How old is the Egyptian civilization?

Lost Civilizations (@lostcivilizations)

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lostworlds

 · 8 Apr 2023

Wooden panel of a sarcophagus dating back to the Roman period (30 BC-395 AD), depicting various gods of the Egyptian pantheon: from the left, Thoth, Osiris, Anubis, Horus, Isis and Nephthys. According to the myth, Osiris (depicted on a throne) ruled Egypt in ancient times.

Index

• Introduction
• The sources
• What is the “right” chronology?
• Where did the Egyptians come from?
• How old is the Egyptian civilization?
• Conclusions

Introduction

Without a doubt, the Egyptian one is one of the most fascinating civilizations that history remembers. And not only for the grandeur of the monuments, the beauty of the works of art and the quality of the precious objects that it has bequeathed us, but also for the aura of mystery that transpires from it. In fact, there are many enigmas to which Egyptologists have not yet been able to give an answer, or to which they have given unconvincing answers: where did the Egyptians come from? Did they build the Sphinx and the Pyramids of Giza? If yes, how did they do it? And when does their construction date back to? And so on.

One of the most debated topics among Egyptologists concerns the chronology of Ancient Egypt. This might seem strange, since we have several real lists available which list the names of the pharaohs and the lengths of their reigns. In reality, the matter is not so simple, since the various lists differ from each other, especially as regards the duration of the reigns; moreover, it is not clear whether the pharaohs reigned one after the other or (more likely) whether some of them reigned simultaneously in different places. For this reason many chronologies have been proposed: ranging from the "extremely long" ones, where the 1^st dynasty (whose progenitor was the pharaoh Menes) would have begun around 5700 BC, to the "very short" ones, which place the beginning of the 1^st dynasty around 2800 BC. Most chronologies tend to place the reign of Menes around 3100 BC.

It is not my intention to spend further words on the chronology of the various dynasties, on which rivers of ink have already been poured. I would rather focus on the predynastic chronology, which concerns the rulers before Menes. According to various sources, the predynastic period was not only longer than the dynastic one, but has its roots in extreme antiquity, when the gods "in the flesh" reigned. These claims may seem incredible, but more and more convincing evidence is emerging in support of them, which we will try to examine in this short survey. However, we will obviously begin with an analysis of the written sources.

The sources

The main texts that tell us about predynastic (and "mythological") Egypt are the following:

1. The Historical Library of Diodorus Siculus;
2. The Stories of Herodotus;
3. Manetho's Aegyptiaca;
4. The Turin Papyrus.

Let's see them one by one.

1) The Historical Library of Diodorus Siculus.

This work, dating back to the 1^st century BC, is particularly valuable for the mythology scholar, since in addition to describing the historical events and customs of the various peoples of the time, also reviews their most important myths. The Historical Library has arrived to us incomplete, but fortunately book I, entirely dedicated to Egypt, is intact.

AI, 11-12 Diodorus speaks of the Egyptian gods: Osiris (representing the Sun), Isis (the Moon), Ptah (fire), and so on. Subsequently in (I, 13) he wrote that there were other gods, earthlings, who reigned over Egypt; according to some persons Elio (Atum/Ra) reigned first, while according to others Hephaestus (Ptah), who discovered fire. Later Cronus (Geb) would reign, who with his sister Rhea (Nut) would generate Zeus and Hera (while according to others Osiris and Isis), from whom five gods would be born: Osiris, Isis, Typhon (Seth), Apollo (Horus) and Aphrodite (Nephthys). Osiris corresponded to the Greek Dionysus, while Isis to Demeter. Diodorus then speaks (I, 14 et seq.) of the exploits of these gods: Isis discovered wheat and barley, while Osiris discovered how to cultivate them, thus making men desist from cannibalism; he was also the first to produce wine. Isis, moreover, was the first to establish the laws. Hermes (Thoth) also had an important civilizing function: he discovered the olive tree, among other things he invented the lyre and the alphabet and was hired as a scribe by Osiris. Later Osiris, raising a large army, set out to visit "all the inhabited earth" and teach agriculture.

From the description that is made of the gods, it is clear that they were to all intents and purposes beings of flesh and blood, probably belonging to a human race now extinct (at least on this planet) and, as we will soon see, much longer-lived than ours. It is unlikely that they "discovered" or "invented" civilization: on the contrary, it is very likely that their "race" already possessed knowledge that they then passed on to "common mortals" (us). We will return to this topic later.

