Within the world there are certain objects, talismans if you like, that seem to possess a curious almost magical power. Like Aladdin's lamp, ownership of such objects is a matter of destiny, and changes in ownership can signify even apocalyptic events. This book concerns another talisman, perhaps the oldest and greatest of them all: the Lia Fail or Stone of Destiny. To look at it is to see an unassuming worn block of stone with simple iron handles protruding from its sides. Yet the mythology surrounding it is extraordinary. It predates even the Ark of the Covenant by hundreds if not thousands of years. What secrets does this Stone possess? What is its destiny? Author Adrian Gilbert looks at the stone in a way never before attempted and shows how its very dimensions provide hidden evidence that links it both to the pyramids of Egypt and to the Druidic religion of Britain, and finally to its prophetic destiny.
Podle starých Mayů nastane 21. prosince 2012 konec světa tak, jak jej známe. Úderem půlnoci jejich kalendář přeskočí poprvé za 5000 let zpátky na nulu. Mayové předpověděli, že tomuto okamžiku bude předcházet celá série přírodních katastrof jako jsou zemětřesení a záplavy. Nezní to povědomě? Co to však bude znamenat pro nás? Měli bychom brát vážně jejich tvrzení, že toto bude chvíle apokalyptického kataklyzmatu? A jak vůbec Mayové, kteří byli národem inteligentním, přesto však patřili do doby kamenné, vypočítali datum astronomického úkazu, k němuž mělo dojít v budoucnosti vzdálené mnoho tisíciletí? Toto jsou jen některé z otázek, které nám předkládá Adrian Gilbert, spoluautor světového bestselleru Mayská proroctví. V knize Konec světa nás opětovně zavádí na archeologická naleziště z doby starých Mayů a předkládá překvapivé a nové objevy týkající se jejich znalostí vesmíru. Zároveň využívá moderní počítačovou technologii k „vymodelování“ hvězdné oblohy do podoby, jakou mohla mít v minulosti, což vedlo k jistým zajímavým závěrům ohledně významu mayského kalendáře z astronomického hlediska. Tato poutavá a k zamyšlení nutící kniha je doplněna ilustracemi i fotografiemi, jež pomáhají vysvětlit řadu teorií a myšlenek uvedených v textu. Pro případ, že by nám apokalyptické události skutečně hrozily, předkládá autor i doporučení pro přežití.
Written by the co-author of The Orion Mystery and The Mayan Prophecies, this book takes the reader through the past, revealing how secret knowledge was both preserved in the East in the form of monumental architecture and at the time of the Crusades, passed westwards to the fledgling states of Europe.
This fascinating archaeological detective story argues that the great pyramids of Egypt's Fourth Dynasty (c. 2600-2400 b.c.) were vast astronomically sophisticated temples, rather than the pharaonic tombs depicted by conventional Egyptology. In March 1993, a tiny remote-controlled robot created by Rudolf Gantenbrink, a German robotics engineer, traveled up airshafts within the Great Pyramid of Giza and relayed to scientists video pictures of a hitherto unknown sealed door within the pyramid. Bauval, a British engineer and writer who has been investigating the pyramids for more than ten years, and Gilbert, a British publishing consultant, use Gantenbrink's tantalizing discovery as a launching pad for an extended analysis of the purpose of the mysterious airshafts, which lead from the Great Pyramid's chambers to its exterior, and of the placement of other Fourth Dynasty pyramids. They were sited, the authors argue, to coincide with the key stars of Orion, a constellation that had religious significance for the Egyptians. Bauval and Gilbert claim that the shafts were pointed directly at important stars in Orion--that is, at those stars as they were placed in ancient times. Using astronomical data about stellar movement, they argue that the Orion stars coincide exactly with the pyramids' positions in approximately 10,400 b.c.--a period the Egyptians called the First Time, when they believed the god Osiris ruled the Earth. The authors also speculate that the mysterious space within the Great Pyramid discovered by Gantenbrink contains the mythical Benben stone, which the Egyptians linked to the creation of the world. The book's contentions are sometimes far-fetched and certainly unlikely to put scholarly controversy about the pyramids to rest. Still, this is an enjoyably radical rethinking of the mystery of the pyramids, with some ingenious arguments made in lucid style. A revolutionary book that explains the most enigmatic and fascinating wonder of the ancient world: the Pyramids of Egypt. "[An] absorbing and fascinating work of archaeological detection...clearly and rivetingly told...the book is highly and compulsively readable."-- London Sunday Times. 16-page black-and-white inserts.
