'WE, the Skythians,' is the opening phrase of the Declaration of Arbroath. This is why: David Ritchie's twenty years of research have yielded quite literally earth-shattering results, so there is some trepidation over the possible consequences of the publication of his paradigm-shifting - and geography-shifting - work on the riddle of the Giza complex, which, at a serendipitous meeting there on the date predicted by Edgar Cayce, impressed even Zahi Hawass, who murmured, "I think you've got it...'' to a not too surprised David, who knew he had. Who were the Celts; the Jews; the Greeks; the Egyptians; the SKYTHIANS? Where did their stories originate? David would have us know that it was in Britain. Once the shock to the intellect is overcome, this simple fact explains why the world is how it is today and what we must do to survive the next more or less catastrophic cycle of events. David's work, though independently researched, echoes the ideas of William Comyns Beaumont, that prominent journalist whose books were removed from library shelves in the 50's due to the implications of his analysis of so-called myth combined with historical accounts of events which, though believed to be worldwide, were actually somewhat more local, and explain the popularity in Britain of the hymn known as Jerusalem. David's ideas inspired The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown had attended one of his lectures on the Roseline through the Holy Land of Edinburgh - and this book replaces fiction with mathematically-provable fact, offering at once the intellectual satisfaction of a new, strangely logical world where all the pieces fit, accompanied by the realisation of the consequences "Beware," warns David, "There are recurring events that are longer than the memory of mankind." Not all mankind though... There are many who have always known - and those of us who were baffled by the ''Isles of Wonder'' performance need wonder no more.