Megalithic World

 

The Origin of the Cult of Horus in Predynastic Egypt

by ANDIS KAULINS ^{[1] [2]}

 

I. Introduction: The Extern Stones (Externsteine) and the Falcon Stone (Falkenstein)

 

Star Stones: Representations of Prehistoric Astronomy in the Extern Stones was a paper I presented on May 6, 2005 in Horn/Bad Meinberg, Germany, near the location of the Extern Stones, to the 39th annual meeting of the Walther Machalett Study Group on Ancient History. That paper developed a hypothesis which I first published in the book Stars Stones and Scholars,^[3] claiming that the Extern Stones had been worked by human hand in the Neolithic period (New Stone Age) and that the figures in relief on the stones represented the stars of the heavens, marking also the solstices and equinoxes in approximately 3000 B.C.

 

Others have seen faces carved in relief on the Extern Stones long before my recognition of them.^[4] However, no one has known what meaning to attach to these sculptures. My interpretation of these reliefs shows that they were ancient humanized representations of stellar asterisms and constellations, which were seen as astronomical gods by the ancients.

 

I also interpreted the Falcon Stone (Falkenstein, Figure 1a), Rock 11 of the Extern Stones, as depicting stars of the heavens. These stars were: 1) the stars of the constellation Draco, represented by a lizard, marking the pole of the ecliptic; and, 2) the stars Kochab and Pherkad of Ursa Minor as guards of the heavens, marking the pole star as a falcon (the Egyptian Horus).

 

It is interesting to observe that the figure of a lizard (or dragon, or crocodile) on the Falcon Stone (Rock 11, Extern Stones, Figure 1a) had already been identified by Walther Machalett previous to my independent recognition of it. This circumstance of a match of independent observations by two persons (scientific reproducibility, as it were) gave me the feeling that my identifications of the other figures on the Falcon Stone were also correct.

 

 

Figure 1a: The Falcon Stone (Falkenstein) marks Heaven’s Center^[5]

(The Falcon Stone is located above the major group of Extern Stones).

 

Explanation of Figure 1a: The star map above shows the position of the northern stellar poles in 3117 B.C. No star was found exactly at the position of the north celestial pole in this era. The weakly shining star Thuban marked the pole later, ca. 2800-2600 B.C. Since no such pole star was available in ca. 3000 BC, the ancients used the bright stars Kochab and Pherkad in Ursa Minor as their “pole stars“.

Machalett wrote as follows (our translation from the German):^[6]

 

“The dragon on the back of the rock 11 [the Falcon Stone]:

If one goes up the steep inclineto the left or right around the Falcon Stoneand examines the Falcon Stone from the back, then one recognizes with astonishment and is indeed startled by the fact that the giant head which forms the Falcon Stone is crowned by a giant dragon. The dragonextends heavy and large from the right of the stone’s ridge upwards to the middle of the stone, its glance directed toward the major group of Extern Stones below. Far above the eye level of the observer, one clearly recognizes the massive body and the serrated back, the hanging tail and the front and rear extremities of the dragon. The head is clear and distinctive together with eye sockets, neck and throat sac. It is a primal animal that we find before us, a lizard as a complete stone replica. The work was molded by human hand! Clearly recognizable are traces of work on the back, abdomen, and head. It is a distinct dragon, and we know that the Extern Stones are called the ‘Dragon Stone‘ in local vernacular.“

 

The names“Falcon Stone“ and “Dragon Stone“ applied to the Extern Stones are thus confirmed in local vernacular. These are the first - if incomplete - indications that both dragon and falcon are portrayed there.

 

As marked in the photo above, a human-head also marks the stars of the constellation Hercules. These sculptures too I identified independently, without knowing Machalett’s previous identifications.

In addition, there are two heads of figures that Machalett apparently did not see. To the right there is the head of a bear marking the stars of Ursa Major and to the left is another head that seems to represent a dog. These latter are the stars to the left of the constellation Hercules.

 

II. The Falcon and the Dragon in Conventional Astronomy

 

Problem 1. The Falcon at the North Celestial Pole

 

To support the hypothesis that the Falcon Stone represents Ursa Minor as a falcon, it was essential to demonstrate that the falcon had been used by the ancients as an early symbol for the stars found at heaven’s center.

