Ancient Egyptian symbols

[Apech]

I want to start a thread to discuss some Ancient Egyptian religious art or symbols. As you probably know Egyptian writing was still pictorial, the letters were pictures of real things, men, animals, birds, objects and so on. When they wrote religious texts if there was a picture then the picture was not so much art in the sense we think today but more a kind of writing, a way of expressing a set of ideas and so on.

 

I want to start with this:

 

 

This is a picture showing the structure of the world, the 3D world in which we live, and as you can see it has three main component parts represented by figures. It shows the sky (Nut) being held up by the air god (Shu) above the earth god (Geb). There are stars on Nut's body to show she is the sky and as you can see she forms and arc above the earth. Next to Shu's head are four Y shaped objects which are the Pillars of Shu which assist him is supporting the sky and they represent the four cardinal directions and the four energies of existence (pre-cursors of the four elements).

 

The world as we know it is seen as a kind of bubble. Everything we know, 'the known' is within this bubble and beyond it are the infinite waters of the Nun, the primeval abyss. If Shu were to let go of his support to Nut she would descend and merge with the earth and everything would return to the abyss, the world would come to an end.

 

The Egyptians had a female sky and a male earth which is different to most mythologies. Egyptian society while being basically patriarchal allowed women a lot of power and freedom.

 

So what does this mean?

 

If we link this to the Hermetic idea of the Spirit which is one and all, we can understand each of these figures as aspects of spirit or perhaps as we are more likely to say today energy. The sky, which is like a skin, or covering separating the world from the infinite abyss beyond, a womb, is the energy in its most attenuated and evenly distributed state. We can use our word Heaven ... and look at it as 'He' - even where 'He' means energy or power. So the sky is the most subtle state of energy. The earth, Geb, on the other hand is this same energy which has been compacted, knit together or bound up in physical form. It is the grossest state of energy.

 

So the creation of the world ... the world we know ... depends on the separation of the subtle from the gross, the sky from the ground, heaven from earth.

 

So if we look at all we experience, everything from physical objects to the most subtly refined ideas and feelings can fit into the space between sky and earth formed by Shu, the air or wind. The name shu can mean 'empty' or 'light', the air is seen as an invisible conductor of light, a sort of brilliance issuing from power itself. In fact Shu is thought of as the father of the sky and earth ... and so is the causal agent in this diagram.

 

So we have the causal power, the subtle realm and the gross realm making up the threefold aspects of the world.

 

Now, the reason for the four Y shaped pillars of Shu or cardinal points of the compass, is because within this structure of the world it is possible to have orientation. That is direction, North, East, South, West, up and down make sense because of the structure that the created has. The bubble of the world has shape and a stable relation between its parts. The opposite is true of a abyss of the Nun, here it is specifically said there are no directions, you cannot tell North from South because those directions have no meaning. This gives rise to one of the four qualities of the abyss, Nun that of 'lostness' or hidden-ness'. In the abyss all that can and will be, all the possible forms of being float in inert states called the 'niniyew', but are lost, hidden from view, unable to manifest.

 

So the Egyptians saw that the world that they experienced had an inner structure, an order, which they called Ma'at. They also saw that within this structure energy evolved and transformed itself in a process they called 'kheper'. And they particularly were interested how the celestial regions moved with regularity because this would tell them about the 'way' of the evolving kheper energy. The primary celestial motion was of course the sun. So that which moved the sun through the sky was called Khepera and was shown as a scarab beetle.

 

The seers of Ancient Egypt also noticed something else. They saw that this energy had way of renewal. That the sun and the stars seemed to them to constantly renew themselves. This in comparison with creatures on the earth which grew old and died, the sun never did. They also saw through their meditation and magical arts that the source of renewal was actually the abyss, the Nun. And from this they understood something else about their world, that it had a hidden dimension, a hidden realm where it was possible to interact with the waters of the Nun and become renewed.

 

They called this hidden realm the Duat (which means star realm) or sometimes the Amenti (which means hidden or Western realm). They located this hidden realm 'within', that is within the body of the known, the world. Sometimes they said it was in the body of Nut the sky and sometimes in the body of Geb the earth, and sometimes in the body of the god of the dead Osiris. The key being that wherever you looked in the known world, if you were able to tear aside the veil of appearance you would see within this hidden dimension, this Duat.

