Doubtlessly, Assyrian texts contain a fund of information yet inaccessible to students, concerning the constitution of the state and the modifications it may have undergone in course of time. An exhaustive study of the symbols connected with Assyrian kings at different dates, in connection with the text relating his conquests and foundations of temples, may yet reveal the occasional assumption or usurpation by a single individual of different degrees of power and, possibly, the ultimate separation and antagonism of hierarchy and monarchy.

An interesting question on which I have not, as yet, been able to obtain information, relates to the mode of producing fire, resorted to by the Babylonian-Assyrians. The element was, of course, associated with heaven, and the fire-god under the name of Gibil or Nusku was termed the “son of Anu.” Shamash himself also figures as a personification of fire and it seems probable that, in the Babylonian temples in the centre of the square altar, a fire was originally kept perpetually burning as an image of Polaris. As great stress is laid upon the purifying effect of fire as on that of water in Babylonian literature, it is easy to trace the origin of the offering of burnt sacrifices to the idea that, cast into the sacred fire, they became purified and absorbed into its essence, i. e. accepted by the sacred living image of the central star-god. It seems extremely probable that the primitive employment of a fire-stick by the priesthood, for the production of “celestial fire,” may have played an important rôle in causing the stick, and thence the pole and tree, to have become the adopted symbol of Anu. So little is known even about the origin of “tree-worship” itself in ancient Babylonia-Assyria that Professor Jastrow advances the following statement (p. 689).

“On the seal cylinders there is frequently represented a pole or a conventionalized form of a tree, generally in connection with a design illustrating the worship of a deity. This symbol is clearly a survival of some tree worship that was once popular. The comparison with the ashera and pole worship among Phœnicians and Hebrews is fully justified and is a proof of the great antiquity of the symbols which, without becoming a formal part of the later cult, retained in some measure a hold upon the popular mind.

The adoption of the shaft or pole, as a symbol of the Celestial Centre, may easily be explained by the fact that, stuck into the ground and watched from a certain position, its upper end would seem to touch Polaris and it thus supplied wandering star-observers with a point of fixity in space which, being transportable, facilitated the registration of circumpolar rotation. During many centuries the image of the “crooked serpent,” Nakkasch, the constellation which could be seen each night winding its way around the pole, must have deeply impressed itself upon the minds of the primitive star gazers of the Euphratean valley, and conveyed suggestions of imagery, one of which may have created the Phœnician caduceus. At a later period when Ursa Major became circumpolar, the “seven lights of heaven” became in turn associated with the stable centre and suggested, in time, the seven-branched candlestick of the Hebrews which is to this day constructed with a central or principal holder, associated with stability. It is remarkable to note the same ancient fundamental association in the elevated and beautiful imagery employed by the descendant of ancient Euphratean star-worshippers, in Revelation iv, in describing his vision: “... And, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne.... And there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne.... And before the throne there was a sea of glass like unto crystal: and in the midst of the throne and round about the throne were four beasts....”

In Babylonia, the local deity of Girsu was entitled “the lord of the true sceptre,” “the lord of the right-hand sceptre,” a name which implies that, where dual rulership prevailed, a distinction was made between right-hand and left-hand sceptres, a point to which I shall revert later on in dealing with Egypt. In Northern Assyria when the cult of Nabu superseded that of Marduk, his temple was named “the house of the sceptre of the world” and Nebuchadnezzar declares that it is he “who gives the sceptre of sovereignty to kings to rule over the land” (Jastrow, op. cit. 129).

Bringing the preceding tentative study of the ancient civilization of Babylonia-Assyria to a close, I venture to affirm that, imperfect as it is, it clearly establishes certain important points connected with the present investigation. It demonstrates that a primitive pole-star worship existed and still exists in the Euphratean valley, accompanied by the employment of the swastika or cross-symbol and by the identical fundamental set of ideas which form the basis not only of other Asiatic, but also of the American civilizations. The Middle is associated with special sanctity, fixity and supremacy of power and rule, extending in rotation over the Above and Below and Four Quarters. This seven-fold division of the universe extended throughout the entire organization of the state and gave rise to certain logical developments of thought and symbolism, analogous to those which have been traced elsewhere.

