The Secret Chamber of Osiris: Lost Knowledge of the Sixteen Pyramids (13 page)

Now, just to add some further intrigue, it so happens that there is yet another ancient Egyptian word
akhet
(spelled the same way) that actually means “time of the flood” or “flood season,” although this version of
akhet
is generally believed to be associated only with the annual Nile inundation and not the cataclysmic deluge spoken of by Thoth.

But we can easily determine the difference between the normal, annual inundation of the Nile and the anticipated catastrophic deluge. To recognize this difference requires an understanding of the very basics of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics.

Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics employ a series of signs to impart meaning but also to phonetically spell out a word. These signs could be written horizontally left to right or right to left, or even vertically. When written horizontally, the signs are always read from the direction in which an animal or person is facing. When reading signs in a vertical column, they are always read from top to bottom. As with any language there are little quirks and exceptions to the general grammatical rule, but we need not concern ourselves with such complications; we need only the basics here.

The second important thing to understand is that ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs did not employ vowels but used only consonants, although signs for some vowel sounds would be developed much later in ancient Egypt. This means that the word for “horizon” (
akhet
) would be written as “kh t,” and the word for “flood season or flood period” (
akhet
) would
also
be written as “kh t.” (Note: although
kh
is two of our Western letters, phonetically it represents just one sound that is pronounced “ch,” as in “Bach.”) Of course, the ancient Egyptians did not use our alphabet; they had their own phonetic alphabet, which used signs (or multiple signs) that represented specific sounds (phonograms).

The two images in figures 5.3 and 5.4 show the hieroglyphs for
akhet
(flood season) and
akhet
(horizon).

Figure 5.3. Akhet (flood season)

Figure 5.4. Akhet (horizon)

We can see from figures 5.3 and 5.4 that they have three signs in common—the disk with the crossed lines (
kh
), the half circle (
t
) and the ellipse (marsh or flooded land glyph), which has no phonetic sound value in this instance. Many words in ancient Egyptian writing were represented by a single sign known as a logogram (or ideogram), which represented the general idea of the word. However, because it was almost impossible to represent abstract ideas with a single sign, ancient Egyptian scribes would use phonograms to assist the reader in determining the correct word. A phonogram is a sign that corresponds to a specific phonetic value (i.e., sound), and multiple phonograms could be used to spell out the word.

However, as stated, because the ancient Egyptians did not use any vowels in their writing, this resulted in many words having very similar spellings, so in order to clarify the specific meaning of a particular word the scribes would add additional signs known as “determinatives” to the end of a word where needed, thus giving the general context of the particular word. To understand this basic concept, let us consider the following example using our modern Western alphabet. Try to identify the word in figure 5.5.

It is quite impossible to know the intended meaning of the word in figure 5.5 because, without vowels, we are not able to read the two letters as a word. It could be
run, rain, ruin, urn,
or many others. To help identify the specific word intended, the Egyptian scribes would often present a clue in their writing to make the word clear. This clue might be a logogram at the beginning of the word (or when required, a determinative at the end of the word) to symbolize the general idea of the word.

Figure 5.5. What is this word?

Figure 5.6. The cloud
logogram symbolizes RaiN.

With the inclusion of a logogram (the cloud symbol) in the above example we can now understand exactly how the word is to be interpreted—as “rain.” (Note: while logograms at the beginning of the word have phonetic values, determinatives at the end of the word do not and are completely silent. In the example in figure 5.5, the cloud sign would have the phonetic value “r,” which would then be spelled out with the phonetic compliment “r.”)

