Temple of Neith

[Ian Nottingham]

Greetings everyone, I began a similiar topic at the other forum. This one will hopefully be more in depth at the excavations being done at Sais, Egypt, the site where Solon was said to have first heard the Atlantis story, and where it was also said to be inscribed at the Temple of Neith. 

[Ian Nottingham]

   
   
 Overview

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 IntroductionIn 1997 the Egypt Exploration Society began a survey project at the ancient city of Sais in the western Egyptian delta. The aim of the survey was to record standing monuments, produce an archaeological map of the site and assess the viability of future work there. The site lies at the modern village of Sa el-Hagar which still retains the ancient city name 'Sa'. The city was the centre of the cult of the huntress goddess Neith and was possibly the centre of a Lower Egyptian kingdom in Predynastic-Early Dynastic times c. 3100 BC. In the 7th and 6th centuries BC Sais was the capital city of the whole of Egypt. Its kings refounded the temples of the gods of the city, built palaces and administrative buildings and were buried there. This was also the first time that Egypt had so completely been dominated by a westward-looking dynasty of kings, to the extent that they hired Greek mercenaries to fight for them and further opened up trade with the western Mediterranean. The Greek historian Herodotus visited the city on his visit to Egypt around 450 BC and wrote an impressive description of the splendour of the royal city. However, after visits by 19th-century explorers, the site has proved to be an archaeological disappointment, with only a few rescue excavations conducted in the area over the past 150 years.

Previous WorkThe 1997-1998 EES survey established that there are two main archaeological areas at Sais. The first of these is a Northern Enclosure about 1km to the north of the village, comprising the last vestiges of an enclosure wall about 750 by 700m in area and containing two protected areas of antiquities called Kom Rebwa. These low mounds seemed to be the remains of mud brick buildings recorded as still standing in the 19th century. The second area lies just to the north of the village and is the 'Great Pit' containing a few granite blocks, limestone monumental remains and excavated mud brick structures.

Following successful completion of the topographical survey and an encouraging trial with a magnetometer, it was decided to obtain environmental and other data by beginning a series of drill cores across the site. In 1999 and 2000 this work resulted in 53 cores being taken at the site, as a result of which some small scale excavations were begun in 2000.

The Drill Core Survey
Full analysis of the results of the survey have not been completed, but the preliminary findings suggest future avenues of enquiry. The modern course of the Rosetta Branch of the River Nile lies about 2km away from the village of Sa el-Hagar and the site. It forms a huge westward bend away from the town, but inside the bend are clear levees or artificial dykes closer to the settled areas. They suggested that the river has moved westward over time and, in fact, is still doing so. The drill cores clearly showed that the river channel had changed and that it might once have run almost beside the site. Further, the drills also picked up evidence for a possible buried sand island (or gezira) lying on the western side of the village. The gezira seems to be lying at an oblique angle north-west to south under the present village and out to the western side of the archaeological areas. In Predynastic times, gezira were the focus for settlement in the delta, as they provided high ground above the level of the annual inundation. Over time many of the islands were buried by alluvial mud, but this area could have been the first settled part of the site. One of the drill cores from the west side of the Great Pit brought up pottery from 7m below the ground surface (approximately 8m below sea level), of which some was black topped and some was burnished, suggesting a possible prehistoric date. In 2000 we dug a small test trench in this area to ascertain whether it was possible to retrieve material from beneath the water table, as has been done elsewhere in Egypt. In the end we were thwarted at a depth of 3m by the sandy matrix and by a broken water pump. However the sand also contained pottery, lithics and bone which is Pre-Early Dynastic in date (c. 3100 BC). This suggests that the original pottery from the drill augur is older and possibly of Buto-Maadi culture date around 3500 BC. However the contexts in which both sets of material were found are not clear. The excavated material may have come from a river deposit against a shore or beach at the side of the gezira, and in this case may not have originated at Sais. There are clearly important questions still to be answered and as this area is earmarked for building development, further excavation is planned here in 2001.

The drill core survey picked up human cultural material in the form of pottery and burnt brick from various places around the site itself, suggesting that there are other archaeological zones beyond the limits of our original survey. A magnetometer sweep in a field between the Pit and Enclosure in 1998 had indeed picked up substantial walls of a large building. The drill core survey confirmed that they were of limestone and that the soil contained stone fragments from the destruction of a monumental building some 3m below the surface. In one of the areas to the west it is possible that there may be a harbour for the city and to the north-east of the site there is a small village called Kawady which seems to have been the site of a satellite necropolis from the Late period onwards.

In the North Enclosure, drill results from the 'walls' themselves could be interpreted as the last remaining 3m of foundation wall from the main enclosure. This area had many of its mud-brick buildings removed over the last two hundred years, for use as fertiliser on reclaimed agricultural land. However the drill cores showed substantial layers of destroyed pottery and stone up to 3m thick and often down to depths of about 7m below the modern ground surface. In field walking and the drill cores a few small sherds of Greek black gloss ware and one of East Greek pottery were also found, suggesting that comparisons with the relatively nearby Greek colony of Naukratis might be possible one day.

The drills also produced samples of soil for analysis which should give information about the plants which grew in the area in the past. Most interesting was a thick black, organic layer lying about 8-10m below the lowest ground surface (at sea level). In some places this layer was up to 80cm thick and may represent a thick peat level, perhaps the remains of the marshy reed beds of the prehistoric delta.

Excavation in Kom Rebwa
In order to obtain pottery for dating analysis and to assess the amount of structural data left behind at the site, a small test area was excavated in Kom Rebwa. The trench contained a large 5m wide wall running through it and on either side of the wall there were substantial amounts of pottery, some still in situ. On the west side of this wall were a number of pottery emplacements or cupboards where vessels had been left. Most distinctive among them were carinated bowls, tall pot stands and amphorae of early Saite date (early 7th century BC). However a fragment of Old Kingdom 'Medum Bowl' found here suggested that the interest of the Saite Egyptians in the earlier phases of their culture extended not just to high art, but even to some of the characteristic pottery types from almost fifteen hundred years earlier.

On the lower, eastern side of the wall, the remains of an earlier structure were identified underneath, with clear signs that the earlier building had been cleared away and that the material from it had been destroyed. Amongst patches of burning were found gold leaf attached to wood or cartonnage, some glass beads, a human tooth and a flint working area with blades and debitage. This earlier building had smaller walls about 0.5m thick and the chambers inside it had mud-tile flooring. Amongst the top layers of debris were also found fragments of many terracotta votive cobras, probably from a local cult of the cobra goddess Wadjyt. It seems that the later layers of material have been removed for the most part, leaving behind evidence for at least two main building phases in this area, which is most likely to represent the Saite palace complex.

