8 and 9. Two forms of sceptre or bent staff=au, uat, _also_ aam.

[Illustration.]

Figure 66.

Besides these signs, well known as sacred symbols, we find that the

following names also contain the sacred title Ua: uatet=greenstone,

emerald, aut=quadrupeds, au=heir, also dog, maau=rays of light, mau=lion,

also cat. The reason why certain quadrupeds, and particularly the cow,

lion, and the cat, should have become sacred animals in Egypt, seems to be

satisfactorily explained by the fact that each constituted a rebus and

could therefore be employed as an “image” of the One god. It is obvious

that locality would necessarily influence the choice of the sacred animal

and that while one city might adopt the cow, another would be obliged to

adopt the cat, etc, as the living rebus. The adoption of “the heir,” or

first-born of the sacramental union of king and queen, as the living image

of the deity, throws an unexpected light on the reason why members of the

royal line were treated with divine honors. While persons, animals and

objects whose names contained the divine Ua=one, would thus be chosen,

others containing the word Ra=god, would also be adopted.

_Ra=god._

Of these I have already pointed out the uræus=ara, the eye=ari, face=hra

and egg=ar, also se or sa and suht. To these may also be added the date

palm or dates=ben-ra; grain=nepra; the vine=aarer and grapes=aarer, each

of which is to be found associated with sacred symbolism.

The veneration accorded in different localities to the pig=re-ra and the

horse, may thus be accounted for, especially as the name for the latter,

het-ra, consists of het=light or fair, and ra=god, and the horse is

actually found associated with the light-gods of antiquity and with

so-called solar symbols and the swastika.

Food for reflection is afforded by the Egyptian name for mirror, which

literally signifies to see, or the seer=maa, of the face=hra, but which

furnishes, as a rebus, the word maat=law, which is usually expressed by

the feather=mat, connected with hra=_i. e._ ra=god (fig. 66, 10). The

employment of the mirror as an image of the god of law would thus

naturally have been suggested by its name. The presence of the eye=ari

(_cf._ ra) in the centre of a mirror which is being worshipped, also

suggests that in ancient Egypt the mirror was employed in the temple to

hold the reflection of Polaris=Amen-Ra, “the untiring watcher, the lord of

eternity and the maker of law” (see fig. 66, 11). It is obvious that the

habitual employment, by the astronomer priests, of a mirror so placed in

the sanctuary as to catch the reflection of the pole-star through an open

doorway, would lead to the discovery of the movements of the sun and the

positions it assumes during the year. The flashing of a beam of sunlight

once a year, at the period of the summer solstice, upon the mirror which

constantly reflected the pole-star, would naturally suggest the idea of

“the union of the day-sun with the night-sun” and seem particularly

impressive as it was at this period that the Nile began to rise. In

dealing with the religious festivals held at this period more will be said

on this subject.

The word maat=law, besides being expressed by the feather=mat, could also

have been indicated to those initiated in the mysteries of hieratic

rebus-writing, by the lion=ma hes; the antelope=ma-het, which also

contains the sacred attribute light=het, the synonym of khu, thus

expresses the idea of the “light of the law.” The musical instrument named

mat may also have originally been, like the tam sceptre, a symbol of

lawful power and conveyed an allusion to meht or maht=north. To this

series the word am should be added, signifying child, tree and boat, each

of which has already been treated of in connection with pole-star

symbolism and Amen-Ra (fig. 63, 20-22).

_Duality=ka=double; and the Middle=ak._

The name for bull=ka (fig. 67, 1) incorporates, as has already been shown,

not only duality and middle, but also, through its other names, the idea

of oneness and of power. This appears to explain clearly why the bull was

chosen as the image or rebus of Polaris and Ursa Major, which appear to

have been regarded as a single combination of stars. The fact that in the

hymns Amen-Ra is addressed as “the bull,” constitutes a convincing

corroboration of the identification of the “hidden god” with Polaris. A

line of connection seems, moreover, to exist between the Egyptian kabal

sami=the middle of heaven, the image of a bull in the centre of the

zodiacs, and the bull of Assyria, under which image Baal was worshipped.

Hieratic signs, expressing the word for middle and double appear to have

been: the mummy which, although named sah or tut, also signified

khat=corpse (2) and conveyed an allusion to mit=death, the homonym of

met=north.

A certain form of fish expressed the syllable kha (3). A cone-shaped

object named khaker appears to have served as a rebus for the middle and

double as well as night=ker and time=rek (4). In pl. VII, 12, the khaker

figures behind the seated image of a deity with the head of a ram=ser or

sar, holding the ankh in his hand, the whole forming a rebus for Ansar,

and containing much meaning besides.

Kha-ut (fig. 67, 5) is the name for the sacrificial offering laid on the

utu=altar, which is shaped like the tau and symbolizes the above and below

by its perpendicular and horizontal lines. In the centre of this is the

bread=ta (the homonym of ta=earth, _cf._ neb-at=fire), which is remarkable

on account of its division into four parts analogous to that of nut=city,

a feature which justifies the inference that the word for cake=sen-nu made

with honey=bat or net, is intended to be expressed here. A jar stands at

each side of the cake, which is placed on edge so as to exhibit the sacred

design upon it. It is significant that, if the jars contained wine=arp,

milk=art, the name of the liquid constituted an anagram of ra, if

perfume=anta was present, this furnished the syllables an and ta=earth. It

is, of course, impossible to surmise how far such resemblances of sounds

influenced the choice of sacred offerings.

[Illustration.]

Figure 67.

The kha (fig. 67, 6)=crown is particularly interesting as Amen-Ra is

addressed as “crowned form,” the lord of the ureret crown, ... beautiful

of tiara, exalted of the white crown ... on whose brow the double crown of

Upper and Lower Egypt is established. It appears, therefore, evident that

the crown=kha was but another mode of expressing ka=double. At the same

time it likewise conveyed the idea of ak=the centre and the act of

crowning a sovereign appears as vested with deep symbolical meaning when

it is realized that, according to the primitive modes of thought I have

been tracing, by enclosing the head of the king in a circlet he was

constituted the hak, regent or central chief, the living image of Ra,

whose sign was the star or dot in the circle or ring.

Ka (duality) is commonly expressed by an uplifted pair of arms; a variant

being the whole figure of a man with raised arms (7 and 8). The fact that

the name for phallus was also ka, explains its employment as a sacred

symbol, recorded by Herodotus, which proves to what extremes the ancient

rebus-writers went in their naïve invention and multiplication of secret

signs and modes of expressing the names and attributes of their “hidden

god.” The hatred and disgust conceived by the great reformer Amenophis IV,

against all that pertained to the cult of Amen-Ra, his destruction of all

images devised by the priesthood and adoption of a pure image of the

supreme divinity of a plain disk or circle, with rays terminating in

hands, are readily understood in connection with the above.

Returning to our list of akh words: the akh or centre is figured by a man

between two signs for heaven=pet, supporting the upper heaven with both

hands; the idea ka=double or dual, being simultaneously expressed (9).

The hawk=bak (10) constitutes so perfect a rebus or anagram of middle=ak

and kabal, as well as for khab=star, that the reason why the hawk was

chosen as an image or form of Amen-Ra is as reasonably accounted for as

the choice of the bull. Before supporting this assertion by a series of

convincing proofs, the following list must be studied:

_An=he who turns himself around (__i. e.__ who performs a circuit=the

circuiteer) and ankh=life._

In the “First steps in Egyptian” I find the word “an” expressed by (fig.

68, 1) a man in the act of turning around, resembling the position of the

male deity in the boat, already discussed and represented in the

astronomical texts (fig. 68, 2) by an eye, the form of which differs from

that of the eye=ari; (3) by a fish, also different in form from the

fish=kha, and particularly interesting if compared to the fish khepanen,

figured in the kheper series, which constitutes a rebus combining the

titles khepera=creator and an=the circuiteer; (4) by a stone=aner, also by

hair=anem; (5) by two arms spread outwards, recalling the position of the

front legs of quadrupeds; (6) by a spear whose shaft is inserted in a

double stand; which sign recurs in the name of the city Annu, expressed by

the an=spear, the vase=nu and the nut determinative for city or capital

(7). It is extremely interesting to compare, at this point, the Greek

polus=a pole or axis, and polis=city or capital, and to realize that, in

Egypt and Greece alike, the names for capital are associated with the idea

of centrifugal power and rule.

The signification of all the above “an” signs becomes intensified when it

is realized that they conveyed also the first two letters of the word

ankh=life, which was usually expressed by the familiar symbol expressing

the union of the dualities of nature (8).

[Illustration.]

Figure 68.

Amongst the many surprises received during the course of this

investigation, few have given me as much satisfaction and light, as the

observation of the fact that the Egyptian name for flower, ankh (9), was

the same as that for “life.” The full significance of the lotus blossom as

a symbol became clear to me, and my attention having been called by a

friend to Mr. William H. Goodyear’s admirable work “The Grammar of the

Lotus,” London, 1891, I was able to obtain from it the series of Egyptian

symbols which I now present and shall proceed to interpret according to

the method set forth in the preceding pages. The interesting observation

was by Mr. Goodyear that “the ankh was the exact counterpart of the lotus

as regards solar association” and in his work, on pl. LXV and elsewhere,

this close observer publishes several instances illustrating this view. Of

these I reproduce but two, which suffice, feeling convinced that Mr.

Goodyear will be as interested as I was to hear that the ankh and lotus

were homonyms of ankh=life. This fact of itself fully explains why the

lotus flower was employed by the ancient Egyptians, as Mr. Goodyear

states, as the “symbol of life, immortality and of renaissance and

resurrection and of fecundity.”

[Illustration.]

Figure 69.

In fig. 69, 1, two (ka) fishes (khepanen or an) hold the lotus, ankh, and

thus constitute a sacred rebus, the profound meaning of which can be

surmised by studying the preceding pages. In 2, one (ua) fish holds the

ankh instead of the lotus. Both signs obviously express precisely the same

meaning with the difference that, in one case duality is expressed by two

fishes, and in the other by the ankh symbol which emblematizes the union

of nature’s dualities.

Fig. 69, 3, shows the bull, carrying the circle of Ra between its horns

and wearing the ankh symbol hanging from its neck. The lotus replaces this

in 4, where the circle is missing and one bull (ua en ka) expresses the

mystic sacred words ua=One and ka=double or “the divine Twain.” It is

evident that it is only when it is assumed that pole-star worship

constituted the basis of the natural religion of the ancient Egyptians

that their sacred symbols become intelligible.

Though a novice in Egyptology and with extremely limited works of

reference at hand, which facts will, I trust, excuse faults and omissions,

I perceive so much that is clear and simple in the following series of

Egyptian sacred symbols, culled from Mr. Goodyear’s work, that I am

tempted to submit my interpretation of their meaning, thereby putting my

view and method to a crucial test.

In pl. VII, 2, we have an interesting group uniting the boat, the meaning

of which has been discussed, a seated figure on a square pedestal, a

column, the upper portion of which is separate and simulates the bowl or

cup=au, the dot and circle, the sign of Amen-Ra, and a single flower. As a

rebus, some of the words expressed are am, uaa or makhen=boat, tet=column,

Ra=dot and circle, also seated figure, determinative of god=Ra, and ua en

ankh=one flower. While the rebus supplies the words ua=one,

uahi=permanent, ra=god, an=the circuiteer, ankh=life, tet=eternal, it is

only when identified as pole-star symbolism that the group becomes

comprehensible.

Pointing out that, in the above, we have a clear case of the flower in

association with the Ra sign and other symbols which have been discussed

as pole-star signs, let us next examine 1, 3, 4, 6 and 8, in each of which

one blossom=ua en ankh, constitutes the emblem for the sacred Middle, and

openly conveys the idea of the verb an, to perform a circuit and

ankh=life.

The fact that, in 6, the flower consists of five petals, on four of which

the genii of the four quarters stand, sufficiently proves that the flower,

like the five-dot group, constituted a symbol of the four quarters and

centre, the latter being figured as a pyramid-shaped petal. Interesting

variants of this group are 5, with the four genii standing on seven of the

nine petals of the flower, which is placed between two buds, the idea of

centrality being thus conveyed; and 7 where an inverted triangle replaces

the flower and reveals some of the deeper meaning attached to this symbol.

