SIGNS IN THE SKY

"We have already mentioned the bennu and phoenix bird, and how it provided the Ancient Egyptians with the notion of creation and cosmic cycles related to the stars . It seems it was the phoenix, returning after a long period of absence , who opened a new golden age. R. T. Rundle Clark mentions a period of 1460 years, and in his extensive study of the Egyptian phoenix, mentions this same date and also 12,954 years . Fourteen hundred sixty years is the Sothic Cycle, which was based on the helical rising of Sirius and its shift of one day every four years in relation to the 365-day calendar, completing a full cycle in 4 x 365=1460 years. But what of the vast period of 12, 954 years? What cycle was that? Did it also apply to Sirius? For those familiar with its precession and its effects, 12,954 years is immediately familiar. It is a half-cycle of precession of about 26,000 years and, so far as visual effect is concerned, denotes the time for a star to reach its maximum and minimal range of altitude/declination change. "Let us take a hypothetical star and assume it started its upward precessional cycle of 13,000 years; imagine that it crossed the south meridian at, say, 12 degrees above the horizon. Every year it seems to have moved a fraction higher, at the rate of roughly twelve arcseconds per year . After a little more than two centuries, it crosses the meridian at about 13 degrees altitude and so on. After about 13,000 years it reaches its maximum altitude of, say, 55 degrees above the horizon. It begins to go down at the same rate to reach its minimal altitude of 12 degrees in another 13,000 years, back to where it started, ready to begin another cycle . "Sellers has demonstrated cogently that the ancients had not only divided the zodiac into twelve parts but were aware that it took the sun 2160 years to travel through each part or age. The result of the 2160 x12=25,920 years , the precessional cycle. This huge period of time, though divided epochs or ages of 2160, and these in turn into 360 degrees or portions of 72 years (72 x 360=2160 years), was the fundamental basis of the belief in an Eternal Return of the first golden age. A thorough study led Sellers to make this forceful statement: 'I am convinced that for ancient man, the numbers 72...2160, 25,920 all signified the concept of the Eternal Return.' "The symbol of Eternal Return was, of course, the phoenix, the fabled bennu , and we have seen how in the Pyramid Age its relic or 'seed', the mysterious Benben Stone, was kept in the Temple of the Phoenix at Heliopolis . More importantly, the stylized replicas of the Benben Stone were placed on top of great pyramids. Could these pyramids--and more especially the great pyramids of Giza--be an omnipotent expression of the Eternal Return, the precessional return? The shafts in the Great Pyramid are a powerful indication that this approach is on the right track." P. 188-189, "The Great Sign Clock of the Epochs," THE ORION MYSTERY by Robert Bauval and Adrian Gilbert (1994)