Min

This is my 6th Horus post...

Pleased to meet you. Actually very very pleased to meet you, as you can clearly see. The name is Min. I am Ancient Egyptian god of fertility, but you have probably already guessed that from my main "attribute"...

My skin is usually painted black, which symbolises the black silt brought to Egypt by the river Nile from the Ethiopian highlands...the thing that makes Nile valley fertile...

You can read more about the Nile, the black soil and fertility in the post "Horizon" about the "Horizon" hieroglyph, a hieroglyph which we find often associated with Horus, but whose meaning is much more complex than most people think...This hieroglyph actually depicts the sun over the Nile valley, Sun over Egypt... 

Anyway, this is why I am depicted holding my erect penis...To emphasise that I am the source of life (giving black silt)...I ejaculate it in the Ethiopian highlands and it flows down to Egypt with the rising Nile waters until it spills everywhere during annual Nile flood...

This great ejaculator symbolism is ancient...In places where land fertility is the result of rain, the grain ejaculator is the sky father...You can read more about this in the post "Oldest narrative scene", which provides symbolic analysis of this 11,000 years old relief from Anatolian PP Neolithic...

And in the post "Ultime grida dalla savana" about this cool petroglyph from Wadi Mathendous, Libya, in which after the mandatory giggle, you can read about the symbolic link between men and sky gods...

But in places where land fertility is the result of annual floods, the great ejaculator is the source of the flooding rivers. Like in Mesopotamia...Where this role is "filled" 🙂 by Enki/Ea...

You can read about it in the post "The Great imposter" which explains why so many Mesopotamian supreme gods had an attribute "The Great Mountain". Cause they all wanted to be Enki. But there is only one Enki, who is (in) Abzu, "place that is a big mountain". All the others are just imposters...   

In "Enki and the world order" we read:  "...Father (Ea)/Enki...he stood up full of lust like a rampant bull, lifted his penis, ejaculated and filled the Tigris [and Euphrates] with flowing water...You can read about Enki in many other posts not just the above one...

BTW, why like a bull?

Tigris and Euphrates annual flood (fed by snowmelt caused by the sun) peaks in Taurus, beginning of summer...

So golden bull's head (sun in Taurus) with lapis beard (flowing water)  

You can read about Utu/Shamash as the great bull in "Shamash young and old", "When Utu steps up into heaven", "Butt chewing", "Maran"...

Anyway, back to me Min the merciful. I am normally depicted wearing a crown with ostrich feathers. Why?

Well ostrich mating season in Ethiopia begins in March or April and ends sometime before September. During that time male ostriches become aggressive, fight with each other for harems and make loud booming mating sounds...

This is exactly the period when rain season starts in Ethiopian highlands. We see increase in rainfall starting from March, and then the arrival of the full blown monsoon starting from April/May/June, peaking in Jul/Aug...

Check this post "Ennead" and linked posts if you are interested in the significance of the ostrich headdress...It talks about one of the most popular creation myths featuring the Ennead, a group of nine ancient Egyptian gods and goddesses...Which together literally depict the annual (re)creation of the (Egyptian) world...

As a god of male sexual potency, I am honoured during the coronation rites, when the Pharaoh is expected to hold his penis just like I do mine, and sow his seed...

You might like an explanation of the symbolic meaning of this ritual, which you can find in this post "Sceptre". In it, the author postulated that the first rulers held their penises as sceptres. What he didn't know was that in Sumerian "ñišuš-bar" meaning ruler's staff, sceptre, literally means "penis" + "to see, show"...Which confirms the hypothesis that penises were the original ruler's staffs, sceptres...

Male semen (seeds) are in agricultural magic linked with grain seeds...

You can read about this in this post, "Sowing", which talks about a strange custom from Serbia. There, in the past people lived in extended families called "zadruga". When grain needed to be sown, the family would choose one man to do all the sowing. He had to abstain from sex from that moment until all the seeds were sown...

This is why in my right hand I am holding a flail (tool for threshing grain)...Threshing is extracting grain seeds...For food but also for next sowing...Hence flail as symbol of fertility of the land and ability to provide food...See, it's all symbolically linked...

This is also why at the beginning of the harvest season, my image is taken out of my temple and brought to the fields to bless the harvest in the "festival of the departure of Min". Why departure of Min? Departure of what from where?