In 1 and 3 the flower is surmounted by the hawk crowned with the Ra sign

which, as has already been stated, symbolizes circuition around a central

point of fixity. The names for hawk=hak (_cf._ ak and cabal=middle, also

hak=king) and her or hur (_cf._ hru=upper, the above, and ur=four=Horus)

reveal its appropriate use as rebus and symbol of the central “sun” god.

In 8, instead of the Ra sign, the hawk wears the peculiar double diadem

with a circle at its base, which is the particular attribute of the images

of the ram-headed god Amon who is represented in no. 12, holding the ankh

sign and accompanied by the kheper sign, composed of a circle, surmounted

by a cone and supported by a pedestal. It is well known that the ram=ser,

sart or sar, was the form under which the supreme divinity was worshipped

at Thebes, the real metropolis of the whole land of Egypt, during many

centuries.(113) The name Amon, also given as Ammon, Amoun, Hammon,

resembles Amen closely enough to justify the identification of Amon as a

form of Amen-Ra, the concealed god.

[Illustration.]

Plate VII.

In this connection it is noteworthy that the ram=sar or sart conveys the

same sound as the goose=sar or sa, the employment of which, as a pole-star

symbol, will be discussed further on, and that the king of Egypt was

termed “the living ram (of Amon) on earth” and “the engendering ram.” From

Mr. J. P. Mahaffy we learn that, under the Ptolemaic rule, “it seems

likely that among the strict prescriptions for all the solemn acts of the

king, it was directed that he should assume the insignia of the god Amon,

his ram’s horns, fleece, etc, when visiting the queen” (History of Egypt,

London, 1899).

Under the Ptolemaic dynasty, the identification of Amon with Amen-Ra

receives support from the magnificent monumental votive ram, preserved at

the Berlin Museum, which was dedicated by king Amenophis III, which bears

on his head, the disk with the uræus serpent, the familiar sign of the

“hidden god.”(114)

While the diadem of Amen-Ra sufficiently identifies the hawk on the lotus

as a form of the “hidden god,” the following extracts from Mr. Goodyear’s

work will be found to confirm this and throw further light on the subject.

“The hawk represented Ra, Horus and all solar gods....” A text at Denderah

says: “The sun which was from the beginning rises (_i. e._ comes forth,

appears, see Brugsch for meaning of Egyptian equivalent) like a hawk from

the midst of its lotus bud....” At Denderah the king makes offering of the

lotus to the sun-god Horus with the words: “I offer thee the flower which

was in the beginning the glorious lily of the great water....” In the boat

of the dead the soul says, “I am a pure lotus (_i. e._ life) issue of the

field of the sun.”

The circumstance that, in 4, the flower is surmounted by a goose, one name

for which being aq=ak, shows that, like the hawk, bak, it may well have

served as a rebus for ak=the middle. An instance of the direct association

of the sacred goose with the four quarters is given in the bas-relief at

Medinet-Abu, described by Brugsch (_op. cit._ II, p. 297). This represents

“Ramses III ... offering sacrifice to the god ‘Khimti,’ _i. e._ Pan of

Panopolis, the Theban form of which was Amon Generator.... A white bull

(the symbol of Pan) and four geese, which are represented as flying

towards the cardinal points, constitute the sacrifice.”

The striking association of the goose with the bull=Apis, the astronomical

symbolism of which has been shown, gains in significance when it is

realized that another name for goose is apt and that this also constitutes

an anagram of pta=ptah, one form of Amen-Ra. It is a curious fact that the

third name for goose, se or sa, combined with ankh=flower, as in pl. VII,

4, furnishes the word ankh-sa, which recalls the word An-sah obtained by

the mummy and serpent rebus and the name of the god of Assyria, Anshar.

In connection with the above Egyptian rebus, expressing the syllables ankh

and sa, it surprised me, to find that the Sanscrit name for goose is

hangsa, while in ancient Hindu it is hamsa and in modern Hindu hanassa. It

is well known that in Hindu mythology the goose was “the bird of Brahma,”

the “supreme one who alone exists really and absolutely,” that the birth

of Brahma from the lotus is frequently represented in Hindu religious art,

and that the lotus is the attribute of the “sun-god” Surya, termed the

“lord of the lotus, father, friend and king.” What is more, the goose,

associated with “solar” symbolism, _i. e._ with the circle and central

dot, with the swastika, four-petalled flower and the wheel, occurs on the

oldest monuments of Greek art; on the prehistoric bronzes and pottery of

Italy (where the sacred geese were kept on the Capitoline at Rome); on the

bronzes of Hallstatt, of ancient Gaul and of prehistoric Sweden. Pointing

out that we thus obtain a whole chain of associations which link the

syllables am and an to deities and pole-star symbolism, I next present,

for reference, the names for the bird given in Webster’s dictionary.

Sanscrit, hangsa; Latin, anser, for hanser; German, gans (in Germany,

according to Pliny, the small, white geese were called ganzoe al. gantoe

lib. X, 22); Greek, khen; Danish, gaas; Swedish, gos; Welsh, gwydd;

Anglo-Saxon, gos; Irish, geadh; Icelandic, gas; Slavonic, gusj and gonsj.

Noting that in the Sanscrit, Latin, Greek and German alike, the syllable

an or en is present in the name for goose, I return to the Egyptian

symbols which express the words an and ankh, and, bearing the “birth of

Brahma from a lotus” in mind, refer again to the Egyptian title Neb-ankh,

“lord of life,” which, as I point out, also signified “the lord of the

lotus flower.” Let us now briefly examine some Egyptian texts relating to

pl. V, 12 and 15, which represent the boat (am and its synonyms) and the

flower=ankh, associated with the boy and the serpent.

In an astronomical text from Edfu, published by Brugsch, New Year’s day is

mentioned in connection with the “coming forth of the great lotus blossom

in the form of a bud in its symbolical interpretation as the god ahi

(literally, boy).... The count of his rulership begins from the first day

of his rising or birth....” In another text it is said: “New Year’s day,

the sun (Ra) comes forth from a lotus flower in the great sea,” and there

are numerous allusions in other inscriptions to “the lotus blossom in the

great waters, from which the sun-child arises in radiance towards heaven.”

The text accompanying (pl. V, 15), where a serpent rises from the lotus in

the boat, states “the sun, uniter of the world, in Tentyra”=the New Year.

In another inscription it is said: “thou risest like the sacred serpent,

as a living spirit, in thy glorious form in the bark of the sunrise;” and

this passage forms an interesting parallel to that already cited where the

sun is said to rise “like a hawk from the midst of its lotus bud.” Pl.

VII, 14, exhibits a nine-petalled lotus growing from a pedestal and a head

issuing from it. As the name for head tep (also tap or tpa, and apt _cf._

pta), signifies chief, or beginning, we must accept this as another

variant of the previous signs.

Deferring the discussion of the so-called “birth” and cult of the diurnal

sun, as one form of Amen-Ra, let us now rapidly survey the following

figures copied from Mr. Goodyear’s work.

Pl. VII, 9. A circle encloses a group consisting of the five-petalled

lotus between two buds and the hawk-headed sphinx, which has already been

met with in the astronomical texts and, according to Egyptologists,

represents Horus, the sun, “who lights the world with two eyes” and is

addressed as “a powerful lion,” “the master of double force.”(115) I need

scarcely recall here that the combination of a bird and quadruped would

naturally symbolize air and earth, the Above and Below and that the

hawk-headed sphinx, seated on four petals, clearly expresses the idea of

the “lord of Heaven and Earth, the father and mother of all, the ruler of

the Four Quarters and lord of the circle.”

Pl. VII, 10. The plain circle or disk, supported by two uplifted arms=ka,

arising from (akh) the ankh sign, is another ingenious mode of expressing

the idea of the Middle, the circle, duality and life.

No. 13 constitutes as charming and ingenious a play upon the word

ankh=life as can be imagined, and a close examination reveals its subtle,

hidden and deep significance. It exhibits, in the first case, the ankh

sign combined with the flower=ankh, which might, at a first glance, be

taken as an example of purely decorative art. But the ever-present thought

of the duality of nature manifests itself in the arrangement of the two

flowers towards each other and enclosed in the open ring of the ankh sign,

and it is evident that the artist took pains to draw the central petal of

the lower blossom in the form of a triangle, below which an oblong square

and a square may be distinguished.

After the foregoing attempt to show how, even with my rudimentary and

limited knowledge of their language, the sacred symbols of the Egyptians

become intelligible and full of significance when studied as examples of

pole-star symbolism and primitive rebus writing, I draw attention to the

limited number of syllables employed in the astronomical texts; to the

ingenuity displayed in expressing the same sound over and over again by

means of different words possessing the same sound and to the fact I shall

hereafter set forth, that the syllables and rebus-figures employed are

found indissolubly linked to pole-star and sacred symbolism. Referring a

demonstration of these conclusions to the end of the present

investigation, I shall next discuss the forms which the cult of the

dualities of nature seemingly assumed in ancient Egypt.

As an introduction I present in fig. 70, the copy of the upper portion of

a funeral stela preserved at Bûlâk and published by Perrot and Chipiez

(Ægypten, Leipzig, 1884). It exhibits the head or face of Hathor

surmounting the tet column and supporting, in turn, the image of a small

house or temple, at each side of which is a peculiar projection recalling

the circinate line issuing from the red crown of lower Egypt (see fig. 70,

9, 10). In another Hathor stela, figured in the same work (pp. 510 and

780), the same characteristic circinate projections recur. The image of

the house, always represented with a single doorway, is obviously a rebus

of the name Hathor, explained by Egyptologists as Het-heru, literally “the

house of Horus.” “Athor or Hathor of Thebes, identified with Nut, the sky

... was the female power of nature and is often represented under the form

of a cow, ... as a woman with a cow’s head, with horns and the disk, or

wearing a head-dress in the shape of a vulture and above it the disk and

horns.” In the familiar representation of the mask of Hathor on columns,

the association with the cow is conveyed by large cow’s ears=setem,

projecting at each side of the face=hra.

A feature generally present in the miniature doorway of the house, is a

single erect head of a uræus, bearing the disk or circle on its head and

usually exhibiting a distinctly cross-shaped mark on its neck. The latter

peculiarity is clearly shown in fig. 70, 1, which exhibits moreover a

seated divinity at each side of the doorway, each bearing the throne or

seat (auset) on its head, and the ankh sign on its knee. Close examination

reveals that one of these deities is Ausar=Osiris, whose name is generally

written by means of the throne=auset, and the eye=ari, with or without the

determinative for god, _i. e._, the seated figure (fig. 70, 1 _a_ and 1

_b_). Opposite to Osiris is Auset=Isis, whose name is usually written as

in fig. 70, 1 _c_, where the auset, the egg=se, and the seated image of a

goddess bearing a bowl=neb, on her head, may be distinguished.

[Illustration.]

Figure 70.

An idea of the import of fig. 70, 1, seems gained when it is remembered

that in Egyptian the word house=pi, pir or per, was associated with the

title of ruler, the name Pharaoh being derived from per=āa=great house.

What is more, the word house=pir or pi, is used in astronomical texts,

like the Arabian beth, in relation to stars, it being said of a star that

“it ever comes forth from its house”=appears (Brugsch).

The permanent image of the disk and serpent, a form of the Ra sign, in the

doorway of the sculptured house, would thus convey the idea of the eternal

presence of Amen-Ra, the pole-star god. The accentuation of the cross

lines on the neck of the ara indicates, moreover, the intentional allusion

to four-fold and two-fold force, the latter being expressed by the eyes of

the serpent. The door=ptah, which is open, expresses the name Ptah=the

Opener, well known as that of the “father of the gods” and a form of

Amen-Ra.

The positions assigned to Osiris and Isis, at either side of the “hidden

god,” sufficiently shows that they were intended to represent separate

incorporations of the male and female principles which were united in

Amen-Ra, the “divine Twain.” The association of both deities with the

throne, the eternal seat of repose, identifies both alike with Polaris. A

monument in the Berlin Museum (no. 261) which was found in the temple of

Isis at Ben-naga, in Nubia, and was a votive offering made by the

Ethiopian king Netek-Amen and his consort Amen-Tari, contains the

following formula, translated by Lepsius, which associates Isis with

eternal enthronement. “Thou remainest, thou remainest, on thy great

throne, O Isis, queen of Au-ker, like the sun (Ra) that lives in the

horizon ... and thou lettest thy son Netek-Amen flourish on his

throne....”

