Another peculiarity of the Egyptian geography is that it has always been perceived not only as ‘upper’ and ‘lower’ but as two distinct lands. According to Egyptologists, the land we now call Egypt was very early divided into two distinct although united kingdoms, one in the north or in ‘Lower Egypt’ and the other in the south or ‘Upper Egypt’. In all guidebooks on Egypt you will be told unequivocally that in 3000 BC or thereabouts, a powerful king of Upper Egypt called Menes (or Narmer or Scorpion) invaded Lower Egypt and united it with Upper Egypt, thus creating the ‘Kingdom of the Two Lands’, a sort of pharaonic merger of north and south. You will also be told with the same assurance that Menes or Narmer or Scorpion built the capital of this double kingdom at Memphis, 15 kilometres south of modern Cairo. As I.E.S. Edwards, for example, explains:Menes, at first king of Upper Egypt only, overcame the northern kingdom and united the two former kingdoms under one crown, established himself as ruler over the whole land. Memphis would thus have been the natural place for him to build a strong fortified city . . . In unifying the two kingdoms, Menes performed a military feat that may have been attempted by others before his time, but never with more than temporary success. Menes, however, both achieved the military victory necessary for uniting the two kingdoms and ensured that its effects would be lasting by following it up with an astute policy, on which the greatness of Egypt in the subsequent dynasties was founded. Nevertheless, the historical fact that Egypt had once consisted of two separate kingdoms was never entirely forgotten by its people, for down to the latest times the pharaohs still included among their titles that of ‘King of Upper and Lower Egypt’.2
Edwards, like many Egyptologists of his generation, seems to have accepted that the ‘unification’ of Upper and Lower Egypt was an actual historical event. There are, however, some Egyptologists who are not so sure of this, and consider it to have probably been a ‘semimythical anecdote’. For example, Michael Hoffman, who is an accredited authority on the predynastic history of ancient Egypt, insists that there is precious little contemporary evidence that supports a historical ‘unification’. According to Hoffman, the story of the ‘unification’ event ‘is culled from documents that come from hundreds if not thousands of years after the alleged event, by which time Menes, if he ever existed, had been transformed into a culture-hero whose life and accomplishments were embroidered with semi-mythical anecdotes.’3 This is also the view of the Czech Egyptologist Miroslav Verner, who admits that ‘some researchers consider Menes a purely legendary figure’,4 and of the influential Dr Jaromir Malek of the Griffith Institute, who went as far as to suggest that the origin of the idea of two separate kingdoms ‘may be a projection of the pervasive dualism of Egyptian ideologies, (and) not a record of a true historical situation’.5
But if the ‘unification’ was not historical, then from where or from what did the ancient Egyptians themselves cull such a dualism for their country?
