Motivation

Parapsychology prompts philosophy to reconsider the importance of magic and the magical. Egyptology must bear the exercise too, for we know that in Ancient Egypt magic ("heka") was the cornerstone of all major & minor state cults as well as being crucial in the personal piety of the commoner.

"The evidence for Extra Sensoric Perception (ESP) and Psychokinesis (PK) -and I have presented only brief summaries of a few examples of it- seems to be adequate. Serious attention to the evidence should be convincing to all except those who are irreversibly committed to the worldview of materialism and sensationalism, according to which ESP and PK are impossible in principle."
Griffin, D.R. : Parapsychology, Philosophy and Spirituality : a Postmodern Exploration, State University of New York Press - New York, 1997, p.89.

The egyptologist Jacq wrote :

"Un égyptologue qui ne croit pas à la religion égyptienne, qui ne partage pas une sympathie totale avec la civilisation qu'il étudie, ne saurait, à notre avis, qui prononcer des paroles desséchées. L'intellectualisme, si brillant soit-il, n'a jamais remplacé le sentiment vécu, même dans une discipline scientifique."
Jacq, 1983, p.7, my italics.

The fact that "remote viewing" (the ability to access and provide accurate information through psychic means, about a person, place, object or event, that is inaccessible through any normally accepted means, regardless of distance, shielding or time) actually exists, begs the question 'How' ? Instead of focusing on the objective (like a physical theory allowing for these unexplainable events - cf. "actio-in-distans"), contemporary magical theory tends to view magic as the result of a particular magical state of consciousness accompanied by corresponding actions and external forms. The latter are necessary, for the magician wants to direct the process of the physical world.

"La magie égyptienne est une vision du monde qui éclaire des zones à la fois lumineuses et obscures de l'âme humaine. Bien avant la psychanalyse, elle a été une voie de recherche féconde pour la connaissance de l'ultime réalité qui est en nous. Elle a également servi à manipuler, non sans danger, une énergie psychique que la science la plus rationnelle commence à redécouvrir, à tâtons et avec un certain étonnement."
Jacq, Ch. : Ibidem, p.35, my italics.

Introduction

In this paper, I try to understand how Ancient Egyptian thought arrived at its proto-rational stage. Such an understanding can not deny that magical features prevailed in the earliest stage of their cognitive growth (pre-logical or mythical thought). However, in Ancient Egypt, magic is particularly "mental" and it continued to play a dominant role in the next stages of cognitive development. As magical rituals and techniques as such are of no interest here, I will not present a comprehensive list of magical activities (as has been done by others). Instead, I will try to focus on the "mental" core of Egyptian magic itself.

A life lived according to truth & justice (cf. "Maat") and the ceremonial release at death of the subtle foci of consciousness and their co-relative bodies (cf. my paper on the Ba) out of the "net" of the physical plane  were the two major goals of the Ancient Egyptian. The former guaranteed that one would exist as a happy human being on earth, the latter that one would put off one's humanity at death and continue to exist as a deity in the afterlife, while having access to the physical plane via the mummy. Both goals were related, for if one had been unjust on earth, no deification could be expected and total annihilation would ensue (to the name of the justified deceased, the epithet "just of voice" was added, i.e. his or her heart had never conceived unjust words and hence only truth had been uttered). 

To realize these goals, the Egyptians placed their trust in the power of speech, or the ability to create by uttering the proper words (creative utterance or "hu") insightfully conceived beforehand in the mind ("ab" or heart). In the Memphis Theology, this power of creation through the word is cosmogonic and associated with Ptah, but we find the independent concept as early as the Pyramid Texts. In fact, without "words of power", there would be no Egyptian magic, rituals or ceremonialism. It is true that all kinds of actions accompanied this use of words, but the deities would never send their doubles ("kau") souls ("bau") & power ("sekhem") if the priests did not know what to say. The magical actions were important, but absolutely impotent without the words necessary to empower them. Moreover, to assume the form of the deities needed, precise recitation was deemed necessary. Hence, Egyptian magic makes ample use of the auditive faculty (hearing the words of justice and -if silence is not indicated- speaking the words of power). Besides uttering these words of power, the auditive was also stimulated and underscored by using analogical languages like body language, music and art to give magical rituals their full suggestive effectiveness.

Instead of understanding magic as a tool to change objective circumstances directly, I suggest (based on the evidence from the earliest sources) that magic is a technology aimed at altering the magician's state of consciousness in such a way that he or she has access to psychic abilities which do not only allow for telepathy and telekinesis, but which make it also possible to influence the collective unconscious in such a way that out of it particular, collective events may emerge & crystalize. Compare this with the effects of strong suggestions during a deep state of hypnosis, but then on a collective scale. Direct suggestion of this kind is like the empowering effect some charismatic leaders have on crowds. 

In Ancient Egypt, Pharaoh and his Residence provided for the continuous presence of a power said to have derived from "the gods" (Pharaoh as son of Re). In the Old Kingdom, he alone was the real center of the divine on earth, for the spirits and souls of the deities existed in the sky. These gods & goddesses could allow their "kau" and "bau" to accept the invitation spoken and enacted by the priests. In these ceremonial performances, only the deities spoke, listened & moved. The priests (brought into trance through the ongoing litanies ?), enacted complex mystery plays, divine interactions and events between the deities. The priests identified themselves as much as possible with the pantheon. 

The initiatic as well as the funerary rituals make use of this magical technique called "the assumption of godforms", i.e. the total, personalized identification of a single priestly mind with a pure archetype, i.e. a conscious, symbolical (albeit proto-rational) approximation of a natural forca & a cultural form. Ergo, it is possible to view the Egyptian deities as forms or symbolizations of natural processes leading to a complex syncretism in harmony with the fundamental unity of the "first time" in which all the deities were (and continuously are) (re)created, (re)generated and (re)juvenated. The epistemic status of these godforms are not rational but proto-rational. They are the archetypes of the collective unconscious of the Ancient Egyptian, i.e. forms & symbolizations reflecting a collective understanding of certain processes of nature & culture.

"The Egyptians were the first to practice a Jungian psychology of archetypes and to recognize the fundamental restorative power of the unconscious. They realized that in sleep and dreams, one experiences these depths as a psychic reality in which one may encounter gods and the deceased alike."
Hornung, 1992, p.95.

In order to understand proto-rationality, we need an objective standard to measure these stages of cognitive growth. In my Naar een Stuurkundige Antropologie (1993) I already developed an eclectical model on cognitive development. It was based on the work of Piaget, Kohlberg, the neo-Freudian school and Maslow.

Once the role of magic in the proto-rationality of the Ancient Egyptians has been understood, it may be possible to contrast this knowledge with Greek philosophy, especially with the thought of those Greeks who visited Egypt and studied there. It may become clear then, that many of the themes developed by Greek philosophy did not arise "ex nihilo".

In a later stage, these comparisons will be helpful to clarify the relationships (resemblances and differences) between Ancient Egyptian civilization and the Semitical cultures of the Jews and the Arabs, both influenced by Ancient Greece.

1.The genesis & growth of cognition.

This chapter provides information enabling one to understand "ante-rationality", so that "instinct" may be distinguished from "intuition". To arrive at this, the genesis & growth of cognition will be investigated. Two barriers are discovered : between reason and its ante-rational foundation, the early layers of cognitive activity (mythical, pre-rational and proto-rational thought) and between reason and its intellect, the post-formal layers of cognition related to intuition, creativity, inventivity, gnosis & the direct experience of the Divine (mysticism). I argue for an integrated rationality able to make use of these barriers when necessary.

1.1 The origin of cognition : in the beginning was the action.

In his Le Structuralisme, Piaget defines his pivotal notion of "structure" as a system of transformations which abides by certain laws and which sustains or enriches itself by a play of these transformations, which occur without the use of external factors. This auto-structuration of a complete whole is defined as "auto-regulation". In the individual, the latter is established by biological rhythms, biological & mental regulations and mental operations. These can be theoretically formalized.

