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They come, the waters of life which are in the sky, They come, the waters of life which are in the earth The sky is aflame for you, the earth trembles for you, before the divine birth [of Osiris-Nile]. The two mountains are split apart. The god comes into being, the god has power in his body... The month is born, the fields live, (Pyramid Texts, 2063.)
Egyptian religion can be summarized with this cliche: "As above, so beneath." Egypt new that all life came from the Creator in the Heavens and this life was manifested in the same pattern in Egypt. Egypt was the carbon-copy of Heaven. Let us explain.
The ancient Egyptians interpreted every occurrence in terms of the relationship between natural and supernatural forces. Those phenomena that figured prominently in their lives included:
The ancient Egyptians developed a world view in which these and other events and conditions were attributed to the actions of multiple, related gods and goddesses.
Egypt, the nation, is the work of the Nile. First it hollowed out its bed in the immense plateau of desert limestone and sandstone. Then, during the course of thousands of years, it deposited its alluvium at the bottom of the narrow valley, forming the arable ground. It was on the Nile, and on the amplitude of its annual flood, that the entire life of ancient Egypt depended; for rain is very rare. Egypt can look like a lush oasis if the Nile flood comes "in its day", or else a country made desolate by famine if the river fails to rise or if its rising is insufficient. What I say next is critical to further understanding of this website: the Nile's behavior throughout the year was carefully studied and the celestial signs accompanying its annual flood and receding were minutely observed and recorded. These observations of the Nile were at the same time associated with observations of the Heavens, constellations, and stars and these observations were associated and related to the Nile's flooding and receding throughout the year. From this comes the myth which reveals Egypt's understanding of the Divine Revelation of God in the Heavens, in the Earth, and in mankind as well. This is the heart of Egyptian Religion: the message of God which is the same spoken by Him in the Heavens above, the Earth below, and in human body as well.
Egypt is the image of the skies, where the divine beings sail the "waters on high"; and so the Nile has a heavenly as well as an earthly source. Its flood transforms Egypt into a vast sea, likened to the primordial ocean, the Nun. The Nile is thus an integral part of myth. Its periodic rise and fall are associated with the allegory and myth of Osiris, which teaches us divine principle of perpetual return, death and rebirth, as symbolized by the annual cycle of vegetation that accompanies the rise of the Nile and its recession.
The ancient Egyptians were a religious people. Two of the earliest religious cults were sun and nature. As an agricultural society, they depended upon the cyclical nature of the Nile floods to replenish the lands with fertile topsoil and they depended upon the sun to help produce a bountiful harvest. Witnessing the natural processes of the earth likely influenced their beliefs in the afterlife. Kamil explains,
“The sun and the river, which together formed the dominating cause of existence, made a profound impression on the people. They were two natural forces with both creative and destructive power. For the life-giving rays of the sun that caused the crop to grow could also cause it to shrivel and die. And the river that invigorated the soil with its life-giving silt could destroy whatever lay in its path or, if it failed to rise sufficiently, bring famine. The sun and the river, moreover, shared in the pattern of death and rebirth: the sun ‘died’ when it sank on the western horizon only to be ‘reborn’ in the eastern sky the following morning. And the ‘death’ of the land followed by the germination or ‘rebirth’ of the crops each year were directly connected with the river’s annual flood. Rebirth was, therefore a central feature of the Egyptian scene. It was seen as a natural sequence to death and undoubtedly lay at the root of the ancient Egyptian conviction of life after death. Like the sun and the crops, man, they felt assured, would rise again to live a second life.”
Such religious beliefs pervaded society. Egyptians often buried their dead on the West bank of the Nile River presumably due to their belief that the underworld was located in the west where the sun died each day. Relatives of the dead often buried miniature boats in their tombs to transport the soul in the afterlife. Like many other tomb artifacts, these were often marked with symbols of the sun God Re.
Now we can understand how the ancient Egyptian religion was centered in the belief of an afterlife. The Nile played a role in this belief by symbolizing life and afterlife. As mentioned above all tombs and burial places of the Ancient Egyptians, including pyramids, are located on the West Bank of the Nile River (Egyptian State Information Service, Ancient Religion). Many historians believe this is because the Egyptians knew that the Sun rose in the East, supposedly symbolizing birth, and set in the West, symbolizing death. Because of this, all Ancient Egyptians are buried on the West Bank of the Nile, and the West Bank of the Nile became a symbol of the connection of life on earth and the afterlife.