As far as the chronology is concerned, we find various interesting information: for example, according to some Egyptians from the time of Osiris up to the reign of Alexander the Great (4^th century BC) "little more than ten thousand years" had passed while according to others "little less than twenty-three thousand” (I, 23). Further on (I, 26) it is said that by Elio (not from Osiris, therefore) to Alexander it was about twenty-three thousand years, and that "the most ancient gods reigned more than twelve hundred years, while those of the following generations not less than three hundred [in both cases we mean "each"]"; However, Diodorus is skeptical about these figures and puts forward some hypotheses to reduce them to more "human" values. Finally, further on (I, 44), we read that "first gods and heroes ruled Egypt for a little less than eighteen thousand years" and that the last god to reign was Horus; subsequently, men reigned "for a little less than five thousand years until the one hundred and eightieth Olympiad [between 60 and 56 BC]".

The god Ptah (Hephaestus for the Greeks) depicted in the tomb of Nefertari, dating from the 19th dynasty (about 13th century BC).

2) The Stories of Herodotus.

The work of Herodotus is older than that of Diodorus Siculus: it dates back to the fifth century BC. Herodotus does not wrote much about the myths of the peoples he speaks of; nevertheless, some passages of book II, dedicated to Egypt, could be useful to us and therefore we report them here.

Regarding the number of gods, Herodotus reports (II, 145) the Egyptian belief according to which three "groups" of deities had followed one another, the first formed by eight gods (including, for example, Pan) and the second by twelve (including Heracles), while the number of the third (which included Dionysus, or Osiris) is not reported. In Egyptian mythology we actually find the Ogdoade, a group of eight gods who lived in a primordial time, and the Ennead, a group of nine gods generated by the god Atum (the Sun). The fact that Herodotus speaks of twelve (and not nine) gods may be due to the fact that different cities had different lists of gods: for example, the Ennead of Abydos included seven gods, while that of Karnak fifteen. The number nine was therefore not a fixed number. As for the third group, it perhaps actually included the demigods mentioned by Diodorus Siculus? Herodotus also provides us with chronological information: from Dionysus to King Amasis (6^th century BC), according to the Egyptians, 15,000 years had passed (II, 145). Earlier (II, 43) he had mentioned the fact that "from when the number of gods increases from eight to twelve" up to the reign of Amasis, 17,000 years had passed. And again, he reports that "from the first king" to a priest of Hephaestus contemporary with the Assyrian king Sennacherib (VIII-VII century BC) there had been "341 generations of men" (II, 142); he calculates the elapsed period considering that 100 years correspond to three generations. The result he obtains is 11,340 years, which is also inexact: with one generation = 33 years + 1/3 he should have obtained approximately 11,366 years.

3) Manetho's Aegyptiaca.

Manetho's work, perhaps dating back to the 3^rd century BC (although some place it, together with its author, around the 1^st century BC) has unfortunately been lost. However, some excerpts have arrived to us thanks to the citations of other authors, in particular the bishop Eusebius of Cesarea, who lived between the 3^rd and 4^th centuries, and the monk George Syncellus, who lived between the 8^th and 9^th centuries. Manetho was the first to group the Egyptian pharaohs into dynasties, 30 in total. Before Menes, gods and demigods would have reigned for centuries: according to what Eusebius reports in his Chronicle, the gods would reign first (first of all Hephaestus) for 13,900 years, then the demigods for 1255 years, then three series of kings 1817, 1790 and 350 years, and finally (before the "historical" kings) the "shadows" (i.e. spirits of the dead) for 5813 years, for a total of 24,925 years. However, Eusebius prefers to interpret the years as lunar months to reconcile these dates with the much shorter biblical chronology.

Syncellus, in the Selection of Chronography, referring to a certain “Book of Sothis” (attributed to Manetho), provides a slightly different chronology: six gods would have reigned for 11,985 years, while nine demigods for almost 2600 years. Among the gods, Hephaestus reigned for 9,000 years, Cronus for 1,000, while the following gods reigned for approximately 700 to 350 years. The demigods (including Horus, Anubis, Heracles ...) would have reigned on average almost 300 years each. Syncellus also mentions "an ancient chronology" (FGrHist 610 F2), which he considered one of the possible sources of Manetho, which spanned a period of 36,525 years. This list assigned 30,000 regnal years to Aelius, 4,168 years to other gods, and 217 years to demigods, continuing with historical dynasties. Hephaestus, the first of the gods listed, had no assigned period, for he "shines night and day."

