Abydos, known locally as Umm el-Qa’ab, is a site in Upper Egypt that contains a variety of structures including the Osirion, which is alleged to be burial-place of Osiris, the Egyptian deity who was the father of Horus and the brother and husband of Isis. It was discovered in 1901/2 by Sir William Flinders Petrie and Margaret Alice Murray(c). The Osirion has a number of unusual features that have led some, such as John Anthony West(a) to conclude that it is from a much earlier period than the adjacent Temple of Seti I.
This view is based on at least three observations.
(i) The foundations of the Osirion are much lower than those of the Temple of Seti, a feature that would have been totally unprecedented. It is more likely that structure was originally designed to be built at ground level in a conventional manner. However, after construction, the ground level rose over succeeding years with the deposits of silt from the annual inundation by the Nile. Consequently, when the adjacent Temple of Seti was built, a considerable number of years later, it was erected on much higher ground beside a buried Osirion.
(ii) The Temple of Seti has an unusual unique outline being ‘L’ shaped instead of having the usual rectangular form. This would seem to suggest that during the construction of the temple, the builders discovered the buried Osirion and had to alter the original design.
(iii) For some, the most compelling reason for dating the Osirion differently to Seti’s Temple is that stylistically the structure is totally at variance with anything else from Seti’s era.
This suggestion of an earlier date has added weight to the more general claim that other Egyptian monuments such as the Sphinx and that some of the lower courses of the Great Pyramid[517] are also from a predynastic era and may be seen as evidence of early civilisation that might be more in keeping with 9600 BC date in the story told to Solon by the Egyptian priests at Sais.
It is also worth noting that Abydos was also the site of a remarkable discovery of 14 buried boats that have been dated to at least 
3000BC and again possibly even pre-dynastic.
Klaus H. Aschenbrenner has produced an Internet article, Giza and Abydos: The Keys to Atlantis, unfortunately in German only, which promotes the idea of an 11th millennium BC date for parts of Giza and Abydos.
Abydos is also the location of unusual hieroglyphics that suggest the outline of an aeroplane. A refutation of this proposal, by Margaret Morris and others, is that the images are the result of damaged plaster. Morris has a website(b) where her views are given in greater detail.
(a) http://www.jawest.net/hall_of_maat.htm
(b) http://www.margaretmorrisbooks.com/atlantis_and_giza.html
(c) http://ascendingpassage.com/Osirion-at-Abydos.htm
