Keeper of Genesis (Hancock and Bauval 1997)

Taking a little break from writing my research papers, I picked up a book from one of the shelves in our department and entered the world of ancient Egypt for a few hours.　Hancock is the author of Fingerprints of the Gods, which I read back in...1997? I remembered having fun contemplating Hancock's somewhat far-fetched theories about a high-tech civilization that gave Egypt and other ancient cultures the ability to make structures as amazing as the pyramids of Giza or Machu Picchu in Peru.

This book focuses on the purpose of the Sphinx and its relationship to the pyramids. Hancock's whole idea since the Fingerprints of the Gods is that in 3000 B.C. there is no way that the technology for something like the pyramids appeared suddenly. The book expounds on how amazingly accurate and difficult the engineering of the pyramids is and suggests that a higher civilization preceding the Egyptians (something like Atlantis, which Hancock thinks may be buried under Antartica) gave them the technology and blueprints. Hancock's theory is that Sphinx is part of an intricate astronomically based treasure map based on the pyramids and the stars they point to. This map supposedly leads to the location of a hidden storage room of ancient knowledge buried 100 feet under the Sphinx.

One of the main points of support is the Orion Correlation Theory, that the pyramids and Sphinx are aligned in precise imitation of the stars in Orion's belt circa 10500 BC, which apparently is not accepted by mainstream Astronomers or Egyptologists.

Conclusion: Hancock wants the Egyptians to dig and see. Fair enough, but I tend to think there must be sufficient technology in 2009 to do some kind of sonic testing to figure out something like that, isn't there?