Well, as I said, I ejaculate the (water carrying the fertile) black silt in the Ethiopian highlands...And this ejaculation starts in Mar/Apr...Because this is when the Ethiopian monsoon season starts...And it is this monsoon that feeds the Nile...

It is this monsoon that provides the water of life, which carries the black silt to Egypt...So if anyone is looking for me between Mar/Apr and Sep/Oct, I will be standing in the Ethiopian highlands, wanking...

So the black silt (my spank), that will refresh the black soil of Egypt for the next year sowing, departs Ethiopian highlands for Egypt during the Egyptian grain harvest...All very symbolic...

Which is why Ethiopia is called "Land of the God" (that would be me) in Egyptian records...The land I "come" from...Now apparently "there is a dispute over" where this "Land of God" (also known as Land of Punt) actually was...

Ok apart from the fact that this is where I do most of my flute playing, based on Egyptian records, this Punt place was the major source of all these things: myrrh, frankincense, ebony, giraffes, baboons, hippopotami, leopards...

Now if you google:

"In which current country in Africa can we find all these: myrrh, frankincense, ebony, giraffes, baboons, hippopotami, leopards?"

You get: "Ethiopia and Somalia."

And because of the Nile, it can actually only be Ethiopia...

I mean this is not rocket science, but it is science, and for some reason science seems to be ignored when it comes to me...Everyone thinks I am just a figment of perverted imagination...

Anyway, I talked enough about myself. I am hungry. I need some lettuce, the food of the gods...Not any lettuce. The Lactuca serriola, the wild lettuce, also called prickly lettuce, also called milk lettuce...

Here it is depicted on the north wall in the Chapel of Amun, one of the seven chapels that are located directly west of the Second Hypostyle Hall of the Seti I Temple at Abydos...This relief detail shows two lettuces separated by a fan...

Egyptians believed the prickly lettuce is an aphrodisiac, as it was tall and straight and released a milk-like substance which resembled semen, and they associated it with me, THE GOD of male sexual potency...

This is why I was often depicted with "sacred" lettuces standing behind me....

Silly Ancient Egyptians...Prickly lettuce is not an aphrodisiac. It does not contain sexual stimulants. It doesn't give you a boner. It is an anaphrodisiac. It contains opiates and actually suppresses erection...

Ancient Greeks knew this...

So why would Egyptians associate prickly lettuce with me? And depict it behind me? Cause prickly lettuce flowers between Jul and Sep producing pile of bright yellow sun like flowers...

Jul-Sep...During the peak of the annual Nile flood. When I spill my semen all over Egypt...Basically the prickly lettuce is a plant calendar marker for the climax of my ejaculation (the Nile flood), the source of all fertility in the Nile Valley, in Egypt...

How cool is this?

You might want to also read my first Horus post "Great duel" and my second Horus post "Horus the Elder",  my third Horus post "Horizon, my fourth Horus post "Nut" and my fifth Horus post "Ennead"...

If you are interested in reading more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, which are at the root of all our mythologies, start here…Then check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am way way behind...

Ennead

This is my 5th Horus post...

Ancient Egyptians had several myths regarding the creation of the world. One of the most popular creation myths featured the Ennead, a group of nine ancient Egyptian gods and goddesses...Which together literally depict the annual (re)creation of the (Egyptian) world...

For the Ancient Egyptians, The World consisted of the Nile Valley and the Desert...This world was annually recreated by the Nile Flood...Which was the result of the monsoon rains that fell on the Ethiopian Highlands...Which were the result of the Sun heating the Indian Ocean...

This is how Ancient Egyptians described this natural process using The Enneads:

Atum. Who first created himself, and then created The World...Equated with the (setting) sun and later worshiped as Atum-Ra...

I would propose that the god "Creator of the World" was originally not just "the setting sun", but "the sun", and not just "the sun", but the summer (hot dry season) sun (Apt/May - Oct/Nov), which is also the sun of (which creates) the Annual Nile Inundation...

Apparently Atum appeared from the "Primordial Waters" (read annual flood) as a lion (read in Jul/Aug in Leo). Hence Sphinx overlooking the Nile flood plain...

I talked about him in my posts "Sphinx" and "Giza lioness"...

Leo here has nothing to do with constellations...It marks the beginning of the mating season of Eurasian lions, Jul/Aug - Oct/Nov...

I talked about this in many of my posts...

After creating himself, Atum then created (literally wanked and then ejaculated) Shu (Upward Rising Wind) and Tefnut (Moisture)...

