acting alone, then it was obviously a conspiracy of embezzlement. We feel sure Madoff would have been a keen denier of conspiracies.

  Whilst no one can know for sure, is it not probable that most conspiracies go undiscovered? After all, that is the entire point.

  We hope you enjoy this book and that you find the revelations it contains to be helpful and significant. Please spread the word so that there is as much public opinion as possible pushing for a broad-based, academic evaluation of our findings. If you would like to keep up with developments please visit our website at: www.knight-butler.com.

  Chapter 1

  •

  THE GIZA ENIGMA

  Into the Desert

  We were in Egypt on a hunch.

  One of us had visited the country dozens of times; the other had never been here before. We were both interested in the pyramids but they had never loomed large in our personal researches – until now.

  Now there was a chance, a small chance, that the precious location we were sure had once existed might just have survived the ravages of sandstorm, baking sun and human abuse across the millennia. We had studied maps and photographs back in England but quickly realized that we needed to be on the spot as soon as possible. The problem was that, from the aerial shots we had studied, it looked as though ground clearance of some kind had started – all around our chosen target zone. After 4,500 years – and now we had to rush? It seemed crazy but two weeks later we were closing in.

  Ahmed looked entirely relaxed as he skilfully slotted his taxi through yet another impossibly small gap – this time between a battered, rust-coloured truck on our left and a boy on a straw-laden donkey, who was happily traversing the roundabout the wrong way. It was Friday and nearly midnight yet the entire city was buzzing in a chaotic manner that made a rush hour in New York or London look positively sane. Every now and again we would come across an intersection with flat tarmac and some road markings, but they were of little interest to the thronging hordes of drivers who would instinctively form four haphazard columns where only two lanes were marked out beneath the sea of wheels.

  Cairo is a crazy and exciting city. Its smells, sounds and vistas linger in the memory of visitors but, for natives, life is hard. Some 18 million souls occupy Africa’s largest city where there is huge competition for work – and little or no aid available from the state. It is often said that the average Egyptian had a higher standard of living at the time of the Pharaohs than he or she does today; a fact probably not unconnected with the unimaginable population explosion that has occurred over recent times. Every mile or two, roadside hoardings announce the city’s current birth rate. ‘A baby is born every 24 seconds’ reads the sign, and Ahmed informed us that it was 26 seconds last year and 30 seconds not long before that.

  ‘The problem is Viagra,’ Ahmed announced, as he looked for our reaction in the rear-view mirror. ‘It’s Cairo’s favourite drug. Men can do “it” more now and that means more babies. The government are not happy – but we are!’ He laughed as he pressed his palm onto the horn to let the donkey and cart in front know he was coming through. ‘And I’m doubly happy because I have two wives – one here in Cairo and one back home in Luxor!’

  We finally arrived at our hotel and after parting with a hefty tip (one, we were told, that would help support each wife), we headed for our rooms after arranging a time to be picked up in the morning to begin our search for a possible unknown archaeological site some 7 km out into the desert.

  As we rose the next morning the view from the balcony was particularly spectacular. Across the still solidly packed road was the huge pyramid attributed to the ancient king, Khafre, standing proudly against Egypt’s brilliant blue sky. And the tip of Menkaure’s pyramid could just be seen behind it.

  Ahmed was waiting in reception for his new English friends and as soon as we had shaken hands he began to outline his plan for giving us a first-class tour of the pyramids and the sphinx. His almost permanently smiling Nubian face fell for a moment and his brow furrowed quizzically as we explained that we would rather have a trip to an anonymous patch of desert.

  We showed Ahmed the map of our intended destination and with a shrug of his shoulders he led us to his car. The Toyota weaved through a network of backstreets at an alarming pace, and then, suddenly, the suburbs of Cairo ended as abruptly as the sea hits the shore. In the blink of an eye the mile after mile of tumbling brick and concrete boxes, teaming chaotically with human and animal life, were suddenly behind us. Gone were the jams of horses, beaten-up trucks, suicidal pedestrians and ‘demolition derby’-grade taxis. Suddenly everywhere was sand.

  The reality of the underlying l
andscape, where only the hardiest of tiny grizzled bushes hold out, was intimidating. How, we wondered, did the world’s most famous early culture come to settle and flourish so spectacularly in this barren land? Nile or no Nile, this place is totally unforgiving.

  Ahmed kept his ageing but relatively roadworthy Toyota pointing south. His eyes seemed to be fixed to the rear-view mirror as he chatted away – espousing the virtues of various ‘establishments’ he could recommend – whilst reassuring us that he never, ever took a cut for himself. We are not normally nervous passengers but it can only have been a highly developed sixth sense that kept the vehicle on the rough tarmac strip that he well knew would eventually lead to his hometown of Luxor.

  We put our faith in the fact that the man had survived some 40 years – so we relaxed a little and peered out of the windows, searching for some kind of landmark that could correspond to the dots on our printouts of aerial views of this unremittingly khaki landscape. We knew from our researches back in England that close to the point where the roads to Luxor and Alexandria diverge there might be ‘something’ of great interest to us. We passed a lonely mosque we could recognize and, some 100 m or so to the west of the main road, we knew we were close.

  We asked Ahmed to pull off the highway at several points until we could be as certain as possible that we had arrived at the place we intended. It was a desolate spot with flat stretches of sand and a few low walls near to the road. We found evidence of recent underground concrete structures and, together with the periodic piles of rubble, it soon became all too clear that this part of our mission was not going to be immediately fruitful. Ahmed explained that this area was scheduled to be a huge new development in the expanding ‘6th October City’ – named after the day in 1981 when President Anwar Sadat was assassinated while viewing a military parade. Even if there had been some fourth-dynasty remains on the site it is quite likely the pragmatic developers would have bulldozed them away – Egypt has quite enough ancient monuments to keep the tourists coming.