Postponing further comment, investigation will next be transferred to the valley of the Nile, whose inhabitants, at various periods of their history, came closely into contact with the people of Asia Minor.

EGYPT.

After having traced, as I have done, throughout ancient America, China, India and Babylonia-Assyria, one and the same fundamental, artificial scheme of state organization, it was with keenest interest and a new sense of comprehension of the ancient Egyptian civilization that I noted certain facts which I shall now proceed to present.

They will be found to show that ancient Egypt supplies us with the instance of a civilization in which the fundamental set of ideas, developed from primitive pole-star worship, prevailed during thousands of years and had reached a high stage of evolution at a period anterior to about B.C. 4000.

TERRITORIAL DIVISIONS OF ANCIENT EGYPT.

According to Dr. Wallis Budge, the ancient Egyptians called their land Bak or Baket, Ta-Mera and Khem or Kamt, also Ta-Nehat, “the land of the sycamore” and the land of “the eye of Horus.” It was divided into two parts: Upper Egypt, Ta-res or Ta-kema=“the southern land,” symbolized by the vulture; and Lower Egypt, Ta-Meh, Mah-Ti or Meh-Ta, literally, “North-land,” symbolized by the serpent. Two great ancient cities or capitals were respectively known as Annu Meht, “Annu of the North,” and Annu Qemat, “Annu of the South.” The kings of Egypt styled themselves Suten-Net, “King of the North and South” and Nebtaui, “lord of the two earths.” As such the king wore the double crown made up of the tesher or net, the red crown of Northern or Lower Egypt and the hetet or het, the white crown of Southern or Upper Egypt (The Nile, p. 27).

The fact that the Sphinx has been designated as the image of Ra-Harmachis i. e. Heru-em-chut and of his human representative, and that the distribution of people to the cardinal points and the origin of four races of men is assigned to him, are particularly interesting and suggestive, especially in connection with the familiar table of nations given by Moses, who says “and the sons of Ham, Cush and Mizraim and Phut and Canaan” (Gen. x:6). Dr. Wallis Budge states that Ham or Kham is the same as Khem and is the name Kamt, i. e. black, by which the Egyptians generally called their land. I venture to point out that in the following passages the name Ham seems to be more applicable to a deity such as Amen-Ra or to his human representative a king, than to Egypt itself: “And smote all the firstborn in Egypt and the chief of their strength in the tabernacles of Ham” and again “Wondrous works in the land of Ham.”...

It is well known that Mizraim, the second name given above, was employed by the Hebrews as a designation for Egypt. The inhabitants of the region of Cush are represented on Egyptian monuments and we are told that “at the outset they appear to have had a religion and speech akin to that of the Egyptians. We find Phut most probably, in the Punt of the inscriptions, the land ... situated to the south of Egypt on both sides of the Red sea. The fourth son [of Ham], Canaan, is represented by the original inhabitants of Canaan, who were probably near relations of the Egyptians” (Wallis Budge, The Dwellers on the Nile, p. 52). While tradition and documentary evidence thus associates the four sons of Ham with certain regions and cardinal points, Egyptian monuments exhibit representations of people of four different colors, i. e. red, yellow, black and white.

Pursuing our investigations of the territorial divisions of Egypt, we learn, from Mr. Wallis Budge, that collectively there were 42 nomes in Upper and Lower Egypt. This number is identical with that of the 42 gods represented in the Book of the Dead as being with Osiris in the hall of Two Truths where the dead were judged. The 42 “judges of the dead” are represented as seated figures, with human or animal heads, and are equally divided into two groups. From the “negative confession” which the deceased makes to his judges, we learn that each god was identified with a locality, some amongst them being addressed as “coming out from” such important cities as Heliopolis, Sais, Bubastis, etc. The inference I venture to make is that these 42 judges were the gods of the 42 nomes who, with Osiris, the chief god and the “President,” formed the council of gods, which judged and ordered the affairs of men.

