NAVIGATION & EGYPTIAN RELIGION.

In the Old Kingdom of Egypt, long before the dynastic period, many huge stone pyramids were built at tremendous labour. They all acted in unison as component parts of a giant, sprawling, open air university for teaching navigation, the size of the Earth and how to grid reference the globe mathematically for accurate positional plotting at sea.

Two primary navigational methods were devised, one based upon using a 5250' mile (combining the number families "6&7") and another equally accurate system using the 5280' mile (the "11" family method).

The Sphinx of the Giza Plateau obviously acted as the primary surveying benchmark for setting out and building the 3 large, stone pyramids there and the position of the Great Pyramid ultimately determined where distant outlier pyramids would be built.

The exhaustive geological analysis of John Anthony West & Dr. Robert M. Schoch in the early 1990s showed, conclusively, that falling rain water had caused the heavy erosion and fissures on the sides of the Sphinx. Most of the leading geologists of the time were in full agreement, based upon the vivid and undeniable evidence, whereas the PC archaeologists and Egyptologists were given to howling tantrums, weeping, wailing and the gnashing of teeth and railed endlessly against this new, inconvenient heresy.

There has been no significant rain in the area since about 10,000 BC.
See: Redating the Great Sphinx of Giza, KMT: A Modern Journal of Ancient Egypt, Vol. 3, No. 2 (Summer 1992), pp. 52-59, 66-70.

This is not to say that the present, totally out-of-proportion, representation of a lion with a human face, wasn't the result of a full resculpturing of the Sphinx at a much later date. It has obviously had a full make-over and, probably, bears little resemblance to the original.

It seems very obvious by the weight of evidence that the 3 main pyramids of the Giza Plateau were built long before the dynastic Egyptians and that the very old, water-weathered Sphinx acted as the surveying platform or primary benchmark from which they were laid out.

The original intent, based upon the mathematical and measurement evidence, was to teach navigation and positional plotting (dead-reakoning) for voyages across the world's featureless oceans. Other evidence would suggest that the Giza Plateau acted as a Bureau of Standards, for all Weights, Measures & Volumes standards shared by many cousin nations of the Mediterranean, Continental Europe and the British Isles ... as elsewhere.

Whereas purely scientific systems were originally taught at Giza, with the passing of the ages and the degeneracy which inevitably finds inroads into great civilisations, the original sciences metamorphosed into ever-more ridiculous and exploitative religion.

The navigational schools, with their generations of savants, declined into mystery schools, with their generations of self-serving priests.

No longer was the focus so much on making safe traversals of the mortal realm, but in assuring safe passage through the darkness of space within the spiritual realm.

To this end, there was a hugely lucrative industry that started up to sell the superstitious population of Egypt on the idea that the afterlife journey to Orion was fraught with immense danger. On every side, demons, tricksters and bogey-men apparently lurked to draw one from the path and lead them to eternal destruction.

In consideration of this great, impending danger, it was essential for one to prepare very thoroughly prior to death, in order to stave off the terrible foes and obstacles one would encounter beyond the portals of the grave.

Costs associated with death must have left many families destitute, considering the huge array of junk one required for safe passage ... amulets, magic potions, charms, hand-written and elaborately illustrated Book of the Dead papyrus scroll, Hypocephalus navigational guide to sit behind the head, expensive perfumes & aromatics, tombs, as well as the entire mummification (preservation) process for the body of the deceased.

The Hypocephalus navigational amulet was placed behind the head of the deceased as a navigational guide to Orion, where Osirus dwells.

The figure at the top centre, holding a staff, is Ptah, architect of the universe. He will provide expert guidance directly to heaven on the perilous journey of the afterlife.

The squatting figure in the centre is Amon-RA, or the paramount god. He is being approached by the baboon god, Hapi, in a procession, who carries a Sun orb on his head (the crown of Isis).

This panel is, undoubtedly, depicting the long enduring cycle of the Precession of the Equinoxes, with the Sun moving through the constellations of the zodiac. The target star for reading the degree of shift in the equinox (1-degree each 72-years) was Sirius and the white baboon seemingly depicts Sirius, whereas the speckled baboons depict the constellations.

