About Wandering Stars

Why Egypt?

Why Egypt?

Part 1

This is the question I am asked most often, and a complicated one to answer. The root of that question is one of relevance, whether it be for myself, or everyone else. Therefore, that relevance is two-pronged and must be approached in two parts.

Here, in Part 1, I’ll take on the latter first: the relevance of historic, as well as prehistoric, ancient Egypt to everyone, all together in our current situation as an electricity-driven high-tech society on the verge of societal and ecological collapse.

In plain sight…

The photograph above is as good as any place to begin. I snapped it on the afternoon of March 22, 2018, after returning to Giza from Saqqara, right before being shuttled back to my Cairo hotel room. It’s perhaps the most poignant of all my photographs, being the second to the last one I would take in Egypt before my early-morning flight to Istanbul and back home. I’ll save the last one for, well, last.

In this panorama facing the Northwest, we see the familiar landmarks of the Giza plateau: The Great Pyramid of Khufu on the right, the Pyramid of Khafre on the left with the enigmatic Sphinx before it. In front of the Sphinx lay the ruins of the Sphinx Temple and to the left of this what is called the Valley Temple.

Let me direct your attention to the people on the left in front of the Valley Temple, and then to the massive limestone blocks stacked above their heads and the “smaller” fitted red granite blocks directly behind them. Compare the respective sizes…

These gigantic puzzle pieces are what are often referred to as megaliths, inexplicably massive rock construction blocks - such as are found in several locations worldwide. The largest of the limestone megaliths here average approximately 20’ x 8’ x 10’, weighing in at well over 150 tons. Cutting and removing, then moving and lifting these huge blocks into place would be an outstanding engineering feat even today. However, we can hardly understand exactly how the ancient Egyptians accomplished it without wheels, or more importantly, why they would go to so much monumental trouble and expense to build with them in the first place. It had to have been a functional imperative, or at least so easy to do that it didn’t matter. Either way, there is no mention nor explanation given whatsoever in all of the Dynastic Egyptian inscriptions or papyri as to the methods of construction of these grand monuments.

The limestone monoliths of these two temples, as well as that of Khafre at the foot of his pyramid, were hewn from around the Sphinx, creating its moat-like enclosure, and then moved, lifted, and puzzled together to build the inner structures whose ruins you see here. Then, on top of the already eroded limestone blocks, were placed carefully fitted and finely dressed pink granite blocks, quarried from over 500 miles south in Aswan and transported by boat down the Nile to Giza, some weighing as much as 70 tons, with joints so tight a razor blade won’t fit between them. Some are precision carved to curve around corners (see photos below). We are told by Egyptologists that the construction of the Sphinx and Valley temple complex was accomplished during the reign of Khafre circa 2558 - 2532 BCE, along with his huge pyramid. Curiously, the only tools showing up in the archaeological record during that period are hand saws, flint or copper chisels, and stone ball hammers.

This timeline for the Sphinx was irrevocably upset when author John Anthony West, inspired by another quote from R.A. Schwaller DeLubicz mentioning water erosion on the Sphinx enclosure walls, conscripted geologist Dr. Robert Schoch, associate professor of Natural Sciences at the College of General Studies, Boston University, to inspect these blocks and the walls of the Sphinx enclosure in 1991.

What he saw immediately surprised him: his trained geologist’s eye detected obvious water runoff erosion on the enclosure walls, which had been topped off with sand and protected from erosion, neither water, dew, and/or wind-driven sand, for nearly two millennia of the known history of the Sphinx. The blocks of the Valley Temple, as mentioned earlier, were already eroded when they were later dressed with smaller though still megalithic pink granite blocks. The timeline that Schoch and West first estimated for the construction of the Sphinx and Valley Temple was an astounding 12,000 BCE, although Schoch later pulled his estimate back to 9,000 BCE, seven or eight hundred years after the end of the last Ice Age. Dr. Schoch even went to the trouble of addressing his findings to the Geological Society, for which he became a bit of a pariah. It turns out that while they overshot the age by several millennia, they were quite correct in their assertion for pre-dynastic construction.

