Forgotten Ages Research

Sphinx Guardians—From the First Dynasty to Ramses II

Report Topics:

• The emergence of the Followers of Thoth and the sudden advent of both Pharaonic rulership and Dynastic Egyptian civilization
• The names and remains of the earliest Pharaohs reveal them to have been members of the Tat Brotherhood
• The career and revelations of Imhotep, as well as his connection to the Hall of Records
• Story of Khufu, the magician Djeda and the keys to the secret chambers of the books of Thoth
• Re-emergence of the Followers among the Pharaohs and royal architects of the Eighteenth Dynasty

Full Report:

The whole of the Nile during the Predynastic period is thought to have been briefly united several times, ruled by a hegemony from the Upper land. But such political activities were not the force behind the final and most complete transformation of Egypt into its most recognizable form. A far older and more potent heritage came to the fore transcending any other developments.

Egypt, while many advances had been made, was still not as yet Egypt. Written symbols, which made their first appearance early on, were in little way related to the familiar hieroglyphs of the Dynastic Kingdoms. The art form was still simplistic, devoid of the noble attributes and poses of the Pharaohs. And construction boasted nothing of the grandeur of later times.

It is at the very beginning of the Dynasties about 3200 B.C.E. that Egypt suddenly explodes into the full spectrum of the high level of sophistication we are so familiar with. How did this come about?

The advent of the Dynasties also happens to have been the time when we see the first evidence for the Sons and Daughters of Thoth taking direct control of the political affairs of the land.

The degree of transformation that the regions of the Nile went through in a very brief time is nothing short of phenomenal. Egyptologist J. H. Breasted noted from the earliest government documents, among them the famous Palermo Stone, that the authority of the Pharaoh appears from nowhere.

He stated that the documents, "reveal a great and powerful kingdom from the beginning of the dynasties, enjoying ordered government under a highly developed and aggressive state, and exhibiting a high degree of culture and civilization such as we could not have anticipated in this remote age."

Professor W. B. Emery commented about the earliest period of Egyptian history:

"At the same time the art of writing appears, monumental architecture and the arts and crafts developed to an astonishing degree, and all the evidence points to the existence of a well-organized and even luxurious civilization. All this was achieved within a comparatively short period of time, for there appears to be little or no background to these fundamental developments in writing and architecture."

Egyptologist Ernst Renan wrote: "Egypt at the beginning appears old, mature, as if the country had never known youth. Its civilization has no infancy, and its art, no archaic period. The civilization of the Old Kingdom did not begin in infancy—it was already mature."

In similar tones historian P. J. Wiseman noted: "No more surprising fact has been discovered by recent excavation than the suddenness with which the Egyptian civilization appeared. Instead of the infinitely slow development anticipated, it has become obvious that Egyptian art and science suddenly burst upon the world."

John Baines, writings in his definitive work, Atlas of Ancient Egypt, stated: "The most striking feature of this process are the rapid acceleration of change in the centuries before the beginning of the Dynastic Period, and the lack of resemblances between the Egyptian state of the Fourth Dynasty and its Predynastic antecedents, perhaps half a millennia earlier. Egyptian culture did not then become static, but there never again was such a surge of growth, and there is a continuity discernible from the Old Kingdom to the Roman period—over 2,800 years—which cannot be found between Predynastic and Dynastic Egypt."

British philosopher-historian Gerald Massey eloquently expressed the enigma in these words: "We see no sign of Egypt in embryo; of its inception, growth, development, birth, nothing is known. It has no visible line of descent, and so far as modern notions go, no offspring; it is without genesis or exodus. When first seen Egypt is old and gray, at the head of a procession of life that is illimitably vast. It is as if it always had been. There it stands in awful ancientness, like its own pyramid in the dawn, its sphinx in the sands, or its palm in the desert."

In almost every aspect of its culture the land of the Nile did not develop but degenerated. Rudolf Anthes found from a study of Egyptian religion and philosophy that the earliest periods were the most advanced: "When all is said and done, Egyptian history suggests that about 3000 B.C.E. (the beginning of the First Dynasty), religion and logical matters of thinking were in better balance than they were in 1000 B.C.E. in Egypt, or in the present world."

The same surprising sophistication is found in Egypt's earliest architecture. Popular author-researcher Erich von Daniken observed: "There is no difference between the tomb of Tety from the Sixth Dynasty and the tomb of Ramses I from the New Kingdom, although there is a minimum of one thousand years between the building of the two tombs. Obviously, the Egyptians had not learned anything new to add to their old techniques. In fact, the more recent edifices tended increasingly to be poor copies of their ancient models."

In Egyptian art, Andrew Tomas remarked: "For some reason the workmanship level of jewelry in ancient Egypt was higher in the earliest periods. Rings, necklaces, earrings, diadems and crowns of the Fifth to Twelfth Dynasties are more perfectly made and more beautiful than those of the later dynasties."

French art connoisseur L'Hote agreed, noting about the portraits in the Old Kingdom tomb of Menefra at Memphis:

"The sculptures in this tomb are remarkable for their elegance and finesse. Such perfection in something so ancient confirms the observation that the farther one goes back in antiquity towards the origin of Egyptian art, the more perfect are the results of this art, as if the genius of these people, unlike others, was formed in one single stroke. Of Egyptian art we only know of its decadence."

Likewise, Vere Gordon Childe, speaking about the beginnings of Egyptian pottery production, said: "The earliest pottery vessels, especially those designed for funerary use, exhibit a perfection of technique never again excelled in the Nile valley."

German scholar Kurt Lange, on being confronted with the crafting of early Dynastic stone vessels, had to admit: "On examining them attentively, I only became more perplexed. How were they made, the dishes, plates, bowls, and other objects, which are among the most beautiful of all the fine objects? I have no idea."

Summarizing the achievements of Egyptian arts and crafts, W. J. Perry could only conclude: "What appears at a very early date in Egypt is perfection of technique. The Egyptian appears from the time of the earliest Pharaohs as a patient, careful workman, his mind like his hand possessing an incomparable precision, a mastery that has never been surpassed."

