The Egyptian Royal Lists

Lost Civilizations (@lostcivilizations)

Published in 

lostworlds

 · 13 Feb 2024

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 myth, Osiris (shown on a throne) reigned over Egypt in ancient times.

Index

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

Introduction

Without a doubt, the Egyptian civilization 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 left us as a legacy, but also for the aura of mystery that transpires from it. There are many enigmas to which Egyptologists have not yet been able to 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 so, how did they do it? And when were their constructions built? And so on.

One of the most debated topics among Egyptologists concerns the chronology of Ancient Egypt. This might seem strange, since we have available several royal lists that list the names of the pharaohs and the durations of their reigns. In reality, the matter is not so simple, since the various lists differ from each other, especially regarding the duration of the reigns; Furthermore, 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: they range from the "extremely long" ones, where the 1^st dynasty (whose progenitor was the pharaoh Menes) began 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 spilled. I would rather focus on the predynastic chronology, which concerns the rulers who succeeded one another before Menes. According to what is reported by various sources, the predynastic period was not only longer than the dynastic one, but has its roots in extreme antiquity, when the gods "in flesh and blood" reigned. These claims may seem incredible, but more and more convincing evidence is emerging to support them, which we will try to examine in this short investigation. However, we will obviously begin with the analysis of 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 Histories 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 precious for the student of mythology, since in addition to describing the historical events and customs of the various peoples of the time, it also reviews their most important myths. The Historical Library reached us incomplete, but fortunately book I, entirely dedicated to Egypt, reached us intact.

At I, 11-12 Diodorus speaks of the Egyptian gods: Osiris (representing the Sun), Isis (the Moon), Ptah (fire), and so on. Subsequently, however (I, 13), he says that there were other gods, terrestrial, who reigned over Egypt; according to some, Helios (Atum/Ra) reigned first, while according to others Hephaestus (Ptah), who discovered fire. Subsequently, Cronus (Geb) would have reigned, who with his sister Rhea (Nut) would have generated Zeus and Hera (while according to others Osiris and Isis), from whom five gods would have been born: Osiris, Isis, Typhon (Seth), Apollo (Horus ) and Aphrodite (Nephthys). Osiris corresponded to the Greek Dionysus, while Isis corresponded 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 give up cannibalism; he was also the first to produce wine. Isis also established the laws first. Hermes (Thoth) also had an important civilizing function: he discovered the olive tree, invented among other things the lyre and the alphabet and was hired as a scribe by Osiris. Later Osiris, having gathered together a large army, set out to visit "all the inhabited earth" and teach agriculture.

From the description given of the gods, it is clear that they were in all respects beings of flesh and blood, probably belonging to a human race that is now extinct (at least on this planet) and, as we will see shortly, much more long-lived than ours. It is unlikely that they were the ones who "discovered" or "invented" civilization: on the contrary, it is very likely that their "race" already had knowledge that they then transmitted to "mere mortals" (us). We will return to this topic later.

As regards chronology, we find various interesting information: for example, according to some Egyptians, "just over ten thousand years" had passed from the time of Osiris to the reign of Alexander the Great (4^th century BC), while according to others "just under twenty-three thousand” (I, 23). Further on (I, 26) it is said that approximately twenty-three thousand years passed from Helios (not from Osiris, therefore) to Alexander, and that "the most ancient gods reigned for more than twelve hundred years, while those of subsequent generations no less than three hundred [in in both cases it means “each”]”; Diodorus, however, appears skeptical about these figures and puts forward some hypotheses to reduce them to more "human" values. Finally, further on (I, 44), we read that "gods and heroes first governed Egypt for just under eighteen thousand years" and that the last god to reign was Horus; subsequently, men reigned “for just under 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 back to the 19th dynasty (circa 13th century BC).

