By C.Staniland
Wake
THE association of the name of the god Seth with the Great Pyramid�a
structure which appears to embody or to bear a relation to the chief
scientific truths recognised by the ancient world, throws light
on certain ideas entertained as to the nature of that deity. The
god of intelligence of the Egyptians was Thoth, the Hermes of the
Sab�ans. Hermes was, however, called the son of Seth, and this deity
is in some sense to be identified with Thoth. In a passage of the
Book of the Dead, the former has the name Tet which, according to
Bunsen, intimates that Thoth inherited many of the attributes of
Seth. * It may, indeed,
show that they are the same deity.
Seth was the true god of Wisdom, and the pillars of Seth, on
which, according to Josephus,
� was inscribed the astronomical knowledge
of the ancient world, were the same as those mentioned in an apocryphal
work ascribed to Hermes, which, according to Cedrenus, affirmed
that "Enoch, foreseeing the destruction of the Earth, had inscribed
the science of astronomy upon two pillars."
* By these structures was probably intended
the two great pyramids of Ghizeh, which appear originally to have
had many inscriptions on their external coverings. Makrizi cites
various authors as to the origin of the Pyramids, and among other
statements it was said that that they were built by Surid, and that
the First was dedicated to history and astronomy, and the Second
to medical knowledge. �
As Seth, Thoth, or Hermes was the god of Wisdom, so the serpent
was its emblem, and especially connected with that God and with
other deities of similar characteristics. "Wise as serpents.
� and harmless as doves,"
is an old saying, which probably has a deeper meaning than that
usually ascribed to it.
The connection between the serpent and the idea of wisdom is
well seen in the Hindu legend as to the Nagas. Mr. Fergusson remarks, "the
Naga appears everywhere in Vaishnava tradition. There is no more
common representation of Vishnu than as reposing on the Sesha, the
celestial seven-headed snake, contemplating the creation of the
world." The Upanishads refer to the science of serpents, by
which is meant the wisdom of the mysterious Nagas who, according
to Buddhistic legend, reside under Mount Meru, and in the waters
of the terrestrial world. One of the sacred books of the Tibetan
Buddhists is fabled to have been received from the Nagas, who, says
Schlagentweit, are "fabulous creatures, of the nature of serpents,
who occupy a place among the beings superior to man, and are regarded
as protectors of the law of the Buddha. To these spiritual beings
Sakyamuni is said to have taught a more philosophical religious
system than to men, who were not sufficiently advanced to understand
it at the time of his appearance." The serpent holds an analogous
place in the religious ideas of the modern Hindus. Siva,
* as Sambhu, is the patron
of the Brahmanic order, and, as shown by his being three-eyed, is
essentially a god possessing high intellectual attributes.
Vishnu also is a god of wisdom, but (notwithstanding the association
with him of the Sesha), of a somewhat lower type, such as is distinctive
of the worshippers of truth under its feminine aspect. The serpent
has been connected with the god of Wisdom from the earliest times
of which we have any historical notice. This animal was the especial
symbol of Thoth or Taut, a primeval deity of Syro-Egyptian mythology,
and of all those gods, such as Hermes and Seth, who can be connected
with him. This is true also of the third member of the primitive
Chaldean triad, H�a or Hoa. According to Sir Henry Rawlinson, the
most important titles of this deity refer to "his functions
as the source of all knowledge and science." Not only is he "the
intelligent fish," but his name may be read as signifying both "life"
and a "serpent," and he may be considered as "figured
by the great serpent which occupies so conspicuous a place among
the symbols of the gods on the black stones recording Babylonian
benefactions." M. Lenormant identifies H�a with the fish-god
Oannes of Babylonian mythology, who, according to Berosus, "spent
the whole day amongst men without taking any food, while he taught
them letters, science, and the principles of every art, the rules
for the foundation of towns, the building of temples, the measurement
and boundaries of lands, seed-time and harvest, in short, all that
could advance civilization, so that nothing new has been invented
since that period." *
H�a, as the god of Science, was the defender of "the frame
of nature against the incessant ravages of the wicked spirits,"
and "help was sought from him when neither word, rite, talisman,
nor even the intervention of any other of the gods had availed to
destroy the demons� power."
