The Egypt Code

by Robert Bauval

  To be fair, Egyptologists do not deny that the ancient Egyptians carefully observed and recorded the movement of the stars and probably portioned the solar year into twelve parts or ‘months’ even as early as the third millennium BC.45 But in the same breath they do deny that the Egyptians were capable of recognising in these portions or constellations the figures of the creatures in the way the Greeks or Babylonians did. This stands in total contradiction, however, not only of the accounts of Herodotus and others, but also of contemporary archaeological evidence. For there exist drawings of ancient Egyptian cosmology showing human as well as animal figures that quite clearly represent constellations, such as Orion as Osiris, Canis Major as Isis, the Plough as a bull’s thigh, Draco as a pregnant hippopotamus, and so on. Egyptologists will be quick to point out that these constellations are not zodiacal ones, i.e. they are not the twelve through which the sun passes in the course of the year. True. But also shown in the astronomical drawings from the ceilings of royal tombs dating from the Ramesside period are animal figures that are clearly zodiacal, such as a scorpion, a lion and a ram. And there is, of course, the cosmic scales which Maat personifies. Such clear evidence has on occasion brought protestation by more open-minded historians of science, such as the eminent Russian astronomer Alexander Gurshtein, for whom it was obvious that the ‘ancient Egyptians were devoted to astronomy. They created the world’s first practical solar calendar. It demanded the measuring of the positions of the sun on the starry background, i.e. to recognise the zodiac.’ There is also the British Egyptologist Richard Wilkinson, who, as we have seen, was among the first in his profession to admit that ‘the stellar constellation now known as Leo was also recognised by the Egyptians as being in the form of a recumbent lion’ and that this ‘constellation was directly associated with the sun god’. To this we can also add the professional views of other scholars such as Yale University Egyptologist Virginia Lee Davis, who, in reference to the star-studded recumbent lion seen in Ramesside astronomical ceilings, asserted that ‘the Lion with its outline of stars must be Leo’,46 and American scholar Donald Etz who made the same assertion in an article for the Journal of the American Research Centre in Egypt.47 Even more recently, in 2001, the Spanish astronomer Juan A. Belmonte presented similar cogent evidence to the SEAC 9th Conference in Stockholm, where he informed his colleagues that ‘the Analysis of the astronomical data presented in the diagonal Ramesside Clocks has allowed us to prepare a potential list of correlations between the Egyptian stars presented in them and the actual stars in the sky. Some results are very coherent, such as the identification of . . . the Lion with our constellation Leo.’ Belmonte also showed that ‘the identification of the Lion (in the Ramesside clock) with our Leo and the lion in the ceiling representations’ are one and the same. At any rate, we needn’t get too entangled in this never-ending scholarly debate about the zodiac. What should really concern us is not whether the whole zodiac concept was known to the ancient Egyptians, but whether they saw in the pattern of the stars that we call Leo the same leonine figure we see, namely a recumbent lion; and, if so, whether or not they called this image Horakhti.

  Let us, therefore, now focus our attention on this issue alone.

  The Step Pyramid Complex at Saqqara.

  The Step Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara.

  Details of panelled boundary wall of the Step Pyramid Complex at Saqqara.

  Robert Bauval measuring the inclination of the Serdab.

  Night photograph of the Serdab with the statue of King Djoser gazing towards the circumpolar stars.

  Looking through the peephole at the Statue of King Djoser in the Serdab at Saqqara.

  The Giza Pyramids during the flood season.

  The Nile at Aswan during the flood season.

  The solstices and equinoxes as seen in a flat desert landscape.

  The sky-region of the Duat, showing Sirius (lower left of frame), the Pleiades (on middle right of frame), Orion (middle of frame) and the Milky Way.

  (Facing page) The Big Dipper seen upright.

  The Bull’s Thigh constellation of the ancient Egyptians (Big Dipper) on the lid of the Asyut coffin, 10th dynasty (c. 2050 BC).

  The goddess Isis with the Star Sothis (Sirius), Temple of Dendera (courtesy Sarite).

  The goddess Isis suckling the infant Horus in the bullrushes, Temple of Horus at Edfu.

  Sirius rising (lower left). Note Orion above the two persons.

  The sun’s journey through the Duat: entry at the Pleiades (Spring Equinox) and exit at Leo (Summer Solstice).

