Adventures With Cassiopaea

Chapter 29

It seems that we have learned several things from Neugebauer's examination of the texts of the various papyri, tomb inscriptions, monuments, calendars, and so forth. One of the most important things we have learned is that the Egyptians did, indeed, correct their calendar every five years, similar to what we do every four years with our leap year. This naturally makes the idea of the Sothic cycle irrelevant in terms of calendrical reconciliation. We also begin to understand some of the totally incomprehensible sayings of the Pyramid Texts. They were recitations of prayers and magical spells that had to be performed at a certain "moment" in the night, and the only way to determine time at night was by the stars. According to Neugebauer, there are sufficient numbers of these star clocks in tombs to confirm this idea.

Next we note that the only texts which have come down to us and deal with a numerical prediction of astronomical phenomena belong to the Hellenistic or Roman period and in Hellenistic times the Egyptian decans were brought into a fixed relation to the Babylonian zodiac which is attested in Egypt only since the reign of Alexander's successors.

In other words, the "occult secrets" generally attributed to the Egyptians, must actually belong to the Greeks.

However, there is something just a little bit deeper here that I would like to point out. As Neugebauer says, the Egyptians of historical times were really scientifically illiterate. So much so that their influence was inhibiting upon mathematics and science. But we still have that most astonishing fact that they came up with what Neugebauer declares to be the most sensible calendar ever devised. Even the Babylonians, whose mathematics sends Neugebauer into raptures, did not have so clever a calendar. We find ourselves asking: where did the Egyptians get this calendar?

In an attempt to come to some understanding of this matter of Sothis, (which actually is the Greek name for Sirius, and it is an assumption that the word transliterated from the Egyptian texts is, actually, Sothis or Sirius), I undertook a comparative reading of Faulkner's translation of the Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts. Indeed, I am not an Egyptologist nor an expert in these matters, but I wondered if I would notice anything at all, assuming that the translator dealt honestly with his text. Reading every reference to the word transliterated into English as "spdt," that is then translated as Sothis brought me face to face with a number of interesting problems. If we remember that Sirius is also supposed to represent Isis, we notice first of all that the Egyptians had no problem specifying Isis when they wanted to, sometimes in the same passage where Sothis is mentioned.

In Utterance 216 of the Pyramid Texts say, it is translated:

"Sothis is swallowed up by the Netherworld, Pure and living in the horizon."

However, there is a footnote that says:

"Despite the lack of correct gender ... in a triple repetition of the phrase, the scribe has ignored the discrepancy of gender in the case of Sothis."[Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts, 1969, Aris and Phillips]

In other words... Sothis is being described as male and the translator is having to deal with this problem.

Apparently this gender issue pops up several more times, and the footnote directs us to an obscure paper in the Journal of Near Eastern Studies, volume 25, p. 159. Repeatedly the word spdt is translated as "my sister is Sothis..."after which, we are again referred to the above paper, p. 153, which suggests that in each of these instances, the problem with that pesky male gender keeps popping up.

In Utterance 366, we find Isis and Sothis mentioned together in a strange way: [Osiris is being addressed]

"Your sister Isis comes to you rejoicing for love of you. You have placed her on your phallus and your seed issues into her, she being ready as Sothis, and Har-Sopd has come forth from you as Horus who is in Sothis."

Isis is being described as being "ready like Sothis." This readiness is described in overtly sexual terms as though some dynamic interaction between bodies of the cosmos is being described sexually. We then read that, as a result of this cosmic interaction of impregnation, "sopd" is supposed to be "born from Isis as Horus comes forth from Sothis." What is this "sopd" that is being discussed?

In utterance 412 the following lines:

"The Great One falls upon his side, He who is in Nedit quivers, his head is lifted by Re; he detests sleep, he hates inertness. O flesh of the King, do not decay, do not rot, do not smell unpleasant. Your foot will not be overpassed, your stride will not be overstridden, you shall not tread on the corruption of Osiris. You shall reach the sky as Orion your soul shall be as effective as Sothis; have power, having power; be strong, having strength; may your soul stand among the gods as Horus who dwells in Irs. May the terror of you come into being in the hearts of the gods like the Nt-crown..."

In this passage, it seems as though Sothis is being compared to something that is "effective" and powerful and having strength like Horus.

In utterance 472, we find this:

"I go up on this eastern side of the sky where the gods were born, and I am born as Horus, as Him of the horizon; I am vindicated and my double is vindicated; Sothis is my sister, the Morning Star is my offspring."

First the writer says I am "as Horus," followed by an allusion to Horus being his "double" followed by an immediate mention of Sothis as this double, though the allusion to a "double" is given as a "sister."

