Fraser also speaks of a particular aspect of this ritual practised on the ancient Spartan kings, wherein, ‘if the tenure of the regal office was formerly limited among the Spartans to eight years, we may naturally ask, why was that precise period selected as the measure of a king’s reign? The reason is probably to be found in those astronomical considerations which determined the early Greek calendar . . .’8 He was compelled to conclude that in some of these ancient cultures at least the kings were ‘liable to deposition or death at the end of an astronomical cycle’.9 This, of course, immediately brings to mind the rituals performed by the goddess Seshat (see Chapter Two) whose function, among others, was to decide on the length of the king’s ‘reign years’ or ‘life years’. It also brings to mind the very important royal festival practised in ancient Egypt known as the heb-sed (again see Chapter Two). The heb-sed festival is generally described by Egyptologists as a ‘royal jubilee’. In reality it was much more than that. It was, in fact, a sort of pharaonic equivalent of a full medical check-up for the king in order to confirm to the people that he still retained his full sexual potency and physical and mental capacities. As G.A. Wainwright explains:nothing is more certain than that the pharaoh was divine . . . Kings of this type contained within themselves the power that produced prosperity . . . To do all this, a divine fertility-king must keep himself in good health and live a well-ordered life. For as he functions regularly and in good order, so will the universe remain stable and continue in its allotted course, for he is himself the universe. The service rendered by such kings has always been to ensure the fruitfulness of the earth, and consequent health of the people . . .10
The question that arises, therefore, is what happened when a king ‘failed’ the tests put to him at the heb-sed?
The first heb-sed festival for a king normally took place after the thirtieth year of his reign, but there is evidence that it also occurred at shorter periods and that originally it took place every seven years.11 According to Wainwright, the heb-sed festival stemmed from ‘the old sky and fertility-religion’ and went back ‘at least into prehistoric times’.12 Most Egyptologists agree that the heb-sed is very old and was practised from the very early dynastic times all the way to the Late Period. Kings of the New Kingdom such as Amenhotep III and Rameses II appear to have performed their first heb-sed in the thirtieth year of their reign; but they also performed other heb-seds at shorter intervals. Unfortunately there are but few inscriptions that give details of the events that took place during this festival, and interpretations by scholars are usually based on pictorial scenes rather than textual ones. The best of these pictorial scenes are from the sun temple of Niuserra at Abu Ghurab (these, unfortunately, have been removed in modern times and are now displayed in various museums around the world).13 We know of an important ritual performed at the heb-sed which required the king to run around the boundary walls of the ceremonial complex which, in some cases, could be over a mile. ‘Thus we find,’ wrote Wainwright:[that the heb-sed] consisted essentially in a running ceremony, performed in archaic times before the king and from the First Dynasty onwards by the king himself . . . several of the old sky-gods figure in the ceremony . . . The ceremony clearly went back at least into Prehistoric times . . . Physical activity is essential in fertility-rites such as these clearly show. No doubt the king’s agility here brought fertility to the fields, and induced the necessary activities in the skies in providing the water required . . . Thus we find that the Pharaohs were divine; controlled the activities of the sky; kept their people in health; hoed the ground; reaped the harvest; carried out a ceremony for the fertility of the fields, and concerned themselves with the opening of the dykes for the inundation . . . The Pharaohs were in fact fertility-kings, upon whose health and proper observance of the rites the health and wealth of the country depended . . .14
The rituals in heb-sed were by no means the only ones in which the king had to personally participate. His daily life was full of rituals to honour the gods and to ensure through them the welfare of his people and Egypt as a whole. If we are to believe the ancient Greek writer Diodorus, who visited Egypt in the first century BC, every daily activity of the pharaoh, from the moment he woke up to the moment he retired for the night, was ritualised ‘according to a plan’.15 In Diodorus’ own words:not only the order of priests but, in short, all the inhabitants of Egypt were less concerned for their wives and children and their other cherished possessions than for the safety of their kings . . . all their [the kings’] acts were regulated by prescriptions set forth in laws, not only their administrative acts, but also those that had to do with the way in which they spent their time from day to day, and with the food that they ate. And the hours of both the day and night were laid out according to a plan, and at the specific hours it was absolutely required of the king that he should do what the law stipulated and not what he thought best. For there was a set time not only for his holding audiences or rendering judgements, but even for his taking a walk, bathing, and sleeping with his wife, and, in a word, for every act of his life.16
