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Time will tell of stars that fell...
But the most striking phenomenon of all was when the sound of a trumpet rang out from a perfectly clear and cloudless sky with a shrill, prolonged, and dismal note so loud that people were driven half crazy with terror. The Etruscan wise men declared that this portent foretold a change over into a new age and a total revolution in the world... In each age the lives and manners of men are different and God has established for each age a definite span of time which is determined by the circuit of the Great Year. Whenever this circuit comes to an end and another begins some marvelous sign appears either on earth or in heaven so that it becomes at once clear to those who have made a thorough study of the subject that men of a different character and way of life have now come into the world and the gods will be either more or less concerned with this new race than they were with their predecessors. All sorts of changes occur, they say, as one age succeeds another and in particular with regard to the art of divination once can observe that there are times when it rises in prestige and its predictions are accurate because clear and unmistakable signs are sent from heaven; and then again in another age it is not held in much honor, since for the most part its practitioners are relying on mere guesswork and are trying to grasp the future with senses that have become blunt and dim. This, at all events, was the story told by the wisest men among the Etruscans who were thought to know more than most about such things.
pp. 74-75 Plutarch, Fall of the Roman Republic: from the Life of Sulla.
The Ages...
Leo starts 10,784 BC ends 8638 BC Cancer starts 8638 BC ends 6482 BC Gemini starts 6482 BC ends 4326 BC Taurus starts 4326 BC ends 2170 BC Aries starts 2170 BC ends 14 BC Pisces starts 14 BC ends 2142 AD Aquarius starts 2142 AD ends 4298 AD
There are several ways in which the Ages can be divided, and many different systems used to calibrate this motion. In this series, we are examining the great circle of 25,824 years being divided into 12 divisions of exactly equal proportion. During the Age of Pisces, with its Virgo polarity holding the autumn equinox position of culture and civilization, society has striven for a more and more refined numerical system, properly labeled and classified to underscore its superiority. It has been the eternal quest for finer and finer details in an effort of obtain perfection. This is the social ideal for which we strive. One might think of it as the left brained system.
In antiquity, however, this was not always the system of choice. Heaven is, indeed, a great circle which can be mathematically proportioned, but the observers of heaven preferred to use the stars as their benchmarks, and not arbitrary positions of space. It is this author's belief that it was this latter system which was used by the authors of myth, the builders of the temples. It is this concept that we examine more fully in 'The Return of the Dragon.' This, in turn, would represent the more right brained system.
Much of what follows has represented a gathering together of information from various sources, to create a framework from which to establish a base of reference. It is, by no means meant to be complete, but has served as a place to collect observations for later referral. Additional observations, and certainly any errors found here, will be corrected as time goes on. If you happen to run across some, please email either myself or Rob, the WebMaster, with the correction, and the source of your data. We will make changes as necessary. Over the years, timelines have changed, and are constatntly being updated. Different works may record the same event as having taken place in different years.
Bibliography Key AE = Ancient Egypt EA = Earlier Ages TFE = The First Eden
THE PATRIARCHS Osiris: At first Osiris was a nature god and embodied the spirit of vegetation which dies with the harvest to be reborn when the grain sprouts. Afterwards he was worshipped throughout Egypt as god of the dead, and in this capacity reached first rank in the Egyptian pantheon. Osiris was handsome of countenance, dark-skinned and taller than all other men. When Geb, his father, retired to the heavens, Osiris succeeded him as king of Egypt and took Isis, his sister, as queen. The first care of the new sovereign was to abolish cannibalism and to teach his still half-savage subjects the art of fashioning agricultural implements. He taught them how to produce grain and grapes for man's nourishment in the form of bread, wine and beer. The cult of the gods did not yet exist. Osiris instituted it. He built the first temples and sculptured the first divine images. He laid down the rules governing religious practice and even invented the two kinds of flute which should accompany ceremonial song. After this he built towns and gave his people just laws, thus meriting the name Onnophris- 'the Good One'- by which, as the fourth divine Pharaoh, he was known. Not satisfied with having civilized Egypt, he wished to spread the benefits of his rule throughout the whole world. He left the regency to Isis and set forth on the conquest of Asia, accompanied by Thoth, his grand vizier, and his lieutenants Anubis and Upuaut. Osiris was the enemy of all violence and it was by gentleness alone that he subjected country after country, winning and disarming their inhabitants by songs and the playing various musical instruments. He returned to Egypt only after he had travelled the whole earth and spread civilization everywhere. Time of the Bull: The announcement by the priests that a young Apis bull had been discovered was a cause for national rejoicing. Children born on that auspicious day might be given the name "Apis-is-found". The young animal was brought in procession to Memphis. On his way he paid a visit to the temple sacred to Hapy... At this time, women alone were allowed to visit him. As they approached him, they stripped themselves naked and performed rites to ensure their ability to bear children... During the regular fertility ceremonies, cows were brought to him so that he might mate with them as part of the sacred rites. On the anniversary of the king's accession, he accompanied the king in a procession around the boundaries of the state, so renewing the fertility of the fields. In time, the god-king and the sacred animal became closely identified. The king gave himself such titles as "The Strong Bull" and his artists, when carving reliefs in his praise, representing him as a bull, tossing his enemies in the air and overturning their fortified enclosures.
Abraham: Promised that this children would number more than the stars of heaven. The sacrifice of his first-born son and the Ram being caught by his horns in the bush. Father of the three monotheistic religions, and in particular Judaism, where we find the symbolism of the Ram very strong indeed.
