According to the official theory, the Egyptian civilization is the second that was created, right after the Sumerian one. Around the year 3100 B.C., Men / Menes or Narmer unified the Superior and Inferior Egypt, thus becoming the first pharaoh ruling the whole country and, of course, the founder of the First Dynasty. Most historians, especially Egyptologist, are stubborn to ignore what the ancient Egyptians told us through several sources such as the priest Manethon’s or the Greek historian Herodotos’ writings, the Turin Papyrus or the Palermo Stone: until its unification, Egypt was ruled by two dynasties of gods, one of demigods and a transient human one.
Making reference to the religion of the Egyptians, the Greek historian Ploutarkhos, named Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus after he became a Roman citizen, described it as a dark and enigmatic science. The Egyptians called their deities „neteru” (using singular forms as „neter” for male and „netert” for female), words conventionally translated as „gods”. However, in old Egyptian, „neteru” means „guardian” or „watcher”, sharing the same meaning as „igigi” in Sumerian. Each and every important city had its own „neteru”, who only seemed to be different. It is possible that their name to have its roots in the name of Anshar, Anu’s father in the Akkadian myths. As his name was written „nșr”, as there are only consonants and no vowels written in Semitic languages, and the Egyptian letter „ț” is the equivalent of the Semitic „ș”, Anshar turns into „nțr” into Egyptian hieroglyphs, which later became „ntr” and it was read „neter”.
Iunu (occasionally written as Annu), named Helioupolis by the Greeks, the most important religious center of Egypt, worshiped the Great Ennead, composed by Ra, Shu, Tefenet, Geb, Nut, Asar, Sutah, Aset and Nebthet. Ra or Re, the Sun, was the leader of the Pantheon. The Sun, as a god in the majority of cultures, stands for the supreme god. As the Sun stands in the center of the Solar System, all the other planets orbiting around it, the supreme god was surrounded by the other gods, who were „orbiting” around him. Although the Egyptologists have tried to translate the god’s name in different ways, the real core of its meaning can be found in the Sumerian language where, among many other meanings of the word „ra”, there is the one of „the leader”. The Egyptians named „The Leader” the head of their Pantheon, also giving him the function of the Sun God, to enhance his authority. The ending „ra” is quite common in the names of many leading gods, belonging to various cultures. For example, Indra is the supreme god in Hinduism. His name is correctly translated as „The Leader of Indus”. In Egypt, Amun-Ra does not represent the combination of two rival gods, as it is believed by the Egyptologists. Because the word „amun” means „hidden”, Amun-Ra was the epithet of the god considered by the Egyptians „the hidden leader”. Born from the Nun Ocean (the primordial chaos), Ra was represented as a falcon or a person with the head of a falcon, his symbol being the obelisk. His cult was first certified around the year 2865 B.C., in the name of the Second Dynasty pharaoh, Reneb. His influence increased during the Fifth Dynasty, when three pharaohs declared themselves as his sons. Ra main center of his cult was named Helioupolis by the Greeks, On by the Jews and Assyrians and Annu or Iunu by the Egyptians. The name Annu proves that the Egyptians had identified Ra as the supreme god in Mesopotamia, which is also seen in the name of the goddess Anuket (Anukis for the Greeks), that was translated as „the Daughter of Ra”, although the name of Anu is present in the goddess’ name and not the one of Ra. And the god Inpu was named Anubis by the Greeks, meaning „Twice Anu”. In The Book of the Dead it is said that Ra cut his own phallus, out of which dropped a few droplets of blood that gave birth to two of the personifications of the Intellect: Hu („Authority”) and Saa („Intellect”). The two children thus being born were, in fact, Anu’s sons, Enlil (the authoritarian king of Earth) and Enki (god of wisdom and knowledge). Another Egyptian myth claims that the first two children of Ra were Shu (the dry air) and Tefenet (the moist), called by the Greeks Tefnut. We come across the two children of Anu once more: Enlil (the god of air) and Enki (the god of water). In The Coffin Texts it is written that Ra lost his beard in „the day of the riot” and in The Book of the Dead that he killed „the children of the riot”. No legends that can explain what the riot was about have been kept, but it seems it is the same that was mentioned by Mesopotamians: Enki’s riot alongside Igigi, the fallen gods, against Anu and Enlil. For Sumerians, the goddess of love and beauty, Inanna, became An’s consort. The Egyptians had a similar myth, in which an upset Ra was cheered up by his daughter, Hathor (the goddess of love), after she danced naked before him and then she began to tickle him. We do not know what the ancient Egyptians understood from this story, but when a naked goddess is touching the old Ra and is dancing seductively for him, after which he leaves the room feeling exhilarated, we cannot think of anything but sex. It seems that the priests knew the truth, as they were taking her statue during a procession at Hathor’s temple in Dendera and brought it from the inside of the sanctuary to the roof, where a special chapel was built to celebrate the union between the goddess and the solar disc.
For the Heliopolitan religion, Geb or Keb was the god of Earth. The prime leader of Egypt, he was initially represented as a man with a beard and later as a ram, a bull, a crocodile or a man with the head of a snake. In some myths he is called „the father of the snakes”. At Iunu (Helioupolis) he was given as a wife Nut, the goddess of the sky. He was associated with the vegetation, but also with the Underworld. His name, meaning „earth”, comes from the Sumerian word „gi”, that has the same meaning. As the god of the Earth, represented as snake, crocodile or ram, associated with the Underworld, Geb („The Earth”) is the Sumerian Enki („Lord of the Earth”). His sister and wife, Nut, the goddess of the sky, is Ninhursag, called in many cultures „the Queen of Heaven”.
