In Greek myth Eshmun is known as Asclepius and, as we will explore later, a strange connection between Asclepius and Giza is given in the Hermetic writings that date to the second and third centuries AD.
When it comes to Melqart/Heracles there is also extensive evidence linking him with Osiris. We have already seen that there was a high cult functionary in Tyre who was known as the "Awakener" or "Resuscitator" of Melqart. Mettinger points to fourth century BC inscriptions from Tyre in which this cult leader refers specifically to the god Osiris as "my lord Osiris."
Mettinger also considers whether there may be a connection between the Tyrian rituals of the "awakening of Melqart/Heracles" and the numerous "raise yourself" litanies found in the cult of Osiris, especially within the Pyramid Texts. Below are just a few examples: [14]
Utterance 498 "Awake, Osiris! awake, O King! Stand up and sit down, throw off the earth which is on you! I come and give you [the eye of] Horus... Go up and take this bread of yours from me."
Utterance 532 "Raise yourself, O Osiris, first-born son of Geb, at whom the Two Enneads tremble... Your hand is taken by the Souls of On, your hand is grasped by Ra, your head is raised by the Two Enneads, and they have set you, O Osiris, at the head of the Conclave of the Souls of On. Live, live and raise yourself!"
Utterance 603 "Raise yourself, O my father the King, knit on your head, gather together your members, lift yourself up on your feet, that your will may guide you..."
Utterance 628 "Rouse yourself, O King! Turn yourself about O King! I am Nephthys, and I have come that I may lay hold of you and give to you your heart for your body."
One of the major cult centers of Melqart/Heracles was located at Gades in Spain, near the ancient location of the Pillars of Hercules monument. The second century AD writer Philostratus, in his Life of Appolonius, comments on this place and gives support for the notion that Melqart was simply Tyre's version of Osiris. Mettinger explains, "Philostratus' description of the Melqart/Heracles cult at Gades contains a feature that could perhaps be seen in the light of a connection between Melqart and Osiris. Apollonius speaks of a dual cult at Gades of "both one and the other Hercules" and goes on to distinguish between "the Egyptian Hercules" and "the Theban." The latter is the Greek Heracles. De Dea Syria speaks of the sanctuary of Heracles at Tyre, who is not "the Heracles whom the Greeks celebrate." The Egyptian Hercules at Gades is then, presumably, the Tyrian Melqart. If so, there must be some reason for describing the Tyrian Melqart as the Egyptian Hercules. If he had become associated with Osiris, we would understand this way of referring to him." [15]
The association becomes even more solid if we recall again that the myth of Melqart/Heracles says that he was killed by the god Typhon, who is the Greek equivalent of the Egyptian god Set, the murderer of Osiris. Furthermore, the murder of Heracles took place in Libya, and in a future article we will explain how this could possibly be a reference to ancient Egypt and not to modern-day Libya.
The connection that exists between Osiris and the other ancient Near Eastern "Dying and Rising" gods appears to be real and it appears to be solid. The case would be closed if not for one major problem. It is the fact that of all of these gods it is Osiris who is actually the least-suited to be a member of the category. It has to do with the "Rising" aspect of Osiris and is something that any amateur student of Egyptology can easily point out. Mettinger looks to Egyptologist Henri Frankfort to bring it to our attention: "Osiris, in fact, was not a "dying" god at all but a "dead" god. He never returned among the living; he was not liberated from the world of the dead, ... On the contrary, Osiris altogether belonged to the world of the dead; it was from there that he bestowed his blessings upon Egypt. He was always depicted as a mummy, a dead king..." [16]
To put it bluntly, Osiris was not a "Dying and Rising" god, but a "Dead and Gone" god! The so-called "Resurrection" of Osiris was not to this world, but to the next, which is why he was known as the Lord of the Underworld, and why the Greeks also equated him with their god Hades. If Osiris was the initial creator of the "Dying and Rising" category, from whom all of the others originated, then what can explain this glaring discrepancy?
