Architecture Links Petra and the Nilotic Hebrew

Temple of Horus at Edfu

I have shown that Abraham's Horite Hebrew caste dispersed into many territories. Nahor the Elder's territory extended virtually the length on the Euphrates. Other Horite Hebrew chiefs controlled a territory from Mt. Hor northeast of Kadesh-barnea to Mt. Harun at Petra. So ,it should not surprise us that the temple of Horus (above) resembles the architecture at Petra (below).

It can be argued that this architecture shows the influence of Egyptian culture on a non-Egyptian people, but that doesn't explain why Petra was built in that style. It is more likely that temple construction was overseen by Horite Hebrew ruler-priests who followed the tradition of their ancestors who established shrines and temples in many parts of the ancient world, including Nekhen on the Nile,the oldest known site of Horite Hebrew worship (4000 BC).

“Horite” does not refer to ethnicity, but to the caste's belief that the Creator God Re (meaning "father" in Ancient Egyptian) had a son named Horus/HR (HR means Most High One in Ancient Egyptian). His totem was the falcon, and he is connected to the all-seeing eye, the Sun, and Jupiter. Minutius Felix, an early Christian apologist, wrote, “Those who make Jupiter the sovereign deity, err only in name; they are one with us as to the unity of the power.”

Some Nabataean kings, such as Harithath IV, bear the Horus name. King Harithath is called King Aretas in 2 Corinthians 11:32. Coins have been found bearing the image of Aretas, and inscriptions have been found in the Nabataean town of Avdat with his name and the names of other Nabataean rulers. Aretas was called "King of the Nabatu, who loves his people" (Philopatris), and during his reign the greatest of Petra's tombs were created.

Petra is in modern day Jordan or ancient Edom. The connection to Egypt is evident in the name of Petra's central temple: Qasr al-Bint al-Faroun which means "The Fortress of the Daughter of Pharaoh." Its walls rise to over 75 feet. The temple was built between the late first century BC and the first century AD. Its precinct covers about 81,376 square feet or 7,560 square meters. A large open plaza was lined with 120 columns adorned with Asian elephant-head capitals, evidence of connections between ancient Edom and India and other lands of the ancient Near East. At its height of glory, Petra rivaled the grandeur of Herod's Jerusalem.

The word Nabataean is likely related to Naba or Nabu, the patron or guardian of scribes and prophets. This is the origin of the Hebrew word nabi, meaning prophet. Many early scribes were Hebrew priests. Babylonian kings sometimes bore the name Nabu, as with Nabu-shum-libur, Nabu-aplu-iddina, Nabo-polassar, Nebu-chadnezzar II, and Nabo-nidus.

In ancient times this region was the home of the Horite Hebrew chiefs listed in Genesis 36. The land was called "Idumea" by the Greeks which means "land of red people" because, like Esau of Edom (and King David), the people had a distinctive red skin tone.

Abraham's territory was entirely in ancient Edom. His northern and southern borders were marked by the settlements of his two wives. Sarah resided in Hebron to the north, and Keturah resided in Beersheba to the south. Those locations are shown on the map.

(Robert Bewley/APAAME) An aerial view of Baydha, north of Petra. The site

contains archaeological evidence spanning more than 10,000 years.

This region holds great interest for biblical archaeologists and biblical anthropologists. People were living in this region since Paleolithic times. Early farmers were settled here in 7000 BC.

Related reading: The Substance of Abraham's Faith; Abraham's Faith Lives in Christianity; The Ra-Horus-Hathor Narrative, Horite and Sethite Mounds, Horite Temples

The Afro-Asiatic Conception of Purity

Sunlight through the windows of the Basilica of La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona

Alice C. Linsley

How are we to explain the prevalence of blood sacrifice performed by a priest caste and a concern for ritual purity among peoples as geographically separated as the ancient Egyptians, the Sarki of Nepal, and some Native Americans? How do we explain similar conceptions of the sun as a purifying agent, and linguistic points of contact among widely dispersed peoples?

We might point to the common point of origin of all humans in Africa and to the development of languages from the Afro-Asiatic root stock. A comparison of the lexicons of Afro-Arabian and Semitic languages with Sanskrit and Dravidian suggests that a vast Afro-Asiatic Dominion stretched from the Wet Sahara to Asia between 12,000 and 10,000 years ago. One explanation is a common trade language.

An example of how languages are influenced by trade is the early traffic in rice from the NIle Valley to Madagascar and beyond. The language of Madagascar is Sulawe. It is related to ancient Egyptian, Dravidian, and East African words for rice.

The term "Sulawesi" appears to be related to the words write or rice records. Merchants who were moving from island to island recorded their transactions. Sulawe resembles the Egyptian word for writing ssw; and the Mande sewe; and the Dravidian ha-verasu. These terms referr to written records of rice sales or commercial records.

Rice grain formed the basis of weight measurement from East Africa to Sulawesi. On Madagascar, the weight of one grain of rice is called vary, and corresponds to the Swahili wari and to the Dravidian verasu. The Tamil word for rice is arisi, and the Old Persian word is virinzi which closely resembles vrini, the Sanskrit word for rice.