This is how the Nile played a significant role not only in the basic beliefs of Ancient Egyptian religion, but also in their belief in the afterlife.
Ancient travellers to Egypt were told by the priests that the source
of the Nile was at the first cataract, at Bigah or Elephantine, where the
river surged forth from the Calf (or Lower Leg) of Osiris, the divine
relic
preserved here. But as it is well known that the banks of the Nile upstream
from Elephantine are dotted with ancient Egyptian temples, it is
obvious that the source was known to be much further beyond, to the south.
O Osir! The inundation is coming; abundance rushes in, The flood-season is coming, arising from the torrent issuing from Osir. (0 King) may Heaven give birth to thee as Orion! (Pyramid Texts 1944, 2113-2117.)
The Pyramid Texts tell us that Osiris, son of Nut, the Sky, and Geb, the Earth, inherited his father's throne, but was overthrown by his brother Seth, principle of discord. Plutarch transmits the whole legend as follows:
In the very distant past, after having completely organized and civilized the land of Egypt, Osiris confided the care and governing of the country to Isis, his sister, and left for the south in order to teach agriculture, the laws of harmony, and the ways of worshipping the divine powers, to the still savage peoples of those regions.
When, after a long absence, Osiris returned to Egypt, Seth and his seventy-two accomplices trapped him in an ambush. They enclosed him in a coffin made to fit his dimensions and they threw it into one of the arms of the Nile. It was carried out to sea and floated northward until the waves washed it ashore at Byblos in Lebanon. A magnificent tree grew up around the coffin, and the king of that country, when he heard of this marvel, had the tree cut down to make a column in his palace.
Isis, meanwhile, having heard from the whispers of the winds what had become of Osiris, set out in search for him. Arriving one day at Byblos, and transformed into a swallow, she flew around and around the column. Finally she succeeded in bringing the sarcophagus back to Egypt, where she hid it in a remote part of the Delta. But one night when Seth was hunting by the full moon he discovered it, seized the body of Osiris, cut it into fourteen pieces and scattered them all over the country.
So Isis, aided by her sister Nepthys, set out in quest of the parts of Osiris' body. As she found each part, she buried it in the place where it had come to rest, as a sacred relic. Thus, the head was preserved in a reliquary at Abydos, an ear was to be found at Sais in the Delta, and the left lower leg, the Calf of Osiris, on the Isle of Bigah where, as the legend says, the sources of the Nile spring forth.
A bas-relief in the temple adjoining the Nilometer on the nearby island of Philae shows the sources of the Nile symbolically. A serpent's body outlines a cave in some rocks, within which Hapy, the personification of the Nile, pours water from the two vases he holds in his hands. One cannot help but be struck by the coincidence that the zodiacal sign of Aquarius (the Waterbearer) is symbolized by the vase, and that the lower leg, which is the part of the body assigned to its influence in astrology, is enshrined as the local relic.
According to Plutarch, the Egyptians saw the Nile was the personification of the outflow of Osiris (his seed) fertilizing the earth as the body of Isis (ovum/womb). Thus, in becoming intermixed with the soil, the Nile-Osiris fecundates the Earth-Isis (we have the beginning of life). The most enlightened among the priests, he says, specify that Osiris is the principle of all that which is humid, the power and cause of all generation, the substance of every seed, the definitive symbol of all death and rebirth. Inversely, the opposite of life is death and this is personified in the Osiris myth as Seth-Typhon (personification of opposition/death); the principle of all that which burns, consumes. He has red hair, for example, for he represents the desert rocks, arid and sterile.
According to the Osiris myth Osiris murdered by his brother. The ambush laid by Seth-Typhon for Osiris, continues Plutarch, represents the intensity of dryness which evaporates the Nile's waters and narrows them to the riverbed. The presence among Seth's accomplices of the Ethiopian queen Aso represents the burning south winds which indeed blow during the months preceding the flood. Likewise the smothering of Osiris in his coffin represents the low water-mark which, in Egypt, is exceptionally important. The flood itself symbolizes Osiris's annual resurrection.