�
The Chaldean god was moreover, the healer of disease,
� in which character he
resembled the God of the Hebrews, the sight of whose serpent-symbol
was supposed to cure those bitten by the fiery serpents in the wilderness.
There is reason to believe
� that this deity was the same as Seth, the Agathod�mon of the
early Egyptians, who was represented under the form of the serpent,
and who was the giver of happiness and good fortune.
* The good genius which
presided over the affairs of men as the guardian spirit of their
houses was a serpent, the Asp of Ranno, the snake-headed goddess
who is represented as nursing the young princes. That the idea of
health was among the Egyptians intimately associated with the serpent,
is shown, moreover, by the crown formed of the asp, or sacred Thermuthis,
having been given particularly to Isis, a goddess of Life and Healing.
It was also the symbol of other gods of health and the like attributes,
as stated by the learned Dupuis in the chapters entitled "Esculapius,
Serapis, Pluto, Esmun, Cneph, and all the divinities with the attributes
of the serpent" �
is remarkable that a Moslem saint of Upper Egypt is still thought
to appear under the form of a serpent, and to cure the diseases
which afflict the pilgrims to his shrine. The power of healing is
an evidence of the possession of wisdom, and so also is the power
of influencing atmospheric changes. This is a most important attribute,
and, as Mr. Fergusson points out, a chief characteristic of the
serpents throughout the East in all ages seems to have been their
power over the wind and rain. According to Colonel Meadows Taylor,
in the Indian Deccan, at the present day, offerings are made to
the village divinities (of whom the nag, or snake, is always one)
at spring time and harvest for rain or fine weather, and also in
time of cholera or other diseases or pestilence. So, among the Chinese,
the dragon is regarded. as the giver of rain, and in time of drought
offerings are made to it. In the spring and fall, of the year it
is one of the objects worshipped, by command of the Emperor, by
certain mandarins. The Chinese notion of the serpent or dragon dwelling
above the clouds in spring to give rain reminds us of the Aryan
myth of Vritra, or Ahi, the throttling snake, or dragon with three
heads, who hides away the rain-clouds, but who is slain by Indra,
the beneficent giver of rain. M. Br�al says,
* that "Typhon is the monster who
obscures the heavens, a sort of Greek Vritra." The myth of
Indra and Vritra is reproduced in Latin mythology as that of Hercules
and Cacus. Cacus also is analogous to Typhon, and as the former
is supposed to have taken his name from, or given it to, a certain
wind which had the power of clothing itself with clouds, so the
latter bore the same name as a very destructive wind which was much
dreaded by the Phoenicians and Egyptians. Moreover, the name Typhon
was given by the Egyptians to anything tempestuous and hence to
the Ocean.
We have here a reference to the serpent as the embodiment of
the Evil Being; and in the later identification of Seth with Typhon,
the enemy of Osiris, we have evidence of the connection of the serpent
with the former deity. M. Lenormant tells us that, "evil was
personified in a particular god, Set or Soutekh,
* called also sometimes Baal, who was the
supreme god of the neighbouring Asiatic populations, and, at a later
period, of the shepherd kings; the Greeks considered him the same
as their Typhon, and it was said that Osiris had succumbed to his
blows." � The name
Typhon appears to have been given more especially to the Evil Being,
as the opponent of Horus, who was, however, the same deity as Osiris,
whose son he was said to be. The former was then represented as
Apap or Apophis, or the giant serpent, who was pierced by the spear
of Horus, as the serpent Pytho was slain by Apollo.
* Henceforth Seth, instead
of being regarded by the Egyptians as the Agathod�mon, was looked
upon as the principle of evil. The same change took place among
the Accadian population of Media. M. Lenormant states that the "worship
of serpent-gods is found amongst many of the Turanian tribes. The
Accadians made the serpent one of the principal attributes, and
one of the forms of H�a." When once, however, "the Iranian
traditions were fused with the ancient beliefs of the Proto-Medic
religion, the serpent-god naturally became identified with the representative
of the dark and bad principle, for, according to the Mazdean myths,
the serpent was the form assumed by Angromainyus, in order to penetrate
into the heaven of Ahuramazda."