Linguistic connections are evident also in the term for the slash and burn agriculture used in Sulawesi and East Africa.The word trematrema is used in Northeast Betsimisaraa (Madagascar) to refer to a one to three year old slashed-and-burnt field. It is related to the Swahili word tema, ‘to cut’, and the redoubled form tematema, ‘to slash, to chop'.

Another explanation for common conceptions and roots is the blood-related Afro-Asiatic kingdom builders. They established their territories near major water systems which they used to transport cargo and to collect tariffs on cargo moved through their territories. Their influence can be traced using comparative linguistics and kinship analysis.

In this post we will look at the evidence of common conceptions of purity among the dispersed Afro-Asiatics.

Afro-Asiatic languages include Akkadian, Amharic, ancient Egyptian, Arabic, Aramaic, Assyrian, Babylonian, Berber, Chadic, Cushitic, Ethiopic, Hahm, Hausa, Hebrew, Omotic, Phoenician, and Ugaritic. These languages appear to share a large  number of common roots. Because this is so, linguists are able to compare the languages and draw conclusions about the older “proto” Afro-Asiatic language and dialects spoken before 10,000 years ago.

The terms for ritual purity in Akkadian, Biblical Hebrew, Hittite, Sumerian, and Ugaritic are related to the idea of radiance. (See The Semantics of Purity in the Ancient Near East, p. 5.) The ancient Nilotes also associated purity with the radiance of the sun, the emblem of the Re (which means Father) and his son Horus.

The temple purification rituals of the ancient Near East resemble the Pharaoh's daily ceremonial toilet in preparation for morning prayer. The ruler's lustration came from exposure to the Sun, the emblem of the Most High God and his son.

Likewise, the ancient Egyptian priest was to be purified before entering the temple. 

Herodotus observed that "The Egyptians were the first who made it a point of religion not to lie with women in temples, nor to enter into temples after going away from women without first bathing." (II:64)

The priests of ancient Egypt maintained shrines and temples along the Nile and regarded ritual purity as essential to their ministry. Herodotus observed II:37:

"They are religious excessively beyond all other men, and with regard to this they have customs as follows: they drink from cups of bronze and rinse them out every day, and not some only do this but all: they wear garments of linen always newly washed, and this they make a special point of practice: they circumcise themselves for the sake of cleanliness, preferring to be clean rather than comely. The priests shave themselves all over their body every other day, so that no lice or any other foul thing may come to be upon them when they minister to the gods; and the priests wear garments of linen only and sandals of papyrus, and any other garment they may not take nor other sandals; these wash themselves in cold water twice in the day and twice again in the night; and other religious services they perform (one may almost say) of infinite number."

Likewise, Plutarch noted that the “priests of the Sun at Heliopolis never carry wine into their temples, for they regard it as indecent for those who are devoted to the service of any god to indulge in the drinking of wine whilst they are under the immediate inspection of their Lord and King. The priests of the other deities are not so scrupulous in this respect, for they use it, though sparingly.”

Egyptian priests shaved their bodies and heads before their terms of service in the temples. Korah, Moses' half-brother, was a Horite Hebrew priest. Korah means "shaved head" and according to Numbers 16:17-18, he carried the censor to offer incense to the High God.This suggests that kor and tor may be cognates. There is a suggestion of a very early connection between blood, purity, and holiness.

The Hebrew thr = to be pure, corresponds to the Ancient Egyptian tr = pure, and to the Hausa/Hahm toro = clean, and to the Tamil tiru = holy. All appear to be related to the Proto-Dravidian tor = blood. Among these peoples blood was perceived to have power both to pollute and to purify; to condemn and to justify.


Related reading: Purity Seal From Herod's Temple; 2,400 BC Tomb of a Purification Priest; The Origins of Animal Sacrifice; The Red Heifer; The Priesthood is About the Blood; Blood and Water; The Sun and the Moon in Genesis; Avraham Faust, "Purity and Impurity in Iron Age Israel, Biblical Archaeology Review" (2019)

The Shrine City of Nekhen

Tomb 100 wall painting at Nekhen (Hierakonpolis), discovered by F.W. Green in 1899.

Alice C. Linsley

Attention to the data in Genesis 4-12 reveals a movement of Nilo-Saharan peoples out of Africa over a long period of time. These were cattle-herding peoples whose religious imagery was rich in solar and cattle symbolism. Red cattle were especially sacred to them. Abraham is a descendant of the rulers of these people.

The oldest known temple (c. 5000 BC) to have association with Abraham's ancestors is the predynastic temple at Nekhen. The temple was located on the Nile, making it easier for temple officials to weigh and measure goods and assess tolls on the vessels that docked there.

The temple consisted of a large oval courtyard surrounded by a mud-plastered reed fence. The courtyard was paved with multiple layers of compressed mud. This temple appears to be the pattern for later temples as depicted on seals from the First Dynasty. 