  The Image of ‘Horus-of-the-Horizon’

  Throughout history the lion has been the symbol of power, nobility and divine kingship. All one needs to do is stroll in any museum or art gallery to be confronted with this blatant fact. In cities such as Paris, London, Rome and Venice, lion symbols abound in squares and piazzas, guarding the entrances of villas and stately buildings, flanking fountains or emblazoned on the walls of churches and palaces. The leonine symbol is also found in heraldry, on coins and even on the old British passport. The archaeologist Selim Hassan gives us his own view of why lion symbolism was used especially in ancient Egypt:In the earliest times the lion was the strongest and most imposing animal known to the Egyptians, and as such, it symbolised the king . . . the protector of his people; they looked to him to guard them from their enemies, to lead them into battle, to find them fresh hunting-grounds, and to feed them in time of famine. The king and the lion were one in their minds.48

  Another view is given by I.E.S. Edwards:In Egyptian mythology the lion often figures as the guardian of sacred places. How or when this conception first arose is not known, but it probably dates back to remote antiquity. Like so many primitive beliefs it was incorporated by the priests of Heliopolis into the solar creed, the lion being considered the guardian of the Underworld (the Duat).49

  The lion in Egypt was, as everyone knows, more often than not depicted as a sphinx, that is to say a hybrid creature with the body of a lion and the head of a man or a woman, a ram or even a falcon. The latter, in fact, was very popular in statuary and religious art, and is known as a hierocosphinx (‘falcon-sphinx’ in Greek). It can be seen on a relief from the pyramid complex of Sahura at Abusir and, more particularly, at the temple at Edfu which was the principal sanctuary of the solar falcon-god Horus.50 According to archaeologist Paul Jordan, the ‘earliest hybridisation of the lion known from archaeological records involves not a human head but the head and wings of a falcon (and) it may well be that the sphinx idea arose in the first (sic) as a lion-bodied transformation of Horus’.51 There is an inscription also at the temple at Edfu which seems to confirm this alchemical merger of the falcon and lion in the person of the god Horus: ‘Horus of Edfu transformed himself into a lion which has the face of a man.’52

  Sphinxes abound in Egypt, but the most famous of all is, of course, the Great Sphinx of Giza. Who or what did this universally known statue represent? Half-lion, half-man, is it a strange god whose name we have forgotten? Going by the inscriptions and reliefs from Edfu, one would be forgiven for thinking that the Great Sphinx represents Horus. But such obvious cerebral deduction is not how the minds of Egyptologists work when it comes to the identity of the Great Sphinx. Indeed, this is probably the most debated issue in Egyptology. The reason is complex, but its central core revolves around the adamant belief that there are no inscriptions contemporary with the Great Sphinx that speak of it let alone tell us who or what it represented. As the versatile Selim Hassan, who worked at the Sphinx for many years, was at a loss to explain: ‘this, in itself, is an enigma’.53 On the other hand, because the Sphinx is located in front of Khafra’s pyramid, many Egyptologists are convinced that it represents Khafra, though this conclusion is not without its dissenters. Eminent Egyptologists such as Rainer Stadelmann and Vassil Dobrev, for example, are equally convinced that the Sphinx is not Khafra but Khufu. There are also others who, in their desire to remain neutral in this debate, are happy to see
the Sphinx as representing no one in particular but as a symbol of the sun-god. Mark Lehner, for instance, writes, ‘The lion was a solar symbol in more than one ancient Near Eastern culture. It is also a common archetype of royalty. The royal human head on a lion’s body symbolises power and might controlled by the intelligence of the pharaoh, guarantor of cosmic order, Maat.’54

  All Egyptologists do agree, however, that the Sphinx was created during the Fourth Dynasty, and none of them can deny, of course, that it has the body of a lion and the head of a man or king and that it was made to gaze due east at the horizon, where the sun rises at the equinoxes. Not unexpectedly, in the Pyramid Texts the dead king is beseeched to join or become Horakhti in the eastern horizon at sunrise. Accordingly, Selim Hassan concluded thatThen came the occasion when the Egyptians wished to create an imposing image of their God-king, who after his death was called Horakhti - ‘Horus the Dweller in the Horizon’ - the Lord of Heaven. How to represent him? The idea of using the form of the lion probably occurred first, but did not quite meet the need, for the lion had come to be associated in their minds with ferocity as well as kingship, and they wished to represent a wise and powerful, but beneficent deity. It is perhaps in this manner that they evolved the form of the Sphinx, which displays the grace and terrific power of the lion and the superior intellectual power of man.

