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Copyright 2006 by Gary David.
Presented with permission of the author.
Articles by Gary A. David
The time: 1100 AD. The place: the Arizona
desert. The mystery: an emerging pattern of Hopi villages mirrors all the major
stars of the Orion constellation. The Orion Zone: Ancient Star Cities of
the American Southwest explores this terrestrial-celestial relationship and its
astounding global significance.
The second edition of The Orion Zone
by Gary A. David is now available from Adventures Unlimited Press:
www.adventuresunlimitedpress.com
To order, use your credit card at this toll-free number: 1 (815) 253-9000. Fax:
1 (815) 253-6300 For a signed copy, you can purchase with a check, money order,
or Paypal at www.theorionzone.com or
by e-mail: [email protected]

343 pages, perfect-bound trade paperback, glossy
cover, 6" X 9"
Includes 58 photos of ruins, rock art, diagrams, astronomical charts and maps;
Over 1,000 endnotes and 300 bibliographic sources
Cover art and design: Jack Andrews
Key words: Native American / Archeology / Astronomy / Hopi /
Arizona / Anasazi / Masons / UFOs / Knights Templar
$19.95 USD + $6.00 Shipping & Handling
Comments about the Orion Zone
"In the same brilliant spirit of Robert
Bauval and Graham Hancock, David proves again and again the importance of Orion
and other constellations to the earliest people on Earth. His book in turn makes
a valuable contribution to our spiritual unfolding in modern times." - Page
Bryant, author of Spiritwalking and The Second Coming of the Star Gods
"The correlation Mr. David makes between
the Hopi and Egyptian 'sky view' is most interesting." - Robert Bauval,
author of The Orion Mystery (with Adrian Gilbert) and Talisman (with Graham
Hancock)
"I have examined the Arizona-Orion
ground-sky relationship, and I must say that I find this work intriguing. It is
worth pursuing to the very end." - Andrew Collins, author of From
the Ashes of Angels and Twenty-first Century Grail
An Orion Correlation in Arizona: Overview
by Gary A. David
To watch Orion ascend from the eastern horizon and assume its dominant winter
position at the meridian is a wondrous spectacle. Even more so, it is a
startling epiphany to see this constellation rise out of the red dust of the
high desert as a stellar configuration of Anasazi cities built from the
mid-eleventh to the end of the thirteenth century. In fact, Orion provided the
template by which the Anasazi (ancestral Pueblo people) determined the locations
of their villages during a migration period that lasted centuries. Spiritually
mandated by a god the Hopi call Masau'u, this "terrestrial Orion"
closely mirrors its celestial counterpart, with prehistoric "cities"
corresponding to every major star in the constellation. The sky looks
downward to find its image made manifest in the earth; the earth gazes upward,
reflecting upon the unification of terrestrial and celestial.

Enlarge this picutre
Extending from the giant hand of Arizona’s Black Mesa that
juts down from the northeast, three great fingers of rock beckon. They are the
three Hopi Mesas, isolated upon this desolate but starkly beautiful landscape to
which the Ancient Ones so long ago were led. Directing our attention to this
"Center of the World," we clearly see the close correlation to
Orion’s Belt. Mintaka, a double star and the first of the trinity to peek over
the eastern horizon as the constellation rises, corresponds to Oraibi and
Hotevilla on Third (West) Mesa. The former village is considered the oldest
continuously inhabited community on the continent, founded in the early twelfth
century. About seven miles to the east, located at the base of Second (Middle)
Mesa, Old Shungopovi (initially known as Masipa, a cognate of the deity
Masau’u) was reputedly the first to be established after the Bear Clan
migrated into the region circa A.D. 1100. Its celestial correlative is Alnilam,
the middle star of the Belt. About seven miles farther east on First (East)
Mesa, the adjacent villages of Walpi, Sichomovi, and Hano (Tewa) --the first of
which was established prior A.D. 1300-- correspond to the triple star Alnitak,
rising last of the three stars of the Belt.
Nearly due north of Oraibi at a distance of just over fifty-six
miles is Betatakin ruin in Tsegi Canyon, while about four miles beyond is Kiet
Siel ruin. Located in Navaho National Monument, both of these spectacular cliff
dwellings were built during the mid-thirteenth century. Their sidereal
counterpart is the double star Rigel, the left foot or knee of Orion. (We are
conceptualizing Orion as viewed from the front.) Due south of Oraibi
approximately fifty-six miles is Homol’ovi Ruins State Park, a group of four
Anasazi ruins constructed between the mid-thirteenth and early fourteenth
centuries. These represent the irregularly variable star Betelgeuse, the right
shoulder of Orion. Almost forty-seven miles southwest of Oraibi is the primary
Sinagua ruin at Wupatki National Monument, surrounded by a few smaller ruins.
