All  

Store Banner Desktop

Store Banner Mobile

Primaeval Temples Of Egypt: Hidden Gods In The Sand

Primaeval Temples Of Egypt: Hidden Gods In The Sand

Print
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Temples have always fascinated people. Although their structure, design and meaning, are sometimes taken for granted, they seem to be magical religion made manifest. It seems to be one of mankind’s earliest instincts, this construction of a special building, or enclosure for divine encounter. Right back in the mists of time, some of the cave paintings in Lascaux show a glyph that could well be a ritual structure of some kind, it is not an animal, human or otherwise, perhaps it is some enclosure for livestock. There is a theory that it is a four-square ritual space, a sacred building that myth suggests is one of the very first actions mankind’s ancestors undertook after emerging from the oceanic waters of subconsciousness.

Lascaux Caves- depiction of a gateway or maybe a tent (Public Domain)

In The Beginning In Egypt

Your life will be millions of years long and this land will return to the state of Nun, to the floods which were there at the beginning. I shall destroy everything I have created,” reads an ominous Book Of The Dead spell number 175. Naturally, every Egyptian temple had an account of its own creation, some longer and more detailed than others. Such accounts were likely displayed in a logical or prominent place. These narratives were often also accounts of the creation of the world, or rather the recreation of the world, after some ancient cataclysm, such as the famous flood or following an epic battle at the beginning of the current timeline.

Possible illustration of the conflict between Abydos and Nekhen (Hierakonpolis), on the Gebel el-Arak Knife, Louvre Museum (3300–3200 BC) (CC BY-SA 2.0)

The famous Book of Beginnings more commonly known in English as the Biblical book Genesis likely contains a similar foundation account, arguably also from Egypt. As a foundation account, one finds it where logic predicts one to find such things, in the foundation level of the temple, as a long building text, inscribed in stone. All versions seem to come from a great manuscript that was no doubt deposited in every temple library or as some call it ‘Hall of Record’ or more properly, and appropriately, the ‘House of Life’.

No complete copy of this ancient book, thousands of years old, has survived, but its existence and contents can be reconstructed from these extracts preserved on Egypt’s many surviving temples.

READ MORE… 

Like this Preview and want to read on? You can! JOIN US THERE with easy, instant access ) and see what you’re missing!! All Premium articles are available in full, with immediate access.

For the price of a cup of coffee, you get this and all the other great benefits at Ancient Origins Premium. And - each time you support AO Premium, you support independent thought and writing.

Chris Morgan is a respected independent scholar, former Wellcome student, and holder of an advanced degree in Oriental Studies from University of Oxford. He is the author of several books on Egypt, specializing in folk religion, ritual calendars and the “archaeological memory” encoded in the religions of post pharaonic Egypt. He is the author of Demonic Calendar Ancient Egypt

Top Image: An ancient Nekhen tomb painting in plaster with barques, staffs, goddesses, and animals - possibly the earliest example of an Egyptian tomb mural (CC BY-SA 3.0)

By Chris Morgan

 
Chris Morgan's picture

Mogg

Mogg Morgan is a respected independent scholar, former Wellcome student, and holder of an advanced degree in Oriental Studies from University of Oxford.

He is the author of several books on Egypt, specializing in folk religion, ritual calendars and the... Read More

Next article