* Here is the conflict between light and darkness,
and between life and death, which is reproduced in Egyptian mythology,
where the evil principle is represented in the one case by the serpent
Apap, and in the other by Set
� (Seth), whose symbol was the serpent.
The association between the serpent and the idea of darkness
had an astronomical foundation. The position which the constellation
Draco at one time occupied showed that the Great Serpent was the
ruler of the night. This constellation was formerly at the very
centre of the heavens, and it is so extensive, that it was called
the Great Dragon. Its body spreads over seven signs of the Zodiac,
and Dupuis, who sees in the Dragon of the Apocalypse a reference
to the celestial serpent, says, "It is not astonishing that
a constellation so extended should be represented by the author
of that book as a great dragon with seven heads, who drew the third
part of the stars from heaven and cast them to the earth."
. Moreover, when the constellation
Draco occupied its elevated position, it supplied the polestar of
the heavens. The importance of this fact, in connection with the
erection of the Great Pyramid, will be understood after what has
been said as to the association of the Pyramid with the god Seth.
That structure was erected, not only as a tomb for its founder,
but as a monumental temple in honour of a deity whose special symbol
was the serpent, the emblem of wisdom with the primitive race whose
religion would appear to have been a combination of serpent-worship
and Sabaism. The Great Pyramid is thus a monument not only of Sabaism,
but of serpent-worship, and, as such, its scientific as well as
its astronomical character receives the proper explanation. The
builders of such a temple would apply their utmost skill in its
construction and they would seek to preserve in it, as far as possible,
the scientific knowledge which they had derived from their ancestors.
According to a Coptic MS., upon the walls of the Pyramids were
written the mysteries of science, astronomy, geometry, physic, and
much useful knowledge. The same MS. states, that they were built
before the Flood by Surid, for safety, and as tombs for himself
and household. * It is
remarkable that, as Sir Gardner Wilkinson points out, Tuph�n, which
appears to be the same word as Typhon, the name of the Evil Being,
is the Arabic name of the Deluge.
� The association of the Pyramids with a flood
has, however, a purely astronomical explanation. Mr. Proctor, when
speaking of the position of the pole-star Alpha Draconis, at the
date of the erection of the Great Pyramid, says,
� "We know that in the past the constellation
of the Dragon was at the pole, or boss, of the celestial sphere.
In stellar temples, like those of which Rawlinson gives examples,
the Dragon would be the uppermost or ruling constellation. And here,
in passing, it may interest the reader to note that, some find evidence
in this relation that when writers of old spoke of the Old Dragon
as having been cast from heaven, carrying two-thirds of the celestial
beings with him, reference was made�unconsciously, perhaps, on the
narrator's part �to some tradition of the passing away or fall of
the Dragon from its former ruling position among the constellations.
Those who thus interpret ancient records (much more ancient than
Jewish history), find in Hercules, with his heel assailed by the
serpent, as in our constellation figures, the first Adam; in Ophinchus,
the serpent holder, the second Adam. In Argo they find the Ark�in
fact, in a whole series of constellations they find the story of
the Flood. In Aquarius, with the streams pouring from his water-jug,
they find the beginning of the Flood. In the river Eridanus and
the seas in which Pisces and the great sea-monster Cetus seem to
swim, they see pictured the prevalence of deep water over the whole
earth. The Raven of the Heavens is the raven of the Flood-narrative.