Time of The Ram: Moses was watching a flock of sheep when the flaming bush appeared to him. For Passover it is a sheep of goat which must be sacrificed. When the ram's horn sounded a long blast, they are to go up the mountain. For the tent you will further make a covering of rams skins dyed red. You are to take the ram of investiture and cook its meat in a holy place. Aaron and his sons will eat the meat of the ram... This is what you are to offer on the alter; two yearling lambs each day in perpetuity.
Jesus: Fishers of Men, cast your nets on the other side. John the Baptist baptizing with water. Jesus rebukes the wind and the sea, and they are calm. The only sign given to this generation will be the sign of Jonah (the whale). Jesus preaches to the people from a boat. The kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet cast into the sea.
Time of The Fish: The feeding of the multitudes with two fish and the five loaves of bread. Jesus walking on the lake. Take the first fish that bites, open its mouth, and there you will find a shekel (to pay the half-shekel tax for himself and Peter). If you have enough faith and even say to the mountain, "Get up and throw yourself into the sea," it will be done.
TAURUS: Nature Agriculture is the foundation. ARIES: Self Fear is the foundation. PISCES: Mystery Faith is the foundation. AQUARIUS: Knowledge The foundation is in the future.
Social Setting
Taurus: Civilization opens with the development of the plow, and the advantages of its use over that of the hoe. Agricultural base sustains Egyptian civilization. A prolonged period of stability. The art of the period is practical and solid, it is build for strength and longevity, and was designed to last into eternity. The Pyramids. Materially, the Egyptians tried to take it with them.
Aries: The God of War dictates. The Age opens with the migrations stirred by the Aryan invasions, and closes with the development of the Roman professional army. Eventually war brings voting power to the fighting man, The Age of Heroes, of Homer and Achilles, of Alexander and Caesar. The self is what is important, and self-sacrifice is the greatest gift one can offer to God through this period. All Christians or Jews would later have to do is the act of sacrifice, and this would prove their loyalty to Rome.
Mars is the ancient God of War, and the two moons of this planet, Phobus and Deimos, were said to be his constant companions in battle. They are fear and panic, and the whole concept of fear is one that figures very highly in the Old Testament. The angel of the Lord specifically stays Abraham's hand with the statement, '...for now I know that you fear God." Other statements embodying this constant theme; "Have no fear, Abram, I am your shield... Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed... for I am a man who fears God... Moses covered his face, afraid to look at God... the anger of God blazed out against Moses... my anger will flare and I shall kill you with the sword..."
Aries is a fire sign, and this fire imagery was also very strong throughout the Old Testament. To signify the bond that God made with Abraham a firebrand passed between the halves of a sacrifice. He must offer his son as a burnt offering. God appeared to Moses in the shape of a flame of fire, coming from the middle of a bush. Moses looked, and there was the bush, blazing but not being burned. During the Passover, the sacrifice had to be eaten, roasted over the fire and eaten with bitter herbs. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled, but roasted over the fire. God went before them, by day in the form of a pillar of cloud to show them the way, and by night in the form of a pillar of fire to give them light... To the eyes of the sons of Israel the glory of God seemed like a devouring fire of the mountain top.
Aries is the first sign of the zodiac. Abraham is required to sacrifice his first-born son to God; God says Israel is my first-born son and I ordered you (Pharaoh) to let my first-born go and offer me sacrifice and you refused, therefore I will put your first born to death. I will go through the land of Egypt and strike down all the first born, man and beast alike. All the male first issues of the womb, man and beast alike, are to belong to God. For Passover, you must take an animal without blemish, a male one year old.
Pisces: As the Old Pagan Roman Empire decayed, there grew up in its midst a new spiritual empire, which in course of time was to replace it in the West and to carry on in Western Europe the Roman tradition of unity in administration, law, language, and culture through the long chaotic centuries of the Middle Ages. Christianity was the one vital force and the church the one living organism in the Roman world during the last two centuries of the Western Empire. When the empires disappeared, the church, so far as was possible, took its place; the popes took over the universal authority filled the void left by the withdrawal of the imperial administration. Throughout the Middle Ages the unity of the Roman Catholic Church was the bond that held together the various peoples of Western Europe. Turning the other cheek and submission are the essential essences of both Christianity and Islam. The roots of both Muslim and Islam come from a root which means to submit. A Western civilization loosely allied across two millennia subscribing to a single, underlying, collective religious ethic.
Aquarius: The development of knowledge and the collective community. Science and electricity. Computers and instantaneous thought. Collectively and independently plugging into the Universal Mind. Change and revolution. Lightning.
THE INDIVIDUAL AGES
In the beginning...
Fossil evidence has now made it quite clear that the genus Homo originated from ape-like ancestors in Africa some time around two million years ago. They have been called Neanderthals. By a million years ago, such people were living in France. TFE
While northern Europe was still gripped by the Ice Age, 35,000 years ago, people began to draw images of bulls on the cave walls of France and Spain. TFE
By about 30,000 years ago, the character of the human population had changed. These people were very physically like us. A cave at Parpallo, on the east coast of Spain, provided these new people with one of their earliest Mediterranean homes. On its stone floor, they discovered remains that they were able to date as being around 28,000 years old. Over the following centuries, the Ice Age slowly loosened its grip on Europe. By 10,000 years ago the climate at the time was very similar to that of today. TFE
THE AGE OF LEO 10,784-8638 BC
By at least 10,000 BC hunters arrive in North America.