The Osiris Agenda In mid-October of 2005 the most recent complete scholarly analysis of Osiris and his cult is due to be released. The book is written by the highly-credentialed and well-respected Egyptologist Bojana Mojsov and the title is Osiris: Death and Afterlife of a God. It may be a coincidence, but it must be noted that the release of this volume will occur near the very same time that new investigations at Giza are scheduled to take place under Zahi Hawass, as noted in Part One. If anything is found relating to Osiris then Mojsov's book will probably receive international attention and acclaim. Strangely, one of the main thrusts of Mojsov's book appears not to be cultural or archaeological, but rather spiritual. Here is the book description as given at Amazon.com: "Osiris, ruler of the netherworld, played a central part in the religious life of the ancient Egyptians, and his cult grew in popularity down the ages, resonating in all the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean. This is the first book to tell the story of the cult of Osiris from beginning to end. Drawing together the numerous records about Osiris from the third millennium BC to the Roman conquest of Egypt, Bojana Mojsov sketches the development of the cult throughout 3,000 years of Egyptian history.
The author proves that the cult of Osiris was the most popular and enduring in any ancient religion. She shows how it provided direct antecedents for many ideas, traits, and customs in Christianity, including the resurrection after three days, the concept of god as trinity, baptism in the sacred river, and the sacrament of the Eucharist. She also reveals the cult's influence on other Western mystical traditions and groups, such as the Alchemists, Rosicrucians, and Freemasons."
Again, we have an emphasis on the relationship between Osiris and his cult and Jesus and the doctrines of Christianity. We have seen in this article, as well as in Part Two, that this strange connection is real and that it is not something that was artificially created merely to discredit Christianity. The phenomenon exists. We must deal with it. To ignore it or to explain it away as so many Christians do would be either cowardly or dishonest.
Near the end of his book Mettinger concedes that a strange connection does exist between Christianity and the "Dying and Rising" gods of paganism. However, he does not believe that the existence of this pre-Christian phenomenon must necessarily mean the non-existence of the Jesus Christ of New Testament Christianity. Here is what he writes, "There is, as far as I am aware, no prima facie evidence that the death and resurrection of Jesus is a mythological construct, drawing on the myths and rites of the dying and rising gods of the surrounding world. While studied with profit against the background of Jewish resurrection belief, the faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus retains its unique character in the history of religions. The riddle remains." [17]
Part Four will continue with an investigation into the origin of Egyptian civilization and of Osiris their most important god. An answer to the riddle exists, but will the world be willing to accept it?
Footnotes 1. The Riddle of Resurrection, Mettinger, 2001, p.16 2. Ibid, p.85 3. Ibid, p.89 citing: Josephus, R. Marcus, Loeb edition, vol.5, 1988: p.651 4. Ibid, p.91 5. 1 Kings 18:27, NASB 6. Mettinger, p.133 7. http://homepage.mac.com/cparada/GML/Adonis.html 8. Mettinger, p.136 9. Ibid, p.155 10. Ibid, p.160 11. Ibid, p.160 12. Inanna's Descent: http://www.earth-history.com/Sumer/sumer-inana-descent-netherworld.htm 13. Adonis facts: Mettinger, pp.176-77 14. The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts, translated by R.O. Faulkner, 1969 15. Mettinger, p.181
16. Ibid, p.172 17. Ibid, p.221
Egypt's Forgotten Origins
"The origins of pharaonic civilisation have always been shrouded in mystery. What caused dynastic culture to burst forth in the Nile valley within such a relatively short period of time? ... There is little evidence of kingship and its rituals very much before the beginning of the 1st Dynasty; no signs of the gradual development of metal working, art, monumental architecture and writing the defining criteria of early civilisation. Much of what we know about the pharaohs and their complex culture seems to come into existence in a flash of inspiration."
David Rohl, Legend the Genesis of Civilisation, 1998, p.265
One of the most controversial questions in the entire field of Egyptology is also its most basic: Where did the advanced pharaonic Egyptian civilization come from? At the very beginning of the first dynasties the Egyptian state appeared to be fully developed, intricately structured, technologically advanced and economically vibrant. How could something so complete appear so suddenly and seemingly out of nowhere? Today the answer that you will most often hear is that 'it just happened that way,' that Egypt was built by African Egyptians, that they did it on their own using their own knowledge and resources, and that to argue for any other answer is an insult to Egypt and to Africans everywhere!
