When considering such co-ordinates in the sky, we are immediately reminded of the Giza necropolis-of how the gaze of the Great Sphinx targets the vernal point on the eastern horizon, and of how the star-shafts of the Great Pyramid lock in to the meridian with machine-age accuracy. Moreover it can hardly be an accident that the capstone or pyramidion placed on top of all pyramids was known in the ancient Egyptian language as the Benben and was considered to be a symbol of the Bennu bird (and thus also of rebirth and immortality).[530] These capstones were replicas of the original Benben stone-perhaps a conical, "orientated" meteorite[531]-which was said to have "fallen from heaven" and which was kept in Heliopolis, perched atop a pillar in a Temple called the "Mansion of the Phoenix".[532]
Is it not apparent, therefore, that we are confronted here by a tightly knit complex of interwoven ideas, all additionally complicated by ma.s.ses of Egyptian dualism, in which stone stands for bird, and bird for stone,[533] and both together speak of rebirth and of the "eternal return"?
The capstone is of course missing from the summit of the Great Pyramid at Giza. And the Benben of Heliopolis was already long lost to history by the time of the Greeks ...[534]
Will these treasures, too, sooner or later "return"?
54. Artist"s impression of the "Mansion of the Phoenix" in Heliopolis with its original pillar and pyramid-shaped Benben stone.
Ancestor G.o.ds
"Underlying all Egyptian speculation", as R. T. Rundle Clark has observed, "is the belief that time is composed of recurrent cycles which are divinely appointed ..."[535] There is furthermore a governing moment amongst all these cycles and epochs-the "genesis event" that the Egyptians called Zep Tepi, the "First Time".
Zep means "Time", Tepi means "First".
But Tepi also has other connotations. For example, it is the word for "the foremost point of a ship" and it can likewise be interpreted as "the first day of a period of time". Moreover, according to the astute a.n.a.lysis of Robert K. G. Temple: "The basic meaning of the word Tep is "mouth" ... and even more fundamentally the "beginning or commencement of anything"."[536]
Perhaps because of this persistent connection with the beginning of things, Tepi can also mean "ancestors". And the Tepi-aui-qerr-en-pet were "the ancestor-G.o.ds of the circle of the sky".[537] Also in the Pyramid Texts Tepi-aui is one of the many t.i.tles by which the ancestral deities of the "early primeval age" were known-the G.o.ds and Sages, or "Followers of Horus", who were supposedly there, at the dawn of civilization, when the phoenix alighted atop the pillar at Heliopolis, uttering a great cry and setting in motion the "time" of our present epoch of the world ...
Curiously, the hieroglyphic sign used to determine the Tepi-aui is the body of a large, slouching lion, with only the paws, breast and head shown. And we find a similar device being used as the determinative for a very similar cla.s.s of beings called the Akeru, described in Wallis Budge"s Hieroglyphic Dictionary as a group of G.o.ds said to be the ancestors of Re.[538]
The reader will recall from earlier chapters that one of the distinguishing features of the Fifth Division of the Duat is the presence there of a giant double-lion Sphinx-G.o.d named Aker whom Egyptologist Mark Lehner suggests may be "a representation of the Sphinx at Giza".[539] Since it is from Aker that the Akeru derive their name, it is natural that the hieroglyphs should depict them either in the form of slouching lions, or of two lions back to back, or of a double-headed lion.[540]
So the texts seem to invite us to attach leonine characteristics to the "men or G.o.ds of olden times", to the "Ancestors", and to the Sages. But they also invite something else when, as we shall see in the next chapter, they link the whole concept of ancestral dynasties of G.o.ds and spirits with another closely related word, Akhu, meaning, variously, the "Shining Ones", the "Star People" or the "Venerables". In this way they will lead us back to the trail of the "Followers of Horus" and to the notion that for thousands of years-spanning both the prehistoric and the historic periods-the members of a hidden academy may have been at work behind the scenes in Egypt, observing the stars with scientific rigour and manipulating men and events according to a celestial timetable ...
Chapter 13.