Unlike Eusebius, Syncellus does not even try to bring the Egyptian chronologies back to the biblical one: he simply rejects the former considering them totally false, since according to him they aim to attribute to the Egyptian people an antiquity enormously greater than the real one.

4) TheTurin Papyrus.

This papyrus, dating back to the time of Ramses II (13^th century BC) and preserved in the Egyptian Museum of Turin, shows a long list of rulers, including the gods. The part concerning the rulers prior to Menes is very incomplete, but fortunately fragments bearing chronological information have been preserved: in some of them we find written that the "spirits" and the "Shemsu Hor" ("Followers" or "Companions of Horus") they reigned for 13,420 years, and reference is made to a period, prior to the Shemsu Hor, lasting 23,200 years, which would bring the duration of the predynastic period to a good 36,620 years.

What is the “right” chronology?

We have seen that the chronologies of predynastic Egypt (as well as those of dynastic Egypt) are discordant with each other: how to establish, therefore, the one closest to the truth?

In my opinion, the work of Diodorus Siculus can help us solve the riddle. In fact, according to what is reported in the Historical Library, the main civilizing gods were Osiris, Isis and Hermes, all belonging to the same "generation". And yet, before them, among other things, for several centuries (as mentioned in I, 26), other gods had also reigned (Hephaestus, Cronus…): is it possible that they, on the other hand, hadn't "discovered" anything, with the exception of fire? I'd say it's not believable. It is probable, however, that they have performed a similar civilizing function: however, later a cataclysm made civilization regress, and all knowledge, except perhaps fire, was lost, until another generation of gods arrived, among which precisely Osiris, who transmitted them again (in fact in the Egyptian myth of the flood the "younger" gods are not mentioned, just as if they had only made their appearance later).

Later these gods, having fulfilled their civilizing task, left and gave way to the demigods, whose "divine" component was probably reduced until they became "human" to all intents and purposes (perhaps from Menes onwards).

So in the predynastic chronology we can identify at least two distinct periods: a first period in which only the gods reigned, and a second period - following a flood - in which the gods reigned first (starting with Osiris and Isis), then the demigods and finally men. But what about their durability? Perhaps the two different datings of the reign of Osiris and Isis mentioned by Diodorus in I, 23 could be due precisely to the confusion between these two periods: the second, therefore, the one in which they actually reigned, could have begun "little more than ten thousand years” before the time of Alexander the Great, i.e. around 10,500 BC (according to some, the date of construction of the Sphinx and the Pyramids of Giza), while the first "little less than twenty-three thousand", therefore towards 23,000 BC. Before this date another cataclysm probably took place (also a deluge?), which almost completely wiped out the civilization.

The Sphinx: did it perhaps represent the constellation of Leo (here superimposed on its silhouette), in which between 10,900 and 8,800 BC the sun rose during the vernal equinox? Originally the Sphinx probably had a lion's head; the human one, disproportionate to the body, was built in more recent times.

But what then of those sources that further date the beginning of Egyptian civilization?In a certain sense, we have already answered: probably the cataclysm that occurred before 23,000 BC almost completely erased the previous "Egyptian" civilization. However, a period of about 36,500 years is significant when compared to those just mentioned (23,000, 10,500), because it would indicate that every 13,000 years or so (half of a precession cycle of the equinoxes) something happens that causes massive natural up heavals. The idea of ​​the cyclical nature of catastrophes is also found in the Timaeus of Plato, in which it is precisely an Egyptian priest who asserts that "at regular intervals of time, as if it were a disease, the cataracts of the sky open [causing a deluge]" (23 a), specifying however that in Egypt, on the contrary that in other places, the "human race" had always survived these catastrophes, and this had allowed the preservation of "the most ancient traditions" (22e -23a).

Therefore, it is possible that around 37,000 BC a further cataclysm took place, perhaps then confused with the following one, and that only a few sources have kept the memory of the sovereigns who reigned after it and before 23,000 BC. And perhaps this is why, as Diodorus informs us, there was no agreement on who had reigned first among the gods, whether Hephaestus or Helios: the "zero period", that of Hephaestus (starting perhaps from 36,500 BC), would have been confused with the "first period”, that of Aelius (starting from 23,000 BC). The existence of three distinct periods could also explain the mention of three groups of gods by Herodotus: they would have been the rulers who succeeded each other during these three eras. Moreover, Herodotus always reports that according to the Egyptians "the sun moved four times from its seat, which from where it now sets, rose twice, and twice vice versa" (II, 142). This has been interpreted as a reference to the precession of the equinoxes: the cardinal point where the sun rose in the morning would not have changed, but the zodiacal constellation in which it rose at the spring equinox. From a hypothetical "zero point", i.e. a certain zodiacal constellation, the sun would have reached the opposite constellation after about 13,000 years, would have returned to the "zero point" after 26,000 years and then again in the opposite constellation after 39,000 years: a decidedly similar to that provided by the Turin Papyrus and from the "ancient chronology" mentioned by Syncellus.