 

They also realised that this Duat was the same place that the souls of dead people went to, the same place that we went to in dreams and visions, they realised that it was inside the very fabric of everything and within all of us. That we ourselves could access this Duat in order to renew and transform ourselves, not just on death but on earth when living too.

[Apech]

To link this Egyptian image to Hermetic alchemy here is a quote from the Emerald Tablet:

 

It is the father of every miraculous work in the whole world.

Its power is perfect if it is converted to earth.

Separate the earth from the fire and the subtle from the gross,

softly and with great prudence.

Ascend from earth to heaven and descend again from heaven to earth,

and unite together the power of things superior and inferior.

 

This introduces the next important idea which is the circulation of energy within this system of the causal, subtle and gross.

 

The sun, moon, stars and planets all rotate around the earth (from our perspective). So the known, the created world in which we live, driven by the power of transformation (kheper) rotates constantly. The most visible evidence of this is the daily cycle of the sun. The Egyptians and particularly the Heliopolitan Egyptians thought that understanding this cycle properly was the key to understanding the power that had manifest the world. So they studied this cycle in great detail which they understood in a way which today we would call an alchemical process. Birth, life, death and renewal. In particular in the New Kingdom they set out to map the sun's journey through the night, which they understood as its journey through the hidden realm of the Duat. They produced numerous maps of this nightly journey.

Edited February 5, 2013 by Apech

[Apech]

This is the next image I want to discuss:

 

[Apech]

This is the Twelfth Hour of the Book of Gates, one of the Egyptian New Kingdom books of the Duat. It illustrates the sun rise.

 

You can see the waters of Nun (the abyss) as the wavy lines that cover the background. This is the Egyptian letter 'n' - which means water. But they were not talking about physical water, but of Nun. Nun is said to have four qualities, two of which we have already mentioned, hidden-ness and water. Water is best understood as meaning fluidity. We can add to these infinity and darkness. The Nun is infinite, it has no limits or boundaries. It is also dark, it has no light. But this is not the darkness of obscuration but rather the darkness of complete transparency, like outer space because there is nothing to scatter the light it appears dark.

 

These four qualities were personified as eight male and female deities called the Ogdoad. That is male and female water, male and female darkness and so on. Although the Nun is non-being, it is not part of existence as such, it is potentially seething with life like a great ocean. It is the power-source of everything that is to be, without partaking of that existence. This is why it is the background to creation.

 

Tot eh Egyptians every sun rise was a recapitulation of the the First Time act of creation of the universe. So as well as illustrating the sun rise this picture illustrates that creation too.

 

The Nun is personified as the large figure at the bottom which is holding up the sun boat. This is the boat of the sun god, a boat being the vehicle of choice in Ancient Egypt. Today we might give hm a Rolls Royce or a millionaire's yacht. In the sun boat is the crew of the sun god, a group of gods who are assisting him in his journey. On either side of the large scarab beetle, Khepera, are the two sister goddesses Isis and Nephthys. Although Isis herself in late periods developed into a kind of universal mother goddess here she is paired with her 'sister' and represent two phases of the cycling of energy. Isis, up ward movement, light and growth and Nephthys downward movement, darkness and death.

 

The sun disk itself is shown above being pushed along by the beetle Khepera, the motive transformative energy, so this is really a way fo saying that the sun drives itself and does not rely on an external power.

 

Above the sun disk is another circle formed by the body of the god of the dead Osiris. The circle of his body forms the limits of the Duat, or underworld from which the sun has just emerged. This re-enforces the idea of the innerness of the Duat. The sky goddess Nut is lifting up the sun disk from out of the Duat.

Edited February 5, 2013 by Apech

[Apech]

any questions? ... like why? what? and so on?

[Aetherous]

I'm always asking why about Egypt.

But awesome stuff so far!

[gendao]

any questions? ... like why? what? and so on?

I think you've already answered this before...but does the ankh symbolize the "breath of life" or what? And how exactly does its peculiar shape symbolize whatever it does?