Following the Stars "The disposition of the stars as well as their movements have always been the subject of careful observation among the Egyptians ... they have preserved to this day records concerning each of these stars over an incredible number of years, this study having been zealously preserved among them from ancient times."
Diodorus Siculus, Book V, first century bc It should be clear by now that the ancient Egyptians had very distinct ideas about the length and scope of their history, and that they set the "First Time", the "genesis event" for their civilization, far back in what the Edfu Building Texts call the "Early Primeval Age". Just how long ago that event actually took place is not an issue that will be easily resolved because the surviving texts-the king-lists, the very few fragments of Manetho"s History that have been preserved, and certain travellers" tales-are mostly incomplete and at times mutually contradictory. Moreover we are obliged to cut our way through a luxuriant jungle of diverse terminologies-Sages, Ancestors, Spirits of the Dead, the "Followers of Horus", etc., etc.-which further complicates the problem of trying to arrive at a coherent picture. Nevertheless, let us see what we can glean from these ancient sources. Let us try to put the jigsaw puzzle together ...
Shining ones
Amongst the very few king-lists that have survived to the present day, the so-called "Turin Papyrus" reaches particularly deeply into the dark abyss of the past. Regrettably, more than half of the contents of this fragile doc.u.ment from the second millennium bc have been lost because of the gross incompetence with which it was handled by scholars when it was transferred (in a biscuit tin) from the collection of the King of Sardinia to its present home in the Museum of Turin.[541] The remaining fragments, however, offer occasional tantalising glimpses of an astonishing chronology.
Of the greatest importance amongst these fragments is a badly damaged vertical register in which the names and reigns of ten Neteru or "G.o.ds" were originally given. Although in most cases the durations of these reigns are now illegible or completely broken away, it is possible to read the figure of 3126 years ascribed to the rule of the wisdom-G.o.d Thoth and the figure of 300 years ascribed to Horus, the last fully "divine" king of Egypt.[542] Immediately afterwards comes a second vertical register devoted to the "Followers of Horus"-the Shemsu Hor-the most prominent of that general cla.s.s of beings variously called "Ancestors", or "Sages" or "Ghosts" or "Spirits" whom the Egyptians remembered as having bridged the gap between the time of the G.o.ds and the time of Menes (the supposed first king of the first historical Dynasty circa 3000 bc).[543] Again much of the register is missing, but its last two lines, which seem to represent a summing-up, are of particular interest: "The Akhu, Shemsu Hor, 13,420 years; Reigns before the Shemsu Hor, 23,200 years; Total 36,620 years."[544]
The plural word "Akhu" is normally translated as "Venerables".[545] Yet, as we hinted at the end of the last chapter, a close examination of the full range of meanings that the ancient Egyptians attached to it suggests that another and far more intriguing possibility exists-one that is concealed by so generalized an epithet. To be specific, the hieroglyphs for Akhu can also mean "Transfigured Beings", "Shining Ones", "Shining Beings" or "Astral Spirits"-understandably identified by some linguists with the stars.[546] And there are other shades of meaning, too, that cry out to be taken into account. For example in Sir E. A. Wallis Budge"s authoritative Hieroglyphic Dictionary the following additional definitions are provided for Akhu: "to be bright", "to be excellent", or "to be wise" and "instructed".[547] And Budge further informs us that the word was frequently a.s.sociated with "those who recite formulae".[548]
Such data, we suggest, calls for a rethink of the t.i.tle "Venerables" as applied to the "Followers of Horus" in the Turin Papyrus.[549] Rather than merely being "venerable", is it not possible that what was meant to be conveyed by the word Akhu in this context was a picture of vastly enlightened and learned people, apparently with some connection to or interest in the stars-in short an elite of highly initiated astronomer-philosophers?