Dr. Wallis Budge tells us that, “during the rule of the Greeks (B.C. 342-332), Egypt was divided into three parts: Upper, Central and Lower Egypt. Central Egypt consisted of seven nomes, and was called Heptanomis” (Nile, p. 28). The seven-storied pyramid of Sâkkarah and the employment of the signs expressing “three regions” and “four regions or lands,” to signify the whole land or universe, prove that, long before Greek rule, the ancient Egyptians, like the Babylonians, employed the heptameredal system. Thus, according to Herodotus, “There are seven classes of Egyptians, and of these some are called priests, others warriors, others herdsmen, others swineherds, others tradesmen, others interpreters and lastly pilots; such are the classes of Egyptians; they take their names from the employments they exercise” (Euterpe ii, 164). Passages from Prof. Flinders Petrie's History of Egypt (Vol. ii, pp. 156 and 185) afford, moreover, instances of the conquest of a heptarchic government by an Egyptian king and the employment, in about B.C. 1500, of the number seven, as a mystic or sacred number, in a letter from a Syrian prince to the Egyptian king.

This word is rendered by Brugsch as the “Dekane” in German and I have been unable to find its exact equivalent in English. The Dekanes are alluded to in an inscription from the Ptolemaic period cited by Brugsch (op. cit. i, p. 135) as follows: “They shine forth after the sun has set. They run in a circle, and continually release each other. They become apparent at sunset at hours varying with the seasons.” The Dekane constellations or stars were those which rose at the beginning of each decade or period of ten days, which constituted the Egyptian “week.” There were thirty-six or 4×9 of these in the Egyptian year, at the end of which an epact of five days was added, each day being consecrated to one of the five chief gods. Deferring the discussion of the Egyptian numerical calendaric system, I merely point out here the obvious agreement between the number of celestial nomes = 36, the number of decades in the year of 360 days to which should be added the familiar fact that each day and decade had its special “god.” Laying stress upon the point that in ancient Egypt we find thirty-six celestial, geographical districts, corresponding to the thirty-six decades of the year and to thirty-six gods, I take pleasure in pointing out how clearly the following passages of Sir Norman Lockyer's “Dawn of Astronomy” show that the thirty-six gods had as many human representatives, priests, who performed certain religious rites and homage in the chief temple in a fixed order of rotation. “Even at Philæ in late times, in the temple of Osiris, there were 360 bowls for sacrifices, which were filled daily with milk by a specified rotation of priests. At Acanthus there was a perforated cask into which one of the 360 priests poured water from the Nile daily;” an enforced act of obedience recalling the punishment of the daughters of Danaë. As Sir Norman Lockyer justly remarks “these temple ceremonials are an evidence of their antiquity and may be regarded as traditions preserved by the conservative priesthood.”

During centuries the most remarkable of these, Ursa Major, like the hand of a great celestial dial, moved by an unseen ruling power apparently located in Polaris, became visible after dusk and pointed towards the four quarters of heaven in succession, at intervals of nine decades of days. As in China and elsewhere at the present day, its position was referred to as a guide in determining time, during the night, and the seasons; and mankind became familiarized with the idea of a changeless inexorable law and order governing the universe and determining human periodical activities, and thus directly influencing individual lives. Added to this the idea of a heavenly kingdom, traversed by the celestial Nile, the Milky Way, and in which each familiar locality in Egypt had its counterpart, it is easy to follow the spread of the belief that there was a close connection between the stars and their terrestrial counterparts and that they directly influenced the destinies of individuals, each of which had its particular star in the sky.

The following portions of the decree inscribed B.C. 238 on the famous trilingual stela of Canopus, preserved at Gizeh, contain what appear to me to be distinct allusions to the ideal of a terrestrial kingdom, laid out and governed in accordance with the system and fixed laws observed as existing in the heavens and governing the movements of celestial bodies. The hieroglyphic text records the establishment of festivals “in accord with the existing fundamental laws upon which the heavens [the movements of heavenly bodies] are established.”... The Greek translation of this passage reads: “according to the now existing order of the world [universe]” and the demotic version is: “in accordance with the scheme, upon which the heaven is established ” (Brugsch, op. cit. i, p. 180). Further facts concerning celestial and terrestrial territorial divisions remain to be examined and discussed.