Survey of Standing Monuments
It seems probable that the Saite palatial complex inside the North Enclosure was abandoned after the fall of the Saite kings and that the town contracted back to the original site near the modern village. In this area there are dumps of Roman pottery and a hellenistic bath-house, confirming the later development of the village. It is probable that the main cult temple of Neith with Osiris Hemag was located here, in the most ancient area. The limestone wall and granite blocks which survive in this area may be the last vestiges of the temple, and possibly come from its pylon at the front of the building. In this case the surviving wall suggests that it was of a comparable size to the temple complex at Karnak itself. The 'Great Pit' was quarried out at the end of the last century but the surface traces show areas of limestone chippings which are typical of destroyed monumental buildings in Egypt. There are also sandy patches which may derive from temple foundation sand-boxes and the remains of casemate foundations in this area. Numerous statues and blocks in museums all over the world testify to the reason why Sais was a magnet for collectors and antiquarians. A number of inscribed blocks and objects have been found in nearby villages or at the site and brought to the Police Office at Sa el-Hagar. They have been recorded by the EES survey along with mud brick walls excavated by the Supreme Council for Antiquities in the 1980s.

Future Work
The survey work has shown that, contrary to appearances, there is still much archaeology at Sais. Working on the material is not straightforward, however, because most of it is buried below several metres of alluvial mud and the groundwater level. Traditional techniques of archaeological excavation will be difficult and expensive. However, by using a combination of geophysical survey to locate underground material with drill augurs to ascertain the depth and nature of the material, some progress can be made. The fields are preserving the remnants of the city and its suburbs and at this point in time some progress can be made towards understanding the limits of the settlement and the buildings and satellite sites associated with it.

The most ancient part of the site, under the village, is perhaps more at risk from modern development for this will bring with it additional waste water seepage problems. However, again, using 'pin-prick' archaeology perhaps a key-hole into the Predynastic development at Sais can be obtained and the nature of the gezira settlement understood.

The most important player in the development of the settlement may, however, be the River Nile itself. Its fluctuating floods which created numerous channels of water must have been a constant problem for habitations and their occupants. Perhaps at some times the whole course of the river may have changed, sweeping away settlements and forcing the people there to move and settle nearby on new ground. This may be one of the explanations in Egyptian archaeology for the lack of material from certain periods at certain sites. It may also be a key factor in understanding the rise and fall of political power in the Egyptian State. Future work will be aimed at understanding how the Nile channels of the delta may have fashioned Egyptian history and how settlements such as Sais responded to the vagaries of the river.
 

 http://www.dur.ac.uk/penelope.wilson/overview.html

[Ian Nottingham]

The Royal City of Saïs




   
 The Royal City of Saïs 

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What is it ?

Sais is the Greek name for the Ancient Egyptian city ‘Sa’ . In hieroglyphs the name ‘Sa’ is written like this :

[Ian Nottingham]

Where is it ?


The archaeological site of the city is in the western Egyptian delta (modern day Gharbiyah province). There is a village on the site called Sa el-Hagar, a name which combines the ancient name ‘Sa’ with the Arabic word for ‘stone’. It means ‘Sa the stone’ and is a good indication that there was once an impressive city here with many stone buildings.

[Ian Nottingham]

What happened there ?


A five thousand year-old wooden label with the name of King Aha shows the symbol of Sais inside a wooden compound. Some Egyptologists think that this shows that Sais was an important cult centre in northern Egypt right at the very beginning of Egyptian history, around 3100 BC.


The cult emblem shows a shield-shaped object with two arrows crossed through it and is usually perched on a stand. The object may be a shield, or it could originally have been an animal skin hung up and used as target practice. It is the emblem of the goddess of Sais called Neith.

Which gods had cults at Sais ?



Neith (above) may originally have been a hunting goddess who could bring good hunting to hunters out in the the desert margins of the Western delta. She is usually depicted wearing a flat-topped crown with a coil element at the front and a tall projection at the back (below).

[Ian Nottingham]

This was to become the Red Crown and symbolised all of Lower Egypt (the north). When Egypt was united into one kingdom, the Kings invented a crown combining the White Crown of Upper Egypt and the Red Crown of Lower Egypt.


Neith was a very powerful goddess and was also regarded as a creator. This is rare in Egypt because creation deities are usually male. She was, too, the mother of Sobek, the crocodile god associated with the fertility and power of the Nile. In the Late Period (from 1000 BC onwards), her temple was a centre of pilgrimage. It was famous for its linen cloth which is appropriate for this part of Egypt. Egyptian cloth was most often linen which is made from a plant called flax. This would grow very happily in the marshy, watery area of the Nile delta. The Neith temple had craftsmen and women who wove the cloth into very fine material, often almost see through. They had different grades of material, but the best was ‘royal' cloth which was fine and transparent.

There were other important gods who had temples at Sais too.


Atum, another creator god, was associated with Neith. He was not really her consort, but more of a male-power counterpart.


Osiris was also popular at Sais. He was the Egyptian god of the dead who ruled over the spirits of those people reborn in the afterlife. He had a special form at Sais where he was called ‘Osiris Hemag’. The meaning of his surname is a bit mysterious, but seems to be something like ‘Osiris made of carnelian’ (a semi-precious stone, orange in colour). Usually Osiris was shown wrapped up like a mummy, but Osiris Hemag had bandages decorated with semi-precious stones. He would have looked spectacular — glistening, shimmering and gleaming in the afterlife sunlight. Many people came to make offerings to Osiris at Sais as an act of pilgrimage.

Were there any people at Sais ?


Sais was also a powerful political and economic centre. We do not know much about its role in Egypt’s early history, but in about 727 BC a man called Tefnakhte set himself up there as the ‘Great Chief of the West’ and claimed to rule the whole of the Western delta. This meant he would have controlled the agriculture in the area, the sea trade down the western branch of the Nile, the coast, the linen industry at Sais, the temple cults at Sais, the resources of the Wadi Natrun from where mummifying material came, and possibly the trade routes to the oases. The Oasis areas were especially famous for their wine, so Tefnakhte seems to have known what he was doing.

Was Tefnakhte a real king ?


Tefnakhte was really only a local ruler, but his descendants under Psamtek, who also came from Sais, eventually claimed to rule the whole of Egypt. This means that for 139 years Sais was the capital of this great civilization.

Who were these Saites ?


The Saite family had continuous problems with the Assyrians who eventually invaded Egypt, the Thebans who disliked being ruled by northerners but they had some help in the form of Greek mercenaries. These men were soldiers who were hired to guard important cities in Egypt such as Sais and also a trading city called Naukratis. They would also fight for their employers if necessary.