 

However, there was no such proof available in the conventional history of astronomy. According to the mainstream, the falcon is mentioned only in connection with a stellar constellation in Persian astronomy, indeed as representing Aquila, the constellation of the eagle. Aquila lies far from heaven’s center and originally probably was chosen for this region of the sky because of the eagle-shaped hole in the Milky way found there.

The falcon is the fastest animal of the entire animal kingdom^[7] and this surely did not escape the attention of the ancients. The falcon is something quite special. However, did this mean that the falcon served as the ancient guardian of the celestial pole?

 

There were only two possibilities: either my falcon identification at the Extern Stones was wrong or the falcon had once had a Pole Star function which it had later lost. This would be possible, for example, as an astronomical result of precession (the shift of the pole star position over time). Could this be proven?

 

Problem 2. The constellation Draco, the Dragon, in modern times extends to the star Thuban, which lies below present Ursa Minor

 

An additional problem with our interpretation was the fact that the constellation Draco has been extended in modern times to include the star Thuban, directly under the star Kochab in Ursa Minor. However, no ancient sources confirm that Thuban was counted to Draco in ancient days. Rather, the word connection of Thuban with the dragon of heaven arises linguistically due to false equating of Arabic Al Dhib “wolf” (Thuban, Adib) with the Greek Drakon “dragon“ used by Ptolemy.^[8] In fact, the Arabic word Al Tinnin means “dragon“. We will explain later this confusion of the heavenly dragon with the wolf. Thubanmay have been viewed as the pole star ca. 2800-2600 B.C. by the ancients, but we have no evidence of this in available sources. In any case, it is clear that Kochab, Pherkad and the other stars of Ursa Minor were anciently viewed as a falcon. Can evidence be produced that the star Thuban (”wolf”) originally did not belong to the constellation Draco?

 

This is a difficult task, as mainstream astronomers deny the existence of ancient constellations. Nevertheless, I have found further ancient proof that Thuban was originally not a part of Draco. This possibility was suggested by ancient Greek astronomy where Ursa Minor was seen to form the wings of Draco.^[9] We also find such a - thus far puzzling - winged dragon in the “Descent from the Cross Relief“ at the Extern Stones, the largest such ancient relief sculpture north of the Alps.^[10]

III. The Falcon and the Dragon in Ancient Astronomy

 

A. Which stars belonged in ancient days to the constellation Draco and which to the constellation of the Falcon (i.e. Ursa Minor)?

 

Clear evidence that the star Thuban did not belong to Draco in ancient times is found on the astronomical rock drawings of Haugsbyn (Högsbyn) in Dalsland, Sweden, west of Lake Vänern and northeastof the Tanum rock drawings at Tanumshede.

 

I already deciphered the Tanum rock drawings as astronomy several years ago, ^[11] and recently was able to show (Figure 1b) that these rock drawings as a whole are a hermetic sky map (planisphere) of the stars of the heavens:

Figure 1b: The Decipherment of Tanum as an Ancient Sky Map

Tanum as a word corresponds to the Egyptian term Tanem,

the Hebrew Tannim and the Aramaic Tannin, all meaning “dragon“.

 

 

 

Figure 2: Heaven’s Center

depicted on a Rock Drawing at Haugsbyn, Sweden.

The original rock drawing is left and the interpretation is right.

Figure 2 is a rock drawing from Haugsbyn, somewhat more than 50 km removed from Tanum. It represents the stars at the center of heaven as follows:

 

1) as the stars of Draco, with the star delta-Draconis, the Arabic Al Tinnin, (”heaven’s serpent, dragon“) as the pole of the ecliptic, (represented as an X in a square); and,

2) as the stars of Ursa Minor, as stars of the celestial pole (represented at Haugsbyn as a star in an oval). The star Pherkad (near the star Kochab) marks the north celestial pole. The identification is clear, unless the “hammer“ is seen to point to the North Star, which would then be Kochab. Either star fits the general analysis.

 

In that era - which I date to ca. 3500 B.C. on the basis of the rock drawings - the star Thuban was not found in the stellar constellation Draco, as one can see in Figure 2. Draco’s tail, as at the Extern Stones, ends at the star iota-Draconis (the star called Edasich).