In the Temple of Philae the inundation of the Nile is pictured in a bas-relief in which the Nile, described as "Hapy, Father of the Neterw" (divine entities/attributes of the One True God), again with two streams of water, moistens a basin in which plants are growing. In this capacity the Nile is like God...the Life Bringer! In this basin stands "the soul of Osiris", the human-headed Benu bird, the phoenix, itself a symbol of the Nile flood and of the incessant cycles of rebirth. Next to this scene "Horus, Son of Isis" holds a triple palm, sign of the new year which begins with the inundation, and three vases from which flows a stream of ankh symbols or "keys of life", flanked by two streams of water. Horus has assumed for this occasion the ibis head, characteristic of Thoth, Master of Time, whose name belongs to the first month of the year. Horus makes libation "to his father Sokar-Osiris", who is followed by his two sisters, Isis and Nepthys.
According to a tradition transmitted by the Coptic calendar still in use during the last century, the Nile's flood was announced during the "Night of the Drop" at which time a "tear of Isis, coming from Heaven, falls in the river, causing it to swell". Plutarch writes that the souls of the divine entities shine in the stars: "Sirius is the one consecrated to Isis, for it brings the water." Similarly, the constellation of Orion, which appears just before the Dog Star (Sirius), is assigned to Osiris.
Such legends as these, based on actual facts, reflect the unique nature of the Nile: 6700 kilometres (over 4000 miles) long, a sixth of the earth's circumference, and capable at its flood of providing a massive flow of water, sixty times greater than its normal volume, after covering a stretch of more than 1000 kilometres (over 600 miles) without a single tributary. Throughout history it has incited admiration by the breadth and contemplative majesty of its flow, and curiosity by its exceptional rhythm. Contrary to other rivers, the Nile begins its annual swelling in the hottest time of the year, at the beginning of the Dog Days, at the beginning of the year, that is, at the moment when Sirius rises at the same time as the sun, a date which during the third millennium BC coincided with the summer solstice.
This coincidence between the heliacal rising of Sirius and the beginning of the inundation marked, from the earliest moments of Pharaonic history, the beginning of the year, as is witnessed by this small ivory tablet which belonged to the second king of the First Dynasty. The helical rising of a star is when a star or planet rises at the same time as the Sun. More commonly it refers to the date when the star or planet first becomes visible in the dawn sky. The ancient Egyptians looked for the annual heliacal rising of the star Sirius as the signal that the Nile river was about to flood its banks.
On this ivory tablet mentioned above is inscribed, "Sirius, Opener of the year, Inundation,". Isis-Sirius is represented by a cow wearing the symbol of the year between its horns; this same symbol is found employed again three thousand years later in the famous circular zodiac at Dendera.
Given the accurate correspondences between the myth and the Nile's actual behavior, one naturally begins to suspect that the priests really knew more about its sources than their continued insistence on the Bigah story would suggest. We will find throughout the religion of Egypt the interrelationships between the Nile, the Sun, the stars and constellations as related to birth, life, death, and resurrection (rebirth). Egypt saw this message of creation, life, existence, and destruction of life only to be reborn not only in the Heavens but Nature and Mankind as well. From this cycle and pattern exhibited by God developed an extensive mythology explaining such a Divine Message. Some look at Egypt and their understanding of the simple Revelation from God seen in the Heavens and Nature and see only paganism and polytheism. Others who look more closely see the Ethical Monotheism of Egyptian religion which later becomes the source for the three world's great religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
In a hymn to "The Lord of Eternity" we read,
0 sole God who hast no equal, Thou hast created them according to thy heart...The mountainous countries, Syria, Sudan-Ethiopia And the plain of Egypt...
Thou createst the Nile in the Dwat [Beyond] and bringest it forth at thy pleasure to give life to the people. Thou makest every nation live, however distant it may be. Thou hast set a Nile in Heaven which descends for them and makes currents of water on the mountains like the great green (sea), watering their fields in their settlements.
How excellent are thy ways, 0 Lord of Eternity! A Nile in Heaven is the gift that thou hast made to the foreign countries, and to all the beasts of the mountain which walk upon foot, just like the Nile which comes from the Dwat for the Beloved Land [of Egypt]. (N. de G. Davis, The Rock Tombs of El Amarna, VI.)
We shall see in our further study just how the Nile river interrelates with the Egyptian's understanding of God, the Sun and stars, and eventually in the religious doctrines that come from this understanding which later become the foundation for many of the Judeo-Christian religious beliefs we have today.
Let us continue.