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Egypt Ancient Thebes & its Necropolis continue… August 3, 2008

Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Egypt, Flight Schedule, Memorial, Museum, Restaurant, The Nile, Tour, Trip , trackback

Hawkins crossed the Nile to the necropolis. This complex of mortuary temples and tombs hewn out of the living rock served many periods of ancient Egypt and covers a large area. The whole landscape is dominated by a remarkably regular pyramidical mountain. Atop it are the remains of a prehistoric mound, predating dynastic Egypt. It is difficult for a geomantic researcher not to consider that the shape of this peak was an important factor determining the Egyptians’ initial choice of this area as a major necropolis.

Of the many monuments there are two giant sandstone statues, 60 feet (18m) tall, which the Greeks called the ‘Colossi of Memnon‘. In fact, they are depictions of Amenhotep III. They stand isolated now, but they once flanked the entrance to the king’s mortuary temple. The northernmost figure was famous in GraecoRomano times as an oracle. As the sun rose it issued a sound that was variously described as a musical note, a trumpet blast or a cord snapping.’ This effect manifested in the statue after an earthquake in 27 BC. It is possible so speculate that the sandstone had been giving off ultrasound (high frequency pressure waves such as those used in dog whistles or given off by bats) like the sandstone megaliths of the Roll- right circle where the Dragon Project had picked up apparent ultrasonic signals. Perhaps the earthquake damage had lowered the frequency range into audible sound? However that might be, Septimius Severus had the monument repaired (rather clumsily) around the beginning of the third century AD and the oracular sounds, ‘the voice of Memnon‘, ceased. Lockyer had claimed that the dawn to which the statues were most accurately oriented was, in fact, that at midwinter. Hawkins noted that the mortuary temple that existed behind the Colossi in 1400 BC was also dedicated to Ra-Hor-Akhty. Estimating the axis from the orientation of the statues, Hawkins this time agreed with Lockyer: ‘The temple and the statues pointed in 1400 BC to that “place of combat” of the sun, the turning point on Midwinter’s Day.”

Travel GuidebookThe element of sound turns up in the temple at Karnak as well as at the Colossi of Memnon — but in a different way. Within the complex various obelisks stand or lie fallen. It appears very likely that these features, here and elsewhere in Egypt, were used as great gnomons, like sundials. The edges of the obelisks are very slightly out of square, even though precisely formed. Expert researcher Lucie Lamy considers that this factor, plus the dimensions of the obelisk and the angles of the pyramidion (the pyramid-shaped top) could have given geodetic information — the latitude and longitude where the obelisk was placed. The obelisks were arranged in pairs, one taller than the other, and could have given the astronomer- priests detailed calendrical information and data on the size of the Earth. One of queen Hatshepsut’s (1473-1458 Bc) great granite obelisks at Karnak is still standing, 97 feet (29.6m) tall and weighing 320 tons. Its companion has fallen. John Anthony West has noted that if one put one’s ear next to the pyramidion of this recumbent and broken obelisk and strikes the stone with the heel of the hand, the ‘entire enormous block resonates like a tuning fork’. While accepting that this is probably a fortuitous characteristic of cut granite, he wonders if size and cut of stone for obelisks and certain other features were calculated to produce specific sonic resonances.

Nor is that all. The very materials used for the obelisks, and all the sacred architecture of ancient Egypt, were carefully selected. It most certainly was not a case of using whatever stone was to hand: some materials were shipped hundreds of miles along the Nile. The eminent `alternative’ Egyptologist, R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz, made a deep study of the selective use of stone in ancient Egypt. He pointed out that the choice of the veins running through the stone, of faultless masses for blocks which are often enormous and . . . fragile, certainly implies a profound knowledge of the life of rock. The stones are never taken by attacking the mountain from without, but only in interior masses which have never undergone erosion, and immense caverns hollowed in the mountains by Pharaonic quarrymen can still be seen today.