Dr. Schoch’s water erosion hypothesis was subsequently confirmed by other accredited geologists, at least as part of the erosion process, but the latest discoveries in 2022 show that the Sphinx and its related temples could not be much older than 6,000 years. Based upon the heaviest weather patterns that paleo-climatologists call the African Humid Period from 7000 to 3500 BCE, the window where the Nile inundations of Giza would no longer have risen high enough to destroy the soft limestone construction and yet still provide the required precipitation for the enclosure erosion to occur would have been between 4,000 and 3,500 BCE. That is assuming, of course, a smooth transition, which seems unlikely.

Archaeologist Robert Schnieker has shown that throughout most of the AHP the Sphinx would have been nearly submerged by the Nile and subject to incredible currents and erosion, and so never could have survived, nor would it have become so eroded, unless built sometime before the AHP officially ended in 3500 BCE. He also discovered that the area in front of the Sphinx had been excavated and flooded into a port, which would have greatly facilitated the receiving of construction blocks and supplies for the pyramids and temples while the Nile was still running high.

Another researcher, geologist Colin Reader, has added further fascinating detail with his interpretations based upon the fossilized reef rock formations, indicating that the bulk of the erosion occurred around 4,000 BCE, based on runoff patterns that occurred before the pyramids were built. That is still a prehistoric date, the first written texts from Sumer and Egypt not appearing until over 500 years later; either way, it hasn’t rained enough to erode limestone like that since 3500 BCE. This shows how the Sphinx and the limestone core of the Valley Temple, and perhaps the older core of the pyramids were built long before the pyramids we know were added.

Matt Sibson sums it all up nicely in his excellent Ancient Architects YouTube video linked below:

We see the use of pink Aswan granite in the construction of all three Giza pyramids, and inside the Meidum pyramid, stylistically indicating that they were built around the same time that the granite retrofitting of the older Valley Temple occurred. This had to be accomplished long enough after the original temple construction for wind and water erosion to occur to the huge inner limestone blocks beforehand. This granite construction likely occurred in early Dynastic times - corroborated by the carbon dating of organic material in the mortar between blocks deep in the Great Pyramid to around the opening decades of the 1st Dynasty. More on this later…

Anthropology has most of humanity as foraging hunter/gatherers, including prehistoric Egypt before 8000 BCE, and deemed incapable of such monumental stonework as the Sphinx and Valley Temple at that time. Be that as it may, archaeologists have uncovered evidence of the use of the sickle and significant organized agriculture in the Nile delta dating back to 10,000 BCE, which means there would have easily been the requisite economy and manpower to do so by 4,000 BCE, lacking any evidence of the technology to pull off moving those enormous blocks. By then, agriculture was predominant in Egypt, and so they had the full economic capability to begin building the Sphinx complex if not a pyramid core or two, nearly 1,000 years before Dynastic Egypt burst onto the scene.

Still, many Egyptologists are compelled to attribute the 4th Dynasty pharaoh Khufu for building the otherwise unmarked and uninscribed Great Pyramid in 2,570 BCE. This is mostly based on a tiny damaged statuette found in the temple in front of his Great Pyramid, and red hieroglyphic graffiti (possibly a forgery) in the upper relieving chambers over the King’s Chamber that purportedly bears a version of his name; which by the way, has never been carbon dated. Some stone ball hammers and pottery shards found in the pyramid and Sphinx enclosure from this period have secured the assignment of the 4th Dynasty to the whole of the Giza complex construction, though it by no means offers proof of anything but the later use in the modification of the monuments.

While we have no reason to doubt that the blank pyramid chambers and boxes were once used as tombs and sarcophagi, their one shared feature points to their being pre-dynastic - that is, the distinct lack of hieroglyphic inscriptions. Add to that the inescapable difficulty of their precision astronomical alignment - not to mention the method and timing of construction, which have never been satisfactorily explained, and you still have a bonafide mystery. Coupled with radiocarbon testing dating the Great Pyramid to just before or during the 1st or 2nd Dynasties, this suggests the distinct possibility of their having been usurped by the 4th Dynasty Old Kingdom pharaohs. Either that or the timeline for those pharaohs needs to be shifted back accordingly some 350-odd years at least.