If Dynastic Egypt began fully mature, then its civilization must have originated from another time, from another more advanced culture which once possessed all the elements of art, architecture and science, and was transmitted into Egypt at its very birth as a nation. Eckert, in The HAB Theory, states the position in these terms:

"We find when we discover Egypt in what we call the first Dynasty, under Menes, that it is at its absolute zenith of culture in painting, sculpture, architecture. From this peak period, the Egyptian culture steadily declines.

“It is very much as if the Egyptians abruptly found themselves the inheritors of a great ready-made culture which they could take advantage, which they could utilize and even to some degree emulate, but which they themselves did not create and had not enough ability to improve or even, for that matter, perpetuate for very long.

“Ancient Egypt first appears to us on the historical records as a high order of culture than it is able to maintain at any subsequent state in its history. This very strongly suggests that it drew its greatness from a source higher than itself, a source which had very suddenly and inexplicably disappeared."

Conservative historians do not recognize such a concept and insist that Egypt came about as a result of a slow but steady development from primitive Stone Age beginnings.

But as already noted, as archaeological excavations continue, the evidence reveals no transition whatsoever between Dynastic civilization and its Paleolithic, Neolithic and Predynastic forebears. Maverick author-researcher John Anthony West, in Serpent in the Sky, makes this significant statement:

"Egyptologists postulate an indeterminate (and indeterminable) period of 'development' prior to the first dynasty. This assumption is supported by no evidence; indeed the evidence such as it is appears to contradict the assumption. Egyptian civilization, taken field by field, and discipline by discipline (even to an unorthodox understanding of its achievement), renders unsatisfactory the assumption of a brief development period. The much vaunted flowering of Greece two thousand years later pales into insignificance in the face of a civilization which, supposedly starting from a crude neolithic base, produced in a few centuries a complete system of hieroglyphs, the most sophisticated calendral system ever developed, a refined medicine, a total mastery of the gamut of arts and crafts and the capacity to construct the largest and most accomplished stone buildings ever built by man. The cautiously expressed astonishment of modern Egyptologists hardly matches the real magnitude of the mystery."

What then are we to conclude? Van der Veer, in Hidden Worlds, suggests:

"It is impossible to accept these arguments; we believe—as perhaps science too will come to believe—that at some stage in very earliest periods of prehistory contact was made between the ancient people and a still older race in possession of an advanced civilization and a history stretching back a long way indeed. It may be that there is a grain of truth in all mythological stories and legends, and that somewhere on our planet there once existed a race with a very sophisticated civilization which perished because of one or more natural catastrophes.

“The only really satisfactory theory is that the survivors of this civilization were responsible for both the technical skills and the art of writing possessed by the old cultures, who brought knowledge to the people then living in the Stone Age."

The figure who emerges at the beginning of the Dynasties as the man who brought about the miraculous cultural transformation along the Nile is remembered by various names: Narmer, Aha-Men and Menes, the first Pharoah. His names have the meaning, "he who establishes" or "the servant of the everlasting." His new title, Pharaoh, comes from the word peroe, which refers to being the "Keeper of the Great House" and the "Proprietor of Great Inheritance."

Manetho and other Egyptian sources describe Menes as having been a priest, a man of religious wisdom who was "guided by the counsels of the gods of long ago." Bergman, in his work Ich Bin Isis refers to early texts which state that "Menes, the first king, who received his laws from Thoth." Inscriptions from Dendera interpreted by Auguste Mariette likewise spoke of Menes as "he who lays down the laws of Thoth" and called him "the good ruler, the heir of Thoth, who destroys what is evil and does what is true." We remember that all the Initiates of the Followers called themselves "sons and daughters of Thoth," identifying themselves as inheritors of his ancient Wisdom.

At Abydos, which became the funerary center for the First Dynasty rulers, archaeologists discovered a large stone-carved baboon, one of the animals sacred to Thoth, inscribed with the name Narmer, another name for Menes. Likewise, Gardiner cites references which describe the first Pharaoh as "excellent of understanding like Thoth; he has penetrated the annals like the maker thereof (Thoth), having examined the writings in the House of Life." This was one of the esoteric names for the Hall of Records.

From these various sources it is more than clear that Menes-Narmer was an advanced Initiate, a member of the Followers, and that it was through his revelations of the lost sciences and arts given to them by Thoth-Hermes and preserved in the Pyramid and the Hall of Records that Dynastic Egypt received its major impetus to quickly and dramatically burst into a mature and well-established cultural society.

The Pharaohs of the First and Second Dynasties were both innovators and members of the Followers who kept a guiding hand over Egypt's continued progress. Menes' son and successor to the throne was given by Manetho the name of Athothis, which also appears as Teta, Taty and A-Tehuti in various king lists. These have the connotations, "I am of Thoth" or "son of Thoth"—names which again the members of the Followers of Thoth called themselves. Manetho recorded that Athothis was a physician and wrote (or kept) many books on anatomy and medicine—both sciences originally ascribed to Thoth-Hermes.

Inscriptions and ivory tablets unearthed in the past century from the First, Second and Third Dynasty tombs at Abydos reveal a number of tell-tale symbols and pictographs which reflect on the continued cultural guidance of the rulers whose chief dedication was to the god Thoth.

The image of the sacred baboon appears prominently on an ivory palette of Pharaoh Smerkhet accompanied with the figure of a half-buried sphinx showing only the head, shoulder and front paw. The baboon also appears on two monuments dedicated during the reign of Udimu. Thoth's favorite bird, the ibis, is likewise displayed on many of the early Dynastic commemorative stelae, a few even dating to late Predynastic times.

Somewhere, historians agree, there appears to have been a center of worship for the Thoth ibis, for the bird image is often portrayed as standing atop a strange low-lying shrine-like structure having a dome or mound over it. Curiously, archaeologists have never found this Thoth temple. It cannot be identified with later shrines such as at Hermopolis Magna in the valley or at Hermopolis Parva in the delta, for neither date back to the early Dynastic period.

