The True Age of the Osirion at Abydos, an Antediluvian Temple
By 5400 BC Abydos in Egypt was a thriving city, and 2,000 years later pre-dynastic pharaohs were still building shrines, temples and mortuaries at the site. Seti I added his own masterpiece in the 13th century BC, an elegant temple featuring a series of interconnected halls and side chambers, covered from floor to ceiling in exquisite friezes, murals and hieroglyphs. Still, people had long before been coming here to witness another hidden wonder - the Osirion, perhaps an antediluvian structure?
The Inland Sea of North Africa
About 12,000 years ago the region bore no resemblance to what it is today. The climate was wetter, it sustained a lush landscape, and to the west, where now lies an endless desert, there existed an inland sea, much of which drained into the Atlantic when the events that generated the great flood, and closed the Younger Dryas, overhauled the region. Referring to an older source, Diodorus of Sicily describes how it: "disappeared from sight in the course of an earthquake, when those parts of it which lay toward the ocean were torn asunder," leaving behind the Sahara. A small saltwater lake at Siwa is all that remains.
The Osirion bears no resemblance to Seti’s temple above it. (Image © Freddy Silva)
