Free Seven Ancient Wonders by Matthew Reilly Page B

were both on the verge of entering the Nuclear Weapons Club.
    But all these were
big
ticket issues, and the small group of nations gathered together today were not big ticket players in world affairs. They were small countries—mice, not lions—relative minnows of world affairs.
    Not for long.
    The mice were about to roar.
    Seven of the eight delegations now sat in the main sitting room of the farmhouse, waiting. Each national delegation consisted of twoor three people—one senior diplomat, and one or two military personnel.
    The view out through the windows was breathtaking—a splendid vista of the wild waves of the Atlantic smashing against the coast—but no-one at this gathering cared much for the view.
    The Arabs checked their watches impatiently, frowning. Their leader, a wily old sheik from the United Arab Emirates named Anzar al Abbas, said: ‘There’s been no word from Professor Epper for over six months. What makes you think he’ll even come?’
    The Canadians, typically, sat there calmly and patiently, their leader simply saying, ‘He’ll be here.’
    Abbas scowled.
    While he waited, he flipped through his briefing kit and started re-reading the mysterious book extract that had been provided for all the participants at the meeting.
    It was headed ‘The Golden Capstone’ . . .
    THE GOLDEN CAPSTONE
From:
When Men Built Mountains: The Pyramids

by Chris M. Cameron
(Macmillan, London, 1989)
    Perhaps the greatest mystery of the pyramids is the most obvious one: the Great Pyramid at Giza stands nine feet shorter than it should.
    For once upon a time at its peak sat the most revered object in all of history.
    The Golden Capstone.
    Or, as the Egyptians called it, the
Benben
.
    Shaped like a small pyramid, the Capstone stood nine feet tall and was made almost entirely of gold. It was inscribed with hieroglyphics and other more mysterious carvings in an unknown language, and on one side—the south side—it featured the Eye of Horus.
    Every morning it shone like a jewel as it received the first raysof the rising sun—the first earthly object in Egypt to receive those sacred rays.
    The Great Capstone was actually made up of seven pieces, its pyramidal form cut into horizontal strips, creating six pieces that were trapezoidal in shape and one, the topmost piece, that was itself pyramidal (small pyramids such as this were called
pyramidions
).
    We say that the Capstone was made
almost
entirely of gold, because while its body was indeed crafted from solid gold, it featured a thin bore-hole that ran vertically down through its core, in the exact centre of the Capstone.
    This hollow was about two inches wide and it cut downward through each of the seven pieces, punching holes in all of them. Embedded in each of those circular holes could be found a crystal, not unlike the lens of a magnifying glass. When placed in sequence those seven crystals served to concentrate the Sun’s rays on those days when it passed directly overhead.
    This is a crucial point.
    Many scholars have noted that the construction of the Great Pyramid by the pharaoh Khufu curiously coincides with the solar event known as the Tartarus Rotation. This phenomenon involves the rotation of the Sun and the subsequent appearance of a powerful sunspot that comes into alignment with the Earth.
    Accomplished Sunwatchers that they were, the Egyptians certainly knew of the Sun’s rotation, sunspots, and indeed of the sunspot that we call ‘Tartarus’. Aware of its intense heat, they called it ‘Ra’s Destroyer’. (They also knew of the smaller sunspot that precedes Tartarus by seven days, and so labelled it ‘The Destroyer’s Prophet’.)
    The last Tartarus Rotation occurred in 2570 BC, just a few years after the Great Pyramid was completed. Interestingly, the next Rotation will occur in 2006, on March 20, the day of the vernal equinox, the time when the Sun is perfectly perpendicular to the Earth.
    Those theorists who link the construction of the