Many stories exist about the Saite kings but one of the most amazing things about them is that they were very interested in Egyptology! They wanted to show that they were worthy, true kings of Egypt and successors of their illustrious ancestors. Already by then the Pyramids at Giza were almost 2000 years old, so there was much to study. The Saite kings copied artistic styles and types of statue from the past so that they could demonstrate their devotion and piety. They commissioned many statues of themselves, restored temple buildings - an example followed by their officials — and most of all they made Sais one of the greatest cities in the known world. A Greek visitor called Herodotus was amazed by the size of the statues, the temples and the richness of the palaces he saw in the city.

http://www.dur.ac.uk/penelope.wilson/intro.html

[Ian Nottingham]

Hermes Trismegistus

The Archaic Underground Tradition
(1) Ancient Egyptian Tradition  "In the ancient city of Annu (later called On in the Bible and Heliopolis by the Greeks) there was a great sacred pillar, itself named Annu - possibly before the city. This, we believe, was the great pillar of Lower Egypt and its counterpart in Upper Egypt at the time of unification was in the city of Nekheb. Later the city of Thebes, known then as 'Waset', had the title 'Iwnu Shema', which meant 'the Southern Pillar'."
"The twin pillars of the Two Lands became the Pillars of Hermes and the attributes of the ancient Egyptian moon god Thoth became absorbed into Hermes...It was said that this god [Thoth] possessed all secret knowledge on 36,535 scrolls that were hidden under the heavenly vault (the sky) which could only be found by the worthy, who would use such knowledge for the benefit of mankind."
     - Christopher Knight & Robert Lomas, The Hiram Key: Pharaohs, Freemasons and the Discovery of the Secret Scrolls of Jesus

The tradition of a secret doctrine of Thoth appears to be well established in Egypt:
1.) According to a papyrus dating to Dynasty 12 of the Old Kingdom:

"Then [His Majesty] King Khufu, the vindicated, said: Now as for the rumor that you know the shrines of the secret chambers of the enclosure of [Thoth]? Dedi said: By your favor, I do not know their shrines, Sovereign, my lord, but I do know the place where they are. His Majesty said: Where are they? And Dedi said: There is a passage of flint in a chamber called the Inventory in Heliopolis in that passage."
     - "A Marvel in the Time of King Khufu Himself"

2.) A chapter in the Egyptian Book of the Dead, according to its rubric, is said to have been found at:

"Shmun [Hermopolis] under the feet of the majesty of this sublime god [Thoth] upon a slab of upper Egyptian granite in the script of the god himself in the tomb of...Mycerinus, by Prince Hor-dedef. He found the spell when he was engaged in inspecting the temples."
     - The Egyptian Book of the Dead

"Divine authorship elevates religious literature from present day existence; similarly, the accounts about the discovery of such works ascribe them to a more or less distant past. This exemplifies the tendency to emphasize the antiquity of sacred writings, which is particularly evident in the retention of ancient linguistic forms or the deliberate choice of archaistic expressions. Egyptians could also adopt the customs of bygone ages in their mode of writing."
"There is a particle of truth in the statement of Clement of Alexandria that the Egyptians had forty-two sacred writings by Hermes (Thoth), in so far as these texts, which include geographical and medical works among others, constitute the entire range of material available for the education of priests. The reference to Thoth's authorship...is based on ancient tradition; the figure forty-two probably stems from the number of Egyptian nomes, and thus conveys the notion of completeness."
     - Siegfried Morenz, Egyptian Religion

Regarding the "Pillars of Hermes" of "Seth" and of "Solomon"
"In the 9th chapter of the [Egyptian] Ritual of the Dead they are referred to as the 'Pillars of Shu', the 'Pillars of the Gods of the Dawning Light', and also as 'the North and Southern Columns of the Gate of the Hall of Truth'. In the 125th chapter, they are represented by the sacred gateway, the door to which the aspirant is brought when he has completed the negative confession. The archaic pictures on the one Pillar are painted in black upon a white ground, and those on the other in white upon a black ground, in order to express the interchange and reconciliation of opposing forces and the eternal balance of light and darkness which give force to visible nature....The archaic illustrations are taken from vignettes of the 17th and 125th chapter of the Ritual of the Dead, the Egyptian Book of the 'Per-em-Hru' or the 'Book of Coming Forth into the Day', the oldest book in the world as yet discovered."
"...The general design of the White Pillar is a pictorial synthesis of the gradual freeing of the soul from the body, left to be mummied and its union with Osiris, Lord and Judge of the Dead and of the resurrection, the sun in his rising....The Black Pillar symbolizes the pathway of darkness, the Negative Confession, as the White Pillar represents the Hymn to the Rising Sun, the Pathway of Light, and the Positive Confession."
     - G. H. Frater, "The Core of the Tradition"
     The Complete Golden Dawn System of Magic



(2) Greek Accounts

"Explaining the Egyptian pantheon of twelve gods to his countrymen, the Greek historian Herodotus also wrote of an 'Immortal whom the Egyptians venerated as "Hercules".' He traced the origins of the worship of this Immortal to Phoenicia, 'hearing that there was a temple of Hercules at that place, very highly venerated'. In the temple he saw two pillars. 'One was of pure gold; the other was as of emerald, shining with great brilliancy at night."
     - Zecharia Sitchin, The Stairway to Heaven

"Plato's Timaeus and Critias state that about 560 BC in the temple of Neith at Sais there were secret halls containing historical records which had been kept for more the 9,000 years. Proclus gives the name of the high priest with whom Plato spoke in Sais - Pateneit. It is probably from him that the Greek philosopher learned about the oldest archives of Egypt. Another interesting fact to notice is that the high priest of Egypt Psonchis, teacher of Pythagoras, also mentioned sacred registers which even speak of a collision of the Earth with a giant asteroid in a remote past."
     - Andrew Tomas, On the Shores of Endless Worlds

"Greek philosophy and Egyptian lore really came together at the time of the Lagides, who gradually made Alexandria the intellectual, scientific, philosophic and religious center of the Hellenistic world....Manetho [his hieroglyphic name meant 'Gift of Thoth'], the Egyptian priest of Heliopolis, was also famous for translating the mysteries into Greek. He lived during the final years of the fourth and first half of the third centuries B.C. in the reign of the last two Ptolemies."
     - Murray Hope, Practical Egyptian Magic

"Manetho extracted his history from certain pillars which he discovered in Egypt, whereon inscriptions had been made by Thoth, or the first Mercury [or Hermes], in the sacred letters and dialect; but which were after the flood translated from that dialect into the Greek tongue, and laid up in the private recesses the Egyptian Temples. These pillars were found in subterranean caverns, near Thebes and beyond the Nile, not far from the sounding statue of Memnon, in a place called Syringes; which are described to be certain winding apartments underground; made, it is said, by those who were skilled in ancient rites; who, foreseeing the coming of the Deluge, and fearing lest the memory of their ceremonies be obliterated, built and contrived vaults, dug with vast labor, in several places."

Hermes Trismegistus "invented many things necessary for the uses of life, and gave them suitable names; he taught men how to write down their thoughts and arrange their speech; he instituted the ceremonies to be observed in the worship of each of the Gods; he observed the course of the stars; he invented music, the different bodily exercises, arithmetic, medicine, the art of working in metals, the lyre with three strings; he regulated the three tones of the voice, the sharp, taken from autumn, the grave from winter, and the middle from spring, there being then but three seasons. It was he who taught the Greeks the mode of interpreting terms and things, when they gave him the name of [Hermes], which signifies Interpreter.
"In Egypt he instituted hieroglyphics: he selected a certain number of persons whom he judged fitted to be the depositories of his secrets, of such only as were capable at attaining the throne and the first offices in the Mysteries, he united them in a body, created them Priests of the Living God, instructed them in the sciences and arts, and explained to them the symbols by which they were veiled."
     - General Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma

"...The so-called Hermetic literature...is a series of papyri describing various induction procedures...In one of them, there is a dialogue called the Asclepius (after the Greek god of healing) that describes the art of imprisoning the souls of demons or of angel in statues with the help of herbs, gems and odors, such that the statue could speak and prophesy. In other papyri, there are still other recipes for constructing such images and animating them, such as when images are to be hollow so as to enclose a magic name inscribed on gold leaf."
     - Julian Jaynes, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind

