CHAPTER 3 What came before the Pharaohs?

CHAPTER 3 Matriarchal Life before the Pharaohs

  • Prehistoric Egypt was Black-African
  • Neolithic Egypt was not a Society of Uncivilized Barbarians
  • Matriarchy in Prehistoric Egypt cannot be denied
  • After the Conquest, Men invented the First Male Gods
    and the First Patriarchal Religion
  • The Prehistoric Statuettes of the Goddess were devaluated
  • No Merit of Glory for Eyptologists
  • Highly appreciated by Collectors
  • Do Statuettes represent the Goddess or ›ordinary‹ Women?
  • The Divine was Feminine and worshiped in Women
  • Every People always has had Religious Cults
  • A Prehistoric Sanctuary of the Great Goddess in the Valley of the Queens
  • Disregarded Prehistoric Sculptures of the Goddess
  • Through the Vulva Crevasse back into the Life-Giving Womb of the Goddess
  • A Stone Age Figure rewrites Prehistory
  • Does the Sphinx date back to a time before the Pharaohs?
  • The Enigmatic Story of the Sphinx
  • Extremely weak Evidence for the Portrait of a King
  • The earliest Sphinxes were Female
  • The Attribution of the Three Great Pyramids to Khufu,
    Khafre and Menkaure is a Unique Fallacy
  • The Pyramid Triangle – Symbol of the Great Goddess and the Goddess Trinity

 

Prehistoric Egypt was Black-African

Since the end of the Paleolithic and the beginning of the Neolithic period, first settlements and graves have been archaeologically recorded in Egypt. Tombs, dating from the 6th millennium, or even earlier, until 4500, were excavated by Guy Brunton and Gertrude Caton-Thompson during the years of 1922–1931. The dead lay in oval pits, in an embryonic position, with their knees drawn up, facing west, often covered with mats or animal skins, more rarely in a clay vessel. Grave goods were often black-rimmed ceramic vessels, small female statuettes made of clay, bone or ivory and artificial arrow-shaped tips made of the sacred flint stone (silex).

A large proportion of long-lived persons among the dead prove that these people were healthy and peaceful; no examples of broken bones or injuries and no weapons were found, such as mace heads, which are characteristic of the later period (Brunton/Caton-Thompson 1928, p. 40). Based on the skeletons from the tombs of the Badari and Naqada I culture (about 5000–3500), the African identity becomes completely recognizable. People are connected with those of Libya and Nubia, in the deep Sudan and, as Egyptologist Alexander Scharff stated, they all belonged to the same Hamitic tribe (1950, p. 13). This black population comprising all of North Africa begins to differ significantly in the course of the third millennium. Ethnologist Hans A. Winkler was able to clearly differentiate between various ethnological and chronological populations, and he too emphasizes the African lineage of the natives (Winkler 1938, I). Some scholar claimed that only the south of Egypt was black African, the north including Libya, however, Mediterranean fair-skinned, but all early findings show evidence that contradicts these claims.

A designation for Egypt was ›kmt‹. Kemet, which is commonly translated as ›Black Land‹; but why would a land made up of 95% yellow desert sand be called ›Black Land‹? The name Kemet/Kamet for ›black‹ should rather mean the ›land of black people‹. Alexander Scharff writes without any doubt: »Egypt has always been and is still in Africa today. «

Werner Kaiser, director of the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo from 1967 to 1989, underlined that the tangible beginnings of the southern cultural area can be attributed to the great Nubian-Sudanese cultural sphere and are connected with the African-Hamitic unity (LÄ, VI, 106). In 1961, Gardiner is absolutely convinced about the African origin of the entire Egyptian population and language: »Since it is generally agreed that the oldest population of Egypt was African race, it might be expected that their language should be African too. And in fact, many affinities with Hamitic and in particular with Berber dialects have been found, not only in vocabulary, but also in verbal structure and the like. « (Gardiner 1961, p. 19) E. A. Wallis Budge recognized »a large number of monosyllabic words from one of the oldest African tribes in the Nile valley. These are words that express deep relationships, feelings, and beliefs that are specifically African, and foreign to any Semitic people. The original homeland of these people who invented these words lies far in the south of Egypt. « (Budge 1920/1978, ›Introduction‹) The linguist Arnold Wadler writes 1988: »The connections between the Negro idioms and the language of the hieroglyphs are becoming ever tighter. Although Coptic had long been considered the sole offspring of this primordial idiom, today we do not hesitate to add the Bantu languages (which reach to the Cape), the Fulian and Haussani, Mandeh and Agni to its spectrum. « (Wadler 1988, p. 195) Jacques de Morgan, Director of the Ancient History Administration in Cairo from 1892 to 1897, is equally convinced: »The original Egyptians were African and spoke an African language. « (1926, p. 337) The presence of interpreters is already asserted in the Old Kingdom. James Henry Breasted confirms also that the indigenous Egyptians were Africans and ethnically and linguistically related to the Libyans and the East African tribes of Galla, Somali and Bedja. He says:

»The language and culture of the indigenous Egyptians was African,
before immigrants imposed their stamp on this African people. «
(J.H. Breasted)