Such a late pre-dynastic or early 1st Dynasty date of construction puts them either closely behind or coterminous with the construction of the Mesopotamian Anu Ziggurat at Uruk and its White Temple, just as Egyptian hieroglyphics and Sumerian cuneiform appeared around the same time. But again, the Sphinx and Valley Temple appear geologically older from rainwater runoff patterns on the plateau that are older than the pyramids. Based on the geology and the carbon dating the time period here for the construction of the Sphinx and pyramids is between 4000 to 2800 BCE!

Geologist Jorn Christiansen wisely concludes that there is no way of accurately dating the Sphinx enclosure and Valley Temple within a few thousand years based on the complex water and wind erosion, salt wicking, and complex layered geology expressed there. Even so, the historic weather patterns attested to in the geological record irrevocably throw the spanner in the works of a 26th-century BCE date for their construction, and therein lies the conundrum. Researchers still cannot account realistically for how it was that Khafre managed to carve the Sphinx, construct its double-layered megalithic temples, and erect and then dress with masonry the second-tallest stone structure on earth during his lifetime, much less explain how WE could pull it all off today with our cranes and power tools within the 20-year time frame most Egyptologists suggest, no matter how many workers were employed (the archaeological evidence shows that they voluntary laborers, and that the pyramid builders did not use slave labor).

Besides, there is undeniable runoff water erosion on the Giza plateau itself as well as the Sphinx enclosure walls, and that wasn’t happening anymore by circa 2600 - 2550 BCE when all of these monoliths were purportedly raised. I believe that the most we can attribute to Khafre alone, and it’s quite a lot, is the building of his pyramid on top of an older site, refurbishing the causeway to the Sphinx; and since the same red or pink Aswan granite is incorporated into all three Giza Pyramids, we might rightly conclude he added the amazing granite cladding to the eroded limestone monoliths of the already old Valley Temples - possibly with Khufu and Menkaure working either together or alone. But then again, there’s that pesky radiocarbon dating putting the Great Pyramid’s construction at a date between 200 - 400 years earlier - at the dawn of the 1st Dynasty. And since the Sphinx and its temples are demonstrably at least 500 to 1000 years older than that, I think we have not only a “lost” civilization here, but have “found” one that existed as much as a millennium before Menes unified Upper and Lower Egypt in 3100 BCE.

Ancient Stonework Technology

The remnants of ancient stone carving prowess are to be seen everywhere in the ruins of ancient Egypt.

Of these, perhaps none are more astounding than the 24 humongous sarcophagus-shaped boxes found in alcoves in the underground passageways carved from the limestone bedrock of the so-called Serapeum of Saqqara - adjacent to the Step Pyramid of Djoser just South of Giza. Similar to the human-scale pink granite boxes in Khufu’s and Khafre’s pyramids, these gigantic boxes are carved mostly in very hard igneous granite or granite-like stone such as diorite, ranging between 7 and 8 mhos on the hardness scale, just below corundum at 9 and diamond at 10. For perspective, the marble and limestone most often used by the Greeks and Romans were a much softer 3 mhos. Some are polished to a mirror finish, with material scooped out, presumably to remove tiny cracks to preserve structural integrity. They average around 100+ tons each and are around 5 feet tall without the lid (carved from the same single stone block), and are over 10 feet long - the interior being perfectly flat, polished, and square inside within a thousandth of a millimeter.

I did take a few photos inside the Serapeum when I was at Saqqara, but it was on the down-low due to camera restriction right then (that took a separate ticket I didn’t buy), and aren’t as good as I would have liked. Besides, nothing can show the sheer size, workmanship, and tight placement of these better than a good video, such as the one linked below by Ben Van Kerkwyk on his UnchartedX YouTube channel. This one is Part 2a of his five-part series on the Serapeum. Ben has produced several excellent videos concerning remnants of ancient technology, such as tube drill holes and extreme precision - particularly Egyptian, and this one is no exception. He adheres to strict standards of presenting nothing but the facts along with the science that backs them up in his videos and offers no “superior race” theories or attributions to “aliens’. He simply demonstrates the obvious high-tech machining and greater antiquity of these breathtaking objects. I like this one because it’s a short but sweet tour - under 15 minutes.