Summing up, the various chronologies are less discordant than one might think at first glance: in fact, despite the differences, they all agree in placing the beginning of Egyptian civilization far back in time, and in more than one the dates provided coincide.

Where did the Egyptians come from?

In the previous article we mentioned the hypothesis of a Nordic origin of the Egyptians. This hypothesis is supported by several elements:

1. The toponymy. In the Lappish area we find several places whose names lead back to ancient Egypt, for example the city of Kemi (Kemi was the Coptic name of Egypt), Lake Giisa (Giisájávri), which recalls the city of Giza, Lake Menes (Menesjarvi), its emissary river Menes (Menesjoki) and even two homonymous rivers of the Nile (Nilijoki). In southern Finland we find instead the locality of Sakkara, which recalls the Egyptian Saqqara;
2. The somatic characteristics. It is known that some pharaohs had blond or red hair, and it has been shown that this characteristic did not depend on the substances used in the mummification process. Even some statues portray individuals with light skin and exquisitely Europoid features;
3. The genetic affinity between Lapps and Berbers.This study has shown how the Sami of Lapland and the Berbers of North Africa are related to each other: the similarities found in their mitochondrial DNA (transmitted by the mother) suggest their common ancestry;
4. Mythology.Some Egyptian myths have marked “solar” characteristics: for example, the god Ra puts the serpent Apophis to flight every night, just as, in Northern Europe 5000 years ago, the rising sun made the constellation Dragon invisible at the time it meant the celestial North Pole. Even the famous myth of Osiris (moreover very similar to the Finnish one of Lemminkainen), killed and torn to pieces by Seth and later reassembled, could allude to the disappearance of the sun during the polar night and its subsequent "recomposition": first day and night, then – near the summer solstice – the sun never sets. It is very probable, therefore, that these myths have a Nordic origin: subsequently, the encounter of the Indo-Europeans with the Egyptians could have led to the fusion, in a single corpus, of the myths of both peoples; however, this is a topic that would require a separate study.

Detail of the statue depicting the princess Nofret ("Beautiful"), who lived during the IV dynasty (about 2600-2500 BC).

In short, the hypothesis of a Nordic origin of the Egyptians would seem anything but "far-fetched". However, as we had already pointed out, any "Egyptian" civilization that developed at those latitudes would probably have been more primitive than the one that flourished along the banks of the Nile; moreover, the Scandinavian regions remained rather inhospitable until approximately 8000 BC, when the so-called "climatic optimum" began. Therefore, if an Indo-European people settled in Egypt (which seems probable), it was most likely part of an already developed civilization perhaps already many millennia old. But where to place then (in space, but also in time) the events concerning the Egyptian gods? In Egypt or Scandinavia? I lean towards the first hypothesis, but this does not exclude the simultaneous presence of other civilizations in the habitable regions (that is, not covered by ice) of Northern Europe.

How old is the Egyptian civilization?

In chapter 117 of De caelo by Simplicio, a Byzantine philosopher of the sixth century, we find an incredible statement: "I have heard that the Egyptians have kept written observations of the stars for no less than 630,000 years".

Now, such a period is not simply "very long": it is literally inconceivable. How is it possible that the existence of a civilization has lasted so long? Moreover starting from an era in which, according to currently accredited theories, there was not even a shadow of Homo sapiens!

Naturally, Simplicio's statement could be a pure and simple invention, or an error, where the days would have been mistaken for years (630,000 days correspond to approximately 1726 years). However, it seems that a very remote origin of the Egyptian civilization (and also of other civilizations) is not only plausible, but even mathematically demonstrable. Don't believe it? Yet this is the surprising discovery of an independent researcher who signs himself "Mario Buildreps" (https://www.mariobuildreps.com/). But let's go in order and see what would lead to these conclusions.

