I have made it as evident as I possibly can that astronomy - or more specifically observational astronomy - should be added to the tool kits of Egyptologists and archaeologists. And although fleeting references to it are made here and there, on the whole it is ignored. Yet if one does not know or understand the basic cycles of the stars and the sun or the effect of precession, then one is merely studying the inert hardware of ancient Egypt’s legacy without the benefit of the software that energised and drove it. One is merely looking at the broken ‘cosmic’ machines without knowing about the engine that powered them. For it is more than evident that the temple priests of ancient Egypt, especially those of Heliopolis, incorporated observational astronomy in their initiatory system of education. Albeit for religious rather than scientific reasons; but this should not lessen its importance to us. This is well attested in their many religious texts, such as the Pyramid Texts, and also in the intense astronomical qualities of the monuments, which, after all, are but the symbolic architectural expression of their beliefs. It is, therefore, imperative that the religious texts and the architecture be married with astronomy, for only then will they react together to reveal their deeper meaning and purpose. All Egyptologists or students of ancient Egypt must, by necessity, be conversant with the rudiments of observational astronomy before being able to properly tackle the ancient religious texts and related monuments.
Modesty aside, I believe that I have been able to make visible an ancient ‘code’ that can help Egyptology to shed more light on the greatest and most spiritually enlightened civilisation the world has ever known or is likely to know again in the future. Our present civilisation is in dire need of this ancient model of wisdom. For we desperately need to instigate a respect for the natural world and the natural order of things, and to acknowledge that our planet can only thrive when left unhindered and free from our interference. We must stop seeing ourselves as the masters of this planet and start seeing ourselves as merely one existing alongside others. Our planet is not an endless quarry for us to plunder at will, but rather a gift to be protected and nurtured. The ancient Egyptians not only knew this, but had geared their whole religious and social system towards this noble end. It is for this that they turned Egypt into a temple of the cosmos in which all could live in Maat. It is for this that they built on such a massive scale and aligned their star pyramids and sun temples towards the stars and the sun, and then called them ‘horizons’.
3
We learn from the Book of What is in the Duat (written around 1400 BC and based on the older Pyramid Texts) that:
Whosoever shall make an exact copy of these forms (constellations in the Duat), and shall know it, shall be a spirit well-equipped both in heaven and in earth, and regularly and eternally . . . Whosoever shall make an exact copy thereof, and shall know it upon earth, it shall act as a magical protector for him both in heaven and in earth, and regularly and eternally.
4
Who knows, perhaps they were right. Perhaps we need to be constantly reminded that we are an integral part of the cosmos, and that we all are here on this planet as cosmic beings for the same cosmic purpose. In any case, it is a better way than throwing bombs at each other.
Tout passe, tout casse, tout c’efface
. All ends, all breaks, all is erased.
APPENDIX 1
Running the Heb-sed
By Greg Reeder
The following article has been published by Greg Reeder and is here reproduced with his kind permission in full and without any alteration. (Published in
KMT
, Vol. 4: 4, Winter 1993-4, pp. 60-71. Photographs and illustrations not included here.)
Egypt’s dynastic monarchs periodically underwent death and rebirth, thus magically invigorating their reigns as well as guaranteeing the continued prosperity of the Two Lands and their people.
Kings in ancient Egypt were the embodiment of the ‘spirit of Fertility’. They were responsible for the success of the Nile flood and the harvesting of crops. ‘
. . . Lord of destiny, creating the plenteous harvest; . . . Pillar of the sky; Beam (support) of the earth; Leader who directeth the two banks of the Nile . . . There is a plenteous harvest wherever his sandals may be.
’
1
So said the courtiers of Rameses II.
When in most-ancient times the Nile failed, when the crops then failed, or when the king himself became ill or too enfeebled by age, he was physically sacrificed. Eventually kings circumvented their murders by merely substituting others in their place. ‘At last it comes to be realised that the powers within him [the king] being magical, they can be renewed by magic.’