This "politically correct" tone that is so pervasive within mainstream academia today was, however, not always so influential in the past. When the study of ancient Egypt was turning into a science near the end of the nineteenth century the scholars involved in the field had much more freedom to advocate their own unique ideas, no matter how controversial or ridiculous they might appear to be. It was in this open marketplace of ideas that some of the most important facts about ancient Egypt were uncovered and when some of the most important methods for studying and excavating ancient Egypt were developed.
Flinders Petrie One cannot begin to describe the origin and evolution of the science of Egyptology without referring to William Matthew Flinders Petrie. Other than Jean Francois Champollion, who first deciphered the Rosetta Stone and Egyptian hieroglyphics, Petrie's influence over the field is largely unmatched.
Petrie began his excavations in Egypt in 1884, as a director of the British-based Egypt Exploration Fund and his experiences led him to be very critical of the methods of those excavators who had preceded him, who were more concerned with uncovering and plundering major sensational treasures than with learning the real history of Egypt. He wrote, "Nothing seems to be done with any uniform or regular plan, work is begun and left unfinished; no regard is paid to future requirements of exploration, and no civilized or labor saving devices are used. It is sickening to see the rate at which everything is being destroyed and the little regard paid to preservation."
Petrie's methods went entirely against the grain of his contemporaries. They were completely scientific, very meticulous, and in the end very fruitful, and today he is regarded as a 'Father of Egyptology' as well as perhaps the 'Father of Archaeology'. According to author James Baikie who wrote A Century of Excavation in the Land of the Pharaohs, "if the name of any one man must be associated with modern excavation as that of the chief begetter of its principles and methods, it must be the name of Professor Sir W.M. Flinders Petrie." [1]
Flinders Petrie was an inspired genius and his views on the origin of dynastic Egypt should not be rejected lightly, even though, as his detractors allege, they may have been subconsciously supported or developed in line with his own colonial biases.
The Dynastic Race Petrie came to address the problem of the origin of dynastic Egypt as a result of his excavation of the massive ancient burial site near the village of Nakada about 20 miles north of Luxor in Upper Egypt. In the winter of 1894-95 Petrie's team methodically excavated and recorded the contents of over 2000 graves, which turned out to date to a period in Egypt's history just prior to the emergence of the First Dynasty.
From the data gathered from the excavations Petrie realized that the Nakada gravesite contained burials of two entirely different groups of people. One group was characterized by bodies placed in simple pits, laid out in fetal positions and covered with palm branches. This group, designated Nakada I, was buried with simple everyday objects including the basic Egyptian pottery that was found in numerous other digs that dated to this time period. The other group, Nakada II, was markedly different. The bodies were buried in pits that were lined with bricks, which were then covered over with palm logs. These pits contained valuable objects such as lapis lazuli jewelry, and also pottery of new types and functions. The bodies were not buried intact, but only after being dismembered, with the skull buried apart from the torso and members. There were also signs of ritual cannibalism having taken place within the Nakada II group which was completely absent within Nakada I.
The Nakada dig provided much of the evidence that led Flinders Petrie to put forth his theory of the origin of the magnificent and long-lived civilization of Egypt. It became known as the 'Dynastic Race' theory and it alleges that in the pre-dynastic era Egypt was invaded by a technologically superior group of elite foreigners (Nakada II) who came originally from Mesopotamia. This 'Dynastic Race' invaded and conquered Upper Egypt and settled in their city of Nekhen, also known as Hierakonpolis, near where the important cult centers of Abydos, Thebes, Luxor and Edfu would later emerge. Petrie referred to this invading force as the "Falcon Tribe," and the name of their capital of Nekhen means "City of the Falcon." Their descendents became the Horus Kings of Egypt with the First Dynasty being established under the king named Horus-Aha, or "Horus the Fighter," after his tribe finally subdued and unified the entire land of Egypt.
The Rise, Fall and Resurrection of a Theory The idea that the splendor of ancient Egypt came from a culture that was originally foreign to Egypt was at first not so unpalatable for the academic world to accept. In fact, for many decades it was viewed as the most likely solution to the problem. Well respected and highly-credentialed Egyptologists adopted the theory and continued to gather additional evidence to support it. Up until about World War II it was the dominant academic viewpoint.