Piaget refuses to accept that "real" dialectical tensions between physical objects are the true foundations of thought and cognition (its possibility, genesis & progressive development). Piaget never fills in what reality is. He maintains no ontological view on reality-as-such, considered to be the borderline of both the developing subject and its objective world, stage after stage.

The cognitive is approached as a process, for rationality grows in developmental stages, each calling for a particular cognitive structure on the side of the subject. What reality is, is left open. Why ? Every objective observation implies an observer bound by the limitations of a given stage of cognitive development, i.e. a subjective epistemic form, containing ideosyncratic, opportunistic and particularized information.

Neither did Piaget choose for a strictly transcendental approach. Conditions which exist before cognition itself (like in Foucault) are not introduced. What Popper called the "problem-solving" ability of man, can be associated with Piaget's notion on "re-equilibration". Popper introduced the triad : problem, theory & falsification. In anthropology and psychology Piaget introduced : activity, regulation & re-equilibration (auto-regulation).

Living substances begin their existence with action. This is rooted in biological processes. Action implies the formation of cognitive structures which -at first- are exteriorized in coordinated external movements. After repeated actions, interiorization, permanency, invariant principles and imagination allow for the emergence of internal cognitive structures.

So the following sequence appears : 

• external actions (system) & reactions (environment) ;

• interiorization and permanency ;

• internal cognitive structures and auto-regulation ;

• novel external actions.

 1.2 Summary of the findings of Piaget.

In Piaget's theory on cognitive development, two general functional principles are postulated : organization & adaptation. 

The former implies the tendency common to all forms of life to integrate structures (physical & psychological) into systems of a higher order. The latter (to be divided in assimilation & accommodation) shows how the individual not only modifies cognitive structures in reaction to demands (external) but also uses his own structures to incorporate elements of the environment (internal). Organisms tend toward equilibrium with the environment. Centration, decentration (crisis) & re-equilibration are the fundamental processes forcing the cognitive texture of humans to become more complex.

Mental operators are the result of the interiorization of this cognitive evolution. An original, archaic sense of identity is shaped. After prolonged exposure to new types of action -challenging the established original centration and its equilibrium- a crisis ensues and decentration is the outcome. A higher-order equilibrium is found through auto-regulation (re-equilibration).

In this way, several strands, levels, layers or planes of cognitive texture unfold. The process can be analysed as follows :

1. repeated confrontation with a new kind of action ;

2. action-reflection or the interiorization of this novel action by means of semiotic factors ; this is the first level of permanency or pre-concepts which have no decontextualized use ;

3. anticipation & retro-action using these pre-concepts, valid insofar as they symbolize the original action but always with reference to context ;

4. final level of permanency : formal concepts, valid independent of the original action and context & the formation of permanent cognitive (mental) operators.

Mental operators identify (symbolize) actions in sets, strands, layers of conscious, informational & material activity. In this way, Piaget defined four layers of cognitive growth :

1. sensori-motoric cognition, between birth and 2 years of age ;

2. pre-operational cognition, between 2 and 6 ;

3. concrete operatoric cognition, between 7 and 10 ;

4. formal-operatoric cognition, between 10 & 13.

1.3 An eclectical model on cognitive growth & the historico-psychological paradigm.

The work of Piaget, the findings of neo-Freudian theory (Lemay), Kohlberg's research on moral development & some major theories on post-formal cognitive growth (Maslow, Tart, Wilber) yield a genetico-cognitive model which integrates the three main perspectives on the living human being, namely the cognitive (Piaget, Kohlberg), the socio-affective (Freud and his school) and the moral (Maslow and transpersonal psychology). These explain the stability, continuity and architecture of a system of cognitive relationships, structures & operators.

This part of the model is "vertical", in the sense that it explains how cognitive structures stand erect. Complementary to this is the approach of Prigogine, who investigated the horizontal, dynamical features, found to be irreversible (cf. infra).

Each phase is characterized by matter (pragmatics) and the complexification of its biological operations, by information (syntax) or the synthetical symbolizations of these operations, and by consciousness (semantics) summarizing the meanings & intentions which occur as a result of the activities of a living substance (casu quo the body).

These findings can be expanded in three ways. Firstly, the Piagetian model did not only prove valid in the psycho-cognitive realm, but can also be used as a tool to understand the evolution of cultural forms and the crisis undergone by societies & civilizations (understood as living systems - cf. the historico-psychological paradigm). Secondly, the stages encountered in the cognitive growth of individuals correspond with the development of cognition in the human species as a whole (from mythical to rational thought and beyond - cf. Jaynes, 1976). Thirdly, stages beyond the formal stage of cognitive growth can and will not be a priori excluded.

The historico-psychological paradigm used in my hermeneutical studies is a synthesis of Piaget's genetical epistemology and the historical approach of civilization, seeking the general mental form or forms underscoring the economical, socio-political, scientific, artistic, spiritual and symbolical (codified, written) expressions of a given civilization in general and its overall, common cognitive structure (or cultural form) in particular (cf. Jaynes, 1976). Its main principles are :

1. thought originates from action, i.e. coordinated movements. This coordination is a "form" which is : (a) executed by the biological organism at hand, i.e. its matter, (b) explained through the interactions with its environment or information and (c) given meaning by the unique identity or consciousness typical for each member of a species ;

2. thought is based on an indirect, functional contact with the physical world, i.e. thought is always mediated, by a third term (whereas fysiological processes are direct) ;

3. thought is a finite process which is an integrated part of a particular living organism but simultaneously thought is also the extension with which consciousness may touch the universal, unconditional, infinite & absolute ; 

4. the development of thought depends on the successive improvements of the variety of its abstract forms of equilibration, which is a historical process ;

5. the construction of more stable cognitive forms becomes necessary to resolve the contradictions which characterize the previous stage, and so they are regulations of  regulations, etc.

6. to explain the historical development of these equilibrations both individual as social factors are to be taken into consideration. Society is a system of activities based on actions which influence each other reciprocally ;

7. the rise and development of a cultural form, especially its cognitive features, is understood as a collective, historical equilibration on a higher, more stable level of civilization which allows for the construction of new inner operators (actional, affective, cognitive, intuitional) and novel outer behavior (as families, societies, cultures & civilizations), eliminating those tensions which disrupted the development of civilization in an earlier stage of its cultural development.

To complete this model, we need to consider non-equilibrium dynamics or the notion of irreversible process as developed by Prigogine in the context of his study of complex, open, communicative & energy-consuming wholes, i.e. dissipative systems or organizations. 

In his famous book, La Nouvelle Alliance, Prigogine poses the question how highly intelligent systems escape the constant chaotic movements which surrounds them ? Indeed, Piaget (psychology) focused on the forms of equilibrium which characterize the relative stability of a given stage of cognitive development. These forms represent order, structure or architecture (stability, conservation, repetition). Prigogine (physics), aware of the entropic qualities of physical systems with complex trajectories (initial position + dynamical process), emphasized the chaotic dynamics of the environment and is therefore impressed by the architecture of order evidenced by complex systems. The fact that crisis (decentration) is necessary to trigger re-equilibration, as well as the observation that crisis is initiated by interacting with the environment, were put into evidence by Piaget and are confirmed by the analysis of complex trajectories by Prigogine (cf. Chaos).

Both positions are complementary, and focus on a different functional horizon of complex systems. Prigogine studies the horizontal, dynamical characteristics of a system, the fact that they constantly reorganize to survive the entropic decay around them. Piaget investigates the vertical, static architecture of a system, the fact that it has a strong backbone which is the result of many years of evolution and uncountable trials & errors.  

Both acknowledge that systems go through crisis and define auto-regulation (Piaget) and auto-structuration (Prigogine) as explicative for the continuous reorganization (permanent reformation) to which highly intelligent systems submit themselves, especially when the number of interaction with the environment is large (increasing the arrival of new input). Because fluctuations rise, more interactions increase the chance of crisis and trigger crisis (decentration). Only crisis will increase the survival-needs of a system and trigger auto-structuration which can be measured as :

• a decrease of entropy or negative entropy (i.e. negentropy in a galacy largely composed out of entropic matter). Complex life is a refutation of the "black box"-model, the "closed systems"-theories and the "stimulus-reflex"-thinking ;

• a more comprehensive database which allows for more information to be stored, assimilated and made to work to solve problems ;

• a more coherent field of consciousness, able to attribute meaning to the objects which are part of it.