Plato attributes the legend of Atlantis, the island beyond the Atlas Mountains, to having gone beneath the sea some 9,000 years before his time. According to legend, the island sank because the people misused the power of the Sun.
THE AGE OF CANCER 8638-6482 BC
In America by 8,000 BC hunters had successfully adapted to the differing environments that had evolved by the end of the last ice age. By around 8,500 BC village life had been born. It arose independently both in the Fertile Crescent region of Mesoptamia, and in Central America. (In Spain) by 10,000 years ago (around 8,000 BC) the climate... was very similar to that of today. The hunters who wandered through the forested valleys took to making temporary camps beneath the over hanging cliffs and spent hours recording on the walls the details of their lives in astonishing and vivid detail... Groups of stick figures prance across the cliffs brandishing bows and arrows. Some flee from rampaging bulls. Figures lie wounded on the ground, with arrows in their sides. Men climb trees, with bag in hand, to gather honey from a nest of wild bees, with the angry insects buzzing around their heads. Some wear masks and dance. Others, more forebodingly, have assembled in groups and appear to be fighting. These vivid animated images show clearly that the people living around these western Mediterranean shores 10,000 years ago were still living by hunting and by gathering roots and fruits from the forest, just as they had done ever since they first arrived on the shores of the Sea. When agriculture replaced hunting along the great river valleys of India, Mesopotamia and Egypt, women achieved a social and economic importance which they had previously lacked, and society wore the robes of matriarchy. The most formidable animal in the forests that grew around the Mediterranean 10,000 years ago was the great wild bull. It stood 6 feet high at the shoulders and weighed about a ton. At the Eastern end of the Mediterranean the people were beginning to abandon their nomadic hunting life. For many centuries past they had been gathering grass seeds for food. At first they had roasted them. Then they had ground them into flour, using pestles that they had originally devised for the crushing of ochres. Eventually they discovered that if they saved some of the seed and scattered it on cleared land around their settlements, the task of gathering fresh supplies the following autumn became much less arduous. They had begun to farm.
Sheep and goats, too, were living in tamed herds around Catal Huyuk, and their bones, smaller than those of the wild form both in stature and horn size, have been found around several village sites in the Middle East dating some 10,000 years ago.
The belief that woman's fertility or sterility influences farming persists almost universally in European folklore. Barren women are regarded as dangerous; a pregnant woman has a magical influence on grain because like her, the grain 'becomes pregnant'; it germinates and grows... The pregnant figurines of the seventh and sixth millennia BC are nude (Cancer and Gemini), while the pregnant ladies of the fifth and fourth millennia (Gemini) are exquisitely clothed except for the abdomen, which is exposed and on which lies a sacred snake. (Are we looking at snake and Cancer here???) The females also presides over the cave or home; the cave is one of her images or symbols, and most of our surviving statuettes come from caves. The miniature clay house-models produced throughout the Neolithic-Chalcolithic period are particularly important, presenting details of architecture, decoration and furnishing that are otherwise unavailable to the prehistoric archaeologist. Some of these models, discovered under the corners of excavated house floors or by the central post supporting the roof, must have been used in a sacrificial ceremony to celebrate the erection of the structure. Villages depending upon domesticated plants and animals had appeared in southeastern Europe as early as the seventh millennium BC, and the spiritual forces accompanying this change in the economic and social organization are manifested in the emergent artistic tradition of the Neolithic.
THE AGE OF GEMINI 6482-4326 BC
During this Age agriculture begins to spread to less hospitable zones after 6,000 BC as humanity figures out ways to make it work. One of the earliest big towns to be discovered developed about 8,400 years ago (6,400 BC?) at Catal Huyuk in central Turkey. It covered some thirty acres and contained a population of some 6,000 people. They lived in tightly packed, flat-roofed, mud-brick houses into which they descended by way of a ladder through the roof. A third of all the rooms found by the excavators were shrines. And in them were images of bulls. Outlines of the animal in profile had been carved on the wall plaster. Bull's head, modeled in clay protruded from other walls, their long spreading horns running as ridges along the wall surface. Small stylized heads of bulls, made of dried mud and fixed to the front of an alter, had been replastered and repainted an many as a hundred times, presumably during the repetition of rituals. In some shrines, the frontal bones of bull skulls, still bearing the bony cores of the horns, had been built into the walls. TFE
Typical seventh millennium sculptures from Catal Huyuk in central Anatolia take the form of a massively fat woman, either standing or seated, supported by leopards. She usually either holds her hands up to her large breasts or rests them on the heads of accompanying animals. During the sixth millennium the goddess becomes more vigorous and less obese with her shoulders, upper arms, and breasts accentuated.
Inscribed votive objects clearly prove the existence of Old European Linear signs and, in general, the very early incidence of writing. From the available material at the present time it is seen that the beginnings lie in the period of transition from the Neolithic to Chalcolithei (Late Starcevo- Early Vinca in central Balkans), C. 5500-5000 BC.
A striking development in art at the inception of the agricultural era was its persistent representation of a number of conventionalized graphic designs symbolizing abstract ideas. These ideograms, recurring on figurines, stamp seals, dishes, cult vessels, and as part of pictorial decoration of bases and house walls, were used for thousands of years throughout old European civilization, and help to expand our understanding of its cosmogony and cosmology, and of the functions of the deities it sustained.
The symbols fall into two basic categories: those related to water or rain, the snake and the bird; and those associated with the moon, or vegetal life-cycle, the rotation of the seasons, the birth and growth essential to the perpetuation of life.