In the old myths Geb was Enki, but in the newer ones he seems to have replaced Ra / Anu. If in Mesopotamia the most important gods were the children of the heaven and Earth (An and Ki), the Egyptians adopted the same belief. Geb, Earth embodied, and Nut, the goddess of the sky, had four children who became the most important ones for the Egyptians: Asar, Sutah, Aset and Nebthet. The first one was Wsjr (pronounced Asar, Yasar, Aser, Asaru, Ausar, Ausir, Wesir, Usir, Usire or Ausare), called by the Greeks Osiris. The historians Plutarchus and Diodoros Sikeliotes said that the god’s Greek name meant „The One with Many Eyes”, consisting of „os”= „many” and „iris” = „eye”. But their translation is not an exact one, Osiris meaning, in fact, „The Open Eye” („os”= „open”, „iris”= „eye”). The hieroglyph of this god’s name is comprised of a deity kneeling next to a throne with an eye above it. Asar, the first ruler of the Earth, was killed by his younger brother, Sutah, the god of storm and desert, who took his throne. Thus, Asar became the ruler of the Underworld, Duat. The son of Asar and Aset, Haru, took his father’s throne after a long fight with his usurping uncle. With the royal scepter and the shepherd’s cane in his hand, Asar was often represented with spread ram’s horns and, sometimes, with a crown in the shape of the Moon. The Moon and the ram are symbols of the Sumerian god Enki, also the son of a deity representing the sky. Asar’s main worship center was the city of Abju or Abydos in Greek. Enki’s underground home was Abzu and Abju and Abzu are almost identical, meaning that the ancient Egyptians correctly identified Asar with Enki. By building the city of Abju, they tried to determine the god to live among them, moving his home from the underground to the ground. Aset, Asar’s wife, was named Isis by the Greeks. The name is formed by doubling the first syllable of the Akkadian goddess Ishtar’s name, Ea / Enki’s consort. Enki’s son, Marduk, was called Amar Utu („The Solar Calf”) in Sumerian; Aset was mostly represented with a cow’s head and Asar was called „the bull of Amenti”, symbolically making their son, Haru, a calf. In an alternative myth, Haru is Hathor’s son, also considered a cow goddess. Hathor, the Egyptian goddess of love and war, is another manifestation of the Akkadian goddess of love and war, Ishtar, who is considered Marduk’s mother in some myths. In addition, the bovine horns of the cow goddesses or bull gods are nothing more than the crescent Moon, the main symbol of Enki’s family. It is said that Asar invented the flute and the lyre. He civilized the humans, getting them out of their semi-animal stage. Diodoros Sikeliotes wrote that the god made people give up cannibalism. Asar was also the one who discovered grapevines, who taught people viticulture and horticulture, how to build cities and irrigation canals and how to praise the gods. His wife, Aset, gave mortals the laws, the language and the agriculture. In Mesopotamia, Enki is responsible for all of these things. In On the Worship of Isis and Osiris, the historian Plutarchus wrote that, for some Egyptians, Seth symbolizes the solar world and Osiris the lunar one; the status as a lunar god was given to him by the Heliopolitan priests, because the Moon’s influences are associated with thoughts and wisdom, while the Sun’s are strong and violent. He is even known as „lord of the horns of the Moon” in The Egyptian Book of the Dead. Nevertheless, in Mesopotamia, the god of knowledge and wisdom, associated with the Moon, was Enki. Aset, Asar’s wife, was considered to be an unmatched sorceress and, in the same Book of the Dead, Asar protects himself from the attacks of the demons with magic barriers. In Mesopotamia, Enki was the one mastering the magic to perfection. In The Book of the Dead, Asar was called „prince in the kingdom of the silent” and „master of the realm of the dead”. In Sumer, Enki wore the title of Grand Prince. The name Asar is just one of Enki’s Akkadian epithets, meaning „The Prince of Waters”. In chapter 183 of The Book of the Dead, Asar is called „un-nefer”, meaning „The Handsome One”, Enki’s epithet as Dumuzi / Tammuz. Plutarchus wrote that Osiris was identified with the Nile, and Homeros and Thales considered him to be the ocean, Enki being the god of waters in Mesopotamia. Even if, by convention, Geb and Nut were Asar’s parents, Ra is his father for Plutarchus. And Ra, as we have seen, was the Sumerians’ An, Enki’s father.
Although the Mesopotamians tried with all their might to present Enki in a positive light, his evil side emerges from the hypostasis of the demon Pazuzu. The Egyptians tried the same thing with Asar, but they have left us more details about the true face of our planet’s first ruler. According to Plutarchus, the Egyptians believed Asar was born on the right side and will die on the left one. As the right signifies the good and left, the evil, we can conclude that Enki was first seen as a positive deity and afterwards as a negative one, probably after his rebellion against his father, alongside the Igigi gods. This is why Asar was often called „the first of the Westerners”, the West symbolizing the left side and the East, the right one. In The Pyramid Texts, there are descriptions of Asar as a menacing demon, rejoicing at the bloodshed, uttering mean curses against dead people and running a „mob” of assassins, named „Asar’s butchers with fingers that bring pain”, or „Asar’s fishermen”. In The Book of the Dead, Asar was named „lord over souls, who sow terror”. Moreover, it is written that the whole Earth trembles before him, his emanations destroy the sinners’ souls and Djehuty states that the gods born from Nut (Asar, Aset and their brothers) invented the wars, unleashed disasters, wreaked havoc, brought injustice and invented the demons (chapter 175). Although most of the time, Asar was illustrated with green skin, Plutarchus claims that the god was black. In fact, The Book of the Dead calls him „The Great Black”. The Egyptians called their country Kmit (Kemi in Coptic language), meaning „black”, a reference to their favorite god’s color. All these descriptions make us imagine a diabolical ruler of the inferno, different for the humankind’s benefactor, as he is presented by his followers.
Hard evidence of the Osirian myth can be found from the times of the last pharaoh of the Fifth Dynasty, Djedkare Izezi, who ruled approximately between 2414 and 2375 B.C. If Enki / Asar truly rebelled against his father, it means we can find him in the Egyptian religions, under a different identity, before this period. Indeed, a violent snake-god, recorded during the pyramids era, about whom there are not many information left, is Denwen. All we know about him is that he caused a conflagration to destroy other deities and was opposed by a king. Probably Denwen is another name for Apep (Apophis in Greek), the first god of evil, later considered a demon, the embodiment of darkness, chaos and evilness, opponent of the light and Ma’at (the order or the truth), enemy of Ra, husband of the goddess Taweret. Apep has the shape of a giant snake, serpent or dragon and was also called „The Nile Serpent” or „The Evil Lizard”. In The Book of the Dead, he lives in the Underworld where, every night, he attacks Ra’s boat, fighting him and his companions, including Sutah, the god of storm. This daily fight is just a replica of a fight from long ago, when Apep attacked Ra, just as Kumarbi attacked Anu in the Hittite myths. Sutah and other gods fought alongside their leader, succeeding in defeating the Great Serpent and locking him up in the Underworld. This myth identifies Apep with Enki and Asar. Enlil, the Sumerian god of storm, sent Enki, his older brother, to the Underworld, just as Sutah, the Egyptian god of storm, did with his brother, Asar, and with Apep. After his cult appeared, Asar was considered the good god; Sutah was associated with Apep and labeled as the god of chaos and evil. Nonetheless, the original myth proves the contrary.