Unification of Earth and Sky
In the year 1800, during the French occupation of Egypt, a large black stone with rows of hieroglyphic inscriptions on it, was discovered in a field just a few kilometres south of modern Cairo by marauding French soldiers in Napoleon’s army. The black stone, which apparently had been used by local farmers to grind wheat, was at first kept in the army barracks at Alexandria, but when the French surrendered to the British forces in 1801, the mysterious stone was taken as spoils of war and promptly dispatched to Earl Spencer in England, who, probably not knowing what to make of it, eventually donated it to Egyptology. Today the black stone is displayed on the south wall of the ground floor of the Egyptian gallery at the British Museum in London. A rectangular block of granite measuring 92 x 137 cm, it has carved on it 64 lines of hieroglyphic text. Although much of the original inscription has been severely damaged through the ages, enough nonetheless remains to provide us with an invaluable insight into how the ancient Egyptians perceived the origins of their double kingdom of Upper and Lower Egypt and also the genesis of the ‘divine’ kings who ruled it. The text is known to Egyptologists as the Memphite Theology, and according to Frankfort, it mainly expounds a ‘theory of kingship’ based on a mythical ancestry.6 The stone and the inscriptions on it date from about 750 BC during the reign of King Shabaka; hence its occasional name of the Shabaka Stone. But some Egyptologists believe that the text was culled from a much older source, which, in any case, is confirmed by the ancient scribe himself who copied it:This writing was copied out anew by his majesty (King Shabaka) in the house of his father Ptah-South-of-his-Wall (Memphis), for his majesty found it to be a work of the ancestors which was worm-eaten so that it could not be understood from beginning to end. His majesty copied it anew so that it became better than it had been before . . .7
Egyptologist and philologist Miriam Lichtheim, who studied the writings on the Shabaka Stone, concluded that the ‘text is a work of the Old Kingdom but its precise date is not known. The language is archaic and resembles that of the Pyramid Texts.’8 This view is shared by Frankfort, who was of the opinion that certain doctrines found in the Memphite Theology came from ‘traditions of the greatest antiquity’. Also according to Frankfort, ‘the text is a cosmology . . . it describe the order of creation and makes Egypt . . . an indissoluble part of the order’.9
The first part of the inscriptions narrates how the creation of the land of Egypt had taken place when the primeval waters receded and the ‘Mound of Creation’ first appeared at Heliopolis. The story then moves quickly to the epic conflict between Horus, the son of Osiris, and his uncle the god Seth, over the legitimate right to rule Egypt. The conflict ends by being resolved by the earth-god Geb, father of Osiris, nonetheless under the aegis of the Council of Gods or Great Ennead:Geb, Lord of the Gods, commanded that the Nine Gods gather to him. He judged between Horus and Seth; he ended their quarrel. He made Seth king of Upper Egypt in the land of Upper Egypt, up to the place where he was born which is Su (a place near Herakleopolis). And Geb made Horus king of Lower Egypt in the land of Lower Egypt, up to the place in which his father (Osiris) was drowned which is ‘Division of the Two Lands’ . Thus Horus stood over one region and Seth stood over one region. They made peace over the Two Lands at Ayan (near Memphis). That was the division of the Two Lands. Geb’s words to Seth: ‘Go to the place in which you were born.’ Seth: ‘Upper Egypt.’ Geb’s words to Horus: ‘Go to the place in which your father was drowned.’ Horus: ‘Lower Egypt.’ Geb’s words to Horus and Seth: ‘I have separated you’ into Lower and Upper Egypt. Then it seemed wrong to Geb that the portion of Horus was like the portion of Seth. So Geb gave to Horus Seth’s inheritance, for he is the son of his first born (Osiris). Geb to the Nine Gods: ‘I have appointed Horus, the firstborn.’ Geb’s words to the Nine Gods: ‘Him alone, Horus, the inheritance.’ Geb’s words to the Nine Gods: ‘To this heir, my inheritance.’ Geb’s words to the Nine Gods: ‘To the son of my son, Horus . . .’ Then Horus stood over the land. He is the uniter of this land, proclaimed in the great name: Ta-tenen, South of his Wall, Lord of Eternity. Then sprouted the two great magicians (crowns) upon his head. He is Horus, who arose as king of Upper and Lower Egypt, who united the Two Lands in the nome of the Wall (Memphis), the place in which the Two Lands were united. Reed and Papyrus were placed on the double door of the House of Ptah (a creator god). This means Horus and Seth, pacified and United. They fraternised so as to cease quarrelling in whatever place they might be, being united in the House of Ptah, the ‘Balance of the Two Lands’ in which Upper and Lower Egypt had been weighed. This is the land (of) the burial of Osiris . . .10
It does not require much imagination to see that the ‘unification’ of Upper and Lower Egypt as described in the Memphite Theology has both a mythical and a cosmic ring to it. The land of the ‘burial of Osiris’ which is the Memphite region is almost certainly also the Duat, the starry underworld containing Orion, which, as we have seen, is the celestial form of Osiris. Bearing this in mind, the words of the Canadian Egyptologist Samuel Mercer hav
e a particular resonance when he informs us that ‘the Duat was a kind of duplicate of Egypt. There was an Upper and Lower Duat, and it had a great river running through it.’11
The King and Seshat performing the Stretching the Cord ceremony, Temple of Karnak.