When the Old European civilization reached its cultural peak around 5000 BC there emerged a sophisticated image of the Bird and Snake Goddess... An overwhelming majority of all the figurines found in this settlement belonged to the standing or enthroned Bird Goddess. She seems to be the most important goddess of the Inca people since her image dominates in all known settlements.
The presence of the Bird and Snake Goddess is felt everywhere on Earth, in the skies and beyond the clouds, where primordial waters lie. Her abode is beyond the upper waters, i.e. beyond meandrous labyrinths. she rules over the life giving force of water, and her image is consequently associated with water containers. (On Cucuteni vases, the representations of water or falling rain.) The eyes of the Bird or Snake Goddess even stare from the very center of the world sphere with a mythical water stream in the center.
Vessels taking the form of a bird are an early tradition in the Balkans, Askoi, vases of water-bird shape occur at Nea Kikomedia, a site which dates from no later than 6000 BC. The same tradition was followed through the Balkan Peninsula and the Danube region during the sixth millennium and later. The most peculiar aspect of these representations is that the jar is shaped not simply in the form of a bird, but that of a bird carrying an egg within its body... She represented the universal creative force. Another image having a similar kind of potentiality is the doe. Vases in the shape of a deer have an egg-shaped body. In the Neolithic period the myth of the genesis of the world from a cosmic egg laid by a bird gave rise to an important series of so-called steatopygous figurines. The name is derived from 'steatopygia', which is defined as an excessive development of fat on the buttocks, especially on females. Archaeologists erroneously adopted this name for the figurines, thinking that they represented a natural portrayal of women with abnormally large buttocks. This is a false interpretation.
This large group of standing or stooping figurines represents the sculptural realization of the concept of the Bird Goddess, abstracting and fusing elements of human and bird form. Her body contains an egg, and even the most schematic representation must be a conventionalized expression of this idea. From the seventh to the fifth millennium BC these figurines conservatively display the same features. They are not truly obese, above the waist the are universally slender, their breasts of normal or even much reduced size. Except in very small figurines, the buttocks are usually hollow and shaped like an egg.
Trade and communications, which had expanded through the millennia, must have provided a tremendous cross-fertilizing impetus to cultural growth. The archaeologist can infer the existence of far-ranging trade from the wide dispersion of obsidian, alabaster, marble and Spondylus shell. The seas and inland waterways, doubtless served as primary routes of communication, and obsidian was being transported by sea as early as the seventh millennium BC. The use of sailing boats is attested from the sixth millennium onwards by their incised depiction on ceramics.
(In the central Balkan area of Northeastern Greece) there was a steady growth in metal-production and trade: copper needles, awls, fish-hooks and spiral-headed pins were produced and, at the end of the period, axes and daggers, a development which is also found in the Vinca, Tiszapolgar, Lengyel and Cucuteni cultures. Workshops of flint, copper, gold, Spondylus shell and pottery have been discovered, implying craft-specialization and general division of labor. 5200/5000-3500 BC
The Delta and the Rise of Government. In the Late Stone Age, however, the area which could be cultivated must have been much smaller than it is today; for at that time the valley above the Delta was still largely occupied by extensive marshes, and only here and there between the marshes was it possible to plant and harvest a crop. But in the Delta, where river branched out into smaller streams with slower currents, the marshes were easier to drain for cultivation. Gradually, therefore, the people of the Delta outstripped the dwellers on the upper river and became more advanced in their manner of living. This advance led to the first regulations of community life, which finally became government.
It came about in this way. The overflow of the river (called the inundation) often clogged the canals with mud, so that the men of a whole group of villages would have to go out together to clear the canals. They knew that if they did not do so there would be no water for the grain fields, no harvest, and finally no bread. The leader of one of these groups of Delta villages probably became in time a local chieftain who controlled the irrigation trenches and canals of the district. To him the people of the district were obliged to carry every season a share of the grain of flax which they gathered from their fields. These shares of grain or flax were the earliest taxes, and the chieftain's control of the canals and collections of the taxes formed the earliest government.
THE AGE OF TAURUS 4326-2170 BC
From 4500-3000 BC is the Chalcolithic Age. (A History of Rome claimns this is c. 2000-1800 BC while the Neolithic Age is c. 5000- c. 2000 BC)
The Two Kingdoms and the First Union. Eventually some one of these Delta chieftains conquered the rival chieftains in the other districts and united all the Delta into a kingdom which we shall call Lower Egypt, for although higher on the map, it was lower on the river. In the same way there also arose another kingdom, extending up the Nile valley from the southern apex of the Delta to the region of the First Cataract. This kingdom we call Upper Egypt ; for it is on the upper course of the river, although lover on the map. There must have been much traffic between the two kingdoms, as they were, of course, connected by the Nile. Finally, perhaps in the forty-third century BC (although we are not sure about the date), a powerful king of Lower Egypt, whose name we do not know, marched southward out of the Delta and conquered his rival, the king of Upper Egypt. In this manner the two kingdoms were united under one king, who became king of Upper and Lower Egypt. We shall call this first kingdom of Upper and Lower Egypt the First Union as a matter of convenience, although this was not its ancient name. The history of the First Union is the most important chapter in the entire human story, because civilization really began in this age.