The necropolis of Saqqara (likely named after the most ancient Egyptian god of the dead, the mummiform hawk-headed Sokar, thought to be the root of the Latin word sacred), is the location of a labyrinth of tombs from all the periods of Egyptian history, including several tomb pyramids, the most notable being the huge Step Pyramid of Djoser, considered the first proper pyramid. Saqqara has recently been made famous by the incredible finds of over 150 well-preserved colorful New Kingdom and Late Period wooden coffins and funerary furnishings, the refurbishing and opening of Djoser’s tomb, and the Netflix special about a particularly fascinating Old Kingdom tomb excavation.

But many people do not know about the mysterious giant granite boxes secreted in chambers deep in tunnels beneath the sand in the nearby Serapeum. Historical accounts tell us that these huge boxes were coffins produced in the Late Period Ptolemaic Dynasties for the Apis bulls, although only one small bovine skeleton and no full bull mummies have been found. Most of the boxes were empty when discovered with their heavy lids lifted slightly aside. No nesting sarcophagi or mummies were found in or near these empty boxes, some of which had their lids in place, so we might question their original purpose. It is totally within reason to believe these were all looted, but how did everything just disappear into thin air after that?

The French explorer Auguste Mariette set dynamite to one large sealed one in 1851, only to find it containing some bull bones - not mummified. The boxes boomingly resonate with voices when sitting inside them, which attests to resonance geometry, as we see in the King’s Chamber of the Great Pyramid and Khafre’s pyramid, among other places. The human-sized pink granite sarcophagus boxes in both of these but tiny versions, albeit just as miraculous in construction and likely from the same era stoneworkers.

Other such smaller boxes have been found in tombs throughout Egypt, some finding their way to museums, including the Egyptian Museum at Tahrir Square in Cairo, only because they could be readily moved. It is understood that Egyptians famously repurposed or usurped funerary sarcophagi and furnishings throughout their history, and that certainly appears to be the case here, with the hieroglyph carvings on a single Serapeum box being very rough compared to the exquisite workmanship and polish of the monolith itself. Then again, it could simply be attributed to a division of specialty labor. Who knows?

Meanwhile, the precision stonework of the ancient Egyptians goes from the truly gigantic, as above, to the very small and delicate, once again carved out of impossibly hard stone - as if mass-produced on a diamond lathe. This is attested to by incredibly beautiful stoneware, some with walls so thin they are translucent, mostly found at Saqqara, many hundreds of them discovered under the Step Pyramid of Djoser. The Egyptian Museum in Cairo had a nice collection on display when I was there, though regrettably, the museum was closing when I finally encountered them, I only had time to snap one or two out-of-focus photos.

In the previous video, some of these enigmatic vessels in the Egyptian museum were shown briefly when he was discussing precision stone-working, so again, I am going to direct you to another of Ben’s videos, this one pertaining specifically to the subject of precision, both in contemporary technology and in these miraculous stone artifacts. In this, he quotes from the eminent early Egyptologist from the late 1800s, Flinders Petrie, in his first objective commentary on these jars, along with great photos and videos of them fairly recently in the Egyptian Museum. It’s an hour-long, so fast forward to 19:50 for footage of these amazing stone vessels in the Cairo Museum if you don’t have time; but the whole thing cuts to the chase to the oeuvre’ of this first part of “Why Egypt?” so I wholeheartedly invite you to take an hour to watch it in its entirety.