 

The illustration above left from Haugsbyn in Sweden comes from the website of Bengt Hemtun. He writes as follows:^[12]

 

“Then I searched for a pole and read that it should be Thuban in Dragon, but it did not fit well. Then I saw the Little Bear at rock 1 in Haugsbyn….A dominating figure on rock 1 is this and it is perhaps a mirrored Little Bear with a common centre marking on the pole star Koschab …. It became natural to try Koschab as a pole star and it fits for the time 3100 to 1000 BC. It is with the accuracy we need for this solving of the structures….“

 

Hemtun thus thinks that Thuban did not fit the rock drawing as the pole star and that the northern heavenly-pole was rather to be found in the constellation of Ursa Minor at Kochab.^[13]

The name Edasich for iota-Draconis comes from the Arabic Al Dhih as well as Al Dikh, the dog-like hyena.^[14] It is a word which is easily confused with Al Dibh “Wolf”" and also with Hebrew Da’ah “falcon-like bird”. In the Bible, the same Hebrew word is translated as dragon, snake or jackal.^[15]

Significant for our discussion of ancient celestial poles is the fact that the Arabic Bedouins in Egypt, instead of a dragon, saw a circle of camels at heaven’s center that was being attacked by hyenas.^[16] We can thus understand why the Arabs have a heavenly “wolf“ Al-Dhib (Thuban) where Ptolemy places Draco the dragon. The Arabs did not originally have either dragon or falcon as symbols for heaven’s poles but rather visualized dog-like animals. Thuban (al-Dhib) did not belong to Draco, but rather marked the Arabic center of heaven as either a dog, wolf, jackal or hyena.

 

We have thus solved one of our two initial problems. The dragon of the ancients did not occupy both heavenly poles but only one, the pole of the ecliptic, without the star Thuban.

 

According to R.H. Allen and Patrick Moore,^[17] Kochab and Pherkad, both neighboring stars in Ursa Minor and the brightest stars in the vicinity of the North Celestial Pole, were seen as “the guardians (or guards) of the pole”. Kochab (magnitude 2.08), is virtually as bright as the present-day pole star Polaris (1.99). Pherkad has a magnitude of 3.05. In comparison, the weakly shining Thuban has a magnitude of 3.65. (The lower the magnitude number, the brighter the star.)

 

It is therefore astronomically understandable that Ursa Minor was seen as the “heavenly throne of Thor“ in Iceland and in Denmark.^[18] Lockyer wrote that the traditions of Horus (the Egyptian falcon) and of the prehistoric people of Hor-she-shu - or Schemesu-Hor, the Followers of Horus in predynastic Egypt, related to the stars of Ursa Minor.^[19] Is there a connection between them?

In order to find that out, we must take our discussion to predynastic Egypt. Was it actually the falcon that marked the North Celestial Pole (the pole star) in Egypt in ancient times?

 

B. The Falcon in Predynastic Egypt

 

The so-called Followers of Horus were the people who first occupied Egypt and who created Pharaonic Civilization, starting in the predynastic era. Horus, the Pharaonic falcon, was not only their “God of the Heavens“ but also served as the symbol of the first Pharaonic kings, the Pharaohs, and their predecessors:^[20]

“The Turin Canon of Kings (Turin Papyrus) … first presents the reigns of gods and then the reigns of the demigods (who were called Achu, the Followers of Horus, i.e. Schemesu-Hor)…. Remarkable is … the frequent occurrence of the falcon in the early names of kings…. This preference could … trace back to a special meaning for the falcon-deity…. The process of unification in particular … must have had a very strong effect on those who experienced it and were affected by it. The sovereign falcon (Horus) … must have enjoyed extraordinary prestige…. This led ultimately to the formation of the Horus Name of a king, in which the falcon above the palace facade is not to be regarded as a component of the name, but rather as an epithet or title with programmatic character….