Hoe Culture Changed into Plow Culture. We have seen that agriculture greatly improved human conditions and made it possible for men to five up the hunting life and to live in villages surrounded by little grain fields. But those grain fields had, up to the time of the First Union, been cultivated by hand with the hoe. This was a slow and laborious method of work, and limited the amount of land which could be cultivated. Finally it occurred to some clever Egyptian that he might lengthen the handle of his hoe so that it could be fastened to a yoke resting on the foreheads of two oxen. Thus the old hoe handle became the beam of the plow, and the hoe blade became the plowshare. The oxen could then drag the plowshare (old hoe blade) through the soil; and in order to guide the plow, the farmer attached handles at the point where beam and share met.
This invention of the first agricultural machinery marked a new epoch; for it enabled man to begin the use of animal power, that is, power other than the strength of man or woman. As this power was applied to the work of cultivating the fields, Egypt, was able to farm the largest area that had ever been prepared for the raising of crops. Thus there arose in the Nile valley the first great agricultural nation. The annual income in grain was not only a source of increased wealth to the people and the government but it was the first portable wealth. Because it could be carried about, loans could be made with it, taxes paid, and business debts settled. This was in an age before there was any money, and it therefore made an enormous difference, and aided in carrying the Egyptians forward in their civilization.
The Egyptian Origin of Our Calendar. The important place occupied by agriculture in the government of the Egyptians may be seen in the names which were adopted for the different seasons of the year. There were three seasons in their first calendar, the they bore the names "Inundation," "Coming Forth" (meaning the coming forth of the fields for the inundation which had covered them), and "Harvest." Each of these three seasons was four months long, and months were measured from new moon to new moon. The moon-month varies in length from twenty-nine to thirty days, and it does not evenly divide the three hundred and sixty-five days of the year. In time the Egyptians made a calendar which disregarded the moon, and divided the year into twelve months of thirty days each. At the end of the year they celebrated five feast days, a kind of holiday week. This gave them a gear of three hundred and sixty-five days. They did not yet know that every four years they ought to have a leap year of three hundred and sixty-six days, although they discovered this fact later. Astronomical calculations show that this convenient Egyptian calendar was introduced in 4241 BC, and its introduction is the earliest dated event in history. It is the same calendar that has descended to us, after more than six thousand years, although the length of the months was changed in later times.
The Second Union and the Age of Metal. The consolidation of the North and South, which we have called the First Union, did not endure. In time the two kingdoms fell apart and for a period existed independently side by side. Then there arose in Upper Egypt a strong leader named Menes, who succeeded in permanently uniting the two kingdoms (about 3100 BC). Just as the power and prosperity of the First Union were based on plow culture and the production of plentiful grain, so the progress of the Second Union grew out of the earliest mining on a large scale and the possession of plentiful copper.
The graves of the cemeteries of the First Union had contained many more tools and implements of copper than those of the previous two kingdoms. There was some trade in copper axes and chisels, and a few workmen used them. The First Union had therefore brought the Age of Metal much nearer. With the Second Union the Age of Metal actually began. The early kings of the Second Union were very proud of their ability to send mining expeditions into the mountains of the neighboring Peninsula of Sinai, and there we still find the mining tunnels which they drove into the mountains. As a result of the possession of many varied copper tools the Egyptian kings were able to erect hewn stone tombs and stone temples, beginning about 2800 BC. In these great stone buildings we may read records of the history of Egypt. Earlier Ages
3,000-2,000 BC is the Early Bronze Age
The use of the earliest form of Egyptian writing, though at the last confined to a narrow circle of learned priests, covers a period of three or even four thousand years. In the course of so many centuries, grammar and vocabulary were bound to change very considerably, and in point of fact the Egyptian spoken under the Roman occupation bore but little resemblance to that which was current under the oldest Pharaohs. It is true that the new modes of parlance which came into existence from time to time were by no means adequately reflected in the contemporary hieroglyphic inscription; for in Egypt the art of writing was always reserved to a conservative and tradition-loving caste of scribes, upon whose interests and caprice it depended how far the common speech of the people should be allowed to contaminate 'the god's words'. p. 1, Egyptian Grammar
Middle Egyptian, like Latin, survived as the monumental and learned language long after it had perished as the language of everyday life. The most striking feature of Egyptian in all its stages is its concrete realism, its preoccupation with exterior objects and occurrences to the neglect of those more subjective distinctions which play so prominent a part in modern, and even in the classical, languages. Subtleties of thought such as are implied in 'might', 'should', 'can', 'hardly', as well as such abstractions as 'cause', 'motive', 'duty', belong to a later stage of linguistic development; possible they would have been repugnant to the Egyptian temperament. Despite the reputation for philosophic wisdom attributed to the Egyptians by the Greeks, no people has ever shown itself more averse from speculation or more wholeheartedly devoted to material interests; and if they paid an exaggerated attention to funerary observances, it was because the continuance of earthly pursuits and pleasures was felt to be at stake, assuredly not out of any curiosity as to the why and whither of human life. p.3, Egyptian Grammar
The decorative character of the hieroglyphic script and its close connextion with pictorial art made it a natural and handy medium of ornamentation. Hence in temple and tomb there is hardly a wall but bears hieroglyphic inscription, and even the common objects of daily life, such as toilet utensils, boxes, jewels, and weapons, often display the names and titles of their owners, or the cartouche of the Pharaoh under whom they were made. p.18, Egyptian Grammar
(To be placed in duodecamoria)
A related group of texts is best described under the name of pessimistic literature. This kind of literature seems to have spring up under the influence of the catastrophes which overwhelmed Egypt at the close of the Sixth Dynasty, bringing in their train centuries of social upheaval and political disruption. The key-note is one sounded by the conservatives and aristocrats of all ages: wickedness and misery are everywhere rife, and the poor have usurped the place of the rich. Such a book of laments is that of the prophet Ipuwer, who none the less seems able to descry the dawning of a happier day. (A. H. Gardiner, The Admonitions of an Egyptian Sage, Leipzig, 1909) p. 24, EG
The best characteristics of Egyptian literary art are its directness, its love of the picturesque, and its sense of humour; the worst defects are a leaning towards bombast, a monotony in the metaphors used, and a very limited range of sentiment. The impression with which we are left is that of a pleasure-loving people, gay, artistic, and sharp-witted, but lacking in depth of feeling and in idealism. p. 24, Egyptian Grammar
During the 4th millennium BC, these chiefdoms coalesced into two kingdoms, one around the upper part of the river, and in about 3,000 BC the two were brought together to form the first single nation state the world had seen. A new capitol for this united kingdom was founded, which was later called Memphis, just above the apex of the Delta. The bull-god worshipped there was named Apis and it became one of the most important deities in all Egypt.