In support of this notion is the fact that the "Followers of Horus" were frequently linked in the ancient texts to another equally enlightened and "shining" cla.s.s of ancestral beings called the "Souls of Pe" and the "Souls of Nekhen".[550] Now Pe and Nekhen were actual geographical locations in Egypt-the former in the north and the latter in the south.[551] Interestingly enough, however, as Professor Henri Frankfort has confirmed, the "Souls" of both these places were also frequently grouped collectively under yet another t.i.tle, the "Souls of Heliopolis",[552] who were said "to a.s.sist the King"s ascent to heaven, a function commonly performed by the Souls of Nekhen and Pe ... A relief depicting this function shows the Souls of Pe and Nekhen in the act, while the text calls them the "Souls of Heliopolis"."[553]
It is generally accepted that the term "Soul"-Ba-as used by the ancient Egyptians had stellar attributes connected to the notion of eternal life in the Duat to which all the historical Pharaohs aspired. Moreover, as Frankfort rightly points out, the Pyramid Texts do indeed define the dominant role of the "Souls" of Pe and Nekhen-and thus the "Souls" of Heliopolis-as being to ensure that when a Pharaoh died he would be "equipped" to ascend to the sky and find his way into the cosmic Kingdom of Osiris.[554] This in turn coincides with what we know of the Sages of Edfu and the "Followers of Horus", both of whom, as we have seen, may be identified with a single and originally Heliopolitan "brotherhood" of temple-makers whose function was to prepare and initiate the generations of the Horus-Kings in order to bring about the "resurrection" of what was remembered as "the former world of the G.o.ds".[555]
Legacy
The notion that some form of invisible college could have established itself at Heliopolis thousands of years before the Pharaohs, and could have been the initiating force behind the creation and unfolding of ancient Egyptian civilization, helps to explain one of the greatest mysteries confronted by Egyptology-namely the extremely sudden, indeed dramatic, manner in which Pharaonic culture "took off" in the early third millennium bc. The independent researcher John Anthony West, whose breakthrough work on the geology of the Sphinx we reported in Part I, formulates the problem especially well: Every aspect of Egyptian knowledge seems to have been complete at the very beginning. The sciences, artistic and architectural techniques and the hieroglyphic system show virtually no signs of a period of "development"; indeed, many of the achievements of the earliest dynasties were never surpa.s.sed or even equalled later on. This astonishing fact is readily admitted by orthodox Egyptologists, but the magnitude of the mystery it poses is skilfully understated, while its many implications go unmentioned.
How does a complex civilization spring full-blown into being? Look at a 1905 automobile and compare it to a modern one. There is no mistaking the process of "development". But in Egypt there are no parallels. Everything is right there at the start.
The answer to the mystery is of course obvious, but because it is repellent to the prevailing cast of modern thinking, it is seldom seriously considered. Egyptian civilization was not a "development", it was a legacy.[556]
Might not the preservers of that legacy, who eventually bequeathed it to the Pharaohs at the beginning of the Dynastic Period, have been those revered and secretive individuals-the "Followers of Horus", the Sages, the Senior Ones-whose memory haunts the most archaic traditions of Egypt like a persistent ghost?
G.o.ds and heroes
In addition to the Turin Papyrus other chronological records support the notion of an immensely ancient "academy" at work behind the scenes in Egypt. Amongst these, the most influential were compiled, as we saw earlier, by Manetho (literally, "Truth of Thoth"), who lived in the third century bc and who "rose to be high priest in the temple at Heliopolis".[557] There he wrote his now lost History of Egypt which later commentators tell us was divided up into three volumes dealing, respectively, with "the G.o.ds, the DemiG.o.ds, the Spirits of the Dead and the mortal Kings who ruled Egypt".[558]
The "G.o.ds" it seems, ruled for 13,900 years. After them "the DemiG.o.ds and Spirits of the Dead"-epithets for the "Followers of Horus"-ruled for a further 11,025 years.[559] Then began the reign of the mortal kings, which Manetho divided into the thirty-one dynasties still used and accepted by scholars today.