"Le calcul montre que plus un système est complexe, plus sont élevées les chances que, pour tout état, certaines fluctuations soient dangereuses. (...) Il est probable que dans les systèmes très complexes, où les espèces ou les individus interagissent de manière très diversifiée, la diffusion, la communication entre tous les points du système est également très rapide. (...) Ainsi, ce serait la rapidité de communication que déterminerait la complexité maximale que peut atteindre l'organisation d'un système sans devenir trop instable."
Prigogine, I. & Stengers, I. : La Nouvelle Alliance, Gallimard - Paris, 1979, p.178, my italics.

A swift communication indeed increases fluctuations, but the latter do not destroy the system because a critical balance has been realized.

"La taille critique est donc déterminée par une compétition entre le 'pouvoir d'intégration' du système et les méchanismes chimique qui amplifient la fluctuation à l'intérieur de la sousrégion fluctuante."
Prigogine, I. & Stengers, I. : Ibidem, p.178.

Hence, auto-regulation through the dynamics of conflict, implies both external (environment) and internal (power of integration) changes. The latter, vertical aspect of a system, defies entropy as long as it can and this with an exemplary tenacity. But if no power of integration is operative or if it is not strong enough compared with the fluctuations at hand, then an increase of chaos is the most likely outcome. This reduces the existing heterogeneity and variety to a more standardized and uniform format. It makes the system withdraw and collapse. For this reduced system avoids communication and hence fossilizes out of the lack of new input and the absence of auto-regulation.

1.4 The early stages specified : mythical, pre-rational & proto-rational.

When investigating ancient cultures in general and Egyptian civilization in particular, the first three layers of cognitive growth are essential. 

Let me list their specifics :

MYTHICAL or PRE-LOGICAL THOUGHT :

First substage :

1. adualism and only a virtual consciousness of identity ;

2. primitive action testifies that a quasi complete indifferentiation exists between the subjective and the objective ;

3. actions are quasi not coordinated, i.e. random movements are frequent.

Second substage :

1. first decentration of actions with regard to their material origin (the physical body) ;

2. first objectification by a subject experiencing itself for the first time as the source of actions ;

3. objectification of actions and the experience of spatiality ;

4. objects are linked because of the growing coordination of actual actions ;

5. links between actions in means/goals schemes, allowing the subject to experience itself as the source of action (initiative), moving beyond the dependence between the external object and the acting body ;

6. spatial & temporal permanency and causal relationships are observed ;

7. differentiation (between object and subject) leads to logico-mathematical structures, whereas the distinction between actions related to the subject and those related to the external objects becomes the startingpoint of causal relationships ;

8. the putting together of schematics derived from external objects or from the forms of actions which have been applied to external objects.

Conclusion :

Proto-rationality is always limited by a given context. Moreover, there is no reflection upon the conditions of subjectivity (just as in the pre-rational stage objects remained psychomorph). This contextualization leaves in place uncoordinated actions and concepts which are the expression of many serious & fundamental contradictions.

The formal operations leave these contextual entanglements behind, and give a universal, a-temporal embedding to the cognitive process. Cognition is liberated from the immediate events and able to conceptualize logical & mathematical truths (deduction) as well as physical causalities in abstract terms, without any consideration for their actual occurence, if any (as in an inner thought-experiment). Thought is able to combine propositions. Self-reflection happens and the internal, transcendental conditions of the cognitive apparatus are discovered (cf. Rules, Prolegomena & Knowledge).

1.5 The importance of an integrated rationality.

Firstly, an integrated rationality knows how to use the mythical, pre-rational and proto-rational layers of cognitive development in affective, non-verbal, analogical and contextual happenings. This is reason in harmony with instinct. Secondly, in its own domain, the production of empirico-formal propositions, reason works in harmony with a set of normative rules governing the "game" of "true knowing" or production of knowledge that works. This is reason in harmony with the completion of itself. Thirdly, a multi-dimensional rationality (cf. Marcuse, Maslow, Wilber) explores the meta-formal, creative and inventive operators, i.e. seeks to understand intellectual "perception" ("gnosis", "intuition") as a higher ("intellectual") complement of reason. This is reason in harmony with intuition. Only when pre-nominal, nominal and meta-nominal thought is allowed to exist in the logical space of a possible cognition (cf. transcendental logic), may a comprehensive picture on the extensive potential of cognition ensue.

1.6 The place of schema-theory.

The last three decades has seen the rise of schema theory across the fields of linguistics, anthropology, psychology and artificial intelligence. Human cognition utilizes structures even more complex than prototypes called "frame", "scene", "scenario", "script" or "schema". In cognitive sciences and in ethnoscience they are used as a model for classification and generative grammar. The schema is primarily a set of relationships, some of which amounts to a structure, generating pictoral, verbal and behavioral outputs. The elements associate with great flexibility & interchangeability, although connected. For the schema's first attribute is that of being a relation. The schemata are also called mental structures and abstract representations of environmental regularities. Events activate schemata which allow us to comprehend ourselves & the world around us. 

Schema-theory is part of genetic epistemology. The term is used to define a structured set of generalizable characteristics of an action. Repetition, crisis & reformation yield strands of co-relative actions. Ergo, different types of schemata emerge :

• sensori-motoric, mythical thought : aduality implies only one relationship, namely with immediate physicality ; object & subject reflect perfectly ; earliest schemata are restricted to the internal structure of the actions (the coordination) as they exist in the actual moment and differentiate between the actions connecting the subjects and the actions connecting the objects. The action-scheme can not be manipulated by a thought and is triggered when it practically materializes ;

• pre-operatoric, pre-rational thought : object and subject are differentiated and interiorized ; the subject is liberated from its entanglement in the actual situation of the actions ; early psychomorph causality. The subjective is projected upon the objective and the objective is viewed as the mirror of the subjective. The emergence of pre-concepts and pre-conceptual schemata does not allow for permanency and logical control. The beginning of decentration occurs and eventually objectification ensues ... ;

• concrete-operatoric, proto-rational thought : conceptual structures emerge which provide insight in the essential moments of the operational mental construction : (a) constructive generalization ; (b) the ability to understand each step and the total system (1 to 2 to 3 ... and (c) an autoregulation enabling one to run through the system in two ways, causing conservation. The conceptual schemata are "concrete" because they only function in contexts and not yet in formal schemata. 

2. The "Great Word" and divine scripture.

2.1 Brief predynastic chronology

The study of predynastic Egypt started with Petrie in 1895 (sequence dating by ordering ceramics with respect to decoration & manifacture at the sites at Nagada, Abydos and Hu). In 1923, the Badarian culture was discovered (cf. Badari in Upper Egypt). The first major synthesis was that of Kantor in 1944 and 1952. In 1960, Butzler initiated the study of Nile floods and other elements of the palaeoenvironmental record of Egypt. Through the 1970s and into the 1980s, studies by Hassan focused on enviromental reconstruction, subsistence, settlement & demographic investigations. He also investigated the cognitive schema of predynastic peoples through their rock art and the mythogenesis of the early state.

Thousands of years of prehistory left no textual witnesses, but some of its elements did determine the cultural form of Egypt :

• the landscape : life-threatening deserts bounding a narrow cultivable valley, with luxuriant growth, yearly inundated by the water of the Nile with a fertile triangle in the Delta, gaining in size when the sea of the tertiary period sinks ;

• the climate : down through the neolithic period, Egypt had equatorial African features (hot and humid with abundant rainfall). This changed after the Old Kingdom, to become the dry and desert-like climate of today ;

• the people : when the last wet period (ca. 5500 BCE) ended, the Nile valley became attractive for human settlement. Upper Egypt assumed cultural leadership, and Badarian and Naqadan cultures span the fourth millenium.