The announcement by the priests that a young Apis bull had been discovered was a cause for national rejoicing. Children born on that auspicious day might be given the name "Apis-is-found". The young animal was brought in procession to Memphis. On his way he paid a visit to the temple sacred to Hapy... At this time, women alone were allowed to visit him. As they approached him, they stripped themselves naked and performed rites to ensure their ability to bear children... During the regular fertility ceremonies, cows were brought to him so that he might mate with them as part of the sacred rites. On the anniversary of the king's accession, he accompanied the king in a procession around the boundaries of the state, so renewing the fertility of the fields. The First Eden (?)
In time, the god-king and the sacred animal became closely identified. The king gave himself such titles as "The Strong Bull" and his artists, when carving reliefs in his praise, representing him as a bull, tossing his enemies in the air and overturning their fortified enclosures.
The symbols of 'becoming'- crescents, caterpillars and horns- accompanied fourfold designs. They do not depict the end result of wholeness but rather the continuous striving towards it, the active process of creation... There is a morphological relationship between the bull, on account of its fast growing horns, and the waxing aspect of the moon, which is further evidence of the bull's symbolic function as invigorator. The worship of the moon and horns is the worship of the creative and fecund powers of nature.
The creator of all was a god in human form they called PTAH, who conceived the world of both gods and men. Being a creator himself, he was a patron of those human creators, the artists and craftsmen. and he was incarnated on earth in the body of one special individual bull that was named Apis. Only one Apis bull could reign on earth at one time.
The cult of the bull was also practiced in these islands too. In Cyprus, a mere forth-four miles away from the Turkish coast, pottery images of bulls appear around 2700 BC. As the centuries passed they were produced in great numbers and considerable variety. The sites of the actual sanctuaries have been excavated and yielded huge numbers of pottery figurines, including a striking figure of a bull being led by two men as if to a sacrifice, and human figures wearing bull masks. (Related to the Minotaur?) In Malta... among the very few naturalistic designs there are, once again, reliefs of bulls. And the memory of the supernatural power of bulls lingers in the island even today, for the people still mount bull skulls, horns or modeled heads high on the walls of their houses to protect themselves from bad luck. Further west still, in Sardinia, rock cut tombs dating again from the third millennium BC are decorated with the heads of bulls. The bull cult about which we have most evidence, however, is that which was practiced in Crete. The First Eden
The fertility of Egypt must have seemed to its people to be eternal.
In early times, it was believed that only one individual animal, among the multitude of the same species that existed, was the earthly incarnation of a god, as Apis was among ordinary bulls... But as the centuries passed, so people began to believe that the spirit of a god was no restricted to one animal, but that all individuals of that species contained a fragment of divinity and were to some degree sacred... By the sixth century BC the Egyptian people had taken to this practice on a scale that beggars belief.
Some scholars did in the past classify European pre-history into matriarchal and patriarchal eras respectively. 'The beginning of the psychological-matriarchal age', says Neumann, 'is lost in the haze of prehistory, but its end at the dawn of our historical era unfolds magnificently before our eyes'... It is then replaced by the patriarchal world with its different 'symbolism and its different values. This masculine world is that of the Indo-Europeans, which did not develop in Old Europe but was superimposed upon it. Two entirely different sets of mythical images met. Symbols of the masculine group replaced the images of Old Europe. Some of the old elements were fused together as a subsidiary of the new symbolic imagery, this losing their original meaning. Some images persisted side by side, creating chaos in the former harmony. Through losses and additions new complexes of symbol developed which are best reflected in Greek mythology.
Persia ruled Egypt in the fifth century BC, when the Greek historian Herodotus visited the Nile Valley. His delightful account of the trip combines hearsay, myth, and personal observation. Describing Egyptian customs, he tells us they were opposite to those practiced by the rest of the known world: "The women attend the markets and trade, while the men sit at home at the loom... In other countries the priests have long hair, in Egypt their heads are shaven... other men pass their lives separate from animals, the Egyptians have animals always living with them... When they write or calculate, instead of going, like the Greeks, from left to right, they move their hand from right to left." pp. 9-10, Ancient Egypt
AGE OF: TAURUS EPOCH: 4312 TO 2156 BC
The Duodecamoria
Gradually the people of the Delta outstripped the dwellers of the upper river and became more advanced in their manner of living. This advance led to the first regulations of community life, which finally became government.