The law that Diodorus is referring to which regulated every hour of the king’s life was almost certainly Maat. And at one time the last duty imposed on kings by this cosmic law was, according to Wainright, to ‘lay down their lives at the proper time for the good of their people’.17 In full agreement with this conclusion, the mythologist Joseph Campell, in his book The Mask of God: Primitive Mythology, asserts that the kings of ancient Sudan and Napata, two regions that border the south of Egypt (and Napata was once annexed to Egypt), were allowed to rule for a limited period that was somehow ‘computed’ by astrologer-priests using the motion of the stars. And when apparently these astrologer-priests were asked how they calculated the life period, they explained that, ‘Every night we keep watch on the stars, and we do not let them out of our sight. Every night we observe the moon, and we know from night to night, which stars are approaching the moon and which are moving away. It is by this that we know.’18
All this suggests that the ancient priests of these regions not only practised a sky religion whose ‘law’ was written in the stars, but also used the stars and the moon to determine the time of death of their kings. The combination of stars and moon is very much evident in the symbolism associated with the goddess Seshat, whose headdress, according to G.A. Wainwright, was originally a reversed lunar crescent, the symbol for the month, cupping a seven-pointed star or flower.19 Seshat was also the wife-companion of the moon god Thoth, who was regarded as the inventor of astronomy.20 Interestingly, the Egyptologist Jane Sellers sensed that the lunar eclipses might somehow have played a part in the regicide rituals:The possibility must be considered that total eclipses were considered a divine signal . . . In Egypt, it may have been that, with total eclipses, the living king who was the embodiment of Horus was then required to replace Osiris (that is ‘become an Osiris’) and a new Horus would come to the throne . . . The spectacular image of the sun being blotted out and then being ‘reborn’ had similar imagery of life after death, and such a spectacle could have been understood to mandate the living Horus, who was the Son-of-Re, to take his father’s place now, and be himself replaced. It is a death and a rebirth, but one that has come to be, not the simplistic image of a stellar or solar deity, but rather a rebirth with a change of nature . . . The death of a Horus and the birth of a Horus; the death of Osiris and the birth of Osiris; these may have been believed to be ordained by events in the sky. Menes, first ruler of the unified Egypt, may have been brought to the throne by an eclipse, but another ruler may have been commanded to die. It is a death that must promise rebirth. A new king would become the new Horus, but the dead king would unite with the soul of Osiris, and become Osiris . . .21
Long-term predictions using astronomy are, however, usually made by using the stars. In Chapter Two we have seen how the seven-pointed star and the horns of Seshat’s headdress may represent the seven stars of the Plough (Big Dipper). According to E.C. Krupp:Seshat was p
ortrayed with a seven-pointed star (although some have likened it to a seven-petaled flower) supported by a rod balanced upright upon her head. Like a canopy over her star hangs what may be a pair of upturned horns of a cow or bull. This emblem was also the hieroglyph for her name. Both the horns and the seven points of the star seem to have something to do with the Big Dipper. We already know that the Bull’s Thigh, or Meskhetiu, was the Big Dipper, and the Dipper contains seven stars. It is certain that the Egyptians associated the number seven with the Big Dipper because several portrayals of Meskhetiu - at Dendera, Edfu, Esna and Philae - surround the picture of the bull’s leg with seven stars.22
Seshat is principally known for her role in the ‘Stretching of the Cord’ ceremony, and according to Krupp the ‘procedure required the observation of a certain star at a certain time and, probably, in a certain position . . . and orientation of the Big Dipper in its circular course around the pole’.23 Could these stars have been used to cast a sort of ‘horoscope’ that determined the length of reign for the king?