This concept seems to be further substantiated by the dog or fox traipsing to the right on the staff of Ptah. That would be the dog star or Sirius moving 1-degree to the right each 72-years.

The Egyptologist, James Henry Breasted mentioned how:

'The magical formulae, by which the dead are to triumph in the hereafter, become more and more numerous, so that it is no longer possible to record them on the inside of the coffin, but they must be written on papyrus and the roll placed in the tomb...the 'Book of the Dead' began to take form. All was dominated by magic; by this all-powerful means the dead might effect all that he desired.' (A History of Egypt, pages 205-206).

The newly deceased person was venturing out on a perilous journey, fraught with many dangers. The goal was to get to the constellation of Orion and the "Book Of The Dead" text, along with other accompanying paraphernalia, would ensure safe arrival, after a voyage of up to 2 years duration. The Book Of The Dead gave instructions on how to get past obstacles and all necessary secrets for correct orientation to the goal.

On pages 293-296 of the same book, James Henry Breasted adds these comments:

'There were sumptuous and splendid rolls, sixty to eighty feet long and containing from seventy-five to as many as one hundred and twenty five or thirty chapters... the Book of the Dead itself, as a whole, is but a far reaching and complex illustration of the increasing dependence on magic in the hereafter... Besides many charms which enabled the dead to reach the world of the hereafter, there were those which prevented him from losing his mouth, his head, his heart, others which enabled him to remember his name, to breath, eat, drink, avoid eating his own foulness, to prevent his drinking water from turning into flame, to turn darkness into light, to ward off all serpents and other hostile monsters, and many others.'

In further commenting on how the funerary practices developed, in stages of ever increasing complexity, James Henry Breasted adds:

'The desirable transformations too, had now increased, and a short chapter might in each case enable the dead man to assume the form of a falcon of gold, a divine falcon, a lily, a Phoenix, a heron, a swallow, a serpent called 'son of earth', a crocodile, a god, and, best of all, there was a chapter so potent that by its use a man might assume any form that he desired.'

Clearly, the earlier pure sciences, devoted to navigation, cyclic astronomy and calendar calculation methods had degenerated into a backwards-religion, which served only to raise the power, influence and wealth of the priest-class, as well as perpetuate the necropolis-related businesses spawned by them.

Despite this, a deeper study of of the positions of many large tombs at Saqqara, Dashur and Abusir (as elsewhere) might reveal that they are very carefully placed away from the Giza pyramids and preserve distance and angle codes in their positions. In this way they would have been used by ongoing generations of student navigators as outer marker stations that featured in the triangulation tutorials ...and by this means the illustious dead could continue to serve the living.

SO WHAT HAPPENED TO THE FORMER INHABITANTS WHO BUILT THESE STONE PYRAMIDS?

By about 5000 BC it was very obvious that Egypt was becoming ever more arid and that this trend would not stop. In 10,000 BC it had been lush and wet savannah country, but weather patterns had irrevocably changed.

By consequence, the great ice flows of Europe had all but gone and vast, virgin territories, forests, abundant water and game existed there for new beginnings.

Waymark trails, composed of cairn, standing stones and dolmens were erected all the way across the top of North Africa, from Israel to the Straits of Gibraltar. The waymark trails continued up the coast of Spain, Portugal and France to Scandinavia.

'It is the view of many scholars that the general usage and scientific applications of standing stones or other types of stone landmark monuments, achieved their greatest sophistication in the British Isles, a region known to the ancients as the 'Isles of the West'. What remains of the ancient trails today points the way back to the place from whence peoples of the modern European nations came' (See Palestine, by Major C.R. Conder, R.E., George Philip & Son, 1889, pp. 142-157).

Further evidence of this mass migration out of the Near & Middle East is found in Pre-Dynastic Egyptian skull types or those of Mesopotamia from 5,000 years ago. 'These can be matched to types found in 17th Century, London plague pits or Neolithic cist graves in Switzerland (See: Races of Europe, by Professor C.S. Coon, Macmillan, N.Y., 1939).

The oral histories of European groups, like the very ancient Firbolg people of Ireland (the Men of the Leather Bags) speak of their origins in the Mediterranean, where they escaped from slavery.