I will apologize in advance for Ben repeating the same general criticisms leveled against “mainstream” archaeology made by the “global lost civilization” crowd for purportedly explaining away or ignoring this information because it doesn’t fit with it their timelines. This is, for the most part anyway, not true - the discussion is far more complex than that and pertains to the natural rift between academic archaeology and pseudo-archaeology. I feel that he would have better served his presentation by cordially inviting feedback from multiple academic or scientific disciplines including archaeologists to share what they do know. From what I’ve seen, any archaeologist worth their salt would jump at the chance of scientifically verifying such claims, so such criticisms simply don’t hold water for me. However, his asides are minor digs, and he always sticks with the archaeological evidence, history, and science throughout, so do give it a watch. (Thanks Ben!)

Photos are Ben Van Kerkwyk’s.

The only thing on earth that can withstand the ravages of time and tide is stone, and even stone eventually breaks down. Stone is all that survives to reveal ancient worlds to us, except in rare cases of mummies and their belongings found secreted in desert tombs, preserved in peat bogs, or frozen in glaciers. Only Egypt contains the nearly complete records of an ancient and previously lost civilization, much of it carved in stone, that persisted in the Dynastic form for an unprecedented 3,500 years, and dates back at least a millennia before that, if not further back in time. Besides the biblical accounts, the West barely knew a doggoned thing about Egypt before Napoleon.

Archaeologists have uncovered evidence of human presence as hunter-gatherers in Egypt as early as 40,000 BCE, and evidence of the beginnings of agriculture there around 11,000 BCE. The archaeological history of prehistoric Egypt is fascinating with its periods, cultures, and art, although none of them show any verifiable sign of megalithic public works such as the Sphinx complex. This is why early Egyptologists firmly believed the age pronounced by Dr. Schoch was highly unlikely based on the evidence, of which they had quite a lot. But that was before Gobekli Tepi pushed such megalithic construction back to 12,000 BCE. What we do see is a mass movement of people into the Nile Valley and the development of cities and agriculture around 9000 BCE, the time Schoch suggests for the Sphinx construction.

The ancient Egyptians themselves tell us in their temple inscriptions and papyri that they inherited their civilization from previous “Kings” - the Shemsu Hor (friends or “followers” of Horus) and the Neteru - their god forms, particularly Isis and Osiris. We are asked to believe that this was all mythical fantasy on their part, but the Egyptians sure didn’t think so - they treated it as a historical record.

The Egyptians attributed the greatness of their civilization to the inspiration and wisdom of a spiritual leadership stretching back tens of thousands of years. These historical documents have survived to this day — such as the carvings at the temple of Horus at Edfu which speak of a great flood and the “First Time” called Zep Tepi. The Palermo Stone, the Turin Papyrus, and Manetho's "History of Egypt" all refer to Zep Tepi as consisting of two previous stages of Egyptian civilization.

The first era was the time ruled by the various Neteru, or “divine beings”, each for thousands of years. This period ended with the last “Neter” or “Netjer”, Horus. We might attribute the original Sphinx and monolithic limestone temples to them. Next was the era of the Shemsu Hor, the “Sons” or “Friends” of Horus which, we are told by inscriptions on the walls of the Horus temple, suffered a cataclysmic flood as mentioned previously. To these, we might attribute the building of the pyramids and the addition of pink granite casing stones to protect and refurbish the older weathered limestone monoliths of the previous Zep Tepi Kings.

In 1984, funded by the Edgar Cayce Foundation, Egyptologist Mark Lehner conscripted a carbon-14 dating project, testing samples of interstitial mortar taken from inside the Great Pyramid that yielded an average date of nearly 400 years before Khufu, at least during the 1st Dynasty and possibly before. Granted, the trees supplying the firewood to make it may have been quite old, but it isn’t likely given the environment and time length of human habitation there. Later, Lehner and Hawass oversaw another radio carbon project in 1995 covering additional territory in Saqqara. It showed that the pyramids all need to be pushed back at least 200 to 400 years.

It is my contention, then, that the Giza pyramids and the very similar Bent and Red pyramids to the south at Dahshur were long-term construction projects overlapping the reigns of several pharaohs over the course of a few hundred years, beginning in the 1st Dynasty or just before; and were, therefore, more likely preexistent to and sequentially completed and/or refurbished by the 4th Dynasty rulers Sneferu, Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure. If not that, then they were simply usurped by them, which is not unusual in Egyptian history.