Argo is the Ark, shown as if only the stern-half of a great ship
lodged in the mountain. The Centaur, bearing sacrifice, as Aratus
says, to Ara, the altar, is Noah offering sacrifice after he had
left the Ark; and the bow of Sagittarius in the smoke (the Milky-way),
which seems to ascend from the altar, is the bow of promise. These
may, of course, be only fancies, but it is singular how closely
these constellations, which are among the few really seeming to
picture recognisable objects in the heavens, correspond in sequence
and in range of right ascension with the events recorded respecting
the Flood." *
Fancies or not, it is unquestionable that the Deluge has been
associated in the legends of some Eastern peoples, not only with
the Pyramids, � but also
with the constellations. Thus it is with the Chaldean legend, according
to which Saturn in a dream announced the coming catastrophe to Xixutrus,
who, like Noah, escaped in an ark. The Assyrian tablets discovered
by the late Dr. Smith, and which contain what is called the Nimrod
Epic, have preserved a similar account of the Deluge. It is now
established that the twelve cantos of that Epic "refer to the
annual course of the sun through the twelve months of the year.
Each tablet answers to a special month, and contains a distinct
reference to the animal forms in the signs of the Zodiac."
Thus, "the Deluge forms the subject of the eleventh canto,
corresponding with the month of Skebat (Feb.-Jan.), which is consecrated
to Rimmon, the god of storms and rain, and harmonises with the eleventh
sign of the Zodiac�Aquarius, or the Waterman. The latter month is
styled in Sumerish-Accadian 'the month of the curse of the rain,'
or, as we might almost say, the Deluge month."
* The ancient Babylonians
are usually accredited with the invention of the worship of the
heavenly bodies, and the existence among them of the deluge myth
in connection with the constellations is an important fact. It is
no less important in relation to the question of the object of the
Great Pyramid, that the capital of Babylonia contained a structure
described by Strabo as a pyramid dedicated to the worship of the
planetary bodies, exceeding in size the great Egyptian monument
itself, and much resembling the Egyptian Pyramid of Degrees at Sakkarah.
The Babylonian Tower was at the base a square of 600 feet, and consisted
of eight towers, each 75 feet high, one above the other, making
a total height of 600 feet. M. Lenormant speaks of the erection
of this temple as having been attributed to "the most ancient
king, the first king," and he says it was "the tangible
expression, the material and architectural manifestation, of the
Chaldaic-Babylonian religion. Serving both as a sanctuary and as
an observatory for the stars, it agreed admirably with the genius
of the essentially siderial religion to which it was united by an
indissoluble bond" *�language
which might be used with exactly the same propriety of the Great
Pyramid itself.
That the erection of the Great Pyramid had some connection with
the constellations is not at all improbable. We have already seen
that Mr. Proctor prefers the date 3350 B.C. to the later one of
2170 B.C. for the building of the pyramid. The latter date would
seem, however, to be the more probable one. That it was erected
during the reign of Cheops
� is almost universally admitted; and, although the time when
he reigned has not been satisfactorily established, there are grounds
for believing it to have been about 2200 B.C. Prof. C. Piazzi Smyth
affirms that "the only monumental conclusion formed by comparing
the quarry marks of the Great Pyramid with whatever is to be trusted,
or is tolerably agreed upon among Egyptologists, and both of them
with an astronomical date of the buildings,�can be no other than
that two of the kings of the Fourth Dynasty of Egyptian history�Shofo
and Nu-Shofo by name�lived through a period including the epoch
of 2170 B.C." * It
is true that, as Prof. Smyth points out, this date differs from
that fixed by nearly all modern Egyptologists,
� although it agrees very nearly with the
date 2228 B.C., assigned for the commencement of the Fourth Dynasty
by Mr. Wm. Osburn, the author of the "Monumental History of
Egypt." It is consistent, moreover, with the chronological
facts given by Dr. Birch. This Egyptologist gives 3000 B.C. for
the commencement of the first dynasty; and if this Dynasty continued
for 263 years, the Second Dynasty for 306 years, and the Third Dynasty
for 214 years, as stated by Manetho, we have 2223 B.C. as the date
of the commencement of the Fourth Dynasty, and therefore of the
erection of the Great Pyramid, if Cheops was its builder. Curiously
enough, however, this is about the date fixed for the origin of
the constellations. Mr. Proctor states that between 2100 and 2200
years before the Christian era the southern constellations had their
original position, the invisible southern pole then lying at the
centre of the space free from constellations. He adds, "It
is noteworthy that for other reasons this period, or rather a definite
epoch within it, is indicated as that to which must be referred
the beginning of exact astronomy. Amongst others must be mentioned
this�that in the year 2170 B.C. quam proxime, the Pleiades rose
to their highest above the horizon at noon (or technically made
their noon culmination) at the spring equinox. We can readily understand
that to minds possessed with full faith in the influence of the
stars on the earth, this fact would have great significance."