Other fragments from Manetho"s History also suggest that important and powerful beings were present in Egypt long before the dawn of its historical period under the rule of Menes. For example Fragment 3, preserved in the works of George Syncellus, speaks of "six dynasties or six G.o.ds who ... reigned for 11,985 years".[560] And in a number of sources Manetho is said to have given the figure of 36,525 years for the entire duration of the civilization of Egypt from the time of the G.o.ds down to the end of the last dynasty of mortal kings.[561]
A rather different total of around 23,000 years has been handed down to us by the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus who visited Egypt in the first century bc and spoke there with priests and chroniclers. According to the stories he was told: "At first G.o.ds and Heroes ruled Egypt for a little less than 18,000 years ... Mortals have been kings of their country, they say, for a little less than 5000 years."[562]
Time bridge
An overview of all the available chronologies in context of other related doc.u.ments such as the Pyramid Texts and the Edfu Building Texts leaves two distinct impressions. Despite the conflicts and confusions over the precise numbers of years involved, and despite the endless proliferation of names and t.i.tles and honorifics and epithets: It is clear that the ancient Egyptians thought in terms of very long periods of time and would never have accepted the Egyptological view that their civilization "began" with the First Dynasty of Pharaohs.
It is clear that they were aware of an "influence" at work in their history-a continuous, unbroken influence that had extended over many thousands of years and that was wielded by an elite group of divine and semi-divine beings, often a.s.sociated with leonine symbolism, who were called variously "G.o.ds and Heroes", the "Spirits of the Dead", the "Souls", the "Sages", the "Shining Ones", the "Ancestors", the "Ancestor-G.o.ds of the Circle of the Sky", the "Followers of Horus", etc., etc.
It is clear, in other words, that the ancient Egyptians envisaged a kind of "time bridge", linking the world of men to the world of the G.o.ds, today to yesterday and "now" to the "First Time". It is clear, too that responsibility for maintaining this "bridge" was attributed to the "Followers of Horus" (by this and many other names). And it is clear that the "Followers" were remembered as having carried down intact the traditions and secrets of the G.o.ds-always preserving them, permitting not a single change-until finally sharing them with the first dynasties of Egypt"s mortal kings.
55. It is clear that the ancient Egyptians were aware of an "influence" at work in their history-a continuous, unbroken influence that extended over many thousands of years and that was wielded by an elite group of divine and semi-divine beings.
Following the vernal point
The etymology of the ancient Egyptian term Shemsu Hor, "Followers of Horus", was studied by the Alsatian scholar R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz who concluded: "The term Shemsu Hor ... literally means ... "those who follow the path of Horus", that is, the "Horian way", also called the solar way ... These Followers of Horus bear with them a knowledge of "divine origin" and unify the country with it ..."[563]
The "solar way" or "path of Horus" is, of course, the ecliptic-that imaginary way or path in the sky on which the sun appears to travel through the twelve signs of the zodiac. As we saw in earlier chapters, the direction of the sun"s "journey" during the course of the solar year is Aquariusa Piscesa Ariesa Taurusa Geminia Cancera Leo, etc., etc. The reader will recall, however, that there is also another, more ponderous motion, the precession of the earth"s axis, which gradually rotates the "ruling" constellation against the background of which the sun is seen to rise at dawn on the vernal equinox. This great cycle, or "Great Year", takes 25,920 solar years to complete, with the vernal point spending 2,160 years in each of the twelve zodiacal constellations. The direction of motion is Leoa Cancera Geminia Taurusa Ariesa Piscesa Aquarius, etc., etc., i.e. the reverse of the route pursued by the sun during the course of the solar year.
We suggest that the "Followers of Horus" followed-in a very precise, astronomical sense-not only the annual path of the sun, eastwards through the zodiac, but also, for thousands of years, the vernal point"s relentless precessional drift westwards through the same twelve constellations. We also suggest that this shadowy brotherhood, whose members were said to have carried the "knowledge of divine origin" (which they would later use to "unify the country"), may have interrelated on an extremely selective basis with the more primitive inhabitants of the Nile Valley in the prehistoric and Predynastic periods, interbreeding with chosen women and recruiting new generations from amongst the brightest and the best of their offspring-but leaving little or no trace of their presence in the archaeological record. We suggest, too, that around the beginning of the third millennium bc something happened in the cosmic order of the night sky-something long preordained and expected by their astronomers-that caused the "Followers" to launch their grand attempt to initiate and "unify" the historical civilization of Egypt. Last but not least, we suggest that whoever they really may have been, it was the "Followers"-the Sages, the Builder G.o.ds-who provided this nascent civilization with the injection of advanced technical knowledge, engineering, architectural and organizing skills necessary for the completion of the vast celestial "temple" that we know today as the Giza necropolis ...