Interestingly, none of them deigned to inscribe any hieroglyphs or depictions of the gods inside them. Besides Menkaure’s pyramid, minuscule in comparison, there is no substantial evidence that they each could have built their huge pyramid/temple complexes in the tight time frames allotted to their individual reigns. Lehner himself is looking at extending Khafre’s reign to account for a 30-year construction project now. Lehner and Zahi Hawass are planning another carbon dating project soon, and I am really looking forward to the results.

The fairly recent 2013 discovery of the Diary of Merer, who was a construction official under Khufu, chronicled his many deliveries of white Tura limestone blocks, widely considered to be used for the cladding of the Great Pyramid. This does not prove, however, that Khufu built the pyramid’s main structure, though it does cement the idea that he either completed or refurbished it. Additionally, Mark Lehner has pointed out the discovery of numerous pottery shards and stone ball hammers secreted in niches in the Sphinx enclosure, temples, and pyramids that indeed date to Khufu and Khafre, but again these are more indications of their finishing or refurbishing projects than the actual core limestone and red granite block construction. As a side note, I am among those who are quite sure that the pharaonic human head of the Sphinx, disproportionately smaller than the reclining animal body, was likely re-carved by either Khufu or Khafre. As to whether it was originally a jackal or a lion, or even a falcon, perhaps damaged long before in the cataclysm, I am still on the fence, though I have strong inclinations to lean toward the first.

Based upon the radiocarbon results setting the date of the Great Pyramid back from 2589-2566 BCE to around 3100 BCE, the Step Pyramid might not be the first pyramid as Egyptologists still contend. It may very well have been 3rd Dynasty Pharaoh Djoser and his architect Imhotep’s no less monumental and far more cost-effective simulacrum of the sacred works of his forebears at Giza. The same goes for the mostly collapsed, quarried, or otherwise destroyed pyramids that followed, among others that were smaller and far less successful - that is until pharaohs finally gave up monolithic pyramid building altogether, ostensibly to avoid tomb robbers and save resources But that’s just my take after visiting these incredible monuments for myself. (Please see Wikipedia’s Egyptian Pyramids for more details.)

For now, we wait for additional carbon dating of pyramidal mortar. Backdating the Great Pyramid by nearly 400 years is splitting hairs either way compared to Egypt’s 3500-year history, so my hypothesis is not necessarily a hill I plan on dying on, I simply lean toward the data. Whether they are archaic late pre-dynastic or 4th Dynasty, these great pyramids of Egypt, and especially the demonstrably older Sphinx, its temple, and the Valley Temple complex are simply awe-inspiring testimony to a once-lost civilization. Photos simply cannot do justice to the immense scale of these constructions - you simply have to experience them for yourself.

Dynastic Egypt

Menes/Narmer was the great unifier of the pre-dynastic “Nomes” or city-states of Upper and Lower Egypt and the founder of the First Dynasty of the historic Egyptian empire circa 3100 BCE. From there, the greater Dynastic period continued for three millennia, and this is the primary focus of Egyptology, as well as my work here at Wandering Stars, with each new uncovering of archaeological evidence revealing yet more of the distant past; so much, in fact, in vivid and incredible detail, that it’s downright mind-boggling.

The Egyptian civilization appears to have very quickly developed from hunter-gatherers after the 9,200 BCE solar cataclysm, arriving on the pre-dynastic scene with fully realized artistic symbolism, spiritual beliefs, agriculture, stonework, and architecture. That means that much of it was likely inherited - passed down like their family heirlooms in the case of the aforementioned stone jars and vases, which simply were not within the known technological means of the Naqada period Eqyptians. In this way, we can see that what remains of ancient Egypt now is a window into the earlier civilization they inherited from, one which collapsed due to combined geologic cataclysms, with just remnants of the culture surviving. And since the Dynastic Egyptians too were advanced in their stonework and architecture, we may assume the same for their scientific and spiritual knowledge, also mostly inherited from their wise forebears.

