The Message of the Sphinx: A Quest for the Hidden Legacy of Mankind »

Graham Hancock was formerly East Africa Correspondent for The Economist and covered the Ogaden war between Somalia and Ethiopia for the London Sunday Times.  His books include African Ark:  Peoples of the Horn, the widely acclaimed Lords of Poverty, which earned the 1990 H.L. Mencken Award (honorable mention) for an outstanding book of journalism,  The Sign and the Seal (Crown, 1992), the international bestseller that documented his real-life quest for the lost Ark of the Covenant, and the recent number-one bestseller, Fingerprints of the Gods (Crown 1995).

Hancock has recently appeared on the NBC special "The Mysterious Origins of Man" and on the CBS special "Mysteries of the Millennium."  He has also appeared on television with Michael Palin in his "Pole to Pole" series, the BBC and CNN, as well as the National Geographic's "Explorer" series in stories related to The Sign and the Seal.

Robert Bauval is a construction engineer with a long-standing interest in the astronomy of the pyramids, having lived in Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East for much of his life.  He has appeared on national television several times including ABC-TV's "Prime Time Live" and NBC-TV's "The Mysterious Origins of Man."  His first book The Orion Mystery was a number-one bestseller in the United Kingdom.

In this riveting account of historical and archaeological investigation, the authors present hard evidence that the Sphinx, the Pyramids, and the other monuments at Giza are of far more ancient origin than previously believed. Complete with evidence of a conspiracy between the Egyptology establishment and various confidential organizations to keep the secrets of the Pyramids from the world, The Message of the Sphinx is also a modern-day detective story. of photos.

Publishers Weekly

Is the Sphinx of prehistoric origin? Why was it built? In this provocative, rigorously argued report, revisionist Egyptologists Hancock (The Fingerprints of the Gods) and Bauval (The Orion Mystery) join forces to answer these questions and more as they examine the Sphinx and its relation to the other monuments of the Giza plateau. Working from the premise that the Giza complex encodes a message, they begin with recently discovered geological evidence indicating that the deep erosion patterns on the flanks of the Sphinx were caused by 1000 years of heavy rain. Such conditions last existed in Egypt at the end of the last ice age, about 10,000-9,000 B.C., meaning that the Sphinx may be more than 12,000 years old (not the generally accepted 4500 years). The authors go on to suggest, using computer simulations of the sky, that the pyramids, representing the three stars of Orion's Belt, along with associated causeways and alignments, constitute a record in stone of the celestial array at the vernal equinox in 10,500 B.C. This moment, they contend, represents Zep Tepi, the "First Time," often referred to in the hieroglyphic record. They show how the initiation rituals of the Egyptian pharaohs replicate on Earth the sun's journey through the stars in this remote era, and they suggest that the "Hall of Records" of a lost civilization may be located by treating the Giza Plateau as a template of these same ancient skies. These daring, well-argued theories will raise the hackles of orthodox Egyptologistsbut that doesn't mean they're wrong. Illustrations not seen by PW. (July)