 

Figure 3: From Francesco Raffaele, Predynastic Falcon Figures

http://xoomer.virgilio.it/francescoraf/hesyra/Egyptgallery04.html

The name “Schemesu-Hor” applied to the early kings in the Turin Canon of Kings can be understood quite literally as “Followers of Horus“. Neither the number nor sequence of the kings who ruled from “Falcon” to Narmer, the so-called “Dynasty 0″, is known exactly at the present time, but one can possibly equate them with the sovereigns having the double crown on the Palermo stone (and its fragments) as well as with the demigods who ruled before First Dynasty.“ [our translation from the German]

 

Figure 4: the Newby Palette,^[21] Barbier-Mueller Museum,^[22] Geneva

(Decipherment by Andis Kaulins in the year 2005)

 

The predynastic period of the falcon cult (Figure 3) is testified to by many predynastic “falcon serekhs“ (serekh = king’s name enclosure) in Egypt, all originating from the period about 3300 to 3100 BC.^[23]

The little-known “Newby Palette” of the “Double Falcon King“, dated to approximately 3300-3200 B.C. and found today in the Barbier-Mueller Museum in Geneva, Switzerland^[24] (Figure 4),virtually begins the era of predynastic kings in Egypt.^[25]

 

The Newby Palette is nearly a Pharaonic comparable to Yggdrasil (“rotating column“), the world tree (Weltenbaum) of the ancient Germanic peoples. It is an artefact containing all motives of our present discussion. We interpret it to be the representation of the stars at heaven’s center.

 

According to Germanic mythology,^[26] an eagle (or hawk) Wderfölnir, [instead of a falcon] sits in the crown of the world tree. A snake (or dragon) Nidhögg gnaws at the root of the tree. Another “gnawing toothed animal” (Ratastöskr) [squirrel?], is mentioned:^[27]

 

“The tree Yggdrasil… was the central - both pictorial as well as abstract - construction of the Germanic religion…. Yggdrasil as the central axis connected the worlds of the universe…. Ratastöskr continuously raced up and down the trunk, trying– successfully -to keep in check the permanent battle between the hawk Wderfölnir in the crown of the world tree and the envious dragon (serpent) Nidhögggnawing at one of the three roots of the world tree….“

 

The Pharaonic Newby Palette^[28] shows a similar world view. The two falcons, that I interpret to be the stars Kochab and Pherkad in Ursa Minor, known as “guardians of the pole“ in ancient tradition, sit together with the serpent [dragon] and another “gnawing toothed“ animal (hyena jackal, wolf or dog) at heaven’s center. Although the place of discovery (provenance) of the Newby Palette in Egypt is not known, its genuineness is verified by a very similar piece in a museum in Munich, Germany, where the falcon on one side is broken off:^[29]

 

Figure 5: Falcon Palette, Egyptian Collection (SAS), Munich

 

The following later artefact shows the “double falcon“:

 

 

Figure 6: The “Double Falcon“ in simplified representation

 

This simplified representation^[30] was surely the initial stage for the later writing of the so-called Horus name^[31] of the king. The Horus name was written in a protective serekh,^[32] with the Horus falcon above it.

Figure 7: Serekh of the king NEB-RE [Nebra], Metropolitan Museum (New York)

The mainstream-authoritative British Museum Dictionary of Ancient Egypt describes a “serekh“ as follows:^[33]

 

“The term [serekh] is usually employed to refer to a rectangular frame surmounted by the HORUS falcon, within which the king’s ‘Horus name’ was written…. This frame seems to have effectively symbolized the domain of Horus, the royal residence [as in Figure 7 above]. For a brief period, in the 2nd Dynasty … SETH replaced Horus as the god surmounting the serekh[for the kings Peribsen and Khasekhemwy], thus transforming it into a ‘Seth name’, but the change was short lived….“^[34]

 

As we explain in great detail later, this short-term replacement of HORUS through SETH is of enormous importance for understanding and interpreting the Horus and Seth names of the Pharaohs as astronomy.

The Egyptologists think that the lower part of the serekh represents a stylized palace facade. In this regard, the Newby Palette of the Double Falcon shows that this “enclosure” was first found above the falcon and thus could not originally have represented a palace on earth.

 

Rather, the Pharaohs seem to have viewed heaven’s center as a fenced-in “area of the pole star“, which was then subsequently used as the insignia for the name of the king.

 

Furthermore, we suspect that the Egyptian word serekh is related to the Indo-European root term *ser- “protect“^[35] as found e.g. in Latvian sarg- “protect, guard“ and German Sarg “coffin, protection of the body“. The center of heaven was thus seen as a zone protected by the falcon(s).

This “protective enclosure” is present in the myths of many cultures … represented by many symbols … in Egypt for example as Aakhut.^[36]

Aakhut [=Egge?, =Achu?] marks the two summits of the heavenly mountain of the Pharaohs. These two summits are accordingly:

 

1) the North Ecliptic Pole (which never changes), and

 

2, the North Celestial Pole, the changeable pole we call the Pole Star, which is not always marked exactly by a particular star and where the position is determined by precession.

