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...

Sycamore tree goddess

Sycamore tree goddess, originally Hathor, and later Isis, both goddess of flood, or Nut, goddess of Heavenly Nile (Milky Way), pouring water which is depicted with ankh (life) symbols inside it...Tomb, Siwa Oasis, 400-600 BC. Egypt...

Why would a goddess of flood be depicted as a sycamore fig tree?

Most likely because sycamore bears fruit between May and Sep...

The time of the rise of the water level in the Nile. Which means that the sycamore full of fruit announces the arrival of the flood, the thing that makes life possible in Egypt...

I talked about Hather, the sycamore tree and the Nile flood in my post "Holy cow"...

And in my post "The white calf", in which I tried to answer the question why is this white calf standing between two sycamore trees under a red sun? 

Why was Nile Flood water depicted containing ankh (life) symbols? Cause the Annual Nile flood is what makes life possible in the Nile Valley, what originally created Egypt and what recreates it every year...Without the annual Nile flood there would be no Egypt...I talk about this in my post "Beautiful boy"...

BTW, Speaking about Ankh = Water, check my post "Goddess on a horse"...

Post in which I talk about the link between ankh, papyrus (flowers at the beginning of the Nile flood), lotus (flowers at the peak of the Nile flood) and the flood...And few other related things...

You also might like this: Baboons feed on figs in a sycamore tree on a painting in the tomb of Khnumhotep at Beni Hasan c. 1950 BC…

Both Sycamore tree and Baboons were animal calendar markers found imbedded in parts of Egyptian mythology related to water and flood. I talk about this in my post "Baboon"...

Finally I think that it's very interesting that we find "sacred fig goddess" in both Ancient Egypt and Ancient Indus Valley civilisations...

Check my post "Sacred fig goddess", in which I talk about the Indian one (different fig same link to water, this time monsoon rain water) with references to the Egyptian one...And about plant and animal calendar markers in both cultures...

That's that. 

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...

Horizon

This is my 3rd Horus post...

I am continuing my series of posts about Horus. In this one I would like to talk 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...

Big claim I know. But hear me out...

This is Egypt, this blue green flower of life growing out of the red desert of death...Everyone who ever contributed to the creation of the Egyptian civilisation lived within this narrow blue green fertile strip along the River Nile...

Surrounded on both sides by first high sand dunes, then even higher distant hills, then even even higher and even more distant (few and far between) mountains...

This is elevation map of Egypt...

And this is what this all looks like from the Nile water level, from the fertile land which is flooded by this same Nile water, from Egypt...

Looks familiar? I believe that the "mountain" hieroglyph does not represent any mountain. It represents the banks of the Nile river, its dunes, hills and mountains...With Nile and Egypt lying between them...

That I could be right about the original deep meaning of the "mountain" hieroglyph can be seen from the fact that this symbol had its mirror in ancient Egyptian architecture: the pylon, the front part of Egyptian temples...

The pylon consists of two pyramidal towers, each tapered and surmounted by a cornice, joined by a less elevated section enclosing the entrance between them...

This design makes no sense if the towers represented any two mountains. It makes a lot of sense if the two towers represented the banks of the river Nile...

Because then the Temple would have been a symbolic representation of (heavenly and earthly) Egypts, the place where men and gods meet...

According to the people from The Met, the ancient Egyptians viewed the temple as the place where "the (re)creation, (re)birth, of the world was thought to be continuously repeated, and the building itself was regarded as an image of the natural world"...

Knowing that for Egyptians "The World" was equal to Egypt, the fertile land along the Nile, which was (re)created by the Nile ever year, making the temple to look like the Nile River Valley, like Egypt, makes so much sense...

I talked about the continuous (re)creation of The World (Egypt) by the River Nile in my post "Beautiful boy" about Nefertem, The Beautiful (Lotus) Boy from Egyptian mythology... 

I wonder if "the lotus flower at the creation of the world, who had arisen from the primal waters" just means: "the lotus flower who arrises from the waters of the Annual Nile Flood"? 

I also talked about this in these two posts about the origin of the Sphinx mythology, "Sphinx" and "Giza lioness"...

Anyway, apparently, in ancient Egyptian religion, the pylon didn't mirror the "mountain" hieroglyph. Instead it mirrored the "horizon" hieroglyph, which is basically the "mountain" hieroglyph with the sun above it. This thing...

Now according to this paper the hieroglyph "horizon" was "a depiction of two hills between which the sun, the giver of life, rose and set on the first morning of the universe"...

As I said many times before, this "first day of the universe", when the world emerged from the primordial waters is not something that happened once in a distant past. It is something that happens every year, on the first day of the flood...