The god of storms and the desert, initially considered a benevolent entity, was Swth (pronounced Sutah, Setesh, Sutekh, Setekh or Suty), called Seth by the Greeks, and he was the one who fought alongside Ra against the giant serpent Apep. In the 21st century B.C, at the end of the Sixth Dynasty, once Asar’s cult appeared, Sutah was discredited, and was turned into a demon by Asar’s followers. But the pharaoh Aasehre Nehesy from the Fourteenth Dynasty rehabilitated his image in the 17th century BC. Sutah has an unidentified animal as a symbol, which looks like a donkey. As the god of storm, who also represented East (the right side) and the Sun, while his brother had as symbols the West (the left side) and the Moon, Sutah is the Sumerian Enlil. If the Mesopotamians believed that Enki, Earth’s first ruler, „slept” in the Underworld, where he was cast out by his younger brother, who took his throne, and was followed to the throne by Marduk, Enki’s son, the Egyptians were more direct. For them, Asar, Earth’s first ruler, was killed by his younger brother, Sutah, who claimed the throne and was followed by Haru, Asar’s son.
The son of Asar and Aset was named by the Egyptians Haru („The Falcon”) or Heru, Hor and Har-si-ese („Haru, the son of Aset”) in Coptic and Horos by the Greeks. The Egyptians also called him Har-pa-khered or Heru-pa-khered („Child Haru”), translated in Greek as Harpokratis. His wife was Hathor („The House / Wife of Hor”), Ra’s daughter. After Sutah killed Asar and took his throne, Haru fought him for supremacy, winning against him and taking back his father’s throne. The Papyrus of Hunefer tells that Haru did not receive only the throne of Egypt, but sovereignty over the entire world. As we have already seen, Asar was the Sumerian Enki and Sutah was Enlil. More than being the god of heaven, Haru was also the god of war, just like Marduk. Thus, Haru, the son of Asar, is Marduk, the son of Enki. In both myths, Asar / Enki ruled the world, his brother Sutah / Enlil took his throne and lost it later to Haru / Marduk, who became the next ruler of the world. Although no Mesopotamian myth survived to describe a direct fight between Marduk and Enlil, as it is in Egyptian myths, we can assume that the god of storm did not relinquish the throne peacefully.
Before Asar’s cult appeared, Sutah’s older brother was named Heru-ur. His name could mean „The Old Heru”, or „The Old Falcon”. This Heru, Sutah’s brother, is a different entity from Har-si-ese („Haru, the son of Aset”) or the young Haru. Although the translation „The Old Heru” was accepted by most Egyptologists, it is possible that Heru-ur could mean „Heru of Ur”, or „The Falcon of Ur”, Ur being a very important Sumerian city. „The Falcon of Ur” can only be the god of this city, which is Nanna, god of the Moon, meaning that Heru-ur and Nanna / Enki were the same. Moreover, one of Heru-ur’s epithets was „Kemwer”, meaning „The Great Black”, also Asar’s epithet in The Book of the Dead. On the Shabaka Stone it is written that two brothers, Heru-ur and Sutah, fought for supremacy over Egypt. Their father, Geb, gave Upper Egypt to Sutah and Lower Egypt to Heru, the border being „the limit of the two countries”, that is the tip of the Nile Delta at Inbu-Hedj (Memphis). Later, Geb changed his mind and gave Heru all of Egypt, a decision that was accepted by the two rivals. In The Book of the Dead, Heru is named „the older brother” and „first born of Ra”. Ra is the Egyptian equivalent of the Sumerian An and An’s first born child, „the older brother”, was Enki. The Egyptian god of storm, Sutah, is Enlil, the Sumerian god of storm. Both Sutah and Enlil fought their brothers for supremacy. Heru-ur and Asar, together with Enki and Nanna, are the same deity. In many inscriptions, the pharaoh (regardless of his name) who identified himself with Haru, is called „the son of Hathor”. This epithet confused the Egyptologists because the pharaoh, as Haru’s reincarnation, is Aset’s son. But, in the original myth, Hathor was the falcon-god’s mother. She gave up her place to Aset once Asar’s cult appeared, having been forced to settle with the role of Haru’s wife.
Splitting Egypt between Geb’s two sons (Upper Egypt to Sutah / Enlil and Lower Egypt to Heru-ur / Enki) symbolizes only the lands of the two brothers. Enlil’s home was they sky, thus receiving Upper Egypt, and Enki’s home was the Underworld, symbolically receiving Lower Egypt. This symbolical split can be found in other Egyptian myths as well: the cobra-goddess Wadjet was the protector of Lower Egypt, while the eagle-goddess Nekhbet was the protector of Upper Egypt. Since Enki’s family had the snake as a symbol and Enlil’s family had the eagle, the two protective goddesses of Egypt also symbolize the lands of the two divine clans.