2) The Histories of Herodotus

Herodotus' work is older than that of Diodorus Siculus: in fact it dates back to the 5^th century BC. Herodotus does not delay much in recounting the myths of the peoples he speaks about; nevertheless, some passages from 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 divinities had followed one another, the first made up of eight gods (including for example Pan) and the second of twelve (including Heracles), while the number of the third (which included Dionysus, or Osiris) is not reported. In Egyptian mythology we actually find the Ogdoad, 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 could 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 included fifteen. The number nine was therefore not a fixed number. Regarding the third group, perhaps it actually also 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). Previously (II, 43) he had mentioned that "17,000 years had passed from the time the gods became eight to twelve" until the reign of Amasis. And again, he reports that "from the first king" to a priest of Hephaestus contemporary with the Assyrian king Sennacherib (8^th-7^th century BC) there had been "341 generations of men" (II, 142); he calculates the elapsed period considering that 100 years corresponds to three generations. The result he obtains is 11,340 years, however inaccurate: 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 come down to us thanks to quotes from other authors, in particular the bishop Eusebius of Caesarea, 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, first the gods would have reigned (first of all Hephaestus) for 13,900 years, then the demigods for 1255 years, followed by three series of kings 1817, 1790 and 350 years, and finally (before the “historical” kings) the “shadows” (i.e. the spirits of the dead) for 5813 years, for a total of 24,925 years. Eusebius, however, 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 would have reigned for 9000 years, Cronus for 1000, while the subsequent gods for approximately 700 to 350 years. The demigods (including Horus, Anubis, Heracles...) would have reigned on average for almost 300 years each. Syncellus also cites "an ancient chronology" (FGrHist 610 F2), which he considers one of Manetho's possible sources, which spanned a period of 36,525 years. This list assigned 30,000 years of reign to Helios, 4168 years to the other gods and 217 years to the demigods, continuing with the historical dynasties. Hephaestus, the first of the gods listed, had no assigned period, as he “shines night and day.”

Unlike Eusebius, Syncellus does not even attempt to trace the Egyptian chronologies to the biblical one: he simply rejects the former considering them totally false, since according to him they are aimed at attributing to the Egyptian people an antiquity enormously greater than the real one.

4) The Turin Papyrus

This papyrus, dating back to the time of Ramses II (13^th century BC) and preserved in the Egyptian Museum in Turin, contains a long list of rulers, including the gods. The part concerning the rulers prior to Menes is very incomplete, but fortunately fragments containing chronological information have been preserved: in some of them we find it 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 preceding the Shemsu Hor, lasting 23,200 years, which would bring the duration of the predynastic period to 36,620 years.

What is the “right” timeline?

We have seen that the chronologies of predynastic Egypt (like those of dynastic Egypt) are discordant with each other: how, then, can we establish the one closest to the truth?

In my opinion, the work of Diodorus Siculus can help us solve the enigma. 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". Yet, before them, other gods (Hephaestus, Cronus...) had also reigned for several centuries (as mentioned in I, 26): was it possible that they instead had not "discovered" anything, with the exception of fire? I would say it's not credible. It is probable, however, that they performed a similar civilizing function: subsequently, however, a cataclysm caused civilization to regress, and all knowledge, except perhaps fire, was lost, until another generation of gods arrived, among 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). Subsequently, these gods, having completed their civilizing task, left and gave way to demigods, whose "divine" component probably decreased until they became fully "human" (perhaps from Menes onwards).

Therefore 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 first the gods reigned (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, or around 10,500 BC (according to some, the date of construction of the Sphinx and the Pyramids of Giza ), while the first "just under twenty-three thousand", therefore around 23,000 BC. Before this date another cataclysm probably occurred (also a flood?), which almost completely wiped out civilization.

The Sphinx: did it perhaps represent the constellation of Leo (here superimposed on its silhouette), in which between 10,900 and 8800 BC the sun rose during the spring equinox? Originally the Sphinx probably had a lion's head; the human one, disproportionate to the body, was created in more recent times.

But what then about 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 around 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 cycle of precession of the equinoxes) something happens that causes massive natural upheavals. The idea of ​​the cyclical nature of catastrophes is also found in Plato's Timaeus, in which an Egyptian priest asserts that "at regular intervals of time, almost as if it were an illness, the floodgates of heaven open [causing a flood]" (23 a), specifying however that in Egypt, unlike in other places, the "human race" had always survived these catastrophes, and this had allowed "the most ancient traditions" to be preserved (22 and -23 a).

Therefore, it is possible that around 37,000 BC a further cataclysm occurred, perhaps later confused with the following one, and that only some sources have preserved 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, 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 Helios (starting from 23,000 BC). The existence of three distinct periods could also explain Herodotus' mention of three groups of gods: they would have been the rulers who succeeded one another during these three eras. Furthermore, Herodotus again reports that according to the Egyptians "four times the sun moved from his seat, which rose twice from where it now sets, and twice vice versa" (II, 142). This has been interpreted as a reference to the precession of the equinoxes: it would not have changed the cardinal point where the sun rose in the morning, but rather the zodiacal constellation in which it rose at the spring equinox. From a hypothetical "zero point", i.e. a specific zodiacal constellation, the sun would have arrived in the opposite constellation after approximately 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 the "ancient chronology" of which Syncellus speaks.

