As I begin this article, my seventh for Quest, we are at the start of 1998 with only two more years to go to the millennium. It is a time for reflection as well as anticipation and certainly, for me anyway, one of the highlights of 1997 was the Quest trip to Egypt. With the appalling terrorist atrocity at Luxor having occurred only two weeks before we were due to set out, I wasn't at all sure whether to go or indeed whether the trip would take place at all. However it seems that it takes more than random terrorism to deter 'questers' and since the majority of people scheduled for the trip were determined come what may to make the journey of a lifetime, I felt it impossible to let them down. As things turned out, and to our great relief, there were no further terrorist incidents during our stay in Egypt. Indeed the situation worked in our favour as there were few other foreigners at the sites we visited giving us a rare opportunity to enjoy the atmosphere of Pharaonic Egypt relatively free from the intrusions of the twentieth century.
In a trip so full of excitement that ten days felt more like forty, it is difficult to pick out one defining moment as most memorable but for me probably the most exciting event of the trip was our visit to the pyramids of Dashur. The two main buildings in this complex are the 'Red' and 'Bent' Pyramids-both IVth Dynasty giants and believed to have been raised by Sneferu, the father of Cheops, builder of the Great Pyramid. Why, assuming that pyramids were merely the tombs of the Old Kingdom pharaohs, Sneferu should have felt the need to build himself two, is a question to which modern Egyptology has no convincing answer. In The Orion Mystery Robert Bauval and I put forward his theory that just as the Giza pyramids represented the Belt of Orion, so the giants at Dashur symbolized two stars in the Hyades (part of the Taurus Constellation), alpha-Tauri or 'Aldebaran', a great, red giant being represented on the ground by the Red Pyramid and epsilon-Tauri as the Bent Pyramid.
This last monument is in many ways the strangest pyramid in all Egypt, for uniquely it displays a change in slope. The standard explanation for this is that the builders, fearing that the steep slope of the lower courses, 54º 31', would lead to collapse, changed the angle to a more accommodating 43º 21'. However, the bend in the pyramid when viewed close up looks remarkably intentional and not the result of careless architecture. Not only that, but it is clear that the Egyptians were capable of raising even larger pyramids than those at Dashur with steeper angles than 43º 21', for the Great Pyramid of Giza has an angle of slope of 51º 51' and its neighbour, that of Khephren, of 52º 20'. I believe that the dual angle of the Bent Pyramid was intended from the start. It is perhaps interesting to note that the star Epsilon Tauri would have culminated on the southern meridian with an elevation of 54º 31' at around 3450 BC. At around 2800 BC the star Alnitak, the lowest in Orion's Belt, would have culminated at 43º 21'. Whether these dates have any relevance for a monument supposedly built around c.2600 BC is a matter of conjecture but another unique feature of this pyramid is that it has two entrances, one in the north and the other in the west, again indicating duality. Unfortunately we were not able to go inside the Bent Pyramid on this occasion as it is still considered unsafe and there is no easy access. However, we were able to enter the Red Pyramid, surely one of the great architectural wonders of ancient Egypt. After a steep ascent followed by a long descent we found ourselves inside a system of linked chambers. At John Anthony West's instigation a group of questers began a simple chant in the last of these, the sound somehow purified and magnified by the corbelled ceilings filtering back down to the lower chamber where I was standing taking pictures of a bat. It was one of those magical moments that made the long climb worthwhile, the ghostly voices somehow evoking magic from the bare rocks of the pyramid. It was as though the pyramid itself were singing, affirming its purpose as a means of raising human consciousness to the beyond. After another long climb and descent we found ourselves back outside with the sun casting a red glow over Sneferu's masterpiece. With no trinket-salesmen or Camel drivers anywhere in sight, the atmosphere around Dashur seemed curiously peaceful and, filled with goodness. The haunting voice of the Red Pyramid was an experience that I and I suspect the rest of the party won't forget. It was a Zen-like moment when one sensed that these buildings really were built as bridges to a different, better world. © Adrian G. Gilbert 1998.
Article first published in "Quest" magazine Vol.1 issue 10.
© Adrian G. Gilbert 1997.