[285] Selim Hassan, Excavations at Giza, op. cit., p. 277. See also The Orion Mystery, op. cit., p. 76.
[286] Excavations at Giza, op. cit., p. 277.
[287] Ibid., pp. 277-8.
[288] Ibid, p. 279.
[289] Although their actual composition may long pre-date the third millennium bc. See The Orion Mystery, op. cit., pp. 69-70.
[290] Observation stations may have been spread in a sort of ‘triangle’ extending from Heliopolis, Memphis and Giza. It seems likely that this whole region was somehow considered the original ‘land of the gods’, with its epicentre at Giza.
[291] The conjunction of summer solstice sunrise, the rising of Sirius and the start of the flood occurred in 3400 bc and throughout the early Pyramid Age, when the Pyramid Texts were most certainly compiled.
[292] The Orion Mystery, op. cit., pp. 119-24.
[293] The Milky Way appeared rising due east at the summer solstice pre-dawn along with Orion and Sirius in the third millennium bc.
[294] Pyramid Texts, op. cit., lines 343-57.
[295] Ibid., line 508 and Utterance 317.
[296] Ibid., line 1760.
[297] E. A. Wallis Budge, The Egyptian Book of the Dead, Dover Publications Inc., New York, 1967, p. cxxiii.
[298] R. O. Faulkner, The Book of the Dead, British Museum Publications, London 1972, p. 90. Also see R. O. Faulkner ‘The King & the Star-Religion in the Pyramid Texts’ in Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 1966, Vol. XXV, p. 154 footnote 7. Dr. Virginia Lee Davis also makes the link between the Milky Way and the ‘Winding Waterway’ in Archaeoastronomy, Vol. IX, JHA xvi, 1985, p. 102. The archeoastronomer and Egyptologist, Jane B. Sellers, also arrives at the same conclusion as V. L. Davis (J. B. Sellers, The Death of Gods in Ancient Egypt, Penguin Books, London, 1992, p. 97).
[299] Pyramid Texts, op. cit., line 2061.
[300] Ibid., line 1717.
[301] Ibid., line 882.
[302] R. T. Rundle Clark, Myth and Symbol in Ancient Egypt, Thames & Hudson, London, 1978, pp. 263-5. Clark explains how the Pharaoh’s role was to re-enact and commemorate events that were believed to have happened in a blissful golden age called ‘Tep Zepi’ [Zep Tepi].
[303] Ibid.
[304] Ibid p. 27.
[305] Pyramid Texts, op. cit., Utterance 600. Here the ‘pyramids’ are also placed amidst the landscape of ‘Creation’ at the first sunrise of the world.
[306] R. T. Rundle Clark, Myth and Symbol, op. cit., page 264.
[307] Ibid.
[308] Henri Frankfort, Kingship and the Gods, The University of Chicago Press, 1978, pp. 24-35.
[309] Hamlet’s Mill, op. cit., pp. 86-7.
[310] British Museum No. 498. The Shabaka Stone is fixed on the south wall of the ground floor of the ‘Egyptian’ wing. It measures some 135 x 92 cm. (approx. 4 x 3 feet) and is badly damaged at the centre—apparently due to it being used as a grinding millstone before its discovery by archaeologists. It contains 62 columns of hieroglyphic inscriptions. Miriam Lichtheim, who gives a full translation, wrote that ‘the language is archaic and resembles that of the Pyramid Texts’ (Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature Vol. 1: The Old and Middle Kingdoms, University of California Press, Los Angeles, 1975, pp. 3-57).
[311] Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 52. A variation to Osiris’s death is that he was killed by his brother, Seth, and his body cut into fourteen pieces.
[312] Ibid. Ayan must have been a sacred location immediately north of the city walls of Memphis. It is the present-day location of the village of Mit Rahin.
[313] Where Ayan existed there remain, today, the vestiges of a ruined Graeco-Roman fort which must have been built in the Egyptian style (as the broken columns which still can be seen there attest) and which, curiously enough, is known by the locals as the ‘prison of Joseph’ (the Biblical patriarch who was kept in the ‘round tower’ by Pharaoh—see Genesis 39:21). It can be reached along the narrow canal road opposite and north of the Memphis Museum.
[314] Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 53.