In Khemenu (Hermoupolis Magna for the Greeks) was worshiped the Great Ogdoad and ruling over the eight gods was Dhwty (pronounced Djehuty, Jehuti, Jehuty, Tahuti, Tehuti, Zehuti, Techu or Tetu), who became Thoth, Thot or Thout for the Greeks. The moon-god in the shape of an ibis or baboon, about whom Plutarchus wrote that he had an arm shorter than the other, was the patron of scribes and the god of knowledge, the inventor of the hieroglyphic writing, grammar, math, laws, astronomy and the calendar. He was the scribe of the gods, a great master of magic arts, who knew the science of healing. The priest Manethon, quoted by the Neoplatonist Iamblichus, wrote that the god understood the mysteries of „everything hidden under the celestial vault”. On the inscription of Djeserkheperure Setepenre Horemheb Meryamun’s statue, represented as a scrieb, Djehuty is called „the son of Ra”. Just like in The Book of the Dead, where he is „the son of Aner”. As Ra was for Egyptians An of Sumerians, we can draw the conclusion that Aner is another name for Ra, containing his Sumerian name. Among Djehuty’s epithets there are „The Strongest Among the Gods”, „The Lord of the Sacred Words” or „The Bull of Khemenu”. His consort was Nehmatauay or Ma’at. It is said that Djehuty controlled the turquoise mines in Sinai, a peninsula representing Sin’s territory, the Akkadian god of the Moon, already identified with Enki. As the god of the Moon, of knowledge, master of healing and magic, inventor of writing, math, laws, astronomy and the calendar, son of Ra / An, Djehuty is, without a doubt, the Sumerian Enki. Besides, the writer Graham Hancock noticed the same thing in Fingerprints of the Gods: „Thoth closely resembles his predecessor, Osiris, the great god of the Pyramid Texts and the fourth divine pharaoh of Egypt”. The British Egyptologist Walter Brian Emery noted in Archaic Egypt that Egyptians and Sumerians adored lunar deities that were almost identical: Djehuty (Thoth) and Sin. And the eminent Egyptologist Ernest Alfred Thompson Wallis Budge wrote in From Fetish to God in Ancient Egypt about the same gods: „the similarities between the two gods are too great to be accidental… It would be wrong to say that the Sumerians borrowed from the Egyptians or the Egyptians from the Sumerians but rather the intellectuals of both peoples borrowed their theological systems from a common source, exceptionally old”.
Besides this Djehuty it seems there was another deity with the same name. Represented as a baboon, the first one was the supreme god of Khemenu (Hermoupolis Magna), the leader of a group consisting of eight deities, the god of fertility, of the Moon, of wisdom and magic, the one who self-created through thinking, the inventor of religion and astronomy, none other than Enki. The second Djehuty became the god of the scribes, the creator of the alphabet and witting, the mediator of conflicts between gods and Asar’s scribe in the Underworld. His physical appearance was different from the first one, as he was depicted as a man with the head of an ibis. The first Djehuty was the god of the Moon and the second one has connections with the Sun. In a myth, he won five days from the Moon and connected them to the other 360 days of the year, thus making the solar year of 365 days. The historian Manethon declared that Thoth wrote 36.525 books, a clear reference of the 365,25 days of the solar year. This second Djehuty can only by Nabu, the son, minister, heir and scribe of Marduk, the god of writing, wisdom and sometimes of the waters and the field fertility. Nabu inherited the last attributes from his grandfather, Enki, just as the second Djehuty inherited them from the first one.
The Greeks from Alexandria combined Djehuty with their god Hermes, resulting Hermes Trismegistos („thrice great”), the god of wisdom and writing, the patron of astrology and alchemy, the one who led the souls into the Underworld. From the thousands of texts attributed to him, the most known ones are The Emerald Tablets, Asklepios and Corpus Hermeticum. In the last one, Hermes Trismegistos is described as a man turned into a god or as a man who was the son of a god, which perfectly describes Nabu. In Hitat, a collection of texts from the Coptic chroniclers (the Egyptian Christians) of the 15th century, it is written about Hermes Trismegistos that „the data about him are different. It is said that he was one of the seven Watchers, with the mission to watch over the seven houses (planets) and that he should have fulfilled the commandments of Utarid (Mercury), he was also named after him; for Utarid means Hermes in the Chaldean language. According to others, he roamed Egypt for various reasons and ruled the country as king; he was the sage of his time”. In this quote we can find both deities named Djehuty by the Egyptians, meaning both Enki and Nabu, and also proof that the second one received the name of the first one. We also notice that he is called „one of the seven Watchers”, an excerpt recalling both the seven great gods of Mesopotamia, as well as the function of a Watcher that we found at the Mesopotamian Igigi („The Eyes of the Earth”), at the „Open Eye” Osiris and also at the deities functioning as „Eyes of Ra” (such as Sekhmet, Hathor, Bastet, Wadjet and Mut) or „Eyes of Haru”.
In Inbu-Hedj / Men-nefer (Memphis) and in Nubia, the creator god was Ptah. He was identified as the falcon god Seker and the new deity, Ptah-Seker, was considered a divinity of the Underworld. In the Middle Kingdom, he was assimilated with Asar, the ruler of the Underworld, and he became known as Ptah-Seker-Asar. According to the Shabaka Stone, Ptah created the world first by thinking about it and then speaking about it. It is said that he is the one who pulled the land of Egypt from under the waters, a story similar to the one in which Enki did the same with Sumer. Initially a god of fertility, Ptah became patron of arts and crafts, exactly like Enki. His wife was the lioness Sekhmet and their son, Nefertum, the god of the lotus flower. Enki’s wife and daughter, Ishtar, was usually illustrated riding a lioness. Ptah created the ceremony of opening mouths, officiated by priests during funerals, to release the soul of the deceased from the body. For Sumerians, Enki is the one who brought the priestly rituals to the people. Ptah was described just like Asar, a mummified man with beard and green skin, holding in his hands the ankh (the Egyptian cross), the was scepter and the djed, symbols of life, power and stability. The name Egypt comes from the god’s temple in Inbu-Hedj / Men-nefer (Memphis), Hut-ka-Ptah („The House of Ptah’s Soul”), translated to Greek as Aiguptos and to Latin as Aegyptus. It is believed that Inbu-Hedj, Ptah’s city, is the place where Asar drowned, who was also born in the area, at Rosetau, in the Western Desert. Ptah and Asar share the same epithet, „Lord of Truth”. One of the epithets used for the Inbu-Hedj / Men-nefer god was „Ptah nefer-her” („Ptah with a beautiful face”), epithet shared also by Asar and the Mesopotamian Dumuzi / Tammuz. As such, if Ptah is Enki / Asar, his wife, Sekhmet, can only be Ninhursag / Aset and their son, Nefertum, is Marduk / Haru.
Osoroapis or Serapis was an anthropomorphic deity with Egyptian and Hellenic attributes. From Zeus and Helios he took the characteristics of sovereignty and sun-god, from Dionysos he took richness in nature,and from Hades and Asklepios he took the connections with the Afterlife and healing. The name of the god is made from the names of other two gods, Asar / Osiris and Apis. The Roman historian Tacitus issued the idea that Serapis has his origins in Asia Minor. Indeed, Serapis was another name of the Sumerian Enki.
