Despite the substantial volume of Egyptological studies published in the last century, several questions still seem to remain unanswered. What is the significance of the pyramids? What motivated the Egyptian builders to undertake grueling, often risky work to erect colossal structures devoid of practical utility? Emerging from the community of enthusiasts passionate about the unresolved mysteries of the pyramids, several authors have appeared since 1980 who have inspired public interest from some members of the professional Egyptological community. The Alexandrian construction engineer Robert Bauval is one of them.
His most intriguing theories were presented in the monograph written in collaboration with Adrian Gilbert, The Orion Mystery: Unlocking the Secrets of the Pyramids (1994). Over more than 270 pages, Bauval strives to decipher the significance of the positioning of the pyramids located on the Giza plateau, among which the Great Pyramid of Pharaoh Khufu enjoys remarkable notoriety. His initiative starts from the observation that “the more puzzling question is why and not how they [the ancient Egyptians] built them.” And he emphasizes that “contemporary Egyptology has no convincing answers” to such questions.
The foundation of Bauval’s proposed interpretation is his conviction that no answer can ignore the religious vision of the pyramid builders. It is precisely this idea, supported in the field of the history of religions by theorists such as Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges, Paul Mus, Wilhelm Schmidt, Mircea Eliade, Ioan Petru Culianu, and more recently, Carol Delaney, that drew my attention to the hypotheses proposed by the engineer archaeologist.
The Orion correlation theory
Robert Bauval, in his investigations, starts with attempting to understand the religious beliefs of the ancient Egyptians. For them, although he was known to be a human being, the pharaoh was also considered a god, or at least a being akin to the gods. Endowed with exceptional powers of divine origin, his sacrosanct person was at the center of the doctrinal edifice of a vast astro-theology. For the modern researcher, elucidating this astro-theology is the most difficult and, at the same time, the most important task. He must systematically present the consequences of a belief that claimed that, after death, souls ‘flew’ to unite with the stars where they lived eternally alongside the gods in the paradisiacal ‘field of reeds.’
Servants of the sacred and preparers of the afterlife for the god-king pharaoh, the members of the priestly caste knew how to preserve the body for as long as possible, providing it with all the necessary means for its journey into eternity. Designed by Egyptian priests, the pyramids were not so much tombs as true gateways to the unseen world. Since these architectural projects effectively translated into stone the Egyptians’ theological-metaphysical beliefs about the pharaoh’s spiritual journey to the ‘sky,’ it is no surprise.
As can be seen throughout his monograph, Bauval does nothing more than take the Egyptians’ religious beliefs seriously, as objectively as possible, without questioning their veracity. Viewed from this perspective, the pyramids gain special meanings directly related to their function as gates for the pharaohs to enter eternity. The pyramids were astral vehicles or bridges that allowed the restoration of connections between the ‘heaven’ where Horus, Isis, and Osiris lived eternally and the land of Pharaonic Egypt. This entire mythological scenario, crystallized in the famous statement 600 of the pyramid texts, provided Bauval with the key to understanding: “O Horus, this [departed] king is Osiris, this pyramid of his is Osiris, this construction of his is Osiris, betake yourself to it.”
Investigating the position of, and distances between, the pyramids on the Giza plateau, Bauval developed his main hypothesis: the three pyramids represent the architectural projection of the stars that make up Orion’s Belt, the constellation representing the god Osiris:
I had a good photograph of the three stars of Orion’s Belt and was able to place it against the aerial shot of the three Giza pyramids. The correlation was stunning. Not only did the layout of the pyramids match the stars with uncanny precision but the intensity of the stars, shown by their apparent size, corresponded with the Giza group: there were three stars, three pyramids, three Osiris-Orion kings.
Thus, all the sacred constructions of ancient Egypt could be considered mirror images of the sky on earth, intended to restore the original unity between the macrocosm and the microcosm. The curator of the Egyptology collections at the British Museum, I.E.S. Edwards, supported Bauval’s research in a 1984 letter, in which he confessed, “I am very much in agreement with your contention that the stars in Orion’s Belt were an important element in the orientation of the Great Pyramid.” Subsequently, Bauval published his first study, “A Master Plan for the Three Pyramids based on the Configuration of the Three Stars of the Belt of Orion,” in the academic journal Discussions in Egyptology (1989). Although the essential idea of his research had its critics, it was supported by other scholars.
