Alice C. Linsley
The directional poles of east-west and north-south appear to be the most fundamental metaphysical distinctions made by Abraham's people and underpin the more complex cosmological understanding of the ancient Afro-Asiatics whose Dominion extended from west central Africa (Bor'No, Noah's homeland) to the Indus River Valley. The north-south axis was represented by sacred pillars and mountains that connected heaven and earth. The east-west axis was represented by the Nile, the Red Sea and the Jordan, whose waters spanned from horizon to horizon and connected east and west.
Andrew Collins notes "the earliest Neolithic cult centres, the prototypes of stone circles and chambered barrows everywhere, were directed roughly north-south. Since the north was a direction of death and rebirth at Çatal Hüyük, I quickly realized that the focus of attention at places such as Karahan Tepe and Göbekli Tepe was the movement of circumpolar stars around the northern celestial pole, for there was no Pole Star in c. 9500-9000 BC. I looked closely at the Skyglobe astronomical program for these dates, and realised that only one constellation could have been the object of their gaze, and this was Cygnus, which in European starlore is the celestial swan. However, there is clear evidence that in Ancient Mesopotamia Cygnus was seen as a raptor bird, while in classical myth it was occasionally seen as a vulture, the symbol of the transmigration of the soul in the Neolithic cult of the dead."
Collins assumes that only by viewing the Pole Star could the ancients determine true north. This assumption overlooks the fact that the more ancient cosmology was binary, which means that no one directional pole can be isolated from its opposite. The poles are binary opposites. They also represent connecting lines that bisect at a center point. This concept was represented as X. This cross-shaped cosmology is foundational to a complex of binary distinctions and metaphysical tensions.
In the time and place of Abraham's Kushite people the Pole Star was evident, but even lacking this celestial marker, they would have known true north because the Kushite metal-workers had discovered the compass properties of iron particles which pointed to magnetic north. In fact, the word compass (kom-pas) is originally an Egyptian word. Beside that, they knew the direction of the sun's rising in the east, and while their rulers were buried with their heads to the north, their faces were toward the east.
Kushite rulers placed their 2 wives in separate households on a north-south axis. This may be due to the fact that the Nile and Jordan rivers are on a north-south axis, but it also reflects their belief that the sun was Re's solar boat (later his chariot) upon which Re daily surveys his territory from east to west. eThis cosmological idea was apparent even before Noah, as evidenced by the north-south siting of the sites of Nok (Enoch) and Kano (Cain) in west central Africa. The Nok civilization predates the Chaldeans by at least 4000 years.
Lamech the Elder (Gen. 4) is portrayed as a braggart not only because he arrogantly boasted of killing another man, but also because he set his wives on an east-west axis, thereby setting himself up as God. The Sun's east-west path was thought to be the "curcuit" of the Creator, who daily surveys His territory which extends "as far as the east is from the west". Psalm 19 proclaims that the Almighty comes as a bridegroom from the tent of the sun and makes his circuit from east to west.
Likewise, Abraham set his wives on a North-South axis, with Sarah in Hebron and Keturah in Beersheba. In this, he followed the custom of his father Terah whose two wives were also situated in separate settlements on a north-saxis.
While north was associated with death and judgment from on heaven above, its polar opposite was associated with birth and renewal of life from the earth below. South symbolizes earth, fertility and birth throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. It was the direction that Abraham went to seek a second wife. Abraham, still without a heir, consulted the Moreh at the Oak between Bethel and Ai. The next event of his life chronicled in Genesis was a journey south to the Well of Sheba (Beersheba) where he married his patrilineal cousin Keturah, by whom he had 5 sons. (This enabled Abraham to become established as a ruler over a territory between Hebron and Beersheba, but it didn't provide him with an heir since the firstborn son of the cousin/niece wife ascended to the throne of his maternal grandfather, after whom he was named. The sons of concubines and the younger sons of wives were given gifts and sent away to establish territories of their own. This is the unique marriage and ascendency pattern of Abraham's Horite caste.)
The ethical implications of a cross-shaped view of reality are evident. There is a geometrical quality that suggests lines, angles and boundaries. Abraham's Kushite people wanted to rightly discern and respect the boundaries since they perceived of them as having been established by God in creation. Worship, daily rituals such as the blessing of the sun, kinship, gender roles, laws concerning purity among the ruler-priests, all reflected this concern to distinguish between the binary sets of Heaven-Earth; God-Man, Male-Female, Pure-Defiled, and Life-Death.