And then Hitler came on the scene and after his disastrous legacy any talk of a "master race" began to be viewed in a negative light. The end of World War II also signaled the end of European colonialism and with it came the rise of Third World nationalism when newly independent countries began to emphasize and celebrate their cultural identities. Suddenly the fields of archaeology and ancient history became very much influenced by politics, especially in Egypt which was led by Nasser, who successfully fought the British and the French in the 1956 Suez War.
In the early 1960s a last major academic push in support of the 'Dynastic Race' theory was made by Bryan Emery the Professor of Egyptology of the University College of London. Unfortunately his choice of terms was even more politically incorrect than those used by Petrie-Emery referred to the invaders of Egypt as a 'super race.' The backlash against Emery was predictable and devastating, and ambitious scholars were smart enough to realize that the academic establishment would no longer seriously consider any talk of an invading 'Dynastic Race' having built Egypt's civilization. This situation remained the same for about thirty years, during which time many scholars were much rewarded for their attempts to show how Egyptian civilization sprang up all by itself and all of a sudden through internal innovations alone.
The question of the origin of Egypt's dynastic founders would have remained ignored into the twenty-first century if not for the remarkable work of David Rohl. In 1998 he published his second major study on ancient history entitled Legend the Genesis of Civilisation. With this best-selling volume the validity of the Dynastic Race theory was extensively documented and presented to the public, much to the consternation of the academic world.
David Rohl is a professional Egyptologist with a degree from the University College of London (UCF), the same college affiliated with Flinders Petrie and Bryan Emery. The main focus of Rohl's career has been to re-work the commonly accepted chronology which artificially extends dates from ancient history back an extra three hundred or so years. Because of this flawed chronology most academics feel safe in saying that the history of the Old Testament is a myth and that events such as the Exodus, the Israelite conquest of Canaan, and the United Monarchies of David and Solomon, never really happened. In his first book A Test of Time: The Bible From Myth to History, published in 1995, David Rohl showed that archaeologists have been looking in the right place for evidence of Biblical events, but they have not been looking at the right time. David Rohl offers a number of possible explanations for why the commonly-accepted chronology of ancient history is flawed, and then he shows how Biblical history comes alive and how all of the pieces fit the puzzle if viewed from the perspective of his proposed New Chronology (NC). Needless to say, his work has been greatly appreciated by much of the general public, but roundly criticized by the academic world that is not eager to accept the fact that all of their ancient history textbooks need to be recalled and rewritten.
In his first book David Rohl focused on the history of the Israelites and how Old Testament events fit into the record of ancient history, while in his second book, Legend the Genesis of Civilisation, he turned to ancient Egypt and showed how its history was intimately connected with many of the events described in the book of Genesis. What follows is a short list and explanation of some of the data that supports the theory that invaders from Mesopotamia were responsible for creating the glories of dynastic Egypt.
Data: The Nakada Artifacts The discovery of the massive burial site at Nakada by Flinders Petrie was briefly mentioned above, yet more needs to be said. What Petrie found was conclusive evidence of a group of invaders who were associated with artifacts whose origin was clearly traceable back to Mesopotamia. Among these artifacts was pottery made in styles similar to Sumerian ware. Rohl refers to the appearance of both lug-handled and tilted-spout pottery among the Nakada II burials and he quotes from respected scholar Helene Kantor, "Among the decorated pot shapes are relatively large jars with three or four triangular lug handles on the shoulder. These lugs are reminiscent of those which were already in use on Mesopotamian pottery in the Ubaid Period and which became particularly typical and frequent on protoliterate pottery."
"More convincing are the vessels with tilted spouts... Although made in the old, indigenous polished red ware, the spouts are completely un-Egyptian; as a whole these jugs resemble Mesopotamian ones of the earlier part of the Protoliterate Period." [2]
Included among the many artifacts uniquely associated with the Nakada II burials were jewelry and ornaments made from the precious blue stone lapis lazuli. Rohl explains how modern scholars address this important fact: "Amazing as it may sound, this stone is presumed by scholars to have come from the only known source location in the region the mountains of Badakshan in Afghanistan, over 3,700 kilometers from Egypt... lapis lazuli was highly prized in Sumer (Mesopotamia) and was imported all the way from Meluhha (Indus Valley) via Dilmun (Bahrain). ...the pattern of distribution is the same: a product or material first appears in Sumer and Susiana before it arrives in Egypt." [3]
Another important item present in the Nakada II burials was the pear-shaped mace. Supporters of the 'Dynastic Race' theory argue that the introduction of this weapon (from Mesopotamia) gave a technological edge to the Nakada II invaders, who used it effectively to overwhelm the indigenous Egyptians who were armed with flimsier and less effective weaponry. The pear-shaped mace then became an important part of the legendary symbolism and imagery associated with the invaders.