Those coming out of Egypt and its environs brought with them their bagpipes, kilts, languages, harps, music & lively rhythms, and even, seemingly, the venerated oak tree.

Of course they also brought their Weights, Measures & Volumes standards and all numbers generated within these systems had to relate to either the equatorial size of the Earth and navigation, the lunar cycle and the Sabbatical Calendar system, PI or PHI, etc.

The selfsame increments of length (large or small), used in Egypt at the time the pyramids were built, were preserved among all European nations as their national standards.

One of the first things these "out-of-Egypt" migrants seemingly did when entering Europe, after crossing the Mediterranean via the pillars of Hercules (the narrow strip of water adjacent to Gibraltar), was to build the multi-obelisk complex at Carnac, France as a great library for eternally preserving their distance and angle codes (which, in turn generated or contained all the numbers and mathematical progressions used in navigation and cyclic astronomy).

Although the various cousin nations of Europe might have settled to particular national preferences for a "foot", "fusse" or "fot" that varied in length to that of a cousin nation, a close scrutiny of all increments in common usage would show that everything was based upon the same "inch" and that the differing rules of length were in ratio one with another (according to the number family used).

Trade between the nations was made easy in the international marketplaces due to the direct ratio relationships of one nation's preferred, say, Talent weight of grain, with that of another. For example:

The Greek volumes were in a perfect ratio to the Egyptian volumes, which meant that trade between the Greeks and Egyptians was reasonably simple when measuring out quantities. Let's look at the Greek volumes as they relate to the Egyptian Theban (11664 cubic inches).

• 1 Theban = 5 Greek Metretes or 60 Chous or 720 Cotyle or 2880 Oxybaphon or 4320 Cyathus.
  
  
• 1 Theban = 3.75 Greek Medimnus or 22.5 Hecteus or 180 Choenix.
  
  
• 1 Theban = 6.75 cubic feet.

Capacities for wet and dry goods were in cubic inches (British standard inches) and, as stated, each capacity had to contain scientific information. The number generated by the Theban volume (11664 cubic inches) relates to navigation and the sum of 11664' would be 1/11200th of the equatorial circumference. The value was also useful in lunar cycle calculations and, of course, the Roman foot was 11.664".

As another example, the old English bushel (before it drifted ever-so-slightly) was 2160 cubic inches and related to the 2160-years the Sun spends in each of the 12-Houses of the Zodiac during the 25920-year duration of the Precession of the Equinoxes.

The Old English bushel @ 2160 cubic inches was simply 1/10th of a Babylonian Homer (21600 cubic inches).

Use of the PHI reciprocal, converting to 6.18034", ensured that all round measuring tubs, fabricated for use in the marketplaces, were very accurate and true measures of the quantities to be dispensed. There was no excuse for "short-measures".

Standard weights for assaying were first based upon counting out grains of wheat from a healthy crop. The number of grains had to equal one of the numbers from the special parcel of scientific values. Such carefully configured "official" or "master" weights were then used to fashion duplicate sets for the market-places.

The point is, all of the measurement standards by which the pyramids were built are preserved in the oldest standards of the European nations and were carried abroad by them in their explorations and colonisations of other continents in antiquity. These ages-old standards were maintained and preserved by the European nations for the past 7000-years or so.

The great open-air universities of Britain, like Avebury Henge and its satellite mounds, or Durrington Walls Henge, as well as Brodgar Ring of Scotland, with its outlying chambered cairns, mounds and brochs (outer marker mounds), were all built to the selfsame distance and angle standards as one finds with the Great Pyramid of Egypt and its outliers.

Although we have droves of expert Egyptologists and pyramidologists sauntering about within our institutions of higher learning, seemingly, none of them have undertaken the most rudimentary of "back-to-basics" surveying tasks, by attempting to find out if there is any mathematical relationship between the positions of the Saqqara, Dashur and Abusir pyramid groupings (or others) with the 3 large pyramids of the Giza Plateau.

Because they would find clear expressions of English, Greek and Roman miles in these distances, the information would be withheld from the public.

Martin Doutré
January 17th, 2013.