In this cross-shaped Reality, the only safe place, metaphysically speaking, is the sacred center. Aftyer all his deconstruction, Jacques Derrida (an Arabic-speaking Jew) concluded that there is a center and that something is there. He spoke of this something as "presence." He claimed that throughout the history of Philosophy this metaphysical presence is called by different names, “God” being one of them. This concept is very difficult for western minds steeped in empirical and materialist ideologies. Salvation for many means knowing information about and confirming physical evidence of God. Salvation for Abraham and his people would have meant being spiritually present at the center of the cross; finding the sacred center by reference to the spokes of the earth: north-south/east-west.
Before he died at age 108, Israel's leading rabbi, Yitzhak Kaduri, left a signed note indicating Messiah's identity: Yeshua - Jesus. A few months before, Rabbi Kaduri had surprised his followers when he told them that he met the Messiah in dreams and visions. Kaduri gave a message in his synagogue on Yom Kippur, teaching how to recognize the Messiah. His manuscripts, written in his own hand for his students, have cross-symbols painted by Kaduri all over the pages.
Many Jews have attempted to explain away the crosses, arguing that the great Rabbi Kaduri was not a Christian. Of course not! However, he was wise and prayerful, and he knew the Tradition of his people. Those combined to lead him to Jesus, the Son of God, at the sacred center of his ancestor's cosmology.
The Sun as a Cross Among Abraham's Horite Caste
The expectation of the Son of God precedes Judaism. Abraham's Horite people were devotees of Horus who they called "Son of God." Their origin is ancient Kush and their Kushite rulers united Egypt. Horus was said to unite the kingdoms of the Upper and Lower Nile. In a 5-day festival the ancient Egyptian comemorated the mythical death and rising of Horus. He was associated with the rising sun and with the falling of grain into the earth.
In relation to the sun, Horus was said to rise in the morning as a lamb or calf and to set in teh evening as a ram or bull. When Abraham bound his "lamb" Issac, Isaac was replaced with a ram. To Abraham the Horite this would have meant that his offering was accepted. It would also have meant that Isaac was not the fulfillment of the promise made to Abraham's ancestors in Genesis 3:15. Isaac was not the "Seed" of the Woman who would make the curse of death void, crush the serpent's head, and restore Paradise.
The symbol of that Lamb was the sun shown on ancient ossuaries as a 6-pointed star inside a circle. This was the solar boat of Re, the vehicle of Light, that would carry the dead to the place of rest from which they would rise on the Last Day. In the Iron Age this mer-ka-ba was shown instead as a chariot. The sun as God's chariot is found in the Psalms. As St. Augustine noted, the Egyptians took great care in the burial of their dead and never practiced cremation, as in the religions that seek to escape physical existence. Abraham's Kushite ancestors believed in the resurrection of the body.
The spokes within a circle are both the rays of the sun and the spokes of the chariot wheel. This symbol likely appeared on the Ark of the Covenant and is Kushite in origin. In the Ethiopian Church a replica of the Ark is displayed in the churches. It is called tabot and is decorated with the 6-pointed star inside a circle at the center of the box.
The spokes are also the precession cross at various angles. The precession cross was symbolized by the X inside a circle. This morphed into the Tau, which is used by Christians to represent the up-right cross.
The precession cross and the merkaba are very ancient cosmological conceptions and traceable to the Horite temple at Heliopolis on the Nile. Heliopolis is called ONN in Genesis and was shown in Old Egyptian as NXN, with the X representing the sun and the Creator at the sacred center. Again we find that the cross is central and often shown as the sun. The cross is indeed the most fundamental symbol found in creation. That is why I say, "Reality is cross-shaped."
Related reading: The Sacred Center in Biblical Theology; Afro-Asiatic Rulers and Celestial Archetypes; Christ's Sign in Creation
The directional poles of east-west and north-south appear to be the most fundamental metaphysical distinctions made by Abraham's people and underpin the more complex cosmological understanding of the ancient Afro-Asiatics whose Dominion extended from west central Africa (Bor'No, Noah's homeland) to the Indus River Valley. The north-south axis was represented by sacred pillars and mountains that connected heaven and earth. The east-west axis was represented by the Nile, the Red Sea and the Jordan, whose waters spanned from horizon to horizon and connected east and west.