Evidence suggests that the domestication of cattle and the cultivation of cereals appeared in the Western Desert ca. 5000 BCE Mid-Holocene aridity probably encouraged desert herders and farmers to settle along the banks of the Nile. The following chronology of the cultures of predynastic Egypt may be helpful :

• Neolithic period (so called for the Delta and the Fayum, and "predynastic period" in Upper Egypt) : the interval between the emergence of farming villages on the banks of the Nile and the initiation of the Egyptian nation-state. The earliest evidence of Neolithic communities in the Nile Valley dates between 5000 and 4100 BCE (cf. Merimda Beni Salama). The Badarians (cf. Badari, Upper Egypt) were a farming and herding community. These settlers raised cattle, sheep/goats and pigs. They cultivated barley and wheat and agriculture was supplemented by fishing and fowling. Pottery, glass, copper and glazed staetite were found at some sites. They provided their dead with food and placed female figurines in the graves.

• Middle Predynastic period (ca. 4000 - 3600 BCE) : with Amratian culture (cf. site of el-Amra, Sohag - Naqada I) agriculture inceased, hunting deceased and a marked technological change took place. Pottery not yet diffused from Mesopotamia was created with geometrical and naturalistic designs, unstructured in layout. Concentration and centralization of power in its incipient stages with the formation of a managerial class. Transportation of goods along the Nile. Social status evidences in funerary cults. Religious activity around female deities such as Hathor. Graven images in tombs, head of deceased pointing South, looking West.

• Late Predynastic period (ca. 3600 - 3300 BCE) :  in Gerzean culture (cf. site of el-Gerza, Fayum - Naqada II), fundamantal changes, techniques were improved. Contacts with Mesopotamia. Cult centers and urban centers emerged, associated with chiefdoms, principalities, provincial states and village corporations united into regional kingdoms. Trade continued to flourish and wealth distinctions became more salient. Whole burial treasures. Cow goddess Hathor ;

• Terminal Predynastic period (ca. 3300 - 3000 BCE) : The rise of the Egyptian state was the result of wars and alliances. Over at least 250 years, fragmentation and reunification occurred. In Upper Egypt, there were the kingdoms of Naqada and Hierakonpolis, and in the Delta the petty kingdoms of Buto, Sais, Tell el-Balamoun, etc. The first major power emerged when the two kingdoms of Hierakonpolis (Nekhen) and Naqada united. The kings from Hierakonpolis, later known as the "Followers of Horus" conquered and annexed the kingdom of Naqada (Seth) and later the Delta. 
  
  The culmination of the process of unification led to a single nation state (Narmer Palette). In this period, the nomes are administrative divisions in which authority rested in a local deity (this situation may go back to the Gerzean). These divisions more or less overlap with the territorial boundaries of the historical nomes (a nome was also an agricultural fact, defined in terms of flood basins). In the last decades of the predynastic period, events dating to the beginnings of kingship were already many generations old and without written records. Hence, predynastic Egypt passed into myth. Stone became the preferred material for the eternity of the afterlife. Trade and cultural relationships occasionally interrupted during the late Gerzean period by war ...

A few important predynastic realizations :

• a spoken language ;

• administrative organization of provinces, groups of nomes ;

• chieftains accumulating power and prestige and founding the myth of kingship leading to the unification of Upper Egypt ;

• commercial and artistic activities ;

• the wish to unity the Nile valley into one state (conquering Middle Egypt and the Delta) ;

• a traditional notion of the sacred rooted in the worship of the primeval goddess ;

• oral tradition of mythologies, stories, legends, charms, songs, hymns & funerary rituals assuring the afterlife of the deceased ;

• artistic works in clay and ivory - stone increasingly becoming the preferred material to eternalize the afterlife ;

• Gerzean ware design schemata reveal the lessening importance of the feminine in religion and the concomittant increase in masculine religious principles ;

• the first "mnemonic" symbols and semi-cursive hieroglyphs appear on labels of recipients, suggesting that the first hieratic (the cursive form of hieroglyphs) was predynastic and already in use in everyday life.

As mentioned, the kings from Hierakonpolis (later to be knows as the "Followers of Horus") conquered and annexed the kingdom of Naqada in terminal predynastic times. The deity of Naqada was Seth. The legends of the great conflict between Horus and Seth and the subjugation of the latter by the former as well as that of the "Two Lands" may refer to this unification (of Upper Egypt). The next step involved the annexation of the key nomes of Middle Egypt and the remaining Northern nomes. Finally, consolidation of the rule over the Delta (not necessarily total conquest) encouraged the conquerors to establish a new capital : Memphis. The unification of Egypt was thus completed ca. 3100 - 2950 BCE When the two Kingdoms were newly united, Heliopolis was already important (in the first Dynasties or Thinite period). In the Pyramid Texts (881b) the first kings were identified or compared with "Horus, son of Atum".

The transition to the Dynastic Egyptian State was marked by a new order based on justice and the rule of law instead of on military power. This stabilization of this concept of order by and through Pharaoh, protecting Egypt against the chaotic forces, was the key invention of the early Dynasties and of the Old Kingdom as a whole.

"The incredible amount of quality excavation and survey over the Nile Valley has allowed a very good picture of predynastic material life to emerge. With aid from hieroglyphic writing, early Dynastic religion, and other historical sources, cognitive interpretations must be made using the same artifacts which have been used for only material ends in the past. As mentioned earlier, this is beginning to take place in Egyptian archeology."
Czerwinski, 1995, p.39.

the predynastic, sacred & feminine source of divine kingship

Although agriculture was the decisive economical factor responsible for the rise of Egyptian civilization, other elements played their role. According to Hassan (1992), mythogenetic changes were an essential ingredient in the rise of the state and they were not merely a consequence of economic or political developments. In my opinion, this makes the Egyptian cultural form so exceedingly interesting.

"Ritual and myth provided individuals with a matrix of sacred meaning in which economic, social, and political developments were grounded and reinforced. Similarly, economic and political developments provided a framework for the transformation of ritual and myth along a co-evolutionary course."
Hassan, 1992, p.307.

For Hassan, the ideational aspects involved are the assimilation of the sacred power of female deities by Pharaoh. The power Pharaoh had over others was legitimated by sacred myths that linked him with supernatural forces. In predynastic times, female deities were associated with the sacred domains of birth, death and resurrection, as well as with plants, domestic animals and the cycles of nature. The ritual domain of the gods focussed on hunting and judicature. This composite nature of female deities can be observed in ancient goddesses like Hathor who was polymorphic. In addition to her image of a cow (prominent as goddess of the sky in the Narmer Palette and as Great Mother suggestive of the idea of birth from the womb), she was also a tree-goddess and a goddess of the sky. She was both mother as goddess of the deceased. This complexity must, according to Hassan, be regarded as a manifestation of the primeval goddess who combined many of the functions that later were differentiated and assigned to other deities.

This important sacred role of goddesses is confirmed by the prominent role played by goddesses in the pantheon, the representations of female figures in late predynastic Naqada II iconography, the equal status women enjoyed in this society and the association of women with the sacred domains of existence (birth, fertility, creation, death and resurrection). Moreover, in the Old Kingdom, the mother of the royal heir was his official consort and on the Palermo Stone the name of Pharaoh was directly followed by that of his mother. Neither were the tombs of some of the early queens essentially different from those of Pharaoh, protected during his life by the "Two Ladies", the goddess Nekhbet -a vulture- and Wadjet -a cobra-, both representing Upper and Lower Egypt respectively ...

"You are a son of the Great Wild Cow. She conceives you, she bears you, she puts you within her wing."
Pyramid Texts, utterance 554 (§ 1370).

With this unification and assimilation, all power was centralized in Pharaoh, a "Follower of Horus". This sky god, was represented by a falcon. The Horus name in Pharaoh's titulary, also called banner-name or Ka-name, shows Pharaoh as the earthly embodiment (incarnation) of Horus.

These "Followers of Horus" represented the notion of royal ancestor worship as a legitimization of male power, for all kings were so many incarnations of the same sky-god. Each ruler became part of this upon his death. Divine kingship emerged when legitimate descent was coupled with the image (myth) of divine power, and the acquisition of such power was achieved by assimilating pre-existent goddess cults and their sacred domains.  