4345-4165 BC Aries of Taurus
The First Union of Egypt was in the 43rd century when a powerful king of Lower Egypt, whose name we do not know, marched southward out of the Delta and conquered his rival, the king of Upper Egypt. The history of the 1st Union is the most important chapter in the entire human story, because civilization really begin in this age. Grain fields had, up to the time of the 1st Union, been cultivated by hand with the hoe. The length of the handle of the hoe was extended so that it could be attached to the yoke resting on the foreheads of two oxen. The hoe handle became the beam of the plow, , and the hoe blade became the plowshare. The invention of the first agricultural machinery marked a new epoch, for it enabled man to begin the use of animal power, that is, power other than the strength of a man or woman. With the First Union there is animal power, portable wealth, organization and coordination. By 4241 Egypt is using a solar calendar, and this is the earliest dated event in history. This is basically the same calendar which has come down to us today. There are more tools and implements of copper than in the previous two Kings (?). The Egyptians learned to make tools of copper, which enabled them to do far better work than they could with the old stone implements and to create many new and beautiful things. Copper is introduced along with stone implements, there is an advance in pottery and early building activities. 4200-2900 BC Early civilization in Egypt. The population of the valley was gradually brought together into the first great people, or nation. Thus there arose in the Nile Valley the first great agricultural nation. The annual income in grain was not the only source of increased wealth to the people and the government but it was also the first portable wealth.
4165-3985 BC Taurus of Taurus
3985-3805 BC Gemini of Taurus
3805-3625 BC Cancer of Taurus
3625-3445 BC Leo of Taurus 3500 BC We see irrigation cultures and simple writing on clay tablets in Babylon.
3445-3265 BC Virgo of Taurus
The use of phonetic signs was what made the first real writing. It began among the Nile-dwellers earlier than anywhere else in the ancient world. The Egyptians went still further and devised an alphabet. There were 24 letters in this alphabet which was in use by the 35th century BC. By the 34th century BC the Egyptians had learned to build tombs of sun-baked brick for their king. Between 3500-3200 BC influences from outside the Nile Valley spark development of the Gerzean, or Naqada II, culture. Largert towns, rudimentary irrigation mark the change. Wattle-and-daub houses give way to rectangular structures of mud brick. Pottery shows new painting techniques, incised decoration, lug handles. Tombs become more elaborate; chambers, wall paintings are added. Sumerian civilization climbs to new heights with the invention of the cart wheel and the potter's wheel ( and the first mass-produced pottery ). At the same time the first writing - pictographs - develops; earliest known use dates from about 3200 BC Pictographs and the wheel spread quickly to neighboring areas. Sumerians also devise the numbering system that would give us out 360 degree circle and out 60 minute hour. Farmers in China cultivate rice, millet, and the silk moth. In Middle and South America nomadic hunter gatherers settle into permanent villages, and develop agriculture. People of the Peruvian Andes domesticate the llama. In North America, signs of a settlement appear in a sheltered site in the Illinois River Valley. (NG)
3265-3085 BC Libra of Taurus
Separate political units - districts or provinces called "nomes" - begin to join forces. In time a single leader wins control of all nomes in Upper Egypt and achieves status as a god-king. Sumerians usher in the Bronze Age, alloying copper first with arsenic, later with tin. Artistic skills and technology in bronze spread throughout the Near East. Sumerians also develop techniques fro layering mud brick into solid, towering ziggurats - "mountains." Ceremonial stairways rise past intricate stepped terraces to temples at the top. Large and complex semicircular structures of limestone blocks, perhaps the world's first stone temples, take shape on the Mediterranean island of Malta. "Fat lady" figurines found there may represent a mother goddess or fertility cult symbol - a central feature of early religions across Europe and Asia. Potters in China and Japan produce elaborately modeled an painted jars. Earliest pottery in the Americas appears in Ecuador and Columbia, with techniques and designs that some archeologists believe may have been brought by visitors from Japan. (NG)
3085-2905 BC Scorpio of Taurus
Second Union of Egypt about 3100 BC. There arose in Upper Egypt a strong leader named Menes, who succeeded in permanently uniting the two kingdoms. Just as the power and prosperity of the 1st Union were based on the plow culture and the production of plentiful grain, so the progress of the 2nd Union grew out of the earliest mining on a large scale and the possession of plentiful copper. With the 2nd Union the Age of Metal actually began. It was chiefly the skillful use of metal tools which carried the Egyptians so far forward in their civilizations. Unification of nomes of Lower Egypt if accomplished about 3050 BC and the pharaohs of Dynasty I (3050-2890 BC) rule all Egypt. In 3000 BC the Sumerians reach their high culture. This is also the traditional date of Minos. Seaborn trade by earliest Pharaohs of the Second Union. The little sun dried brick villages of the Late Stone Age settlements of Crete probably received copper from the ships of the Nile by 3000 BC. Between 3000-2800 BC rainfall in eastern Africa decreased significantly. Between 3000-2800 BC flourishing Sumerian city states establish royal dynasties, and reach populations as large as 50,000. Their cultural influence spreads across the Near East. Stone figurines and a bull-shaped vase found in Iran reflect a close relationship to the classic art of Sumer. Trade routes develop. Trading posts and towns are established in Palestine, Syria, and Anatolia - including the first settlement of Troy. The horse is domesticated in southwestern Asia and the soybean in China. Earliest cultivation of cotton appears in the Indus Valley - and in Peru. Pictographs come into use in northern India as the remarkable Harappan culture takes root along the Indus River. (NG)
