How old is ancient Egypt?
In the "Histories", written by Herodotus of Halicarnassus in the 5th century BC, there is a passage in which the author reports the duration of time between the first king in Egypt and the time in which Egypt suffered the offensive of the Assyrian king Sennacherib (beginning of the 7th century BC).
The Egyptian priests told him that 341 human generations had passed in this long period of time. In the book Herodotus reports the calculation of the years that represent all these generations, i.e. 11340 (even if in reality his calculation is wrong, the real number of years is 11366); Herodotus in fact assumed that a generation corresponds to approximately 33 years.
Of course this period of time absolutely does not correspond to that passed from Pharaoh Menes (3100 BC) to Sennacherib, but then I thought that when the priests spoke of the "first king" they were not referring to Menes (considered the first "human" king) but rather to the first king of divine origin. There are many Egyptian documents (for example the Turin Papyrus of 1400 BC) which describe a long series of divine and semi-divine rulers who precede the coming of Menes, covering immense duration of time. Herodotus himself learned from the Egyptians that 15,000 years had passed from the time of the god Osiris to the reign of the pharaoh Amasis (6th century BC). It is likely that the "first divine king" I mentioned earlier is the god Horus.
Naturally, this information on the antiquity of Egypt has absolutely not been taken into consideration by archaeologists as they believe that Egyptian civilization does not date back to a period prior to the 4th millennium BC. But in the "Histories" there could be some indication that the myths of the ancient Egyptians may be truth: Herodotus adds that in this period of 11,366 years
"the sun was several times removed from its usual course: twice it rose where it usually sets, and twice it set where it usually rises"
At first glance this makes no sense, since no astronomical phenomenon of this type exists, but this could be resolved if we took into account the precession of the equinoxes.
First we must hypothesize that the two sunrises reported in the book symbolically correspond to the spring equinox and the summer solstice and the two sunsets to the autumn equinox and the winter solstice. It is known that over the 12960 years, i.e. the duration of a half precessional cycle, the sun passes through 6 constellations or "houses" of the zodiac.
Therefore the sun of the vernal equinox after half a precessional cycle finds itself in the zodiacal house in which it was at the beginning of the cycle in the opposite equinox, the autumnal one; similarly the sun of the summer solstice is in the zodiacal house in which it was 12,960 years earlier on the winter solstice.
The only thing that could make this hypothesis fall is the inconsistency between the duration of half a precessional cycle (12960 years) and the time span of 11340 years reported by Herodotus. However, it is enough to modify the duration of a generation to 33 years to make the time space of 341 generations cover approximately 12960 years.
If this theory is correct, it supports the hypothesis that the ancient Egyptians were in possession of high-level astronomical knowledge several millennia before the "official" birth of their civilization, dated to the end of the 4th millennium BC. R. Bauval's studies have recently revealed that the three pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx are positioned in alignment with astronomical phenomena dating back to 10,500 BC.
Another relevant example that proves the link between Egyptian civilization and this remote era which could represent the fabulous "age of the gods" present in its mythology, concerns the mysterious meaning of the Zed. The Zed is a singular pillar that is frequently represented in Egyptian funerary inscriptions; its religious meaning is linked to the rites of the rebirth and resurrection of Osiris and more generally to the continuation of life in the afterlife.
This Zed has been depicted in different ways; it has transversal lines in its upper part which can vary in number: most Zeds have 4 transversal lines but Zeds with 3 or 5 lines have been found.
It is important to underline in this regard that Zeds with 3 lines have been built in period dating back approximately to the 2nd Egyptian dynasty and that the one with 5 lines dates back to the post-Christian era. It is therefore probable that the variation in the number of transversal lines is linked to the passage of an era.
The only problem is determining what kind of eras we are talking about. To resolve this rebus it is necessary to carefully analyze the cult of deities throughout the history of the thousand-year-old Egyptian civilization.
During the Old Kingdom (3100-2100 BC) among the most important gods were Apis, Ptah and Hathor, who had in common the characteristic of often being associated with the bull or, in the case of the goddess Hathor, with the cow.
Instead, from the Middle Kingdom onwards, the most important deity of the Egyptian became Amun, the main god of Thebes, who was often associated with the figure of the ram. It is probable that this religious revolution was due to significant changes in the astrological field. Through archaeoastronomical computer programs, it can be observed that between the end of the Old Kingdom and the beginning of the Middle Kingdom, the sun of the vernal equinox passed from the zodiacal house of Taurus (in which he had remained for 2160 years) to that of Aries. I therefore believe it is possible that the Zed also had the task of signaling the transition from one astrological era to another through the addition of transversal lines. Between the Old Kingdom and the Christian era the sun crossed three zodiacal constellations, which correctly reflects the changes that occurred in the number of lines present in the Zed.
Keeping this concept in mind we can easily calculate which is the primordial era to which all subsequent ones are linked through this sacred Zeds; starting from the assumption that during the 2nd Egyptian dynasty the Zed possessed 3 lines and that in that era the sun stopped in the house of Taurus, if we go back in time to 3 zodiac eras we discover that the primordial era is that of Leo, which, coincidentally, is dated to the 11th millennium BC.
But this is not all about the evidence that supports the existence of a "golden age" in Egypt in this historical period not entirely clear to archaeologists.
In the sacred numerology of the ancient Egyptians, the number 11 had a very significant importance, and consequently, also its multiples. It is in fact known that the Egyptians always attributed the age of 110 years to men who lived long enough to become wise, beyond their actual age. There are many examples of this type of people; the most famous is Djedi, the wise magician summoned according to legend by Pharaoh Cheops to know the secret number of the rooms of the sanctuary of Thoth.
Furthermore, a mummy dating back to the 18th dynasty belonging to Yuya, the leader of the chariot armies of Pharaoh Amenhotep III, was also found, which could most likely correspond to the patriarch Joseph of the Old Testament. Well, in the Bible it is said that Joseph died at the age of 110, and it has been noted that his tomb in the Valley of the Kings contains 11 versions of his name inscribed in the Book of the Dead. It is known, both from Egyptian sources and from the Old Testament, that this man was endowed with great intelligence and great wisdom.
But what is the reason why the number 11 was a symbol of wisdom for the ancient Egyptians?
The scholars R. Bauval and Graham Hancock in the analysis of the relationship between the constellation of Orion and the pyramids of Cheops, Chephren and Menkaure, discovered that the "belt" of this constellation and the three pyramids were found in the same exact arrangement only in 10500 BC. If we wanted to ideally reconnect this mythical age of the gods to 2500 BC, in which the three pyramids were built, we would need the number 72 (the years in which the sun crosses a degree of the ecliptic in the precessional motion) multiplied by the key number 111,111; this operation in fact gives us the number 7999.99, i.e. the years that divide 10500 from 2500 BC.
Are all these notions that the ancient Egyptians possessed proof that the birth of civilization is much older than we think?
And who really were those "gods" who according to the Egyptians came to Egypt from the West? Is it likely that they were the same men described by Plato in Timaeus and Critias who escaped the destruction of Atlantis? If we carefully observe the date of this catastrophe it is very close to 10500 BC, which as we have seen often occurs in Egyptian mythology.
To answer all this it will take time, the research continues…