The fact I am about to demonstrate, that the king and queen of Egypt were

the respective, “the living images” of Osiris and Isis, proves that, as in

ancient Peru and China, the sovereigns, who were at the same time high

priest and priestess, were considered as the sacred embodiments of the

dual principles of nature. As elsewhere also, a chain of associations

became attached to each of the dualities; but in Egypt, as may be clearly

discerned, during the lapse of centuries great transformations of thought

took place and alternately the male and female elements seem to have been

associated with the cults of heaven and earth, light and darkness, sun or

moon, morning or evening stars, the southeast and the northwest.

In the sacred writings the sun is usually termed “the right eye” and the

moon “the left eye” of Ra (_cf._ hra=the (divine) face). Brugsch points

out that, in certain inscriptions at Denderah translated by Mariette, “the

Sothis star of Hathor-Isis is designated as ‘the right eye of Ra’ while

the sun is termed the left eye.”

Brugsch states, moreover, that, according to Sextus Empiricus, “the

Egyptians compared the king to the ‘right eye’ or the sun; while the queen

was compared to the ‘left eye’ or the moon.” The two eyes, often with the

designation of “right” or “left,” constitute a favorite decoration on

funeral stelæ. In some instances the image of the solar disk, with one

wing and one serpent only, is figured as a substitute for the right eye

(_op. cit._ II, 436, see fig. 62, 6). The established fact that the eyes

of Ra were the equivalents of the uræi usually accompanying the circle of

Ra, the so-called “solar disk,” is further explained by the following

data.

It is well known that the two uræi on the royal diadem denote sovereignty

over Upper and Lower Egypt. In the bas-relief published by Brugsch, the

circle or Ra-sign is represented with two uræi, which respectively wear

the crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt (fig. 70, 7). The crowned uræi recur

in the emblems of Upper and Lower Egypt published by Mr. Goodyear, the

first accompanied by the lotus flower and the second by what Egyptologists

usually identify as the papyrus, but which appears to be the ripened pod

of the lotus (fig. 70, 9 and 10). While the two uræi thus emblematized the

two divisions of the land of Egypt they are found as distinctly associated

with Osiris and Isis, and their living images the king and queen, or the

high priest and high priestess of Amen-Ra. The Berlin Museum contains

several representations of Isis under the form of a serpent with a woman’s

head (see official catalogue, nos. 7740, 870 and 2529). Osiris is also

represented as a serpent with the head of a bearded man.

A small shrine in the form of a temple, and decorated with royal serpents,

is preserved at the Berlin Museum (catalogue no. 8164) and contains the

effigies of two uræi, one of which, to the left of the spectator, exhibits

the head of Isis, the second, to the right, the features of Osiris.

Between them stands the vase or bowl which was a constant feature of Isis

cult.

In connection with this monument it is interesting to examine an

inscription published by Brugsch (I, p. 108) in which occur two serpents

who are pouring liquid into a bowl placed between them and the divided

halves of the sky-sign (fig. 70, 8). The text connects this with the New

Year festival when the Nile began to rise “from its two sources” and the

“union of heaven and earth” took place, which will be discussed later. The

following temporary list briefly presents a summary of the preceding data

which is rendered more complete by the addition of the signs and emblems

of the festivals, when the “conjunction of sun and moon took place,”

figured by the picture of two persons united by their respective right and

left hands (fig. 70, 5) or by the tet column placed between two horns

(fig. 70, 4). As may be seen by numerous examples in Brugsch (vol. II),

the great Sed festival is figured by the image of the small sanctuary

which existed on the flat roof of the great temple at Denderah, and

resembled an open pavilion with four columns which is usually represented

as containing two seats placed back to back (fig. 70, 2, 3). A small

picture in Mr. Wallis Budge’s Nile exhibits the king and queen occupying

such a double throne, respectively, wearing the insignia and crowns of

Osiris and Isis and holding their sceptres, as in the representations of

the ceremony of laying the foundation of a temple, in their right and left

hands (fig. 70, 6). The résumé of the preceding material produces the

following list:

Right eye of Ra: Left eye of Ra.

Sun: Moon.

King: Queen.

Osiris: Isis.

High priest: High priestess.

Right hand sceptre: Left hand sceptre.

North: South.

Red crown: White crown.

The following data, gleaned from the valuable works of Prof. A. H. Sayce

and the serial History of Egypt, written by Prof. Flinders Petrie, J. P.

Mahaffy and J. G. Milne, furnish strong indications that, in the remotest

past, the two divisions of the land of Egypt were respectively governed by

a male and female sovereign; a proof that, before the time of Menes, the

ancient empire had become disintegrated, and undergone a long period of

intense strife and warfare. We learn from Professor Sayce of the

probability that “the city of Nek-hen was once the capital of the south

and that the vulture, the symbol of the south, was also the emblem of

Nekheb, the goddess of the great fortress, the ruins of which lie opposite

to Nekhen on the eastern bank of the Nile” (Sayce, _op. cit._ pp. 152,

191).

While the capital and the emblem of southern or Upper Egypt are thus

directly associated with a “goddess,” further data show us that the

ancient queens of Egypt were termed “god-women or goddesses.” When the New

Empire was founded (1600-1100 B.C.) with its capital at Thebes, King Ahmes

assumed the sovereignty of the whole of Egypt, but seems to have shared

supreme authority with his consort Ah-mes-nefretere=divine- or god-woman,

also termed “the high priestess of Amen.” From the honors accorded to her

and to her son Amen-hetep or Amenophis I, it must indeed be inferred that

she possessed some inherited sovereign right to one of the ancient

divisions of the empire.

During the period of the 26th dynasty, of Saïs, we find Upper Egypt

governed by a “god-woman,” Shep-en-upet, who remained in power, even after

the land had been conquered by Psammetichus I. The latter obtained,

however, that his daughter Nitocris was adopted as the successor to the

“divine-woman” ruler of Thebes, and she in turn adopted the daughter of

Psammetichus II (B.C. 594-589), whose name was Anches-nefer-eb-re. A

tablet from the temple of Karnak, preserved at the Berlin Museum

(catalogue no. 2112) represents this female sovereign of Thebes

accompanied by her prime minister, and standing in the presence of the

gods Amen and Chon.

Another remarkable monument at the Berlin Museum (no. 7972) figures the

“god-woman” Shep-en-upet, under the form of a sphinx holding a vase, and

records that she had inherited the sovereignty of Thebes from her aunt,

the consort of an Ethiopian king. An extremely interesting proof that the

beard, _per se_, constituted an emblem of sovereignty, is furnished by a

beautiful portrait statue of the “divine woman,” Hat-shepset (Berlin

Museum, no. 2299). She is figured as a sphinx and wears a beard suspended

from her head-dress.(116) The serpent decorates her diadem. On other

monuments this remarkable queen, who built the temple of Der-el-Bahari, is

figured with the crown of Upper Egypt (_cf._ no. 2279, Berlin Museum). By

good fortune the personal gold ornaments of a “divine woman,” an Ethiopian

princess, were discovered by Ferlini in the pyramid of Begerauie, enclosed

in a plain bronze vase. These precious objects are now exhibited in the

Berlin Museum, where I have examined them and noted with interest that the

central ornament of two finely worked, broad gold bracelets, is a female

figure with the royal diadem and four outstretched arms, to which wings

are attached. This furnishes us with an instance of a queen being

represented with four wings, in exactly the same manner as the Assyrian

king Sargon, on the seal from the time of Sennacherib (fig. 65, 6),

namely, as a “ruler of the four quarters,” which indicates that she held

the position of a “central ruler.” As might be expected in the case of a

queen who personified Isis, frequently represented under the form of a

“woman-serpent,” the uræus is a favorite motif on other gold ornaments

belonging to the Ethiopian queen.

Certain passages in Prof. Flinders Petrie’s History of Egypt afford a

curious insight into the prerogatives of Egyptian queens as far back as

about B.C. 2684. The consort of Usertesen II, the fourth king of the

twelfth dynasty was named Nefert,of whom a grey granite statue is

preserved at the Ghizeh Museum and represents her as seated on a throne.

On this are the titles “The hereditary princess, the great favorite, the

greatly praised, the beloved consort of the king, _the ruler of all

women_, the king’s daughter of his body, Nefert.” Prof. Flinders Petrie

adds: “The title ruler or princess of all women is peculiar, and suggests

that the queen had some prerogatives of government as regards the female

half of the population.” The title in question reappears four centuries

later in connection with Nubkhas, the queen of Sebek=Emsaup, of the 13th

dynasty and her stele in the Louvre entitles her the “great heiress, the

greatly favored, _the ruler of all women_, the great royal wife, united to

the crown Nub-kha-s” (_op. cit._, vol. I, pp. 175 and 225).

Between B.C. 1423-1414 queen Mutemua-arat appears as “the goddess queen”

and “great royal wife” (Flinders Petrie _op. cit._, II, p. 174). The

consort of Amenhotep III (B.C. 1414-1379) the celebrated Tyi, the daughter

of Yuaa and Thuaa, is entitled “princess of both lands,” and “chief

heiress, princess of all lands.” Her successor Nefertiti is called

“princess of south and north, lady of both lands,” which titles, as Prof.

Flinders Petrie comments, “like the titles of Tyi, imply a hereditary

right to rule Egypt.” They undoubtedly place her on a footing of equality

with the king, which is, however, comprehensible when it is explained that

she was the ruler of all women, while he was the ruler of all men. The

position of the Egyptian queen would thus prove to have been analogous to

that of the ancient Mexican Quilaztli (see pp. 61-67).

The analogy is all the more striking when it is realized that the titles

of the Mexican chieftainess were: “the Woman warrior, the Woman of the

Underworld or Below, the Woman serpent or female twin and the Eagle

woman,” while the emblem of the Egyptian goddess-queen of the south was

the vulture and she was the personification of Isis, represented under the

form of a serpent, the twin of the male serpent, Osiris.

[Illustration.]

Figure 71.

Much food for thought is furnished by a Syrian relief sculpture from Amrit

(published by Spamer, see fig. 71, 2), which exhibits a vulture or eagle

with outstretched wings, in juxtaposition to a winged disk which appears

to combine features of the Assyrian winged disk (the bird’s tail and two

appendages, see fig. 71,1) with the two uræi of the Egyptian form (fig.

71, 3). It is striking how clear the symbolism of the latter becomes when

interpreted (1) as the symbol of the hidden god and his male and female

form, Osiris and Isis, accompanied by the wings symbolizing air and the

idea that the deity was invisible and immaterial; (2) as the symbol of

Egypt itself—an entity, a complete circle, divided into two parts, under

two rulers. The pair of antelope horns above emphasize the fact that the

twain were as a single pair. The combined crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt,

the latter exhibiting a serpent’s head and the first, what appears to be

its tail, constitute the symbol of joint rulership which, in this case, is

accompanied by the feather, the rebus expressing the words “truth and

justice.”

While the Syrian bas-relief conveys the idea of two separate kingdoms, one

conveying the idea of single rulership, by the form of an eagle; the other

of dual rulership, by the two uræi, each of which is crowned by a small

disk; the Egyptian symbol distinctly conveys the idea of a close union of

two distinct parts. The historical fact that Menes succeeded in uniting

both lands under a single crown, indicates clearly enough that the ancient

empire had become disintegrated and that by marrying the female ruler of

the south he had reinstated the dual government on its original primitive

basis. That, during the period of separation and independence, a powerful

gynocracy had been formed seems more than probable. Just as evidences are

met with in ancient Mexico of the existence of female communities, so the

Old World furnishes accounts, deemed fabulous, of powerful gynocracies.

Thus we have heard of the Amazons, the fabulous race of women warriors who

are supposed to have founded a powerful empire on the coast of the Euxine.

A searching analysis of the texts translated by Brugsch, relating to the

ceremonies performed at the New Year and famous Sed festivals, as well as

historical facts gleaned from the works of living authorities, throw a

light upon the position and sacred duties of the Egyptian queens during

many centuries. The critical examination of a number of inscriptions,

translated by Brugsch, is found to show that the queen was the high

priestess and living image of Hathor-Isis and the personification of the

female principle of nature, associated in Egypt with the nocturnal Heaven

and the Above, and their symbols, the bird or vulture, the cow, the female

serpent, the moon, the stars, and in particular Sirius-Sothis. In remotest

historical times the goddess-queen seems to have resided in her own

capital, a fortress. The universal necessity to insure the safety of women

and children in times of warfare may well have originally led to the

assignment of a separate, permanent place of residence, to the female

portion of the population. The New Year festival, which coincided with the

heliacal rising of Sirius (20th July, Jul. Cal.) and the overflow of the

Nile, which suspended outdoor activity, was generally celebrated

throughout the land as the “union of heaven and earth,” or the conjunction

of “the sun and the moon, or Sirius.”