Brugsch (op. cit. i, p. 187) quotes the opinion of Lepsius that the parts alluded to in the above inscriptions, referred to an imaginary male figure stretched across the firmament and viewed en face, and publishes a theoretical reconstruction of this imaginary figure. It recalls that of a Buddha and suggests the idea that the Egyptian schematical figure must have also been imagined as seated on the stable centre of the heaven. Egyptian astronomical texts, which I shall cite further on, appear to me to show distinctly that the lotus flower (the name for flower being ankh) was employed to express the sound ankh, which means “life” and that it occurs in connection with other symbols of the pole-star god.

Returning to the representations of Nut stretched across the sky, it should be noted that this employment of the human form belongs to the same category as the Sphinx, which appears to have been the terrestrial counterpart of the celestial schematical figure. On the other hand, the sign nut, consisting of a circle with four divisions, like the pyramid, represents the successful attempt to express the same thought in abstract, geometrical form, such as would be intelligible to an initiated, intellectual minority only.

It will be seen further on that I advance the view that the pyramid, being a miniature reproduction of the scheme of the universe, contained a sacred central chamber, representing the sacred Middle, and that this was destined to be the “house of eternal repose” for the dead king, the representative of the universal god.

As Dr. Wallis Budge tells us: “If the deceased succeeds in passing the ordeal [of judgment after death] satisfactorily, he comes forth at once as a god (there is no place of probation), he becomes identified with Osiris, in whose shape his mummy is made” (The Dwellers on the Nile, p. 177).

As the divine land is expressly designated as the divine land of the north in astronomical texts and that this celestial region had its terrestrial counterpart, it is naturally in Lower Egypt, that the holy land of the north must be sought.

Investigation speedily proves that the most ancient vestiges of civilization are situated in the neighborhood of Memphis which, under the kings of the fourth and the sixth dynasties, reached its height of splendor. It is in the land of the north, Meh-ta, that the extremely ancient seven-storied pyramid of Sakkârah lies, and that there exists the area of about thirty kilometers in which eighty pyramids are concentrated, and which constitutes the great burial ground of countless generations of Egyptians of all periods. A curious detail, to which I shall refer again, is the affinity in sound of the name for “north land,” Meh-ta, and mit=death or the dead, and the undeniable resemblance of both words to the Nahuatl, ancient Mexican mictlan=the North, or underworld, from mic-quiztli=death and tlan=land (cf. Egyptian ta=land).

In Egypt, as elsewhere, the western horizon, below which sun, moon and stars disappeared, was naturally regarded as the entrance to the region of the underworld. The west being therefore designated amen-ta, “the hidden or concealed land or region,” it is all the more significant to find the single entrance and exit corridor of each pyramid directed, not towards the west, the underworld, but towards the stable centre of the northern region of the sky. It would therefore seem as though the intention had been to establish a direct line of communication between the tomb chamber in the centre of the pyramid and the divine “northern land of God,” the sacred mountain Manu and the shining celestial city Anu, lying “between the east and west,” i. e. in the Middle, where the supreme star-god dwelt in eternal repose. An interesting proof that the longing of the souls of the dead tended towards the north is furnished by the common prayer-formula: “may my soul ... inhale the north-wind and drink from the stream.”

Before advancing further, the following authoritative statements, establishing the supremacy of pole-star cult in ancient Egypt, should be presented.

“With regard to Anubis, it is quite certain that the seven stars in Ursa Minor make a very good jackal with pendent tail, as generally represented by the Egyptians and that they form the nearest compact constellation to the pole of the ecliptic....”

Sir Norman Lockyer adds that he is informed by Dr. Wallis Budge that “An was an old name of the sun-god,” but also states, in another page of his work that “the worship of Anubis, as god of the dead or the night god ... was supreme until the time of Men-kau-ra, the builder of the third pyramid of Gizeh” (B.C. 3633, Brugsch; B.C. 4100, Mariette; p. 363).