2
In other words, through a ritual of magical birth, the king could not only renew his own life and reign, but would thereby guarantee the fertility of his land and people. Thus, dimly perceived, were the origins of the festival of renewal known as the
heb-sed
.
Heb
is ancient Egyptian for ‘festival’, but philologists are divided as to the definition of
sed
. Is the festival perhaps named for the god Set, or for the clothes the king wore during its ceremonies? Is it named for the bull’s tail attached to the king’s costume as he traversed the field, displaying his vigour? Or is it named for the land itself, reclaimed by the king for Egypt?
3
Cases can be made for all of these possibilities and it is difficult to know just which of these definitions the ancients believed, for they may have thought all were syncretistically acceptable.
It is generally agreed among Egyptologists that the
heb-sed
entailed a rejuvenation of the king and, by proxy, all of Egypt. Just when during a king’s reign this festival took place is problematical. It appears that it was ideally celebrated when 30 years of reign had been reached, and then much more frequently thereafter. There are so many apparent exceptions to this, however, that a hard and fast rule cannot be ascertained. It is possible that the health of an individual king - or of the country - at a given time could precipitate a
heb-sed
, since the festival was meant as a rejuvenation for both Egypt and its ruler.
How often was the
heb-sed
celebrated?
Commentators on the subject usually state that the
sed
-festival was ideally held after a king had ruled for 30 years, and at frequent intervals thereafter; yet
heb-seds
were recorded by several rulers (in the Eighteenth Dynasty especially) who reigned something less than three decades - Hatshepsut and Amenhotep II, for example, and even Third Dynasty Djoser, who was king for only 19 years. This suggests at least two explanations. One, that a king could ‘advertise’ his optimistic intention of celebrating the
heb-sed
in the future, and that representations of him ‘running the course’ were symbolic rather than records of an actually transpired event. Or, secondly, the
heb-sed
was celebrated regularly on a cyclical basis of 30-year intervals, whenever these fell during a reign. This could be demonstrated by the example of Amenhotep III, who had three
sed
-festivals in years 30, 34 and 37, but who is also represented ‘running the course’ in one of the very earliest monuments of his long reign, a lintel from the dismantled Thutmose IV portico at Karnak. Could a 30-year cyclical
heb-sed
have been required at the outset of Amenhotep’s rule (
c.
1391 BC), when he was but a boy of 10 or 12? Dating backward 30 years would have the previous
sed
-event occurring in 1421 BC, during the reign of Amenhotep II (
c.
1427-1401), who is shown ‘running the course’ and wearing the
sed
-robe in statues. Backing up another three decades to 1451 BC would put a
heb-sed
in the reign of Thutmose III (
c
. 1479-1425), who also had himself depicted in
sed
-activities. Another 30 years and it is 1481 BC, or the reign of Thutmose I (
c.
1491-1479); and he, also, is shown ‘running the course’ in Deil El Bahari reliefs and wearing the
sed
-robe in a statue at Aswan. And on back to Amenhotep I (
c.
1525-1404) in 1511 BC . . . etc. So where does this reckoning leave Hatshepsut, who clearly ‘runs the course’ in several of her Chapelle Rouge reliefs? An easy answer is that the female pharaoh did things her own way and could have had her
heb-sed
whether it was time for one or not.
Though depictions of the
sed
-festival are recorded on scattered monuments dating back to the archaic period, most information on the event comes from a few major sites: the Step Pyramid complex of Djoser at Saqqara; the sun temple of Niuserra at Abu Gurab; the Temple of Amenhotep III at Soleb in Nubia; and the so-called Festival Hall of Osorkon II at Bubastis. Add to these depictions those on diverse blocks and other isolated scenes,
4
and a picture emerges of the mysterious rites of the
heb-sed
.