Andrew Collins notes "the earliest Neolithic cult centres, the prototypes of stone circles and chambered barrows everywhere, were directed roughly north-south. Since the north was a direction of death and rebirth at Çatal Hüyük, I quickly realized that the focus of attention at places such as Karahan Tepe and Göbekli Tepe was the movement of circumpolar stars around the northern celestial pole, for there was no Pole Star in c. 9500-9000 BC. I looked closely at the Skyglobe astronomical program for these dates, and realised that only one constellation could have been the object of their gaze, and this was Cygnus, which in European starlore is the celestial swan. However, there is clear evidence that in Ancient Mesopotamia Cygnus was seen as a raptor bird, while in classical myth it was occasionally seen as a vulture, the symbol of the transmigration of the soul in the Neolithic cult of the dead."
Collins assumes that only by viewing the Pole Star could the ancients determine true north. This assumption overlooks the fact that the more ancient cosmology was binary, which means that no one directional pole can be isolated from its opposite. The poles are binary opposites. They also represent connecting lines that bisect at a center point. This concept was represented as X. This cross-shaped cosmology is foundational to a complex of binary distinctions and metaphysical tensions.
In the time and place of Abraham's Kushite people the Pole Star was evident, but even lacking this celestial marker, they would have known true north because the Kushite metal-workers had discovered the compass properties of iron particles which pointed to magnetic north. In fact, the word compass (kom-pas) is originally an Egyptian word. Beside that, they knew the direction of the sun's rising in the east, and while their rulers were buried with their heads to the north, their faces were toward the east.
Kushite rulers placed their 2 wives in separate households on a north-south axis. This may be due to the fact that the Nile and Jordan rivers are on a north-south axis, but it also reflects their belief that the sun was Re's solar boat (later his chariot) upon which Re daily surveys his territory from east to west. eThis cosmological idea was apparent even before Noah, as evidenced by the north-south siting of the sites of Nok (Enoch) and Kano (Cain) in west central Africa. The Nok civilization predates the Chaldeans by at least 4000 years.
Lamech the Elder (Gen. 4) is portrayed as a braggart not only because he arrogantly boasted of killing another man, but also because he set his wives on an east-west axis, thereby setting himself up as God. The Sun's east-west path was thought to be the "curcuit" of the Creator, who daily surveys His territory which extends "as far as the east is from the west". Psalm 19 proclaims that the Almighty comes as a bridegroom from the tent of the sun and makes his circuit from east to west.
Likewise, Abraham set his wives on a North-South axis, with Sarah in Hebron and Keturah in Beersheba. In this, he followed the custom of his father Terah whose two wives were also situated in separate settlements on a north-saxis.
While north was associated with death and judgment from on heaven above, its polar opposite was associated with birth and renewal of life from the earth below. South symbolizes earth, fertility and birth throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. It was the direction that Abraham went to seek a second wife. Abraham, still without a heir, consulted the Moreh at the Oak between Bethel and Ai. The next event of his life chronicled in Genesis was a journey south to the Well of Sheba (Beersheba) where he married his patrilineal cousin Keturah, by whom he had 5 sons. (This enabled Abraham to become established as a ruler over a territory between Hebron and Beersheba, but it didn't provide him with an heir since the firstborn son of the cousin/niece wife ascended to the throne of his maternal grandfather, after whom he was named. The sons of concubines and the younger sons of wives were given gifts and sent away to establish territories of their own. This is the unique marriage and ascendency pattern of Abraham's Horite caste.)
The ethical implications of a cross-shaped view of reality are evident. There is a geometrical quality that suggests lines, angles and boundaries. Abraham's Kushite people wanted to rightly discern and respect the boundaries since they perceived of them as having been established by God in creation. Worship, daily rituals such as the blessing of the sun, kinship, gender roles, laws concerning purity among the ruler-priests, all reflected this concern to distinguish between the binary sets of Heaven-Earth; God-Man, Male-Female, Pure-Defiled, and Life-Death.
In this cross-shaped Reality, the only safe place, metaphysically speaking, is the sacred center. Aftyer all his deconstruction, Jacques Derrida (an Arabic-speaking Jew) concluded that there is a center and that something is there. He spoke of this something as "presence." He claimed that throughout the history of Philosophy this metaphysical presence is called by different names, “God” being one of them. This concept is very difficult for western minds steeped in empirical and materialist ideologies. Salvation for many means knowing information about and confirming physical evidence of God. Salvation for Abraham and his people would have meant being spiritually present at the center of the cross; finding the sacred center by reference to the spokes of the earth: north-south/east-west.