In the next chapters we will test some of these hypotheses.
Chapter 14.
s.p.a.ce-Time Co-ordinates "The mind has lost its cutting edge, we hardly understand the ancients."
Gregoire de Tours, sixth century ad In astronomical terms the "vernal point" is the "address" that the sun occupies on the spring equinox-its particular position on that particular day against the background of the zodiacal constellations that encircle the ecliptic (i.e. the perceived "path" of the sun). As a result of a cosmic coincidence these twelve prominent constellations are distributed in the heavens in the plane of the ecliptic (i.e. in the plane of the earth"s...o...b..t around the sun) and, furthermore, are s.p.a.ced out more or less evenly around it. The vernal point, however, is not fixed. Because of the phenomenon of precession, as we have seen in earlier chapters, it gradually sweeps around the whole "dial" of the zodiac at a precise and predictable rate.
Between 3000 bc and 2500 bc, the epoch in which Egypt appears to have received the sudden spark of genius that initiated the most brilliant achievements of the Pyramid Age, the vernal point was stationed on the immediate right (i.e. "west") bank of the Milky Way, drifting almost imperceptibly slowly past the small group of stars, known as the Hyades, which form the head of Taurus[564]-the Bull of the Sky.
What this means is that the vernal point had arrived in that region of the sky dominated by the adjacent constellations of Taurus and Orion, and particularly by the three stars of Orion"s belt. Moreover, as we have seen in Part I, the three great Pyramids of Giza-which stand on the west bank of the Nile-were designed to serve as terrestrial models, or "doubles" of those three stars.
Now here is the interesting thing. If we regard the Giza Pyramids (in relation to the Nile) as part of a scaled-down "map" of the right bank of the Milky Way, then we would need to extend that "map" some 20 miles to the south in order to arrive at the point on the ground where the Hyades-Taurus should be represented. How likely is it to be an accident that two enormous Pyramids-the so-called "Bent" and "Red" Pyramids of Dahshur-are found at this spot? And how likely is it to be an accident, as was demonstrated in The Orion Mystery, that the site plan of these monuments, i.e. their pattern on the ground, correlates very precisely with the pattern in the sky of the two most prominent stars in the Hyades?[565]
We suggest none of this is accidental, that the "celestial signal" which "sparked off the incredible Pyramid-building programme of Egypt"s Fourth Dynasty was provided by the precessional drift of the vernal point into the Hyades-Taurus region, and that the "Hyades Pyramids" of Dahshur were therefore naturally built first.
Such a theory provides a motive for the vast enterprise of Fourth-Dynasty Pyramid construction (involving some 25 million tons of stone blocks-more than 75 per cent of all the stone that was quarried and shaped into Pyramids during the Pyramid Age).[566] In addition, it accords fully with archaeological evidence which suggests that the two superb Pyramids at Dahshur were built by Sneferu (2572-2551 bc), the founder of the Fourth Dynasty and the father of Khufu. In other words the Bent and the Red Pyramids were indeed built before any of the great Pyramids of Giza[567]-which is exactly what one would expect if the drift of the vernal point into the Hyades-Taurus was the trigger that set the whole enterprise in motion.
And there is something else.
Journey in time
The Hyades-Taurus region, together with its terrestrial a.n.a.logue, is identified in the Pyramid Texts as the starting point for the Horus-King"s "quest"-i.e. that great dualistic journey, enacted both in the sky and on the ground, that we described in Part III. As the reader will recall, the texts specifically and unambiguously instruct Horus in his solar form, i.e. the sun"s disc, to position himself at this starting point and thence to "go to Horakhti", i.e. to voyage eastwards towards the constellation of Leo. And we have seen how the sun actually does this, sailing along the ecliptic path during the solar year in the direction Taurusa Geminia Cancera Leo.