This mysterious shrine appears to have served a most important function as one of a group of special temples portrayed on pictographs made on wooden plaques at Abydos. One of these begins with the hieroglyph of Pharaoh Aha-Men or Menes, identifying him as the author and subject. On the first line appears two large structures having a royal ensign flying before them and these probably are the ruler's residence and palace of administration.

On the second line the Pharaoh is shown leaving the two structures (symbolized as two strokes surrounded by a circular protective wall) and is taking a journey carrying a bowl or plate with an offering. The wsr staff and ankh scepter, sacred to the gods all through Egyptian history, can be seen hovering over the plate.

The first stop on this journey is before a bull enclosed behind a wall. The bull image is portrayed here most prominently and powerfully. Since the plaque dates to about 3200 B.C.E., or the beginning of the Age of Taurus, there is little mystery why the worship of the bull's attributes in this period were so important.

Next after the bull the Pharaoh visits a domed or covered shrine of Thoth over which stands the sacred ibis. On the third line the shrine is again depicted, this time as the ibis surrounded by a circular wall.

Beyond are three more walled centers each identified by symbols and standards to which the journey of the Pharaoh continues. They are all located along a segmented line or route which appears to represent the Nile, the depicted walled centers being temples along the river banks.

Finally on the fourth line is a series of highly stylized hieroglyphs which for the most part are royal and religious titles conferred on Menes. The last three glyphs are the most important. The first is a stairway of three steps. The stairway leads down to a circle with an "X" in the middle, which is the hieroglyph sign meaning "here, location, place of focus, destination." And this hieroglyph is situated directly behind the image of a half-buried sphinx. As with other examples from this time period, only the head, shoulders and forepaw of the sphinx are shown.

Do these glyphs depict Pharaoh Menes' descent into the Hall of Records beneath the Sphinx and was this his "destination" after a long odyssey of preparation through several Temples of Initiation along the length of the Nile?

In the Third Dynasty beginning about 2600 B.C.E. both Pharaoh Zoser and his prime minister Imhotep also stood out as members of the Followers. Manetho recorded that Zoser was known "for his medical knowledge," "built a house of hewn stones," and "greatly patronized literature." The "house of hewn stones" still stands at Saqqara and is the Step Pyramid.

Significantly, it was in the reign of Zoser that stone masonry building construction on a large scale appeared with absolutely no developmental precedence in Dynastic or Predynastic Egypt.

In addition, all the architectural forms that were to remain the standard of Egyptian architecture for two millennia following and upon which no improvements were ever made were represented in Zoser's sanctuary adjoining his pyramid. Once again we find evidence of a superior knowledge suddenly appearing in the mainstream of Egyptian culture at an early stage.

The figure of Imhotep in particular looms large in Egyptian history and had such a strong impact that he was remembered and even deified for three thousand years after his death. His name means "he who has come in peace" or a "comer in peace," with the verb suffix htp having the connotation "satisfier."

According to the fifth century B.C.E. inscriptions found in the quarries of the Wadi Hammamat, Imhotep was a member of a long line of a family of architects beginning with his father Kanofer and extending twenty-five generations down to the court engineer Khnumire who lived during the reign of Darius I and the Persian occupation of Egypt.

It was customary for not only religious priests and royalty to be secret members of the Followers, but also artists and architects, being masters of sacred geometry and esoteric numbers. Imhotep's career may have been a long one indeed for there are indications he began his apprenticeship under Pharaoh Zoser, outlived him by many years and endured into the reign of his successors even to the time of Pharaoh Huni with whom the Third Dynasty came to an end.

There are about four hundred bronze statuettes in existence showing the figure of Imhotep, unearthed principally from the Saqqara and Memphis areas and now housed in the Louvre, the British Museum, Cairo Museum, and other museums in Europe and America. Invariably he is shown as a priest, clean-shaven, wearing a finely pleated apron, a closely fitted head cap and simple arm bands and necklaces. He is usually portrayed in a sitting position gazing in deep contemplation, holding a scroll of papyrus either under his arm or unrolled across his lap, at times also holding a scribe's pen in the attitude of writing.

In later classical periods when cult-worship surrounded Imhotep, wall engravings showed him holding the sacred ankh of life. But he was never given any of the other accoutrements of the higher gods, making him a more human and thus approachable personality for the common people.

Under Pharaoh Zoser, Imhotep was given the office of Kheri-heb her tep or first lector-priest, whose duty it was to recite from the holy books which dealt with ancient sciences and magic. Other titles bestowed on the grand vizier were Chief Judge, Overseer of the King's Records, Chief of All Works, and Executive of the Treasury, Land, Crops, and the Army and Navy.

On the left side of a statue of Zoser, now in the Cairo Museum, Imhotep is further honored as being: "The seal-bearer of the King, ruler of the great House of Wisdom, the high priest of Heliopolis, chief of sculptors, masons and producers of stone vessels." As architect he possessed special knowledge of differentiating among thirty types of stones and minerals, knowing their secret properties and energies, and how best to employ them in esoteric construction.

Not only was Imhotep responsible for the architectural wonders of Zoser's Saqqara complex, but he was also remembered as having built an early temple to Horus at Edfu, and restored the temple of Khnum at Aswan where the Egyptian Initiation process began.

He was in fact overseer and protector of all the Nile temples of Initiation and thus a chief Initiator himself among the Follows of Thoth. In Hatshepsut's temple near Thebes the wall inscriptions describe: "Imhotep, the august god, the lector-priest, the servant of Thoth, the physician who fixes the plans of the gods' temples."

The profession Imhotep was remembered for the most by the Egyptians was as a healer and doctor. The Oxyrhynchus Papyrus noted that Imhotep was worshipped as early as the Fourth Dynasty and his Temple was constantly beseiged by the afflicted. He was worshipped first as a demi-god of medicine, then later after the sixth century B.C.E. he was fully deified.