So far, so good. In figure 5.3 we have the logogram for a marsh or flooded land with crops growing from it. This logogram on its own provides us with the idea of the land (the oval glyph) being covered with water to enable crops to emerge from the land. This is a reasonable logogram to symbolize the seasonal Nile inundation. This logogram is then reinforced with the signs of “kh” and “t” (the hatched circle and half-circle) to phonetically spell out the actual word
akhet.
Thus we have
kh t
or
akhet,
meaning “flood season” or “time of flood.”
^*2

Let us turn now to the second akhet image (figure 5.4), with the ibis. The signs are to be read from left to right, and where signs are placed one above the other, these should be read from top to bottom. As stated earlier, according to Lehner, the first sign—the crested ibis—presents a logogram for the idea of “spirit” or “spirit state,” or something along those lines. The hatched circle sign (
kh
) and the half-circle sign (
t
) give
kh t.
But in this version of akhet we do not find the flooded land logogram with crops emerging from the floodwaters, which would indicate the annual flood season but are instead presented with the ibis logogram. So logically this word
kh t
with the ibis logogram
must
have a different meaning than the seasonal “Nile inundation.” It is not unreasonable to suggest that with the ibis logogram what is being alluded to here is an inundation but an inundation of a quite different kind.

As previously stated, the ibis logogram is given the phonetic value “akh.” Once again it is spelled with the hatched-circle sign (“kh”) and the half-circle sign (“t”). Thus we have the word
akhet.
The additional sign of the strip of land with the pyramid on top is offered as a determinative to assist in the understanding of the word (the context) and has no phonetic value. It is believed that the strip of land glyph (some translations say “island”) is associated with “horizon,” while the pyramid glyph is believed to symbolize the tomb where the akh (“effective one”) is created.

It has to be said that the conventional understanding of this version of the word
akhet
as meaning “horizon” seems to be something of a tortuous and convoluted interpretation. We might well ask: How exactly does the crested ibis as a logogram easily and obviously convey the idea of “spirit” or “radiant light” (akh)? As previously stated, the basic concept of the logogram is that the sign itself should symbolize the idea of the word and that it should do so in as clear, simple, and unambiguous a fashion as possible. The use of the ibis as a logogram to symbolize “spirit” or “radiant light” is beyond a stretch, and these are not concepts that are at all easily conveyed with the use of such a symbol. Indeed, the idea of “radiant light” or “spirit” could have been better and more obviously conveyed with the use of a star sign (also known as an akh; see figure 5.7).

Figure 5.7. Akhet
as “spirit” would be
better conveyed with
a star symbol.

The rendering of
akh
using a star logogram rather than an ibis logogram would make much more sense since a star is associated with light in a very clear and obvious way, and furthermore, it was believed by the ancient Egyptians that the king’s spirit would ascend to the starry realm via his pyramid to become a star (a god) himself.

So, we have to ask again: Why the use of the ibis to represent the abstract concept of akh (i.e., “effective spirit of light”) and not a star, which would have more clearly conveyed such an abstract idea? Is it possible that the crested ibis has been wrongly interpreted by the Egyptologists as meaning “spirit” and that this logogram might have some other meaning altogether?

And notice also the pyramid sitting atop the glyph for marsh or flooded land; why are these signs used as a determinative in this version of
akhet
? What idea are the pyramid and flooded-land as determinative signs trying to convey here? Could it be that the pyramid and flooded-land glyphs in this version of
akhet
are actually conveying the idea of the reemergence of the land from the coming deluge of Thoth (symbolized with the ibis), just as it had occurred in the earliest ancient Egyptian creation myth, and from that original mound (represented by the pyramid sign) everything in creation came forth?

Well, we know that the word for “time of flood” (akhet season) uses the phonetic complements of “kh” and “t,” so might not this term be used along with the ideogram for the crested ibis to
also
mean “time of flood,” but a different kind of flood?

It rather seems to me that the early interpreters of the word
akhet
with the crested ibis were too quick to want to associate it with “spirit light” and overlooked a rather important and obvious fact relating to this particular bird and one that I rather doubt the ancient Egyptians themselves would have overlooked. A little research would have informed them that, lo and behold, the crested ibis, as briefly mentioned earlier, is inextricably associated with the seasonal inundation of the Nile, because this particular bird was revered in ancient Egypt as the “harbinger of the inundation.”