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"...

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...

Crux Ansata

5th-century relief featuring the Coptic "crux ansata" (Christianised ankh), from a 5th Century AD Coptic Church. 

According to Socrates of Constantinople (380 – 439 AD), when Christians were dismantling Alexandria's greatest temple, the Serapeum, in 391 AD, they noticed cross-like signs inscribed on the stone blocks. Pagans who were present said the sign meant "life to come", an indication that the sign Socrates referred to was the ankh; Christians claimed the sign was their own, indicating that they could easily regard the ankh as a Crux Ansata.

This is Crux Ansata:

The explanation that the Ankh symbol meant "life to come" is very interesting indeed. Here is why:

In my 2018 post "Square and compasses" and in my 2019 posts "Etemenanki" and "An-Ki-Ankh" discussed the origin of the Ankh symbol. 

And I proposed that the ankh symbol came from Mesopotamia where it originally looked like this:

A hand (of god, the great architect) holding measuring line (for measuring domed sky, An) and measuring rod (for measuring flat earth, Ki). 

Basically, primitive Square and Compasses...

There is actually Serbian saying "Pomoću štapa i kanapa" (Using stick and rope) meaning "in the old primitive way"...

This symbol, meaning An (Sky) - Ki (earth) eventually became Ankh...

In these old posts I also wrote that: 

Early examples of the ankh sign date to the First Dynasty (c. 30th to 29th century BC). There is little agreement on what physical object the sign originally represented. Most scholars believe the sign is a knot formed of a flexible material such as cloth or reeds or rope... The below stone ankh was actually made to resemble ankh made from reeds.

This ankh is made by bending one piece of reed into a loop, and then tying it to a handle created from  another piece of reed bent to form T shape. Like this:

Here is one I made today :)

What does the intercourse between the Father Sky and Mother Earth produce? Life. Living nature including us humans...Life is materialised divine, (sky) god who became (earth) matter...

So An+Ki = Father+Mother = Life... 

What did the intercourse between God (Father Sky) and Mary (basically symbolical replacement for Mother Earth) produce? Christ who is God who became Man. God materialised. So based on the above analogy, Christ is just a symbol. Symbol of life itself. 

I wrote about Christ as Life in my post "Living nature", but I will repeat it here...

 

If Christ is life, living nature, then his immaculate conception and virgin birth become easy to understand...

If Christ is life, living nature, then his death and resurrection become easy to understand...

If Christ is life, living nature, and we are part of life, living nature, then we are Christ. We truly live and move and have our being in Christ...This too then becomes easy to understand...

If Christ is life, living nature, then god who became matter is easy to understand too...

If Christ is life, living nature, then we are all Christ, we are all god. Just like the mystics the world over have been teaching for millennia...

Apparently this is too "Pagan" for "Christians" and too "Christian" for "Pagans"...So everyone gets offended...

This is Christ on the cross from "Plaque from the Maskell ivories", AD 420-30, Rome 

This is also crux ansata, Ankh, AnKi, life...

On the original Coptic relief, the priest (saint?) is using ankh to point at the green plants, symbol of life. Which can't grow without (rain, flood) water...It is (rain, flood) water that makes life possible. It is the (rain, flood) water that contains the essence of life...

I recently wrote an article "Sycamore tree goddess" in which I talked about the link between ankh (life) and (Nile flood) water (the source of life) in Egypt...

Which is why (rain, flood) water is holy. Cause, despite all our accomplishments, we owe our existence to a six-inch layer of topsoil and the fact it rains (floods)...

This link between the Nile flood, life and Ankh is symbolically depicted through this, most likely the oldest, the original Egyptian Ankh: A hand holding a knot made from Papyrus (flowers during and therefore marks the beginning of the the Nile flood) and Lotus (flowers during and therefore marks the peak of the Nile flood). I talked about this first in my post "Goddess on a horse"...

Which is why this is super interesting: A relief from the ancient Egyptian Temple of Hatshepsut. It shows a platter with food arranged to look like a duck by making an (ankh) knot using lotus, the symbol of the Nile flood without which there will be no food in Egypt...

I talked about the blue lotus as the plant calendar marker for the Nile Flood in many of posts. For instance "Lotus and papyrus" in which I explain why the Egyptian god Hapi, who was the god of the annual flooding of the Nile in ancient Egyptian religion, was associated with papyrus and lotus flowers, and is often depicted as twins, tying papyrus and lotus flowers together...

And my post "Beautiful boy", about Nefertem, the Egyptian Beautiful Boy, originally a lotus flower at the creation of the world, who had arisen from the primal waters...Nefertem emerging from the lotus blossom, from the tomb of Tutankhamun...

PS: Now I understand why the Innana knot, the symbol of fertility and plenty, made from reeds and directly linked to the annual Tigris and Euphrates flood...Will write more about this soon...

BTW, I already talked about some other aspects of the Inanna cult found in Egypt in my post "Inanna in Egypt"... 

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...