"The King is the son of one who is unknown ; she bore the King to him whose face is yellow, Lord of the night skies."
Pyramid Texts, utterance 320 (§§ 515-516).

Pharaoh became the son, brother and husband of the primeval sky-goddess (Hathor) and as such became divine. As these goddesses were identified with nature, they ruled over creation, resurrection, nurture & protection, i.e. the areas of the sacred and the supernatural. This assimilation was not complete, and hence goddesses continued to play their part as mothers, sisters and wives. Marriage with a sister was hence considered a sacred marriage, reaffirming the divinity of Pharaoh.

"The Ennead and the Osirian myths proved to be durable schemata (organizing formats) for the cosmogony of divine kingship. The myths conserve the power of female deities, but at the same time provide a cosmic rationale for the rule of a male king and hereditary succession. The struggle between Seth and Horus and the triumph of Horus, as well as the judgement of the gods in favor of Horus, established the rule of Law (Ma'at) and resolves the potential conflicts between clans over kingship and succession."
Hassan, F.A. : Art.cit., p.319, my italics.

The deities in their chapels represented the temples of Egypt, for Pharaoh was the ultimate high priest, thanks to whom the deities dwelled in their statues by sending their doubles and souls (cf. my paper on the "Ba"). 

"Be not unaware of me, O god ; if you know me, I will know you."
Pyramid Texts, utterance 262 (§ 327)..

Each of the statues had thus been made alife by the "Opening of the Mouth" ritual and in the Heb-Sed court they were not alone (as they were in their respective places of worship) but they were together with the doubles and souls of the rest of the pantheon, gathered around Pharaoh who metaphorically "flew above" them as a bird.

Although Pharaoh, to become a divine king, had assimilated the sacred power of the primeval goddess, he was not yet a god himself (as Pharaoh). In the first Dynasties, Pharaoh represented divine kingship which guaranteed the solid theocratic unity of the "Two Lands". The king was a "Follower of Horus" and his power was legitimized by the notion of royal ancestor worship. His divinity was not yet based on any filial relationship (Pharaoh was not called "son of Horus") but on the sacrality he assimilated from the primeval sky-goddess allowing him to soar into the sky like a falcon, acting as sole overseer of the "Two Lands" ...

Between the IIth and the IVth Dynasties, Re gradually surpassed Horus in importance. Re became the active power in the world, a position previously exclusively held by Horus (i.e. the king). Pharaoh was no longer an incarnation of the same Horus but he was a unique son of Re, a god in his own right. So the transition from the universal mother goddess to this god-king was formalized in the Solar cosmogony of Heliopolis. Pharaoh assumed the title "son of Re" in Dynasty IV.

The transition from the incarnational to the filial approach of kingship also introduced a different foundation for its divine nature : instead of being based on ancestor worship (for all kings were the same Horus), Pharaoh himself became the object of cult, and as the sole god physically abiding on Earth, he was the exclusive mediator between the deities abiding in the sky and human culture (each Pharoah was another son of Re). Only Pharaoh faced the deities. 

This Solar interpretation of kingship formalized the measurable presence of deified masculine authority which had started with a national justice system, set in place after unification. Divine kingship (the masculine power of the hunter combined with the sacredness of the primeval goddess) was aiming at the theo-political unity of the state though the institutions of Pharaoh and his will to manifest his divine presence, first as Horus & next as a god in monumental and other sublime artworks everywhere in Egypt.

2.2 The "Sia", "Hu", "Heka" & "Maat" of Re and Pharaoh in the Old Kingdom.

the emergence of the solar cult of Re

In the early dynastic period, the sky-god Horus incarnated as Pharaoh. But that Re  was associated with kingship too is evidenced by Pharaoh Re-neb of the IIth Dynasty. The hieroglyph for the Sun -a circle with a central dot- first appears in late predynastic times. Pharaoh Radjedef (ca. 2548 - 2540 BCE - IVth Dynasty) was the first king to bear the name "son of Re", although not in his titulary (this will be done by his brother or half brother Khephren who completed the royal titulary).

The Solar cult which developed in Heliopolis was closely connected with the separation between the Sun (in the sky) and Nun, the endless waters (originally Atum was worshipped in On, but he was solarized and assimilated by Re). This distinction was related to creation itself. Water referred to Nun and the Nile, whereas the luminous Sun and its rise and dusk connected with the appearence of the mound or hill of creation (in "zep tepy", the first time between pre-creation and creation). The overseeing qualities of Horus are also found in Re, who fused with a sky-god into Re-Harakhty.  

In the Old Kingdom (ca.2670 - 2205 BCE, from Dynasty III to VI), Harakhty was venerated in On (Heliopolis) as "Horus of the Horizon". Re-Harakhty was worshipped in his traditional form of the heroic god. He was represented as a falcon bearing the uræus-encircled solar disk on his vertex. He is the Sun god emerging at dawn, sovereign of the sky.

"The reed-floats of the sky are set in place for Re.
That he may cross on them to the horizon.
The reed-floats of the sky are set in place for Herakhti.
That Harakhti may cross on them to Re."
Pyramid Texts, utterance 263 (§ 337).

Horus of the Horizon, combined Re and Horus, and as Re-Harakhty the translation "King of the Sky" is also applicable. This god was a solarized Horus, symbolizing the emerging, dawning power of the fully rejuvenated & regenerated Solar deity. In the Heliopolitan view, Re created the world and so he was also associated with Atum. Re, as the real father of Pharaoh, played a central role in the whole of Ancient Egyptian religious history, culminating in the New Solar Theology of the early New Kingdom and Amarna culture, to merge, in late Ramesside theology, with the all-encompassing theology of Amun-Re.

The real expansion of the cult of Re came with the ruling family of Dynasty V. As the Westcar Papyrus relates, every Pharaoh was the son of Re, begotten of the wife of the high priest of Heliopolis. These kings devoted a large proportion of the resources of the state to build Sun temples, open structures, surrounding the Solar emblem of the "benben", the first place of creation and prototype of the more slender obelisk. Re remained the guarantee of every monarch's worth.

the power of the mind, the Great Word and its protection

In the Pyramid Texts (end Vth and VIth Dynasties, ca. 2300 - 2200 BCE), Re makes use of wisdom & understanding ("Sia"), creative, authoritative utterance ("Hu") and powerful magic ("Heka"). These passages make clear that Sia, Hu and Heka are personifications of the creative, vertical activity and power of Re and his son, Pharaoh, who ascends to the sky. This activity and power are however rooted in mental factors, as was the whole cosmic (Re) and terrestial (Pharaoh) order. 

For example, because every morning, specific mental processes (through ritual recitation or prayer) were executed, Re was unharmed by Apophis (the place where this could happen was called the "island of flames"). By speaking the Great Word, the bolts were unlocked and creation was recreated. As long as the rituals brought the ritualists (as deities around Pharaoh) back to the first time (potential full-emptiness of the eternal now), Re dawned and separated the celestial from the terrestial.

Let us first consider Sia, the deity of the sense of touch or feeling, considered to be the foundation of the empirical mind (for the Egyptians touch & hearing were primordial and not, as would say the Greeks, sight).

"I have come to my throne which is over the ka's, I unite hearts, O you who are in charge of wisdom, being great. I become Sia who bears the book of god, who is at the right hand of Re. (...) I, even I, am Sia who is at the right hand of Re, the proud heart, who presides over the Cavern of Nun."
Pyramid Texts, utterance 250 (§ 268).

"The Great One indeed will rise within his shrine and lay his insignia on the ground for me, for I have assumed authority (Hu) and have power through understanding (Sia)."
Pyramid Texts, utterance 255 (§ 300).

"Make salutations, you gods, to the King, who is older than the Great One, to whom belongs power on his throne ; the King assumes authority (Hu), eternity brought to him and understanding (Sia) is established at his feet for him. Rejoice at the King, for he has taken possession of the horizon."
Pyramid Texts, utterance 257 (§ 307). 

