Message #45283

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                                                  THE EGYPTIAN WRITINGS





Over a half-century ago Cambridge scholar and explorer, Harold T. Wilkins (1946) noted the depiction of a great festival on column 8 of the Great Hall of the temple of Rameses at Karnak, along with an accompanying text memorializing the loss of a drowned continent in the Western Ocean. The column mentioned cannot be easily dismissed, and is a relevant example of the type of source to which Solon (in Plato's Timaeus) refers.


Plato described Atlantis as being ruled by ten kings before its demise. Egyptian king-lists going back thousands of years before Plato (we will look at one example here) establish four important facts which we should notice. They are:


1) Egyptian tradition begins with the "reign of the gods"
2) In all there were ten of these so-called "god-kings"
3) They were said to have reigned in a foreign country
4) From all appearances they were called "Atlanteans"


This last statement will be challanged by scholars, so let's take a closer look at the Egyptian king-lists. One noticable fact is that Manetho (250 B.C.) calls the first series of kings who ruled during the "reign of the gods," Auriteans. This seems to be nothing more than a corruption of the word "Atlantean". Let me explain.


Egyptian hieroglyphics only approximate real sounds: for instance, a hieroglyphic "k" must be used to represent the hard "g" sound. The hieroglyph that Manetho transcribed as r can equally be transcribed as an l. Thus the "Auriteans" of Manetho's king-lists could just as well be "Auliteans": phonetically almost identical to "Atlanteans". This idea obtains credible support from the fact that the ancient Phoenician historian Sanchuniathon (1193 B.C.) calls these very same kings Aleteans (Cory, 1826).


Although there are numerous ancient Egyptian king-lists in existence, only a few include the famous "reign of the gods". These include the Palermo Stone (2565-2420 B.C.), the Turin Papyrus (1300 B.C.), and Manetho's Egyptian Chronicles (250 B.C.). Of these, the Turin Papyrus is by far the most complete source.


The Turin Papyrus (Gardiner, 1987; Smith, 1872) lists ten kings who ruled during the "reign of the gods," complimenting the fragments of Manetho which have come down to us. Most importantly, it allows us to equate the Egyptian names with the Greek names given by Manetho. Below is a list of god-kings from the Turin Papyrus, with Manetho's fragmented list alongside:


PTAH. . . . Hephaestus
RA . . . . . . Helios
SU. . . . . . . Agathodaemon
SEB . . . . . Cronos
OSIRIS . . Osiris
SET. . . . . . Typhon
HORUS. . . . . . .
THOTH. . . . . . .
MA . . . . . . . . . .
HORUS . . Horus



So we have ten Aulitean (or, Aletean) kings reigning in a "foreign land" during the precise time Plato says ten Atlantean kings reigned in Atlantis. The Turin Papyrus also records the installation of the next series of kings in 9850 B.C.! This date is so close to the date given for the end of Atlantis that coincidence is virtually out of the question. In such a case, the equation "Aletean=Atlantean" doesn't seem out of the question. (For more info, return to HOME Page and click on Mythological Traditions or the Writings from Egypt icon.)