Breasted writes, that this immigrants‘ stamp was that of the »Great White Race«. In 1927, linguist Alan Gardiner was already familiar with the intermixture of the African speaking people and the immigrants. (Gardiner 1927/1988, p.3) Afro-Asian and Semitic are the languages of all those mixed peoples, the so-called ›Semites‹, in the Near and Middle East which were once conquered by warlike Indo-Europeans.  The language mix of ancient Egypt reveals the enormous influence of a foreign civilization, which is clearly the consequence of colonization.  This mix is a compound of the Indo-European language of the invaders and the African primeval language. It is what sociolinguistics call a ›hybrid language-form‹, similar to Creole or Pidgin. Egyptian Arabic belongs today to the ›Afro-Asian‹ languages. As the name suggests, it is a mixture of African and Asian, respectively, Indo-European language components, like Arabic und Hebrew too. As history shows, the imposed language of conquerors is catastrophic for the culture of an indigenous people and the preservation of its cultural assets. To deprive a people of their language by banning the use of it, is the usual practice of conquerors, occupiers and colonialists and has the purpose of destroying the identity and authenticity of the conquered.

Interesting R-L -Change

 Linguists such as the paleolinguist Richard Fester, point out that the L is the predecessor of the late linguistic R, which has not yet reached all languages. The linguistic R-L-change is not a mere curiosity, but a strangely deep process in the languages, writes linguist Arnold Wadler. L was usually replaced by R, as observed in Egypt, where the repressed L reappeared in the Coptic daughter language all of a sudden and has its own character. According to Wadler, many of the errors in etymology are due to the fact that the extent of this L-R-change is not known even among those who know the process itself. As in Egypt, in the aryanized countries, India and Persia, the L has almost disappeared. Where the non-Aryans have R and L side by side, the Arians have almost exclusively R. The R variants predominate in the Indo-Aryan and Semitic languages (Wadler 1935, p. 256 f). This is confirmed by the names of the gods brought in from Eurasia: Ra/Re, Hor, Asar/Osiris, Amur/Amun, Aker, Chep-Re, Re-Harakhtah, Sok-Aris, etc., which have been gradually emerging since Egypt’s upheaval and have an R in their name. On the other hand, the names of the Goddesses Anat, Anuket, all names for Isis, for example Ash/I-Set/A-Seth/Au-Set/Ua-Zit, as well as Bastet, Hesat, Mafdet, Mehit, Neith / Nut, Nechbet, Sachmet, Satis, Selket etc. all names are formed without R. The ostracized sow Goddess Rerit, a form of Isis, was not R-r-t, but L-l-t and was identical to the Arab Al-Lat and the Biblical Lilit. Characteristically, Old African languages have no R in their alphabet. The earliest languages seem to have been L-languages, and L-languages appear to have been the languages of non-Indo-Europeans; i.e. of the matriarchally civilized peoples. In patriarchalized Egypt, R and L merge.

Neolithic Egypt was not a Society of Uncivilized Barbarians

Egyptologist Günther Roeder discriminates against the indigenous people. He writes: »In the earliest times when no device was handed down to us, the Egyptians were a barbarous people without a higher culture. In those times, his (religious) faith was also primitive and without much reflection« (1915/1978, II). The archaeologists Guy Brunton and Gertrude Caton-Thompson (1928, p. 41) emphasize the contrary: »The Neolithic population cannot have been, under no circumstances, ›primitive‹ people, who were just about to fight oneself out of barbarism. « Neolithic Egypt did not consist of small, sleepy peasant settlements, archaeological excavations have shown that it was not a ›civilization without cities: Hierakonpolis, Abydos, Nagada, Koptos, Nubt and may be Sakkara were very old. Remains of stone foundations of the houses were found everywhere, which indicate settledness. What was necessary for life and death was produced in their workshops by specialized craftsmen and by male and female artists. These included pottery for daily and cult use, grave goods, artfully crafted flint artifacts, amulets, tasteful wickerwork and woven mats. The art of spinning, and weaving linen and cotton, which is only possible with a long experience of this fineness, were practiced. Women wore white skirts from waist to ankle and elegant jewelry made of shells, coral, ostrich eggs, bone, ivory, mother of pearl and semi-precious stones in the form of necklaces, bracelets, and earrings, embroidered belts and hairbands. The large quantities of cosmetics indicates a people who cared about beauty and body maintenance.

Egypt’s trade with the whole, then known world, flourished already in prehistoric times. In the Badari period (about 5000–3500) one of the richest trade routes of the ancient world which included an extensive trade network over thousands of kilometers was noted by the archaeologists Brunton and Caton-Thompson (1928). It ranged from today’s Europe to the Caucasus, from the Central Asian oasis cities of the Karakum desert, the later Silk Road to Iran, via Afghanistan to the Indus Valley and to India and China. The maritime merchants sailed the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Indian Ocean to Southeast Africa.