"This King is a master of wisdom (sab-bwt) whose mother knows not his name."
Pyramid Texts, utterance 273 (§ 394).

With Sia we touch upon the whole sphere of knowledge, both cognitive (understanding) and intuitional (wisdom). In the cognitive domain, Sia represented the perceptive mind with its empirical ego. Sia carried the sacred papyrus, whose contents embodied the areas of mental activity in which understanding had been achieved. Sia was also insightful planning and insofar as the inventive side of the latter was considered, intuitional elements join the connotative field of the semantics of Sia. Hence, Sia was also wisdom and the sacredness of perfected understanding.

That Sia was important is testified by the fact that in the company of the gods, Pharaoh was Thoth, the god of knowledge, (U611, 665c - §§ 1725, 1914), who spoke "this great and mighty word" (U577, § 1523) contenting all the gods, for in Thoth was "the peace of the gods" (U570, § 1465). Furthermore, Thoth protected, was the wing-feathers of Pharaoh and "the mightiest of the gods" (U524, §§ 1233, 1237). Knowing was in "front of the Temple" and behind Pharaoh (U554, § 1371), who unites the minds (hearts - ab's) and the vital forces (ka's). In the Book of the Dead, Sia appeared in the Judgment Scene among the gods who watched the weighing of the heart (i.e. the mind) in the Great Balance, indicative of the relationship with the mental. This cogitation (by the mental energies of the "heart") was intimately related with sensoric perception and with intent. The presence of Sia near Re indicated that Re had an extraordinary "power of mind". 

Sia stood not alone, for Re had also creative speech at his side. Hu, the deity of the sense of taste, personified this verbal authority associated with the Great Word of creative command. Like Sia, Hu came into being from a drop of blood from the phallus of Re. Hu was the companion of Pharaoh, son of Re, when he had become a lone star in the sky.

"O King, they {the gods} make you live and resemble the seasons of Harakhti when they made his name. Do not be far removed from the gods, so that they may make for you this utterance which they made for Re-Atum who shines every day. They will install you upon their thrones at the head of all the Ennead(s) as Re' and as his representative."
Pyramid Texts, utterance 606 (§§ 1693-1694), my italics. 

"My tongue is the pilot in charge of the Bark of Righteousness. I will ascend and rise up to the sky."
Pyramid Texts, utterance 539 (§ 1306).

"It is said : 'Say that which is, do not say that which is not, for the god detests falsity of words.'"
Pyramid Texts, utterance 511 (§§ 1160-1161).

"My lips are the Two Enneads. I am the Great Word. I am one who is loosed. I am one who ought to be loosed, and I am loosed from all things evil."
Pyramid Texts, utterance 506 (§ 1100).

"Hear it, O Re, this word which I say to you ; your nature is in me, O Re, and your nature is nourished in me, O Re."
Pyramid Texts, utterance 570 (§ 1461).

"There is no word against me on earth among men, there is no accusation in the sky among the gods, for I have annulled the word against me, which I destroyed in order to mount up to the sky."
Pyramid Texts, utterance 302 (§ 462).

The authority of Pharaoh was this Great Word which he commanded. This creative, authoritative speech can also be found in the archaizing Memphis Theology (written in the New Kingdom).

For example, column 55 of the Shabaka Stone reads :

"His Ennead (Ptah's) is before him as heart, authoritative utterance, teeth and lips.
They are the semen and hands of Atum."
Memphis Theology, line 55, my italics.

Note that this powerful, omnipotent utterance is linked with righteousness and truth, the two characteristics of Maat, the goddess who personified the great ideal of the Old Kingdom, reflected in the rule of law initiated & maintained by Pharaoh (with the plume of Maat above his head) and in the didactical literature (for example the wisdom-teachings of Ptahhotep). Pharaoh uttered a truth which silences the deities and commands authority. The power of the spoken word of Pharaoh could not be countered, not even by the gods. All words directed against Pharaoh were automatically annulled. He was the only living man in Egypt able to communicate with the pantheon. He was the top of the pyramidal structure of the theocracy and its institutions & administration ...

The third element was Heka, used in the Coptic New Testament to translate "mageia", the knowledge and art of a hereditary priestly class among the ancient Medes and Persians (exercising supernatural powers over natural forces). In those days they were associated with the wise men from the East guided by a star (cf. astrology) paying homage to Jesus. 

In Ancient Egypt, Heka was the goddess personifying extraordinary, supernatural powers or magic. She appears a a child of Re, sometimes as his personification. The regard Egyptians had for magic is self-evident.

"'How lovely to see ! How pleasing to behold !' say they, namely the gods, when this god ascends to the sky, when you ascend to the sky with your power upon you, your terror about you, and your magic at your feet."
Pyramid Texts, utterance 306 (§ 477).

"How lovely to see, how uplifting to behold, when this god ascends to the sky just like Atum, father of the King, ascends to the sky ! His ba is upon him, his magic is about him, the dread of him is at his feet."
Pyramid Texts, utterance 480 (§ 993).

"I will ascend and rise up to the sky. The magic which appertains to me is that which is in my belly. (...) It is not I who says this to you, you gods, it is magic (Heka) who says this to you, you gods. I am bound for the Lower Point of Magic."
Pyramid Texts, utterance 539 (§ 1318 - 1324).

"The sky quivers, the earth quakes before me, for I am a magician, I possess magic."
Pyramid Texts, utterance 472 (§ 924).

Heka was associated with tremendous and terrible powers mastered by Re and Pharaoh. However, although magic could express in many things and different kinds of magicians existed (cf. infra), Egyptian magic was closely related with the expression of an idea (Sia) through creative speech (Hu). In this process of creation through the Great Word, Heka does not represent the power of conception (taking place in the mind), nor its utterance (taking place on the tongue). Heka was the "protection" of this intelligent creative speech against anything or anybody trying to counter it. So Heka was there to break resistances. 

This distinction provides us with a key to distinguish religion from magic in Egypt. The former is the general cult of the deities, the latter the inherent power of a concept expressed with authority, eliminating that which is able to counter its realization. However, both overlap, for during the rituals the deities spoke and hence made use of Heka, whereas magical acts (like making an amulet or talisman) involved the help of the deities who (through the priests) uttered their "words of power" to initiate the magical effect of the operation ...

" ... anthropologists and scholars of world religions struggled for a long time in the hope of finding more objective criteria for distinguishing between magic and religion. The results of decades of discussion have not been satisfying, particularly with respect to Egyptian religion."
Goelet, 1998, p.145. 

In Ancient Egypt, the common ground between religion and magic is intelligent (Sia) creative speech (Hu). This sheds a completely different light on the spirituality of the Egyptians, far more concerned with mental factors than recent egyptology has put into evidence.

Maat : the righteousness and truth of protected, intelligent creative speech

The importance of Maat in Egypt's didactical literature has been studied elsewhere. In the Pyramid Texts we read :

"The sky is at peace, the earth is in joy, for they have heard that the King will set rectitude (Maat) in the place of wrong (isfet). The King is vindicated in his tribunal {the court of justice over which Re presides} on account of the just sentence which issued from his mouth ..."
Pyramid Texts, utterance 627 (§ 1775).

"I seat myself upon the throne of 'She who preserves Justice (Maat)'."
Pyramid Texts, utterance 503 (§ 1079).

"I come forth, the guardian of justice (Maat), that I may bring it, it being with me."
Pyramid Texts, utterance 260 (§ 319).

"My tongue is the pilot in charge of the Bark of Righteousness (Maat). (...) The soles of my feet are the two Barks of Righteousness."
Pyramid Texts, utterance 539 (§§ 1306 & 1315).

"You will cause me to sit because of my righteousness (Maat) and I will stand up because of my blessedness in your presence, just as Horus took possession of his father's house from his father's brother Seth in the presence of Gêb."
Pyramid Texts, utterance 519 (§ 1219).