Apis was an agrarian deity with a bull appearance, initially thought to be Ptah’s reincarnation and then associated with Asar. For the historian Mnaseas of Patrae, Dionysus, Osiris and Serapis were different names for Apis. The geographer Strabo (63 B.C. – 26 A.D.) wrote in The Geographica about the temples in Inbu-Hedj: „one of them is dedicated to Apis, who is the same as Osiris”. And in 1857, Auguste Mariette noted in Le Sérapéum de Memphis, referring to the tombs he discovered in Saqqara: „eighteen human-headed statues bearing the inscription «Osiris-Apis, the Great God, the Lord of Eternity» were scattered around”. And this clearly proves Apis’ true identity.
One of Egypt’s oldest deities was Khnum, the god of the Nile waters with the head of a ram. It was believed that he created humans and other deities from clay and this is the reason why he was called „The Divine Potter” or „The Lord who created things from himself”. In Abu / Yebu (Elephantine), his consort was Satis and their daughter, Anuket (Anukis in Greek). Although he was considered the ba (soul) of the sun-god Ra, in Herwer he is the ba of Geb and in Shashotep, the ba of Asar. In Esna, Khnum is represented with the head of a crocodile, for he and goddess Neit were the creator gods and Ra’s parents, named here Khnum-Re. Khnum’s main consorts are Nebt-uu and the lioness goddess Menhit and his older brother and successor is Heka. As god of waters with the head of a ram, creator of humans, Khnum can only be Asar / Ptah / Enki. This is the reason why, inside the temple of Usermaatre-Setepenre Ramesses Meryamun (Ramses II), next to Khnum’s statue there are the statues of the gods Satis, Anuket (his wife and daughter in Abu / Yebu), Aset and Haru (his wife and son in Iunu).
The ram-god Banebdjedet („The Lord ba of Djedet”) was worshiped in North-East of the Nile Delta together with his wife, the fish-goddess Hatmehit, and their son, Harpokratis. As Harus’s father, Banebdjedet is Asar and the ram and the fish represent the Sumerian Enki. On a stela inside the funerary tomb of Usermaatre-Meryamun Ramesisu Heqaiunu (Ramses III) in Medinet Habu, in the Western part of the city Waset (Thebai), there is a story in which the god Ptah-Tanen tells the king, whom he considers his son, that he turned into Banebdjedet, so he can copulate with the pharaoh’s mother. For Plutarchus, Banebdjedet is Osiris’ reincarnation. In the Chester Beatty I Papyrus, Banebdjedet is described as living in Setit (the island of Seheil), located at the first Nile cataract at Aswan, which identifies him with the god Khnum. Indeed, Banebdjedet was another name for Asar, Ptah, Khnum or Enki.
Waset (Thebai for the Greeks), capital city of Egypt during the second millennia B.C., was Amun or Amen’s („The Hidden One”) city, the god so-called „The King of the Gods”, named Ammon by the Greeks. According to Plutarchus, Hades’ (the god of the Underworld in Greece) name had the same meaning. Amun’s name comes from the anagram of the Akkadian Anum, one of the names the all-mighty god An / Anu had. Amun was depicted with blue skin (the color of the water), head of a ram and an enormous phallus. The phallus represents fertility, like Asar’s djed, and this, together with the ram’s horns and the water, associates him with Enki. At Waset, Amun’s wife was Mut and their son was Khonsu, the god of the Moon. At Khemenu, his consort was Amaunet. According to Plutarchus, sometimes the god was equivalent with Ptah, and even it was found, in Amun’s tomb in Karnak, Ptah’s statue. Amun Kem-atef („Amun who has completed his form”) was the god’s appearance as an old snake divinity. And the oldest snake divinity is the Sumerian Enki or the Akkadian Ea. Amun’s cult as a snake is attested by the historian Herodotos at Waset, where the horned viper was sacred. Amun Kamutef („Amun, the bull of his mother”) was the god’s ithyphallic appearance. In the Book of the Dead, Amun is called „the son of Nut”, an epithet that equates him with Asar, but also names him „prince of the gods”, just as Enki. Since the bull represents fertility and its horns, the Moon, we can conclude that this „hidden ruler” was Enki. Most probably he was named Amun („The Hidden One”) after he was sent in the Underworld, where he could no longer be seen by his followers. By analogy, Amaunet or Mut are Aset, videlicet the Sumerian Nunhursag, and their son, Khonsu, is Haru, namely Marduk. During the Twentieth Dynasty, Amun ruled over 160 Egyptian cities and nine in the Middle East. After the city Waset was destroyed by Arabians in 664 B.C., Amun’s cult lost its supremacy.
Menu (Min in Greek), whose cult dates back from the predynastic period (4th millennia B.C.), was the god of fertility for ancient Egyptians. Worshiped mostly in Gebtu (Koptos) and Akhmim, Menu was described in many ways, but mostly as a black-skinned man, with huge feathers on his head, his right arm raised and his left hand holding his erect penis. In the Middle Kingdom, he was associated with Haru and named Menu-Heru. In the New Kingdom, he was associated with Amun, bearing the name Menu-Amen-kamutef („Menu-Amen, the bull of his mother”). Other times Aset is his consort and Haru, their child. In an archaic form, Menu is represented in mummy linen cloth, just like Asar and Ptah. As a fertility god, with dark skin, associated with Haru (the old one, Heru-ur) and Amun, husband of Aset and father of Haru (the young), Menu can only be Asar / Enki. The position of his hands in graphic representations is identical with that of Assur in Assyria and Pazuzu in Mesopotamia, two of the alter egos of the same god of wisdom.
Andjety („The One from Andjet”) is thought to be the god from which Asar developed. He was depicted holding two scepters in his hands and wearing on his head Asar’ conic crown with two feathers. In the Coffin Texts he is called „bull of the eagles”. In the temple of Menmaatre Seti Merenptah (Seti I) in Abju (Abydos), the king is illustrated burning incense for Asar-Andjety, who is followed by Aset.
Khem (Letous Polis for the Greeks), a city located in North-West of Inbu-Hedj (Memphis), was Kherty’s („The One Below”) main cult center, a ram-god from whom Ra had to defend the pharaoh. In the Old Kingdom, Kherty was mentioned as Asar’s partner. We can guess who was „The One Below”, the ram-god associated with Asar, who wanted to hurt the pharaoh.
In the Coffin Texts there is a god of wheat, Neper, about whom it is said that he „lives after he had died”. There are not many things known about him, but there are high chances this Neper is Asar, the god living in the Underworld after he was murdered in our world.