Votive offerings at the Nekhen temple of Horus (c. 3500 BC) were ten times larger than the mace heads and bowls found elsewhere, suggesting that this was a very prestigious shrine. These included decorated mace heads and hard stone bowls. The temple was a large structure, fronted by huge cedar timber pillars, and it was to become the prototype for temple architecture for many millennia.

Horite priests placed invocations to Ra and Horus at the summit of the fortress as the sun rose. In the morning the priests faced the eastern horizon to greet the rising sun, the emblem of Ra and his son. 

Prayers were offered at dawn. This practice continued throughout dynastic Egypt. Moses was told to meet the king early in the morning as he was going down to the Nile to pray.

The primary orientation for the early Horite and Sethite Hebrew was east. The Hebrew word for East is קדם (qedem, Strong’s #6924), from the root word קדם (Q.D.M, Strong’s #6923) meaning "to meet," and the rising sun is "met" each morning in the east.

One of the Chief Inspectors of the Horite priests at Nekhen was Horemkhawef. His tomb has been identified.

Nekhen's sister city was Elkab (Nekheb), on the opposite side of the river. The tomb of Horemkhawef in Nekhen and the tomb of Sobeknakht in Nekheb were painted by the same artist. Further, Hormose, the chief priest of Nekhen, was able to request material goods from the temple at Nekheb for use at the temple at Nekhen. Nekhen and Nekheb were typical twin cities of the ancient world.

A later temple (c.3500 BC) was built within the precincts of the city. The earliest phase of this temple was a circular stone wall surrounding a large mound of sand supported by limestone blocks on which there may have been an Early Dynasty shrine. A number of limestone fragments, likely the footings for large pillars, were found within the stone enclosure wall. The central shrine consisted of three rooms and four 20-foot-high wood pillars. Animals, including cattle, goats, fish and crocodiles, were sacrificed in the oval courtyard.

By this time, Nekhen had a population estimated at 10,000 inhabitants and was the most important settlement along the Nile. The city stretched for over two miles along the edge of the floodplain and was an important shrine city and commercial center. There were stone masons, weavers, potters, and beer brewers. Metal workers crafted sacred objects of gold and copper. The earliest preserved house in Egypt, c.3600 BC. was the house of a potter. It was preserved when he accidentally burned it down while firing a load of pots.

Narmer Palette

Many artifacts of great importance have been found at Nekhen. These include funeral masks, statues, jewelry, beer vats, large flint knives, and the pillared halls characteristic of later Egyptian monuments and temples. Nekhen is where the oldest life-sized human statue was found: a priest from the temple of Horus, c.3000 BC.

Charcoal samples found in the tombs of Nekhen date to the Naqada I and II periods and have been identified as cedar from Lebanon.

In 1898 J.E. Quibell and F.W. Green found the macehead of Scorpion II and the macehead and palette of Narmer at the main deposit of the temple of Horus. Also found at Nekhen were a seated red pottery lion and the great gold plumed falcon representing Horus, the son of Ra. Nekhen was named for Horus of the Falcon: Nekheny.

A 36-foot high funerary (c.2700 B.C.) enclosure of King Khasekhemwy, the father of the first pyramid builder, Djoser, is the oldest freestanding mud brick structure in the world,

The vast majority of hair samples discovered at the Predynastic cemetery site HK43 at Nekhen on the Nile were cynotrichous (Caucasian) as opposed to heliotrichous (Negroid), according to The Nekhen News (p. 7). Samples ranged from a single hair to a complete headful, with the largest number originating from the disturbed Burial no. 16 of a female of around 35+ years of age.

Another fascinating find at Nekhen was the recovery of an almost complete beard in association with the redheaded man in Burial no. 79. The man had long wavy natural red hair and a full beard. This individual may be of the same ethnicity as the red-haired ruler known as Ur-David (shown below) buried in a pyramid in the Tarim Valley of China.

Note the solar mark on the face of this archaic ruler.

Related reading: Report on Excavations at Elkab/Nehheb; Why Nekhen is Anthropologically Significant; The Substance of Abraham's Faith; Boats and Cows of the Proto-Saharans; Nekhen News 1998; The Pillars of God

Dr. Margaret Barker on The Church as the New Temple

Listen to Dr. Margaret Barker's talk on Our Great High Priest: The Church is the New Temple.

I hope that Dr. Barker will explore the Horite temple for the etiology of the tabernacle and of the first Temple.


Related reading:  Margaret Barker, The Temple Roots of the Liturgy; The Origins of Animal Sacrifice; What is a Priest?; Who Was Melchizedek?; The Priesthood and Genesis; God as Male Priest; The Priesthood as Heavenly Ordinance; The Messianic Priesthood of Jesus; The Origins of the Priesthood; More Thoughts on the Priesthood; Why Women Were Never Priests; What's Lost When Women Serve as Priests?; Who Were the Horites?; Deified Rulers; Adam and Enoch: Archetypes of the Deified Ruler