Alice C. Linsley
French Egyptologist Abbe Émile Amélineau (1850-1916) discovered the tombs of Ka, Den, and the Serpent King who preceded Nar-mer (Mena). Amélineau's digs destroyed a good amount of archeaological evidence, as Flinders Petrie discovered when he undertook a systematic archaeological method. However, many of Amélineau's conclusions are valuable, especially his designation of the Anu as the aboriginal inhabitants of Egypt. He demonstrated how they migrated to the Lower Nile and founded the cities of Esneh, Erment, Qouch and Heliopolis. The original name of Heliopolis is “Anu" (biblical Oon). Amélineau noted that "All those cities have the characteristic symbol which serves to denote the name Anu."
Horus and his mother Hat-Hor (later called Isis) belonged to this Nubian people. In ancient Egyptian depictions of the goddess Hat-Hor she is shown with the same skin color as the Nubians. (Amélineau, Prolégomènes, pp. 124-125) The Sun was for them the emblem of the Creator. In Chapter XV of the Book of the Dead, we read: "Hail to thee, O God Ani in the mountainous land of Antem! O great God, falcon of the double solar mountain! Hat-Hor is often shown wearing the Sun upon her head. This expresses the Anu's belief that she is the chosen of the Creator to bring forth God's son. The totem of Horus was the falcon and falcon shaped fire altars have been found across the ancient Afro-Asiatic Dominion.
Amélineau has this to say about Abraham's predynastic ancestors: "These Anu were agricultural people, raising cattle on a large scale along the Nile, shutting themselves up in walled cities for defensive purposes. To this people we can attribute, without fear of error, the most ancient Egyptian books, The Book of the Dead and the Texts of the Pyramids, consequently, all the myths or religious teachings. I would add almost all the philosophical systems then known and still called Egyptian. They evidently knew the crafts necessary for any civilization and were familiar with the tools those trades required. They knew how to use metals, at least elementary metals. They made the earliest attempts at writing, for the whole Egyptian tradition attributes this art to Thoth, the great Hermes an Anu like Osiris, who is called Onian in Chapter XV of The Book of the Dead and in the Texts of the Pyramids. Certainly the people already knew the principal arts; it left proof of this in the architecture of the tombs at Abydos, especially the tomb of Osiris and in those sepulchers objects have been found bearing unmistakable stamp of their origin, such as carved ivory, or a little head of a Nubian girl found in a tomb near that of Osiris, or the small wooden or ivory receptacles in the form of a feline head--all documents published in the first volume of my Fouilles d'Abydos". (Read the French original here.)
Terah was a Horite Priest
Terah, Abraham's father, was the son of Na-Hor, a ruler-priest decendant of Nimrod, the son of Kush, who built a kingdom in the Tigris River Valley. All of these rulers were ethnically Kushite, to use the Biblical term. They were descendants of Kush, Noah's grandson (Gen. 10). Kushite priests appear to have been scribes and devotees of Horus or Hor. The oldest know shrine city dedicated to Horus is in modern Sudan at Nekhen. It dates to about 4000 B.C.
The Kushite civilization comprises many peoples, including Nubians, Sudra, Egyptians, and Ainu. It also had castes of metal-workers, warriors and Horite scribe-priests.
Other rulers of Kushite-Nubian ethnicity had the title Terah, as evidenced from places bearing that name. Numbers 33:27-28 mentions 'Terah" as a place near Mount Harun (Aaron) in Jordan. This place is in the very heart of Horite territory. The Horites controlled a region between Mt. Hor (northeast of Kadesh-barnea) and Mt. Harun near the Edomite city of Petra. Genesis 10:30 tells us that these were the clans whose dwelling place extended from Mesha "all the way to Sephar, the eastern mountain range." They are called Horites in Genesis 14:6; Genesis 36:20 and in Deuteronomy 2:12.
Harun (Aaron in Hebrew) is the Arabic word meaning priest of Horus. The word appears in the Qur'an as Houris and refers to deified ruler-priests.
Terah is also the name of an Arabian tribe (Terabin) that dwells chiefly between Gaza and Beersheba. This links Terah to the clans of Joktan, Dedan, Raamah and Sheba. Terah, Abraham's father, probably married a cousin or niece from among one of these clans.
Abraham's was a Horite Family
In Joshua 24:2 we read: “In olden times, your forefathers – Terah, father of Abraham and father of Nahor – lived beyond the Euphrates and worshiped other gods.” It is a curious passage because it has no supporting biblical reference and it is actually contrary to what Genesis suggests. When we remember that Terah was Kushite we can better understand this criticsim coming from a muchlater period.
The Kushites held a binary worldview in which one entity of the binary sets is perceived to be greater in some way to its complement. The Sun is greater light than the Moon. The male of the human species is larger and stronger than the female. (This is not a value judgment, but a universal observation.) The verse in Joshua represents a criticism of Terah's association with Asiatics who had embraced dualism. They worshiped the Sun deity and the Moon deity as equals. The implication is that Terah, a descendant of the Kushite kingdom builder Nimrod, fell into worshiping contrary to the binary tradition of his fathers (horim) while living “beyond the Euphrates.” There is no other verse in the Bible to support this view.
Abraham's Horite ancestors didn't worship Napir/Sin as was done in Ur and Haran, and later in Mecca. The Horite ruler-priests were devotees of Horus who was called "son of God," and his emblem was the Sun. Genesis is about the ruler-priests of Abraham's Horite caste and their faith in the promise that the Creator made to their ancestors in Eden (Gen. 3:15).
Further, the Joshua passage must be understood in the context of the Deuteronomistic history, which begins in Deuteronomy and ends in II Kings. These books share a common concern with idolatry and place the covenant at Shechem at precisely the location where God appeared to Abraham in Three Persons (Gen. 18). The concept of the Three-Person God originates in the Nile region, not in Meopotamia where Terah controlled territory.
Horite ruler-priests were a caste. One trait of castes is exclusive intermarriage (endogamy). Horite rulers were careful to marry chaste daughters of priests. It is not a coincidence that Joseph married Asenath, daughter of the "priest of Oon" (Gen. 41:45), later called Heliopolis (city of the Sun). Her name means "holy to Anat" and Anat (Ana) was associated with Mari (Mary), so that the name often appeared as Mari-Anat. Asenath's father was Putiphar or Potiphera. This is a title composed of the word pu and tifra. Putifra in ancient Egyptian means "this order." This is likely a reference to the order of Horite priests. The stela of Putiphar speaks of Putiphar as the "son of Horus, may He live forever."
Joseph married the daughter of a Horite priest, which isn't surprising since the Horite priestly lines intermarried exclusively. Likewise, Moses married the daughter of the priest Jethro. Because the sons of Horite priests married the daughters of Horite priests, their children were also of the priestly lines. These are David's ancestors and this is why David's sons are called "priests" in II Samuel 8:18.
This historical reality means we must take these words concerning Abraham's people quite literally: "For me you shall be a kingdom of priests, a holy nation." (Ex. 19:6) And this description applies to some Arabs also. Not all Jews have Horite blood and not all Arabs have Horite blood. However, to the degree that Abraham's descendants by his 9 sons intermarried, it is safe to say that many Jews and many Arabs do have Horite blood.
Related reading: Who Were the Horites?; Who Were the Kushites?; The Enigma of Joseph; The Afro-Arabian Dedanites; The Ethnicity of Abraham and David; The Daughters of Priests
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