"The Vision is the most famous of all the Hermetic fragments, and contains an exposition of Hermetic cosmogony and the secret sciences of the Egyptians regarding the culture and unfoldment of the human soul. For some time it was erroneously called 'The Genesis of Enoch', but that mistake has now been rectified."
     - Manly P. Hall, Masonic, Hermetic, Quabbalistic & Rosicrucian Symbolical Philosophy

"His importance in magic is due to the so-called 'Emerald Tablet' which succinctly sets out the 'as above, so below' principle on which most magical theory is based."
     - David Conway, Ritual Magic

"The exact origins of the celebrated 'Emerald Tablet' are lost, but it is certainly not nearly as old as it is supposed to be. The content of the 'Emerald Tablet' can be traced back, with a fair degree of certainty, to Moslem alchemists in Syria in about the tenth or eleventh centuries."
     - Daniel Cohen, Masters of the Occult

"While Hermes still walked the earth with men, he entrusted to his chosen successors the sacred Book of Thoth. This work contained the secret processes by which the regeneration of humanity was to be accomplished and also served as the key to is other writings. Nothing definite is known concerning the contents of the Book of Thoth other than that its pages were covered with strange hieroglyphic figures and symbols, which gave to those acquainted with their use unlimited power over the spirits of the air and the subterranean divinities. When certain areas of the brain are stimulated by the secret processes of the Mysteries, the consciousness of man is extended and he is permitted to behold the Immortals and enter into the presence of the superior gods. The Book of Thoth described the method whereby this stimulation was accomplished. In truth, therefore, it was the 'Key to Immortality'.

According to legend, the Book of Thoth was kept in a golden box in the inner sanctuary of the temple. There was but one key and this was in the possession of the 'Master of the Mysteries', the highest initiate of the Hermetic Arcanum. He alone knew what was written in the secret book. The Book of Thoth was lost to the ancient world with the decay of the Mysteries, but its faithful initiates carried it sealed in the sacred casket into another land. The book is still in existence and continues to lead the disciples of this age into the presence of the Immortals. No other information can be given to the world concerning it now, but the apostolic succession from the first hierophant initiated by Hermes himself remains unbroken to this day, and those who are peculiarly fitted to serve the Immortals may discover this priceless document if they will search sincerely and tirelessly for it."
"It has been asserted that the Book of Thoth is, in reality, the mysterious Tarot of the Bohemians - a strange emblematic book of seventy-eight leaves which has been in possession of the gypsies since the time then they were driven from their ancient temple, the Serapeum."
     - Manly P. Hall, Masonic, Hermetic, Quabbalistic & Rosicrucian Symbolical Philosophy


 

The Philosphy of Hermes
"According to the Neoplatonic view the material world is arranged as a 'golden chain', which reaches from the topmost being and from the one which is beyond even existence, down to the last shimmer of being in matter, joining plane with plane in their essence. Ascending the chain the beings climb back to the summit of all being."
     - Holger Kersten & Elmar R. Gruber, The Jesus Conspiracy - The Turin Shroud & The Truth About the Resurrection (1992)

"Written by a Neoplatonist philosopher of about the fifth century, "the Celestial Hierarchies describes three worlds of which ours is the lowest. This is the elemental world of nature and is subject to influences from above. Above this 'sublunary' world, is what is called the 'celestial' world wherein are found the stars and their 'spirits' or 'guardians' (analogous to the Gnostic archons). Even higher is the sphere of the 'supercelestial' world, the world of nous, the 'intellectual' or 'intelligible' world of angelic spirits, of superior knowledge of reality because closer to the One, the divine source of creation, who is beyond the three worlds. Hand in hand with this concept of worlds, of which ours is the lowest projection, goes it essential counterpart; the concept of microcosm.... Going deeper and deeper into the mind of Man, illuminated by nous, man could travel farther and farther into the universe - and back again."
     - Tobias Churton, The Gnostics

"Hermes, while wandering in a rocky and desolate place, gave himself over to meditation and prayer. Following the secret instructions of the Temple, he gradually freed his higher consciousness from the bondage of his bodily senses; and, thus release, his divine nature revealed to him the mysteries of the transcendental spheres. He beheld a figure, terrible and awe-inspiring. It was the Great Dragon, with wings stretching across the sky and light streaming in all directions from its body. (The Mysteries taught that the Universal Life was personified as a dragon.) The Great Dragon called Hermes by name, and asked him why he thus meditated upon the World Mystery. Terrified by the spectacle, Hermes prostrated himself before the Dragon, beseeching it to reveal its identity. The great creature answered that it was Poimandres, the Mind of the Universe, the Creative Intelligence, and the Absolute Emperor of all. [Edouard Schure, The Mysteries of Egypt, identities Poimandres as the god Osiris.] Hermes then besought Poimandres to disclose the nature of the universe and the constitution of the gods. The dragon acquiesced, bidding Trismegistus hold its image in his mind.
"Immediately the form of Poimandres changed. Where it had stood there was a glorious and pulsating Radiance. This Light was the spiritual nature of the Great Dragon itself. Hermes was 'raised' into the midst of this Divine Effulgence and the universe of material things faded from his consciousness. Presently a great darkness descended and, expanding, swallowed up the Light. Everything was troubled. about Hermes swirled a mysterious watery substance which gave forth a smokelike vapor. The air was filled with inarticulate moanings and sighings which seemed to come from the Light swallowed up in the darkness. His mind told Hermes that the Light was the form of the spiritual universe and that the swirling darkness which had engulfed it represented material substance.
"Then out of the imprisoned Light a mysterious and Holy Word came forth and took its stand upon the smoking waters. This Word - the Voice of the Light - rose out of the darkness as a great pillar, and the fire and the air followed after it, but the earth and the water remained unmoved below. Thus the waters of Light were divided from the waters of darkness, and from the waters of Light were formed the worlds above and from the waters of darkness were formed the worlds below. The earth and the water next mingle, becoming inseparable, and the Spiritual Word which is called Reason moved upon their surface, causing endless turmoil."

"Then again was heard the voice of Poimandres, but His form was not revealed: 'I Thy God am the Light and the Mind which were before substance was divided from spirit and darkness from Light. And the Word which appeared as a pillar of flame out of the darkness is the Son of God, born of the mystery of the Mind. the name of that Word is Reason. Reason is the offspring of Thought [Thoth] and Reason shall divide the Light from the darkness and establish truth in the midst of the waters'."
     - Manly P. Hall, Masonic, Hermetic, Quabbalistic & Rosicrucian Symbolical Philosophy

[Compare with the tradition behind the pillar of fire that the Isrealites followed in the wilderness.]

