An analogous example is the naos in the Temple of Horus at Edfu. As Barry Kemp has written, ‘. . . the shrine in the sanctuary [is] carved from a single block of syenite’.13 This naos has just enough space to hold a statue of Horus. It is not a ‘dummy’ shrine, however, for it still pays homage to the ideal archetypal form of the reed hut. All other architectural elements are thus erected around this naos-form, whether in the chapels of Djoser’s complex or the later great temples with their architectural elaborations of the ideal type. But that still does not answer the question of why Djoser chose to build in stone what had previously been made of perishable materials. Doing so would thus insure a certain permanence, allowing the king to celebrate ‘millions’ of sed-festivals, or so he doubtless hoped. ‘The linking of the gift of millions of years with the gift of Sed-festivals established an interesting connection which suggests the king’s desire for a means to increase the length of his life and reign.’14 Just as the heb-sed was a magical event extending the king’s longevity, so building in stone would magically make permanent Djoser’s temporal reign.
At the southern end of the Step Pyramid heb-sed are the remains of a dais, upon which once were double thrones. It was here that Djoser sat to receive the homage of visiting deities. From a later sed-festival there is evidence that a torchlight ceremony took place, during which the two thrones were illuminated. The torch borne by the king was then used to light torches carried by a procession of priests, who carried the flames to the various deity-chapels.15 This torch-ceremony may explain the small round holes at the top of the central columns of the chapels in Djoser’s heb-sed court, which have puzzled Egyptologists generally. These holes could very well have been receptacles for the lighted torches used to illuminate the double row of shrines and other buildings of the complex connected with this event of the festival.
Just behind the heb-sed court at Saqqara is a curious construction, designated Temple T, which is of particular significance since it is one of the very few ‘real’ buildings of the Step Pyramid, having a complete interior of rooms and corridors.16 Firth was the first to link this structure with the ‘palace’ or robing room used by the king for resting and changing costumes during the festival events.17 To the west of the heb-sed court and beyond Temple T is the great field where Djoser ran around the territorial cairns symbolising the boundaries of the land of Kemet. The Step Pyramid itself borders the northern perimeter of this field, and in subterranean galleries of the pyramid - some panelled with blue-green tiles - were discovered low-relief stelae with representations of the king running, or what Hermann Kees describes as performing an offering dance. Of the three stelae, the southern one shows Djoser running nude except for the White Crown (? - the head is missing), a false beard and a penis sheath. In front of the striding king is a vertical line of enigmatic glyphs which seem to refer to a birth chamber located in the south-west (of an enclosure?).18 It just so happens that a structure is located in the south-west corner of the Djoser complex, a remarkable and mysterious building that has vexed scholars since its discovery. On the surface it is marked by a uraeus-topped wall, and its underground chambers are similar to those beneath the Step Pyramid. Some of these are also decorated with blue-green tiles; and there are three additional stelae of the king, one of which also shows him running all-but-naked, with a vertical band of glyphs likewise mentioning a birth chamber. The purpose of the Great Southern Tomb - as the structure has been designated by scholars - is directly related to this birth chamber. Inscriptions from later sed-festivals provide valuable clues for this identification.