Pending the production of astronomical texts which amply demonstrate that An was a name of a god of the night sun, Polaris, the following establishes that, at Annu or Heliopolis, in remotest antiquity and amongst the pyramid builders, the cult of a northern star prevailed.

“The first civilization as yet glimpsed, so far as temple building goes, in Northern Egypt, represented by that at Annu, or Heliopolis, was a civilization which combined the cult of a northern star with a non-equinoctial solar worship”.... “I know not whether the similarity in the words Anu, Annu and An results merely from a coincidence, but it is certainly singular that the most ancient temples in Lower Egypt (Heliopolis and Denderah) should be called Annu or An, if there be no connection with the Babylonian god Anu” (Lockyer, op. cit. p. 321).

“It is an important fact to bear in mind that in the North of Egypt, in early times, the stellar temples were more particularly directed to the north, while south of Thebes, so far as I know, there is only one temple so directed” (p. 225).... “From the astronomical point of view ... there are distinctly two series [of temples and monuments in general], (leaving out of consideration the great pyramid builders at Gizeh) absolutely dissimilar astronomically; ... there are at least two sets [of temple-builders], one going up the river building temples to the north stars, the other going down the river building temples to the south stars; and the two streams practically met at Thebes, or at all events they were both very fully represented there either together or successively.”

Sir Norman Lockyer proceeds to say: “The double origin of the people thus suggested on astronomical grounds may be the reason of the name of ‘double country,’ used especially in the titles of kings, of the employment of two crowns, and finally of the supposed sovereignty of Set over the north, and of Horus over the south divisions of the kingdom” (op. cit. p. 345). “In short, in Lower Egypt the temples are pointed to rising stars near the north point of the horizon, or setting north of west. In Upper Egypt we deal chiefly with temples directed to stars rising in the southeast, or setting low in the southwest. Here again we are in presence of ... distinct differences of astronomical thought....” (p. 341). “With regard to the northern stars observed rising in high amplitudes, we have found traces of their worship in times so remote that in all probability at Annu and Denderah α Ursæ Majoris was used before it became circumpolar. We deal almost certainly with 5000 B.C.... New temples with nearly similar amplitudes ... were built at later times ... it may be suggested that the stellar observations made in them had ultimately to do with the determination of the hours of the night; this seems probable, for in Nubia at present, time at night is thus told.”

Valuable and suggestive as these observations are, I venture to point out that the following texts appear to indicate very clearly that, as in China and Mesopotamia, in the present day, the ancient Egyptian high-priest and king on important public occasions simply utilized the conspicuous constellation of Ursa Major as a measurer of time.

In the account of the ceremonial used at the laying of the foundation of the temple at Edfû, it is stated that the king's glance was directed to the Ak or “Middle” and to Meskhet=Ursa Major. A part of the full translation of the inscription quoted from Nissen by Sir Norman Lockyer (op. cit., pp. 176 and 179) represents the king as speaking, thus: “Looking to the sky and recognizing the 'ak' of the Bull's Thigh constellation, I establish the corners of the temple of Her Majesty.” It is further said “With his glance directed towards the ‘ak’ of the Bull's Thigh constellation he [the king] establishes the temple house of the mistress of Denderak, as took place there before.”

Returning to the inscription relating to the ceremony of laying the foundation stone; in other texts cited by Sir Norman Lockyer we find the king saying: “I have grasped the wooden peg [stake] and the handle of the club; I hold the rope with Sesheta [his female consort]. My glance follows the course of the stars; my eye is on Meskhet; standing as divider of time by his measuring instrument” (Duemichen's version) or “mine is the part of time of the number of the hour-clock ” (Brugsch's version). In another part the king says “... I let my glance enter the constellation of the Thigh (representing the divider of time at his measuring instrument)” (Duemichen's translation) or “the part of my time stands in the place of his hour-clock” (Brugsch's translation). Sir Norman Lockyer notes that “the word merech or merechet, in which Brugsch suspects hour or water-clock, does not occur elsewhere.”