Before he died at age 108, Israel's leading rabbi, Yitzhak Kaduri, left a signed note indicating Messiah's identity: Yeshua - Jesus. A few months before, Rabbi Kaduri had surprised his followers when he told them that he met the Messiah in dreams and visions. Kaduri gave a message in his synagogue on Yom Kippur, teaching how to recognize the Messiah. His manuscripts, written in his own hand for his students, have cross-symbols painted by Kaduri all over the pages.
Many Jews have attempted to explain away the crosses, arguing that the great Rabbi Kaduri was not a Christian. Of course not! However, he was wise and prayerful, and he knew the Tradition of his people. Those combined to lead him to Jesus, the Son of God, at the sacred center of his ancestor's cosmology.
The Sun as a Cross Among Abraham's Horite Caste
The expectation of the Son of God precedes Judaism. Abraham's Horite people were devotees of Horus who they called "Son of God." Their origin is ancient Kush and their Kushite rulers united Egypt. Horus was said to unite the kingdoms of the Upper and Lower Nile. In a 5-day festival the ancient Egyptian comemorated the mythical death and rising of Horus. He was associated with the rising sun and with the falling of grain into the earth.
In relation to the sun, Horus was said to rise in the morning as a lamb or calf and to set in teh evening as a ram or bull. When Abraham bound his "lamb" Issac, Isaac was replaced with a ram. To Abraham the Horite this would have meant that his offering was accepted. It would also have meant that Isaac was not the fulfillment of the promise made to Abraham's ancestors in Genesis 3:15. Isaac was not the "Seed" of the Woman who would make the curse of death void, crush the serpent's head, and restore Paradise.
The symbol of that Lamb was the sun shown on ancient ossuaries as a 6-pointed star inside a circle. This was the solar boat of Re, the vehicle of Light, that would carry the dead to the place of rest from which they would rise on the Last Day. In the Iron Age this mer-ka-ba was shown instead as a chariot. The sun as God's chariot is found in the Psalms. As St. Augustine noted, the Egyptians took great care in the burial of their dead and never practiced cremation, as in the religions that seek to escape physical existence. Abraham's Kushite ancestors believed in the resurrection of the body.
The spokes within a circle are both the rays of the sun and the spokes of the chariot wheel. This symbol likely appeared on the Ark of the Covenant and is Kushite in origin. In the Ethiopian Church a replica of the Ark is displayed in the churches. It is called tabot and is decorated with the 6-pointed star inside a circle at the center of the box.
The spokes are also the precession cross at various angles. The precession cross was symbolized by the X inside a circle. This morphed into the Tau, which is used by Christians to represent the up-right cross.
The precession cross and the merkaba are very ancient cosmological conceptions and traceable to the Horite temple at Heliopolis on the Nile. Heliopolis is called ONN in Genesis and was shown in Old Egyptian as NXN, with the X representing the sun and the Creator at the sacred center. Again we find that the cross is central and often shown as the sun. The cross is indeed the most fundamental symbol found in creation. That is why I say, "Reality is cross-shaped."
Related reading: The Sacred Center in Biblical Theology; Afro-Asiatic Rulers and Celestial Archetypes; Christ's Sign in Creation
18 comments:
This brings to mind two things: the ossuary of Miriam, daughter of Yeshua, son of the High-Priest Caiaphus which has a symbol of a spoked wheel carved in it, and the annointing of the High Priests, and Orthodox Christians, with 'tau' or the Cross. Is the ossuary so etched to indicate her status as a daughter of the High-Priest? The tau of annointing brings the sacred center of God into the right of annointing, does it not?
Ms. Linsley, what is the Orthodox position on cremation? Best, Brent
Margaret, the spoked wheel or 6-pointed star on the ossuary is a solar symbol, such as appears on the tabot or ritual tabernacle that is carried in ptocession in the Ethiopian churches. The sun's perceived movement from east to west and the no-shadow position of high noon apeak of God's rule over earth and the sacred center. James 1:17 describes God in these terms: "Every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows."
The bones of many high ranked Jews were placed in ossuaries with the same symbol.
"The tau of annointing brings the sacred center of God into the right of annointing, does it not?"
I'm not sure what you are asking.
Brent,
The Orthodox do not cremate their dead. Since this was done by the pagans, they regard this as a non-Christian practice. Orthodox burial and 40 day memorial practices resemble that of traditional Jews. The deceased is usually buried without delay, as in Judaism.