It was customary that, at this period, the queen, personifying the Sothis

star, should come forth from her retirement and, surrounded by pomp and

majesty, meet the king in solemn state, publicly occupy her place on the

double throne, and share in the performance of sacred religious rites. It

is easy to see that the idea underlying the entire ceremonial was the

harmonizing of the actions of the sacred personifications of the dual

principles of nature with the natural phenomena, from which arose a

strange confusion of ideas concerning the relationship between these

consecrated individuals and the powers of nature, which culminated in the

artificial belief that they were divinely appointed mediators between

humanity and the supreme power.

There are clear indications that the consecrated nuptials of king and

queen marked the Sed festival which was celebrated, at the beginning of

every fourth year, at Denderah. Brugsch tells us that the place on the

roof of the Hathor temple, where the celebration of the Sed festival took

place, is specially designated as “the place of the first feast” and in

many cases this is shown to have been the small open temple, whose roof is

supported by four columns (fig. 70, 2 and 3). In one passage it is

expressly stated that “she, Isis-Sothis, consorts with her father, the

sun, at ‘the place of the first feast,’ ” represented by a picture of the

said temple (fig. 70, 6).

It is interesting to compare the following passage with the successive

one, as they exhibit different phases of religious cult. “In solemn

procession statues of the god Ra and of Hathor-Isis (Sothis-Sirius) were

carried up the stairs from the interior of the temple to its roof (the

tep-hat or head of the house) where, under the open sky or in the small

open temple on the roof designated as Hait at Denderah, the idols were

unveiled at a given time....” “On the morn of the New Year Isis-Sothis

‘beheld her father on the beautiful day of the birth of the disk’

(mas-aten) or ‘the birth of the sun’ (mas-ra).” It is described how “the

goddess was led upon the roof so that she might behold the rays of her

father on his rising.... She is sometimes addressed directly, being told

‘that thou shouldst see thy father on the day of the New Year.’ ” In other

texts allusion is made to the approach of Sirius to the sun on New Year’s

day: “her rays join (heter) with those of the radiant god on that

beautiful day of the birth of the sun’s disk in the morning of New Year’s

day:” or “thou consortest with thy father Ra in thy open temple, thy

beautiful face being turned towards the south;” and elsewhere, “she comes

on her beautiful festival of the New Year, to unite her greatness in

heaven with that of her father; the gods are festive and the goddesses are

full of joy when the right eye (Sirius) unites itself with the left eye

(the sun). She rests upon her throne in the place where the disk of the

sun can be seen and the radiant one (Isis-Sothis) combines herself with

the radiant one (the sun).”

On one of the columns of the roof-temple at Denderah, the following text

is inscribed: “This temple of Rekhit flourishes in possession of a lion

(mahes) and of his daughter ... of the Horus of the east and of the

goddess Khont-abut. They assume her heavenly form on New Year’s day and

each one consorts with his neighbor.” Preceding inscriptions are made more

clear by the following detached passages translated by Brugsch, which

merit careful study. “An inscription at Abydos makes the goddess Safkhet

say to the king: ‘thou didst appear as king upon thy throne on the feast

hib-seb; like the god Ra at the beginning of the year.’ ” “The high-priest

of Ptah at Memphis was charged with the celebration of the Sed festival,

which was a general festival throughout the land.” “The annual going of

the Hathor of Denderah to Edfu took place in the month Epiphi.” “The

goddess Hathor-Isis of Denderah is frequently called the second female sun

next to the sun’s disk, the many colored, feathered goddess, and is

identified with Isis-Sothis.”

According to an extremely ancient belief it was the goddess Hathor

Isis-Sothis who caused the inundation of the Nile which, according to the

inscriptions, coincided with the heliacal rising of Sirius. Owing to this

circumstance she is called, “Isis the great, the mother of god, who causes

the Nile to overflow when she shines at the commencement of the year,” or

“the female sun who appears at the beginning of the year in the heaven as

the divine Sothis star, the queen of the decan stars, whose rays

illuminate the earth like those of the sun which appears in the morning.

She is the mistress of the commencement of the year, who draws the Nile

out of its source and thus confers life upon living human beings.”

Elsewhere she is termed “the mistress of the commencement of the year, who

makes the Nile rise at its period.” It is likewise said of her “on her

beautiful feast of beholding her father, the heaven unites itself with the

earth and the right eye unites itself with the left eye, at the beginning

of the year.” She is described as Isis the great, the mother of god, the

lady of Adut in Anet, the mistress of the beginning of the year, the

monarch of the Sema? who appears on New Year’s day to usher in the new

year. (She is) the goddess Ament (the hidden one) in Thebes, Menat (the

nurse) in Heliopolis, Renpit (_i. e._ the year) in Memphis, the divine

star Sothis in Elephantine, the radiant one in Apollinopolis magna, etc.

In another passage Hathor-Isis is spoken of as “the goddess Mehen-net of

the light-god and his Ar-hatef=(she who acts as pilot) in the boat sektet,

which eternally passes through the heaven over the head of her father.” On

the north wall of the Prondos of the Denderah temple Isis-Hathor is called

“Hathor, the lady of Anet; Isis herself; the eye of Ra; the great one of

Tentyra; the lady of heaven; the queen of gods and goddesses; the great

Mat ... the female sun; the first in Tentyra; the true one amongst gods;

the young; the daughter of a young ... [?] the beauty who appears in

heaven; the truth which regulates the world at the prow of the bark of the

sun; the queen and mistress of awe; the mistress of goddesses, Isis, the

great, the mother of the god.”

The following texts from Brugsch are explicit enough: “The temple of

Tentyra is fitted up for a bride, and is occupied by a bride.” “The temple

of Tentyra is in bridal array and contains a bride on the beautiful

festival of the birth of the sun.” “The temple of Tentyra is fitted up for

a bridal and is in possession of a bride on her beautiful festival of the

birth of the sun (mas-ra).”

The birth of a male or female Horus, of a young sun or moon, is alluded to

in other texts as the “feast of the child in its cradle,” and coincided

with New Year’s day. According to Brugsch, the festival of the child in

its ses=cradle, nest, or couch, undoubtedly coincided with New Year’s day,

as is proven by the following inscription: “The bringing of the band of

stuff to the great Isis, the mother of the god, for the obtainment of a

happy year. Receive, receive happy years on the day of the night of the

child in its cradle!”... It is usual to interpret the birth of the young

child, or sun of the New Year as a mere allegory of the astronomical fact

and it may have been thus in later times. On the other hand, historical

data prove that the actual birth of a “child,” the offspring of a royal

sacramental marriage, did take place in the temple and that children, thus

born, afterwards became the rulers of Egypt.

“At Luqsor, ... a great temple was built by Amenhotep III (B.C. 1414-1379)

to ‘his father Amen,’ with special reference to the divine conception of

the king.... His birth is the great subject of the temple ... and his

mother Mut-em-ua is the prominent figure in those scenes, pointing to her

being important as queen-mother....” Of the later king Hor-em-heb (B.C.

1332-1328) it is inscribed: “Amen, king of the gods, dandled him ... when

he came forth from the womb he was enveloped in reverence, the aspect of a

god was upon him; the arm was bowed to him as a child and great and small

did obeisance before him ” (Flinders Petrie, _op. cit._ pp. 177, 190 and

248).

The small Isis temple to the east of the great temple of Hathor at

Denderah is specially designated as the lying-in chamber, or sacred house

of birth. An inscription dating from the Roman period, on the outer

eastern wall of this building reads: “Life! the female Horus, the

youthful, the daughter of a hak (regent, Brugsch), Isis, the great, the

mother of the Ra=god, is born in Tentyra in the ‘night of the child in its

cradle,’ at the west side of the temple of Hat-seses (the great temple of

Hathor).” It is, moreover, stated that “Horus, in female form, is the

princess, the powerful, the heiress to the throne and the daughter of an

heir to the throne.”

In another inscription, on the south wall of the small temple of Isis, the

birth of Isis is described thus: “On this beautiful day, ‘of the night of

the child in its cradle,’ on the great festival during which the world is

re-adjusted, or balanced (sekhek en ta), the bringing forth of Isis takes

place in the interior or centre of Anet (Tentyra) by the goddess Ap, the

great, in the chamber of Ap, in the form of a dark red female person, the

Khnum ankh, the lovely. Her mother, Nut, exclaimed at the sight of her:

behold, (As is) I have become a mother. Thence the origin of the name

Isis.... The south, towards the place of rising of the sun’s disk, has

been given over to her, and the north, towards.... She is, namely, the

mistress of both sides of Egypt, with her son Horus and her brother

Osiris.”

On the east side of the wall of the terrace at Denderah a similar

inscription reads: “Uar-kher-ta is the name of this locality. The name of

the place of the cradle of Isis is named Adut, which is the house where

the ‘accouchement’ of Nut, the goddess of heaven, takes place. It is here

that, at the time of the ‘night of the child in its cradle,’ the

god-mother is brought into the world, in the form of a dark female, named

Khnum-ankhet, the lady of love and the queen of the gods and goddesses. On

seeing her, her mother exclaimed: As, îs _i. e._ lo, or behold, I have

become a mother! Thence the origin of her name Isis.... She is the lady of

the temple of Egypt with her son Horus and brother Osiris, now and forever

into eternity.” The most instructive account of the festival which has

come under my notice is the following, contained in another inscription in

the temple at Denderah.

“The fourth day, supplementary to the year (of 360 days, _i. e._ the 364th

day) is the beautiful day of the ‘night of the child in its cradle’ and is

a great festival of preparation. During the night preceding this day there

takes place the procession of the goddess Hathor and the divinities with

her. The circuit of her temple is made and all is duly fulfilled according

to the custom. Upon this follows the return to their places (chambers in

the temple). The golden one (Nubet, the ordinary appellation of

Hathor-Isis as the star Sothis-Sirius, Brugsch) rises, shining, above the

brow of her progenitor, and her mysterious (literally, full of secrets)

form is at the prow of the boat of the sun. As soon as she reaches the āk

(centre) of her city in the presence of her Nomos, she beholds her

dwelling with the most joyful feelings. When she enters her house her body

is full of delight. When she has taken possession of her exalted dwelling,

surrounded by her fellow-gods, who stand at each side of her, her soul in

her body is full of rejoicings. When they join the rays of her father (the

sun god) and are united to the radiance of his disk, the city Anet

(Tentyra) is happy. Adoration is made in Adut (the lying-in chamber) and

Pi-anet is in festive state, when it beholds the great, the powerful

leader, she who creates the festival in the holy city on that beautiful

day of the New Year.”

Elsewhere we read: “The city of Anet is in a constant exaltation when the

goddess Isis is born in it (in the small Isis temple) in the form of a

dark red woman, whose name is Khnum-Ankhet, the lady of love, the queen of

goddesses and women, the bride. It is beautiful to see the shining

appearance of the ray of light in the heaven, in the dusk, at the time

when she is born in this city.... A flying beetle (?) is born in the sky

in the primæval city of Tentyra at the period of ‘the night of the child

in its cradle.’ The sun shines in the heaven at dusk when her birth has

taken place. Gods and goddesses praise the name of her majesty....”

“Ra-Hur of Apollinopolis magna, god Sam-ta, comes forth, or arises, in the

dawn (akhekh) when the birth takes place in ‘the night of the child in its

cradle,’ on the great festival of the entire world (or the entire land).

He shines for her majesty when she has brought forth (the child). Her

child is in the form of a beautiful boy, who is the lord of Tentyra. The

gods and goddesses came to her carrying the symbol of life (the ankh) and

the sceptre of power (the tam) so as to fulfil their desire and her wish”

(p. 103).

The following extract from a papyrus which belonged to a priest of Amon,

named Horsiesis of Thebes, of the time of Augustus, affords an extremely

interesting insight of the mysterious ceremonial which had gradually

developed. It is evident that the text, though apparently clear, must have

been intelligible to the initiated only, who alone were able to understand

the allusions to secret, sacred rites and their symbolical meaning.