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

Where did the Egyptians come from?

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

1. 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 for Egypt), Lake Giisa (Giisájávri), which recalls the city of Giza, Lake Menes (Menesjarvi), its emissary river Menes (Menesjoki) and even two rivers of the same name of the Nile (Nilijoki). In southern Finland we find 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 (https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/new-research-shows-some-ancient-egyptians-were-naturally-fair-haired-005812) that this characteristic did not depend on the substances used in the mummification process. Some statues also portray individuals with light skin and exquisitely Europoid features;
3. The genetic affinity between Lapps and Berbers. This study (https://www.cell.com/ajhg/fulltext/S0002-9297(07)60734-4) has shown how the Sami of Lapland and the North African Berbers are related to each other: the similarities found in their mitochondrial DNA (transmitted maternally) suggest their common ancestry;
4. Mythology. Some Egyptian myths have strong "solar" characteristics: for example, the god Ra puts the serpent Apophis to flight every night, just as, in Northern Europe 5000 years ago, the sun, upon rising, made the constellation of the Dragon invisible, which at the time indicated the celestial North Pole. Even the famous myth of Osiris (very similar to the Finnish one by Lemminkainen), killed and torn to pieces by Seth and later recomposed, could allude to the disappearance of the sun during the polar night and its subsequent "recomposition": at first they alternate day and night, then – near the summer solstice – the sun never sets. It is very likely, therefore, that these myths have a Nordic origin: subsequently, the meeting 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 requires a separate study.

Detail of the statue depicting Princess Nofret (“Beautiful”), who lived during the 4th dynasty (around 2600-2500 BC).

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

How ancient is Egyptian civilization?

In chapter 117 of De caelo by Simplicius, a Byzantine philosopher of the 6^th century, we find an incredible statement: “I have heard that the Egyptians have been keeping 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 continued for so long? Moreover, starting from an era in which, according to currently accredited theories, there was not even a shadow of Homo sapiens yet!

Of course, 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 you believe it? Yet this is the surprising discovery of an independent researcher who goes by the name “Mario Buildreps” (https://mariobuildreps.com). But let's go in order and see what would lead to these conclusions.

There are still many buildings scattered across the globe (temples, pyramids, etc.) whose antiquity has never been established with certainty: in fact, dating methods such as the one based on carbon-14 can only be applied to organic remains and not to stone. Of these buildings, however, we can easily determine the orientation: 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 geographical 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, which 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 the position of older poles (here collectively referred to as Pole II) to be determined.

But how old would these poles be? Since each Ice Age would have consisted, in reality, precisely 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) dates 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 345,000-330,000 years ago. Therefore, the antiquity of a building (or at least 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 uses - and above all - 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 have nothing special? 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. Red Monastery) 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” a little more than half of that reported by Simplicius. However, in Egypt there are other buildings so ancient that they escape the sensitivity of this method: some of these (for example the temples of Dakka and Kalabsha) could even be between 400,000 and 600,000 years old! And so a period of 630,000 years no longer seems so "inconceivable"...

Conclusions

Let us therefore 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 disasters that have occurred in this long period of time, civilization survives and in the more "quiet" periods prospers, building many of the structures whose remains are still found today, and whose antiquity is demonstrated by their orientation with respect to to the current geographic North Pole;
2. Zero period: after a catastrophe that occurred around 37,000 BC, Egyptian civilization started almost from scratch; in this period, identifiable with the Zep Tepi ("First Time") of Egyptian myths, the eight primordial gods (Ogdoad) reign, the most important of which is Hephaestus (Ptah), who gives men fire;
3. First 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 Helios;
4. Second predynastic period: 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 give way to 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 Lappish toponyms, may have reigned precisely in these places, before - a few centuries later - the Nordic "Egyptians" migrated to the current location, integrating with the civilization already present on site, where probably already reigned The Humans".

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

This article is a translation of "Le Liste Reali Egizie" by Merlo Bianco (https://merlobianco.altervista.org/le-liste-reali-egizie).