Iron was associated with the rulers of the archaic world. The iron beads that fell from the sky would have held special importance to them. According to Joyce Tyldesley, an Egyptologist at the University of Manchester, “The sky was very important to the ancient Egyptians.” Tyldesley goes on to say: “Something that falls from the sky is going to be considered as a gift from the gods.”
Diane Johnson says, "Iron was very strongly associated with royalty and power." Images from Nekhen, a 3,500 year old Horite shrine city, show ruler-priests carrying flails and crooks and wearing iron beads around their necks. Abraham's ancestors were among these archaic rulers. Their existence has been confirmed through scientific analysis of the Genesis King Lists.
Meteoric iron was prevalent on the Arabian Peninsula due to iron meteoroids which caused hypervelocity cratering. Iron meteoroids are able to pass through the atmosphere intact. The Wabar craters of the Empty Quarter in Saudi Arabia were caused by iron meteoroids. Fist-sized iron balls and smooth sand-blasted fragments at the site indicated a meteorite impact, as there are no iron deposits in the region.
R. F. Tylecote notes, "Around 4000 BC small items, such as the tips of spears and ornaments, were being fashioned from iron recovered from meteorites." (A History of Metallurgy, 2nd edition, 1992, p. 3)
Meteoric iron bits were viewed as seeds sown by the Creator. These iron seeds were often placed in graves as an expression of the hope of life after death. At a cemetery in Gerzeh, about 40 miles south of Cairo, archaeologist Wainwright found 3,300 year old meteoric iron beads. Gerzeh, el Badari, and Nekhen are prehistoric sites of the Naqada civilization. The meteoric iron beads found at Gerzeh are among the earliest known iron artifacts.
Iron beads were worn around the necks of by archaic chiefs. Such images have been found on prehistoric rock paintings in the Sudan. Likely the rulers believed that these iron beads provided them with powers from above. Wearing them would have been a sign of divine appointment.
Divine appointment included claims of authority as a ruler, a priest and a warrior. For females it was expressed in the miraculous conception of rulers, priests and great warriors.
Sacred Pillars and Divine Insemination
Divine insemination also is portrayed by stone pillars or benben. Sometimes the pillar is upright and sometimes the pillar points down as in this fertility image. Hindu scholars regard this as evidence of the yoni and lingam among prehistoric peoples. The stone yoni (vagina) and stone lingam (phallus) are often shown united in Hindu temples and shrines. In Hinduism this symbol came to represent the "mother goddess" and rebirth.
Originally this symbol was a sacred pillar within the long horns of the cow. The pillar symbolizes the Creator's sun rays which were believed to inseminate the Earth. It is interesting that the yoni stone has never been found at locations where Abraham's ancestors lived. The evidence suggests that among Abraham's ancestors valleys were seen as vaginal and mountains as phallic. These were of God's creating, not objects fashioned by human hands. At a later time (1500-200 BC) the artifact with the closest symbolism to the Hindu yoni was the round grinding stone and circular threshing floors, both of which were also solar images.
Threshing floors were sacred places at high level elevations where the wind could carry away the chaff. Araunah, a Jebusite ruler, sold David a threshing floor upon which David constructed an altar. Threshing floors were places of worship in the ancient world.
Meteoric iron bits were viewed as seeds sown by the Creator. These iron seeds were often placed in graves as an expression of the hope of life after death. At a cemetery in Gerzeh, about 40 miles south of Cairo, archaeologist Wainwright found 3,300 year old meteoric iron beads. Gerzeh, el Badari, and Nekhen are prehistoric sites of the Naqada civilization. The meteoric iron beads found at Gerzeh are among the earliest known iron artifacts.
Iron beads were worn around the necks of by archaic chiefs. Such images have been found on prehistoric rock paintings in the Sudan. Likely the rulers believed that these iron beads provided them with powers from above. Wearing them would have been a sign of divine appointment.
Divine appointment included claims of authority as a ruler, a priest and a warrior. For females it was expressed in the miraculous conception of rulers, priests and great warriors.
Sacred Pillars and Divine Insemination
Divine insemination also is portrayed by stone pillars or benben. Sometimes the pillar is upright and sometimes the pillar points down as in this fertility image. Hindu scholars regard this as evidence of the yoni and lingam among prehistoric peoples. The stone yoni (vagina) and stone lingam (phallus) are often shown united in Hindu temples and shrines. In Hinduism this symbol came to represent the "mother goddess" and rebirth. Originally this symbol was a sacred pillar within the long horns of the cow. The pillar symbolizes the Creator's sun rays which were believed to inseminate the Earth. It is interesting that the yoni stone has never been found at locations where Abraham's ancestors lived. The evidence suggests that among Abraham's ancestors valleys were seen as vaginal and mountains as phallic. These were of God's creating, not objects fashioned by human hands. At a later time (1500-200 BC) the artifact with the closest symbolism to the Hindu yoni was the round grinding stone and circular threshing floors, both of which were also solar images.