This order of the constellations therefore appears to define "forward" movement in time and, at one level, the identifiable astronomical events described in the texts do indeed unfold in the "normal" forward direction of the solar year (after being stationed near Taurus, and then crossing the Milky Way, the sun reaches Leo later in the year-i.e. later in time). Moreover this same "normal" forward motion also appears to be mirrored in the ritual performed by the Horus-King on the ground: i.e. after crossing the river Nile it is inevitable that the initiate will arrive at the breast of the Great Sphinx somewhat later in time.
But in the Pyramid Texts, and in the arrangement of the Giza monuments-as in so much else that has come down to us from ancient Egypt-everything may not be quite what it seems. An awareness of the effects of precession on the part of the "Followers of Horus" (and the later priests of Heliopolis) would have included an intense focus on the stellar background at the vernal equinox and an understanding that the sun"s "journey" towards Horakhti-Leo, as calibrated at this "governing moment " of the year, would by definition have been a journey backwards in time through a succession of "world-ages"-i.e. from the Age of Taurus, circa 3000 bc (when the sun on the vernal equinox rose against the stellar background of the constellation of Taurus) to the Age of Leo, circa 10,500 bc, when the sun on the vernal equinox rose against the background of the celestial lion.
So when we read in the Pyramid Texts that the "Followers of Horus" are urging the Horus-King to travel from Taurus to Leo it is possible that they may have had in mind something rather complex and clever. It is possible, in other words, that as well as offering the sun"s annual path through the constellations as a kind of "treasure trail" for the initiate to follow on his way to the breast of the Sphinx, they may also have offered him knowledge of its slow reverse motion at the vernal equinox-perhaps as his cue to embark on a different kind of journey, against the flow of precession and back to the "First Time".
This is more than speculation. As we saw at the end of Part III, the Horus-King"s journey to the breast of the Sphinx was undertaken at the summer solstice during the Pyramid Age (because in that epoch it was at the summer solstice that the great conjunction of the sun with Horakhti-Leo occurred). We also saw, however, that the initiate who had correctly followed the "treasure trail" set out in the texts, and who had reached the Sphinx in the pre-dawn on the summer solstice, would immediately have become aware of a curious "dislocation" between sky and ground. He would have noticed, in particular, that the Sphinx gazed due east but that his celestial counterpart-Horakhti-Leo-was rising at a point on the horizon located some 28 degrees north of due east. He would also have noticed that the three great Pyramids of Giza precisely straddled the meridian but that their terrestrial counterparts, the three stars of Orion"s belt, hung low in the south-eastern portion of the pre-dawn sky, far to the left of the meridian.
Given the profoundly astronomical character of his religious frame of reference he might well have felt a numinous urge to "put sky and ground together again"-i.e., so to arrange matters that the Sphinx would be gazing directly at Leo in the pre-dawn, whilst, at the same moment, the three stars of Orion"s belt would straddle the meridian in the precise pattern "specified" by the meridional layout of the Pyramids. If that could somehow be brought about then the monuments would truly represent "an image of heaven"[568]-as the old Hermetic doctrines teach-and the land of Egypt "which once was holy, a land which loved the G.o.ds and wherein alone the G.o.ds deigned to sojourn on earth", might once again become, as it was before, "the teacher of Mankind".[569]
But how could the Horus-King hope to unite sky and ground?
The only way would be if he were equipped to use precession-presumably just as an intellectual tool-to travel backwards in time.
For as the reader will recall there was a time when a unique celestial conjunction involving the moment of sunrise, the constellation of Leo, and the meridian-transit of the three stars of Orion"s belt, did indeed occur. That time, of course, was near the beginning of the Age of Leo, at around 10,500 bc,[570] some 8000 years prior to the Pyramid Age.