"Robert Doherty - Area 51 - Excalibur" - читать интересную книгу автора (Doherty Robert)

seven thousand years earlier.
Between the paws of the Great Sphinx stood the Pharaoh Khufu, under whose
leadership the Egyptians had labored for over twenty years moving stone after
stone to build the Great Pyramid. The Pharaoh prostrated himself in front of a
statue set before the creature's stone chest. The statue was three meters tall
and roughly man-shaped with polished white skin. The dimensions weren't quite
right—the body was too short and the limbs were too long. The ears had elongated
lobes that reached to just above the shoulders and there


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were two gleaming red stones in place of eyes. On top of the head, the stone
representing hair was painted bright red. Even more strangely for the astute
observer, each hand ended in six fingers. The statue's appearance was in great
contrast to Khufu's dark skin and hair and human proportions.
The Sphinx had been squatting in its stone depression for ages, beyond the dawn
of the time of Pharaohs. Only a handful of those alive knew why it had been
built or what it marked. For all but a chosen few it was forbidden to come to
the area between the paws in front of Isis's statue.
Khufu had succeeded his father when he was just out of his teens and he was now
middle-aged. He had ruled for almost three decades and Egypt was at peace with
those outside its borders and rich within its own boundaries. The peace and
wealth had allowed Khufu to implement the building plan for Giza that had been
passed from the Gods, to the Shadows, to the Pharaohs over the three ages.
The vast quantity of stone needed for the pyramid had been quarried upriver and
brought down by barge. Thousands had labored seasonally on it, moving the stone
from the barges and placing each block in its position under the careful eye of
engineer priests who worked from the holy plans that had been handed down.
The red capstone had been brought up from the bowels of the Giza Plateau, from
one of the duats (underground chambers) along the tunneled Roads of Rostau where
only the Gods and their priests were allowed to walk. No one knew what exactly
it was, but they had followed the drawings they had been given to the last
detail, from the smooth limestone facing to placing the red object as the
capstone at the very top.
In the Pharaoh's left hand as he prostrated himself was a scepter, a foot long
and two inches in diameter with a lion's head on one end. The lion image had red
eyes similar to that

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of the statue, but these glowed fiercely as if lit from within. Khufu had been
awakened just minutes ago by his senior priest, Asim. The staff had been in the
trembling man's hand, the lion eyes glowing. He had passed it to the Pharaoh.
Khufu had thrown on a robe and dashed from his palace to his place before the
Sphinx, as he had been told by his father he must do if the staff ever came
alive. He was now chanting the prayers he had been taught. The statue was of
Horus, the son of Isis and Osiris, the Gods who had founded Egypt at the dawn of