  He further explained that. . . in the beliefs of the Egyptians, the king was the earthly representation of this god, and we have proof that in the very early period the dead king was especially called Horakhti. When Khafra cut the Great Sphinx, it was made in his likeness, that is to say in the likeness of Horakhti, with whom he was identified.55

  As far as Hassan was concerned, the equation was simple and straightforward: Horakhti was identified with a lion; Khafra built the Sphinx; the dead Khafra was identified with Horakhti; the Sphinx was the guardian of Khafra’s tomb; the Sphinx must be, by all logic, a representation of the dead Khafra as Horakhti. It should be noted that in passages from the Pyramid Texts quoted earlier, we are told that the king joined not just Ra, i.e. the sun, but also Horakhti in the eastern horizon at dawn when the ‘Waterway is flooded’, i.e. during the summer solstice time of year when the Nile floods. At the epoch of Khafra this was the time of year when the sun was in the constellation of Leo. Leo is a lion constellation. The image of Horakhti is a lion. The Sphinx is a solar symbol. The conclusion must be, by all common sense, that Horakhti is Leo and that the Sphinx of Giza represents the sun-god Ra ‘coalesced’ with Horakhti in the Fourth Dynasty, which is when Egyptologists such as Wilkinson, as we shall see later on, say this ‘coalescing’ or synchretisation took place!56 Oddly, however, such straightforward logic does not always work with Egyptologists. As a matter of fact, the idea that the Sphinx might be a symbol of the sun in Leo is one of the most vilified in this profession. But why?

  First, as French Egyptologist Christiane Zivie-Coche protests, ‘there are no references to the Sphinx in texts from the Old Kingdom’, let alone any that remotely suggest that it or Horakhti was a symbol of Leo.57 As Dr Zivie-Coche argues, the name of the Great Sphinx was Horemakhet, ‘Horus-in-the-Horizon’, and not Horakhti ‘Horus-of-the-Horizon’. Vive la différence! But in any case, as she points out, even the name Horemakhet cannot be that of the Sphinx, because it was not given to it by its original builders of the Fourth Dynasty, but a thousand years later by the Eighteenth Dynasty kings who restored it. Therefore this name, she concludes, cannot be taken as the true name of the Sphinx but must be considered as a sort of pharaonic pseudonym. Thus Zivie-Coche sternly warns everyone that it is totally unjustified to speak of Horemakhet when referring to the Old Kingdom. And that’s that. This, in a nutshell, is the basic argument put forward by most Egyptologists.

  But Zivie-Coche’s bold assertion that ‘there are no references to the Sphinx in texts from the Old Kingdom’ is in dire need of rephrasing. What she really should have said was that there are no references to Horemakhet in the Old Kingdom, but only in the New Kingdom texts, which is, of course, a very different thing altogether. This is because there are, in fact, plenty of references to the Sphinx in Old Kingdom texts; plenty, that is, if you also accept that the Sphinx was called also Horakhti, as Hassan has shown, in the New Kingdom. Indeed, the Pyramid Texts are full of references to Horakhti, as we have seen. And at Giza, during archaeological digs, Hassan found many votive stelae near the Sphinx on which ‘side by side with the name Horemakhet, we find the Great Sphinx also called Horakhti’.58 This view is echoed by fellow Egyptologist Ahmed Fakhry, who also concluded that ‘the stelae and votive figures of sphinxes, lions, and falcons found around the Sphinx reveals the names under which it was known and worshipped. Most commonly it was called Horemakhet, “Horus-in-the-Horizon”, or Horakhti, “Horus-of-the-Horizon” . . . both are appropriate names . . .’59 Hassan also found a depiction from an Eighteenth Dynasty tomb at Giza that shows a man kneeling in adoration before the Sphinx, with an inscription that reads: ‘Adoration to Horakhti, the Great God, the Lord of Heaven . . .’60

  With all this evidence, it can now be seen why it is perverse for Zivie-Coche and her colleagues to keep on insisting that ‘there are no references to the Sphinx in texts from the Old Kingdom’.61 At the risk of repeating myself, the truth of the matter is that there are plenty of references to Horakhti in the Pyramid Texts which date from the Old Kingdom, and it was a name which, along with Horemakhet, was used for the Great Sphinx of Giza in the New Kingdom. Ah, but that’s in the New Kingdom and not the Old Kingdom, the critics are quick to reply. And why wouldn’t the Egyptians of the New Kingdom know the true name of the Great Sphinx of Giza as given to it in the Old Kingdom? Well, only because Egyptologists say so. This, however, is a circular argument. The Sphinx, like all else in the Pyramid Texts, is referred to in cosmic terms. It is, after all, as Lehner pointed out, the symbol of the pharaoh as guarantor of the cosmic order. The pharaoh, after death, became one with Horakhti. It is, therefore, a symbol of Horakhti, and the latter is, in spite of Zivie-Coche’s protestations, profusely mentioned in the Old Kingdom texts.

