Celebrity Burials at Giza

 

The angel holds the Shen symbol over the deceased king, the symbol for eternity.

The Omega, the last letter of the Greek alphabet, corresponds to the Egyptian Shen symbol for eternity.

Dr. Alice C. Linsley

The early Hebrew rulers and priests were "the mighty men of old" as described in Genesis 6:4. They were "heroes" of their time and "men of renown" (celebrities). They were known for their construction of temples, palaces, fortified cities, pyramids and ziggurats. The first person described as a city builder in the Bible is Cain. He built a settlement and named it after his son Enoch (Gen. 4). Enoch is a royal title.

Nilotic rulers constructed pyramids as elaborate tombs for themselves and for their wives. The pyramids were a repository for their mummified bodies and for objects they would need in the afterlife. They people of the Nile Valley Civilization (NVC) were very religious, and they viewed death as the beginning of a journey to life beyond. They hoped that one of their rulers would rise from the dead and lead his people to immortality. That is why they took such care in the preparation of the ruler's body before burial and why royal priests were retained to offer daily prayers for the deceased. 

As with esteemed people today such as the late Pope Francis, the funerals of the Nilotic Hebrew rulers included regal processions in which the families and officials accompanied the body of the deceased to the place of burial.

The pyramids were of such a grand scale that they inspired awe. The shape of the pyramid resembles a mountain, symbolic of the spatial sacred center between earth and heaven. It was hoped that the ruler would ascend to the place of immortality. 

The best-known pyramids are those at Giza in Egypt. South of these are other pyramids at Abusir and Saqqara (shown above). All these pyramids are aligned to the sacred city of Heliopolis (On or Iunu).

The Czech mission, led by Miroslav Barta, stated that the construction of the tombs in Abusir began during the mid 5th Dynasty and many priests and officials who worked in the Abusir Pyramid complex of the 5th Dynasty and the Sun Temples were buried there.

That is the case of the tomb of a priest named Rudj-Ka (or Rwd-Ka) that dates between 2465 and 2323 BC. Rudj-Ka was a priest who performed purification rituals for those who bore blood guilt and who had become contaminated through contact with blood or a corpse. Egyptian archaeologists discovered his tomb south of the cemetery of the pyramid builders at Giza. The tomb was unearthed near the pyramid builder's necropolis.

The tomb of Shepseskaf-ankh is the third tomb found at Abusir belonging to a priest-physician (wab sxmt or wab sekhmet). A huge false door inside the offerings chapel carries the names and titles of the tomb owner: “Priest of Re in the Temples of the Sun” and “Priest of Khnum” with other titles that indicate the high rank of this ruler-priest. Originally the huge limestone tomb was marked by a pyramid.

This 4,600-year small step pyramid was found at the archaeological site of al-Ghonemiya near the modern town of Edfu, Egypt.

Oriental Institute

The pyramid belongs to a series of almost identical small pyramids that have been discovered near several provincial centers in Egypt such as Elephantine, Nekhen, Naqada, Abydos, Zawiet el-Meitin near Minya, and Seila in the Fayum. The whole group dates to the reign of Pharaoh Huni (c.2600 BC), the last ruler of the 3rd Dynasty. They date to about 600 years before the time of Abraham.

Related reading: Ancient Egyptian Geometry; Sun Cities of the Ancient World; Horite and Sethite Mounds; Competition Between the Horites and the Sethites; Early Resurrection Texts; Funerary Rites and the Hope of Resurrection; Just Genesis: The Pyramids of Bosnia; BIBLICAL ANTHROPOLOGY: Divine Nature (Alpha) and Eternal Being (Omega)

Ruler-Priests of Genesis

Archaeologists working at the Giza Pyramids have made several new discoveries that shed light on life at the time the pyramids were built. Among the discoveries is a basin that may have been part of a thriving harbor and a "silo building complex," where researchers have found numerous bones from the forelimbs of cattle, offerings in ancient Egypt, suggesting royal cult priests...

Read more here.

