Robert Bauval was born in Egypt in 1948. A construction engineer, his interest in Egyptology is longstanding, having lived in Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East for much of his life. In the 1980s, he developed a line of study linking the pyramids and the so-called Pyramid Texts with astronomy and famously published the best-selling The Orion Mystery. He has also written three books with best-selling author Graham Hancock (The Message of the Sphinx, Talisman, and The Mars Mystery).