“Thou raisest thyself to heaven, in the region of the city Ka ... thou

goest with the king when he goes to Thebes ... thou seest the Sktt bark on

its arrival in the city of Thebes and the two sisters united in Pi-ubkt

... thou seest the goddess Hathor who becomes the mother of her own

mother(117) on the day ... of the Tx festival ... thy name is called

amongst those of the judges on the great Hermopolis in the night of the

festival of _he who remains __ in the middle or centre of his city_ ...

thou seest the immovable ones united into a quatuor, in form like a young

bull ... thou seest their wives united together in the form of the goddess

Anthat ... thou visitest the caves of Thebes when his majesty betakes

himself to the zone of Smu.... The mistress of heaven comes to her house

... thou receivest a cloak from his hand ... the divine eye ... thou

watchest at night in the chamber of birth on the day of the [lying in]

birth of the goddess Mut....[Nut?] Thou goest in with those who go in and

comest out with those who come out like the great Horus in his temple ...

thou seest in her domain(?) mysterious actions performed by the

Pastophores. No one sees, no one hears (of them) ... thou hearest the

voice of the singer in the temple, in varied modulations ... thou

ascendest the stairway of the eternal circle of light, thou seest the

strong ram in its domain ... thou seest ... in his first form, Osiris, in

the house of purification.” (Brugsch, _op. cit._ II, pp. 518 and 520).

A careful perusal of the preceding texts conveys an idea of the immense

lapse of time it must have required for the state religion of Egypt to

have developed itself and crystallized into a complicated ritual, the true

significance of which, doubtlessly, gradually receded from view. The naïve

primitive symbolization of the union of heaven and earth by the actual

marriage of king and queen, followed by general marriage festivities, had

naturally created, in course of time, a distinct privileged caste rendered

“divine” by the circumstances attending their conception and birth. Once

in existence the maintenance and insurance of the divine line of descent

would naturally enforce the intermarriage of its members and the

sequestration and guarded seclusion of the royal women and the virgin

priestesses from whose ranks the destined mothers of the divine children

were selected.

A more ancient form of symbolizing the union of heaven and earth seems to

have been the cult of Apis, which, according to Maspero, preceded the

building of the pyramids and could scarcely have arisen before the

adoption of the cow or bull, ua, as the rebus of Polaris, the One=ua. A

survival of Apis cult seems to be the allegorical sacred title “bull”

(Osiris-Apis) bestowed upon the king, of “cow” upon the queen and “calf”

upon their offspring, the young Horus. In later times the king was

entitled “the ram” and wore his fleece and horns on visiting the queen. As

a natural sequence, the fruit of their union was spoken of as “the lamb.”

According to Herodotus (II, pp. 27-29, Cary’s translation), “the sacred

Apis, or Epaphus is the calf of a cow incapable of conceiving another

offspring; and the Egyptians say that lightning descends upon the cow from

heaven and that from thence it brings forth Apis.” “The Egyptian

magistrates said ... the god [in the form of Apis] manifested himself at

distant intervals ... and when this manifestation took place the Egyptians

immediately put on their richest apparel and kept festive holiday.”

As stated by Mr. Wallis Budge, Apis worship was established at Memphis by

Ka-kau, the second king of the second dynasty B.C. 4100. The veneration

accorded to the bull, cow and calf, as embodiments of the dual principles

of nature, in separate and in single form, seems to have been accorded in

other localities to different animal forms and to have been replaced, in

later times, by triads, composed of a god, goddess and their offspring,

each great centre ultimately possessing their particular triad, the living

images of which were the high-priest, high-priestess and their “divine”

offspring. It should be noted that a group consisting of 8+1=nine gods,

high priests or prophets, accompanied the triad, the result being twelve

“deities” in all, of which one=the child, was an embodiment of two

principles and was the ka=the divine twain.

The transition of Apis worship from the animal to the human form was

accomplished during the reign of the Ptolemies (B.C. 305-42) when Serapis

or Osiris-Apis was introduced into Egypt and represented as a man with the

head of a bull, wearing a disk and uræus. Long before this, however,

androsphinxes and other combinations of the human and animal form had

existed in Egypt. At Thebes the divine triad was formed by Amen-Ra,

Mut-Hathor and Chonsu; at Edfu and Denderah we find Osiris,

Isis-Sothis-Hathor and Horus. On the other hand, a curious inscription in

the temple at Denderah, translated by Brugsch (II, p. 512), actually

describes Amen-Ra as “the great god in Denderah, who periodically

rejuvenates himself and _becomes a beautiful boy, who is the concealed or

hidden god, whose name is hidden_; who is the Horus with colored wings,

coming forth in the upper hemisphere of Edfu, the lord of the double

heaven.”

The inference one might be tempted to make from this and other texts is

that, at one period, a human babe, the fruit of a royal or sacerdotal

union, was born in the temple on what constituted New Year’s Day and was

secretly worshipped there during the ensuing year, as the living image of

Amen-Ra, the hidden god and “divine twain.” I venture to point out that

the adoption of the child as the image of the divinity was the logical

sequence to the preceding employment of the bull as a rebus for the words

ua=one and ka=twain; that the consecration of the human form must,

undoubtedly, have given a strong impulse to statuary, and that the

sanctification of the child correspondingly exalted motherhood and lent a

particular consecration to the marriage of its “divine parents.” The

following facts, culled at random, afford a limit of the transitions and

further developments which took place in Egypt in course of time.

Before proceeding, special mention must be made of one important point

which throws a flood of light upon the extent of the development of

separate cults of sun and moon and the institution of solar and lunar

calendars which respectively governed the activities of the male and

female populations. As this matter will be fully treated in my calendar

monograph I shall merely note here that Brugsch cites texts proving the

existence and simultaneous use of the two calendars, and the supreme

importance accorded to the new moon of the month Epiphi on whose

appearance the “goddess Isis-Hathor of Denderah embarked on her sacred

barge and proceeded up the river, from her city to Edfu (Apollinopolis

magna) where she joined his majesty ..., her father, ... the incomparable

sun-god Ra, the first of Apollinopolis, the golden disk, whose children

are numerous....” It is further stated that the god and goddess became

inseparable like sun and moon. Brugsch states that the appearance of the

said new moon, which was also associated with the heliacal rising of

Sirius, would range from Aug. 18 to Sept. 16, Jul. Cal. (see _op. cit._

II, pp. 282-1). The appearance of the goddess was the signal for the

opening of a season of general “feasting and drinking, rejoicing, singing

and dancing” throughout the land, to which the name Tekhu is given in some

texts. This is translated by Brugsch as “the intoxication of gladness or

joy;” it “coincided with the highest level attained by the overflow of the

Nile,” and its modern survival is the annual “marriage of the Nile” which

takes place on the 23d of August.

It is curious to note how the original carrying out of primitive and naïve

rites by the queen and high-priestess gradually caused her presence to be

regarded as essential for the “drawing out of the Nile from its source”

and her person to be surrounded with utmost veneration and sanctity. As

Prof. Flinders Petrie states, speaking of as far back as B.C. 1383-1365:

“The marriage to a royal high priestess of Amen was, of course, purely a

political necessity to legitimate the king’s position.”

“It would seem that Hor-em-heb was not married to Nezem-mut until his

accession, when he legalized his position by becoming husband of the

high-priestess of Amen, as in the arrangement of the later dynasties. This

marriage was an affair of politics solely, considering the age of the

parties; Horemheb was probably between fifty and sixty at the time and if

the queen was the same as Nefertiti’s sister Nezem-mut, she must have been

about the same age as Horemheb” (_op. cit._ pp. 183, 250). How long the

female Egyptian ruler maintained her sway may, perhaps, best be seen by

the following texts describing the political homage paid to the living

goddess of the Egyptians under Ptolemaic and Roman rules.

One inscription clearly shows that, at the time of Ptolemy IX, Euergetes

II, the living Isis was acknowledged as the sole ruler of the land of the

south by the king and his wife, queen Cleopatra III, who jointly occupied

the throne of northern Egypt. Jointly the latter dedicated a beautiful

hall to the goddess Isis, as a place in which to celebrate the Tekhu feast

and in which she might linger at this season (Brugsch, _op. cit._ II, p.

284). I have found indications in other works that, in other localities,

the goddess entered a secret chamber in the earth or pyramid or celebrated

her sacred mysteries and festival on the sacred boat of the sun, in the

sacred sea or lake belonging to the temple. In these cases it is obvious

that the dominant idea was the performance of the sacred rites in the

sacred centre or middle.

At a later period Cleopatra VII ascended the female throne at the age of

seventeen and became high-priestess of Amen, the living image of Isis. It

was understood that as soon as her brother Ptolemy XIV, then aged twelve,

should come of age, she was to marry him. Partly for political reasons,

akin to those which had caused king Horemheb, on his accession, to marry

the high priestess of Amen, Julius Cæsar and Mark Antony become in

succession the consorts of Cleopatra, after whose death Egypt became a

Roman province. But the “land of the south,” and traditional, divine,

feminine rulership, lingered on. Under the third prefect, Ælius Gallus,

Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, invades Egypt at the head of her army.

She was defeated, but the position of the high-priestess of Amen, the

living Isis, continued to be such as to exact the homage and an act of

propitiation from the Roman Emperor.

An inscription, from the time of Augustus, records that a beautiful

monument, or “house,” had been erected by the “lord of the land, the

autocrator, the son of the sun, Cæsar,” and was presented, at the time of

the Isis festival, to its possessor, the great Isis, the mother of the

god, the mistress of the lying-in-house, the splendid and mighty queen of

Philæ, the benevolent princess of Abaton, the daughter of the sun. She is

likewise named “she who is great or whose greatness extends towards the

four quarters” and is designated as “the royal wife of the majesty of

Osiris and the royal mother of Horus, the victorious bull,” _i. e._ the

ka. It is stated that “she found the house of birth brilliantly adorned

and well arranged in every way” and she installed herself in its interior

on a given day, so as to bring forth her son in these surroundings. One of

the rewards promised to Cæsar for the delicate attention and gift bestowed

upon the goddess is “eternal and permanent occupation of the throne of

Horus, the first of the living ones.” According to the Esne calendar a

“divine birth” actually took place on a given date. Brugsch, referring to

Plutarch and calendar texts, shows that the commencement of the Isis

festival dated from the time when Isis assumed a phylactery, or amulet, to

indicate that she had conceived.

Another inscription shows that Tiberius Claudius had caused the house to

be renovated for “the mighty goddess Isis, the life giving mistress of

Abaton, the good Hathor, the queen of the land of Nubia, the divine mother

of the golden (Nub) Horus, the benevolent sister of Osiris, the great

protectress who guards his son.” As Tiberius Claudius, in this text named

himself her loving son, it is obvious that the day had passed away when

solely her own divine son Horus would be the one legitimate and divine

heir to the Egyptian throne. It is interesting to surmise what became of

the children whose “divine births” continued to be celebrated as a sacred

occurrence to which even a Roman Emperor yielded homage. The natural

sequence would have been that, accompanied by a band of devoted followers,

the sons of the sun, the young bulls, _i. e._ the ka, or divine twain, and

their sisters, would seek distant lands in which jointly to establish new

kingdoms on the ancient, familiar plan.

Collectively, the preceding evidence has afforded a realization of some of

the curious but natural results of the prolonged cult of the dual

principles of nature in Egypt, the most remarkable being, perhaps, the

creation of a distinct, “divine” caste of individuals, from the naïve

adoption of marriage and birth as consecrated religious rites, symbolical

of the union of heaven and earth and the production of new life. While at

one time, and in certain localities, this mode of symbolism obviously took

the upper hand and fostered the growth of the artificial idea of the

“divine rights of royalty,” there are evidences that, simultaneously, the

union of the dual principles of nature was symbolized in one or more

different archaic and primitive ways. These appear to have been separately

adopted in various centres of thought where the disastrous and debasing

consequences of the association of the idea of sex with the cult of heaven

and earth, light and darkness, etc., were realized with disapproval.

We thus find that, even at Edfu, the ceremonial rite of lighting new

sacred fire by means of a wooden instrument and friction was performed on

the great Isis festival which was marked by the “divine birth.” According

to the calendar of Canopus this fell on the first day of Payni, and a

prescribed illumination of the temples and palace was kept up until the

30th or last day of the month. In the most ancient Egyptian calendars the

“lighting of light” at the same period is also recorded (Brugsch, _op.

cit._ II, p. 470) and, according to Herodotus, the festival was named “the

lighting of lamps” and was observed throughout all Egypt. He adds that “a

religious reason is given why this night is illuminated and so honored”

(II, 61 and 62).