("Sinagua" is the archaeological term for a group culturally similar
and contemporaneous to the Anasazi.) Built in the early twelfth century, their
celestial counterpart is Bellatrix, a slightly variable star forming the left
shoulder of Orion. About fifty miles northeast of Walpi is the mouth of Canyon
de Chelly, where another national monument is located. In this and its side
Canyon del Muerto a number of Anasazi ruins dating from the mid-eleventh century
are found. Saiph, the triple star forming the right foot or knee of Orion,
corresponds to these ruins, primarily White House, Antelope House, and Mummy
Cave. Extending northwest from Wupatki/Bellatrix, Orion’s left arm holds a
shield over numerous smaller ruins in Grand Canyon National Park, including
Tusayan near Desert View on the south rim. Extending southward from Homol’ovi/Betelgeuse,
Orion’s right arm holds a nodule club above his head. This club stretches
across the Mogollon Rim and down to other Sinagua ruins in the Verde Valley. As
a small triangle formed by Meissa at its apex and by Phi1 and Phi2 Orionis at
its base, the head of Orion correlates to the Sinagua ruins at Walnut Canyon
National Monument together with a few smaller ruins in the immediate region.
If we conceptualize Orion not as a rectangle but as a polygon of
seven sides, more specifically an "hourglass" (connoting Chronos)
appended to another triangle whose base rests upon the constellation’s
shoulders, the relative proportions of the terrestrial Orion coincide with
amazing accuracy. The apparent distances between the stars as we see them in the
constellation (as opposed to actual light-year distances) and the distances
between these major Hopi village or Anasazi/Sinagua ruin sites are close enough
to suggest that something more than mere coincidence is at work here. For
instance, four of the sides of the heptagon (A. Betatakin to Oraibi, B.
Oraibi to Wupatki, C. Wupatki to Walnut Canyon, and F. Walpi to
Canyon de Chelly) are exactly proportional, while the remaining three sides (D.
Walnut Canyon to Homol’ovi, E. Homol’ovi to Walpi, and G.
Canyon de Chelly back to Betatakin) are slightly stretched in relation to the
constellation-- from ten miles in the case of D. and E. to twelve
miles in the case of G. (See Diagram.)
This variation could be due either to cartographic distortions
of the contemporary sky chart in relation to the geographic map or to ancient
misperceptions of the proportions of the constellation vis-à-vis the landscape.
Given the physical exigencies for building a village, such as springs or rivers,
which are not prevalent in the desert anyway, this is a striking correlation,
despite these small anomalies in the overall pattern. As John Grigsby says in
his discussion of the relationship between the temples of Angkor in Cambodia and
the constellation Draco, "If this is a fluke then it’s an amazing one....
There is allowance for human error in the transference of the constellation on
to a map, and then the transference of the fallible map on to a difficult
terrain over hundreds of square kilometers with no method of checking the
progress of the site from the air."* In this case we are dealing not
with Hindu/Buddhist temples but with multiple "star cities" sometimes
separated from each other by more than fifty miles. Furthermore, we have
suggested that the "map" is actually represented on a number of stone
tablets given to the Hopi at the beginning of their migrations, and that this
geodetic configuration was influenced or even specifically determined by a
divine presence, viz., Masau’u, god of earth and death.
* * *
When the Anasazi gazed into the heavens, they were not looking at an
extension of the physical world as we perceive it today but were instead
witnessing a manifestation of the spirit world. Much like the Egyptian Duat, the
Hopi Underworld encompasses the skies as well as the region beneath the surface
of the earth. This fact is validated by the dichotomous existence of ancestor
spirits who live in the subterranean realm but periodically return to their
earthly villages in the form of storm clouds bringing the blessing of rain. Even
though the eastern and western domains ruled by Tawa (the Sun) remain constant,
the polar directions of north and south, controlled by the Elder and Younger
Warrior Twins (sons of the Sun) respectively, are reversed. Thus, the right hand
holding the nodule club is in the east and the left hand holding the shield is
in the west, similar to the star chart. However, the head is pointed roughly
southward rather than northward. This inversion is completely consistent with
Hopi cosmology because the terrestrial configuration is seen as a reversal of
the spirit world, of which the sky is merely another dimension.
At any rate, looking up at Orion on a midwinter night, we can imagine that
our perspectives have switched and that we are suspended high above the land,
gazing from the northeast to the southwest toward the sacred mountains of the
kachinas (San Francisco Peaks) and the head of the celestial Masau’u suffused
in the evergreen forests of the Milky Way. Ironically, it is here on the high
desert of Arizona that we also intuit the truth of the hermetic maxim attributed
to the Egyptian god Thoth (Hermes Trismegistus): "As above, so below."
Copyright © 2002-2006 Gary A. David
*Grigsby cited in Graham Hancock, Santha Faiia, Heaven’s
Mirror: Quest For the Lost Civilization (New York: Crown Publishers, Inc.,
1998), p. 127.
Articles by Gary A. David
Gary A. David is an independent researcher and writer living
in northern Arizona. The Orion Zone: Ancient Star Cities of the
American Southwest is now available from Adventures Unlimited Press.
This book discusses a correlation between the stars of Orion and the
Hopi villages and ruins in the Four Corners region of the US.
Recently Mr. David’s articles have appeared in Atlantis Rising,
Fate, and World Explorer magazines. He is also a published poet.
To order his book, go to:
http://www.theorionzone.com
E-mail: [email protected]
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