A stone of key symbolic meaning, and used for the most important and sacred parts of a temple site, was granite (and other stones of igneous origin). Mat was the heiroglyph for granite, de Lubicz observed, and, significantly, this same word ‘determined by a man holding his hand to his mouth’ could also mean ‘dream, discover, imagine, conceive’. It is possible that there were more than symbolic affiliations with granite. We have noted elsewhere that enhanced natural radioactivity, which is one of the properties of granite, may be able to trigger altered states of consciousness in certain people. John Anthony West pointed out with regard to the granite obelisks that their pyramidions were originally plated with electrum (an alloy of gold and silver). He wondered if today’s instruments could have detected energy effects at them when they were in their prime condition.

About 11/4 miles (2km) south of the temple of Karnak is the Temple of Luxor, now surrounded by the modern town. Much smaller than the Karnak complex, it is nevertheless a major site; some consider it the most important in Egypt. It is certainly the most architecturally distinctive. Luxor Temple was dedicated to Amon in his ithyphallic, fertility form. Once a year the cult statue of Amon was carried in its barque in a procession from Karnak to spend time at the Luxor Temple to celebrate his union with Mut. The two temples were linked by a processional way, a few hundred yards of which are still visible today connecting with the northerly entrance of Luxor Temple. This surviving segment of the straight ritual road is lined with small sphinxes sporting the face of Amenhotep III, erected by Nectanebo I in the fourth century BC. Looking along the avenue from the Temple of Luxor end, a mosque can be seen standing on the alignment. Ley hunter Alfred Watkins would have smiled knowingly.

The temple we see today was begun by Amenhotep III in the fourteenth century BC on the site of an older and smaller temple. The reign of Ramesses II saw more major work. But a millenium after this further additions were still being made — a process that went on even into Roman times. The strange feature of Luxor Temple is that it has three different, distinctive axes, and all the building work down the ages respected these lines. Why the temple should have three axial directions remains a mystery, but after years of detailed work on the site with his stepdaughter Lucie Lamy, Schwaller de Lubicz concluded that ‘the figuration of Man’ was ‘the basis of the architecture of this temple‘. In other words, it was the image in sacred architecture of Man the Microcosm. ‘The outline of a human skeleton — traced according to anthropometrical methods and very carefully constructed, bone by bone — was superimposed on the general plan of the temple,’ de Lubicz wrote. The various body parts fell on specific architectural features of the temple: ‘all the proportions of the skeleton may be checked against the actual measurements of the temple.”‘ Some of these correspondences seem to have been quite detailed. John Anthony West notes, for instance, that in the Hypostyle Hall, which corresponds to the position of the lungs in the image presented by Schwaller de Lubicz, there are phases of the moon cut into the bases of the columns there. He points out that in traditional astrology, the lungs come under the influence of the moon. Certainly, the idea of a temple ground plan representing the form of the deity being worshipped is common to many forms of sacred architecture the world over and from many ages, as we have already noted.

So there are many levels of the symbolism apparently subtly expressed in the architecture of this temple, and, indeed, Schwaller de Lubicz discovered a great many more remarkable things about the building.

The Temple of Luxor is an example par excellence of an evolved site. The Romans built

Sunset glow on the Temple of Luxor.

A pagan shrine there. Later, a Christian basilica intruded upon the place. Then, in the thirteenth century AD, as a result of a vision, a mosque was built, dedicated to the great pilgrim to Mecca, Abu el-Haggag. During the annual feast of this saint, determined by the lunar calendar, a boat which is kept in the mosque is dragged in procession around the town. Here is a startling example of the persistence of ancient rites, those being in this case, of course, the procession of Amon’s barque from Karnak to the Temple of Luxor.

Finally, we note that these temples are in a sporadically violent seismic zone. There was the great quake of 27 Bc that damaged the Colossi of Memnon (and toppled the 1000-ton statue of Ramesses II at the Ramesseum), and in 1899 an earthquake caused the collapse of 11 columns in the great Hypostyle Hall in Amon’s temple at Karnak.

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Egypt Ancient Thebes & its Necropolis continue…

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