"If you wish to live, O Horus in charge of your staff of justice (Maat), then you shall not close the doors of the sky, you shall not slam shut its door-leaves before you have taken the King's double to the sky, to the nobles of the god, to those whom the god loves, who lean on their staffs, the guardians of Upper Egypt, clad in red linen, who live on figs, who drink wine, who are anointed with unguent. He shall speak on the King's behalf to the great god, he shall conduct the King to the great god."
Pyramid Texts, utterance 440 (§§ 815 - 816).

"O King, I have wept for you, I have mourned you, and I will not forget you, I will not be inert until the voice comes forth for you every day, in the monthly festival, in the half-monthly festival, at the Setting down of the Brazier, at the Festival of Thoth, at the -festival, and at the Festival of Carving as your yearly sustenance which you fashioned for your monthly festivals, that you may live as a god."
Pyramid Texts, utterance 690 (§§ 2117 - 2118).

The Coffin Texts superseded the Pyramid Texts as early as the VIIIth Dynasty (First Intermediary Period, ca.2198 - 1938), but their principal sources are the later cemeteries of the nomarchs of Middle Egypt in the XIIth Dynasty (i.e. Middle Kingdom - ca.1938 - 1759). 

Here we find :

"O you who are content with what you have done -four times- and who send Maat to Re daily, the liver of Re is flourishing daily because of Maat, and he partakes of the meal of the Great Goddess."
Coffin Texts, spell 165, III 6.

Pharaoh sat on his throne to do justice. Daily he uttered the Great Word and therewith he recreated the just order of things and made iniquity and chaos vanish. By doing so he fed Re who partook of the meal of Maat. He returned the essence of his light-being ("khu") to its origin (the stars) by saying (truth) and doing  the right thing (righteousness). Pharaoh sustained the order of the world through justice & truth. Maat was also the guarantee of the sacredness of royal insight, command and protection. By sending justice to Re, the last and the first connected to form the infinite cycle of unending existence and harmony.

the Heliopolitan "logos"

In Heliopolitan theology, Re and Pharaoh were the two proto-types used to describe the order of creation. Re encompassed all cosmic functions, Pharaoh all terrestial. The Osirian cycle explained the mythogenesis of divine kingship, leaving room for the figure of the sacred primeval mother goddess (cf. the importance of Isis in the cycle, able to outwit Re & restore Osiris, assisted by Thoth). Solar theology was a cosmogeny, a model of creation and salvation through rejuvenation and eternal life. The harmony (unity) between both aspects of order was justified by the generative relationship between Re and Osiris-Pharaoh, the son of Re, doing justice and feeding his father with truth in order to return to him.

In both cycles (the macrocosmic and the microcosmic), the mental played a considerable part. In fact, take away the Great Word spoken by Re and his son and there is no creation and no Egyptian state. It is strange that this omnipresence of the power of the Word has not aroused more scholarly interest. Both in the Pyramid Texts, Coffin Texts, as well as in the Memphis Theology, we find the rudiments of the notion of the "logos" as a creative agent :

• the senses report to the mind, able to synthesis a (proto) concept allowing for thoughtful planning, understanding, wisdom (Sia). This is the making of the Word in the mind ;

• on the basis of this, authoritative commands are uttered by the tongue. This is the objective expression of the Word (Hu), an object among objects ;

• the execution of this command is guaranteed by the power of the words spoken. This is the supernatural power to break resistances part of the "meaning" (name) of the Word (Heka) ; 

• the whole purpose of speech is the offering of truth and justice to the source of the Word. This is the aim of all communication : to establish truth and expell falsehood (Maat).

The Memphite theology (developed at the end of the New Kingdom) probably used the Heliopolitan theology to develop its own interpretation of the "logos". In this view, Ptah encompassed both the pre-creational, creative and created phases of cosmogony (He is both Nun, Atum as Re) and created everything with his word.

Sia & Heka were not mentioned, for the Memphites reduced the whole Heliopolitan scheme to the formation of thoughts in Ptah's mind and the creative speech on his tongue (Hu). This creative command is able to realize itself automatically and establish the peace needed by the Two Lands. Hence, in Memphite theology Heka is inherent in the Great Word. When spoken, "justice is done to him who does what is loved". The Memphis Theology attempts to supersede the Heliopolitan doctrine on three accounts :

• Ptah is all-encompassing : he is the Great One of pre-creation, first time & creation ;

• The Great Word spoken by Ptah creates the Ennead, whereas in the Heliopolitan view, Atum creates the deities through onanism ;

• mind and creative speech on the tongue are like the semen and the hands of Atum, i.e. the Great Word spoken is the first cause and not Atum's mythological initiatoric act of taking semen in the hand and in the mouth.

2.3 The mummification of divine words.

the predynastic origin of the Egyptian language

"Archaic" Egyptian is generally not included as an actual stage of growth of the language, for too little texts survive to allow for a fruitful study of the underlying language. Did the Egyptians invent their own writing system or did they borrow it ?

The earliest Sumerian writing ante-dates the first hieroglyphs by a century and more. During the late predynastic period, there were contacts between Egypt and Mesopotamia. A pictographic system, similar in appearance and structure to the hieroglyphic script, was used to write the earliest Sumerian and proto-Elamite languages (cf. Proto-Elamite Tablet, Louvre), although the Egyptian signary was from indigenous sources. The form of various artistic designs and motifs (for example the felines on the reverse of the Palette of Narmer) indeed evidence the cultural transmissions between both cultures. 

Unmistaken differences refute the thesis of a direct borrowing of this early Sumerian :

• in the earliest Sumerian, logography (a word is directly represented by its picture) predominates and phonography (a word is represented by a series of signs for the spoken sounds) is limited. The latter took several centuries to fully develop ;

• in the earliest Egyptian, a substantial (if not complete) phonography is present ;

• the earliest Sumerian is syllabic and defines the vowel (each sign is a syllable consisting of either a vowel or a consonant + a vowel) ;

• the earliest Egyptian is consonantal with unstable vowels which are not recorded ;

• Sumerian has no determinatives and no developed pictoral ideography (a variety of signs representing idea, context, category, modality or nuance) ;

• the earliest Sumerian quickly became cuneiform, whereas Egyptian hieroglyphs remained pictoral until the last inscription (Temple of Philæ - 394 CE).

Indirect borrowing of the Sumerian is likely (cf. "stimulus diffusion"). But the differences show the Sumerian example was adapted to the culture of Predynastic Egypt, its iconography and the grammar of its artistic styles. It is possible that in Predynastic times, the population of the Delta was in contact with south-western Asia, and settlers may have entered the region and mingled with the local population, but this was (against Derry and the "Dynastic Race" theory) incidental to the cultural development of Egypt.

In historical times, borrowings from some Semitic languages are well attested. But there is no evidence for an "African substratum" in Ancient Egyptian (an indentifiable, specifically African language). In fact, scholars conjecture many of these similarities are not borrowings at all, but prove both the Egyptian and the Semitic languages are derived from a common ancestor, the Afroasiatic or Hamito-Semitic language family ...

the sacred power of the Great Word

The "Great Word", creating celestial & terrestial order, was, in predynastic times, foremost a spoken word. The many references to "lips", "mouth", "teeth" confirm this. This spoken command is fluent, direct, immediate and auditorial (with reference to actual listeners). 

The Great Word was spoken by Re to create the world and by Pharaoh to fashion the terrestial order. Before the advent of writing, some kingdoms had reached a considerable level of organization and culture. But only final unification would bring lasting peace and justice. Around 3000 BCE, nomads, cattle breeders, farmers, Africans, Aziatics, Semites and Hamites united to form a single state, with each new Pharaoh uniting the disparate elements of his kingdom by delegating portions of his authority to his elect. The advent of Pharaoh established a vertical order (risen land, obelisk, pyramid) making the horizontal plane of the "Two Lands" to be just & true (overseeable). Simultaneously, written records appeared. The making of the pharaonic state, the justification of divine kingship, also implied the confirmation of masculine presence by stabilizing the fluidity of the sacred spoken sound through the confines of glyphs representing these sounds only partly in divine word-images. The feminine sacrality of the Great (spoken) Word was assimilated by the enduring divine power of word-images in stone.

unification, the advent of writing and double script

The earliest inscriptions emerged at the end of the final predynastic period (ca. 3000 BCE) and in the archaic period (the first two Dynasties), i.e. during the period of the final unification of the "Two Lands" and the coronation of Pharoah at Memphis. Inscriptions became necessary in order to date and name important events. The historical age of Egypt started with this unification of the Two Lands. With Pharaoh, the ancestor worship of each "Follower of Horus" had been initiated. To identify their shrines, inscriptions became necessary.