Royal Substitute?
It is also possible that the king-killing ritual may have in time been replaced by the killing of a substitute such as a totem animal identified with the king. Bearing this in mind, we know that there existed from earliest times in Egypt such a totem for the king in the form of a bull known as the Apis. According to Egyptologist George Hart, the cult of the Apis began during the period of ‘unification’ which took place around 3100 BC.24 The Apis bull was kept with great care and pomp in a temple at Memphis, and was regarded as the manifestation of Ptah, the creator god of that region. But when the Apis died (or perhaps was put to death), it was identified with Osiris whose constellation, Orion, was also in some cases the astral form of the departed king. It is thus quite possible that while alive, the Apis bull was also seen as the substitute for the living king who represented Horus, the son of Osiris. This seems to be confirmed by the fact that the ‘mother’ of the Apis bull was said to be the goddess Isis, mother of Horus and also wife of Osiris. According to George Hart:In the funerary cult this royal link with Apis continues . . . the bull was mummified on lion-headed alabaster tables some of which survived at Memphis. The funeral was an occasion of display and pomp, with men dragging to the tomb the sledge on which the embalmed and bejewelled bull had been placed in a couchant position. The burial place was in the northern quarters of the desert plateau of Saqqara . . . When Isis, mother of Apis, who had been brought to Memphis with her illustrious offspring, died she was given the honour of burial in the Saqqara necropolis in the vaults known as the Iseum, as yet not fully explored . . . Following concepts about the rank of the dead pharaoh in the Underworld, Apis, upon dying, becomes the god Osiris.25
Herodotus (fifth century BC) reported that the Apis was ‘the calf of a cow which is incapable of conceiving another offspring; and the Egyptians say that lightning descends upon the cow from heaven, and that from thence it brings forth the Apis. This calf, which is called Apis, has the following marks: it is black, and has a square spot of white on the forehead; and on the back the figure of an eagle.’26 Several centuries later Plutarch (first century AD) wrote that ‘the Apis, they say, is the animate image of Osiris, and he comes into being when a fructifying light thrusts forth from the moon and falls upon a cow in her breeding-season’.27 Now the cow was a symbol of the goddess Isis, who also donned the moon disc between the cow horns on her headdress. The identification of the Apis to Osiris is also given by Diodorus (first century BC), who was probably an eye-witness to a funeral of the Apis bull:After the splendid funeral of Apis is over those priests who have charge of the business seek out another calf as like the former as they can possibly find, and when they have found one an end is put to all the mourning and lamentation, and such priests as are appointed for that purpose lead the young bull through the city of Nile and feed him forty days. Then they put him into a barge wherein is a golden cabin and so transport him as a god to Memphis . . . For the adoration of the bull they give this reason: they say that the soul of Osiris passes into a bull and therefore whenever the bull is dedicated, to this very day the spirit of Osiris is infused into one bull after another for posterity.28
All Egyptologists agree that the living king was seen as the incarnation of Horus, son of Osiris and Isis, but when he died he became identified with Osiris. It thus follows that if the dead Apis is identified with Osiris, then the living Apis must also be regarded as the living Horus-king. This is made obvious by one of the titles for Apis, ‘Son of Osiris’, i.e. Horus.29 Also, as George Hart explains:The pharaoh identifies closely with Apis-bull imagery (with its inherent notion of strength and fertility) being an ancient characteristic in the propaganda of the god-king, as can be seen from carved slate palettes and in one of the names used in the royal protocol ‘victorious bull’. Celebrating his jubilee festival, a ceremony concerned with the rejuvenation of the monarch’s power, the pharaoh strides briskly alongside the galloping Apis bull. The ritual which took place at Memphis is vividly portrayed in a relief on a block from a dismantled chapel in the temple of Karnak at Thebes.30
