The Serpent on Moses' Staff

Alice C. Linsley

The serpent in the Bible is a neutral symbol. In some references the serpent is an enemy to be trampled under foot (Gen. 3:15). In other references the serpent is to be lifted up (Num. 21 :4-9). The serpent in Eden is said to be wiser than all the other creatures and it tempts the woman to transgress. Jesus urges his disciples to be wise as serpents, yet gentle as lambs.

How can a single entity have two apparently opposite qualities, both good and evil? It is a mystery. Yet it is as real as a mobius strip, and as mysterious as the Biblical merisms of good-evil, night-day and male-female.

mobius strip

The Michelangelo painting above is found in the Sistine Chapel. The bodies poisoned by the snakes occupy the right side, and spread toward the center. The survivors on the left have their their eyes and arms posed imploringly toward the salvific image of the bronze serpent. The way the serpent wraps around the staff is an innovation based on the Greco-Roman portrayal of the rod of Asclepius, a symbol of healing. The staff with the bronze serpent held by Moses would have been a coiled bronze disk. It would have reflected the sun's brilliance.

Bone box of the high priest Joseph Caiaphas

The solar imagery that pertained to the Creator took various forms, as shown in these 2000-year bullae from Celtic Spain. The 6-prong solar rosette on the top right is the merkaba that appears on the ossuaries of the Hebrew ruler-priests, such as the one shown above.

The bronze serpent on the staff of Moses would have resembled the solar image at the bottom right.

(Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12% tin and often with the addition of other metals or metalloids such as arsenic, phosphorus or silicon.)

Some have cited the narrative of Moses raising the bronze serpent as an example of serpent worship (ophiolatry). While there is evidence that the serpent was venerated as a sacred animal 70,000 years ago, the Biblical writers deny that Moses tolerated any form of idolatry. The story in Numbers is better understood as the elevation of a symbol of the Creator. The coiled bronze serpent is a solar symbol and the sun was the emblem of the Creator among Abraham's Horite Hebrew people. In other words, the Israelites were urged to look to their Creator for salvation.

The coiled serpent in the hand of a ruler represents the ruler's appointment by God. It is analogous to the sun cradled in the long horns of the bull. Hathor, the mother of Horus, was divinely appointed to conceive the Creator's son when she was overshadowed by the sun, the emblem of the Creator. This is signified by her solar headdress. The coiled serpent conveyed the same idea. Moses was the ruler of the people and the people were to look to him as the Creator's representative.

The coiled serpent can also be found associated with rulers among the Celts. The spiral shape of the coiled serpent is the most widespread image carved on the dolmen of ancient Celtic rulers. This association with rulers appears to have persisted in England until the early 1590's.

This detail from a 400-year-old painting of Elizabeth I shows her grasping a coiled serpent. The coiled serpent is a symbol of the divine appointment of a ruler.

The portrait of Queen Elizabeth I was painted by an unknown artist in the 1580s or early 1590s. The serpent was painted over as a bouquet of flowers, but with the passing of time and the deterioration of the painted surface the serpent has reappeared.

Related reading: Serpent Symbolism; The Archaic Nes People; The Deceiving Worm; The Ancient Tumuli of Nobles; Burial Practices of the Rulers of Old; What is Bronze?

Fertility Images Among Abraham's Ancestors

Alice C. Linsley

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.

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

Religion of the Archaic Rulers

Alice C. Linsley


Discerning students often wonder why Traditional African Religions, primitive Hinduism, and primitive Judaism have so much in common. They note that these share a religious tradition that includes ancestor veneration, henotheism, and belief in the divine appointment of rulers. Additionally, these religions have a priest caste, practice animal sacrifice, and venerate of the Sun. The commonality is due to the way these religions developed organically from the archaic religion spread by the ruler-priests who are called "the mighty men of old" in Genesis 6:4.

The "mighty men of old" were a ruler caste (clans that practiced endogamy) who spread along mountain chains (high places) of Southern Europe and the Hindu Kush, a melting pot of ancient peoples. They likely controlled commerce through the Pamir Junction. These were aggressive kingdom builders who regarded themselves as divinely appointed to disperse and subdue the earth. Later rulers held this idea as well.

Believing himself to be divinely appointed to rule the world, Alexander the Great attempted to conquer the whole of the ancient Afro-Asiatic Dominion. This was especially reinforced by the oracle of the shrine of Ammon-Ra in the Libyan Desert.

Constantine the Great appears to have had a similar self-conception. Constantine was born in Niš (pronounced Nish) on 27 February 273 AD. Nis is a very ancient city in southern Serbia. Its location made it a gateway between the East and the West. In ancient times, Nis was populated by Saka peoples. The Hindu text Matsya Purana claims that the Saka (called “Scythians” by the Greeks) ruled the ancient world for 7000 years. Another text, Mahabharata, designates “Sakadvipa” as the “land of the Sakas” in northern India. Assyrian documents speak of the Saka presence between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea in the time of Sargon (722-705 B.C.) The religion of the Saka corresponds to the religion of the archaic Rulers.