[idiot_stimpy]

If the Nun symbolizes the void, esoterically what is heaven or the sky? Is it subtle will/desires? Also is Shu symbolized as thoughts and Geb symbolized emotions or physical manifestation?

 

Is Shu the bridge between heaven and earth?

Edited February 6, 2013 by idiot_stimpy

[Apech]

I think you've already answered this before...but does the ankh symbolize the "breath of life" or what? And how exactly does its peculiar shape symbolize whatever it does?

 

Hi vortex,

 

breath of life is a reasonable meaning ... or just life ... the symbol is composed of a female part (the circle bit) and male part (line) and therefore 'life' is sexual energy. sexual interfunction but not necessarily actual sex implied but more this energy of excitement which is universal. We can discuss how this works later perhaps.

[Apech]

If the Nun symbolizes the void, esoterically what is heaven or the sky? Is it subtle will/desires? Also is Shu symbolized as thoughts and Geb symbolized emotions or physical manifestation?

 

Is Shu the bridge between heaven and earth?

 

yes, Nun (or Nu) is the void. The sky is the void with a 't' added Nut ... which signifies female ... as in the word for king is nesu and queen nesut ... so adding a 't' makes it female. Both Geb (the earth) and Nut (the sky) are form by Shu the air from their 'mother' called Tefnut. The word (i)tef means father and Nut can mean mother. So the origin of the sky and earth is the Father-mother ... which is the void seen as a primordial substance.

 

As the created world is like a bubble within the infinite Nun there is a surface or skin between this bubble of air and the waters of the void. This skin is the sky. If you imagine that the world as we know it, the known, is within this bubble, then the known has an outermost limit. Again this is the sky. It becomes then a bit like a projection screen on which images can appear in their most insubstantial from. Like a movie images are nothing but projected light ... it looks like there are people, cars and so on but it is just pure forms with no substance. So Nut is like this, the limit of perception which shows us pure forms.

 

If you think about the sky that we perceive you can see how literal this explanation is. The blue sky does not exist as a substantial thing, you can't fly up in a space shuttle and touch it, there is nothing there. All it is, is the blue light from the sun scattered and refracted down to us, in the early morning or evening the angles are such that we see not blue but red or orange .... but its all just a light effect. At night it looks like a black surface with lights (stars) upon it.

 

So we have at the outermost edge of our perception as kind of surface or mirror perhaps which reflects pure form back to us. In our own minds we can perceive also a kind of surface at the outermost limit of our perception, a boundary which has no substance but allows us to think, have ideas, see images that have no actual substantial counterpart.

 

Nowadays we are told that these things, images, dreams, pure ideas, are not 'real', that the only thing that is real is the gross material world of compacted form i.e. Geb the earth. But to the Egyptians what is real is the world created by the separation of subtle from gross by the intelligent power (Shu), they are all real Nut, Shu,Geb, they depend on each other to exist and arise through each other. You can't choose to just have Geb and be a materialist, and you can't chose to just live in your dreams and imagination and be a Nutist. All three = the real. If this distinction between them fails, then Nut merges with Geb and the Nun dissolves everything back into the void.

[Apech]

OK. So in the first two images I have counted about 15 gods and goddesses so I don't think any prizes would be awarded for guessing that the Egyptians were not mono-theists. In fact they have several hundred gods. the word for god in Egyptian is Neter (sometimes Netcher or Netjer). Some think it was pronounced more like Natur ... making it sound a bit like our word Nature ... which is actually quite useful when we think about this word.

 

 

This is how the word 'god' might be written. The first sign is the neter sign and the second is a sign called a determinative which just indicates what the thing is and has no phonetic value. The first sign was wrongly identified by some Egyptologists including Wallis Budge as an axe. It isn't. There is a separate sign for an axe and detailed versions of this sign show that the bit at the top is a cloth and so the sign is rather like a flag. In fact the Egyptians used to put flags outside the temple gateways. When asked what it meant by a Greek writer an Egyptian priest said it means 'wrapped'. Which apart, from having connections to mummification, seems a bit odd for a word meaning god. However if understood properly it does make sense.