The final unique artifact that we will discuss from the Nakada II burials is the cylinder seal. This ceremonial tool was used to leave a pattern when rolled over wet clay and its origin is most certainly Mesopotamian. Rohl provides the obvious conclusion: "It is no coincidence that the cylinder seal first appears in Egypt at the same time as the pear-shaped mace and lapis lazuli. The cylinder seal was not an invention of the Nile valley people for, as we have seen, these remarkable little objects were already being employed for the same purpose in the city of Uruk during the Late Ubaid Period. The cylinder seal was therefore another Sumerian invention." [4]
An analysis of the artifacts associated with the alleged 'Dynastic Invaders' may appear to be conclusive in and of itself, yet the evidence from the Nakada II gravesites goes much deeper than that. How can we conclusively prove that these were people who came from outside Egypt? We can look at the people themselves. Rohl quotes from anthropologist Douglas Derry who studied the physical remains of the bodies buried at Nakada and found obvious differences between the Nakada I and II groups, "The predynastic people are seen to have had narrow skulls with a height measurement exceeding the breadth, a condition common also in negroes. The reverse is the case in the Dynastic Race, who not only had broader skulls but the height of these skulls, while exceeding that in the Predynastic Race, is still less than the breadth."
"It is also very suggestive of the presence of a dominant race, perhaps relatively few in numbers but greatly exceeding the original inhabitants in intelligence; a race which brought into Egypt the knowledge of building in stone, of sculpture, painting, reliefs, and above all writing; hence the enormous jump from the primitive predynastic Egyptian to the advanced civilization of the Old Empire." [5]
Since Derry's time the practice of using cranial measurements to determine the level of "intelligence" has been debunked, however the data that proves the physical differences between the two groups still stands. It is clear that the invaders of Egypt were Asiatic in origin and they were at least much better motivated and organized than the indigenous African inhabitants. The final result is that this group eventually conquered Egypt and emerged as the dominant social class that produced the Horus Kings and the Iry-Pat aristocracy of the Old Kingdom.
Data: Writing One of the most mysterious achievements of early Egyptian civilization is their almost instantaneous development and perfection of a complex system of writing. Was Egypt's writing developed completely independent from outside influence and from the ingenuity of the indigenous Egyptians themselves, or was there an outside influence that paved the way? Rohl quotes from UCL Egyptologist Henri Frankfort who gave the following explanation in his book The Birth of Civilisation in the Near East, "It has been customary to postulate prehistoric antecedents for the Egyptian script, but this hypothesis has nothing in its favour. ... the writing which first appeared without antecedents at the beginning of the First Dynasty was by no means primitive. It has, in fact, a complex structure. It includes three different classes of signs: ideograms, phonetic signs, and determinatives. This is precisely the same state of complexity as had been reached in Mesopotamia at an advanced stage of the Protoliterate Period. There, however, a more primitive stage is known in the earlier tablets, which used only ideograms. To deny, therefore, that Egyptian and Mesopotamian systems of writing are related amounts to maintaining that Egypt invented independently a complex and not very consistent system at the very moment of being influenced in its art and architecture by Mesopotamia where a precisely similar system had just been developed from a more primitive stage." [6]
For Frankfort the answer was obvious. Egyptian hieroglyphics first appeared with the same level of sophistication as found in Sumer because the idea behind the art was brought to Egypt from Sumer. However, as Rohl points out, after its initial appearance Egyptian writing took a different path of development because of the writing materials that were available. Egypt possessed papyrus and ink, whereas Sumer had only mud and reeds. Egypt therefore developed a much more flowing and pictorially impressive style, while Sumer continued to develop the writing known as cuneiform which used the cut tip of a reed to etch impressions into wet mud, which were then baked and preserved as brick tablets and cylinder seals.