Reconstruction of the Stretching the Cord ceremony, Hilversum Studios, Holland.
Seshat counting the years on the palm branch,Temple of Seti I at Abydos.
The Stretching the Cordceremony, Edfu temple.
Horus figure marking a spot in the Big Dipper with a spear.
The Giza necropolis from the east.
The author.View from the roof of the building where he lives.
Overhead view of Giza (south at top).
Giza Pyramids looking south-west.Note the offset of the smaller pyramid.
Orion. Note offset of smaller star (Mintaka) in Orion’s belt.
Orion’s belt showing offsetof smaller star Mintaka.
Star-shafts in Great Pyramid.
Angle of Orion’s belt at meridian in c. 11,500 BC.
Author at Abusir pyramids.
View of the Abusir pyramids from the sun-temple at Abu Ghorab. Note the alabaster sacrificial altar on lower left of plate.
Author at the Temple of Karnak, west entrance.
Sir Norman Lockyer c. 1899.
Elephantine Island at Aswan in the background. Author and view from the gardens of the Old Cataract Hotel.
Sunrise at winter solstice, Temple of Karnak.
This surely raises a question: could the idea of an Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt be rooted in astronomy?
Astronomical Grounds
In 1891 the English astronomer Sir Norman Lockyer developed a deep fascination for ancient Egypt and its mysterious pyramids and temples. He was puzzled as to why a people who so deeply venerated the sun, and who especially observed its rising in the eastern horizon fluctuating throughout the yearly cycle from a point in the north at summer solstice to one in the south at winter solstice, should also have their country similarly disposed with a distinct north and a distinct south concept. After giving much reflection to this geographical peculiarity, as well as to the ancient Egyptians’ intense religious focus on the sky, Lockyer began to suspect that ‘the double origin of the people thus suggested on astronomical grounds may be the reason for the name of the “double country” used specially in the title of kings’.12 Almost a century later, in 1992, the very same idea came to the astronomer Ronald Wells, who was more specific than Lockyer when he wrote thatMonitoring the movements of the sun god must have been one of the earliest of predynastic observations in the Nile Valley; and it would have been natural to interpret the sun’s yearly motion along the eastern horizon from the southernmost point at the winter solstice to the northernmost point at the summer solstice and back as journeys or visitations of the god to each of the two kingdoms - the due east point forming at least the heavenly boundary between them.13
We have seen how the Egyptians started their calendar in 2781 BC with the summer solstice when the latter coincided with the heliacal rising of Sirius and also with the opening of the flood season (Akhet). Not surprisingly, therefore, this first day of the year, or ‘New Year’s Day’, was referred to as wp rnpt, literally ‘The Opener of the Year’, and was used as an epithet for Sirius.14 In the civil calendar it was tabulated as I Akhet 1, i.e. first month, season of Akhet, first day. Eventually it was simply called 1 Thoth, which was the first day of the first month of the year, in the same way we call New Year’s Day 1 January in our current Gregorian calendar.15 But another, perhaps even more meaningful, name for the New Year’s Day was ms-wtr, literally ‘The Birth of Ra’ or, to be more precise, ‘The Birth of Ra-Horakhti’ (Ra-Horus-of-the-Horizon). In 1905 the chronologist Eduard Meyer demonstrated that ‘The Birth of Ra’ had denoted the summer solstice. But this only holds true for the date c. 2781 BC when the New Year’s Day coincided with the summer solstice. Because the civil calendar was a drifted calendar which displaced the summer solstice by a quarter of a day each year, the same thing happened to the New Year’s Day and, by extension, to ‘The Birth of Ra’. Simple calculation shows that after 753 years (1506 ÷ 2 = 753 years, half the Great Solar Cycle), the ‘Birth of Ra’ had drifted to the winter solstice and thus a massive 54° to the south of the summer solstice sunrise point. In other words, in the year 2028 BC (2781-753 = 2028) the sun disc rose 28° south-of-east at the winter solstice and not, as it had done originally in 2781 BC, 28° north-of-east at the summer solstice. Surely this conjunction of ‘The Birth of Ra’ with the winter solstice, marked by the extreme southerly position of the sun disc on the horizon, must have had immense religious significance to the priests of the solar cult who were based in the southern extreme of Egypt. It must have seemed as if the cosmic order had ordained that now it was their turn to be controllers of the sun religion and that the reigning pharaoh should now also move the capital of the country from its location in the north to a new location in the south.