 

The image is a pole or staff wrapped in cloth for its whole length with the top bit hanging free. The pole or staff means power or energy and the cloth means form. So a god is power wrapped or cloaked in form. The end hanging free has this significance ... it is like a flag. So the presence of power or energy is advertised, or made apparent by the form which cloaks it. So for instance we know that it is windy ... not because we can see wind directly ... but because we see its effects ... things being blown about ...flags waving ... in the same way we know power or energy is there because we see the form in which it cloaks itself but we don't see the power itself.

 

To the Egyptians the whole manifest world was composed of divine powers hidden in form. Everything, trees, mountains, birds, animals, people were all this. The world was made of divine powers.

[Birch]

"You can't choose to just have Geb and be a materialist, and you can't chose to just live in your dreams and imagination and be a Nutist. All three = the real. If this distinction between them fails, then Nut merges with Geb and the Nun dissolves everything back into the void."

 

What happened to change this?

[Apech]

"You can't choose to just have Geb and be a materialist, and you can't chose to just live in your dreams and imagination and be a Nutist. All three = the real. If this distinction between them fails, then Nut merges with Geb and the Nun dissolves everything back into the void."

 

What happened to change this?

 

Sorry I don't understand the question.

[Cookie Monster]

.

Edited May 5, 2021 by Ocean Form

[Apech]

So the issue remains as to how we are supposed to regard these gods. One problem being that the same term Neter was applied to everything from a creator god who gave rise to whole cosmos and a squinty eyed demon who bites your leg as you pass in the underworld. So for the Egyptians calling something a Neter did not necessarily mean something august though often it did. There are also god who represent particular functions ... they would not have a temple or cult of their own ... for instance there is a god called Sia who is 'Perception' and another called 'Hu' which means 'command'. They are used what I call technically to illustrate the powers they represent. To make it more confusing some major gods are used in this way to. For instance Isis when paired with Nephthys specifically means upward growth towards light (half of a cycle) ... but on her own she may take on a much broader significance.

 

Some gods and goddesses rise to such significance that they may almost be regarded as the sole creator. Among these could be Ra, Atum, Amen, Neith. So we also have to get our heads around the idea that more than one god can be the sole creator. This is an example of Egyptian pluralist thought and is termed today 'henotheism', 'monolatry' and sometimes polycentric polytheism. But all these rather grand terms cannot hide the fact that the Egyptians thought very differently from us about the divine. The key stone of all Egyptian religion is the resolution or union of opposites. Even the country itself was the 'Two Lands' of Upper and Lower Egypt ... they were in short non-dualists to the very core.

 

In the religious and funerary texts the gods are mostly used in this technical way to describe movements or functions of energy. So it is possible to compare some of the texts with works of Taoist internal alchemy. So that is one way to understand the gods as functions of energy or one could say one's mind or being.

 

But also since the Egyptians regarded the gods as the very fabric of their world, the gods are entities in their own right, although quite different to us as entities for instance. The gods 'lived' in the sky, where the subtle energy of pure form exists. But they also power the world and become manifest in objects (like statues) animals and indeed people. One of the titles of priests was hm-neter which is often translated as god's servant but actually means god's incarnation or avatar. the king of course was conceived of as a god.

[Apech]

Would you explain more about Apech?

 

I get the association to Jörmundgand, another big serpent but from the Norse myths.

Thor fights Jörmundgand and Ra fights Apech.

 

Thanks to a millenium of Christian historians Jörmundgand is dumbed down as some evil snake demon that the "gods" have to fight off but it's deeper than that...

He didn't exactly have a reputation of being very nice, but he still had a role to play in dividing Midgard from outer space.

 

So is there a similiar thing with Apech? Beyond being the "enemy of Ra" what is he?

 

 

I think you mean Apep not Apech ... Apech is me LOL.

 

Apep is a serpent who opposes the sun's passage through the Duat. The sun boats journey depends on the presence of water (logical since he's in a boat). The serpent Apep is said to swallow this water and that his coils are sandbanks in the river ... i.e. things for the boat to get stuck on.