Data: Architecture For many Egyptologists, regardless of how they interpret the data, one of the most obvious areas of Mesopotamian influence in ancient Egypt came in the field of architecture. We have already seen how the Nakada II burial pits were lined with mudbrick, and soon after the initial use of this Mesopotamian innovation (for Sumer had no readily available stone), there appeared the first monumental architecture in Egypt, also made of Sumerian-style mudbrick.
These initial constructions were massive tombs built for the invaders' most important leaders. They appeared near the city of Tjenu (Gr. Thinis) near the cult-site of Abydos, where the body of Osiris was originally thought to have been buried. The Egyptian historian Manetho writes that Tjenu was the capital of the First Dynasty begun by Menes-who was probably Horus-Aha. (By the time of the First Dynasty the capital had been moved down the Nile a number of miles north from the original capital of Nekhen). Along with these great tombs built for the Falcon Tribe's first leaders there were also subsidiary gravesites of scores of individuals who were most likely ritually sacrificed at the same time that the primary individual was buried. Human sacrifice as well as cannibalism both appear to be important aspects of the Falcon Tribe's religion and ritual system, although these elements are decidedly downplayed by most modern scholars.
A further architectural innovation that had obvious parallels with Mesopotamia came with the Egyptian utilization of 'niched facades,' which simply means the use of alternating projecting and recessed walls around the perimeter of a building. On this point Rohl is able to quote from a number of scholars who agree that it is one of the most important in proving a link between the Dynastic Race and their origin in Sumer.
Niched facades were used throughout Mesopotamia and they were the architectural method that preceded the appearance of the great stepped ziggurats that sprang up in the city-states as Sumerian culture reached its zenith. In Egypt, once again, this Mesopotamian parallel appears suddenly and fully developed. This method is used in Upper Egypt for tombs located in Abydos and in Nakada, and then it appears again later for construction done at Saqqara in Lower Egypt in the First and Second Dynasties after Egypt was unified under the Horus Kings.
Mesopotamian influence is again seen in the Third Dynasty with the creation of the great step-pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara which is recognized as Egypt's first pyramid and obviously modeled after a Sumerian ziggurat. This monument is also one of the first instances when the builders began to utilize the stone that was readily available, rather than depending on the mudbrick that they had been used to. The achievements and innovations at Saqqara then paved the way for the pyramids and temples erected during the Fourth Dynasty, typified by the Giza complex.
The Square Boat Invasion If we accept the premise that a highly resourceful and technologically advanced group invaded and subdued Egypt prior to the first dynasties we do not have to look very far for evidence of how and where they did it. For many years this evidence has existed yet it has not been very well explained by the mainstream scholars, who deny such an invasion even took place.
The invasion of Egypt came into the Nile valley from the Red Sea through the valleys of the Eastern Desert. These valleys are known as "wadis" and there are three wadis (Hammamat, Abad and Barramiya), opposite the settlements of Nakada and Nekhen, where evidence of this invasion was left in the form of primitive graffiti.
The most common pictures etched into the rock walls of the valleys are pictures of large Mesopotamian-style square boats with high prows and sterns that are braced back, which often display horns, antlers or streamers. These boats are often filled with people, sometimes with a chieftain-figure carrying a pear-shaped mace standing tall in the center. The wadis run east-west and the prows of the ships always face west towards the Nile. Many of the depictions show the boats being pulled with ropes by members of the crew.
What happened when this group of invaders finally reached the Nile itself after dragging their boats through the desert from the Red Sea? David Rohl refers to several of the most important ancient Egyptian artifacts for an answer, including the following two.
The first is known as the Gebel el-Arak knife. This ivory artifact was found near the western end of Wadi Hammamat and is important for the images found on its intricately carved handle which specialists conclude give it a firm pre-dynastic date. On one side the carved images point unmistakably to a Sumerian source, from the "Master of Animals" scene wearing a Sumerian hairstyle and long un-Egyptian coat, to the stocky, muscled, short-snouted Mesopotamian dogs pictured underneath. On the other side we find the end result of the invaders' appearance on the Nile. David Rohl calls it "History's First Battle." There are two battle scenes, a land battle at the top and a naval battle at the bottom. In the land battle we find that a short-haired group carrying pear-shaped maces and clubs is defeating a long-haired group that fights back but appears unarmed. In the naval battle the very same type of square boats that are pictured on the rock walls of the eastern wadis are shown defeating a row of crescent-shaped boats that are typical of the Nile.