Because there is no surviving complete depiction of the festival, there is little agreement among scholars about the sequence and meaning of its rites. Apparently preparations for the
heb-sed
could take years. Shrines were built and statues of the king carved and shipped throughout the land so that they could be set up to proclaim the success of the royal rejuvenation. Memphis, at least in the Old Kingdom, was the principal site of the ritual enactments; but there is reason to believe the festival was also celebrated at Thebes. And it is certain that Amenhotep III built an entire palace-town at Malkata on the Theban west bank for his own jubilee.
Special constructions at these sites included a ‘palace’ with robing chambers, where the king could rest during the ceremonies and change his attire required for the various rites. There is evidence that a royal funerary and a tomb chamber were included in the
heb-sed
structures and, finally, that ‘temporary shrines, called the “Houses of the Sed festival”, were erected on the archaic pattern of the reed-hut sanctuaries of prehistoric days.’
5
The rites themselves included purification, illumination of the thrones and chapels with fire, and processions of the king with dignitaries of the court, statues of the gods and files of priests - including
sem-
priests, magicians, scriptorians from the House of Life and even the ‘Opener of the Mouth’.
The king would visit each of the many temporary shrines and offer gifts to the deities housed within; he, in turn, would be visited by these same gods while he sat on his throne in a special pavilion. The king would also visit the Apis Bull, where its shrine was opened and ‘. . . the bull [was] brought out to be led before the king’s throne’.
6
Some scholars believe that the king also made a visit to his tomb - but more on that later. He also ran a course called the ‘dedication of the field’. Dutch Egyptologist Henri Frankfort stated that ‘We don’t know at what point in the celebration this took place.’ But it included the royal celebrant running with the flail-sceptre and carrying also a document or ‘will’ that gave ‘. . . authority to the king over the land of Egypt’.
7
Other
heb-sed
rituals included the raising of the
djed
column by the king, his shooting arrows to the four cardinal points, and four separate enthronements. All of these ceremonies were conducted in the presence of an archaic deity, Upwaut, who was depicted as a wolf perched upon a standard with a most peculiarly shaped ‘bag’ protruding in front of him. The excavations of the Step Pyramid complex at Saqqara, begun in 1924 by Cecil M. Firth, James E. Quibell and J.-Ph. Lauer, have shed much light on the physical layout of the
sed
-festival activities. Remains of buildings involved with these events were uncovered and several have been reconstructed over the years. These include a double row of facing shrines representing in stone the reed huts of prehistory. The shrines on the west represent Upper Egypt (the south), while those on the east signify Lower Egypt (the north).
8
This double row of structures is called the
itrt
, a word related to the term for river or river channel.
9
These are the ‘houses’ of the
heb-sed
, the jubilee mansions. Most scholars believe they are ‘not the actual buildings used in the
Sed
-festival, but only copies’.
10
They are referred to as ‘dummy chapels’, to be used only in Djoser’s afterlife. The structures are, in fact, merely façades with solid cores. There is a niche in each, where a statue of a deity was placed. The dummy-chapel concept is reinforced by the general belief that the Step Pyramid complex is funereal in nature; thus the shrines were for the use of the dead king. ‘No better explanation has been made than that they were intended for celebrations of Sed-festivals in the future life.’
11
A different explanation is offered here.
It is important to remember that the buildings of Djoser’s complex are the oldest structures in the world which are made of dressed stone. They were erected under the supervision of the great architect and vizier Imhotep, by artisans skilled in carving statues and stone vessels, but without much experience in stone architecture. This can be shown in the colonnade at the entrance to the complex. Here are imitations in limestone of what were originally columns formed by binding plant material together. Imhotep’s craftsmen were so uncertain of the stone medium that none of the columns are free standing, but are joined to the walls. The chapels of the
heb-sed
court gave these Third Dynasty artisans equal difficulties of construction, as they had to render in stone what had been previously been made of wood and matting. Even Firth recognised these ancient construction dilemmas when he stated that ‘Everything is built up solid and then carved like a statue’.
12
The
sed
chapels should be thought of more as ‘statues’ of the archaic shrines they represented, with just the space to hold the portable figure of whichever deity they were meant to house for the renewal festival.