"Of the immortal man it should be said that He is hermaphrodite, or male and female, and eternally watchful. He neither slumbers nor sleeps, and is governed by a Father also both male and female, and ever watchful. Such is the mystery kept hidden to this day, for Nature, being mingled in marriage with the Sky Man, brought forth a wonder most wonderful - seven men, all bisexual, male and female, and upright of stature, each one exemplifying the natures of the Seven governors [spirits of the Planets]. These, O Hermes, are the seven races, species, and wheels."
"Then all living creatures, including man, which had been hermaphroditical, were separated, the males being set apart by themselves and the females likewise, according to the dictates of Reason.'
"Then God spoke to the Holy Word within the soul of all things, saying: 'Increase in increasing and multiply in multitudes, all you, my creatures and workmanships. Let him that is endued with Mind know himself to be immortal and that the cause of death is the love of the body; and let him learn all things that are, for he who has recognized himself enters into the state of Good.'"
     - Poimadres (or The Vision of Hermes)

"Man, according to Hermes, had taken on a mortal body merely to commune with nature, but at heart remained a spirit, a divine, creative, and immortal essence. Living beings did not die, but, being composite, dissolved the bond in order to reunite and re-form. Nothing dies; it only dissolves and transforms. The gnosis consisted in re-becoming a god."
     - Peter Tompkins, The Magic of Obelisks

"We suffer a perpetual transmutation, whereby we receive a perpetual flow of fresh atoms, while those that we have received are leaving us."
     - Giordano Bruno

"Indeed, for antiquity in general, the divination of man was not an extravagant dream. 'Know, then, that you are a God,' Cicero wrote. And in a Hermetic text we read: 'I know thee, Hermes, and thou knowest me: I am thou and thou art I.' Similar expressions are found in Christian writings. As Clement of Alexandria says, the true (Christian) Gnostic 'has already become God.' And for Lactantlius, the chaste man will end by becoming consimilis Deo, 'identical in all respects with God.'"
     - Mircea Eliade, Rites and Symbols of Initiation

"...You saw the spirit, you became spirit. You saw Christ, you became Christ. You saw the father, you shall become Father....you see yourself, and what you see you shall [become]."
"Whoever achieves gnosis becomes "no longer Christian but a Christ."
     - Gospel of Philip

"...I was very disturbed, and I turned to myself...Having seen the light that surrounded me and the good that was within me, I became divine."
     - Allogenes


 

The Neoplatonic Origins of the Writings
"...A Greek manuscript in seventeen books brought from Macedonia to Cosimo de' Medici...was said to contain the secret wisdom of Thoth, the Egyptian sage whom the Greeks called Hermes Trismegistus, or the Thrice Great Hermes."
     - Peter Tompkins, The Magic of Obelisks

"A fusion of Greek philosophy and the ancient religion of Egypt, the beliefs of Hermeticism were contained in a body of texts known as the Corpus Hermeticum."
"The Corpus Hermeticum takes the form of dialogues between Trismegistus, Thoth, and several other Egyptian deities, including Isis. Scholars point out that little in the text is truly original. In fact, much of the Hermetic world view is grounded in the philosophy of Plato. Hermetics saw the universe in terms of light and dark, good and evil, spirit and matter. Like their Gnostic contemporaries, practitioners preached a mind-body dualism and salvation through the possession of true and divine knowledge."
     - Ancient Wisdom and the Secret Sects

"...In 1614 the brilliant scholar of Greek, Isaac Casaubon had shown in his de rebus sacris et ecclesiaticis exercitiones XVI that the Corpus Hermeticum could not possibly have been written by an ancient Egyptian sage - be he Hermes Trismegistus or anyone else. The Greek style was of the period of Plotinus (second and third century) and, furthermore, it had clearly escaped the attention of former commentators that neither Plato nor Moses nor Aristotle nor indeed any pre-Christian writer had ever made reference to this Hermes Trismegistus."
     - Tobias Churton, The Gnostics

"It is this very book [the Book of Moses/] which Hermes plagiarized when he named the seven perfumes of sacrifice in his sacred book entitled The Wing."
     - Fr Festugiere, Revelation of Hermes

"According to the legend... which had come from Lactantius, a father of the Church, Hermes Trismegistus was supposed to have foretold the coming of Christ. Hermes Trismegistus, in the book titled The Perfect Word, made use of these words: 'The Lord and Creator of all things, whom we have thought right to call God, since He made the second God visible and sensible.... Since, therefore, He made Him first, and alone, and one only, He appeared to Him beautiful, and most full of all good things; and He hallowed Him, and altogether loved Him as His own Son.' The fraud perpetrated by Neoplatonics of the second century was that Hermes was supposed to have been living at the time of Moses and his creation story and the quote which I read you was all about 1,500 years before Christ. In reality it was dated about the second century AD."

"The Neoplatonics believed in a world spirit, and that one could coax the spirit into matter through the use of the soul, which was located midway between spirit and matter. This use of the soul is what is known as magic. Augustine was revulsed by this practice and strongly admonished Hermes for practicing such magic."
     - Gerry Rose ,"The Venetian Takeover of England and Its Creation of Freemasonry"

"The Trismegistus, then, came under the influence of the early Christian Gnostics, many of whom adopted large chunks of it in defense of their 'heresies'. The most notable of these was Basilides, whom the great psychologist Carl Jung believed to be either a fragment of his own group soul guiding him in trance through the Seven Sermons of the Dead, or himself in a former life. The Valentinian Gnosis was also strongly Hermetical. The Gnostic flavor in the Trismegistus literature is therefore obviously very strong, so it will pay the student to strip away some of these Christo-Gnostic overleaves in order to get a little nearer to the Egyptian original."
     - Murray Hope, Practical Egyptian Magic


 
Related Sites
The Church of Light
     Teachings of the Brotherhood - ancient Masonry, spiritual alchemy, and occultism
The Hermetic Library
     Core documents of the Hermetic tradition taken from Mead's translations 



Hyperlinks
·The Apocryphic Book of Enoch
·Jachin and Boaz
·Mysterious Manuscripts
·The Rosy Cross
·Thoth, the Great God of Science and Writing

  http://www.mystae.com/restricted/streams/scripts/hermes.html

[Ian Nottingham]

http://home-3.tiscali.nl/~meester7/eng21-22.html
http://www.dur.ac.uk/penelope.wilson/intro.html

[Ian Nottingham]