Another major pre-dynastic artifact that explains the result of the square boat invasion is known as the Narmer Palette, found in Nekhen in 1897 and now held in the Cairo Museum. Narmer was the Upper Egyptian king who immediately preceded Horus-Aha, the conqueror of Egypt. One side of this palette shows a large picture of the king holding a pear-shaped mace in a smiting pose, while his other hand holds the hair of a cringing victim. Beneath his feet two other enemies flee in terror. On the other side the major depiction is that of two dinosaur-like beasts with heads intertwined in the typical Sumerian fashion, controlled with ropes held by two bearded men. Below this the king is depicted as a bull crushing an enemy and invading a town, while above there is what appears to be a victory procession. Narmer is the main figure and he again holds his mace. He is attended by a servant, his queen, and four figures carrying standards. Against this procession there are the figures of ten beheaded bodies, over which is portrayed the very same high-prowed square boat as found on the Gebel el-Arak knife handle and in the eastern desert graffiti.
From its earliest beginnings Egyptian culture has held the boat to be sacred, as evidenced by the huge so-called "solar-boats" that were unearthed next to the southern face of the Great Pyramid in 1954. These boats were buried when the pyramid was built and scholars believe that they were ceremonial renditions of the mythological ship that transported Ra across the sky each day. However boats were not revered merely for their usefulness on the Nile, or for their mythological traditions, but also because the conquerors of Egypt came to Egypt from across the sea by boat. In fact, the boats unearthed at the Great Pyramid, with their high prows, flat bottoms and central cabins, look more like the boats that were pulled across the desert to the Nile than the boats traditionally used on the Nile. Perhaps the boats buried at Giza were not "ceremonial" at all.
The Great Migration In Genesis chapter ten there is a long list of the many different tribes of the earth that existed after mankind emerged from Noah's flood. This passage is known as the Table of Nations and the list is organized under the three sons of Noah: Shem, Ham and Japheth. It is to this list that David Rohl is drawn after he brings his readers to accept the inevitable conclusion that dynastic Egypt was founded by invaders from Mesopotamia.
According to the Table of Nations account there were four children of Ham, and three of them settled in Africa, specifically Cush, Mizraim and Put. The land of Cush is known throughout the Old Testament as the region of modern-day Sudan/Ethiopia to the south of Egypt; the land to the west of Egypt, modern-day Libya, is believed to be the land of Put; and the land of Egypt itself is named throughout the Old Testament as Mizraim. Josephus the Jewish historian supports and elaborates upon the Genesis account, "...time has not at all hurt the name of Chush (Cush); for the Ethiopians, over whom he reigned, are even at this day, both by themselves and by all men in Asia, called Chushites. The memory also of the Mesraites is preserved in their name; for all we who inhabit this country [of Judea] call Egypt Mestre, and the Egyptians Mestreans. Phut (Put) also was the founder of Libya, and called the inhabitants Phutites, from himself: there is also a river in the country of the Moors which bears that name... but the name it has now has been by change given it from one of the sons of Mesraim, who was called Lybyos." [7]
David Rohl believes that Cush, the oldest son of Ham, appears within the Sumerian King List as the first ruler of the post-flood Dynasty of Uruk, where his departure from Sumer and journey to Africa is noted, "Meskiagkashar, son of Utu, became high priest and king - reigned 324 years. Meskiagkashar went down into the sea and came out at the mountains." (SKL column iii, lines 4-6) [8]
If this ancient king and his brothers journeyed away from ancient Sumer by sea, then their route had to have been through the Persian Gulf and around the Arabian Peninsula, sailing the bitumen-coated reed square boats that were typical of the Persian Gulf at this ancient date.