From the reliefs recording the sed-festival celebrated by Osorkon II in the Twenty-second Dynasty comes evidence that the king entered his tomb - or a building designated as his symbolic tomb - during the events of the festival.19 Just before Osorkon enters his tomb, priests are depicted, including the Opener of the Mouth, a sem-priest and a priest holding a knife and a stick.20 Eric Uphill, in his seminal article on the sed-festival discusses the above scene, as well as parallels from the sun-temple, reliefs at Niuserra and the cenotaph of Seti I at Abydos. In the latter example, the king is shown stretched out prone on a lion couch attired in a robe very much in appearance like that worn by kings during the heb-sed enthronement ceremony. Above Seti is the single glyph commanding him to ‘awake’.21
Back at Saqqara the most prominent deity in the sed-festival was the wolf-god, Upwaut, the ‘Opener of the Ways’. In all six subterranean stelae of Djoser (three under the Step Pyramid, three under the Great Southern Tomb), Upwaut is depicted atop his forked standard high above the king, with a mysterious ‘bag’ positioned in front of him. The Upwaut standard accompanies Djoser on his run, and is a key to understanding the purpose of the Great Southern Tomb. Frankfort says of this deity, ‘The wolf . . . is lord of the shedshed, a protuberance shown in front of him upon his standard, and the king is said to go to heaven upon this shedshed.’22 Djoser is depicted on his stelae as running and visiting shrines of the sed court, in the company of both the flying falcon-god Horus and the wolf-standard of Upwaut with its shedshed emblem. When he visits shrines, the king is accompanied by an additional ‘bag’ on a standard, which is probably symbolic of his own ‘Royal Placenta’. Frankfort points out that ‘the standard of the placenta and the object on the standard of Upwaut are rendered identically, the surface of both cases covered by small dots’. He continues that ‘. . . the king desired to enter the body of the goddess Nut in order to be reborn by her and there are indications . . . the king entered the body of the mother-goddess by means of sympathetic magic, using an object which has come from her’.23 Is the shedshed then the skin or bag that symbolised the enveloping placenta from the goddess? By wrapping himself in this skin, could the king magically facilitate ritual death and rebirth? Why - at least in later portrayals of the renewal festival - is the Opener of the Mouth (a funerary priest) shown just before the living king enters his real or symbolic tomb?
In a recent article, American Egyptologist Ann Macy Roth sheds new light on the Opening of the Mouth ceremony, with startling implications for the subject under discussion here.24 She shows how this funerary ritual had its origin in the birthing process, and that the pss-kf (pesesh-kef) knife used to ‘open’ the mouth of the deceased was the very same instrument employed in severing the umbilical cord of the newborn infant. Roth writes, ‘the presentation of the pss-kf can be explained as a ritual gesture that functioned originally as an announcement, but that developed a magical meaning. Until birth a child is nourished by his mother directly through the umbilical cord; when this lifeline is cut he must take a more aggressive role.’ Thus, the knife is held up before the face of the baby ‘to show him that he had been divided from his mother and that he must now begin to take nourishment independently’.25 Roth points out how the birthing process was mimicked in the Opening of the Mouth ceremony. Spells from the Pyramid Texts indicate that the reborn king suckled, ate and teethed like a newborn baby. There are also references to the suckling of the young king in the sed-festival reliefs of Osorkon II. And then there is the apparent iconographic rejuvenation of Amenhotep III following his heb-sed celebrated at the site of Malkata. It was this King Amenhotep who sought to perform the festival rituals in the manner of his ancient ancestors, and so appointed the sage of the same name, Amenhotep son of Hapu, to research the most correct forms, he being ‘initiated into the god’s book [and] skilled among their mysteries’.26 During Amenhotep III’s sed-festivities, it was the son of Hapu who ushered the king through the various archaic rites. Apparently the sage’s researches on behalf of his king produced some incredible insights into the full intent of the sed-rituals, as performed in the days of the predynastic rulers of Kemet.27 American Egyptologist Raymond Johnson has shown how in the final decade of Amenhotep III’s life he was portrayed in statues and reliefs with an ‘exaggerated youthfulness’ which is ‘highly significant when one considers that his last phase must correspond to the time immediately after the celebration of his
first jubilee in Year 30’.28 Johnson believed that Amenhotep III was deified as a direct result of the sed-festival, the king being ‘. . . merged permanently with the creator god’. He states: ‘this is probably the whole point of the Sed-festival in the Old Kingdom: the ritual death of the king and his assimilation with the sun after thirty years of rule. In essence, Amenhotep III become a living “dead” king.’29