In Utterance 1074:

"Sothis goes forth clad in her brightness, she censes the bright ones who are among them. The striking powers of the city are quiet, the region is content. I have prepared a road that I may pass on it, namely what Meref foretold in On."

This passage is, apparently, very problematical because Faulkner has footnoted almost every term. In particular, the word "brightness" above is noted to be a word that means "sharpness."

This brings us to our strange word that is transliterated as spd, or Soped. Regarding the above mention of "sharpness" related to Sothis going forth, we find that spd-ibhw means "sharp toothed." Sharp toothed occurs repeatedly in a certain context illustrated by Utterance 222:

"I have come to you, my father, I have come to you, O great Wild Bull. ...I have come to you, my father, I have come to you, O Sopd."

Now, this "Sopd" is transliterated as "spdw" being very similar to "spdt" that is translated as "sothis." It is obvious that the translators have no idea what this "spdw" really is, and just translate it as "Sopd." In the end, we have three very similar words: spdt, spdw, and spd-ibhw (sharp toothed), and my guess is that this "sharp toothed" business may relate to something that is visually similar to a mouth full of sharp teeth.

The word sp occurs by itself in one reference:

"O god; your third is he who orders offerings. The perfume of Iht-wtt is on this King, a bnbn-loaf is in the Mansion of Sokar, a foreleg is in the House of Anubis. This King is hale, the Herdsman stands up, the month is born, Sp lives."

The more I read these texts, the more I think that these are rote repetitions of something that once really meant something, but through the centuries, with the changes in language and semantics, they had long before lost their meaning and were simply being recited as magical texts.

An important point is, however, that every single reference to spdw occurs in a passage about the "great wild bull" and both Osiris and Seth were referred to as bulls. Seth was the "Bull of the South." Utterance 580 is a text to be recited at the sacrifice of a Red Bull. This bull is supposed to represent Seth being sacrificed by Horus. Addressed to Seth the bull:

"O you who smote my father, who killed one greater than you, you have smitten my father, you have killed one greater than you."

This is followed by a passage addressed to the dead king/Osiris:

O my father Osiris this King, I have smitten for you him who smote you as an ox; I have killed for you him who killed you as a wild bull; I have broken for you him who broke you ...[he lists all the parts he has cut off]. Its upper foreleg is on Khopr, its lower foreleg belongs to Atum, father of the gods, its haunches belong to Shu and Tefenet, its shanks belong to Hnt-irty and Kherty, its back belongs to Neith and Selket, its heart belongs to Sakhmet the Great, the contents of its udder belong to these four gods, the children of Horus, Hapy, Imsety, Duamutef, Kebhsenuf. Its head, its tail, its arms, and its legs belong to Anubis...[Faulkner, op. cit.]

Now, of course, we wonder how an ox has an udder... and of course, Faulkner has an explanation that the scribe "forgot" that he was writing about a bull! Nevertheless, the reference to Sakhmet brings up a very interesting remark: Utterance 704:

"This King is the [...] which went forth from Re, this King has come forth from between the thighs of the Two Enneads; he was conceived by Sakhmet, the King was borne by Shezmetet. This King is the falcon..."

The footnote tells us that where it says "he was conceived," that, regarding the word "he," the scribe "for once employs the feminine suffix." So, we think that certain other translations of "he" may have been "shes" or vice versa.

Remembering that "Sopd" is supposed to be "born from Isis as Horus comes forth from Sothis," we find the curious relationship above to "two Enneads" and they are there described as Sakhmet and Shezmetet. Utterance 248:

"The King is a great one, the King has issued from between the thighs of the Ennead. The king was conceived by Sakhmet, and it was Shezmetet who bore the king, a star brilliant and FAR TRAVELLING, who brings distant products to Re daily."

We naturally have questions about the many references to the "sisters" the "Two Enneads," the "double" and the "twins" that are repeatedly mentioned. And that brings us to the idea about the Sun of our solar system having a Twin, a companion, a "little sister" or "little brother." We also are beginning to appreciate Gardiner's remark that Egyptian chronology is composed of "rags and tatters." What is so curious is that the Egyptologists cling so desperately to these rags as though their lives depended upon them. It's a clear case of the Emperor's New Clothes and one can't help but wonder when any of them are going to have the courage to admit that the Emperor is clothed in these Egyptological "Rags and Tatters."

In any event, in a general sense, we discover that the great astronomical and scientific knowledge so esteemed by those who believe the Egyptian emperor is clothed in the wonderful outfit of science, is nothing but a sham. No wonder Neugebauer's results aren't popularly known. They pretty much put a period to the idea that the Egyptians were observing Sirius and precession, or that they had so complex a calendar as a Sothic cycle of 1460 years.