[315] About 15 kilometres south of the outskirts of the Maadi suburbs of Cairo.
[316] Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 53.
[317] E. A. Wallis Budge, The Egyptian Heaven and Hell, op. cit., Vol. III, p. 131.
[318] I. E. S. Edwards, The Pyramids of Egypt, op. cit., 1993 edition, p. 10.
[319] R. T. Rundle Clark, Myth and Symbol, op. cit., p. 108.
[320] James H. Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt, Part II, Histories & Mysteries of Man Ltd., London, 1988, pp. 320-4.
[321] Ibid., p. 323. On line 7 of the stela.
[322] Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 53.
[323] Pyramid Texts, op. cit., line 1717.
[324] Orion Mystery, op. cit, 1994 edition, pp. 116-19.
[325] Selim Hassan, Excavations at Giza, op. cit., pp. 278, 285.
[326] Ibid., p. 265.
[327] Ibid.
[328] Ibid., pp. 302, 315.
[329] Ibid., p. 338.
[330] Ibid., p. 265.
[331] Ibid.
[332] Ibid., p. 263.
[333] Ibid., p. 265.
[334] Ibid.
[335] Ibid.
[336] Ibid.
[337] Mark Lehner, The Egyptian Heritage, op. cit.
[338] Ibid, p. 119.
[339] J. B. Sellers, The Death of Gods in Ancient Egypt, op. cit., p. 164.
[340] R. O. Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Coffin Texts, Aris & Phillips Ltd., Wiltshire, Vol. III, p. 132, Spell 1035.
[341] Ibid. Vol. I, p. 190, Spell 241.
[342] Ibid. Vol. I, p. 185, Spell 236.
[343] J. B. Sellers, The Death of Gods, op. cit., pp. 164-5.
[344] Ibid.
[345] The Orion Mystery, op. cit., 1994 edition, pp. 116-9.
[346] James H. Breasted, Ancient Records, op. cit., Part II, pp. 320-4.
[347] Innu means ‘pillar’ thus Heliopolis was, quite literally, the ‘City of the Pillar’. All that can be seen there today is an obelisk of Sesostris I (12th Dynasty c. 1880 bc) and a few remains of a temple.
[348] I. E. S. Edwards, The Pyramids of Egypt, op. cit., 1993 edition, pp. 284-6.
[349] Herodotus, The Histories, Book II, 2-8. See Penguin Classics translation, 1972, p. 130.
[350] Aristotle, De Caelo, II, 12, 2923. See translation in R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz, Sacred Science, Inner Traditions International, New York 1982, p. 280.
[351] E. M. Antoniadi, L’Astronomie Egyptienne, Paris, 1934, pp. 3-4.
[352] Diodorus of Sicily, The Library of History, Book V, 57 and Book I, 81.
[353] Proclus Diadochus, Commentaries on the Timaeus, IV. See translation in R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz, Sacred Science, op. cit., p. 286.
[354] The Orion Mystery, op. cit., pp. 182-4, 287 note 7.
[355] R. T. Rundle Clark, Myth and Symbol in Ancient Egypt, op. cit., pp. 38-9.
[356] Edouard Naville, ‘Le nom du Sphinx dans le livre des morts’ in Sphinx, Vol. V, 188, p. 193.
[357] Edouard Naville, ‘Le Sphinx IIP in Sphinx, Vol. XXI, 1924, p. 13.
[358] Ibid., p. 12.
[359] Ibid.
[360] Ibid.
[361] Edouard Naville, ‘Le nom du Sphinx dans le livre des morts’, op. cit., p. 195.
[362] Selim Hassan, The Sphinx: Its History in the Light of Recent Excavations, Government Press, Cairo, 1949, p. 129.
[363] Ibid.
[364] A spell from the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, op. cit.
[365] Pyramid Texts, op. cit., lines 2081-6.
[366] Selim Hassan, The Sphinx, op. cit., p. 70, fig. 13. See Also E. Naville in ‘Sphinx III’, op. cit., p. 19.
[367] Zahi Hawass and Mark Lehner ‘The Sphinx: Who built it, and why?’ in Archaeology, September-October 1994, p. 34.
[368] Ibid.
[369] George Har
t, A Dictionary of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1988, p. 46.
[370] Rosalie David, Ancient Egyptian Religion, Beliefs and Practices, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1982, p. 46.