Imhotep's main center was at northern Saqqara in a location the Greeks later called the Asclepeion where once were several schools for physicians, surgical and anatomical teaching rooms, embalming quarters and hospitals, all of which he established and directed. A second medical school existed at Ani (the Greek Heliopolis) where as High Priest to Ra he utilized the healing rays of the Sun.

Still another school existed at Sais in the Delta, where his descendant priests were honored with the title "Greatest of Physicians." And in the Temple of Medinet Habu on the west bank from Thebes, and at Edfu and Philae in the healing shrines located there, Imhotep is pictured and is described as a direct patron of Thoth or is pictured with the god.

Almost as important as his medical profession was Imhotep's talents of writing and speaking. He was recognized as late as the Christian era as a patron of scribes, in particular as a master of the words of power utilized and read aloud for healing and in Initiation.

In the inscriptions at Nubian Debot he is described as "Chief reader-priest, the great Scribe, the demi-god Imhotep, who sees what is necessary for ritual to be spoken."

In the early Christian era Saint Jerome wrote concerning a school of magical sciences at Memphis which was directed by the prophets of Imhotep. In the Westcar Papyrus the Kheri-heb prime minister of Zoser is also portrayed as being in the company of those who, by the sacred and secret sounds uttered, could control the forces of nature and recover that which was hidden or lost.

They were those who were given access to what the Westcar Papyrus called "the secret chambers of the books of Thoth."

In looking over the career of Imhotep as grand vizier to Zoser and as grand architect, grand physician, chief scribe and speaker of magical words, one cannot help but see strong affinities between Imhotep and the god Thoth. In one of his statuettes, Imhotep is shown grasping a pen in one hand and in the other he holds the baboon of Thoth. In another image he is portrayed as the baboon itself reading his papyrus scroll. Upon his deification in later centuries, we find the sacred ibis of Thoth also representing Imhotep the physician, suggesting that Imhotep was thought of as an incarnation of the ancient god.

That Imhotep was a member of the Followers is made clear in the Hermetic "Virgin of the World" where he is named as being one of the "sons of Hermes" and given the appellation Asclepius-Imuth. In Greek religion Asclepius was a god of medical knowledge. It was recognized by the classical writers that Asclepius was, first, a real person who was later deified, and second, he was not of Greek origin but was adopted from the Egyptians. The co-title Imuth appears in the hieroglyphs as Imouthes, Imothes, Imutep--all variants of the name Imhotep. This point is confirmed in the "Inscription of the Seven Famine Years," a rock engraving found on the Nile Cataract Isle of Seheil. The text reads: "Tosothrus (Zoser) in whose days lived Imouthes. He was considered by the Egyptians to be Asclepius, because of his knowledge of the healing arts."

Going a step further, in the inscriptions of the Shrine of Imhotep on the island of Philae dating to the third century B.C.E., the prime minister of old was called, "Mighty One of wonders, the most learned one, the image and likeness of Thoth the Wise."

Again, mystic writers have interpreted this to mean that Imhotep may have been not only a priest of the Followers but was the actual reincarnation of Thoth-Hermes himself.

As a member of high order of the Followers, Imhotep would have had access to the most esoteric wisdom preserved in the Hall of Records. During the Ptolemaic period the high priest of Memphis, Teos, addressed his prayers to Imhotep on a commemorative stele and acclaimed his ancestor as, "he who calculates everything for the Library; who restores what has been lost in the holy books; who knows the secrets of the House of Gold."

In the Seheil rock inscriptions the story is related how for seven years in a row the Nile river did not overflow its banks and bring fertility to the soil, resulting in poor crops and starvation. Pharaoh Zoser commissioned Imhotep to search for a reason for this occurrence and remedy the plight of the people, declaring: "I resolve to turn to the past and ask, what god rests at the rise to the Nile to assist me?" Imhotep answered by saying that he would reveal to the Pharaoh, "the hidden wonders, the way which had been shown to no king for unimaginable ages."

The priest then took leave of absence from the court, stating that, "I am going to the place of Thoth; I will enter the room of the archives; I will unroll the holy books, and I will take guidance from them." Later, Imhotep opened the sacred Ancient Wisdom to Zoser, and the Pharaoh described how the priest, "revealed to me marvelous and mysterious things; from where our ancestors went, but no king has learned since the beginning of time."

What Imhotep declared to the Pharaoh was that he must make a pilgrimage to Aswan to the island of Elephantine and there make a special offering to restore the Temple of Khnum. The god Khnum was the ancient god of the Nile, the Master Initiator of the First Level and overseer of the first Temple of Initiation. The restoration of the Temple thus not only reconciled the Pharaoh and the Egyptian people with the natural balance and fertile rising and falling of the Nile, but it also signified a revitalization of the Initiation ceremonies in that period for the Followers, on their journey toward Transcendence in the Hall of Records and the Great Pyramid.

For this restoration the inscriptions at Philae acclaimed Imhotep as "Master of Elephantine, the perfect reflection of Khnum," as the Shaper of Humanity upon the Potters' Wheel.

Both Imhotep and Zoser, according to the Seheil inscriptions, were ultimately successful in their endeavor, and the Nile returned to its normal seasonal flooding cycle, saving the nation from further calamity.

After the death of Imhotep another prominent sage named Kegamni made himself known during the reign of Huni, and for many years behind the scenes helped to guide the affairs of both state and spirit in Egypt.

With the close of the Third Dynasty and the dawning of the Fourth, a new enlightened ruler came to the throne known to the Egyptians as Khufu and remembered by the Greeks as Cheops. Manetho recorded his name as Suphis and that he reigned for sixty-three years (other sources differ greatly as to this length).

"Khufu" is generally translated to mean "he protects me," and the name's esoteric connotation is confirmed by its early appearance on various Egyptian monuments, amulets and rings utilized as a powerful magical charm. In its most mystic terms Khu refers to the higher soul-spirit principle. It is also interconnected with the serpentine god Cnubis or Khuphis, having great magical powers.

