This post is the first in a series showcasing the diverse locations and settings used throughout The Golden Ellipse. While nothing in this article would be considered spoilers, I recommend using these posts to supplement your reading experience.
A passageway bored through solid limestone blocks by treasure-seeking 8th-century Arabs leads into the Great Pyramid’s mysterious and foreboding interior. Dubbed the Robbers Tunnel, the hollowed-out entrance marks the pivotal spot ushering the penultimate chapters of The Golden Ellipse deep beneath the Giza Plateau.
The sci-fi action-adventure book’s protagonists, Owen and Rachel Haig ascend the sandblasted blocks to the tunnel’s exposed opening to complete their odyssey once and for all. Discovering the echoing passage shuttered behind an imposing metal barrier by the Egyptian government years beforehand, a young security guard in an ill-fitted uniform facilitates their passage with a rusted metal key. Soon after entering the claustrophobic space, the couple learns looks can be deceiving. Meanwhile, as ET breaches the skies worldwide, events spiral out of control. Frightful hours past the Haigs doomed passage, The Powers That Be’s Agent Flynn leads an ad hoc rescue team to the Robbers Tunnel shielding from gale-force winds churning the barren plateau as the late-afternoon sky fills with threatening ships.
A Brief History of the Robbers Tunnel
The Greek historian Strabo’s first-person account of the Giza pyramids, from shortly before Christ, describes the Great Pyramid as an impressive and gleaming centerpiece of the civilized world with a massive swinging entryway leading into its Ascending Passage.[1] It is surreal to imagine how that must have appeared to the Greek visitor to the strange new land.
However, by 820 AD, when Caliph al Ma’mun and his men bore through the pyramid’s massive blocks searching for untold pharaonic treasures, its brilliant, smooth facade was long since plundered for other projects. The Great Pyramid Ma’mum gazed upon was an eroded, abandoned structure buried under massive and impenetrable piles of rock and sand, the broken and discarded remnants of its former glory.
Unaware of the door Strabo witnessed—by then indistinguishable amidst the crumbled layers of blocks—the Arabs bored a new tunnel through solid limestone. In a miraculous twist of fate, they heard the sound of falling rock and tunneling that direction managed to bisect the pyramid’s Ascending Passage. Akin to finding the proverbial needle in a haystack, the undeniable stroke of luck is itself sheathed in mystery. However, any jubilance the Arab leader and his men had upon entering the King’s and Queen’s Chambers evaporated into the stale, oxygen-deprived air upon discovering both burial chambers empty. [2]
Though the Great Pyramid remained the tallest man-made structure on Earth for over 4,000 years until a spire of the Lincoln Cathedral pieced the English sky around 1,400 AD [3], it languished in relative obscurity. While Western Civilization passed it by, its haunting reputation and legendary curses metastasized through the centuries, magnifying its enigmatic status as a place of raw power and mysticism.
Through the centuries, The Great Pyramid’s vaunted reputation drew the attention of megalomaniacal rulers and despots eager to acquire its latent powers for themselves. But there was a catch. The individual must spend a night within the pitch-black empty red granite confines of the King’s Chamber. Perhaps the most infamous example is the French Emperor Napoleon’s alleged night in the pyramid. I will discuss this in an upcoming post as it dovetails with a critical plot twist in The Golden Ellipse.
Read The Golden Ellipse and draw your conclusions on the power and purpose behind the Great Pyramid. I welcome comments and replies, academic or otherwise, on this and a host of topics presented in my novel. Based on a lifetime of influential books and movies, my favorites elicit arguments and discussion.
References
- https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Strabo/17A3*.htm
- https://youtu.be/vGoqsUJdZuk
- https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/inside-the-great-pyramid-75164298/