The oldest moon-god of Egypt was Yah, similar with Djehuty and Khonsu, sometimes identified with Asar. His symbols are the Moon, the ibis and the falcon. His importance in Egypt is proven by his presence in many people’s names, such as Ahmose („Yah’s Heir”), Yah-hotep („Yah is content”) or Sit-Yah („Yah’s Daughter”). As a moon-god, he is Asar or Djehuty, as a falcon he is Heru-ur and as an ibis, again Djehuty, that is none other than Enki.
Aset (or Isis as the Greeks named her), the most important goddess of the Egyptian pantheon, served as a model for many queens, such as Nefertiti, Hatshepsut or Cleopatra. Wife of Asar and mother of Haru, her name was translated conventional as „The Throne”. For Diodoros Sikeliotes, Isis means „The Old One”. In reality, her Greek name was formed by doubling the first syllable in the Akkadian goddesses’ name, Ishtar. Herodotos wrote that her greatest temple was in Busiris („The House of Osiris”), the capital of the ninth nome. Identified with the Earth, she was given the star Sothis (Sirius), while Asar was the Orion constellation. According to the Chester-Beatty Papyrus, presently found at the British Museum, Aset was „a smart woman, smarter than countless other gods… Nothing in heaven and Earth was unknown to her”. According to Ernest Alfred Thompson Wallis Budge, in Egyptian Magic and The Gods of the Egyptians, Aset was considered by Egyptians to have a „witty tongue”, meaning she had knowledge of the words of power, „which she knew with the correct pronunciation and she did not interrupt her speech, being perfect both in giving the command and in uttering the word”. As wife of Asar / Enki and mother of Haru / Marduk, identified with the Earth, expert in magic, Aset is the Sumerian Ninhursag. On a stelae discovered in 1850, which can now be found at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, it is written that the pharaoh Khufu (Keops) layed the ground for „the house of Aset, the mistress of the pyramid, near the house of the Sphinx”. Considering the pyramids some artificial mountains in miniature, the epithet „mistress of the pyramid” strikingly resembles the name Ninhursag, meaning „The Lady of the High Mountain”, the Great Pyramid of Giza being consider the tallest artificial mountain. The best proof that Aset was worshiped throughout the world, hidden under various names in various religions, is offered to us by the Latin writter Lucius Apuleius Platonicus, who lived in the 2nd century. In Metamorphoses he wrote: „Unique power, I am glorified by the whole Universe in many forms, with various religious ceremonies, with thousands of different names. The Phrygians, the first born on Earth, call me the goddess of Pesinunt and the mother of the gods; the native Athenians call me Minerva Cecropiana; the Cypriots, who float on the waves, Venus of Paphos; the Cretans skilled in shooting arrows, Diana Dictynna; the Sicilians, who speak three languages, Proserpina Stigiana; the inhabitants of Eleusis call me Bellona, some Hecate, others Nemesis Rhamnusia. But those who are the first to be enlightened by the divine rays of the Sun, when it begins to rise, and the last when they bow to the horizon, the inhabitants of the two Ethiopias and the mighty Egyptians by their ancient science, only they honor me with the holy services and prostrations I deserve, only they call me by my real queen name, Isis”.
Bastet (called Bast, Baast, Baset or Ubasti), the Egyptian cat-goddess, was the protector of the Lower Egypt. Around the third millennia B.C. she was represented as a lioness or as a woman with a lioness’ head. In the first millennia B.C., when cats became pets in Egypt, Bastet started being imagined as a cat or as a woman with the head of a cat. Daughter and „Eye of Ra”, Bastet was the goddess of perfumes, cats and family. Although the Greeks identified her with their Artemis, the Egyptians equated her with Sekhmet, Tefenet, Mut, Hathor and Aset. Surprisingly, the Egyptologists translated her name as „She of the parfume jar”, although the exact interpretation is more than obvious. For whoever has minimal knowledge of Egyptian, Baast or Bast translates correctly as „Ba (soul) of Aset (Isis)”. And this interpretation bounds her to the same goddess Ninhursag.
At Inbu-Hedj (Memphis) and Waset (Thebai), Ptah’s consort was the lioness Sekhmet. She was identified with Mut and Amaunet, Amun’s wives in Waset and Khemenu. Since Ptah is Enki / Asar / Amun, his wife can only be Ninhursag / Aset. In Ptah’s temple in Karnak there is a representation of Sekhmet, even though the main goddess of the temple was Hathor, taking us back to Hathor from the old myths, daughter of Ra and mother of Haru / Heru.
If in Mesopotamia Ninhursag was often confused for her daughter, both goddesses often having the name Inanna / Ishtar, the same thing happened with Aset and Hathor. Goddess of love, music, happiness and war, Hathor was Haru’s mother in the original myth, being replaced later with Aset, both of them being represented with cow’s heads. The first Hathor, Ra’s daughter and Haru’s mother, was the Sumerian Ninhursag or the Egyptian Aset. The second Hathor, Haru’s wife, a ferocious warrior who was about to destroy humanity, is Ninsar / Ishtar, sister and wife of Marduk in Mesopotamia. To clear the confusion between them, whenever they both appeared in the same myth, the goddesses had been named either Aset and Nebthet, either Bastet and Hathor. Once more, we come across a confirmation of the Sumerian myths: if Enlil slept with Ishtar / Ereshkigal, thus giving birth to Namtar, the god of dead, in the myth of Sutah and Nebthet she was his wife. Here too she gave birth to the god of dead, called by the Greeks Anubis and Inpu by Egyptians. Some chroniclers, such as Plutarchus, considered Inpu to be the son of Asar, who mistook Nebthet with his wife, Aset.