The attributes (great wisdom and power) and the symbol (the serpent) given to him were the same for Thoth and Hermes. In Hermetic literature "Khouphis" also had the name "Good Daimon" which was the exact same title bestowed on Hermes. True to form, just as Thoth-Hermes was a master Initiator and the keeper of books, so Pharaoh Khufu as his servant and "son" was remembered for the same characteristics. Manetho recorded that Khufu was "translated to the gods" or passed through the highest Initiations and "wrote the sacred book." Eusebius noted of him further: "He reduced the whole of Egyptian history into an organized form and also their entire system of theology, in his treatise entitled the Sacred Book, as well as in other works."

That Khufu was a special devotee of Thoth and his most Ancient Wisdom is further testified to in the rock inscriptions in the mining area near Wadi Maghara, where the Pharaoh is clearly portrayed as presenting his enemies before the ibis-headed deity. Also, as E. A. Wallis Budge noted in a statistical study of Egyptian worship, in no other time than in the Fourth Dynasty did the image of Thoth stand out so prominently as the focus of attention and sacred esteem throughout all of Egypt.

While conservative scholars have tried to prove that Khufu was the builder of the Great Pyramid, there is ample evidence from ancient records that what he really accomplished was repair work on the Pyramid and other Giza monuments. The Inventory Stele, found in 1857 by August Mariette just to the east of the Pyramid, dates to about 1500 B.C.E., yet according to Maspero and other experts shows evidence of having been copied from a far older stele contemporary with the Fourth Dynasty.

In the Stele Khufu himself tells of his discoveries made while clearing away the sands from the Pyramid and Sphinx. He dedicated the account to Isis, who he called the "Mistress of the Western Mountain," "Mistress of the Pyramid," and identified the Pyramid itself as the "House of Isis." This is a significant association in light of the fact that Isis was considered in some early Egyptian legends to have been the daughter of Thoth, and along with her brother, Tat, also would have had a hand in finishing the Pyramid construction upon the departure of their father.

The Stele describes how Pharaoh Khufu "gave to her (Isis) an offering anew, and be built again (to restore, renovate, reconstruct) her temple of stone." From there, according to the text, the Pharaoh inspected the Sphinx and related the story of how in his time both the monument and a nearby sycamore tree had been struck by lightning. The bolt had knocked off part of the headdress of the Sphinx which Khufu carefully restored. Selim Hassan, who dug out the Sphinx in the 1930's, observed there is indeed evidence that portions of the Sphinx were damaged by lightning, and the mark of ancient repairs is very apparent. Also he noted that a sycamore tree once grew to the south of the monument which had been dated to a great age.

The Stele then ends with the story of how Khufu built small pyramids for himself and his daughters, wife and family next to the Great Pyramid. Today, the ruins of three small satellite pyramids are found on the east side of the monument, and they are of a decidedly inferior design and construction when compared with the Great Pyramid.

Yet modern conservative experts insist Khufu was the builder of all of them. The Stele states that Khufu erected one of the small pyramids for the Princess Henutsen "beside the temple of Isis." Archaeologists have confirmed that the southernmost of the three satellite pryamids was indeed dedicated to Henutsen, one of the wives of Khufu. If this information in the Stele is truthful, then the rest of it must be also—including the fact that Khufu described that the Pyramid and Sphinx already were present at Giza during his reign.

Another Fourth Dynasty inscription, this one cited by Breasted, was authored by Khufu's son Dedafre, who related how ancient writings had been found in the "ben-ben (apex) of the ben (Pyramid) uncovered by my father." Today the apex or capstone of the Great Pyramid is missing. Did Pharaoh Khufu remove it and in doing so discover records placed there by Thoth?

Pharaoh Khufu's work may have been aided by a mysterious sage named Djeda who according to the Westcar Papyrus was brought to the royal court at the incredible age of 110 years. At court Djeda performed feats of wisdom and magic to the wonder of all. His age would have made him in younger years a contemporary of Imhotep, and he more than likely had been his disciple among the Followers.

Other inscriptions inform us that after his performances Djeda was taken to the house of Dedafre to live and presumably become his teacher. Thereafter Djeda disappears and the young student emerges as a great sage, being called by the Harris Papyrus one of the "Fathers of Wisdom." In later times he was even deified as a god of learning and medicine like Imhotep before him and Thoth before them both.

Noteworthy is the fact that Dedafre is also described in the Nu Papyrus and Milbank Papyrus as having recovered portions of the Egyptian Book of Coming Forth into Light. One portion of the Book states:

"This chapter was found in the sanctuary of Thoth, in blue writing on an alabaster stone, at the feet of the god Thoth, in the time of Pharaoh Menkhare, by Prince Hordadef (Dedafre), when he was on a trip to inspect the temples. He carried the inscriptions into the royal temple. O great secret! He no longer saw or heard as others do, when he read that pure and holy chapter; he no longer went near any women and no longer ate meat or fish, in his contemplation of the sacred word."

The sage Dedafre is believed to have lived through the reigns of his father's successors Khafre and Menkhare, and may have been influential in convincing them to repair the Second and Third Pyramids a Giza, which are today wrongly attributed with their construction.

One of the most fascinating stories which relates Dedafre, Khufu and the sage Djeda to the Hall of Records is found by examining more closely the account of the Westcar Papyrus. In the text, which bears evidence of dating to the Sixth Dynasty and copied from an original written in the Fourth, Dedafre informs his father, Khufu, that not only can the sage Djeda perform miraculous feats of magic but that "he knows concerning the ipwt of the wnt of Thoth, for which Khufu had long been looking, in order to make the like for his tomb." Later, when Djeda is introduced in the royal court, the Pharaoh asks the sage, "What of the report that you know the ipwt of the wnt of Thoth?" To which Djeda replies, "Please, I know not concerning their nature, but I know the place where they may be found," and proceeds to give a description of the location.

The difficulty is determining the exact meaning of both the hieroglyph words ipwt and wnt in the text, about which Egyptologists are not in total agreement. The wnt of Thoth is generally conceded to refer to a "sanctuary, shrine, dwelling, secret chamber," or as Maspero translated it, "caskets" or large containers of books.