At that epoch the southernmost constellations would be seen in their
natural position�standing upright when above the southern horizon
at midnight. On those grounds, Mr. Proctor affirms that the period
when the old southern constellations were formed must have been
between 2400 and 2000 years before the Christian era, He deems it
highly probable, moreover, that the year 2170 B.C. may be regarded
as the date, not of the beginning of astronomy, but of the introduction
of a new astronomical system, the substitution of the use of the
twelve zodiacal signs for that of the twenty-eight lunar mansions.
Assuming that conclusion to be correct, we have a most remarkable
coincidence between the date of the invention of the Zodiac and
that of the erection of the Great Pyramid. If it is true, however,
as Dupuis supposed, that the Egyptians invented the constellations,
the agreement between those dates was probably more than a coincidence.
The French writer remarks, "The figures traced in the Zodiac
and in the other constellations have not been placed there haphazard:
they are the hieroglyphic calendar of the ancient peoples; they
are connected with their wants and their climate; and they all have
a meaning in their origin, although it may be difficult for us now
to discover the sense of all the symbols." Dupuis shows what
was the primitive position of the constellations, considered as
the astronomical and rural calendar of a people both intellectual
and agricultural, and he affirms that it accords perfectly with
the agriculture of Egypt, and at the same time with the position
of the solstitial and equinoctial points in the heavens at a certain
epoch. Moreover, owing to the difference in the order of agricultural
operations followed in Egypt from that in other climates, the rural
calendar which fitted the Egyptians could not suit any other people,
and therefore he ascribes to them the honour of having invented
the astronomical sciences; a conclusion supported, it is said, by
the fact that the Egyptians regarded their Zodiac, not only as a
rural and meteorological calendar, but as the base of all their
religion and of their astronomy.
* M. Flammarion appears to doubt whether Dupuis
has satisfactorily established his theory of the origin of the constellations,
� and the date fixed by
Mr. Proctor for the formation of the Zodiac is hardly consistent
with that theory. It is possible, however, that whilst the constellations
were formed by the Chaldeans long before that date, the zodiacal
signs were only then arranged in an order to accord with the climate
of Egypt by settlers in this country. Mr. Proctor, after fixing
the probable limits of the place where the constellations were formed,
at from 35 to 39 degrees north of the equator, says, "The Great
Pyramid, as we know, is about 30 degrees north of the Equator; but
we also know that its architects travelled southwards to find a
suitable place for it. One of their objects may have been to obtain
a fuller view of the star-sphere south of their constellations."
* This suggestion is a
very important one, for it assumes that the constellations were
formed before the erection of the Pyramid, and therefore that the
date of the latter event cannot have been earlier than that of the
former. Mr. Proctor goes further, however, and even suggests that
one of the objects which the architects of the Great Pyramid may
have had was "the erection of a building indicating the epoch
when the new system was entered upon, and defining in its proportions,
its interior passages, and other features, fundamental elements
of the new system." The construction of that building implies
considerable proficiency in astronomical observation, and hence,
says Mr. Proctor, "the year 2170 B.C. may very well be regarded
as defining the introduction of a new system of astronomy, but certainly
not the beginning of astronomy itself.
*" That year becomes, however, the date
of the pyramid itself, and in the suggestion that it was intended
to commemorate the substitution of the twelve zodiacal signs for
the twenty-eight lunar mansions, we have a strong confirmation of
the opinion expressed in these pages that the Great Pyramid was
a monument of Sabaism, and that it was erected in honour of Seth,
the Agathod�mon of the ancient world, and consecrated to his worship.