Is there any indication that this happened? If my hypothesis is correct, then we ought to find in the south of Egypt a major religious centre rising in prominence at around 2028 BC which not only was dedicated to this new vision of the sun-god but, more especially, whose principal sun temple was orientated to the winter solstice sunrise.
The Father of Archaeoastronomy
Amazing as it may seem, it was not until the late 1800s that European scholars began to suspect that the ancient temples of Egypt may have had astronomical alignments. And although it had long been known that the bases of the pyramids were aligned to the astronomical cardinal points, no one as yet had suspected that temples also had anything to do with the rising or setting of the sun or the stars. As we have seen, the consensus among Egyptologists was - and to a certain extent still is - that the temples of Egypt were simply made to face the Nile. But all this began to change - or should have done - one cold November evening in 1890, when the astronomer Sir Norman Lockyer read a carefully structured paper at the Royal School of Mines in London to a small audience of middle-aged gentlemen in white collar and black tie.
That evening Lockyer presented what he thought was a completely new and revolutionary idea: that the ancient temples of Egypt had all probably been aligned to the sun or the stars. He visualised the ancients who designed those temples not merely as superstitious priests but rather as astronomers (albeit subjugated to their religion) who had cleverly incorporated their cosmologies and celestial myths into the orientation and symbolism of their religious buildings. It all seemed completely new and very controversial to the learned gentlemen listening to Lockyer - except for one, who, after the lecture, politely informed Locker by letter that a certain Professor Nissen in Germany had beaten him to it by publishing a paper on this topic not long ago. Clearly embarrassed by this news, but being the great gentleman and scholar that he was, Lockyer was later to write in the preface of his famous book, The Dawn of Astronomy, the following acknowledgement:After my lectures were over, I received a very kind letter from one of my audience, pointing out to me that a friend had informed him that Professor Nissen, in Germany, had published some papers on the orientation of ancient temples. I at once ordered them. Before I received them I went to Egypt to make some inquiries on the spot with reference to certain points which it was necessary to investigate, for the reason that when the orientations were observed and recorded, it was not known what use would be made of them, and certain data required for my special inquiry were wanting. In Cairo also I worried my archaeological friends. I was told that the question had not been discussed; that, so far as they knew, the idea was new . . . One of them, Brugsch Bey, took much interest in the matter, and was good enough to look up some of the old inscriptions, and one day he told me he had found a very interesting one concerning the foundation of the temple at Edfu. From this inscription it was clear that the idea was not new, it was possibly six thousand years old. Afterwards I went up the river, and made some observations which carried convict
ion with them and strengthened the idea in my mind that for the orientation not only of Edfu, but of all the larger temples which I examined, there was an astronomical basis. I returned to England at the beginning of March, 1891, and within a few days of landing received Professor Nissen’s papers. I have thought it right to give this personal narrative, because, while it indicates the relation of my work to Professor Nissen’s, it enables me to make the acknowledgment that the credit of having first made the suggestion belongs, so far as I know, solely to him.16
The Egypt Code Page 17