Hi Alice,
A friend recently pointed me to your blog. It will take me a while to get through your posts but they are very interesting. I have a blog at http://blog.cholesterol-and-health.com. It's mostly about nutrition but my most recent post is anthropological and you might enjoy it and the rest in that series.
In any case, I was wondering if someday you could provide a post about the evolution of prayer beads and/or unceasing prayer. There are obvious similarities between a Catholic rosary, an Orthodox prayer rope, and Hindu or Buddhist japa beads. There seem to be similarities in the views of prayer behind them. Have these sprung up independently, has there been a lot of cross-talk between these religions, or have these practices evolved from a common ancestor?
It seems that if there is any evidence for the latter it may relate to the migrations from Africa to India you've written about.
Sincerely,
Chris
Chris, I've visited your blog and some other sites where you have published. Very interesting and informative! Thanks for the link.
Many religions have beads for counting prayer repetitions, for chants and for meditation. The oldest antecedents of this, as far as I know, are the meteroretic bead necklaces worn by prehistoric Saharan warriors, hunters and priests. The wearer of these beads was connected to the place of their origin - heaven. It is likely that the beads were perceived to bring divine protection.
Hi Alice,
Thank you for your answer on the beads, very interesting. I'm glad you've found some of my stuff useful.
A friend pointed me to your blog after I had shared this quote from Merker (1910), which I think might interest you: "I regard the Masai as descendants of those nomadic Semite peoples who belonged to the pastoral tribes of the most ancient
Hebrews."
I just put up my next installment in the Masai series, where I cover divisions of labor, ownership rights, and authority by age and sex:
http://www.westonaprice.org/blogs/cmasterjohn/2011/07/30/the-masai-part-i-a-glimpse-of-gender-sexuality-and-spirituality-in-the-loita-masai-installment-2/
In the next one, I'm going to cover their fertility ritual, which has some remarkable parallels to the matins of Holy Saturday.
Chris
John,
I'm not sure we can accurately speak of "pastoral Hebrews" in the same sense as pastoral Masai. However, there is a connection because Abraham's ancestors dwelt near the Masai traditional homeland.
Your series sounds fascinating. I'll follow it.
Hi Alice,
My name's Chris. :)
I'll defer to you on the relevant history, but if you haven't seen Merker's work I think it would be valuable to you, as he devotes a large chunk of it to covering linguistic and mythological similarities. He claims that they had very remarkable similarities to early Biblical stories but at a certain point, no record of anything in the later Bible. He argued that this suggested common ancestry during early Biblical times rather than later sharing of stories between groups. I have only made it not much more than 100 pages through, but I'm in the middle of scanning it from microfiche as that was the only way I could find it in English.
Thanks for all your great work! I have a lot to trudge through on your site. :)
Chris
Sorry, Chris. I hadn't had my morning tea yet and was still foggy!
I've read some of Merker's work, though it was a good while back, and you've inspired me to revisit it.
There are similarities to the early Bible stories among many Nilotic and Saharan peoples. In fact, this is the single region of the world where close thematic parallels are found to the material in Genesis. I address this here:
http://jandyongenesis.blogspot.com/2008/07/genesis-creation-stories.html
Hi Alice,
No problem. :)
Great post, and very fascinating. I just put up the next installment of my Masai series:
http://www.westonaprice.org/blogs/cmasterjohn/2011/08/12/the-masai-part-i-a-glimpse-of-gender-sexuality-and-spirituality-in-the-loita-masai-installment-3/
Not every aspect of the fertility ritual is ancient, as a woman says that some of it was new. Nevertheless, I find the entire thing to be very reminiscent of our service for matins of Holy Saturday, which is particularly fascinating when one considers that childbirth is a type of Jesus' burial and resurrection (John 16:21pag).
Sincerely,
Chris
Chris,
I'll read this post today. Please let me know about future posts of this type. You're doing good work!
Hi Alice,
I was just taking a coffee break from my work and reading some of Paul Spencer's "Time, Space, and the Unknown: Maasai configuratios of power and providence."
On page 132, he attempts to draw graphic depictions of the interpretations of certain numbers used by Masai diviners, who attempt to answer questions by shaking a couple hundred pebbles in an oracle made of horn and then throwing them out and arranging them in certain patterns.
He draws a clock face with the digits zero through nine. He marks the inside of the circle as "propitious" and the outside of the circle unpropitious. He places 1 and 6 outside the circle, but 1 is drawn with an arrow to show it is somewhat removed from the circle and 6 is drawn with three arrows to show it is much more removed from the circle. He marks 1 as "unpropitious for clients" and 6 as "traditionally doom-laden."