The assimilation by Pharaoh of the sacred power of the predynastic goddess, implied the creation of a permanent higher focus beyond all divisions, a divine authority uniting (political and theological) dualities. Upon the ongoing, horizontal processess of nature (birth, life, healing, death, resurrection) and their chaotic origin (cf. the predynastic wars and petty conflicts), Pharaoh superimposed the vertical, sole presence of the divine on earth (whereas all other deities abided in the sky).

The feminine, receptive (auditive) process of the use of the spoken word was assimilated by the masculine, radiating, dazzling, living written reality of the divine name of the Lord of the Two Lands, the sole landmark of presence : Pharaoh's titulary, monumentally eternalized in word-images in stone, was a landmark which faced "milions of years".

Also note the distinction between hieroglyphic script and hieratic script, both attested in the predynastic period. Hieroglyphs were first used to write different kinds of texts, in a variety of media, but as hieratic developed, the former became increasingly confined to religious and monumental works, in carved relief in stone (cf. the Greek "ta hieroglyphica" : "the sacred carved letters"). Hieratic was an early adaptation of the hieroglyphic script, the glyphs being simplified and easier to outline. It became Egypt's business and administrative script. Also employed to record literary, scientific & theological works, it can be found on all sorts of media, especially on rolls or sheets of papyrus or on pieces of stone and pottery (ostraca). This "day-to-day" script, which had been used for 2500 years, was ousted by another script, demotic, at the beginning of the Late Period (ca. 600 BCE) and thereafter confined to religious documents (cf. the Greeks calling it "hieratika" or "priestly"). The latest demotic inscription is a grafitto in the Temple of Philæ dated 450 CE

the oldest examples of Egyptian writing

The first hieroglyphs appear in the late predynastic period, in the form of label-texts on stone and pottery objects from various sites (ca. 3100 - 3000 BCE). Writing (in both scripts) is used to record short information, like names of persons, places and products. 

Here are some other early examples of Egyptian writing :

• from a fragment of a large, globular, green faience vessel or vase inlaid with the name of Pharaoh Aha in brown-coloured faience (Ith Dynasty, ca. 3000 - 2800 BCE, in British Museum) we learn about the sophistication of the combination of faience technology and artistic talent in the early dynastic period ; 

• the tomb stela of Pharaoh Djet (Djer, Wadj, Uenephes, "serpent" - Ith Dynasty, ca. 2920 BCE - Louvre E 11007) has his Horus name inscribed on it ; 

• the tomb stela of Pharaoh Reneb (Saqqara, IIth Dynasty, in Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York) was also the focal point of the royal mortuary cult (it represents the falcon Horus surmounting a paneled facade, with the hieroglyphs "Ra" and "neb", meaning "Ra is my Lord.") ; 

• the statuette of Pharaoh Ninetjer in festival Sed-garb (IIth Dynasty, ca. 2760 - 2715, little over 5 inches in height) has his royal name on it ; 

• the gods Geb and Seth have been identified on a fragmentary relief of Pharaoh Djoser (IIIth Dynasty, ca. 2654 - 2635, in Turin Museum) ; the mortuary temples at Maidum & Dahshur of Snofru (IVth Dynasty, ca. 2600 - 2571) were simple (an altar with two tall stelæ bearing the royal titulary) but the valley temple of the Bent Pyramid was provided with statues & relief decorations (processions of the royal estates in the various nomes) and columns (with ceremonies like foundation rituals, scenes of the Sed festival, scenes of Pharaoh being kissed by the deity) ...

The first major literary application was the so-called Offering List which contained a list of foods, ointments & fabrics. It probably already existed in the IIIth & IVth Dynasties. It was carved on the walls of the private tombs of high officials. The written word gave a special identity to the pictoral representations, named the tomb-owner, his family, his ranks & titles and the offerings the deceased was about to receive. We have to wait for Pharoah Wenis or Unas (end of the Vth Dynasty, ca. 2378 - 2348) to actually read what had probably been recited orally for at least since the beginning of the dynastic age (if not earlier), i.e. the spells of the Pyramid Texts.

the magico-religious intent of Egyptian writing

Memphis, the city of Ptah (represented in Sed garb), and the pharaonic state have always been intimately related. Indeed, in the final phases of unification, the Delta had been the most difficult area to unite. Enthroning Pharaoh at Memphis had therefore a strong symbolical meaning and this remained the case throughout the history of Ancient Egypt. Politically, the "White Walls" of Memphis were suggestive of the unity of the "Two Lands" guaranteed by Pharaoh. The period of strife and was over and order and justice could reign. So the king was a living divine reality bringing justice and truth. His divinity was directly linked with the sacred cycle of birth, life, health, death & resurrection.

This advent of order and truth was eternalized by written hieroglyphic inscriptions on stone, a craft ruled by Ptah. The act of carving these icons was considered magical, for each hieroglyph was deemed to be a divine sign, a place for the ka's and ba's of the deities to dwell in, a key inviting the invisible to manifest. 

Hieroglyphs were always more than just a writing system. The Egyptians referred to it as "writing the divine words" or "divine words", whereas the individual icons was termed "image" or "form", the same word for a representation in Egyptian art, showing its relationship with pictoral art. Indeed, like art, the script works with pictures and they all have a well-defined form. Governed by strict rules as to content and representation, it had as its purpose to make the depicted exist eternally. In the Old Kingdom, the relationship between art and writing is consistent. In fact, it was a system of art endowed with magical characteristics. 

The Great Word was protected by magic to realize itself when uttered. But hieroglyphs were seen as living beings just in the same way as statues were considered alife after the words of the ritual of "Opening the Mouth" had been spoken over them while the ritual actions had been performed . As this "life" was also an offering of justice and truth by Pharaoh to the deities, hieroglyphs participated in the divine life of the monarch. As such, they became divine image-words depicting and giving fixed meaning to the divine order. As living icons, they were the loci for the Ka's and Ba's of the beings they represented. Their magic is precisely this : the divine words mummify the spoken word, stabilize their form and hence make the power of execution to last throughout the ages, for "millions of years". Just as the mummy released the "sâh" of the deceased for eternity (cf. my paper on the Ba), so did these divine words eternalize the power of meaning (the name). Taken together, the hieroglyphs create a separate world of divine image-signs, interacting which each other and with the representations around them (pictoral scences, statues, tomb, temple etc.). It is not exaggerated to state that they animated a metaphysical world of image-meanings ... they took the physical, shape it and added to it divine, eternal meaning. Through rituals, the signs were as divine as the statue (temple, mummy) of a deity in which its Ka dwelled.

This is also shown by the fact that certain hieroglyphs, like those depicting humans, birds and animals, were considered potentially dangerous when for example placed near the sarcophagus or the food offerings for the deceased. Sometimes these icons were suppressed or modified : the bodies of humans and the heads of insects and snakes were omitted, the bodies of birds were truncated, the bodies of certain animals were severed in two, snake tails were abbreviated and the evil serpent Apophis is sometimes shown as constrained or "killed" by knives and spears ... The written name of a deity or Pharaoh was a direct manifestation of the essence of the former. Sometimes this name was destroyed to harm a god (cf. Akhenaton's eradication of Amun), sometimes old monuments were usurped simply by removing the name and replacing it without touching the appearance of the piece to conform it to the style of the time ...

To write was to do justice. Hieroglyps in stone were a divine form of communication, a divine speech between, on the one hand, Pharaoh (the sole god on Earth) and the deities and, on the other hand, between the divinities of the pantheon themselves (cf. its companies of gods & goddesses, the Enneads). The divine text was also a testimony, providing concrete evidence that Pharaoh had been at work in Egypt to assure justice and unity. Each letter embodied his do