While discussing the role of the sem-priest in the Opening of the Mouth ceremony, Wallis Budge pointed out that ‘. . . before he [the priest] lay down on the bed he wrapped himself in the skin of a bull or a cow, because he intended the deceased to return through that act, and it was believed that by passing through a bull vicariously a man obtained the gift of a new birth, either for himself or for the person he represented’.30 Of course, in performing this same ritual, the king acted as proxy for all Egypt. That a rebirthing event apparently took place during the heb-sed suggests the purpose of the Great Southern Tomb at Saqqara. The ritual death and rebirth of Djoser was probably meant to have taken place in the small ‘burial’ chamber discovered below the monument. This space is only about 1.6 metres square, too small to accommodate a man lying in prone position, say the scholars. That this chamber was ever intended to receive a dead body is hard to believe. It would be just possible to get through the hole in the roof but it would not be possible to lay it down full length, the room is too small. What could have been so precious to Zoser as to merit this most expensive tomb, yet not wanted in his pyramid? His placenta? His heart, liver, etc., the usual contents of canopic vases? Or something yet unguessed? . . . We have clear evidence that the pyramid was unfinished when Zoser died, while the south tomb had been closed, its stair carefully blocked and the superstructure built and cased. We saw no reason to suspect that the work had been broken off hurriedly. There is nothing in the contents to indicate that a burial had ever lain here.31
Quibell adds that Firth had not found any fragments of bone, cloth or wood in the chamber. Since it was too small to receive an adult in a full prone position, might it have been meant for a man curled into a foetal position, as bodies were buried in the archaic period? What better symbolism could there have been than the living king to have imitated both the ancient burial position and the identical position of the foetus in the womb awaiting birth? It was there then, in this subterranean small chamber in the Great Southern Tomb, that Djoser - perhaps wrapped in the ‘skin’ (symbolic placenta) of his mother, the cow-goddess - was symbolically entombed and awaited his rebirth.
How much actual time the king would have spent in this cramped space is unknown. There is some idea as to what he was meant to experience during his confinement in the symbolic tomb/womb. Two paired glyphs that look like swinging doors, but are actually the two halves of the sky, are often shown in direct association with the three cairn-shaped glyphs identifying the territorial markers which the king rounded during his run-of-the-field event of the heb-sed. Thus, the celebrant not only traversed the field (i.e. Egypt) in a public ceremony, but also traversed the heavens in, understandably, a much less public form. A passage from the Pyramid Texts helps illuminate this concept: ‘Teti has gone around the entire two skies, he has circumambulated the two banks.’32 The king’s assimilation with the heavenly Horus - so important for his kingship - is also emphasised: ‘O, king, free course is given to you by Horus, you flash as the lone star in the midst of the sky, you have grown wings as a great-breasted falcon, as a hawk seen in the evening traversing the sky. May you cross the firmament by the waterway of Re-Harakti, may Nut put her hand on you.’33 That this last statement was meant for the living king as opposed to the dead one is assured by philologist Alan Gardiner, who wrote, ‘I know of no evidence anywhere among Egyptian texts in which the living pharaoh is assimilated with Osiris, or the dead pharaoh to Horus.’34
The Opener of the Mouth priest probably would have assisted the king when it was time for him to emerge from his underground symbolic womb. He would then have made his way to the surface and there begun his run around the territorial cairns, at first clothed only in his penis sheath, almost naked as the day he was born. This course was run four times and in at least one additional costume, a short kilt. Djoser is shown running holding the flail-sceptre in one hand and a document or will in the other. A text from the temple of Edfu explains: ‘I have run holding the secret of the “Two Partners” [Horus and Seth], (namely) the Will which my father has given me before Geb. I have passed through the land and touched its four sides; I run through as I desire.’35 In depictions of their own sed-festivals, kings are shown running with other objects as well. Some carry vases of Nile water, some an oar and a curious implement called the hepet. Triangular-shaped, this is thought by most scholars to be a navigation instrument of some sort; but clear identification seems elusive. Between the four runs, the king would retire to his ‘palace’ or robing chamber, to rest and change regalia. It was in this chamber that the celebrant would don the sheath-like knee-length robe worn for the re-enactment of his coronation, the concluding ceremony of the festival. Statues of the king in this heb-sed garment would then be unveiled throughout the country, thereby announcing the successful rejuvenation of both ruler and realm. A life-size statue of Djoser in his jubilee attire was discovered in a serdab at the north-east corner of the Step Pyramid. This small room is peculiarly tilted toward the northern heavens, with the statue looking through a peephole, as if it was some modern astronaut ready to blast off into space.