The rulers of the archaic world also controlled commerce on the major water systems, using these to expand their territories. Their ambitions were served by royal warriors, archers, sages and craftsmen.

The ancient high place of Meroe on the Orontes River in Turkey was built on the precipice of Mt. Silpius. The earlier name for this fortress was IO, which means “pillared place dedicated to the Creator.” The O is a solar image. This follows the Kushite practice of naming river shrines for the Sun. Heliopolis on the Nile was called “Iunu” which means "place of pillars" because it was constructed with many pillars. In ancient times, the Orontes River was called the Draco or the Asi. It was the chief river of the Levant and had sufficient depth for boats to sail up the river from the Mediterranean near modern Beirut. This was aided by the north-flowing currents.

In ancient texts the ruler-priest caste is known by various related names: Opiru, Hapiru, and Habiru (Hebrew). The number seven was sacred to them because it refered to the seven heavenly bodies which were viewed as ruling the heavens. This is evident in the Luo (Nilo-Saharan) word for seven: abiriyo. The word abir is a cognate of habiru.  The Y suffix is a solar symbol that indicated divine appointment, as in the names of these Habiru rulers: Yaktan (Joktan), Yishmael (Ishmael), Yitzak (Isaac), Yosef (Joseph), Yetro (Jethro), Yeshua (Jesus/Joshua), etc.

Within this caste of ruler-priests there were sub-castes dedicated to stone work and metal work. Tutu was a high ranked priest in the service of Akhenaten. Tutu's titles included:

Overseer of all the craftsmen of the Lord of the Two Lands (Upper and Lower Nile)
Overseer of all the works of His Majesty
Overseer of silver and gold
Chief spokesman of the entire land

The ruler-priests were responsible for the construction of great monuments such as royal tombs, palaces, shrines and temples. The Dravidian east-facing temple was termed O-piru, meaning “Sun House." Sargon I claimed to be the son of a lowly virgin who was overshadowed by the High God (cf. Luke 1:35). He was born in an O-piru. His home city was called Azu-piranu, meaning House of God (Azu in Akkadian, Asa in Chadic, Asha in Kushitic, Ashai in Hebrew).

Royal stone tombs have been discovered in Alaca Hüyük and Horoztepe in Anatolia, dating to c. 2400–2200 BC. Horoz-tepe means the "hill shrine of Horus" and his devotees, the Horite ruler-priests, who dispersed into Anatolia. They are referenced in ancient texts as the Nes. In addition to stone work, they were smiths. They called themselves the Nes (NS) and their language was called Nesli. Many magnificent artifacts have been recovered from the Anatolian royal tombs, including this exquisite sundisk from Alaca Hüyük (shown right).

In Nehemiah 3:1, we read that Eliashib the high priest and his fellow priests rebuilt the Sheep Gate of Jerusalem. Both Aaron and Moses fabricated images of metal. Moses is credited with making a bronze serpent (Numbers 21:9), and Aaron made a golden bull calf like the one shown.

The priests who sacrificed animals were served by a sub-caste of tanners. Dravidian leather workers are called "Madigas" and they are recognized as one of the oldest castes. The Madiga have nucleotide diversity levels as high as those of HapMap African populations. Among Abraham's people these were the "Ta-hash." One of Abraham's nephews was Tahash (Genesis 22:24).

In addition to sacrificing animals, crafting works of metal and constructing stone monuments, the ruler-priests kept records of astronomical events. Abraham's Nilo-Saharan ancestors were great observers of the constellations and stars. Plato records that the Nilotes had been recording astronomical information for 10,000 years. The Habiru designed their temples so that they were aligned with the solar arc. They recognized the Sun as the great light in the sky that rules over the Earth, giving light, warm and generating life.

Through archaeoastronomy scientists have come to better understand the symbolism of these ancient sky watchers. Archaeoastronomy relies on the use of historical records of astronomical events and the history of astronomy, as well as data from written sources such as ancient sacred texts and oral traditions. Together these sources establish a picture of sophisticated sidereal astronomy under the direction of the archaic rulers.

Sidereal astronomy is based on observation of the arrangement and movement of the fixed stars and planets. This science originated among Abraham's Proto-Saharan cattle-herding ancestors who had recorded information about the fixed stars and clock-like motion of the planets and constellations for thousands of years.

By 4245 BC, the priests of the Upper Nile had established a calendar based on the appearance of the star Sirius that becomes visible to the naked eye once every 1,461 years. Apparently, Nilotes had been tracking this star and connecting it to seasonal changes and agriculture for thousands of years. This is verified by the priest Manetho who reported in 241 BC that Nilotic Africans had been “star-gazing” as early as 40,000 years ago.

Celestial events were of great importance to the rulers of the ancient world because they regarded themselves as the Creator's earthly representatives and they wished to pattern their rule on earth as "it is in heaven." The priests kept records of astronomical events and enlivened the religion with rich symbolism of celestial events, alignments, convergences, etc.