The 21st and the 26th Dynasty

by E.J. de Meester

The problem with Egyptian chronology is in the Third Intermediate Period (1070-712 BC), consisting of the 21st Dynasty (1070-945) and the Libyan or 22nd Dynasty (945-712) that consisted of descendants of Libyan mercenary army leaders. There are also the 23rd en 24th Dynasty, but they consisted of local rulers who lived in the same time as the 22nd Dynasty. This period is the subject of The Third Intermediate Period in Egypt (1100-650 BC) by Kenneth A. Kitchen, who appeared in the TV series about David Rohl (Aris & Phillips Ltd, Warminster l973). Kitchen is regarded as the greatest authority on the Third Intermediate Period, but he is also the greatest enemy of David Rohl and his 'new chronology'. In most popular books the Third Intermediate Period is treated only very superficially.
Velikovsky's scheme
Velikovsky thought that the order of the Egyptian dynasties had to be altered radically. In his opinion the Hyksos period was followed by the 18th Dynasty (1020-830), then the Libyan (830-720), then the Ethiopian (720-663) and only then the 19th Dynasty (Ramses II) that was identical to the 26th. The 21st Dynasty consisted, in his opinion, of priests. That must be wrong. I think the order of the 18th, 19th, 20th and 21nd Dynasties is correct. The weak point is the succession of the 21st and 22nd Dynasty. Velikovsky remarks that there is little or no evidence to support it. Only a text on a statuette, which can be interpreted differently (see under 'Apries'). That is not quite true, because Kitchen offers more evidence than that in his book.
Also it is assumed that David and Solomon lived at the time of the 21st Dynasty, but there is not the smallest piece of evidence to prove that, except that Sheshonk I of the 22nd Dynasty was a contemporary of Solomon, if he is identical to the Shishak in the Bible and if the 21st Dynasty was indeed follewed by the 22nd Dynasty. Nobody has been able to prove that Solomon ever existed at all.
The 21st Dynasty
What was that vague, shadowy 21st Dynasty anyway? Velikovsky thought it was a dynasty of priests, but I don't think so. It is thought that the dynasty ruled until 945 BC. If we push that down for 400 years, than we almost arrive at 525, the year in which the Persians conquered Egypt. Could it be that the 21st Dynasty is really the 26th Dynasty described by Herodotus (II.147-III.15)? That would be a very simple solution. At least one thing speaks in its favour: the fact that in the Serapeum (where the Apis bulls were buried) the names of the pharaohs of the 21st Dynasty are not mentioned in any inscription, althought the names of the 26th Dynasty are. Velikovsky thought the 26th Dynasty was identical to the 19th, but there are too many differences between the dynasties. The 21st and 26th Dynasties have at least more or less the same numbers of pharaohs and the same time spans.
Any theory that involves the 26th Dynasty is more interesting because so much more is known about this period than about earlier periods. I have chosen this theory as the best one, even if it seems unlikely. I think it is best to follow the consequences of my initial theory boldly with ironclad logic, rather than trying to find compromises that may seem more acceptable. Professor Kitchen would call me 100% rubbish anyway, so why bother? So far nobody has come up with a better theory, apart from the conventional one perhaps. I think that in any case the solution will be an unlikely and unexpected one, otherwise somebody else would have found it already.

21st Dynasty:
•   Smendes (1070-1044);
•   Amenemnisu (1044-1040);
•   Psusennes I (1040-992);
•   Amenemope (993-984);
•   Osorkon I or the Elder (984-978);
•   Siamun (978-959);
•   Psusennes II (959-945).    

26th Dynasty:
•   (Necho I 672-664);
•   Psammetichus I (664-610);
•   Necho II (610-595);
•   Psammetichus II (595-589);
•   Apries (Hophrah, 589-570);
•   Amasis (570-526);
•   Psammetichus III (526-525).

[Ian Nottingham]

In Sais (Sa el Hagar), the capital of the 26th Dynasty, hardly any excavations have been made, due to the high ground water level that makes digging very difficult. If the palaces in Sais had been excavated, all these misunderstandings might never have arisen or might have been solved long ago. At excavations of the University of Pennsylvania in Memphis layers of the 21st Dynasty were found directly under layers of the Ptolemaic period, according to Velikovsky.

Smendes

The first king of the 21st Dynasty is Smendes, who was a king of Tanis and is mentioned in the famous story of Wenamun. This story is dated in year 5; if that is the fifth year from the Rebirth (684 according to my theory) that must be 679. Wenamun sailed to Byblos, where he is met with hostility. That is understandable if this was the time of the Assyrian king Esarhaddon (680-669) who may have forbidden the Byblites to trade with Egypt. In 671 he invaded Egypt and destroyed Memphis. Two earlier messengers from Egypt had been kept prisoner in Byblos for 17 years and died there. The king of Byblos in the story is called Zakarbaal or Tjekerbaal; I don't know whether the Assyrian annals of this period mention any king of Byblos. But Assurbanipal (668-627), Esarhaddon's successor, mentions in the account of his third campaign a certain 'Nabushezibanni'. That name is not like the name of any king that ruled then according to the traditional chronology, but is is very close to 'Nesbanebdjed', the Egyptian name of Smendes!

Wenamun was received in Tanis by 'Nesbanebdjed and Tantamun'. Who was this Tantamun? Smendes' wife? If there is a sign for 'woman' in the original text, that must be so. If not, the name sounds very much like 'Tanutamun', 'Tanwetamani' or 'Tantamani', the successor of Taharqa (king 664-657), a son of Shabaka. Had Taharqa sent a relative to Tanis to keep an eye on things and to raise the alarm if the Assyrians appeared at the border?

Also Velikovsky points out that there are papyrus texts from the time of the 21st Dynasty which mention 'barbarians' who invaded Egypt and plundered Egyptians. He thought these had to be the Persians, but they could also be the Assyrians.

Necho I

There are two kings called Necho in the 26th Dynasty, Necho I and Necho II. Necho I was only a local king (672-664). He may be identified with Amenemnisu, who had the throne name 'Neferkare', which may will have been shortened to 'Necho' or 'Nekos'. He was not a son of Smendes, but of the Theban priest-king Herihor. It would fit rather well if Amenemnisu and Amenemope of the 21st Dynasty would be Necho I and Necho II, because their names are rather similar and otherwise I don't really know what to do with Amenemnisu and Amenemope. Amenemnisu is mentioned in a list of high priests in Memphis (see below).

Psammetichus I

The name 'Psusennes' is very similar to 'Psammetichus', with a pun on the Greek word for 'sand', psammis. So we may assume that the two Psusenneses were really two of the three Psammetichuses (there was also a high priest called Psusennes in Thebes). According to the Chronicle of the Pharaohs by Peter A. Clayton (p. 180), there was a civil war before Psusennes became pharaoh. During it, a number of dissidents was exiled to the Western oases and held by Libyan chiefs. A black granite stela in the Louvre tells about this exile. According to Herodotus (II.151) Psammetichus was exiled to the swamps. So that fits quite nicely. In this period Egypt was ruled by 12 kings (compare the map on p. 47 of the Atlas). Psammetichus was the first king who ruled over all of Egypt, or at least a large part of it, including Sais in the Western Nile delta.

Necho II

The next one is Necho II, who ruled for 15 years and is mentioned in the Bible (2 Kings 23:29). He was very pro-Greek and stimulated trade and shipping. He started work on a forerunner of the Suez Canal and was beaten by the Babylonians in the battle of Carchemish on the Euphrates in 605 (see Jeremiah 46). He may have been Amenemope, but I can't find anything to prove it. Amenemope is regarded as an insignificant pharaoh. His throne name is not at all like 'Necho'.

Psammetichus II

Psammetichus II or Psammis sent Greek and other soldiers on an expedition to Ethiopia; when they returned, they scratched their names in the temple of Abu Simbel. Perhaps he was Har-Psusennes II. David Rohl wrote in an answer to Kenneth Kitchen that the abovementioned statue with the name of Psusennes II was not the work of Hedjkheperre Shoshenk (I). According to Carl Jansen-Winkeln it was made by an different, unknown Sheshonk, Maatkheperre Sheshonk.