[371] Ibid.
[372] George Hart, Dictionary of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses, op. cit., p. 94. Hart also says that ‘the element “Akhti” can be a dual form of the noun “Akhet”, “Horizon”; there may be a play on words when the king is said to be given power over the “Two Horizons” (i.e. east and west) as Horakhti’.
[373] Quote from Jane B. Sellers, The Death of Gods, op. cit., p. 89. For further details, see Hermann Kees, Ancient Egypt: A Cultural Topography, University of Chicago Press, 1977.
[374] Often sitting down on a throne, holding the royal staff.
[375] George Hart, Dictionary, op. cit., p. 94.
[376] Lewis Spence, Egypt, Bracken Books, Myths & Legends Series, London 1986, p. 291.
[377] Selim Hassan, The Sphinx, op. cit., p. 94.
[378] Egypt Exploration Society Report, First General Meeting, 1883, p. 8.
[379] Ibid.
[380] Ahmed Fakhry, The Pyramids, University of Chicago Press, 1961, p. 164. See Pyramid Texts, op. cit., lines 1085, 926. See also E. A. Wallis Budge, An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary, Dover Publications Inc., New York, 1978, Vol. I, p. 500b.
[381] Selim Hassan, Excavations at Giza, op. cit., figs. 18, 39, 40, 41, 46, 66.
[382] Selim Hassan, The Sphinx, op. cit., p. 76.
[383] Ibid.
[384] James H. Breasted, Ancient Records, op. cit., Part II, pp. 320-4.
[385] Ibid.
[386] Lewis Spence, Egypt, op. cit., p. 158.
[387] Ibid.
[388] Selim Hassan, The Sphinx, op. cit., p. 104.
[389] Lewis Spence, Egypt, op. cit., p. 157.
[390] E. A. Wallis Budge, An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary, op. cit., Vol. I, pp. 418b, 500b, 501b.
[391] Lewis Spence, Egypt, op. cit., p. 84.
[392] Ahmed Fakhry, The Pyramids, op. cit., p. 164.
[393] Ibid.
[394] J. Malek, In the Shadow of the Pyramids, Orbis, London 1986, p. 10.
[395] Pyramid Texts, op. cit., p. 323.
[396] George Hart, Dictionary of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses, op. cit., p. 88.
[397] Pyramid Texts, op. cit., lines 525-7.
[398] Ibid., lines 928-9.
[399] Ibid., lines 352-3.
[400] Ibid., lines 928-9.
[401] Ibid., line 1961.
[402] Ibid., line 820.
[403] Ibid., line 151.
[404] Ibid., lines 927-30.
[405] Ibid., line 458.
[406] Ibid., line 965.
[407] E. C. Krupp, In Search of Ancient Astronomies, Chatto & Windus, 1980, pp. 186-90. Krupp wrote: ‘The Nile, with its annual flooding, made civilisation possible in Egypt ... even more compelling was the fact that the heliacally rising Sirius (the dawn rising) and the rising of the Nile coincided, approximately, with the summer solstice.’ Interestingly, Pyramid Texts lines 1131 and 1172 speak of the ‘Great Flood’ which is in the sky as seen in the east of the sky at dawn. This matches the actual celestial picture in c. 2800-2500 bc, when the Milky Way would rise due east on the pre-dawn of the summer solstice.
[408] Pyramid Texts, lines 360-3.
[409] Ibid., line 2047.
[410] Ibid., lines 1131-2.
[411] Ibid., line 362.
[412] R. T. Rundle Clark, Myth and Symbol in Ancient Egypt, op. cit.
[413] Ibid., p. 121.
[414] Ibid., pp. 121-2.
[415] Ibid., p. 122.
[416] E. A. Wallis Budge, The Literature of Funeral Offerings, Kegan Paul Ltd., London, 1909, p. 2.
[417] Pyramid Texts, op. cit., lines 1703, 1710-20.
[418] Ibid., line 1730.
[419] Ibid., line 1860.
[420] R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz, Sacred Science, op. cit., p. 175.
[421] Pyramid Texts, op. cit., line 632. See also The Orion Mystery, op. cit., pp. 132, 136.
[422] The Orion Mystery, op. cit., pp. 220-5.