Inpw (pronounced Inpu or Anpu by Egyptians and Anapa in the Amarna Letters), named Anubis by the Greeks, was one of the most beloved gods of the Egyptians. According to one tradition, Inpu was the son of Ra and Nebthet. In Atfih, his parents were Mnevis and Hesat. For Plutarchus, Asar and Nebthet were the parents of the jackal-god and in the Coffin Texts, the god’s mother was Hesat or Bastet. In the shape of a jackal or just with the head of jackal and the body of a human, Inpu had as epithets „Khenty-Imentiu” („The First of the Westerners”), „Tepy-dju-ef” („The One who is upon his mountain”) or „Neb-ta-djeser” („Lord of the sacred land”). Few D.N.A. tests conducted in 2015 proved that Inpu’s sacred animal, which was considered by researchers to be a variant of the golden jackal, is in fact related to the gray wolf, since then having been named „the African golden wolf”. Ancient Greeks knew this issue, naming the city Zawty, the main cult center of Inpu, Lykopolis or „The city of the Wolf”. During the Greco-Roman period, it was believed that Inpu brought light to humankind and contributes to its future by making efficient love filters. He was depicted with the lower body of a snake. During the pyramids period, he was illustrated as a snake ruling over Iunu (Heliopolis). The original god of dead, he was replaced in time with Asar. Just like in the case of Djehuty or Haru, here too we come across two deities with the same name. The snake-god of dead, who brought light to humanity, „The First of the Westerners” (belonging to the left side), son of Ra, was the one called Enki by Sumerians. The new Inpu, the one becoming Asar’s son, was Namtar, the god of dead in Mesopotamia. At one point, Inpu was being mistaken for Haru / Marduk. The two of them never appear together in the Egyptian mythology, only in some graphic representations. Just as in Mesopotamia, where Nergal was Marduk’s negative side, here too Inpu became Haru’s dark side.
In Zawty, besides Inpu there was another divinity with the head of a wolf (that had white or gray fur): Wepwawet, Inpu’s son. The two of them ended up being confused, thus creating the third Inpu, none other than the Babylonian Nabu. Moreover, in Dacian myths, he is the Great White Wolf. Funerary sigils from the New Kingdom show Inpu sitting above the nine bows, symbolizing Egypt’s domination over its enemies. And the number 9 is Nabu’s symbol, the planet attributed to him, the ninth in our Solar system (counting from the outside towards the Sun). In The Book of the Dead, Inpu weights the hearts of the deceased on Ma’at’s (Djehuty’s wife) scale. In the occultism based on Egyptian magic, Inpu takes Djehuty’s place, him and Ma’at being the entities that connect the spirit to knowledge. He is associated with the Moon (Djehuty’s traditional symbol), is named „The Guardian of the Veil” or „The Opener of the Way” and determines in which inter-dimensional portals humans could go, depending on their spiritual evolution. Thus, we can say that Nabu, as god of scribes, wisdom and knowledge, was the second Djehuty in Egypt and, as a divine messenger and guider of souls, he was the third Inpu (or, more exactly, Wepwawet), roles that the Greeks embedded into a singular deity, Hermes. It is worth mentioning the similitude between the names Anapa (given to Inpu in the Amarna Letters) and Adapa, one of Nabu’s alter egos in Mesopotamia.
The Sumerian goddess Qetesh had been adopted by Egyptians from the Canaanite religion. Some of her other names were Quadshu, Qudshu, Qodesh, Qadesh, Qadashu, Qadesha, Qedeshet, Kedesh and Kodesh, all originating from the Semitic root „Q-D-Š”, meaning „holy”. Qetesh is named „Mistress of the Gods” (as is Inanna / Ishtar), „Lady of the Stars of Heaven”, „Great Magician, Mistress of the Stars” („Great Magician” was Aset’s title), „Beloved of Ptah” (Sekhmet’s title), „Eye of Ra, The One Without Equal” (exactly like Hathor and Sekhmet). On the Stela of Kaha, from the Twentieth Dynasty, Qetesh appears naked, riding a lion, flanked by two gods, holding out lotus flowers to the Egyptian Menu (god of fertility) and snakes to the Canaanite Reshep (god of war). The two gods are not only her husband and son, but symbols of the goddess’ aspects. She was represented exactly like Inanna / Ishtar in Mesopotamia and in her husband and son we can easily see Enki and Marduk. Thus, Qetesh can only be Ninhursag.
For the ancient Egyptians, at least in the opinion of the Egyptologists, the Sun had three names: Atum or Atem at sunrise, Ra or Re at zenith and Khepri or Khepra at dawn. Although this is the conventional opinion of the Egyptologists, it is possible it does not refer to a deity with three names, but to three solar deities (rulers). For the people of Mesopotamia, the Council of Gods was presided by Anu. To his right sat his younger son, Enlil, and to his left, Enki. Left and right were not only the places those gods occupied, but also the initiates’ way of describing good and evil. The Sun at zenith, Ra, is Anu in the Council of Gods. Atum at sunrise is the god at his right, Enlil, and Khepri at dawn is the one on his left, Enki. Aten, the god of the Pharaoh Akhenaten, comes from Atem / Atum. Aten’s first temple was built at Tjaru / Zarw, where the main deity was Sutah, and Atum and Sutah are two of the Sumerian Enlil’s names. When Akhenaten forcibly imposed Aten’s cult, forbidding worshiping other Egyptian deities, Amun / Enki became public enemy no. 1. Thus, we can conclude that the fight between the pharaoh and the clergy in Waset (Thebai) was not just for power, but a continuation of the fight between the two gods through their followers.
The prime creator goddess in Zau (Sais for the Greeks), one of the oldest Egyptian cities, was Neit, Nit, Net or Neith, who bore the epithet of „Mistress of Heaven, Ruler of Arrows”. She was associated with the unseen and infinite sky, unlike Nut, who represented the visible one. From the predynastic era to the Sixth Dynasty she was called „The Way Opener”. She is considered to be the oldest goddess and it is said about her that she was „born first, in a time when there were no births”, as George St. Clair noted in Creation Records Discovered in Egypt from 1898. The Archaeologist Flinders Petrie affirmed that her symbols date back to the predynastic Egypt. In the 6th century B.C., Neit was considered the inventor of birth, the goddess of war and hunting and it was believed she guarded the bodies of the warriors after death, one of her symbols being two crossed arrows on top of a shield. In Esneh it was believed that she was the one who rose from the primordial waters to create the world, not Ra. After she got the Earth out of the waters of the cosmic ocean, she gave birth to thirty gods. Because she gave birth alone, without any male help, she was named „The Virgin Mother Goddess”. Her most known sons were Sebek, Ra and Apep. Neit was illustrated as a woman wearing the red crown of Lower Egypt, holding a bow and arrows or a harpoon in her hand. Often she wore the royal scepter and the ankh (the symbol of life). In time, she became the embodiment of the primordial waters of creation. In an inscription mentioned by Barbara S. Leko in The Great Goddesses of Egypt (1999), she is called „unique, mysterious and great goddess, who came to exist in the beginning and caused everything to exist (…) the divine mother of Ra, who shines on the horizon”. Indeed she is surrounded by mystery, considering that, even though she was the creator of this world, she is absent from the myths, her only role being that of mediator in the war between Haru and Sutah. It seems the mystery surrounded her since forever, which comes from an inscription inside her temple in Zau: „I am all that has been and is and shall be and no mortal has ever lifted the veil which covers me”, excerpt plagiarized by Aset in the hermetic text Kore Kosmou („The Virgin of the World”) from Corpus Hermeticum: „I, Isis, am all that was, is and will be and no mortal has lifted my veil”. This determines us to try to lift at least partially that veil. The first goddess, the mother of the gods and the Universe, the embodiment of the primordial waters, can only be Tiamat / Omoroca of Babylon or Namma / Nammu of Sumer. And Nu / Nun („The Abyss”), the primordial ocean from which Neit built the world, known as „The Father of the Gods”, is Abzu / Apsu („The Abyss”) of the Mesopotamians. Even if she is completely absent from the myths of these three cultures, which deepens her mystery, Neit / Namma / Tiamat is the most important deity, the creator of our world.