Another problem is that Har-Psusennes granted a funerary cult to the dead Chief of Ma Nimlot at the request of his son Shoshenk, also Chief of Ma. In the traditional model this is the future Shoshenk I, the first pharaoh of the 22nd Dynasty. In my model that is impossible, so he must be a different Shoshenk. Nimlot is called a 'god's father', which often means the non-royal father of a pharaoh, but it can also have some other meaning.

Apries

Apries or Hophra (Jeremiah 44:30), or perhaps rather Hapries, tried to help Jerusalem in 588 against the Babylonians, but without success. He also sent an army to Libya to help a friendly king against the Greek colonists in Cyrene. The army was defeated, the soldiers started a mutiny and deposed him. He may well have been Osorkon; he had the throne name 'A'akheperre' and that may well have been shortened to 'Hapries' of 'Hophra'. Also, he must have been of Libyan descent; perhaps he was related to the king he tried to help. He may have become pharaoh by marrying Makare, a daughter of Psusennes II. Their son must be this Maatkheperre Sheshonk. In the book Chronicle of the Pharaohs Osorkon's name is written like this, but the vertical symbol (the staff) is probably wrong, because it means 'sekhem' and not 'aa':

[Ian Nottingham]

On another page I claim that this Osorkon Aakheperre was the same pharaoh as Osorkon IV, the last of the 22nd Dynasty. Their names are almost identical (except for one probably unimportant detail) and they were both dethroned. The Chronicle of the Pharaohs gives the names of Osorkon IV (left) an Osochor (right) as follows. The sign for 'sekhem' (the staff) is probably a mistake for 'aa' (a column) as written below left, under the circle for 'Re'. This symbol can be written both horizontally and vertically.

[Ian Nottingham]

Amasis

Amasis was a general who was declared pharaoh during the mutiny. He was strongly pro-Greek and did a lot of building. He may well have been Siamun, whose name is found on many buildings. Perhaps he was Greek himself, or else his wife was. He was also involved in the reburial of mummies near the Valley of the Kings. Perhaps the name was not pronounced as 'Siamun' (Son of Amun) but as 'Amunsi' (Amonson), which sounds much like 'Amasis'. In any case it was written this way, because that name of a god was always written first.



The name of Amasis contains the same duck (Si), preceded by Ah (moon), Ms and the sign for the goddess Neith, so the name is 'Ahmose, son of Neith'. Perhaps Siamun called himself thus to identify himself with the famous pharaoh Ahmose, who expelled the Hyksos, as he kept the Assyrians at bay.

[Ian Nottingham]

In Tanis a fragmentary relief has been found which shows Siamun smiting his enemies with a mace. The enemies 'grasp a double axe of a type reminiscent of the Aegean and West Anatolian world.' (K.A. Kitchen, The Third Intermediate Period p. 235) Amasis came to power by defeating an army of Ionian and Carian mercenaries in the service of Apries (Herodotus II.163, 169). Ionians and Carians lived in the Aegean and West Anatolian world. A coincidence? Kitchen and others connect the relief with the siege of Gezer in the time of king Solomon, but why a foreign weapon if that is true?

Psammetichus III

Psammetichus III or Psammenitus ruled for only one year; after that, the Persians conquered Egypt. He should be a third Psusennes. Egyptologists disagree about whether there were two or three Psusennesses.

No doubt there will be many aspects of this theory which Egyptologists will dispute, but at least we have a basic theory about the 21st and 26th Dynasties, and also about the 22nd Dynasty. Now we have to pay attention to the capital of the 21st Dynasty, Tanis, called Zoan in the Bible. It was in the eastern part of the Delta. Sais, the capital of the 26th Dynasty, was in the western part, close to the trading post of the Greeks, Naukratis.

The tomb in Tanis

In Tanis two adjoining tombs of the pharaohs Psusennes I of the 21st and Osorkon III of the 22st Dynasty have been found. According to David Rohl the tomb of Psusennes (1) must have been built later than the one of Osorkon, although the latter is thought to have lived later than Psusennes. Rohl uses this as proof that the 21st Dynasty existed later than the 22nd Dynasty, or both at the same time. According to the traditional chronology Psusennes reigned between 1040 and 992 BC, Osorkon III between 883 and 855 BC. Osorkon II is supposed to have been the pharaoh who supplied the Egyptian troops in the battle of Karkar against the Assyrians in 853, but the Assyrian texts do not name the Egyptian king. O. II claims in an inscription in Bubastis that all the lands of Upper and Lower Retenu (Syria) are under his feet.

On the wall of his tomb Psusennes is depicted worshipping the goddess Mut. The goddess is described as 'the heavenly lady, sovereign of the two lands, mistress of the Hellenic Coast' (P. Montet, Psousennès, p. 92). Montet writes: 'The sea of the Hellenes (Helou-nebout) was for the Egyptians the Mediterranean Sea from Alexandria to Rosetta. The sea coast of the Hellenes was the part of the Egyptian coast to the west of Damietta.' But the Greeks only settled here in large numbers in the time of the pharaohs Necho II and Amasis. It is very unlikely that the 'Hellenic Coast' would be mentioned in the time of Psammetichus I, let alone around 1000 BC. Montet also noticed that the word 'king' (NSW) was written in a manner which became usual in the Ptolemaic period (Psousennès p. 149). The same is true of the word 'neter' (god). A scarab of Siamun was found in the portal of the tomb (p. 186), so the tomb must have been sealed in or after the time of Siamun, although Siamun is supposed to have lived long after Psusennes. How can all this be explained?

If Psusennes lived after Osorkon, that would also explain why Psusennes' wall around the temple (2) has been preserved much better than the one built by Osorkon, of which only a small piece on the East side (3) survives, and why his tomb remained intact while Osorkon's tomb was plundered.

[Ian Nottingham]

Many of the grave goods were second-hand, e.g. a necklace of Sheshonq I from the time when he was still leader of the Ma (a Libyan tribe). Perhaps Psammetichus III was given grave goods of Ps. I, so the two were confused with each other. A golden mask of a courtier, Wendjebaendjed, bears a striking resemblance to Greek statues from the 7th century BC with their 'archaic smile'. Of course one can say that this is 'just a coincidence' - many statues of Ramses II have the same smile - but it is a startling coincidence that Psammetichus I (664-610) lived exactly in the same 7th Century and that Greeks came to Egypt in the same period. Perhaps it was made by a Greek goldsmith!

[Ian Nottingham]

In this plan the tomb of Psusennes is shown on the left, the tomb of Osorkon on the right. 1 - entrance shaft, 2 - entrance hall, P - tomb of Psusennes, M - tomb for Psusennes' queen, occupied by Amenemope, A - empty sarcophagus of Ankhefenmut, W - separate tomb of Wendjebaendjed, not connected to 2, O - tomb of Osorkon. The most interesting part is shown in red: a later extension of Psusennes' tomb, for which a part of Osorkon's tomb was demolished. This extension was executed shortly after the building of Psusennes' tomb. The proof is a silver bowl in tomb W with a text like this: 'Psusennes gave this to Priest So-and-so. Wendjebaendjed, deceased, Lord of Busiris.' Wendjebaendjed interests me especially because he had that 7th-century Greek golden mask. If Ankhefenmut was Psusennes' son, the extension probably did take place one generation after Psusennes.

