12 - The Cult of Horus and the Origins of Astronomy - Nr. 12

12 - The Cult of Horus
and the Origins of Astronomy - Nr. 12



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).
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[33] Serekh, Ian Shaw & Paul Nicholson, British Museum Dictionary of Ancient Egypt, British Museum Press, 1995, p. 261.
[34] See also in German, Horus-Name, "In dem oberen Teil eines sog. Serech (stilisierte Palastfassade...) steht der Horus-Name des Pharaos. Der untere Teil repräsentiert die Palastfassade. Oberhalb des Serechs befindet sich der Horusfalke mit den entsprechenden königlichen Attributen (Verbindung Pharao/Horus). Statt des Horus-Falken kann auch das (mythische) Seth-Tier oberhalb des Serechs erscheinen, wie z.B. bei Peribsen (Seth-Name), einem König der 2. Dynastie.... Ein anderer König derselben Dynastie führt sowohl den Horus-Falken als auch das Seth-Tier auf dem Serech; sein Horus-Seth-Name lautet 'Chasechemui'...."[35] *ser-1, Indo-European Roots.

11 - The Cult of Horus and the Origins of Astronomy - Nr. 11

11 - The Cult of Horus
and the Origins of Astronomy - Nr. 11




Figure 5: Falcon Palette, Egyptian Collection (SAS), Munich
The following later artefact shows the "double falcon":



Figure 6: The "Double Falcon" as a 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.
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[30] This Double Falcon is from El-Beda in the Northeast Delta Region of Egypt. See http://xoomer.virgilio.it/francescoraf/hesyra/dynasty0.htm.[31] Dr. Zahi Hawass, in "The Falcon God", writes: "The name "HORUS" stems from the ancient Egyptian word hr (her) which in its simple form was the preposition "above", "upon", so Horus the falcon soars above all the land and its inhabitants, and was the natural symbol of the King who reigns over all Egypt....Horus, represented by the hawk, was the god of the Sky, a symbol of divine Kingship, and protector of the ruling King.... Horus was the god of the Nile Delta (Lower Egypt) and Seth was the god of Upper Egypt.... The Kings of predynastic Egypt were known as the Followers of Horus...." http://www.guardians.net/hawass/horus.htm.
[32] See Königstitel, Das alte Ägypten http://www.selket.de/koenigstitel.htm.

10 - The Cult of Horus and the Origins of Astronomy - Nr. 10

10 - The Cult of Horusand the Origins of Astronomy - Nr. 10
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) Nidhögg gnawing at one 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]
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[24] Laure Meyer, Métamorphoses de l'Art antique, Archéologia 267 (Dijon, France, April, 1991), pp. 18-25 (fig. p. 20) . Photograph by John D. Degreef. See: http://www.newmessiah.net/Resources/Egypt_Resources/PreDynastic/DoubleFalcon.htm and http://xoomer.virgilio.it/francescoraf/hesyra/palettes/nebwy.htm.
[25] See http://xoomer.virgilio.it/francescoraf/hesyra/egypt/NaqadaIIIB-table.jpg.
[26] Ygg’drasil', E. Cobham Brewer, Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1898, "In the tree, which drops honey, sit an eagle [hawk, falcon], a squirrel, and four stags. At the root lies the serpent Nithhöggr gnawing it....http://www.bartleby.com/81/17685.html. See also Weltesche: "Vier Hirsche laufen ständig den Stamm entlang und beißen dem Stamm die jungen Knospen ab. Ein Drache mit Namen "Nidhögger" macht das gleiche mit den Wurzel...." http://www.asathor.de/seiten/weltesche.htm.
[27] Alfred Stolz, Schamanen. Ekstase und Jenseitssymbolik, Cologne, 1988 (Dumont Taschenbücher 210). See http://www.physiologus.de/weltenbaum.htm.
[28] "It is also believed that Double Falcon may have ruled in Upper Egypt (Adaima), the Memphite Region (Turah/ Ezbet Luthy), and the Delta and North Sinai (Tell Ibrahim Awad, El-Beda, N. Sinai). It is unclear whether or not he may have established himself a rule of Abydos and the Southern Levant region (Palmahim Quarry). These assumptions are results of the areas in which his serekh was found." See http://www.newmessiah.net/Resources/Egypt_Resources/PreDynastic/DoubleFalcon.htm.
[29] Alfred Grimm and Sylvia Schoske, Am Beginn der Zeit, Ägypten in der Vor- und Frühzeit; Ausstellungskatalog, Heft 9, Schriften aus der Ägyptischen Sammlung (SAS); Munich, Staatliches Museum Ägyptischer Kunst, 24.12. 2000 - 22.4.2001, p. 59.