Jane B. Sellers was also of the opinion that the sacrifice of the Apis bull may have had a connection with the heb-sed festival of the pharaoh and that it was used perhaps as a substitute for his regicide: ‘. . . If a substitute were needed (for the regicide) could the Apis have stood in the king’s stead? Could this kind of “ritual regicide” explain the enigmatic occurrences of empty sarcophagi, or the strange custom of duplicating tombs for the rulers of early dynastic Egypt?’31 Sellers’ idea seems to have backing from several ancient authorities - Plutarch and Ammianus Marcellinus among them - who reported that the Apis bull was only allowed to live a certain number of years and was then put to death, usually by drowning.32 The Roman historian Pliny reported that the Apis was put to death when it exceeded a number of years, and was killed by being drowned in the Nile.33 This is clearly meant as a parallel to the death of Osiris, for we know from the Pyramid Texts that he too was drowned in the Nile, at a place called Nedyt, which is conspicuously near Memphis and Saqqara, the main cult centres of the Apis bull. Indeed, Saqqara, in fact, is where the Apis bulls were buried, in the stone sarcophagi of the huge subterranean maze. It is thus relevant that the region of Saqqara (the Memphite Necropolis) was known as ‘the burial place of Osiris’.34 There are, too, the so-called sun temples at Abu Ghorab, near Saqqara, to consider in the context of a possible sacrificial killing of the king or the Apis bull. These temples belong to kings of the Fifth Dynasty, and as we have already seen in Chapter Three, they contain reliefs showing scenes of the heb-sed festival.35 Intriguingly, the sun temples included a ‘slaughterhouse’ as well as a huge sacrificial stone altar which may have existed for the purpose of ritual killings. According to Richard Wilkinson, the sun temples may have been oriented ‘towards stars that would have risen above the predawn horizon around 2400 BC. If the latter is true, it may indicate that Userkaf’s valley temple functioned as a kind of astronomical clock for sacrifices which were made at dawn.’36 According to George Hart ‘an average lifespan for Apis was fourteen years [twice seven?] . . . On the death of Apis Egypt mourned as if for the loss of the pharaoh himself.’37
All this evidence, when put together, provides us with a disturbing picture of a time when the king or a totem animal substitute may have been ritualistically put to death based on a ‘law’ or sky religion involving the stars and other celestial bodies. But if this is true, then who performed this sinister task of killing the king? Who were the royal executioners?
The Priests of Seth
According to Wainwright, the cult of Seshat was so ancient ‘as to be already dying out in the Old Kingdom’.38 This thus takes Seshat back to a time when the kings of Egypt were closely identified not only with Horus but also to Seth. In the Pyramid Texts the goddess Seshat was closely associated to Nephtys, the wife of Seth and the sister of Osiris and Isis. Indeed, Nephtys is given the title ‘In Her name of Seshat, Lady of B
uilders’.39 The complete text which concerns the resurrection of the Osiris-king reads:Horus has mustered the gods for you (Osiris-king), and they will never escape from you in the place where you have drowned. Nephtys has collected all your members for you in this her name of ‘Seshat, Lady of Builders’. She has made them hale for you, you having been given to your mother Nut in her name of ‘Sarcophagus’; she has embraced you in her name of ‘Coffin’, and you have been brought to her in her name of ‘Tomb’. Horus has reassembled your members for you, and he will not let you perish; he has put you together, and nothing shall be disturbed in you. Horus has set you up, and there shall be no unsteadiness. O Osiris-king, lift up your heart, be proud, open your mouth, for Horus has protected you and he will not fail to protect you. O Osiris-king, you are a mighty god, and there is no god like you. Horus has given you his children that they may bear you up . . . Live, that you may go to and fro every day; be a spirit in your name of ‘Horizon from which Re goes up’; be strong, be effective, be a soul, and have power forever and ever.40
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