  Heliopolis was the city most sacred to Ra-Horakhti, so much so that Dr Zahi Hawass, the head of antiquities in Egypt, calls it the ‘City of Ra-Horakhti’.62 And for good reason: the high priest of Heliopolis was called ‘Chief Seer of Ra-Horakhti’,63 and the object of the veneration was a conical or pyramidal stone called benben, which, according to Egyptologist Labib Habachi, ‘was sacred to Ra-Horakhti, the rising sun’.64 There is, too, the obelisk at Heliopolis dedicated to Ra-Horakhti by Senusret I of the Twelfth Dynasty,65 and the pharaoh Sethi I of the Nineteenth Dynasty designed a temple for Heliopolis which he described as a ‘monuments for my father Ra-Horakhti’. Interestingly, Sethi I also called Heliopolis ‘the Horizon of Heaven’, which is a perfect epithet for its god Ra-Horakhti, i.e. ‘Ra-Horus of the Horizon’.66 On one of the pair of obelisks of the Eighteenth Dynasty pharaoh Thothmoses III which once stood at Heliopolis is inscribed: ‘Thothmoses made as his monument for his father Ra-Horakhti, the erecting for him of two large obelisks with pyramidions of electrum on the third occasion of the Jubilee . . .’67 It is also a fact that Heliopolis existed before the Giza Pyramids. It is a fact that it was an important centre for calendrical computations from at least the Third Dynasty. And it is a fact that the high priest of Heliopolis bore the title ‘Chief of the Astronomers’, which, according to I.E.S. Edwards, implies the observation not only of the sun but of the stars:Imhotep’s title ‘Chief of the Observers’, which became the regular title of the High Priest of Heliopolis, may itself suggest an occupation connected with astral, rather than solar, observation . . . It is significant that the high priest of the centre of the sun-cult at Heliopolis bore the title ‘Chief of the Astronomers’ and was represented wearing a mantle adorned with stars.68

  Any avid stargazer worth his salt, especially one who made it his principal business to observe the rising of the stars at dawn, would have known that the sun journeyed through the
year against the fixed background of stars and that during the summer solstice it rose at dawn against the background of a constellation that had the distinct shape of a recumbent lion. Making a giant statue that gazes eternally at the rising sun in the horizon and calling it Horakhti, then saying that the dead pharaoh joined Horakhti in the horizon at dawn when the Nile was in flood, and then dedicating the statue to the pharaoh should leave us with sufficient evidence, if not proof, that the statue was a solar-stellar hybrid of lion and man symbolising the merger of the sun-god, i.e. the sun disc, with Horakhti, i.e. Leo.

  Since 1983 I have advocated a stellar symbolism for the Old Kingdom pyramids of the Fourth and Fifth dynasties, though it is evident now that they also belonged to a solar cult. This is because, as the astronomer and historian Alexander Gurshtein bluntly put it: ‘the astronomical observations of the sun coordinated its position on the starry background. This is why the elements of the sun-cult were mixed very tightly in the elements of the astral cult.’69 In my book The Orion Mystery I have shown how the scattering of pyramids on the west side of the Nile was based on a master plan intended to represented the scattering of stars on the west side of the Milky Way. In this plan the three Giza pyramids were, according to my contention, representative of the three stars of Orion’s belt.70 The conclusion, then, was that the ancient pyramid-builders wanted to replicate the starry Duat on their land or, in their parlance, build the ‘Duat of Memphis’. Paradoxically, Mark Lehner, who is an opponent of this theory, nonetheless confirms that, ‘the word for Netherworld was the Duat, often written with a star in a circle, a reference to Orion, the stellar expression of Osiris, in the Underworld. Osiris was the “Lord of the Duat”, which, like the celestial world - and the real Nile Valley - was both a water world and an earthly realm.’71 Also, according to Egyptologist Natalie Beaux:The sign of a ‘five-pointed star in a circle’, or more simply just the sign of a ‘five-pointed star’, are those that most frequently are used to describe the Duat. It must be noted that the ‘five-pointed star in the circle’ found in the Pyramid Texts only refers to the Duat. One passage makes it quite clear what is being referred to: ‘Orion is “swallowed” by the Duat, while the Living One (the rising sun) is purified in the Horizon (Akhet); Spd-t (Canis Major) is “swallowed” by the Duat, while the Living One in purified in the Horizon; (Unas) is “swallowed” up by the Duat, while the Living One is purified in the Horizon . . .’ . . . The Duat is specifically the region in which the star prepares itself for its apparition - an apparition which is always seen as a ‘birth’.72