Remember, continuous (re)creation...

Interestingly, according to the same paper, "in another symbology, the hieroglyph horizon was a depiction the two banks between which the Nile River flows, this too being a giver of life"....

TA!....TA!....TAAAAAAAA!!!!! 🙂

Now if the "mountain" hieroglyph was indeed symbolic depiction of the Nile River valley, the way it was seen from it, from Egypt, then the "horizon" hieroglyph doesn't depict sun rising and setting between the mountains on the first day of creation of the world...

It depicts the sun, the giver of life, above the Nile River valley, above Egypt. At noon, when it is right above the Nile, the actual giver of life...

And when we overlay the "mountain" hieroglyph over this map, it perfectly fits the movement of the sun from east to west over the Nile River Valley...

The movement described by the "horizon" hieroglyph...

Also, the "horizon" hieroglyph, when overlayed over the map of Egypt, shows something else: The direction from which the annual Nile River flood comes...

It comes from the south, from the direction of the midday sun, and it fills the Nile River with the water of life, which then spills over the river banks into the Nile River valley (re)creating Egypt...

So I believe that the "horizon" hieroglyph has another meaning: "The Sun filling the Nile River valley with water". Basically "The Annual Nile River Flood". I first started thinking about this meaning of the sun as the source of the flood in my post "White calf", in which I tried to answer the question: why is this white calf standing between two sycamore trees under a red sun? 

I mean this has to be the other meaning of the "horizon" hieroglyph, or this "strange" image from the "Funerary Papyrus of Khonsu (c. 1070–712 BC) would make no sense...

I mean it would make no sense from the natural world point of view. This post gives some possible explanations for this scene from the Mythological point of view, and you will see that the nature and mythology again overlap...

If we accept that the "horizon" hieroglyph also meant "The Sun filling the Nile River valley with water" then then this image depicts Egypt (circular part with farmers digging the new fertile black soil brought by the flood) being (re)created by the Sun caused Nile flood...

The two female figures could be the White and Blue Nile, pouring water into the Nile River valley. The water is sometimes depicted as dark red (like blood) because this is the colour of the flood water, due to the sediment it brings down from the Ethiopian highlands...

The two female figures are sometimes named as Isis, and Nephthys, the two twin sisters of Osiris, the god of "the black soil", the fertile soil of the Nile River valley...

Osiris who IS "the black soil", the fertile soil of the Nile River valley, is depicted being watered by the flood and hoed by the people, being prepared for grain sowing...

Egyptians actually believed that grain grows from the (dead) body of Osiris...I talked about this in my posts "The beard of Osiris" and "Braided beard"...

So his two twin sisters pouring water (White + Blue Nile = Nile), the water of life, which makes Osiris (god of) the fertile black soil get reborn makes a lot of sense to me...

The water of life, the flood water. Being here poured by the Sycamore goddess, Nut (Hathor, Isis)...depicted with ankh (life) symbols inside it...Tomb, Siwa Oasis, 400-600 BC. Egypt...

Ok, ok...That's all great. But where is Horus?

Right here, on the same papyrus of Khonsu. 

From left to right:

Khonsu offers sacrifice to Ra-Horachte, the hybrid of Ra of the sun at noon 🙂 and Horus of the horizon 🙂.

Khonsu then takes water of life from the sycamore tree goddess. BTW, sycamore tree is full of fruit during the Period May/Jun (when Nile water levels start to rise) - Sep (when Nile water levels peak) 🙂.

After which we have the scene depicting (re)creation, resurrection (of Egypt) through annual flood 🙂.

And symbolically, resurrection of Osiris together with Khonsu...

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...

Horus the Elder

This is my 2nd Horus post...

I am continuing my reading about the Egyptian god of the Sky Horus, and I came across this very interesting thing: According to Claudius Aelianus (175-235 AD): Egyptians called the god Apollo "Horus" in their own language...

However...

However, Plutarch (40-120AD), a Greek philosopher, historian...and priest at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi (!!!) explained that the one "Horus" whom the Egyptians equated with the Apollo was not ordinary Horus, but "Horus the Elder"...

Why only this Horus?

Well this Horus was a very peculiar Horus indeed. Known in Egyptian as Heru-ur, Great Horus, he was sometimes depicted fully as a falcon, but was mostly depicted as a falcon headed lion, or falcon headed sphinx (!!!)...

Ok...Still don't get it. Why would this particular incarnation of the Sky God be equated with Apollo by the Plutarch, "a priest at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi"?

Cause Apollo was the Sun in Leo

IONIA. Miletos. Circa 340-325 BC. Drachm. 

Front: Laureate head of Apollo. 