For example, an ‘archeo-astronomical’ enquiry carried out in 2004 by a mixed team of Egyptian and Spanish researchers confirmed Bauval’s hypothesis, extending it to the temples in Upper Egypt and Lower Nubia. According to the highly technical study published by Mosalam Shaltout (Minufiya University) and Juan Antonio Belmonte (Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias), after investigating over a hundred ancient constructions, it is demonstrable that the ancient Egyptians took into account the position of the stars. In the conclusion of their article, entitled “On the Orientation of Ancient Egyptian Temples: New Experiments at the Oases of the Western Desert,” these specialists claimed that they had demonstrated that “the ancient Egyptians located and oriented their sacred buildings (both astronomically and topographically) … in order to be in complete harmony with the order of the universe, the Maat.”
From this perspective—which combines architecture, theology, and the stellar religion of the Egyptians—Bauval even considers the famous channels inside the Great Pyramid of Khufu. On this point, Bauval arrives at what is perhaps his most important hypothesis. Simulating on a computer the celestial configuration from the era of the pyramids’ construction, he found that these structures, joined by imaginary lines to the stars, relate to those constellations mythologically associated with the god Osiris and the goddess Isis. Thus, much supports the theory of the correlation between the Egyptians’ sacred buildings and the unseen world symbolically mirrored by the stars.
The theory of “cosmic homology”
Further support in favor of the interpretation proposed by Robert Bauval is offered in the analyses of the historian of religion Mircea Eliade. Throughout his academic career, Eliade consistently revisited the theory of homology; that is, the method of identifying similarities of structures with different origins based on their descent from a common source. This interest gave rise to his recurrent use of correlations between microcosm and macrocosm. Essentially, his theory posits an analogical correspondence between the terrestrial world of humans—with their cities, temples, and rituals—and the celestial world of the gods, visible in the sky in the form of constellations. Such beliefs transpose the diffuse consciousness of ancient peoples regarding the ‘fall’ of man that occurred at the beginning of history. Deeply interested in the “archaic ontologies” (an expression taken from the Romanian philosopher Vasile Tonoiu) of ancient religions, Eliade persistently explored the theme of the homology between ‘heaven’ and ‘earth.’ For him, this was not just a metaphysical subject derived from the religious beliefs of the ancients, but it represented the basis for received principles in architecture, arts, and ‘spiritual techniques’ such as Yoga darśana.
In one of his early scholarly texts, Cosmologie și alchimie babiloniană (Babylonian Cosmology and Alchemy, 1937), Eliade postulates the idea of a correlation between Mesopotamian architectural constructions and their celestial ‘archetypes,’ represented by entire constellations or certain stars with mythological and religious significance. Consistently, Eliade applies this interpretive principle of homology between microcosm and macrocosm to several ancient cultures.
In the aforementioned study, he refers not only to Assyro-Babylonian culture but also to Jewish culture, in which the terrestrial city of Jerusalem is seen as an imperfect image, projected on earth, of the celestial Jerusalem described by prophets like Tobias, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and also by Saint John the Apostle (Rev. 22). In Le Mythe de l’éternel retour: Archétypes et répétition (The Myth of Eternal Return: Archetypes and Repetition, 1949), Eliade extends the historical context of this interpretation. The reference to Platonic metaphysics is particularly important, reflecting his constant desire to elucidate his own philosophical vision in the context of interpretations applied to the religious history of ancient cultures.
In his eclectic style, he cites Babylonian and Jewish sources, showing that “the model precedes terrestrial architecture; moreover, it is situated in an ‘ideal (celestial) region of eternity.’” He argues that the theory can also be found in India, summarizing the same idea, but presented in a somewhat more extended form in a study published in 1937 entitled “Cosmical Homology and Yoga”:
The same cosmological system is at the base of Indian sacred architecture. The symbolic polyvalence of the sacred monuments is definitely proved, especially through the contributions of Coomaraswamy and Mus. Still, the whole religious architecture of India is influenced by the cosmological symbolism. A ‘stupa’ is a closed Cosmos, with its four quarters, zenith, etc. The Indian temple is a perfect ‘imago mundi’; it is, at the same time the centre of the Universe, ‘the cosmical mountain.’
And in Le Mythe de l’éternel retour we find these themes tied to the figure of Plato:
Plato’s ideal city also has a celestial archetype (Republic, 592b; cf. ibid., 500e). The Platonic ‘Ideas’ are not astral; however, their mythical region is still situated in supraterrestrial planes (Phaedrus, 247, 250).
In conclusion, Mircea Eliade generalizes by stating that for most ancient cultures, great architectural achievements were built according to celestial ‘patterns’:
Man builds according to an archetype. Not only his city or temple has celestial models, but the same is true for all the regions he inhabits, with the rivers and fields that nourish him, etc. …This participation of urban cultures in an archetypal model grants them reality and validity.