This brings us to the fourth son of Ham, who was Canaan. According to Genesis 10:19, the Canaanites settled the lands on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean. They were also known as the Phoenicians. How they got there was noted by the fifth century BC Greek historian Herodotus, and also Strabo, the first century AD Greek geographer, Herodotus: "The Persian learned men say the Phoenicians were the cause of the feud (between the Greeks and Persians). These (they say) came to our seas (i.e. the Eastern Mediterranean) from the Erythraean Sea, and having settled in the country which they still occupy (i.e.Phoenica/Lebanon), at once began to make long voyages." [9]
Strabo: "On sailing farther (down the Erythraean Sea), one comes to the other islands, I mean Tyre and Aradus, which have temples like those of the Phoenicians. It is asserted, at least by the inhabitants of those islands, that the islands and cities of the Phoenicians which bear the same name are their own colonies." [10]
David Rohl explains where the Erythraean Sea was and also how this understanding of the origin of the ancient Phoenicians has been passed down to the modern day over the centuries, "Go to visit a Lebanese school and sit in on a history class. There you will hear the teacher explain to the children that the modern Lebanese are descended from the ancient Phoenicians who, in turn, originated from the islands of the Persian Gulf. The legendary origins of the Phoenicians are not an invention of the Lebanese Christian community purely to provide a separate ethnic tradition from their Muslim neighbors. The idea that the ancestors of the Phoenicians came from far-off Bahrain to found the new cities of Canaan on the Eastern Mediterranean coast was well known to the classical writers. Justin, Pliny, Ptolemy and Strabo all regarded the original homeland of the Phoenicians in the Gulf as an historical fact. ... The Tyrians (citizens of Tyre) proclaimed their original homeland as the island of Tylos in the Erythraean Sea. Now the Erythraean or 'Red' Sea was not in ancient times what we know as the Red Sea today... The original Red Sea was what we today call the Persian or Arabian Gulf and the Indian Ocean beyond. It was named as such after Erythraeas who, according to legend, was buried within a great mound on the island of Tylos." [11]
Rohl goes on to explain that the name Tylos is a Greek rendition of the Akkadian word Tilmun, and the legendary "Paradise Island" of Dilmun, well-known in Sumerian myth, is in fact the island of Bahrain. This was proven in 1970 through the scholarship of Geoffrey Bibby in his classic book, Looking For Dilmun, an account of his twelve-year excavation of Bahrain and his research into its origins.
Bahrain was the very first stepping stone from ancient Mesopotamia when the sons of Ham were dispersed after the Flood. One of the most impressive natural symbols of this region is the falcon, the swift and noble bird of prey that is prized today by the sheikhs of the Arab Gulf. Perhaps that is what explains the tribal symbol that was adopted by the invaders of Egypt.
Rohl quotes from Flinders Petrie to summarize the exploits of this powerful warlike group, "This Falcon tribe had certainly originated in Elam (Susiana), as indicated by the hero and lions on the Araq knife handle. They went down the Persian Gulf and settled in 'the horn of Africa.' There they named the 'Land of Punt,' sacred to later Egyptians as the source of the race. The Pun people founded the island fortress of Ha-fun which commands the whole of the coast, and hence came the Punic or Phenic peoples of classical antiquity. ... Those who went up the Red Sea formed the dynastic invaders of Egypt entering by the Kuseir-Koptos road. Others went on to Syria and founded Tyre, Sidon and Aradus, named after their home islands in the Persian Gulf." [12]
[Map from Rohl's Legend p.293]
If the Egyptians and the Phoenicians shared common ancestors and a common sea-borne path of migration out of Mesopotamia, then these facts go a long way towards explaining their similar religious beliefs revolving around the worship of a primordial Dying God.
We are one step closer to identifying this Dying God as a historical figure.
Footnotes 1. http://touregypt.net/featurestories/flinders.htm 2. Legend the Genesis of Civilisation, David Rohl, 1998, p.311 3. Ibid, p.314 4. Ibid, p. 317 5. Ibid, p.315 6. Ibid, p.317-18 7. Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus, Chapter IV,2 8. Rohl, pp. 164-165, 217 9. Ibid, p.303, citing Herodotus, Book I:1 10. Ibid, p.253, citing Strabo, Book XVI, 3,4 11. Ibid, pp.252-253 12. Ibid, pp.304-305
The Spirit World and Civilization
"Once upon a time, ... there was no fear, no terror. Man had no rival.
... the whole universe, the people in unison ... to Enlil in one tongue gave praise."