 

I have been able to find an ancient representation from Egypt of the heavenly throne in the center of the heavens, guarded by one or more falcons. It is shown in Figure 8.

 

The artefact below was found in the year 1995 in the western desert of Egypt and is shown here as deciphered by this author in 2005.

 

The assignment of the individual symbols to the respective stars manifests my unequivocal interpretation of the meaning of the symbols.

 

ANCIENT EGYPTIAN SKY MAP (PLANISPHERE)

 

 

 

Figure 8: heaven-card, western desert, old-Egypt

 

Above, one can clearly see that the center of heaven is represented as a throne, guarded by falcons.

 

C. The Horus Falcon Names of the Egyptian Kings

1. The Horus Falcon Names are a Calendar of Kings: The calendar begins on December 25, 3117 B.C. (astronomically -3116).

 

The interpretation of the names of Egyptian kings has been a point of dispute among Egyptologists for quite some time.^[37] Our discovery that the Horus falcon marked heaven’s celestial pole in predynastic Egypt shows that the Horus names of the Egyptian kings were astronomical in nature. These names of kings were written below the falcon in the serekh and claimed certain heavenly stellar regions as realms for the king. These heavenly regions basically correspond to the modern Zodiac in principle. The Horus names were therefore a type of calendar of kings. Using that calendar, one can determine the reigns of the early Pharaonic kings astronomically.

 

Start of the calendar

Figure 9: the solar eclipse of December 25, 3117 B.C.

It took place at sunrise on the day of the winter-solstice

(According to Starry Night Pro 3.^[38] The Delta-T value is disputed among astronomers.)

2. The Horus Falcon Name of Narmer: “Sovereign of the Pole”

 

The First Pharaonic Dynasty starts with Pharaoh Narmer (Nir-Mr), whose serekh (royal name enclosure) has also been found in present-day Israel.^[39] Our research shows that at the beginning of the Pharaonic dynasties, Narmer was represented as “the sovereign of the pole“, this perhaps even indicating an origin of the Pharaohs from the North.

 

Figure 10: The world-famed Narmer Palette, Egyptian Museum, Cairo

The Mesopotamian name of the pole star Mismar^[40] is possibly written out as Mis-Mar on the world-famous Narmer Palette in the hieroglyphs on the right side. Indeed, we read M-Z M-R. Could the name Nar-MER be related linguistically to the name Mis-MAR? The Narmer Palette is shown below. For the first time ever, this Palette is deciphered subsequently as the astronomy of the Pharaohs, who are uniting heaven and earth.

Mainstream archaeology dates Narmer to approximately 3100 B.C. Similarly, my research indicates that the first calendar of mankind started exactly on December 25, 3117 B.C. when a total solar eclipse was visible at sunrise at the winter solstice point, an incredible astronomical event. Narmer represents this event and date. As I show here, this astronomical event is clearly documented on the Narmer Palette.

 

 

 Figure 11: The Narmer Palette front side, middle, shows a solar eclipse

 

 

 

Figure 12: The Narmer Palette, front side, bottom.

This shows that the solar eclipse occurred in the stars of Capricorn

near the star Deneb Algiedi.

That was unequivocallyDecember 25, 3117 B.C.

The small squareson the Narmer Palette mark stars of the heavens.

Stars were represented in ancient Egypt by means of small squares - as on the bottom of the front side of the Narmer Palette - and as verified by the Abydos City Palette, today located in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Also here, we have deciphered the astronomical meaning (Figure 13):

 

 

Figure 13: The Abydos “City Palette”

 

In the graphic above, I have placed the stars of the appropriate constellations beside the corresponding hieroglyphs, for example, the Pleiades, Orion, Cancer, Virgo. Small squares clearly represent stars.

 

3. The Front Side of the Narmer Palette shows the Solar Eclipse of December 25, 3117 B.C.

 

The middle part of the front side of the Narmer Palette (figure 12) shows the solar eclipse of December 25, 3117 B.C. Two lion-like animals, who symbolize the sun, are in battle. With their artistically formed overlong intertwined necks, they show the “O-Form“ of the total solar eclipse.

The lowermost part of the front