Many buildings (temples, pyramids, etc.) are still scattered around the globe whose antiquity has never been established with certainty: in fact, dating methods such as the one based on carbon-14 are applicable only on organic remains and not on stone. However, we can easily determine the orientation of these buildings: for example, the Pyramids of Giza, the temple of Angkor Wat in Cambodia and the buildings of the Mexican site of Yaxchilan are all oriented towards the geographic North Pole (not to be confused with the Magnetic North Pole), while other buildings appear to have a random orientation. In reality, many of them are oriented towards very specific points: at least four can be identified, arranged at a certain distance at the longitude of 47.1° west. Each of these points would be nothing more than an ancient North Pole, moved several times following deformations of the earth's crust.

The position of the current geographical North Pole (Pole I) can be determined starting from the buildings oriented towards it: the same process allows to determine the position of older poles (here collectively referred to as Pole II).

But how old would these poles be? Since each Ice Age would have consisted, in reality, in a deformation of the earth's crust, while each interglacial period in a phase of stability, the poles would date back to the intervals between one glaciation and another (https://mariobuildreps.com/how-old-are-poles/). Therefore Pole I (the current one) would be "only" 26,000 years old; Pole II (the previous one) would date back to the period between 155,000 and 130,000 years ago; Pole III at 225,000-210,000 years ago; Pole IV at 270,000-240,000 years ago; Pole V at 345,000-330,000 years ago. Therefore, the antiquity of a building (or at least of its foundations) could be deduced from the "pole" towards which it is oriented: this would mean that some of them are hundreds of thousands of years old!

This method also – and above all – makes use of mathematics: in fact, the mere observation of the orientation of a building is not enough to prove its antiquity, since such an orientation could also be random. But what is the probability that dozens of buildings (even very distant from each other) have been randomly oriented towards geographical points that today do not exists anymore? Well, let's say it's pretty low: only 1 in 750,000! Here (https://mariobuildreps.com/orientation/) and here(https://mariobuildreps.com/node-formation/) the method is described in detail.

So let's go back to Egypt (https://mariobuildreps.com/ancient-egypt/). Examining the orientation of the most important temples and pyramids, we realize that we have buildings oriented towards Pole I (e.g. Pyramids of Giza), towards Pole II (e.g. Pyramid of Elephantine), towards Pole III (e.g. Pyramid of Unas), towards Pole IV (e.g.: Monastero Rosso) and towards Pole V (e.g.: Ramesseo). But what does all this mean? Simple: that the Egyptian civilization remained "operational" for 350,000 years! This is undoubtedly an extremely long period, but it is still "only" slightly more than half of that reported by Simplicio. However, in Egypt there are other buildings so ancient as to escape the sensitivity of this method: some of these (for example the temples of Dakka and Kalabsha) could even have between 400,000 and 600,000 years old! And so a period of 630,000 years does not seem so much "inconceivable" anymore...

Conclusions

So let's try to reconstruct the history of Egyptian civilization taking into account the data we have collected. We will divide it, for simplicity, into five periods:

1. Prehistoric period: its beginning is lost in the mists of time (hundreds of thousands of years ago). Despite the - probably very many - natural catastrophes that have occurred in this long period of time, civilization survives and prospers in the "quieter" periods, building many of the structures whose remains can still be found today, and whose antiquity is testified by their orientation towards to the current geographic North Pole;
2. Period zero: after a catastrophe that occurred around 37,000 BC, Egyptian civilization restarted almost from scratch; in this period, identifiable with the Zep Tepi ("First Time") of the Egyptian myths, the eight primordial gods (Ogdoade) reign, the most important of which is Hephaestus (Ptah), who gives men fire;
3. Early predynastic period: another cataclysm, which occurred around 24,000 BC, deals a severe blow to civilization, which however recovers with the help of another group of gods (the Ennead), among which the reference figure is Elio;
4. Second predynastic period: it begins around 10,500 BC, after yet another catastrophe (the Great Flood?). A third group of gods, including Osiris and Isis, restores civilization in Egypt and spreads it throughout the world, only to leave and make way for the demigods, who reign over Egypt for a few centuries;
5. Dynastic Period: From the reign of Menes onwards. Menes, whose name is found in some Lapland toponyms, may have reigned in these places, before - a few centuries later - the Nordic "Egyptians" migrated to their current location, integrating with the civilization already present there, where they probably already reigned The Humans".

This, according to my very personal reconstruction, is the history of ancient, indeed (it is appropriate to say it!) very ancient Egypt.

Note

This article is an english translation of the italian article "Le Liste Reali Egizie" by Merlo Bianco. You can find the original article here: https://merlobianco.altervista.org/le-liste-reali-egizie/