4 and 8, by contrast, are each moved in towards the center of the circle with one arrow, while the other numbers are maintained in the circle on the periphery because they are only propitious or unpropitious in certain contexts.
Then he writes, "One may note that the unpropitious '1' and '6' are the midpoints between the generally propitious '4' and '8.' This suggests drawing an 'axis of misfortune' between '1' and '6' about which a certain symmetry may be seen in figure 6.3(a)."
If one draws two axes connecting 1 and 6 and connecting 4 and 8, one winds up with a cross with one long bar and one short bar, with the short bar located about 3/4 of the way up the long bar. He drew the circle with 0 at the top, but if he drew it beginning at 1, the cross would be upright.
Interestingly, the 1 is actually propitious for the diviner himself, just not for his clients, because it is associated with his own authority. The 4 and 8 are regarded as propitious because they signify calmness and docility.
He goes on to say that this graphic isn't made explicit, but it is consistent with Masai preference for symmetry, and gives various examples including the ideal of a husband symmetrically placing different wives in huts to either side of him.
Chris
Fascinating! Thanks, Chris, for sharing this information.
As far as I can determine, the oldest counting system used base nine. This is the system of the ancient Afro-Asiatics, and the number one represents the mystery of God who is both with us and beyond us (outside the circle).
Please keep sharing this great stuff!
Hi Alice,
Here's my latest Masai post:
The Masai Part II: A Glimpse of the Masai Diet at the Turn of the 20th Century -- A Land of Milk and Honey, Bananas From Afar
http://www.westonaprice.org/blogs/cmasterjohn/2011/09/13/the-masai-part-ii-a-glimpse-of-the-masai-diet-at-the-turn-of-the-20th-century-a-land-of-milk-and-honey-bananas-from-afar/
Enjoy!
Chris
Very interesting, Chris. Keep up the good work!
The Afar Triangle is the oldest known region of human habitation. It is the land of milk and honey and included "Havilah" where there is gold. The word Nubia means land of gold.
Hi Alice,
I have two questions for you.
First, do you have a reference you could direct me to about the number one symbolizing God in ancient African nine-base numerology?
Second, do you know anything about Mt. Meru? It is a real mountain in Tanzania, and is considered holy by the Maasai, but this name is also given to a central holy mountain in Buddhist and Hindu mythology. From what I read Buddhism considers it something like the center of the universe. Do you have any idea or speculation about whether this represents some derivation of the latter religions from African religion, and whether there is any connection between the real Mt. Meru and Tanzania and the mythical one in these other systems?
Thanks,
Chris
Hi, Chris. I hope that you are well. It sounds as if you are continuing your fascinating research!
Not all African number systems are base-nine. That of Abraham's Nilotic ancestors was and they associated singularity with the One God. God is always first, the first, who bows to the other (kenosis). This might be helpful:
http://jandyongenesis.blogspot.com/2010/08/binary-worldview-of-bible.html
Mount Meru is both a celestial archetype and a real mountain. The question is which mountain? The Buddhism and Hindu celestial archetype comes from the older Nilotic religion of Abraham's ancestors who spread across the ancient Afro-Asiatic Dominion and took their religious beliefs, symbols and practices with them. I've identified these here:
http://jandyongenesis.blogspot.com/2011/11/msnbc-spin-on-jesus.html
Since Abraham's ancestors came out of the Nile region I'd say that Mt. Meru is in that region. I suspect it is Mt. Kenya. The name Meru is Mary, by the way.
Godfrey Higgins, in his 1874 monograph "Anacalypsis: An Inquiry into the Origins of Languages, Nations and Religions" noted that "Armenia" could mean "mount of Meru… that is, Ar or Er-Meni-ia, the country of mount Meru or Meni." Higgins noted the conflation of the names Meni and Meru. This leaves open the possibility that Noah's ark landed on Mount Meni in Africa which I'm told is about 230 miles from the present limits of Lake Chad, the most likely site of Noah's flood. Meni or Menes is also the name of the Kushite king credited with uniting the upper and lower Nile kingdoms.
Mountain tops were regarded as the spatial sacred center - between heaven above and earth below. In this sesne the sacred mountain is the center of the cosmos, the ombligo or belly button.
I hope that this is helpful.
Best wishes,
Alice
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