He commented on this: "The Egyptians enclosed their books in wooden or stone boxes; the book boxes of the crypt of Thoth formed what we should call a Library.

“Thoth was the magician par excellence, commissioned by the deities to classify what they had created, to set down in writing the qualities of things and beings, and the formulae binding on men and on gods. The usual work of the magician consisted of seeking out, reading, understanding and copying the books of the Library."

Eminent Egyptian grammarian Sir Alan Gardiner concurred, describing the wnt of Thoth as, "a building, or structure of some sort, some special building dedicated to Thoth," though its location was not given. In the Papyrus inscriptions it is clearly revealed that Khufu was not interested in finding the secret chambers of Thoth themselves. Indeed it appears to be understood that their hiding place was known to him well enough. Instead he is in search of the ipwt which belong to the chambers, so that he may copy them for his own tomb.

Sir Flinders Petrie translated the word ipwt as "the designs or plans of the dwelling," as did R. O. Faulkner, who called it "the arrangement of the secret chambers of the enclosure of Thoth."

Adolf Erman, however, who was the first to decipher the Papyrus, interpreted ipwt as the "locks" of the sanctuary, stating that for his tomb Khufu "wished to have for it the safest locks, even those which the god of wisdom had invented in past time."

Translator E. A. Wallis Budge was of the opinion that ipwt "was an object or instrument used in the connection with the working of magic of some sort—these were probably books and instruments which the magicians of the day used in making astrological calculations, or the working of magic."

Gardiner pointed out that in one case where the word ipwt appears in the text it possesses the determinative symbol of a cylinder seal which means to "seal up" or "close," and is closely associated with the Coptic words for "door, bolt, key."

The ancient Egyptians employed seals of wax, cement, metal or stone for the purpose of securing the doors of houses and storerooms. The sealing instrument itself, usually pictured as an inscribed cylinder with an attached rope that was worn about the neck or wrist, was also used as a signet of authority. The delivery of the seal or signet either by the Pharaoh, High Priest or Minister committed to the individual the power to execute the rights and duties of that particular office. The Khetemtui or "Sealers" also had the duty of properly maintaining the contents of the sealed rooms in their care. The highest office among such officials was the "Divine Sealer" who was in charge of temple records or treasures, and was attached to the service of the gods themselves.

In the royal and temple libraries the Divine Sealer dedicated his work to Thoth, and had the extra title "Keeper of the Records." His sacred duty was to not only protect and seal the books within and to supervise their collection and classification, but most important to read and interpret the works themselves. Thus he or she who possesses the ipwt of the secret chambers of Thoth possesses the power and authority to break open the hermetic seals, walk within and glean from the enclosed sacred documents the Ancient Wisdom of the Ages.

The place where these seals or keys were located the sage Djeda described to Khufu as follows: In the city of Ani (Heliopolis, just to the north of Giza) is a temple called the "House of Sapti." The word sapti can refer to "revision" or "taking stock" as in counting property or inventory. But Budge translated this as a proper name referring to Septi, the fifth Pharaoh of the First Dynasty, also given as Den-Setui in the Abydos tombs, Hesepti of the Abydos Tables, and Usafais by Manetho. If this temple was built by him it would date to perhaps 3000 B.C.E.

Within the House of Sapti is a special library room where the scrolls of inventory are kept. The walls of this room are made of sandstone blocks, and either within or behind one of these blocks is a secret niche containing a small box made of flint or whetstone. It is within this box that the ipwt-seals or keys that will open the secret chambers of Thoth, the Hall of Records, may still be hidden.

When Khufu asked Djeda to bring these keys to him, the sage replied he did not have the power to do so, but prophesied that he who one day would find the keys would be one of three sons born to Rad-dedet, the wife of the chief priest of Ra in Heliopolis, Lord of Sakhbu (the second Lower Egyptian nome), and that the three would be born on the fifteenth day of the month of Tybi (our October-November).

Now it is generally interpreted that the three mentioned were the first three Pharaohs of the Fifth Dynasty. But because much of Egyptian literature, particularly of a mystic and prophetic nature as is the Westcar Papyrus, is multi-leveled in its symbolism, there is reason to believe that a second more hidden meaning may have been intended, that the three enigmatic "brothers" may also be those yet future individuals who will one day find and open the Hall of Records.

Today, portions of the city of Heliopolis are still buried and unexcavated, with most of it silently resting underneath the expanding suburbs of Cairo. Perhaps someday in the very near future an Egyptian homeowner or shopkeeper digging a new basement or storage room will unexpectedly break into the ruins of the lost House of Sapti situated below, and will find a treasure he will not understand. But that great treasure from the past will be recognized for what it is by those few who may even now be preparing themselves to be worthy to use the keys for opening the final mystery, the "secret chambers of the books of Thoth." There are some who feel that this hidden discovery has already taken place.

After the close of the Fourth Dynasty, the Followers for the most part appear to have purposely faded into obscurity, perhaps considering their work no longer needed to be done openly and returning to a more secretive nature. Their presence, however, did rise to the surface now and then with the advent of special sages, priests and priestesses such as Ptahotep during the reign of Userkaf in the Fifth Dynasty who left a legacy of moral proverbs and teachings of a profound nature.

The Followers during this period realized that all great civilizations, even the one they had so carefully developed and guided along the Nile, must go through periods of degeneration and death in order to make way for rebirth and further growth later on. They therefore prepared Dynastic Egypt behind the scenes for its first major test of transformation, the nation's first collective trial of Initiation, survival.

About 1600 B.C.E. the Middle Kingdom of Egypt collapsed before the onslaught and invasion of the Hyksos, the Shepherd Kings of the east, who dominated the Nile valley for several generations following. As Eduard Schure observed:

"The life of Egypt was threatened, its culture and its universal mission endangered. But Egypt possessed a spirit of life, that is, an organized body of Initiates, depositories of the ancient knowledge of Hermes and Amon-Ra. What did that spirit do? It withdrew to the heart of the sanctuaries, it gathered itself together, the better to resist the enemy.”