The influence of increasing astronomical knowledge likewise shows itself

in the joint observation of the movements of sun, moon and stars and the

determination of the relative positions of the latter to the sun at the

periods of the equinoxes and solstices. Without taking period or sequence

into consideration for the present, I merely note that we find evidence

that, at one time, images of sun and moon, of the right and left eyes of

Ra, or statues of Hathor-Isis and Osiris, replaced their living images in

religious ceremonies.

Sometimes the entire ritual seems to have consisted in the union of water,

the produce of heaven, with seeds, the produce of earth; the ensuing

germination and production of young shoots being deemed sacred and

symbolical of the renewal of life. The fact that statuettes of Osiris have

actually been found, made of paste containing various seeds, distinctly

shows that, like the Babylonian Baal, the Egyptian male divinity was

identified with the earth. Another indication of this is furnished by the

descriptions of the feast of Pan, which fell at the period of the spring

equinox. At this period the crop of dura, which had been sown by the king

in the sacred fields at Denderah, at the time of the “Osiris mysteries,”

immediately after the inundation had receded and “the earth was laid

bare,” became ripe. The ceremony of cutting the first sheaf of dura was

performed by the king, with the silex sickle=khepes.

While Osiris was thus directly associated with the produce of the earth

there are also evidences that, just as Isis became identified with birth

and life, her consort became the lord of death and of the underworld.

Mysterious rites and human sacrifices seem to have been instituted in his

honor. According to obscure myths Osiris himself had been foully murdered,

his body cut into fourteen pieces and cast over the length and breadth of

the land. His head was supposed to be preserved at Abydos, the chief

centre of his worship, and shrines were erected over the other portions of

his body. It will be a matter for further research to investigate whether

the “mysteries of Osiris” did not include the dramatization of the death

of Osiris, in which a human victim personified the god and was actually

killed and dismembered.

It is, perhaps, worth noting here, as an analogy, how appropriately the

ancient Mexican annual sacrifice of a youth, chosen among the most

perfect, might have answered as a rendition of the drama of Osiris. The

body of the victim was divided and the pieces distributed to a fixed

number of priests and chieftains, who partook of them as sacred food. The

head was preserved in the Great Temple itself, on the Tzompantli, and the

large number of skulls seen there by the Spaniards constituted a proof of

the great antiquity of the custom. The blood of the victim, poured upon

seeds, seems to have been considered essential for bringing about the

germination of the sacred shoots and typical of the union of the dual

principles of nature and of life springing from death. Idols, formed of

seeds moistened with human blood, were distributed to the participants in

the ceremony. According to some authors this sacred paste, and not pieces

of human flesh, constituted the consecrated food, eaten according to the

prescribed ritual.

How far analogous rites were performed in Egypt remains to be seen; it is,

at all events, certain that, by slow degrees, the cult of the dual

principles of nature gave rise to the institution of strange unnatural

rites, the original naïve meanings of which became obscured, debased or

lost. While various localities of Egypt, notably Thebes and Abydos, appear

to have become the birthplace of curious aberrations of the human

intellect, there was one ancient and great centre of learning where

monotheism and the knowledge of the fundamental scheme appear to have been

preserved intact, namely, at Heliopolis, the ancient On or Anu of the

North, named the “House of the Sun” by Jeremiah and “the Eye or Fountain

of the Sun” by the Arabs. According to Mr. Wallis Budge, “its ruins cover

an area three miles square ... the greatest and oldest Egyptian College or

University for the education of the priesthood and laity stood here....

During the XXth dynasty the temple of Heliopolis was one of the largest

and wealthiest of all Egypt and its staff was numbered by thousands. When

Cambyses visited Egypt the glory of Heliopolis was well on the wane and,

after the removal of the priesthood and sages of the temple to Alexandria,

by Ptolemy II (B.C. 286), its downfall was well assured. When Strabo

visited it (B.C. 24) the greater part of it was in ruins.... Heliopolis

had a large population of Jews and it will be remembered that Joseph

married the daughter of a priest of On (Annu).... Macrobius says that the

Heliopolis of Syria or Baalbek, was founded by a body of priests who left

the ancient city of Heliopolis of Egypt” (The Nile, p. 132).

Indirectly we learn the tenor of the doctrines and ideas held by the sages

of Heliopolis at one period by the remarkable attempt to reform the

religion of Egypt, carried out by their pupil, Amenhotep IV (about B.C.

1450). Evidently realizing, with his masters, the extent to which the

ancient fundamental religion had become obscured and debased by the

multiplication of images of the deity, and the institution of rival cults,

which were shrouded in mystery and darkness, the young prince boldly made

war against the priesthood of Amen-Ra and the cult of a “hidden god.”

Destroying the monstrous images which had originally been rebus figures

only, and represented the supreme deity in partly human and animal form,

he instituted the disk or circle as the simple and purer form under which

the divinity was to be revered.(118) Animated by the clear realization to

what an extent the original communal or republican scheme of organization

was being departed from by the artificial creation of a “divine” race of

kings who claimed to be gods, he caused himself and his queen to be

portrayed as simple mortals, and not as the deities Osiris and Isis.

Choosing the sun as his emblem, this champion of pure light and open truth

fought the Egyptian votaries of darkness. He erased the word Amen=hidden,

from public monuments, changed his own name from Amenhotep to

Chu-en-Aten=the brilliance or glory of the disk and founded a city also

named Chu-aten, which was to be the centre of a new and reformed state. It

seems evident that this was instituted on the familiar archaic plan and

that the so-called “heresy of Amenhotep” was but an attempt, backed by the

sages and philosophers of Heliopolis, to abolish the artificialities and

abuses which had come into existence and destroyed the order of the state

and the harmony of the primitive plan. It is well known that gradually

Amenhotep’s successors were obliged to yield to the hostility of the

priesthood of the “hidden god” and that these, in turn, erased or defaced

all images of the disk or aten within their reach.

Ineffectual though the grand attempt had been to reorganize state and

religion and reëstablish republican principles, on the original plan, the

knowledge of the original scheme seems to have been preserved intact

during the following centuries, by the sages and philosophers of

Heliopolis, by whom the primitive set of ideas seems to have been

gradually developed into an abstract philosophical system. Reminding the

reader that Plato spent “thirteen years in Egypt, in gaining an insight

into the mysterious doctrines and priest-lore of the sacerdotal caste,” I

also draw attention to the passage in his “Timæus,” in which Critias makes

the statement that when Plato’s ideal republic ... was being discoursed

upon, he was reminded, to his surprise, of the account of a state given to

the Greek sage, Solon, by the priests of Saïs, and perceived how, “in most

respects, the republic described coincided with Solon’s statements.” It is

indeed striking how clearly we can recognize, in Plato’s republic, the

underlying, primitive, universal scheme in this case, highly developed,

elaborated, transfigured and transformed into the philosophical ideal of a

great intellect.

Before demonstrating which of the main features of Plato’s cosmogony and

ideal republic we have found actually carried out in practice, let us

briefly refer to the most ancient descriptions of the primitive government

of Greece, preserved in the Timæus and Critias, where the conversations

held, by Solon, with the priests of Saïs are recorded. Solon (about 594

B.C.) on his arrival (at Saïs) “was very honorably received; and

especially, on his inquiring about ancient affairs of those priests who

possessed superior knowledge in such matters, he perceived that neither

himself nor any one of the Greeks (so to speak) had any antiquarian

knowledge at all.... One of their extremely ancient priests said to Solon:

‘you (Greeks) are all youths in intelligence, for you hold no ancient

opinions derived from remote tradition _nor any system of discipline_ that

can boast of a hoary old age.... In this our country, ... the most ancient

things are said to be here preserved ... and all the noble, great or

otherwise distinguished achievements, performed either by ourselves, by

you or elsewhere, of which we have heard the report, all these have been

engraved in our temples in very remote times and preserved to the present

day. The annals of our own city (Saïs) have been preserved eight thousand

years in our sacred writings ... your state has a priority over ours of a

thousand years.... I will briefly describe the law and more illustrious

actions of those states which have existed nine thousand years ...’ ”

(Timæus). It is interesting at this point to recall also the familiar

statements made by the priests of Saïs to Solon, concerning the immense

antiquity of the human race and the “multitude and variety of destructions

which have been and will be undergone by the human race ... after which

nations become young again, as at first, knowing nothing of the events of

ancient times” (Timæus, V).

Referring the reader to the original text I merely point out here that the

priest of Saïs, referring to the sacred writings themselves, assigned to

remotest antiquity the principle of distribution and arrangement on which

the state had originally been founded and established. In the Critias the

description of the Athenian state, which “had been founded nine thousand”

years before, contains the following particulars which will appear

familiar to the reader. “To the gods was once locally allotted the whole

earth.... Obtaining a country agreeable to them by just allotment, they

chose regions for their habitations.... Different gods received by lot

different regions.... Hephaestus and Athene, a brother and sister, both

received one region as their common allotment ... their temple was built

on the Acropolis ... whose northern and southern slopes were respectively

associated with separate winter and summer residences.” The population was

divided into classes and each caste occupied a fixed place of residence.

“The outer parts, down the flanks (of the Acropolis) were inhabited by

craftsmen and husbandmen who tilled the neighboring land; the

warrior-classes lived separately, by themselves, in the more elevated

parts around the temple of Athene and Hephaestus, which they had formed,

as it were, into the garden of a single dwelling by encircling it with one

enclosure” (The Critias, VI). “... On this site was a single fountain

which furnished every part with abundant water....” “The ‘guardians of the

state’ were the ‘leaders’ of the Greeks and as to their number they paid

special attention that they should always have the same number of men and

women that might serve in war, the whole being about twenty thousand.”

In the description given, in the Critias, of the state of Atlantis, the

identical features recur, but are more fully described. In the centre of

the island of Atlantis stood a mountain, surrounded by a plain, which was

ultimately made square. The mountain was the residence of a pair of

mythical lovers, consisting of a god and of a mortal woman, and became the

birthplace of their offspring, “a divine race of kings.” “The god ... with

his divine power, agreeably adorned the centre of the island, causing two

fountains of water to shoot upwards from beneath the earth, one cold and

the other hot, and making every variety of food to spring abundantly from

the earth.” The central hill, from which thus proceeded all life and

festivity, was at first “circularly enclosed, the land and sea being

formed into alternate zones, greater and less, two out of land and three

out of sea, from the centre of the island all equally distant.” The ten

kings, born of the “divine union, lived each in his own district and city,

and ruled supreme over his people. The government and commonwealth in each

case was, by the injunction of the god, according to the laws which were

handed down. The latter were inscribed on a column of orichalcum which was

deposited in the centre of the island, in the temple of the god, where the

ten kings originally assembled every fifth year. A fire burned near the

column and a bull was sacrificed at its base, after which a sacred cup was

filled with its blood and this was poured into the fire by way of

purifying the column” (Critias, VII-XVI).