 

In the Old Kingdom they did not use this term Apep but spoke of a collection of inimical forces represented by serpents, scorpions and so on. These were termed Rerek. Spells against Rerek and later Apep were always grouped in sevens ... if you look at the seventh hour of night you will see the fettering of Apep, if you look at Chapter 7 of the Book of the Dead you will see a spell for passing oer the dangerous coils of Apep.

 

In fact the very reason that the Sun has to go down int he west in the evening is attributed int he Book of the Dead to a battle between Apep and Ra in which Ra gets injured in the mouth and has to retire to rest - hence set in the west.

 

Serpents always mean power in various forms. And there are two ways to understand this Apep serpent.

 

1) When the world is created in the beginning it is pristine and pure and everything is perfect. this is called the 'First Time'. the sun begins it cycles of renewal and the world operates almost like a perfect machine .... in harmony with itself. But as it is surrounded and permeated by the waters of Nun ... the non-being which actually contains all possible states and froms of being, slowly small perturbations occur in the perfect cycle of nature. Little disruptions which slowly wear away the perfection. Over time then the perfect order which is called Ma'at (=truth, order) gets distorted and the world goes out of kilter. This is said to be the action of Apep on the world.

 

2) the other and equally valid way of looking at Apep is that when power creates it has to set a limit. Set down boundaries between things. So inorder to create our universe it has to exclude all other universes. We have already seen that for Shu to create he has to separate the sky from the earth. So to make things you make divisions ... which is ok at first ... but then if you place yourself in that system you find that your own boundaries are your limitations. You come up against limits which you feel you cannot pass. In this sense Apep is a limit set down by power to create which then become an obstacle to ist own progress.

 

There's more if you want more.

[Seth Ananda]

Thanks very much for typing all these articles Apech.

 

I am interested in the concept of 'niniyew' if you would care to elaborate further?

 

Also Kheper, which pushes the sun through the sky, also has connotations with the heart center. I would love to know more about that as well.

 

And more about Nun! lol.

 

Blessings

[Cookie Monster]

.

Edited May 5, 2021 by Ocean Form

[Apech]

Thanks very much for typing all these articles Apech.

 

I am interested in the concept of 'niniyew' if you would care to elaborate further?

 

Also Kheper, which pushes the sun through the sky, also has connotations with the heart center. I would love to know more about that as well.

 

And more about Nun! lol.

 

Blessings

 

The Nun while being non-being is not empty like a vacuum. Its the plenum or full void. It is formless and yet holds within it all potential forms of being. Dissolved if you like in its waters. They do not exist exactly but kind of hover in a potential state ... compare the idea of the quantum field. Things and anti-things are co-present and thus cancel each other. The Egyptians saw it as a source of fertility and renewal just as compost made from the breakdown of plants is fertile. For them it related to the Nile flood which covered the fields but when it subsided left behind a fertile mud from which life sprang forth. Life comes from death.

 

So the potential beings within the Nun were called the 'inert ones' or niniyew. Because they neither existed or didn't exist. they just floated in the waters of the Nun .. like people in a giant floatation tank ... doing nothing but not without residual awareness of a kind.

 

There's a nice story which form part of the temple creation myth from Edfu. The beginning of creation (in line with the flood imagery) is seen as the emergence in the Nun of a mound. A kind of muddy mound which becomes the site of creation. Its a transition stage between voidity and the known world, a kind of half known. Its a potential earth before there is earth. A clumping of energies in the Nun if you like. On to this mound crawl the ancestor spirits who are the emerging inert ones. They crawl up out of water and call out to summon their creator from out of the waters who appears as a great hawk hovering over the mound. So the ancestors summon their own creator!

 

This introduces the idea of reciprocity between humans and gods. Its a two way relationship ... what would be called co-creation today ... not a new idea at all. beings summon that which creates them and thus come fully into existence. This reciprocal relationship between humans and gods is key to Egyptian religion. It's a two way relationship.

 

Khepera.

 

The name means to transform, evolve or become. It is symbolised by the scarab beetle. Scarab beetles push balls of dung around in which they lay their eggs. So this is like pushing the sun disk.