“The Priesthood bowed before the invasion and recognized the usurpers. But, hidden in the temples like a sacred depository, the council kept their science and traditions, the ancient pure religion, and with it the hope of restoration of the former dynasty."

Eventually the Hyksos were driven out, Egypt enjoyed independence again, and the Followers made their presence known once more with the establishment of the New Kingdom. Its founder and the progenitor of the famed Eighteenth Dynasty of Egyptian high culture was Ahmose, whose name means "son of the moon," referring to that aspect of his patron, Thoth, which dealt with cycles and renewal of ages of time.

Budge translated it as "the Moon (Thoth) has born a child"—the return of a "son of Thoth."

Likewise, Ahmose's offspring who ruled as Amenhotep I was known as a "disciple and seer of Thoth," being a teacher, writer and discoverer of books of magic.

His son in turn, Thutmosis I, chose a name which means "son of Thoth," and dedicated many stele to the Sphinx. Prince Amen-mes, the offspring of Thutmoses, portrayed his father in an inscription now in the Louvre as, "the Majesty, the beloved of Hor-em-akhet," (the Sphinx). As Selim Hassan queried: "Why was he stylized the beloved of a hitherto obscure god? This seems to point to the fact that the King was in some way connected with the Sphinx."

The puzzle is answered if he was a member of the ancient Followers, which his possession of advanced knowledge suggests he was.

A later successor, Thutmosis III, the great warrior Pharaoh, is described on an obelisk now in London as the son of Ra-Harakhty the Sphinx, and on an obelisk in New York it is stated he was "the son whose body Thoth has fashioned."

In the next generation, Thutmosis IV was the Pharaoh who erected the large stele still to be seen near the Sphinx's chest. In the stele he described himself as the "Protector of Ra-Harakhty" (the Sphinx) and how the god spoke to him in a dream addressing him as his son. It is clear his uncovering of the monument marked a revitalization of the Initiation process throughout Egypt as well as at Giza during his reign. The Pharaoh also dedicated a series of smaller stelae to various gods and placed them in the protective wall he built around the monument.

During the reign of Thutmosis IV's son, Amenhotep III, a sage of great wisdom made his appearance who is known as Amenhotep Son of Habu. He was made First of the King's Companions and Chief Counselor, Administrator of the North and South, Steward to the Royal Princess, Chief Scribe, Herald of the Gods and Prayer-Reader for the People.

He was also a noted architect, becoming Chief of Works and in this capacity was also given the honor of quarrying the red granite of Aswan, a material which was regarded as being magical and under the special protection of Atum-Ra as it was used in the most sacred temples. The sage also authored several books of magic and was remembered as a great writer and philosopher.

Breasted noted of Amenhotep Son of Habu that he "gained such a wide reputation for his wisdom that his sayings circulated in Greek twelve hundred years later, among them the 'Proverbs of the Seven Wise Men,' and in Ptolemaic times he was finally worshipped as a god and took his place among the innumerable deities of Egypt."

Not surprisingly Amenhotep Son of Habu was known too as a healer and physician, his image often appearing in temple engravings alongside his ancestor Imhotep and their patron Thoth.

This expression of a wide range of talents we now recognize as the familiar attributes of a member of the Followers and one who had access to higher secret wisdom.

Mariette cited one inscription at Karnak where the sage, speaking in the first person, reveals: "I was shown all the sacred books and beheld the excellence of Thoth; I was enlightened in all the mysteries, and on their account men came to me for counsel."

Manetho relates that Pharaoh Amenhotep, in his desire to know the will of the gods, asked the sage of his namesake to assist him in his divine enlightenment. Pharaoh became student and together they read ancient records "of a divine nature both as to wisdom and the knowledge of futurities (prophecy)." The Pharaoh also entered the Initiation process, for on a statue of himself the sage addressed the ruler as "Firstborn of Ra-Harakhty" the Sphinx.

There is increasing evidence that Amenhotep Son of Habu was influential not only in the education of Amenhotep III but also of his son Amenhotep IV, who was later to change his name to Akhnaten, perhaps the most interesting if not the most controversial figure in Egyptian history. It was Akhnaten who instituted a revolution of new thought in Egypt, the worship of one all-embracing universal god, Aten, represented by the solar disk.

What is fascinating is that in his earliest years as religious reformer his object of worship took the form of Ra-Harakhty or the rising sun of the Sphinx. It is highly significant that the heretic Pharaoh, in his zeal to destroy the statues and images of all other gods save his own, did not touch the Sphinx or any of the other Giza monuments. In fact several engravings from his new capital city he established at Amarna depict the head of Akhnaten on the body of the Sphinx, holding up offerings into the morning sunlight. Only later in his final years of rule when the Pharaoh had further refined his new religious concepts did he favor another name for the sun, Aten, in an attempt to discard the last of the old religious symbols and begin with new images of worship and respect.

However, the concept of Atenism was not created by Akhnaten himself, for he seems to have been influenced by his predecessors who as members of the Followers had actually been preparing the way beforehand for introducing the new religious thought. As early as the reign of Amenhotep I toward the beginning of the Eighteenth Dynasty, we find funerary inscriptions which depicted the Pharaoh as "ascended into the sky to become one with the Aten disk."

A scarab stone inscription of Thutmosis IV housed at the British Museum states: "Thutmosis arouses himself to fight with Aten before him, in order to bring the inhabitants of foreign lands like subjects to the rule of Aten forever."

Researcher W. Stevens-Smith is of the opinion that the sage Amenhotep Son of Habu was instrumental in bringing Atenism more to the forefront during Amenhotep III's reign, manifesting itself in the Pharaoh's palace, sacred lake and royal barge all being christened with the name of Aten.