Back: Lion with eight-pointed star above

This coin confirms my hypothesis that Apollo was Sun in Leo...Basically, Greek version of Mesopotamian Nergal...Sun in Leo...

Nergal, the deified destructive "burning" sun, was depicted as a lion man, because Jul/Aug, Leo, is the hottest and driest part of the year in Mesopotamia (and the rest of the Northern Hemisphere)...Talked abut him in my post "Winged superhuman hero"...

I explain why Apollo is Greek version of Nergal in these articles:

1. "Palil". About "Palil" a nickname of Nergal, the terrible, burning, destructive sun of Jul/Aug, Leo...And about the origin of the name Apollo and its meaning...

2. "Lord of the flies". About Nergal and Apollo as "The lords of the flies"...And about Jul/Aug, Leo, being the peak of the fly and fly born diseases season in Northern Hemisphere...

3. "Lions of Delos". About the Lions of Delos, the burning destructive sun in Jul/Aug, Leo, and the fact that both Nergal and Apollo are linked to lions. 

4. "Apollo and dolphins". About Jul/Aug, Leo being the "best time to sail in Eastern Mediterranean", and the link between dolphins and Lions...and Apollo...

5. "Marble throne of Apollo". About snakes (symbols of sun's heat), dragons (symbols of burning sun's heat) and terrible sun gods, Nergal and Apollo who are dragons themselves...

6. "Apollo and Python". About why Python followed Apollo after his birth? Cause snakes are solar animals...According to the Delphian tradition, Apollo was born on the 7th day of the month of Bysios (Jan/Feb)

7. "White raven". About the black and white raven legend which is found in both Nergal and Apollo mythology, Egyptian vultures and the twins that guard the gates of hell. And some other weird stuff...

8. "Threshing floor of Apollo". About the threshing floors as solar observatories/temples, about the threshing floor of Apollo from Delphi, about Jul/Aug, Leo, being the holy month of Apollo, and about solar bonfires...

9. "Apollo the great archer". About why Apollo was the terrible "far shooting" archer...About arrow and bow constellation from Mesopotamia, Ishtar, Sirius, and Jul/Aug, the season of Perseid meteor shower...

10. "Apollo Sminthius". About Apollo his arrows that cause plague and peak infectious diseases season, Jul/Aug

11. "Apollo - Resheph". About how the transformation of Nergal into Apollo went through an an intermediary, Syrian god Resheph...

BTW, lion marks the period Jul/Aug because this is when the main mating season of Eurasian lions starts...Talked about lion as an animal calendar marker in many of my posts...

"Horus the Elder" was known as the "foremost of the two eyes", the two eyes being the Sun and the Moon, and the foremost of the two eyes being the Sun. The Sun in Leo...

But Apollo was not just the Sun in Leo. He was the Sky God in Leo. The most feared of the Olympic gods...The Terrible Archer...

I talked about this aspect of Apollo in several of my above posts about Apollo - Nergal connection. In them I explain why Apollo was the terrible "far shooting" archer and what does this have to do with the arrow and bow constellation from Mesopotamia, Ishtar, Sirius, and Jul/Aug, the peak infectious diseases season, and the season of Perseid meteor shower...

Now "Horus the Elder" was also known as Horus, "strong of arm", "great of power" and "lord of the slaughter in the entire land"...

And he had a twin, Horus of Beḥuṭet, aka Horus of Edfû, who was depicted as a falcon headed lion, lion headed man, and "falcon with a phallus terminating in the head of a lion" 🙂...

Interestingly, this Horus of Beḥuṭet, aka Horus of Edfû, was also depicted as a falcon headed man carrying a club, bow and arrow...

Guess who else was depicted as an archer? Resheph, who was directly associated with both Nergal and Apollo...

And it seems that Resheph was in some parts of Egypt associated with Horus...Who was equated with Apollo...

BTW, guess who else is armed with club, bow and arrows and is prancing around dressed like a lion man? Heracles of course...Erythrai (Ionia) mint, 350-300 BC...

I discuss the true identity of the Heracles the Archer in my posts "Cetus", "Mithras", "Rudra" and "Red Archer"...

All these archers who shoot arrows from the sky in Leo are symbolic explanations for the Perseids meteor shower...You know, if there shining arrows (and clubs) are falling from the sky, there must be a great (heavenly) archer (also armed with a club) in the sky shooting them at us...

So, Plutarch, a priest at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi, new why he identified Horus the Elder, Horus with lion body, The Sky God in Leo, as Apollo...But this got forgotten over time, until I think I rediscovered it recently...

You might want to also read my first Horus post "Great duel"...

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...