Threshing floors were sacred places at high level elevations where the wind could carry away the chaff. Araunah, a Jebusite ruler, sold David a threshing floor upon which David constructed an altar. Threshing floors were places of worship in the ancient world.
 |
Among the ancient Egyptians the pillar and yoni were represented by the sema sign (shown right). The sema sign of ancient Egyptian rulers is a type of benben, a pillar that expressed the hope of bodily resurrection. The term benben is formed by the reduplication of the root bn, meaning to arise or to swell forth as the sun swells on the eastern horizon. The ancient Egyptian word for the rising sun is wbn. Benben have been found from Nigeria to India. Recently discovered tombs of officials from the 4th Dynasty were surmounted by conical mounds or benben. These tombs, along with the royal tombs at Giza, indicate that the ancient rulers hoped to rise from the place of death, as the Sun rises each morning from the death of night.
Foreshadowing of the Incarnation of the Christ
Abraham's Habiru (Hebrew) ancestors were a caste of ruler-priests who were devotees of Ra, Horus and Hathor. This has been confirmed through many studies in Biblical Anthropology. The marriage and ascendancy pattern of these ruler speaks of the ascendancy of Christ to his eternal throne. The striking parallels between the Ra-Horus-Hathor narrative and the story of Jesus Christ are not coincidental.
Horus was regraded as the Seed of Ra, conceived by Hathor when she was overshadowed by the Sun. The Sun was the emblem of Ra, the supreme creator. For the prehistoric Nilotes, the Sun was the source of insemination and the iron beads were called beja (bija in Sanskrit), meaning seed or semen.
Hathor's totem was a cow and she is shown wearing the horns of the cattle raised by the ancient Nilo-Saharans. At some Nile shrines she is shown holding her infant in a cattle shed. Here we have elements of the Proto-Gospel, or a foreshadowing of the Christ in the Ra-Horus-Hathor narrative. It is evident then that Messianic expectation did not begin with the Jews. The antiquity of this belief is expressed in the first prophesy of the Bible based: the Edenic Promise (Gen. 3:15) made to Abraham's ancestors. Aspects of this prehistoric solar symbolism are found in the Bible and in historical texts. Psalm 92:2 describes the Lord as “a sun and a shield.” The Victory Tablet of Amenhotep III describes Horus as “The Good God, Golden [Horus], Shining in the chariot, like the rising of the sun; great in strength, strong in might…” (Tablet of Victory of Amenhotep III, J.H. Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt, Part Two, p. 854).
The expectation arose among the Proto-Saharans (Haplogroup R1b peoples) that a Woman would conceive by divine overshadowing. This is portrayed in images of Hathor wearing the cow long horns as a sun cradle. The image portrays her as being divinely overshadowed. She is the mother of Horus, the "son" or "seed" of the Creator. Likewise, it is said of the Virgin Mary that she conceived by divine overshadowing (Luke 1:35). Jesus identified himself as the divine Seed when he foretold his death in Jerusalem. He said, "Unless a seed fall into the ground and die, it cannot give life." (John 12:24)
The worship of Horus was well established before the earliest Egyptian Dynasties. The oldest known temple (c. 5500 BC) to have association with Abraham's ancestors is the temple of Horus at Nekhen. Votive offerings at the Nekhen temple were ten times larger than the normal mace heads and bowls found elsewhere, suggesting that this was a very prestigious shrine city.
Horite priests faced the east and placed invocations to Horus at the summit of the fortress at dawn. Prayers were offered at dawn and dusk. Horus was said to rise in the morning as a lamb and to set in the evening as a ram. This maturity from lamb to ram is a Messianic idea that stands behind the narrative of Abraham and Isaac on Mount Moriah. Isaac asked where is the lamb for the sacrifice and Abraham responds that God will provide the sacrifice. On the "mountain of the Lord" a ram was provided.
Related reading: Iron Seeds From Heaven; The Urheimat of the Canaanite Y; Afro-Asiatic Metal Workers; Why Nekhen is Anthropologically Significant; Jesus: From Lamb to Ram; Threshing Floors and Solar Symbols; Peaks and Valleys in Biblical Symbolism; Sacred Mountains and Pillars; The Gourd in Biblical Symbolism
No comments:
Post a Comment
Your comments are welcome. Please stay on topic and provide examples to support your point.