The Romanian anthropologist Mircea Eliade wrote extensively on the ritual nature of archaic societies. He noted that feasts, fasts, ceremonies and the construction of monuments were patterned after celestial archetypes. Religious observances, as well as the arrangement of residences in the village and the division of labor corresponded to events in the heavens such as the daily rising of the sun, the solstices and the equinoxes. Social structures among Abraham’s ancestors developed according to the celestial archetypes that they observed in the heavens.

Anghor Wat in Cambodia is a good (though late) example of how the ruler aligned his temple-palace according to astronomical observation.  Eleanor Mannikka, a scholar of Southeast Asian Studies. notes that Angkor Wat is located at 13.41 degrees north in latitude and that the north-south axis of the central tower’s chamber is 13.43 cubits long. She does not consider this precision a coincidence.

Mannika has found that the towers of the central temple have at least a dozen lunar alignments and the temple itself is aligned to the solar arc. Mannika writes, “During the long and clear Cambodian nights, when the stars filled every inch of the black sky, the astronomer-priests stood on the long western causeway ... and recorded the movements of the moon against the towers in the top two galleries of the temple.”

The Great Pyramid of Giza and Angkor Wat are nearly 72° apart, along the circle's circumference (diagram below). It has been noted also that Angkor Wat is located 72° of longitude east of the Giza Pyramids. The word Angkor is related to the ancient Egyptian Anhk-Hor, meaning "life to Horus."


Point A represents the Angkor Wat complex of 72 shrines.

Point G represents the Great Pyramid of Giza.

Point I represents Harappa in the Indus valley. Har-appa means "Horus is Father."

  

In Mannika's best-known work, Angkor Wat: Time, Space and Kingship, she argues that the dimensions, alignment and bas-reliefs of Angkor Wat speak of Suryavarman II as the divinely appointed king.

The idea of a universal ruler is much older than Angkor Wat. It is found in the oldest layers of Hindu thought. The Sanskrit word cakravartin and the Pali word cakkavattin refer to a righteous king who rules over the entire world. His "messianic" rule is called sar-vabhauma. From Africa to Nepal the words sar and sarki refer to ruler-priests. This is the root of the royal title Sar-gon, which means High King or King of Kings. Messianic expectation appears to have originated among the priest caste that served in the temples and shrines of archaic world.

Horus was regarded as the protector by archaic rulers. That is why many had Horus names. Horus was said to rule over all the earth. This was expressed in his many epithets: Lord of the Horizon; Lord of the Sky; Horus of the Twin Horizons; Lord of Humans; Lord of Mortals and Gods; Lord of the Two Lands (Upper and Lower Nile); Heir of His Father; Great One who Dwells in Heliopolis, Living One, Divine Falcon, etc.

This bas-relief from Angkor Wat show Horus perched as a falcon on the mast of Ra's solar boat.

Angkor Wat means "shrine of the living Horus." The earliest ruling families of the region were related to the older rulers of Ra-wat in Pakistan. Ra Wat means shrine of Ra. Primitive Hindu tradition teaches that "he who desires heaven is to construct a fire-altar in the form of a falcon."

Horus the Patron of Kings

Many rulers of the ancient world had Horus names. Examples include Hur, Na-Hor, and King Arpachshad/Har-Pa-Shed. Also, some rulers whose names begin with Ar. Examples include the Sumerian king Arwium of Kish; Artama, Archelaos, Artaxerxes, Ar-Shem, Artix, Areli, Araxes, Arviragus, a Jebusite named Araunah, and Arishen, a Horite Hebrew who ruled a territory in the central Zagros between 2400-2301 B.C. Ariaramnes was the great uncle of Cyrus the Great. 

That the "Ar" is a shortened Horus name is suggested by the Nabataean King Harithath IV who bears the Horus name. However, King Harithath is called King Aretas in 2 Corinthians 11:32.

Israelites associated with the Ar patrimony include Aroch (1 Chr 7:39, Ezr 2:5, Neh 6:18, Neh 7:10) and Ariel (Ezr 8:16, Isa 29:1, Isa 29:1, Isa 29:2, Isa 29:2, Isa 29:7). Ariel means “Scribe/Messenger of God.”

The association of the Ar element with royal scribes is demonstrated by the discovery of multi-lingual scrolls from the satrap Arsames to his Egyptian administrator Psamshek and to an Egyptian ruler named Nekht-Hor (A.T. Olmstead, History of the Persian Empire, Chicago, 1948, pp.116-117). The archives of Arsames offer valuable insight into the administration of Egypt at the end of Dynasty 27 (525- 404 BC).


Related reading: The Ar Rulers; Scythians Nobles Buried in Siberia; African Religion Predates Hinduism; The High Places; Stone Work of the Ancient World; The Religion of the Saka; Ancient Seats of Wisdom; Who Were the Kushites?; Plato's Debt to Ancient Egypt; Kushite Kingdom Building; Some Marks of Prehistoric Religion