We also find Neit as Ma’at or Maat, the principle of truth, balance, order, law, morality and justice. The oldest mentioning of her, in The Pyramid Texts, considers her a rule that must be followed by society and nature. As goddess, she was the one who set the order of the Universe at the time of creation, the motion of stars, seasons, the destinies of the gods and mortals, but also the one who took care that the world would not go back to the chaos from which it was created. She was represented as a young woman, holding the royal scepter in one hand and the ankh in the other one, with wings on each hand and a feather on her head. In Asar’s kingdom, at the judgment of the dead, her feather was the weight that determined how heavy the souls were. Later, when all goddesses received a male counterpart, Djehuty was considered her husband and Ra, her father. This position equates her with Ninhursag, although the original Ma’at was the primordial goddess Neit.
Another representation of her seems to be the goddess Iusaset, Iusaas, Iusaaset, Iuesaes, Ausaas or Iusas (named by the Greeks Saosis), described as „The Grandmother of all Deities”. She was represented as a woman wearing a cobra-shaped crown with eagle wings and horns on top, between which there was the solar disc; she had the ankh in one hand and a scepter in the other. Although her equivalence with Neit it is clear, the horns, the crown and the solar disc indicate a connection with Hathor and her name contains that of Aset, both being alter-egos of the Sumerian Ninhursag.
Another aspect of the primordial deity, a less known one, seems to be Heka, the embodiment of the magic. She was represented as a man strangling two entwined giant snakes, thought to be the son of Atum or Khnum. Heka is the Egyptian word for magic but, if we translate it literally, it means „activating the ka”, the essence of life for the ancient Egyptians. In The Coffin Texts it is said that Heka existed „before duality came to be”, meaning it can only be about the primordial being, the creator of life, that is Neit. And the two snakes Heka was strangling represents the duality of which The Coffin Texts spoke. The magic, that is Heka, was an important part in the lives of the ancient Egyptians, for whom the religion always combined itself with the daily life. It was used as a form of protection against angered deities, ghosts, demons and witches who caused diseases, accidents, poverty and infertility. The medicine was also seen as a form of magic, so Heka’s priests were acting as doctors as well. Magical rituals mixed with medical practices were a form of therapy, both spiritual and physical. As such, Heka was part of the lives of the Egyptians more than other deities.
Besides myths, Egypt hides some other mysteries. Here are some examples:
– 800 km away from Cairo, at Nabta Playa, in the Nubian Desert, there is one of the oldest astronomical observatories in the world, discovered in 1974 by the archaeologist Fred Wendorf. Research show it is seven millennia old, one thousand years older than the one at Stonehenge.
– In 1994, Robert Bauval proved that the pyramids of Giza are placed in a precise order, aligned with the three stars in the Orion’s Belt (Alniltak, Alnilam and Mintaka). And if the pyramids of Giza are built from stone blocks of 2-3 tones, the temples nearby are built from blocks of 200-300 tones each.
– Supervising engineer Christopher Dunn found at Abu Rawash a block of granite with a deep cut. He explained that the only way of doing a cut like this one is by using a saw with the diameter of eleven meters. Next to the pyramids of Giza, there are trenches for saws like these.
– On a fresco inside the temple of goddess Hathor in Dendera there are shown two people wearing huge light bulbs.
– In 1891, in a grave from 200 B.C. in Saqqara, Egypt, French archaeologists found a small plane made from sycamore wood. The grave belonged to Pa-di-imen, who lived during the third century B.C. Although the Egyptologists believe it is just a bird, not everyone accepted this idea. In 2006, Simon Sanderson, expert in aeronautics and aerodynamics, built a scale model of the same plane, making it five times bigger. To the surprise of many, the plane flew, thus proving the „bird” in Saqqara is a plane.
– Also in Egypt, on the walls of a temple in Abydos, can be seen depictions of a helicopter, a plane and a submarine.
Unfortunately, there is not much left from the old Egyptian religions, and what is left was, most of the times, wrongly interpreted by the Egyptiologists. Hermes Trismegistos was right when he was saying in Asklepios from Corpus Hermeticum: „Oh, Egypt! Egypt! From your religions will remain only obscure legends, in which those who will come will refuse to believe”, exactly as the Latin writer Lucius Apuelius said: „Oh, Egypt! Egypt! Only legends will remain from your science, which will seem incredible to later generations”. Despite the wall of ignorance raised in front of us by the most Egyptiologist „specialists”, we have managed to decipher some of the ancient Egypt’s secrets, just as they, the old Egyptians, encouraged us to do, in what can be considered a true will of theirs, recorded in The Anana Papyrus: „Read, children of the future, and find out the secrets of the past, so far removed from you, but so close by their truth”. The secrets of the Egyptians helped us put together the Mesopotamian fragmented myths. Thus, we were able to find out that Enki was, indeed, the first ruler of our planet and was trapped in the Underworld by his brother, Enlil, who took his throne. Eventually, Enki’s son, Marduk, was given the rule over the Earth, after a long war against his uncle. To discover the rest of the missing pieces of this giant puzzle of the Earth’s history, we can only continue decoding the myths of the ancient cultures.
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