4000 year Egyptian ship plank

Alice C. Linsley

The phrase "royal cult of priests" is somewhat misleading. Anthropologically speaking, it would be more precise to speak of a "caste" of royal priests. In the ancient world, there were priests dedicated to different deities and their religious practices varied. Their deity identified their cult.  The particulars of the ruler-priests of Genesis is presented my paper "Genesis in Anthropological Perspective."

The ruler-priests of Genesis, though dispersed widely in service of great kingdom builders, shared distinctive beliefs and practices such as circumcision, ritual purification, animal sacrifice, and purity of life and solar imagery. They did not marry outside their group. They served the king, along with warriors, seamen, scribes, metal workers, mining experts, and royal artisans.

As ancient rulers controlled the major water systems and ports, their temples and shrines were also located on or near water. Giza was the central port of Khufu, Khafre, Menkaure, the rulers who built the Giza pyramids.The priestly attendants, in their various orders, who served at the temples along the ancient Nile were called Habiru, which is Hebrew in English Bibles.

The ruler-priests of Genesis were devotees of Horus, the "seed" of the Creator, born of Hathor. These are called "Horites" in English Bibles, the English variant of the word Jews use to speak of their ancestors: Horim.  Moses' father was a Horite ruler-priest. Many of the Horite rulers are designated by the solar symbol Y in their names. Horus' mother was Hathor-Meri. She is the pattern by which Abraham's people came to understand that the Messiah would be born of a woman of their ruler-priest lines. 

One of the characteristics of castes is endogamy, that is, the practice of marrying only within one's caste. Joseph (Yosef), the son of the Horite Jacob (Yacob), married the daughter of a Horite ruler-priest of Heliopolis (Biblical On). The intermarriage of the ruler-priest lines has been verified through analysis of the marriage and ascendancy pattern of the Genesis rulers.

The lines of Kain and Seth intermarried.

The lines of Ham and Shem intermarried.

The lines of Abraham and Nahor intermarried.

Related reading:  Potiphar: Son of Horus; The Enigma of Joseph; Samuel's Horite Family; The Horite Ancestry of Jesus Christ; The Ancient Egyptians Were Seafaring; 4,500 Year Harbor at Wadi al-Jarf

Was the Giza Sphinx a recumbent lion?

Alice C. Linsley


Robert M. Schoch makes a good argument here for the Sphinx at Giza to be about 2000 years older than generally held by Egyptologists. He reconstructs the outline of the Sphinx and shows that it was a lion resting with its face to the east.

I agree that the Giza Sphinx older than 2200 BC. It must date to the time of the Horite priesthood of Nekhen (Sudan), about 4000-5000 BC. Twin lions facing east and west were one of their religious motifs.

Another sphinx was recently discovered west of Dan Baki in Zinder Province in Niger. I was the first to provide an English report on this here.

I suspect that this sphinx, which Dr. Garba describes as having the shape of a lion, faces west. The two sphinxes perhaps flanked a well watered Sahara on the east and west. This was common imagery among the ancient Horites.

Between the lions is the solar symbol of the Creator. In a fascinating conversation with Laouali Yahaya, an administrator from Niger, I learned that the Niger sphinx is at a place called Ta-nout, which means "belongs to Nout." Nojut is an ancient Egyptian term for sky.

The lion and serpent connection

The totem of David’s Bethlehem clan was the lion which appears to have connections to the clan of Nahash. Nahash is the Hebrew word for serpent. Nahash was the father of Shobi, Abigail and Zeruiah, the mother of Joab and Abishai (II Sam. 17:25). David had a sister named Abigail and a wife named Abigail. These may have been the same person. It was the Horite custom to take a half-sister for the first wife and a cousin wife shortly before ascending to the throne. Bethlehem was a Horite settlement where such customs would have been observed. I Chronicles 4:4 lists Hur (Hor) as the "father of Bethlehem."

The close association between the lion totem and the serpent totem suggest that Abigail might have been a patrilineal cousin and the “daughter of Nahash” (II Sam. 17:25). It this is the case, taking Abigail as his wife signaled David's intention to rule.


Related reading: Orientations of Nilo-Saharan Monuments; Solar Imagery of the Proto-Gospel; Using Totems to Trace Ancestry; The Horite Marriage and Ascendancy Pattern; The Afro-Asiatic Dominion