Ancient Aliens – The Galactic Keyhole

Ancient Aliens – The Galactic Keyhole: The mysterious symbol of the keyhole exists in mystic texts, sacred architecture and ancient artwork found all over the planet; exploring if this cryptic shape represents a profound connection to the cosmos.

Ancient Aliens is an American television series that premiered on April 20, 2010, on the History channel. Produced by Prometheus Entertainment in a documentary style, the program presents hypotheses of ancient astronauts and proposes that historical texts, archaeology, and legends contain evidence of past human-extraterrestrial contact. The show has been widely criticized by historians, cosmologists, archaeologists and other scientific circles for presenting and promoting pseudoscience, pseudohistory and pseudoarcheology.

Ancient Aliens – The Galactic Keyhole

Ankh – The Galactic Keyhole

The ankh or key of life is an ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic symbol that was most commonly used in writing and in Egyptian art to represent the word for “life” and, by extension, as a symbol of life itself.

The ankh has a cross shape but with a teardrop-shaped loop in place of an upper bar. The origins of the symbol are not known, although many hypotheses have been proposed. It was used in writing as a triliteral sign, representing a sequence of three consonants, Ꜥ-n-ḫ. This sequence was found in several Egyptian words, including the words meaning “mirror”, “floral bouquet”, and “life”. In art the symbol often appeared as a physical object representing either life or substances such as air or water that are related to it. It was especially commonly held in the hands of ancient Egyptian deities, or being given by them to the pharaoh, to represent their power to sustain life and to revive human souls in the afterlife.

The ankh was one of the most common decorative motifs in ancient Egypt and was also used decoratively by neighbouring cultures. Coptic Christians adapted it into the crux ansata, a shape with a circular rather than oval loop, and used it as a variant of the Christian cross. Since the late 20th century, in the Western world, the ankh has again come to be used decoratively, as a symbol of African cultural identity, Neopagan belief systems, and the goth subculture.