Fascinating book about Andrew Collins search for a discovery of a cave underworld beneath the Giza pyramid fields.
The book is divided neatly into four sections. The first section concerns Edgar Cayce (1877-1945) and in particular his psychic material concerning ancient Egypt and an undiscovered Hall of Records in the vicinity of the Sphinx. Collins may have written this section in deferrence to the A.R.E. (the Association for Research and Enlightenment, which promotes the work of Cayce) who sponsored some of Collins search for the Giza caves and who have also published the book through Fourth Dimension Press. Whatever your views on Cayce (you may not have any), it was certainly interesting to read about the tangible influence that his prophecies on the Hall of Records have had on Egyptologists both amateur and professional.
The next section (Descent) takes an interesting look at Ancient Egyptian myths about the underworld (the Am Duat and Edfu Building Texts get plenty of attention), especially looking at the idea of a 'tomb of god.' Do they reflect the actual existence of a subterranean realm? The culmination of this section is the discovery of an ancient well in the southeast of the Giza area which is reputed to lead to underground tunnels.
The third section (Ascension) takes another look at Collins' controversial theory mapping the Cygnus stars onto the Giza plateau, and some interesting geometry present at Giza. I think the significance of this material is that it not only indicates the well in the southeast, but it also focused attention on the largely ignored north-western area of Giza. This is where the cave entrance was eventually located after following up clues in the accounts of some nineteenth-century explorers who had stumbled on the caves themselves. In other words, the Cygnus work led Collins to the right area, which would appear to bear out that work.
The story of the actual discovery is told in the final section (Discovery). Even having heard the story of the caves several times now, I still found this an exciting read. Along with the caves he also found a large number of bats and copious amounts of bat guano carrying their attendent risks of rabies and histoplasmosis, dangerously low oxygen levels and white widow spiders. Hopefully that will prevent the idly curious from trying their own exploration.
It seems strange to me that Zahi Hawass has so-far (at time of writing) denied the existence of the caves. Although Collins is up front about his belief that the caves are part of a 'Giza underworld' and what may lie deeper within, he isn't claiming to have actually found a Hall of Records or Tomb of God or anything else of a fantastic nature. Cave systems in limestone aren't unusual after all.
I heartily recommend this book. I always find Andrew Collins very readable, and he gives plenty of credit to the work of those on whom he relies. Apart from which, the book documents the rediscovery of something that might well be enormously important. Whatever the Egyptian authorties claim later on, you will have read it here first.