2905-2725 BC Sagittarius of Taurus 3050-2890 BC N.G. is Dynasties I in Egypt. Dynasty II of Egypt is 2890-2686 BC N.G. A new capital for the unified Egypt rises at Memphis. Royal and religious pomp and power grow as Dynasty II gains the throne. Pharaoh and noblemen build even more elaborate tombs. Egyptians devise an accurate stellar calendar, become expert at working copper and gold. Hieroglyphic writing, with many pictographic elements, decorates temples and tombs. A cursive form develops for writing on newly invented papyrus. 2815-2294 BC The Pyramid Age in Egypt. (From now until the time of the Piscean duodecamoria.) Semitic peoples spread into Mesopotamia from the western deserts. Sumerian city states (Uruk, Ur, and Kish) war against each other for dominance. Early Minoan civilization flowers on Crete. The wheel comes into use in the Indus Valley. (NG)
2725-2545 BC Capricorn of Taurus
Shortly before 2700 BC the crisis shook the foundation of the state. Details are few, but armed rebellion spread and the ruling dynasty barely survived. Somehow the rulers of the Old Kingdom, which begins with Dynasty III, restores the prosperity of Egypt. In part, the pharaohs of this age of the pyramids helped with expanded irrigation works, canals, and the development of the Delta. The Pyramid Age emerges in Egypt. Architect Imhotep build a step pyramid for King Djoser of Dynasty III (2686-2613 BC N.G.). It stands as the world's first massive monument of hewn stone. The cult of the sun god Re flourishes at Heliopolis, stimulating the sciences of astronomy and mathematics. It was probably about 2800 BC that workmen found out that with their copper tools they could cut blocks of limestone and line the burial chamber with these stone blocks in place of soft bricks. This was the first piece of stone masonry ever put together. Most of this progress was made between 2800 and 2500 BC. From 2700-2200 BC is the Old Kingdom of Egypt, Dynasties III-VI. Building of the Bent Pyramid for King Snefru of Dynasty 4 (2613-2494 BC N.G.) ushers in construction of the true pyramids. Cheops great monument rises at Giza and shortly afterwards Chephrens's with its guardian Sphinx. The Egyptians war against Nubia and Libya, and undertake trade expeditions in the Mediterranean. The Old Kingdom reaches its zenith. 2700 BC Great Pyramids. Vast imperial power. At the same time when the Great Pyramid of Egypt was being built, the Cretan craftsmen learned from their Egyptian neighbors the use of the potters wheel and the closed oven. They could then shape and bake much finer clay jars and vases. Similar vessels of stone were also produced at this time. Bureaucratic need to keep records leads to development of cuneiform writing. Royal cemetery at Ur sees burials of vast treasure, sacrificed retainers. Peoples of Europe construct megalithic chamber tombs, passage graves, and shrines such as England's Stonehenge. The first stages of the latter, apparently laid out with astronomical observation, date to the first half of the third millennium BC (about 2600 BC).
2545-2365 BC Aquarius of Taurus
2550 BC Earliest pictures of seagoing ships. Sumerian civilization soars with a highly organized political system, a complex religion, masterful achievements in art and architecture. Ur becomes the richest and most powerful city of all Mesopotamia. Rival Ebla shapes a Canaanite empire embracing Palestine and Syria. Recent Ebla finds yield 15,000 archival tablets; they are written in a cuneiform text that reflects a previously unknown Semitic language. Civilization in the Indus Valley flourishes. Sophisticated planned cities such as Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa have straight streets, buildings of fired brick, and a sewer system. Water buffalo and yak are domesticated in India and Tibet. Pottery making spreads from centers in Ecuador and Mexico.
2365-2185 BC Pisces of Taurus
2360-2180 BC is the Old Akkadian Period, which under Sargon, is the first Semitic Kingdom of importance in history. The Akkadians imitated the art of the Sumerians they conquered. Sargon of Akkad, Semitic warrior-king, unifies Mesopotamia and founds an empire that stretches from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf. His Empire collapses around 2200 BC to the Guti, nomads of the Zagros Mountains. Mesopotamian city-states again become autonomous. The end of the Pyramid Age is dated as 2294 BC. This also marks the end of the period of the Old Kingdom of Egypt, Dynasties III-VI, 2700-2200 BC. But by 2250 BC a new crisis had begun. Lakes in the source areas of the Nile shrank rapidly. some almost disappeared. Repeated famines are recorded from about 2250 to 1950 BC (through Aries of Aries, double fire). Literary works allude to scarcity of drinking water, mass deaths, rotting corpses, suicide, cannibalism, widespread plundering and anarchy. With the fall of the Old Kingdom an epidemic of looting began. The starving people traded the tomb treasures for bread. 2360 BC also marks the End of the Early Babylonian period. After 2400 BC the Pharaohs begin calling themselves "Son of Re" and build elaborate sun temples. Pyramid Texts appear in royal tombs. High officials extol their own achievement in tombs nearby. Cedar from Lebanon and gold, ebony, incense, and ivory from Africa flow into Egypt. Internal decay sets in about during the long reign of Pepy II, the last major king of Dynasty VI. His reign ended in 2181 BC. Power shifts to the monarchs - the rulers of the provinces. Egypt splinters. Farming spreads in northern and eastern China; hunter-gatherer culture still marks the south. Hittite tribes filter into central Turkey. Skilled metalsmiths there fashion treasures of gold, silver, copper, and bronze and experiment with smelting iron. In northern, central, and western European villagers cultivate wheat and barley, raise cattle and sheep. Farming people erect huge stone monuments in the Orkney Islands.
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