This is the Official Website for Talisman - Sacred Cities, Secret Faith by Graham Hancock and Robert Bauval, published by Penguin UK, 27 May 2004. Any related information found elsewhere on the Internet or via any other media outlet that does not originate from the authors or publishers may not neccessarily reflect the true nature or content of this book.

Talisman is a roller-coaster intellectual journey through the back streets and rat runs of history to uncover the traces in architecture and monuments of a secret religion that has shaped the world. The story takes us from Heliopolis to Luxor, Alexandria, Toulouse, Florence, Rome, Paris, London, Washington DC, New York, and finally to the global pandemonium following 9/11/2001. It is a tale filled with romance and intrigue, heroism and faith, peopled by ancient Egyptian astronomer priests, Christian Gnostics, Hermetic sages, learned Jews, Arab savants, Occitan Counts, Cathar "perfecti", Knights Templar, Renaissance magi, Rosicrucian "invisibles", Bavarian Illuminati and Freemasons.

Pivotal historical events and processes, not least the Renaissance, the birth of scientific rationalism, and the French and American and Revolutions, are radically re-evaluated in the light of new investigative evidence presented for the first time in Talisman. Even the belief that the United States has a "global mission", so obvious today, may ultimately prove to be less the result of a short-term reaction to terrorism than the inevitable working out of a covert plan originally set in motion almost 2000 years ago.

The authors raise several intriguing questions some of which may be discussed at Graham Hancock's Talisman Message Board.

 Why was a 200-ton ancient Egyptian obelisk raised in front of the Vatican in Rome, and a cross placed on its top which, by design or strange coincidence, created the hieroglyph that denoted the name of Anu: Heliopolis, the ancient Egyptian "City of the Sun"?

 Why did Benjamin Franklin become the "Venerable" of the elitist Freemasonic lodge of The Nine Sisters in Paris? Who were the other mysterious 400 members?

 Why was Voltaire initiated there? Why was a "glowing pyramid with an eye" placed on his coffin?

 And Why was a similar symbol of a "pyramid and eye" placed on the frontispiece of the Declaration of the Rights of Man?

 Why did Napoleon Bonaparte have a similar statue of Isis and also her "star" added to the coat of arms of Paris?

 Why was a huge statue of the Egyptian goddess Isis raised in the Place de la Bastille to represent the ‘Goddess of Liberty’ during the French Revolution?

 Why did Francois Mitterand commission a "glass pyramid" modelled on the Great Pyramid of Giza for the Bicentennial of the French Revolution?

 Why was a 3500-years-old obelisk taken from the ancient Egyptian sun temple at Luxor and raised in the heart of Paris?

 Why did French Freemasons gift America with a giant "Goddess of Liberty" for New York harbour – the famous Statue of Liberty, which had originally been planned as a statue of the ancient Egyptian goddess Isis, to stand at the entrance to the Suez Canal?

 Why did the American Freemasons commission a giant Egyptian-styled obelisk as the Washington Monument? Why was the winged solar disc of the ancient Egyptians placed on its entrance? Why was a "glowing pyramid with an eye" put on the Great Seal of the United States?

 Why was Franklin Delano Roosevelt a 32nd degree Freemason and why did he commission a "glowing pyramid with an eye" for the one dollar bill?

 Why was Harry Truman a 33rd degree Freemason and why did he help create the new State of Israel?

 Why did George W. Bush take the presidential oath on the Masonic Bible of the Grand Lodge of New York?

 Why were the Twin Towers targeted by Bin Laden?