Shu (Upward Rising Wind) + Tefnut (Moisture) = Ethiopian Monsoon which feeds the Nile flood

I talked about them in my post "Menat"...

The wet winds starts blowing over Ethiopian highlands in Mar/Apr and blow until Sep/Oct...

Shu wears an ostrich feather...

I think this is because ostrich mating season marked by ostrich dancing, begins in Mar/Apr and lasts until Sep/Oct...

The monsoon rains that feed Nile with water start falling in Ethiopian highlands in Mar/Apr (Aries)...

Which is why (I think) the god of the source of the nile is Ram headed Khnum...I talked about him in my post "Khnum"...

Aries here has nothing to do with constellations. It marks the end of the lambing season (Feb/Mar/Apr) and the beginning of the milking season...I talked about this in many of my posts...

As you can see in the above precipitation chart, the Ethiopian Monsoon peaks in Jul/Aug, Leo...Hence Tefnut having the lioness head...

In the earlier Pyramid Texts she is said to produce pure waters from her vagina...So when one day, she got pissed off :) with Egyptians for taking the piss :) and not giving her enough kudos, she stopped producing pure waters from her vagina, and pissed off :) to Nubia...

There, Tefnut, in a form of an angry lioness, became the terror of the land, attacking both men and animals. She blew smoke and fire from her nostrils and eyes and fed on the flesh and blood of her victims...

Leo, the end of summer, beginning of autumn, the time of maximum heat and no rain, would be the time of droughts and death in Egypt, if it weren't for Tefnut, the monsoon moisture which feeds the Nile...It is this moisture that transforms Leo into time of inundation and life...

Sun god Ra, Tefnut's father, missed his daughter and so he sent Shu (Tefnut's husband) and Thoth (god of wisdom) as his emissaries to ask her to return home. Of course he missed her. Because no Tefnut means no Nile. And no Nile means no Egypt. And no Egypt means no Ra...

For some weird reason, Thoth, disguised himself as a baboon (!!!) and went looking for Tefnut...

Why Baboon? Well, it has something to do with baboon mating season and also their ability to find water during droughts...I explain this in my post "Baboon"...

Shu and Tefnut (Ethiopian Monsoon) gave birth to Geb (Earth) and Nut (Sky)...

Now these are not any earth and any sky. These are Nile Valley (Egypt) and the Sky over the Nile Valley (Egypt)...

I talked about the Egyptian world view first in my post "Horizon", in which I talked about a hieroglyph which we find often associated with Horus, the "mountain" hieroglyph, and I will try to show that our current understanding of its meaning is...incomplete...

The Egyptian earth god Geb was intrinsically linked to the Nile, representing the fertile ground (silt) deposited by the river's annual flood. As a matter of fact, he was seen as the source of the silt brought by the Nile Flood...

And Nut, Milky Way, which from Jul/Aug, the beginning of the Nile flood, becomes parallel to the Nile, was seen as the Heavenly Nile, the heavenly equivalent (and the source) of the Earthly Nile...

I talked about Nut (and Geb and Horus) in my post "Nut"...

Ra-Horakhty (Ra as Horus) in his Solar Barque, traversing the horizon on a Heavenly Nile, during the day (the time when we can see the world) from east, dawn (left eye) to west, dusk (right eye). From a Book of the Dead dated to 1552–1069 BC, Currently in Louvre, Paris...

Geb and Nut's children were Osiris (fertile black soil of the Nile Valley, Egypt) and his wife Isis goddess of life and Seth (infertile red soil of the desert) and his wife Nephthys goddess of death (and resurrection)...

All four of these deities are directly linked to Horus...

Osiris = Father

Isis = Mother

Nephthys = Wet Nurse

Seth = Enemy

You might want to also read my first Horus post "Great duel" and my second Horus post "Horus the Elder",  my third Horus post "Horizon, my fourth Horus post "Nut"...

If you are interested in reading more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, which are at the root of all our mythologies, start here…Then check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am way way behind...

Nut

This is my 4th Horus post...

Ra-Horakhty (Ra as Horus) in his Solar Barque, traversing the horizon on a Heavenly Nile, during the day (the time when we can see the world) from east, dawn (left eye) to west, dusk (right eye). From a Book of the Dead dated to 1552–1069 BC, Currently in Louvre, Paris...