Real Science was applied to the subject of Egyptology, and they just couldn't stand it. They withdrew into their private little world of dreams and illusions of Egyptian grandeur, and shut out the rest of the world, clinging desperately to the rags and tatters of their dating system like a drowning man clutches at straws. And it was not long before real science again was again applied to the matter, and the community of Egyptologists became even more schizophrenic.

As I write this, I have in front of me a 500 page tome that is devoted to the dating of the eruption of the volcano, Thera. The author, Sturt W. Manning writes:

Time, as used by conventional archaeology and history, is a reference dimsneion in accordance with Darwinian logic, it does not explain. Even modern theoretical approaches to the analysis of human culture - now prevalent in archaeology - which stress the reflexive and relative nature of all social life, still nonetheless employ chronology as a reference dimenson in any archaeological applications. Archaeological interpretation, and history, are impossible without some referential framework.

To the civilizations of ancient western Asia, through the Greco-Roman world, to the modern world, the standard reference system has been the earth's natural annual calendar made relevant to the lives of various (usually important) human individuals. The result is that this solar timescale is central to history and archaeology. In archaeology, the aim is to correlate a relative chronology - a stratigraphically ordered sequence of phases found by excavation and study - with an absolute calendar timescale. […]

It is thus highly problematic for archaeology and history if this referential framework is totally mobile, ambiguous, and incapable of playing its necessary role as a frame of reference. […]

For althought most aspects of human culture and history can be argued to be relative, and socially constructed, the western calendar system is in effect a cultural absolute. The writing and analysis of the archaeology and history of the second millennium BC in the eastern Mediterranean is usefully possible only with an agreed chronology. At present this is lacking, and, according to differing schemes, different rulers, peoples, fashions, and archaeological contexts are, or are not, contemporary and related. We urgently require the orrect synchronization of the Aegean and east Mediterranean civilizations.

The eruption of Thera is a key problem and opportunity in this regard. It offers a precise and dramatic event, and a clear horizon (time-line) across the entire Aegean region (and beyond); it should be datable (both archaeologically and scientifically). This date should, moreover, be capable of being brought into precise correlation with the historical calendar chronologies in ancient western Asia (Egypt, Mesopotamia). It should be able to form the nexus of a new history. But controversy, argument, confusion, and debate are the order of the day. [Manning, Sturt W., A Test of Time, 1999, Oxford, Oxbow Books]

What are they all arguing about? Mostly about broken pottery. And Manning himself, even though he decries the argument, nevertheless engages in some of the most specious perambulations I have ever encountered. You see, we come here to the stratigraphic -artifact issue: if an artifact (in this case, a piece of pottery) is found in a certain "layer" in an archaeological dig, and the uniformitarian layering of the sediment over the globe is adhered to as a the standard, then that piece of pottery belongs to a certain "period," and that period alone. If an archaeologist in Egypt finds a certain type of pottery in a certain layer, he is certain, based on the stratigraphic evidence, that it is such and such a period. If a Hittitologist over in Hittite-land finds a similar piece of pottery in a different layer, a major argument can result. But generally, all of them try to "match the broken pottery" to arrive at some cross-referencing standard of who was where, when, doing what and why.

Continue to page 258

The owners and publishers of these pages wish to state that the material presented here is the product of our research and experimentation in Superluminal Communication. We invite the reader to share in our seeking of Truth by reading with an Open, but skeptical mind. We do not encourage "devotee-ism" nor "True Belief." We DO encourage the seeking of Knowledge and Awareness in all fields of endeavor as the best way to be able to discern lies from truth. The one thing we can tell the reader is this: we work very hard, many hours a day, and have done so for many years, to discover the "bottom line" of our existence on Earth. It is our vocation, our quest, our job. We constantly seek to validate and/or refine what we understand to be either possible or probable or both. We do this in the sincere hope that all of mankind will benefit, if not now, then at some point in one of our probable futures.

Contact Webmaster at cassiopaea.com
Copyright © 1997-2009 Arkadiusz Jadczyk and Laura Knight-Jadczyk. All rights reserved. "Cassiopaea, Cassiopaean, Cassiopaeans," is a registered trademark of Arkadiusz Jadczyk and Laura Knight-Jadczyk.
Letters addressed to Cassiopaea, Quantum Future School, Ark or Laura, become the property of Arkadiusz Jadczyk and Laura Knight-Jadczyk
Republication and re-dissemination of the contents of this screen or any portion of this website in any manner is expressly prohibited without prior written consent.

You are visitor number [an error occurred while processing this directive] .