In Rohl's new website there is an answer by him to an article by Philippe Brissaud, the present excavator of Tanis: 'Has the Loch Ness monster been born in the Holy Lake of Tanis?' (The holy lake, the double rectangle to the upper right of the temple, was a pond in which the priests bathed.) The article was, according to Rohl, 'not only arrogant and abusive but also (...) intentionally misleading.' Unfortunately the arguments are rather complicated. The main argument is that a re-used block of stone with the name of Psusennes I was found in a wall of a tomb that must be older than Osorkon's tomb. Therefore Osorkon must have lived after Psusennes I.

Rohl thinks that this tomb or chamber was built later, after Psusennes and Osorkon. If I understand it correctly, the chamber consist of two walls on the south side of Osorkon's tomb. The block with the name of Psusennes was found in the east-west wall. Rohl thinks that the construction took place in the time of Pimay (22nd Dynasty), who is also buried in the southern part of the complex, to bury his predecessor Usermaatre Sheshonk III in the antichambre of Osorkon II's tomb. The chamber contained broken ushabtis (funerary statuettes) of Osorkon II. Another block from a building by Psusennes I was reused in the tomb of Sheshonk III.

This explanation seems acceptable to me. But does it fit into my theory? Sheshonk III died, according to the conventional chronology, 58 years before Osorkon IV, whom I identify with Apries, who died in 570 BC. Then Sheshonk III must have died in 570+58=628 BC. Pimay died 7 jears later, so in 621. Psammetichus I alias Psusennes I reigned from 664 to 610. That means that a building by him may have been demolished in or before 628.

An argument in favour of the traditional sequence is that there are two courts in front of the temple (on the west side), the outer one built by Osorkon, the inner one built by Siamun:

Court of Osorkon II
.....
 Court of Siamun
.....
 Temple, built by Psusennes I
.....
 

It looks as if the court of Siamun must have been built first. But Philippe Brissaud denied in his attack on David Rohl that the first pylon (on the left) was built by Osorkon II, although he called it the work of Osorkon II in other publications. Two foundation deposits with the name of Osorkon II were found in this area, but they could be from some other building according to Brissaud. In that case the first pylon may have been built under some later pharaoh.

Velikovsky quotes Pierre Montet who wrote that the actual temple was not built by Psusennes but at a later date, because he had found remains of buildings by Osorkon II under the north-eastern and south-western corners. (Montet, Les constructions et le tombea de Psousennès à Tanis, Paris 1951, p. 10). So the building history may be more complex than one would think at first. There was even a layer of Nectanebo I (380-363, 30th Dynasty) under the south-eastern corner.

Solon in Egypt

The Athenian politician Solon visited Egypt probably in the time of Amasis, although Aristotle writes that he did so earlier, directly after his career as archont (city administrator), ca. 590-560 BC. Herodotus writes that he adopted one of Amasis' laws. According to Plato, Solon heard the tale about Atlantis in Sais, 'the city where King Amasis came from', in the temple of Neith (Athena, Minerva) from an old priest who was called 'Senchis' according to Plutarchus. David Rohl writes in his foreword in Andrew Collin's Atlantis book that this is probably a form of 'Sheshonk'. Could this perhaps be the priest called Sheshonk, the son of Osorkon (Apries)? It may be a coincidence, but the son of the former pharaoh would be the right person to receive a highly respected foreign statesman. According to Plato the priest was very old when it happened, but that may be a bit of poetic licence, because Plato emphasizes the extreme antiquity of the Egyptian civilization. In reality the prince may have been young, much younger than Solon was.

Solon made a kind of Grand Tour of ten years. Plato has visited Egypt himself. Plutarchus writes that Solon talked with 'Psenophis of Heliopolis and Senchis the Saite, the most learned Egyptian priests'. The first name is doubtlessly a form of 'Psusennes', perhaps the later Psammetichus III, the son of Amasis, who was indeed a priest but in Thebes.

Four priests in Memphis

In Memphis a list of high priests of Ptah with names of kings has been found (Berlin 23673). Below left the names of the priests, in the middle the kings' names and on the right pharaohs who might be those kings:

Ashakhet
Pipi

Harsiese

Pipi
 Amenemnisu
A'akheperre

Psusennes

Psusennes
 Necho I??
Psammetichus I?

Psam. I or Psam. II?

Psammetichus II?
 

The last priest is also mentioned in the time of Siamun (Amasis), so he cannot have lived in the time of Psammetichus I. All this is very, very complicated.

The Mystery of the Yellow Coffin

An argument against the theories of James and Rohl is that a complete sequence of a kind of yellow coffins has been established from the late 18th Dynasty through the 21st Dynasty to the time of Osorkon II (22nd Dyn.). During his reign there is a change to white mummy-cartonnage with a wholly different set of coffin designs. A sequence of royal coffins has also been established. Unfortunately, this is another subject I know nothing about.

Cambyses' lost army

If we assume that Amasis is the same as Siamun of the 21st dynasty, we may solve another mystery. Why did Cambyses send an army to the oasis of Siwa (Herodotus III.26)? The army was caught in a sandstorm and perished to the last man. Later Alexander the Great visited the oasis. What was Cambyses looking for? Velikovsky writes in Peoples of the Sea that in the oasis a certain Siamun was buried, who he thinks is the Siamun of the 21st dynasty, who hid the mummies of old pharaohs. Amasis was probably afraid that Cambyses would destroy his mummy, which indeed he tried to do, and perhaps those of other pharaohs. So Amasis had himself buried in the most distant outpost of Egypt. The Egyptians gave Cambyses a different mummy. When Cambyses found out the deception, he sent an army into the desert to fetch the real mummy of Amasis (Siamun). But Amasis was lucky even after his death and the army never reached the oasis.

Psammetichus III and the tomb of Juf-aa in Abusir

According to Velikovsky, Psusennes was a viceroy under the Persians. On a foundation stone the word shahedet is written next to his name. This can only be explained if Psusennes was Psammenitus, the son of Amasis, who was appointed as viceroy by Cambyses (Herodotus III.15) but executed later. Psusennes may have been buried in secret by his faithful attendants, so his tomb was never plundered, like Tutankhamen's.

It is unlikely that the burial chambers of Psusennes (P) and his wife (M) were plundered and then reused, because they had been closed with enormous stone plugs. It is more likely that Psusennes' burial chamber had never been used. Perhaps Psusennes had built this tomb for himself while he was only king of Tanis and later another tomb in Sais, where he was buried. Horemheb also built one tomb for himself when he was only a general and then another tomb in the Valley of the Kings when he had become pharaoh. The empty sarcophagus A was probably also left behind unused. The fact that Amenemope was buried in the chamber that was intended for the queen (M), points in the same direction.

Recently an unplundered tomb of a courtier was found in Abusir near Memphis; it also dated from the time of the Persian conquest. That suggested to me that the tomb of Psusennes might date from the same period. Under normal circumstances Psusennes would have been buried in Sais. An article about the tomb in Abusir can be found in the November l998 issue of National Geographic (vol. 194, no. 5).

http://home-3.tiscali.nl/~meester7/eng21-22.html