The same scene, from another Book of the Dead, dated to 1387–1350 BC, currently in Egyptian Museum, Cairo. Except here instead of Heavenly Nile, the Solar Barque of Ra-Horakhty (Ra as Horus) is traversing the horizon on the Milky Way...

I talked about the (symbolic) link between sun (light) and eye (sight) first in my post "Svetovid"...

Utu, Sun: 𒀭𒌓

According to this table, this means god, heaven + day = sun...

Did the god sign originally mean shiny thing? Did the day sign originally mean "eye"? 

If so: shiny thing + eye = to see = sun? 

Like Slavic Svetovid = light + to see  

And then in my post "Sun eyes"...

Skull with amber discs on clay in eye-sockets. Dated to the 4th mill BC. Latvia. One of many amber "sun" disc (obverse (sun cross), reverse (sun rays) and cross-section) made by the same culture...

Rememeber, the Sumerian symbol for sun was Sun + Eye = Sight

Ancient Egyptians believed in a "Heavenly Nile" that mirrored the earthly Nile and flowed through the sky as its divine counterpart. and they linked this celestial Nile with Nut, the Sky Goddess...

She is typically depicted as a  naked woman, arched over the earth god Geb...Like on the outer coffin of  Butehamun dated to 1076–944 BC and currently in the Turin Museum....

She was believed to stretch across the sky from eastern horizon to western horizon, and that she swallows the sun every evening and gives birth to it every morning...

This is why on this papyrus from the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the sun god Ra was depicted as sailing across her body in his solar barque...

Nut was often depicted with stars in her body. There's been suspicion that she might have been in some way linked to the Milky Way, and recent discovery of this depiction of Nut from the outer coffin of Nesitaudjatakhet (I think) has finally confirmed this...

You can see that Nut’s body is covered in stars as well as a thick, undulating black curve that runs from the soles of her feet to the tips of her fingers. This curve, surrounded by stars on both sides, is reminiscent of the Milky Way’s Great Rift...

You can read more about this in the latest study by Dr. Or Graur, Professor of Astrophysics at University of Portsmouth

In which he builds on his previous work, in which he cross-referenced ancient Egyptian texts with astrophysical simulations...

And had concluded that references to Nut found in the Pyramid Texts, Coffin Texts, and the Book of Nut are descriptions of seasonal changes of the sky in correlation with Nut which can only be understood if Nut was in some way linked to Milky Way...

There is (I think) one more proof that Nut was (linked with) Milky Way and Heavenly Nile.

In the Egypt, the brightest part of the Milky Way, its galactic core, is visible towards the south, from Feb to Oct...

During Apr/May/Jun it can be seen in the southeast/south as a bright (roughly) East - West oriented arch stretching across the sky...

Going across and above the Nile river...

During Jul/Aug/Sep it can be seen in the south/southwest, as towering vertical "river" in the sky...

Running parallel to the Nile and touching it far down south/southwest, at it's source...

Which is very interesting because Jul/Aug/Sep is the time of the annual Nile flood, and this is the same time when the Milky Way, the Heavenly Nile truly becomes the reflection of the Terrestrial Nile. Or is it the other way round? As above so below?

In the this paper we can read that in the Book of Nut,  the centre of Nut’s torso was marked with "I Akhet when Sothis rises".

The heliacal rising of Sirius, known in Egypt as Sothis or Sopdet in the month of I Akhet, Jul/Aug, marks the beginning of the annual Nile flood...

So it is not surprising then that Nut was one of the Sycamore goddesses (Hathor and Isis, both linked to the annual flood were the other ones)...

Texts from the Book of the Dead directly invoke this aspect: "Hail, thou Sycamore Tree of the Goddess Nut! Give me of the water...which is in thee..."

Here is Nut, standing upright (just like Milky Way during the peak of the annual flood), pouring "the water of life", the flood water of both terrestrial and heavenly Nile, and giving bread (of life) which is the result of the flood which makes agriculture in the Nile valley, Egypt, possible...

I talked about this in my post "Sycamore tree goddess"...

Nut was also directly linked to the annual Nile flood through the celestial cow goddess Mehet-Weret whose name means "Great Flood" and, in some cases, the two were equated...

Nut herself was sometimes depicted as a Heavenly Cow, eating the stars each morning and giving birth to them at twilight...