 

When mummification was carried out while other organs were removed and preserved the heart was usually left in the body. On the chest of the mummy it was usual to place a scarab amulet over the heart cente. On the back of this would be inscribed spell 30b of the Book of the Dead, ...this is a version of it:

 

 

 

 

 

My heart of my mother, my heart of my mother, my heart of transformations,

Do not stand against me in witness, do not turn me back at the council, do not make your rebellion against me in the presence of the keeper of the balance.

You are my ka in my body, which unites and strengthens my limbs; you have come forth to the beautiful place to which we run.

Do not cause my name to stink to the nobles of the court, who make the people to stand.

 

... the heart was viewed as the centre of mind, volition and character. It was a kind of command and control centre which controlled and sent instructions to all your limbs. So it was the heart that was weighed in the Judgement Hall to see if the person was right and true of voice.

 

So the heart in the person was seen as your version of khepera - the transformative power which makes you who you are ... a kind fo storehouse of intent if you like.

Edited February 7, 2013 by Apech

[Apech]

I assumed they were alternate spellings...

You're not the Doom Serpent!? Doh!

 

OK, So Apep is actually hindering the boat while under it.

I read somewhere that he was made to be the driving force for the boat but that material was so-so. Partly channeled.

 

Yes please

 

 

Well, yes, Apep is hindering the boat. But as with all things Egyptian there is a subte double relationship.

 

If you have done energy work you will know that blockages occur to energy circulation. They obstruct the flow and cause bad heat or cold or feelings of sickness or disturbance ... physical, mental, emotional. So there is a need to deal with these obstructions. Sometimes you can push through them. Other times they have to be burnt or washed out. The main blockages are tricky because effort makes them worse. Like a fish caught in a net ... the more you struggle the more you are caught. So you need different strategies for dealing with the obstructions. The Egyptians identifies these strategies with Isis, Set, Serket and Thoth. So its not a simple matter dealing with them.

 

One thing you come to realise is that they (the obstructions) are actually laid down by power in the first place. The nature of the blockage is nothing other than energy. In some ways they were created as necessary protection at some time in the past but have now become habitual. Recognising their energy nature is a key to moving past them. In this way the sand banks put down by Apep to obstruct the sun's progress can be used as fuel, since the energy in the obstruction can be released.

 

Hope this makes sense.

[Birch]

Sorry I don't understand the question.

How did we move towards believing in an 'all-mighty creator' and a separate materialist world of his creation?

[Apech]

How did we move towards believing in an 'all-mighty creator' and a separate materialist world of his creation?

 

 

When we went mono-theist. Basically for most of us with Christianity ... which (and I don't want to rant but) basically destroyed our classical pagan heritage by burning down the libraries and sacking the temples ... introducing the Dark Ages ...

[Apech]

So, was there a tendency in Egyptian society for portions of the population to rally around specific gods, or were even the more elevated gods viewed as natural forces, albeit extremely powerful ones? To clarify, did the Egyptian people associate them more with their incarnate forms or their functions?

Yes there were local cult centres and temples to certain gods. It depends which Egyptians you mean ... the I suppose as to how they actually viewed the gods - different for the priests and kings to the general pop. the gods had an image, usually a statue but sometimes an object which was kept in the holy of holies in the temple ... it would be brought out on feast days and also for divination.

 

If you were to relate this to the Qabalah, would you say that Nun is more akin to Ain or Kether, or does it not quite fit either position in that model?

 

More Ain Soph Aur than Kether I would say.

[Birch]

When we went mono-theist. Basically for most of us with Christianity ... which (and I don't want to rant but) basically destroyed our classical pagan heritage by burning down the libraries and sacking the temples ... introducing the Dark Ages ...

I was thinking something like that. Anyone have a 'history 101' of this that would point to the way it happened? What about esoteric practices during all that 'mono-theistic' darkness. And not the 'history written by winners' stuff.

Thanks!

[Mokona]

Along similar lines of the last question, I was curious as to what ancient Egyptian symbols point to which internal states generated by cultivation. Or if any of the hieroglyphics also show process of breathing, chi cultivation and nei and chi kung.