Mystery of the Hepet
Just what the hepet (hpt) instrument is has never been satisfactorily explained. It is generally accepted by scholars as a navigational device, but whether this means it was used to steer a boat or to navigate one’s way through the desert (as a sighting implement) is not clear. In heb-sed reliefs it is shown in connection with an oar, the king carrying both on his run around the field. The hieroglyph is used in the spelling of the name Apis, as in bull, in words for ‘hidden’ and references to travel by boat (see Worterbuch, Vol. 3, pp. 67-70). Perhaps it is also to be seen in the design of the original entrance to the Pyramid of Khufu, over a horizon symbol. This would give the navigational instrument identification more credibility.
Djoser’s pyramid-tomb stands at the northern edge of the field he traversed in his heb-sed run, and is more than just the marker of the final resting place of the king, when he did die in actuality. For Djoser it was also ‘The solar mountain, the Ben Ben, the obelisk dedicated to the sun. It was the primeval hill which first rose from the flood at the creation of the world . . . The pyramid, this mountain, was loaded with life-forming energy; it was the centre of the earth, the place where the nether and the upper worlds communicated.’36 What more powerful and magical instrument could the king have constructed to draw down the majesty of heaven and thereby ensure the continuity of life and prosperity for himself and his people?
APPENDIX 2
On the Possible Discovery of Precessional Effects in Ancient Astronomy
Giulio Magli
Dipartimento di Matematica, Politecnico di Milano
P.le Leonardo da Vinci 32, 20133 Milano, Italy.
(NB: The following article has been published on the academic physics archives Website http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0407108 (revised v.2, 1 August 2004). It is here reproduced with Dr. Magli’s permission and approval to correct some of the English text, as the article was originally written in Italian).
1.0 Introduction
The earth rotates around its axis in 24 hours, and the earth’s axis rotates around the axis orthogonal to the ecliptic, describing a cone. Thus, the motion of the earth is similar to that of a spin: the earth precedes. The period of this movement of precession is extremely long with respect to human life, since the axis completes a circle in 25,776 years.
Precession has a very important consequence on long-term naked eye astronomy. First of all, the prolongation of the earth’s axis on the celestial sphere defines the astronomical north. The direction in which astrono
mical north points - possibly indicating a star, thereby a pole star - changes therefore continuously in time. Today’s pole star (Polaris) will therefore no longer be the pole star in a few centuries, and all the stars which lie close to the circle described by the pole (actually not exactly a closed circle, due to perturbations) may become ‘pole stars’ during the precessional cycle. For instance, in Palaeolithic times, the north pole crossed the Milky Way and the Pole star in 15,000 BC was Delta Cygnus, thus a northern sky which was completely different from ours (dominated by the two Ursine and Draco constellations) which are probably depicted in a fresco of the famous Lascaux grotto (Rappenglueck 1998).
Although at best visualized with the movement of the north pole (or the south pole, since the choice of north pole is only due to the latitude of the present author at the moment of writing), precessional effects act on all stars. For instance, precession slowly moves the point of rising on non-circumpolar stars and also their culmination. It follows, that the whole visible sky at any given point and time depends on the precessional moment. As an example, one can consider the group of stars Crux Centaurs in the mediterean sea (the “Southern Cross” was ‘isolated’ as a constellation only the 16 century AD). The group was quite brilliant and important for people in very ancient times as the research by Michael Hoskin on megalithic “sanctuaries” in Minorca and Majorca and in Malta has shown (we shall come back on this later). However, this asterism became lower and lower over the horizon during the centuries, and today it culminates below the south horizon due to precession and is, therefore, invisible (it will be visible again only in 12,000 AD).
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