I talked about celestial cows in my posts "Holy cow", "Cow and calf ivory" and "Inanna in Egypt", in which I explained why is Hathor as Mehet Weret (flood) was depicted as a cow and why she was depicted emerging out of papyris thickets...

But at the time when I wrote these posts, I didn't think of this:

Auroch calving season starts in Apr/May. After calving, cows would begin producing milk, with milk production rising until it reaches peak after 40 - 60 days, with peak lasting 20 days...

That's Jun/Jul, just before Jul/Aug, the beginning of the Akhet season, the season of the annual Flood...The milk of the celestial cow, who was the Milky Way, and the Celestial Nile, filling the Terrestrial Nile and causing the annual flood...

Now this is all super cool, but it gets cooler. Here is something I have stumbled across while reading this article:

"...birds [with] human faces [that speak] in human language [come from] Nut's northwest side to her northeast side, from the primeval darkness, the ḳbḥw of the gods [from] Duat, located on [Nut's] northern side..."

These "birds with human faces" are Ba birds. 

I talked about the link between birds as carriers of souls in European and Mesopotamian cultures in several of my articles:

In my post "Nav", in which I talked about how in Slavic mythology, souls of the dead entered birds, like these cranes, who brought them to Irij, paradise. Birds then brought the souls back when they were ready to be reborn...

And in my post "Soul birds" about the Ancient Greek depictions of human souls as birds with human heads...

And in my post "Bes" in which I explained why among the Lake Onega petroglyphs, Russia, made c. 4000BC, the only two petroglyphs which were Christianised were "The Devil" and a swan... 

The term "qbḥw", often-abbreviated in writing to only the sign representing a tall water-jug with liquid pouring from it, is generally translated as "cool waters"...

This term was also used as a designation of the celestial vault, because of the belief that the sky is a liquid surface between the atmosphere and outer space, on which the celestial bodies were imagined to navigate during the day and the night...

Additionally, "qbḥw" is used to mean the source of Nile and its inundation, which issued directly from the Nun, the primordial ocean, which lay on the other side of Nut...

Dr Graur interprets the above depiction of the arrival of the Ba birds from Duat as the autumn bird migration into Egypt, which starts in Aug and ends in Nov. During this time the Milky Way orientation flips from northeast - southwest to northwest - southeast...

Dr Graur then goes to say that "the [above] passage, however, notes that the entrance to the Duat is 'on Nut's northern side', not the west, where the Sun sets daily"...

And then he suggests, "this tension may be due to evolving perceptions of the Duat between the era of the Old Kingdom and the era(s) when the Fundamentals (The Book of Nut) and its commentaries were written"...

But I think that this is just another proof that when Ancient Egyptians are talking about Nut, they are indeed talking about the Milky Way. Remember, Jul/Aug/Sep/Oct is when Milky Way assumes vertical, North - South position over Egypt...

Which means that if the Duat is at the end of Nut, then the position of Duat is not fixed, but instead it moves as Nut moves across the sky. And when the autumn bird migration starts in Aug, Duat is indeed North of Nut, because Nut is now pointing North - South...

How cool is this? But there is something even cooler.

There are two bird migration seasons during which millions of birds fly along the river Nile over Egypt:

Northward spring migration to Duat, Feb/Mar - Apr/May

Southward autumn migration from Duat, Aug/Sep - Oct/Nov

The beginning of the spring migration and the end of the autumn migration mark the beginning and the end of the period during which the galactic core, Nut's body, can be seen in the skies over Egypt...

This would explain Nut’s role in the transition of the deceased to the afterlife (as described in spells from the Pyramid Texts and  Coffin Texts)...

Cool? I think so...But there is something even even cooler:

Now on the corner of this map found in in this paper, which depicts the northern portion of the cosmos, the same area where the Book of Nut situates an opening of the Duat, we find the phrase "Qbḥw Ḥrw" meaning "the cool waters/firmament of Horus"...

How cool is this? The North, the direction from which migratory birds come to Egypt in the Autumn following the "Path of Birds", the Milky Way, Celestial Nile as well as Terrestrial Nile is marked as "The part of the sky of Horus"??? Why?

Well...Because of animal calendar markers...Deified animal calendar markers...Of course...I will talk about this soon...I promise...

In the meantime you might want to also read my first Horus post "Great duel", my second Horus post "Horus the Elder", and my third Horus post "Horizon...

That's it. If you are interested in reading more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, which are at the root of all our mythologies, start here…Then check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am way way behind...