“That key, yes. Although I suspect there may be other ways to try to track it down.”
“How?”
“This key might lead us to information that will lead us to that key,” Mualama said. “In fact, this key may lead us to the truth. The entire truth.”
“What do you mean?” Duncan asked. “If not Qian-Ling, What is the scepter a key to?”
“I suspect a room. A hiding place.”
“A room where?” Duncan demanded.
“I believe it is the key to the Hall of Records.”
“What Hall of Records?” Duncan asked.
“According to legend,” Mualama said, “there is a hidden chamber that contains the entire lost history of mankind. Going back much further than our current recorded history. To the island of Atlantis and a fantastic kingdom on the island.”
“We know Atlantis did exist,” Duncan said, “so maybe this Hall of Records exists. But wasn’t the Hall destroyed when Atlantis was blasted?”
“Not according to legend.”
“In what form are the Records kept?”
“I don’t know, but whatever form it was, I believe it was kept in the Ark of the Covenant,” Mualama said. “Ms. Duncan, you must bear with me. I have spent many years tracking down legends and rumors. My translation of the runes was tainted by my own knowledge, so some of what I think I know will disagree with some of what your UNAOC scientists think. I don’t… ”
“Professor,” Duncan interrupted him. “I have seen many strange things in the past month. Things I never dreamed existed. So please, speak freely. My belief is that by the time our scientists figure all this out, it will be much too late. As you say, perhaps this Hall of Records will tell us where the Qian-Ling key is, and we desperately need that. I trust your intuition… you did find the grave site, after all. And I do want the full story of how you did that when we have some time.”
“All right,” Mualama said. “I believe this record of history is contained in the Ark of the Covenant. I believe for most of its existence the Ark was stored inside the Hall of Records. I also believe, though, that this record may have had other names throughout our history.”
“Where is this hidden Hall that holds the Ark?” Duncan asked.
“According to the marker, it is located under the Highland of Aker, in one of the six divisions of the Duat, along the Roads of Rostau.”
Duncan simply stared at Mualama, waiting for him to say it in English.
“I believe what we are looking for is hidden underneath the Great Sphinx on the Giza Plateau.”
Giza again, Duncan thought. All the more reason to go there now.
Mualama continued. “The Sphinx has always been something of an enigma. Archaeologists can’t agree on when it was built, but they do agree that it was constructed at an earlier time than the three large pyramids behind it.”
“How much earlier?” Duncan asked.
“Anywhere from five to six thousand years before the pyramids,” Mualama said.
“So it could have been built at the same time that Atlantis was flourishing under the Airlia,” Duncan said. She signaled with her hand to Major Quinn, who began quietly accessing one of the portable computers built into the conference tabletop as they spoke.
Mualama responded to Duncan’s statement. “Yes. There are those who claim the Sphinx is twelve to thirteen thousand years old, dating to around 10,000 B.C.”
“Do you think it is that old?” Duncan asked.
“I have been there,” Mualama said. “I believe it very well could have been built that long ago. Have you ever thought about Egypt’s history?”
“What do you mean?” Duncan asked.
“Egyptologists.” Mualama’s voice showed his contempt. “There is so much they ignore or don’t think about. The alignment with the stars of the entire Giza complex. Even though the pyramids were indeed built around the time they say, they never quite explain the alignment with the various star systems that the shafts in the three pyramids have. The alignments suggest that while the pyramid complex was built in the Fourth Dynasty, between 2613 and 2494 B.C., it was planned around 10,450 B.C. With modern computers that can scroll back through the star charts… using a method called precession… this is obvious, but no one speaks of it.
“But the most fascinating thing, the most amazing ignored fact, is the lack of development in ancient Egypt. It’s as if we are supposed to believe that for almost four thousand years of rule, nothing changed, nothing developed. The civilization just sprang fully formed into being with the reign of the Pharaoh Menes and pretty much stayed at the same technological level all that time. Think of it. If you were an archaeologist a thousand years from now and you excavated Cairo, would you not be able to see a vast difference between buildings from the nineteenth to twentieth centuries? Just a hundred years. But we look over the course of thousands of years in ancient Egypt and all is the same. You know how they date the Sphinx? Someone scribbles a name in hieroglyphics somewhere and the ‘experts’ say, aha, it must have been built then!
“They ignore the state of the rock, the construction, the weathering, and they focus everything on the stela between the paws. The dating of the Sphinx, according to the experts, is all based upon a single syllable on a stela found between the paws. Even though the experts agree that the stela is not of the same age as the Sphinx, that it was placed there later. It is dated to the Pharaoh Thutmosis IV, who ruled from 1401 to 1391 B.C., who tried to clear the Sphinx of the sand that constantly surrounded its body.
“He put a stela, a stone tablet, between the paws, and on the thirteenth line it has the word Khaf, which Egyptologists say refers to the Pharaoh Khafre, who ruled between 2520 and 2494 B.C. and thus must have built the Sphinx, according to their inductive logic.
“I have seen this stela. You cannot even read the writing anymore, as the stone has deteriorated so badly over the years. The only way they even have an idea what was written there is that someone made a copy of what was written. So it is a case of a copy of writing on a stone not contemporary with the Sphinx, all relying on one word, being the leading case for dating the Sphinx to the realm of Khafre.
“Something that is interesting about the stela is a line that says the Sphinx is the embodiment of great magical power from the beginning of time. Even most Egyptologists agree that there were three eras to ancient Egypt if one studies the texts of the early Egyptians. The first was the time of the Neteru, or gods. Most people consider this not a real time but rather a mythological time, which saw the gods go through various struggles, ending with the accession of Horus, the son of Isis and Osiris. The second phase was that of Shemsu Hor, which means the followers of Horus. This ended when Menes unified the Upper and Lower Kingdoms and started the first dynasty of pharaohs. All our focus has been on the time from Menes forward, because it was believed that the two earlier ages were mythical, but what if they were real?
“What if the Neteru were the Airlia? In myth, the Neteru were said to have fair skin and red hair, most unusual for that part of the world, but very fitting for the Airlia, don’t you think? And what if the Shemsu Hor were the humans who survived Atlantis and began civilization in Egypt?”
“What you’re saying,” Duncan interrupted, “is that if the Great Sphinx was built around 10,000 B.C., then it might have been made by the Airlia.”
“Or humans who followed the Airlia’s orders. There is much about the Sphinx that is strange. Because it lies in the shadow of the Great Pyramid, the Sphinx has not had as much attention paid to it as it should. It is quite remarkable in its own right.
“First you must consider what a sphinx is. No one quite knows whose face is that on the Sphinx. In fact, it is very likely that the original face was altered at a later date during one of the many restorations of the Sphinx.