The above mention of a column is of interest when it is realized that, in

historical times, the laws of Solon were actually inscribed on a square

wooden pillar which was made to revolve or turn and was placed on the

Acropolis. The presence of a revolving pillar on the Acropolis, the sacred

centre of the Athenian state, is, moreover, curiously in keeping with the

conception of axial energy set forth by Plato and awakens the desire to

learn from Greek scholars what relationship, if any, there was between the

Sanscrit aksa=axle or axis, the Greek akra (akris=summit, akros=most high,

supreme, akrisios=mountain-top god) and the Egyptian ak=the Centre, and

hak=a king; and whether the word polis=city was connected with polos=the

pole-star, an axis, pivot or pole, from polein=to turn, and may be

interpreted as the equivalent of the Egyptian An and Annu. It would also

be important to learn whether the name of the principal ancient god of

Greece, Apollo, who was revered under the form of a column at Delphi, can

also be connected with the verb polein or pelein=to turn, as well as the

name Polias _i. e._ the goddess protecting the city, a surname for Minerva

(Athene) at Athens, where she was worshipped at one time as the protecting

divinity of the Acropolis. The title Poliuchus, “protecting the city,”

occurs as a surname of several divinities and particularly of Minerva

Chalchioecus, “of the brazen house,” at Sparta and Athens. It is

instructive likewise to compare the Greek words for axis=axon, and

polis=city, with Helice, the name for Ursa Major and for a town in

Arcadia, with the Egyptian Annu, An or On, the names of capitals, and the

Egyptian word an=that which turns around. It will be for Greek and

Egyptian scholars to enlighten us as to whether the Egyptian an and the

Greek polis are synonyms; in which connection I draw their attention to

the following suggestive passage of the Critias (VII).... “Yet before we

narrate this we must briefly warn you not to be surprised at hearing

Hellenic names given to barbarians ... and the cause of this you shall now

hear. Solon made an investigation into the power of names and found that

the early Egyptians, who committed these facts to writing, transferred

these names into their own language; and he again, receiving the meaning

of each name, introduced it by writing into our language.” While, on one

hand, it is certain that the Egyptian astronomer-priests associated the

pole star with the words An, Anu, Anubis, on the other, the following

passages from Plato’s works clearly demonstrate his views concerning axial

rotation.(119) A fresh interest is undoubtedly added to Plato’s philosophy

when it is regarded as the possible result of the thirteen years spent by

him with the Egyptian priesthood, who may possibly have confided to him

the entire sum of their ancient philosophy and accumulated store of

knowledge, and who certainly seem to have imposed upon him the reticence

and obscurity noticeable in the Republic, the Critias and the Timæus.

To those who have followed my investigation of the ancient state

organization and cosmical conceptions of the ancient Egyptians, and noted

the interpretation given to the pyramid and the fact that Amenophis

instituted the disk as the image of the Supreme Being, the following

detached extracts from Plato’s Timæus will appear familiar and full of

fresh significance. “To discover the Father and Creator of this universe

(also called the heaven or the world) or his work is indeed difficult;

_and when discovered it is impossible to reveal him to mankind at

large_.... The composing (or framing) Artificer constituted the universe

from entire elements of fire, water, air and earth and ... considering

that it would thus be a whole animal.... He gave it also a figure becoming

and allied to its nature; and to the animal destined to comprehend all

others within itself that figure as the most becoming which includes

within itself every sort of figure whatever. Hence he fashioned it in the

shape of a sphere, perfectly round, having its centre everywhere equally

distant from the bounding extremities.... He assigned to it a motion

peculiar to itself ... making the world to turn constantly on itself and

on same point, he gave it a circular motion ... he assigned to it a motion

peculiar to itself, being that of all the seven kinds of motion.... As for

the soul, he fixed it in the middle, extended it throughout the whole and

likewise surrounded it with its entire surface ... and so, causing a

circle to revolve in a circle, he established the world as one

substantive, solitary object.... _Let the universe be called heaven or the

world or by any other name it usually receives_.... The soul of this

universe ... being composed of three parts ... being interwoven throughout

from the middle to the very extremities of space and covering it even all

around externally, though at the same time herself revolving within

herself, originated the divine commencement of an unceasing and wise life

throughout all time.... Time ... was generated with the universe.... Time

... an eternal image _on the principles of numbers_ ... the perfect number

of time completes a perfect year ... for this purpose ... were formed

_such of the stars as moved circularly through the universe_....”

While a careful study of Plato’s work will further elucidate his views

concerning the quadruplicate nature of the universe, of its comprehensive

unity, of axial rotation, the generation of time and of the principle of

numbers, I point out that the following passage conveys the idea of

applying the universal plan to the regulation of human thought: “This,

however, we may assert, that God invented and bestowed sight upon us for

the express purpose, that on _surveying the circles of intelligence in the

heavens_, we might properly employ those of our minds, which, though

disturbed when compared with the others that are uniform, are still allied

to their circulation and that, having thus learned and being naturally

possessed of a correct reasoning faculty, we might, _by imitating the

uniform revolutions of divinity_, set right our own silly wanderings and

blunders.”

There are two portions of Plato’s cosmology to which I wish particularly

to draw attention, because of the striking examples that exist, showing

that the views therein expressed and suggestions given, were independently

carried into practice in ancient times, in widely separated countries. One

is the suggestive attempt to figure the Cosmos by geometrical images, a

method which had been carried out by the pyramid-builders and Amenophis

III and suggests an explanation for the origin and meaning of the

geometrical decoration that prevailed at one period of antiquity. The

other is the association of time with the principles of numbers, the most

remarkable exemplifications of which are furnished by the Egyptian, Hindu,

Chinese, Mexican and Maya cyclical systems, founded upon the associations

of divisions of time and numerals, and even and uneven numbers with

day-names, etc.

Having hastily noted some features of Plato’s Cosmos let us next obtain an

insight into the ideas associated with Polaris and the Septentriones by

the ancient Greeks and their neighbors, before and after Plato’s time. I

gratefully acknowledge my indebtedness to Mr. Richard Hinckley Allen’s

“Star-names and their meanings” (New York, 1899), for the following

valuable information and at the same time express my regret that his

useful work was unknown to me when I wrote the preceding portion of my

investigation.(120)

“Ursa Minor was not mentioned by Homer or Hesiod for, according to Strabo,

it was not admitted among the constellations of the Greeks until about 600

B.C. when Thales, inspired by its use in Phœnicia, his probable

birthplace, suggested it to the Greek mariners in place of its greater

neighbor which till then had been their sailing guide. Thence its title

Phœnice and Ursa Phœnicia. But it also shared, with Ursa Major, the titles

Septentrio, Aratos, Amaxa, Aganna and Helice. It also bore the ‘early and

universal title’ Kynosura or Cynosura, usually translated ‘the Dog’s

Tail,’ the origin of which is uncertain, Bournouf asserting that ‘it is in

no way associated with the Greek word for dog.’ Cox identified the word

with Lycosura (meaning tail or trail of light), which recalls the city of

that name in Arcadia considered, by Pausanias, the most ancient in the

world, having been founded by Lycaon some time before the Deluge of

Deucalion.”

“Euclid said in his Phainomena: ‘A star is visible between the Bears, not

changing its place, _but always revolving upon itself_’ (_cf._ Plato’s

Cosmos). Hipparchus, that the pole was ‘in a vacant spot forming a

quadrangle with three other stars,’ both writers calling this Polos, the

Polus of Lucan, Ovid and other classical Latins, and Euphratean observers

had called their pole-star Pūl or Bil. But, although other astronomical

writers used these words for some individual star, there is no certainty

as to which was intended, for it should be remembered that, during many

millenniums, the polar point has gradually been approaching our pole-star

which, 2000 years ago, was far removed from it, in Hipparchus’ time 12°

24’ away, according to his own statement, quoted by Marinus of Tyre and

cited by Ptolemy. Heraclitus, the Ionian philosopher of Ephesus of about

500 B.C., asserted that this constellation marked the boundary between the

east and the west, which it may be regarded as doing when on the horizon.”

This statement is of extreme importance as it proves an orientation of the

north by the pole-star and not by the solstitial position of the sun.

“Another name for it, πλενθιον, used for it or its quarter of the sky, was

from the Greek, as seen in Plutarch’s αἰ τῶν πλινθίων ὀπογραφαί the

‘fields’ or ‘spaces’ into which the augurs divided the heavens, the

templa, or regiones cœli of the Latins....”

“In Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey the use of the seven stars of Ursa Major in

Greek navigation is clearly shown. The constellation is entitled the

Bear=arctos, described, according to different translators, as ‘circling

on high,’ ‘wheeling round,’ or ‘revolving around the axle of the

sky.’(121) Homer used, equally with Arctos, the name Amaxa=the wain or

wagon, to designate the seven stars. Aratos called the constellation the

‘Wain-like Bear;’ and, alluding to the title Amaxa, asserted that the word

was from ama=together, the Amaxai thus circling together around the pole;

but no philologist accepts this and it might as well have come from

axion=axle, referring to the axis of the heavens. In fact Hewitt goes far

back of Aratos in his statement that the Sanscrit god Akshivan, the Driver

of the Axle (aksha), was adopted in Greece as Ixion, whose well-known

wheel was merely the circling course of this constellation. Anacreon

mentioned it as a Chariot as well as a Bear; and Hesychius had it Aganna,

an archaic word from agein, ‘to carry,’ singularly like, in orthography at

least, the Akkadian title for the Wain stars, Aganna or Akanna, the Lord

of Heaven; and Aben Ezra called it Ajala, the Hebrew word for ‘waggon.’

The name Helice from Ελιξ, the Curved, or Spiral One, apparently first

used by Aratos and Apollonius Rhodius, became common as descriptive of its

twisting around the pole, ... Sophocles having the same thought in his

mention of ‘the circling paths of the Bear.’ Some, however, derived the

name from the curved or twisted positions of the chief stars.... Helice

was also the name of a city in Arcadia, the country so intimately

connected with the Bears, whose inhabitants were called the Bear race.”

As far back as Hesiod’s time the constellation was associated in myth,

with the name Kallisto, “the beautiful,” which “La Lande referred to the

Phœnician Kalitsah or Chalitsa, Safety, as its observation helped to a

safe voyage. Another version of the Grecian myth associated the

constellation with Artemis, the Roman Diana [_i. e._ the huntress, _cf._

Ishtar and Isis-Satit].” The apparent connection of the name Artemis with

Themis=“law and justice personified,” should be noted here.

The preceding statements establish that, in ancient Greece, Polaris was

identified with the celestial Polos and was described as a star, not

changing its place, but always _revolving on itself_ and it appears

superfluous to point out how closely Plato’s Cosmos agrees with the

current astronomical theories. The Ursæ, on the other hand, were

identified with the titles Helice, referring to axial rotation, and with

the names Aganna (Akanna) Arctos and Amaxa, which are identical in sound

with the words we have found associated with Polaris and the Septentriones

in the ancient Egyptian texts.

Deferring the demonstration that a number of the natural objects or

animals represented in the Egyptian rebus signs, which were merely

employed in hieratic script to express the syllables an, am, ar, ak, etc.,

are to be found as actual names for Polaris and the Ursæ in different

western Asiatic and other countries, I shall now briefly show that, in

remotest historical times, the Grecian states were established upon the

model of an ideal republic such as is outlined in Plato’s works, in

accordance with current cosmological conceptions. According to ancient

tradition the aborigines of Attica were first civilized under Cecrops who

is said to have come hither from Saïs, Egypt, about 1500 B.C.

Turning to Iwan Mueller’s monumental “Alterthumswissenschaft” (IV.

Handbuch der Griechische Alterthümer), let us examine the data he presents

concerning the beginnings of Athenian culture.

“The historical inhabitants of Attica belonged to the Ionic race and

claimed to be autochthonous.... They were grouped into four tribes: the

Geleontes, Argadeis, Aigikoreis and Hopletes. The existence of these four

tribes is usually connected with a territorial division of Attica into

four parts and their names are supposed to have been derived from the

location and occupation of each tribe. The Geleontæ=the shining ones, are

said to have formed the priest or warrior caste and to have lived in

Pedion. The Argadæi were the agriculturists and were situated in the plain

of Thriasis. The Aigikoræi or goatherds were assigned to Diakria.

Authorities still disagree about the habitation of the Hopletes, ‘the

armed ones.’ The interpretation of these names is still open to doubt. An

ancient tradition attributes to them an Ionic derivation.... On the other

hand, it is probable that when they emigrated to Attica the tribe remained

separate and became associated with their place of residence ... at a

later period the phratries were associated with localities.... Each of the

four castes had its chieftain and an equality of rank seems to have been

maintained. In ancient times the citizens were divided into three classes:

the Eupatridæ or nobility; the Geomoræ or farmers; and the Demiurgæ or

artisans, merchants, potters or fishermen,—in fact all who exercised some

occupation.

“The political unity of Attica was centred in the plain of Cephisos, which

was the kernel of the country. In the lower part of the plain, about a

mile from the sea, situated on a plateau, and crowning a high rocky

elevation, lay the ancient fortress Cekropia, the residence of Cecrops and

Erechtheus, the mythical, earth-born forefathers of the Athenians. At the

foot of the fortress, a lower town gradually grew up and spread itself

towards the south. This primitive Athens originally formed only the

nucleus of a small kingdom situated in the plains and surrounded by

enemies.... According to an Attic tradition Cecrops collected the

inhabitants of Attica into 12 ... tribes, states or communities.... The

names of several of these have been shown to have also been applied to

capitals which were independent centres of government. Athens, the centre

of the state, developed into a large city in which the nobility of the

whole country resided and where many artisans also settled. The majority

of the citizens lived, however, in the surrounding country.... The harvest

festival, held at ancient Athens, in honor of the goddess Athene, the

patroness of agriculture, was also a general feast for all inhabitants of

Attica ...” (pp. 104-108).