In consideration of what sure looks like impending economic collapse and climatic cataclysms facing our Western civilization in the coming decades, we may wish to take notice of the choice of locations, the technologies, and the organizational systems that their forebears passed down that played such a critical role in jumpstarting the powerful and enduring Egyptian civilization. As the authors of The Dawn of Everything suggest, our continued survival may depend upon it.

Having laid that foundation, we have a better perspective on what the Dynastic Egyptians did with their inheritance from that pre-dynastic world, beginning with their written records and architecture circa 3100 BCE through to Egypt’s final fall circa 31 CE. From what we see in the archaeological evidence it appears that the earliest Egyptians had a remarkably advanced grasp of astronomy, mathematics, writing, agriculture, and religious beliefs almost from the get-go. Although Sumer in Mesopotamia with its cuneiform writing is widely regarded as the earliest civilization, the discovery of pre-dynastic ivory tiles with hieroglyphs labeling funerary goods in tombs at Abydos predate the cuneiform tablets by a few hundred years. It seems the two arose independently almost whole-cloth at that time, so very distinct yet very similar in many ways. We can be fairly sure that Egypt got much of its Astronomy from the Sumerians, even though the oldest astronomical construction and sculpture in Egypt is dated to 4,500 BCE at Nabta Playa, with its sophisticated stellar and seasonal alignments.

However it may be, most of what we have left is, in fact, Egyptian, with so much of the Mesopotamian record being destroyed - so again, that is “Why Egypt?”. The prehistoric megalithic construction at Giza and Abydos, followed by the Dynastic Egyptian archaeological record has documented and preserved so much of the wisdom of these mysterious forebears, and that demands an overview that bears this in mind.

My first-hand experience in the temples and tombs yielded fascinating insights into Dynastic Egypt’s quite advanced singular vision of a religion united with science and even so-called magic, which remained remarkably constant from beginning to end. Even so, the Old Kingdom appears somewhat more sophisticated in stonework and architecture than is evidenced in the later New Kingdom - the Egyptian Empire’s glory days.

Such a de-evolution, as it were, is counterintuitive to the current Western archaeological/anthropological model of linear progress, unless the culture was inherited from an earlier technologically advanced civilization and had become degraded or corrupted over time and tide. An interesting watershed comparison in this regard is the bas-relief art of the 19th Dynasty pharaoh Seti I compared with that of his son Ramesses II “The Great” in his great Abydos Temple. Be that as it may, the ancient Egyptian civilization was still extremely stable and resilient, remaining essentially unchanged for over 3,500 years, a powerful testimony to the wisdom of their ancient forebears.

Perhaps a more important answer to the question of Why Egypt? is for us to become more aware of the latest archaeological discoveries which increasingly show the indelible influence ancient Egypt has had on human history, religion, science, art, and culture, especially in the West. We especially see this in the development of the ancient Greek civilization and the Abrahamic religions - Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, as I describe in some depth in my article The Woman with the Alabaster Box.

The best way for me to approach the sacred science of Dynastic Egypt then is to chronicle certain of my own experiences and insights gained while exploring Egypt with my four able local guides. I used John Anthony West’s The Traveler’s Key To Ancient Egypt as my primary guide and information resource to plan my journey. That account, of course, is reserved for yet another article: Welcome To Egypt!

Here I will begin to offer an outline of my visit, culminating with my research and work with not only their sacred oils and incense but insights into the spiritual practices and sacred science of what is undeniably the longest-lived and most influential culture in human history. It is heartening to know that I am joined by so many others who believe that there is very much to learn from ancient Egypt now that may prove helpful to us in the future. And that too is an answer to the question “Why Egypt?”

Why Egypt? Part 1 – © 2022 Shane Clayton / Wandering Stars Publishing

All Rights Reserved

Wandering Stars is dedicated to expounding the Sacred Science of Ancient Egypt

In memory and in honor of John Anthony West

Born July 9, 1932 - Wested February 6, 2018

AUM