On contemporary stelae of the royal architects Hori and Suti, and in the tomb of Huya, the Pharaoh and his wife, the great Queen Tiye, are associated with Aten, even shown being bathed in the rays of the Aten disk. There is evidence too that the sage Amenhotep Son of Habu lived well into the reign of Akhnaten so that both sage and parents had direct hands in guiding and training the son in his revolutionary thinking and policies.

Akhnaten's ultimate goal, as was that of the Followers, was to institute principles for the more direct development of higher consciousness among the Egyptian people, plus introduce the concept of the Messiah as World Teacher and personal guide. Unfortunately, the revolution which would have raised the spiritual development of Egypt to a new level was premature, the land of the Nile not being ready to receive this wisdom.

After only seventeen years Akhnaten and most of his work disappeared, but his example, his sacrifice of life and devotion to his fellow human beings in order to guide them on an upward pathway, served for many centuries as an inspiration to many Initiates and Teachers who would choose the same direction in their lives.

Before he vanished from the historical scene, legends record that Akhnaten entered the Hall of Records beneath the Sphinx and left there a full account of his philosophy as well as a special greeting to the "Children of the West," from where he prophesied would come those to someday open the Hall to all the world.

Soon after Akhnaten's rule a young boy ascended the throne of Egypt and only reigned between six and nine years before his untimely death. His life was obscure and his kingship uneventful, but he is best remembered today for the riches that were buried with him. His name, Rathothis, indicates his membership in the Followers' school of wisdom. He is better known of course by another of his royal names, Tutankhamen. His tomb, unearthed in 1922, was especially protected to be discovered in our day so that its objects and inscriptions would speak to us, to awaken past memories.

The haunting beauty and esoteric mysteries surrounding the young Pharaoh's golden treasures as it has toured the museums of the world have done much to stir an inner fascination with ancient Egypt and its lost Wisdom. That inspiration, from three and a half millennia ago, is creating the undercurrent of world-wide interest and spiritual awareness that will one day soon lead to the Hall of Records' opening.

A century after Tutankhamen and the Amarna revolution, the New Kingdom reached its zenith under Pharaoh Ramses II. He cleared the encroaching desert from the Sphinx and repaired parts of the monument with brickwork which is still seen today.

A letter from the period told how the King "has taken eight laborers from Ramses' 'House of Thoth' in Memphis" who were ordered to "draw stone for the Sphinx." Usually, the builders of the time obtained their stones for construction by vandalizing older monuments, but here we find the Pharaoh ordered only quarried stone for the Sphinx, indicating the sacred esteem in which he held the great figure.

Another inscription, this one carved into the bedrock opposite the Second Pyramid, informs us that the Pharaoh's minister of labor, Mai, and the superintendent of construction at the temple of Karnak, Seankh-Pa, also did repair work on the Second and Great Pyramids. Beneath the inscription is carved a mysterious L-shaped symbol thought to be an engineer's mark, the same symbol one finds sculpted six times on the ceiling of the Great Pyramid's Pit Chamber, indicating that Ramses knew of the secret entranceway and at least the location of the lower chamber of the monument.

The Pharaoh was also responsible for establishing once again a college of priests and priestesses attached to the Giza Pyramids and the Sphinx, among whom the Follower members could work in secret.

The long reign of Ramses II saw not only a new age of spirit and construction, but also a renewed interest in lost Wisdom from the past. Serge Saunerson, in The Priests of Ancient Egypt, observed:

"The quest for the old writings by far surpasses the simple preoccupation of a mind curious about the past, or even of a traditional attachment to old methods of thought or action. It reveals the conviction that invaluable secrets are hidden, forgotten, lost, in the dusty archives—secrets not only useful for the advice they can give, but actually all-powerful, able to render, to the one who discovered them, a means of irresistible action over universal forces. The sacred archives transmitted not only the memory of old events, or the curious episodes of the past; they could, in special cases, reveal the same words which had once served the gods in creating the universe."

In the Papyrus of Hunefer, which described in highly symbolic terms the route of the soul through the subterranean trials and tribulations of the Underworld, the priest Hunefer declared that, "I am in the following of Thoth, and I have rejoiced at everything which he has done, which has been established by decrees in the Chamber of Archives, and has been inscribed on a tablet of iron."

Papyrus works from the Ptolemaic period speak of a great magician who lived during the rule of Ramses the Great named Setna, described as being a son of the Pharaoh. Setna is said to have searched for a certain "Book of Thoth," the words of which were so powerful when read that they endowed their student with such knowledge as understanding the speech of animals, the movements of the heavens, and control of the energies of the wind and weather, as well as duplicate the creation of life.

Originally, this enigmatic Book of Thoth was said to have been placed at the bottom of the middle of the Nile at Coptos, kept in an iron box inside a box of bronze in turn which was inside a box of sycamore, a box of ivory and ebony, a box of silver and a box of gold, with the entire encasement guarded by scorpions and "a serpent who cannot be slain."

Setna is said to have successfully retrieved the Book of Thoth but its contents were so powerful he was forced to return it to where he found it, hiding it again from the eyes of humanity.

Setna's son Seosiris was also remembered as a great magician and represented the Pharaoh in a battle against the sorceries of the Priest of Nubian Meroe. In a dream the god Thoth came to the magician, and the papyri tell how the deity told him: "Tomorrow morning enter the room of books in the temple of Hermopolis; you will find there an enclosure closed and sealed; you will open it and find within a box containing a book which I wrote for protection against evil, and it is this which will protect the Pharaoh. Take it out, copy it, then return it to its place."

The search for such works was indeed paramount in this period, for we read in another manuscript, this one dating to the Nineteenth Dynasty itself: "This is the beginning of the collections of recipes for curing leprosy. It was discovered in a very ancient book enclosed in a writing case found under the feet of a statue of Anubis, in the town of Sakhur, made at the time of Pharaoh Septi." We remember from earlier studies that Septi was the fifth ruler of the First Dynasty, dating to 3000 B.C.E., and that it is his sanctuary at Heliopolis that contains the keys to the Hall of Records.

[Copyright 2009. Joseph Robert Jochmans. All Rights Reserved.]