[423] O. Neugebauer and R. Parker, Egyptian Astronomical Texts, Brown University Press, Lund Humphries, London, 1964, Vol. I, p. 70. For a summarized discussion see The Orion Mystery, op. cit., Appendix 4.
[424] Ibid.
[425] Ibid. The first rising of a star after a prolonged period of invisibility is at dawn, about one hour before sunrise. Sirius has its heliacal rising today in early August. In c. 3000 bc this occurred in late June. The ‘shift’ from a fixed point such as the summer solstice is about seven days every millennium. See R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz, Sacred Science, op. cit., p. 175.
[426] Pyramid Texts, op. cit., Utterances 606, 609.
[427] The ecliptic passes a few degrees north of the Hyades and thus just ‘west’ or on the ‘right’ bank of the Milky Way as viewed at the meridian. In c. 2500 bc the vernal point would have been located there.
[428] Dr. Virginia Lee Davis seems to be convinced about this in Archaeoastronomy, Vol. IX, JHA xvi, 1985, p. 102. So is the archeoastronomer and Egyptologist, Jane B. Sellers, in Death of Gods, op. cit., p. 97.
[429] Pyramid Texts, op. cit., line 2172.
[430] Ibid., line 2045.
[431] Ibid., lines 1704-7.
[432] Ibid., line 1541.
[433] Ibid., line 1345.
[434] Ibid., lines 343-6.
[435] Ibid., lines 525-7.
[436] Ibid., lines 928-9.
[437] Among all modern Egyptologists it is only Schwaller de Lubicz, as far as we know, who realized the immense implications of the stellar-solar conjunction in Leo during the Pyramid Age—a conjunction that could hardly have gone unnoticed by the ancients since it occurred not only at the summer solstice but also at the heliacal rising of Sirius. Lubicz wrote: ‘It is significant also that tradition had already related the heliacal rising of Sirius with the beginning of the Nile’s flooding and with the constellation of Leo; indeed since the foundation of the calendar to the beginning of our era, in Egypt the sun was always situated in the constellation of Leo at the date of the heliacal rising of Leo’ (Sacred Science, op. cit., p. 176). The tradition which Schwaller is alluding to is also confirmed by several Greek and Roman chroniclers who passed through Egypt in ancient times. Harpollon, for example, who visited Egypt in the fifth century, commented that: ‘Lions were a symbol of the inundation in consequence of the Nile rising more abundantly when the sun was in Leo. Those who anciently presided over sacred works made the waterspouts and passages of fountains in the form of lions ...’ (Harpollon Book I, 21). The same is stated by Plutarch, who came to Egypt in the first century ad. Plutarch is distinguished for being the only scholar in antiquity to have compiled a full coherent account of the Osiris and Isis myth. He held a high position as a magistrate in Boeotia and also belonged to the priesthood of Delphi. In about ad 50 he compiled his celebrated De hide et Osiride (On his and Osiris) after consulting Egyptian priests in Egypt, who also told him of the astral rituals of the summer solstice: ‘Of the stars, the Egyptians think that Sirius, the Dog Star, is the star of Isis, because it is the bringer of water [i.e. the Nile’s flood]. They also hold the lion in honour, and they adorn the doorways of their shrines with gaping lions’ heads, because the Nile overflows “when for the first time the Sun comes in conjunction with [the constellation] of Leo” ...’ (see quote in R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz, Sacred Science, op. cit., p. 91).
[438] Richard H. Allen, Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning, Dover Publications Inc., New York, 1963, pp. 255-6. It is the brightest star in Leo, a constellation known as the ‘Domicilium Solis’ (‘House of the Sun’). Allen makes this curious comment but gives no reference: ‘The great androsphinx [of Giza] is said to have been sculptured with Leo’s body and the head of the adjacent Virgo ...’ (ibid., p. 253).
[439] Memphis.
[440] For a full discussion on the ‘solar boats’ see Selim Hassan, Excavations at
Giza, op. cit., pp. 1-156. There are various boat ‘pits’ at Giza, two of which contained actual boats (one fully assembled in a museum south of the Great Pyramid). Rudolf Gantenbrink has remarked that the size (and shape) of the Grand Gallery in the Great Pyramid would be an ideal store for such a boat.