For specialists, the sources of this interpretation are objects of extensive studies. But I wish to highlight the influence of one of the most brilliant orientalists of his generation: the French professor Paul Mus, author of the monograph Barabudur: Esquisse d’une histoire du bouddhisme fondée sur la critique archéologique des textes (Barabudur: Outline of a history of Buddhism based on archaeological criticism of the texts, 1932-1935). Referring to Mus’ research, Eliade reiterates his interpretation in Traité d’histoire des religions (Treatise on the history of religions, 1949): “The temple of Barabudur is also a representation of the Cosmos and is constructed in the form of a mountain.”
Throughout his whole academic career, Eliade argued for the metaphysical-religious vision of ancient cultures, with the correspondence between microcosm and macrocosm being definitive. In Eliade’s magnum opus, Histoire des croyances et des idées religieuses (History of religious beliefs and ideas, 1976-1983), within the chapter dedicated to the Hellenistic period, he submits the following as a final conclusion of his studies:
The existence of individuals as well as the duration of cities and states are determined by the stars. This doctrine and astrology—the technique that applies its principles—develops under the impetus of the Babylonians’ observations regarding the evolution of the stars. Certainly, the theory of micro-macrocosmic correspondences had been known for a long time in Mesopotamia and other parts of the Asian world.
In the chapter dedicated to Mesopotamia in the first volume of Eliade’s monograph, where he further discusses the theory of homology between microcosm and macrocosm, he refers to the self-awareness of the man of that ancient culture. Eliade shows that such a man “knows he is part of a universe unified by homologies: he lives in a city that constitutes an imago mundi, whose temples and ziggurats represent ‘centers’ of the world, and therefore ensure communication with heaven and the gods.”
The road to ‘heaven’
Any reader might wonder what relevance these ancient beliefs can have for us today, in the 21st century. Let me, then, summarize the significance of such historical investigations.
Above all, in the face of these ideas, we are compelled to confront a completely different, involutionary worldview. For the ancient Egyptians, as in most ancient cultures, the beginning of history was far more precious than anything they could conceive of in their own time. Historically speaking, what was at the beginning was vastly superior to what followed. Similar to the preparation for death and the soul’s passage to the afterlife, the ritualistic recovery of those original mythological horizons was of crucial importance to them. Here we detect what Mircea Eliade calls the “nostalgia for origins”—an attitude specific to all archaic societies.
Of course, justifiably, adherents of Judeo-Christian Revelation will point out the absence in the teachings of Egyptian culture—and many other ancient cultures—of the necessary reference to that Savior who alone can restore fallen humanity. Taking this aspect into account, which no Christian can overlook, I will underline, for now, the fact that all archaic cultures speak about the ‘zero’ moment of creation, about the auroral times when Heaven and Earth were in a harmony untainted by the vicissitudes of death, illness, and destruction. On the other hand, following the Egyptological path traced by Robert Bauval, we encounter two other essential ideas of the oldest cultures.
The first of these involves the inferiority, the degeneration of the current state of the world, of man, of history—a ‘fallen’ condition that can only be remedied by relating to the celestial world, the world of the gods. As the thinkers Anton Dumitriu and Pierre Hadot, among others, have shown in their respective ways, the recovery of the condition of being a ‘god’—in the pagan version—or a ‘son of God’—in the Judeo-Christian context—has always been the goal of cultures that did not delude themselves with ideologies proposing, in the Marxist-Leninist style, illusory earthly paradises.
For the ancient Egyptians, real life was not, could not, and would never be anything but ‘up’ in ‘heaven.’ Even more precisely, this celestial existence cannot be reduced to the perishable, evanescent, mortal life here. This is why the investigations of Bauval and Eliade speak much less about architecture and much more about the soul and mythology: the pyramids—and all sacred ancient constructions—were stone projections of the beliefs that animated their architects. Hence, Bauval states that, in an ancient culture, a great building “would be a constant reminder that the purpose of life on earth was to prepare for the hereafter.” In the same way, medieval Christian builders would conceive of their churches and cathedrals as true symbolic prefigurations of the heavenly Jerusalem. This architectural point can form the beginning of reflection on the Patristic assertion that the Church is ‘heaven on earth.’
From this vision of celestial-terrestrial correspondence follows a second idea, particularly important for the proper order of earthly affairs: the existence of the ontological hierarchy of the cosmos is a fundamental given. Without recognizing the ‘superior’ world of archetypes and celestial models—that is, without correctly transposing this hierarchy at the earthly level, as we learn from Saint Dionysius the Areopagite—everything that exists in the human world inevitably collapses into chaos. As strange or uncomfortable as such ancient beliefs might seem to our modern secular mentality, they can explain—much better than sociology or political science—the terrible crisis through which modern societies are passing.