The foregoing suffices to establish that, in remotest antiquity, Attica

was divided into four territorial divisions, with a central seat of

government, the capital, which formed the fifth division. The inhabitants

of the four regions constituted four tribes, each under its own chieftain.

Each tribe became identified with a different occupation and ultimately

constituted castes which remained associated with their place of

residence. Simultaneously with this territorial distribution, another

classification of the population was evolved, which divided it into three

strata, corresponding to the upper, central and lower caste and thus

yielded a total of seven great divisions of the state, which thus reveals

itself as having been a heptarchy and explains the constitution of the

Heptanomis, which existed in Central Egypt under Greek rule.

From the preceding material it appears that when Solon divided the people

into four classes, he merely reinstated the most ancient form of state

organization known in Greece. It would be interesting to learn how far the

following offices had been previously known. It is well known that Solon

instituted nine archons (literally leaders), which seem to have been the

equivalents to the group of “nine gods” mentioned in Egypt in association

with the supreme god or goddess. The characteristic feature of the archons

appears to have been the fact that they were elected and that the first

archon was surnamed Eponymos and gave his name to the year; the second

archon, entitled Basileus, was the king, and the third, Polemarchas, was a

warrior. The remaining six were collectively called Thesmothetes,

administrators of right or justice. Under the above was the Council of

Four Hundred. Each of the four phylæ fell into three parts or thirds,

producing a total of 12, a number corresponding to the organization of

twelve tribes, communities or states. Each of these was divided into 4

Naucrariæ, under 48 captaincies. The following extracts from Iwan Müller’s

work supply us with further details concerning the Athenian government and

show that variants of the same existed at different periods, throughout

ancient Greece.

“At Athens, in historical times, the members of one tribe formed a

corporation, recognized a common ancestor, observed a form of ancestral

cult and kept a tribal register with the names of all newly born children

(p. 20). The tribes formed corporations within the state, and each had its

own cult and chieftain.... The Doric nation consisted of three such

tribes.... In Ephesus the citizens were divided into five ‘gens’ (_i. e._,

four quarters and centre). It is certain that in Athens, Cyrene, and

Chios, the phratries were communities with separate forms of cult, who

worshipped beside their tribal deities, Zeus Phratrios and Athena Phratria

...” (pp. 20 and 21).

“In Teos the towns inhabited by a ‘gens’ were divided into at least seven

quarters.... In Tenos each gens was known as ‘a tower,’ and each

individual bore the name of his tower and his gens.” Pausing here for an

instant, I draw attention to the recurrence in Greece of certain features

of the Great Plan which must now be familiar to the reader: the

association of divisions of people with a “tower,” an artificial “high

place” or mountain, the development and existence of separate forms of

cult, corresponding to tribal and territorial divisions; the supreme cult

of a male and female divinity, corresponding to the traditions that the

state was founded by two individuals and was governed by two rulers. An

illustration of this is furnished by Sparta, which “was governed by two

kings, belonging to two different royal families ... the origin of this

custom is unknown ... these kings usually were at enmity with each

other....” “The population of Sparta was primarily divided into five

‘phyles,’ identified with five local districts. The names of the latter,

Pitane, Mesoa, Limnai, Konoura and Dyme, were identical with those of the

five Comes or group of separate communities which had constituted the

state of Sparta at the time of Thucydides.” It will be perceived that this

organization corresponds to that of a capital and four provinces.

Simultaneously the population was grouped into three main classes and

twenty-seven phratries.

Considering that in ancient times the belief prevailed, and was shared by

the Spartans themselves, that Lycurgus had introduced his scheme of

organization from Crete, it is interesting to learn that “the Cretans

themselves claimed that their laws dated from a remote antiquity and had

been communicated to Minos and Rhadamanthus by Zeus himself.” In one of

the most ancient portions of the Odysseus, Idomeneus is represented as

ruling in particular over cities situated in _the middle_ of the island.

In historical times the central rulership or monarchy had been abolished

and “the state was ruled by ten chiefs of tribal divisions, who bore in

common the title Cosmos and held office for the limit of one year.”

Although the most ancient accounts of the maritime supremacy of Crete

under its king Minos, the “son of Zeus,” are regarded as grossly

exaggerated, modern authorities agree that, on account of its geographical

position, Crete must undoubtedly have been an extremely important centre

of maritime commerce, during a prolonged period.

On this account, and because the Spartans acknowledged to have received

their scheme of organization from Crete, I draw particular attention to

the design on a coin from Cnossus, the most important capital of Crete,

which recently arrested my attention. It is preserved at the Berlin Museum

and is reproduced in Spamer’s work, already cited (fig. 72, 14 and 15). On

the obverse, it exhibits the fabulous Minotaurus the monster, half man and

half bull, who is stated to have ruled the island. On the reverse, is a

geometrical figure, representing a swastika, in the centre of which is the

five-dot group. A similar coin also found on the site of Cnossus, and

assigned to B.C. 700, is preserved at the British Museum. Its reverse

exhibits also the five-dot group and the swastika, between whose branches

are four large dots or circles. In the Berlin Museum specimen the latter

are replaced by squares containing cross lines. To any one familiar, in

the first case, with the scheme of organization into five Comes, _i. e._

4+1, such as has been shown to have been adopted in Sparta and elsewhere

in Greece, the design on the reverse of both coins appears perfectly

intelligible. No geometrical or cursive sign could more clearly express

the scheme or ground-plan upon which the most ancient form of government

in Greece has been shown to have also rested.

[Illustration.]

Figure 72.

As to the image of the Minotaurus on the obverse of the Berlin coin: to

any one familiar with the widespread system of figuring the state under

the form of a human being or of a quadruped, and of symbolizing its ruler

as its head, the image appears intelligible as that of the quadruplicate

state. The circumstance that the head is that of a bull seems to indicate

that, like the Egyptians, the Cretans applied the title “bull” to their

king; thence perhaps the fable that the island was at one time governed by

the monster Minotaurus who claimed as annual tribute, from conquered

tribes, seven youths and maidens. It is striking how perfectly the

geometrical figures on the reverse of both coins, which I hold to

represent territorial divisions, seem to form the complement to the image

of the state represented in semi-human and semi-animal form. Interesting

variants of the same design appear on two coins of the same period in the

British Museum collection. One of these, from Syracuse, exhibits a

swastika, in the centre of which is a human head—a sign which I should

interpret as the image of a state and its single central ruler. A coin

from Corinth displays a plain swastika only, which suffices to indicate,

however, that its state organization was on the familiar plan.

In connection with the swastika and five-dot group it is interesting to

examine some ancient Egyptian seals exhibiting crosses with four dots or

strokes (fig. 72, 3-5), and to compare these with Rhodian specimens

(10-13). On vases found by Schliemann on the site of Troy (8 and 9), we

find, in one case a swastika and in the other a cross and four dots in a

circle forming the nave. It is interesting to compare the Athenian nos. 6

and 7, one being a swastika and the other a cross in a lozenge.(122) An

extremely curious instance of an entire decoration of a building

consisting of crosses and five-dot groups, is furnished by the cenotaph

erected by a late king in honor of Midas, king of Phrygia (fig. 72, 2),

which, curiously enough, offers much resemblance to the geometrical style

of stucco decorations of the ruins of Mitla, Mexico.(123) The presence of

the swastika on coins assigned to about B.C. 700 and its use in Greece,

where plain cross-symbols had previously been employed, naturally leads to

the inquiry as to the oldest-dated swastikas which have hitherto been

found in Greece and Egypt.

In his important work on the subject already referred to, Prof. Thomas

Wilson (_op. cit._ pp. 806 and 833), cites the opinions of Prof. Max

Müller and Count Goblet d’Alviella as agreeing with that of Waring, who

states that “the swastika is sought for in vain in Babylonia, Assyria and

Phœnicia,” and “had no foothold in Egypt.” The same authority says that:

“the only sign approaching the fylfot in Egyptian hieroglyphics ... is not

very similar to our fylfot ... and forms one of the hieroglyphs of Isis”

(Ceramic Art in Remote Ages, p. 82). On the other hand, Professor Goodyear

says (Grammar of the Lotus, p. 356): “The earliest dated swastikas,

hitherto found in Egypt, occur on the foreign Cyprian and Carian [?]

pottery fragments of the time of the twelfth dynasty [B.C. 2466-2266]

discovered by Mr. Flinders Petrie in 1889. In the Third Memoir of the

Egypt Exploration Fund, Prof. Flinders Petrie published illustrations of

Greek vases showing unmistakable swastikas which, though found at

Naukratis in Egypt, are not Egyptian, but Greek.”

The only other examples of the swastika in Egypt cited by Prof. Thomas

Wilson are those woven on Coptic grave cloths made of linen and reproduced

in “Die Gräber- und Textilfunde von Achmim-Panopolis by R. Forrer.” These

grave cloths pertained to the Christian Greeks who migrated from their

country during the first centuries of our era and settled in Upper Egypt,

in Coptos and the surrounding cities. I am able to add another instance of

the employment of the swastika in Egypt, which, although of Coptic origin,

attaches itself to ancient Egypt.

I have already pointed out that, in Lepsius’ Book of the Dead, the

foremost of the gods of the four quarters, represented in mummy form,

exhibited a cross on his right shoulder. During a recent visit to the

Berlin Museum, my attention was arrested by seeing a swastika painted in

precisely the same position, on the right shoulder of the stucco mummy

case of a man, from Hermopolis, dated from the second century after Christ

(Catalogue No. 11649). This remarkable coincidence seems to furnish

conclusive evidence that, long before the introduction of Greek culture

and Christian influence, the plain cross was employed by the ancient

Egyptians in precisely the same way as, subsequently, the swastika by the

Copts. To some of my readers the question will perhaps suggest itself

whether some early Christian sects and, amongst them, communities of Greek

Copts, did not interpret the mission of Christ literally, as an attempt to

reëstablish an earthly “kingdom of heaven” on the ancient plan, the

knowledge of which had been preserved at Heliopolis, by the sages and

philosophers of Egypt and the large Hebrew colony established there.

Returning to the swastika: From the account given by Prof. Thomas Wilson

(_op. cit._, 810) of Schliemann’s observations on the swastikas he

discovered, during his excavations on the site of Troy, we learn that,

whereas the swastika occurs on thousands of whorls found in the third,

fourth and fifth cities, but few whorls were found in the first and second

cities, which were the deepest and oldest and _none of these bore the

swastika mark_. These observations, added to the appearance of the

swastika in Egypt at a comparatively late period, appear to prove that,

whereas the cross-symbol was known in remotest antiquity in Asia Minor and

Egypt and expressed the same meaning as the swastika, _i. e._ Polaris and

circumpolar rotation and the quadruplicate organization of the Cosmos

suggested by these natural phenomena, it was only the form or shape of the

cross which underwent a change at a certain period. The earliest-dated

specimens of this new form, given to a more ancient symbol, occur on the

pottery fragments found in Egypt by Prof. Flinders Petrie. The presence of

the swastika, on the whorls found in the ruins of the third city built on

the site of Troy, also indicates that its adoption occurred at a fixed

date and marked a new departure.

Referring back to page 21, where I show that the observations which led to

the adoption of the swastika as a symbol could not possibly have been made

until after Ursa Major had become circumpolar, about B.C. 4000, I point

out that the oldest swastikas which have hitherto been found corroborate

this view, since they are all posterior to the time when Ursa Major became

circumpolar. Long anterior to its adoption, however, the primordial set of

ideas, suggested to the human mind by the observation of natural

phenomena, had reached an advanced stage of development, and had been

worked out, applied to the regulation of human life and symbolized, in

various ways, in widely separated countries.

It is impossible to conclude my comparative research, which has been

rewarded by a most unexpected wealth of material, without enumerating a

few facts connected with the earliest histories of Rome, ancient Ireland,

Britain, Wales and Scandinavia. These brief and doubtlessly imperfect

résumés will have fulfilled their purpose if they stimulate inquiry and

evoke authoritative statements by learned specialists.