Due to the demotic doctrine of creation, they were vegetarians. »Only vegetarian food is assigned to human being« (Brunner LÄ, I, p. 304); »there is no talk of land animals as food. « (LÄ, I, p. 310) But later texts, e.g. the hymn in the doctrine of Merikare (c. 2050) »praises the Creator because he created animals as human food« (ibid.). Religious researcher Walter Beltz argues that the idea of carnal food is the result of the conquest of the Nile valley by nomadic people who lived from cattle breeding and hunting (1982, p. 70).

»Older Egyptologists, who were less familiar with social anthropology,
usually interpreted the history from a patriarchal point of view. The distortions that
led to the assumptions of the patriarchal theory are probably nowhere clearer than in
Egyptology. The numerous misinterpretations are obvious. «
(Robert Briffault)

Matriarchy in Prehistoric Egypt cannot be denied

Although the male-dominated field of Egyptology has so far attracted little interest in the prehistoric social structure, there is no lack of references to the original matriarchy in the dynastic period. Based on his investigations, Flinders Petrie wrote: »The family in Egypt was based on a matriarchal system… The house and property went with the woman. Robert Briffault stated:

»The conservative society of Egypt never lost its essential matriarchal character,
though continuous progress towards patriarchal institutions is clearly traceable
through the various phases of Egypt’s three-thousand-year career. « (Briffault)

 »Maternal traits can be traced«, affirms Egyptologist Schafik Allam. »In some filiations, only the mother is called. Important family relationships were thus exclusively about the mother. « (LÄ, II, p. 107) Eberhard Otto states likewise an »always recurring trait of matriarchal-right in social construction. « (1969, p. 24) He argues that, although rights-historians refuse to see women’s position as a matrilineal element, queens would so often play a key role in dynastic times, »that the historian should like to mean, that into the complex Egyptian culture, a proportion of matriarchal-rights should have entered, then probably of African origin. « (Otto 1969, p. 58) »Dr. H.R. Hall states that the constitution of Egyptian society was characterized by a ›distinct preservation of matriarchy and the prominent position of women. Professor Mitteis confirms that Egypt was immemorially a land of matrilineal descent, a usage which continued in Christian times until the seventh century … The nomes or primitive totemic clans, of which the nation was formed, were maternal clans or motherhoods, and their headship was transmitted by women. « (Briffault 1959, p. 82 f) Among most Egyptologists, the fact of an originally powerful role of women was meet with little support and was hardly taken serious.

After the Conquest, Men invented the First Male Gods
and the First Patriarchal Religion

Late Neolithic burials show evidence of two different religions

Among the most important sources of information about the cultures of ancient peoples are the archaeological finds from the tombs. »The oldest known burials of the Middle Paleolithic are in a crouched or fetal position« (see Küsters in Anthropos 14-15, 1920/21). The same can be seen in Egypt. However, »the distribution in Egypt is limited to prehistoric and early history and the first two dynasties. In the 4th dynasty it made way for burial in a stretched position (probably only limited to the residence), but became more popular towards the end of the Old Kingdom. With the beginning of the Middle Kingdom, it is hardly documented. « (Peter Behrens LÄ, II, p. 1227) The dead buried in simple pits in a contracted (bent or crouched-) position with the legs folded up to the chest, were emulating the embryo, similar to the prenatal position of the fetus in the womb. This is undoubtedly one of the significant features of matriarchal religion, which is associated with the belief in a cyclical rebirth in the real earthly world. The concept of the ›embryonic‹ death-position is slowly being pushed out of the language, scientists use in their descriptions. Egyptologist Behrens, e.g. writes: »In contrast to older interpretations, which considered the crouched-position of the dead to be the embryonic position, today’s view is to interpret it as a sleeping position. « (LÄ, II, p. 1227 f) This is a subtle linguistic adaptation in understanding by patriarchal science, which serves to dispute the unloved memory of birth through a woman and a mother, or the former belief in rebirth from the womb of the Mother Goddess. Egyptologist Kurt Lange claims that formerly people used to ›fabulate‹ about the crouched-position. He even states: »Surely it is not determined by the embryonic situation and thus by the idea of a true rebirth into the hereafter. « (Lange ›Pyramiden, Sphinxe, Pharaonen‹ 1952, p. 22 Pyramids Sphinxes, Pharaohs)

Alexander Scharff, on the other hand, emphasizes that the various funerary types are questions of religion and give evidence of »the existence of two very different cultures, that is, of different peoples and probably also of races. « »The shallow grave, the contracted position of the body, and the types of objects placed in the grave – remained the standard throughout the rest of Egyptian prehistory and for common folk well down into the dynastic period«, writes William C. Hayes. He believes, »the ideas on death, immortality, and the life after death to which these late Neolithic graves already bear witness, were held by the people throughout their entire ancient history. (Hayes, 1953, p. 13) However, Hayes is wrong; the early burial in an embryonic position has to do with the belief in an earthly rebirth from a woman’s body. Prehistoric people did not believe in a bodily resurrection from the dead and an eternal life after death, but in a cyclical rebirth out of the body of a woman in the real, earthly world. Also, the symbolism of the vegetable grave goods in uterus-shaped ceramic vessels, sprouts and seeds of grain and wild fruits were – like the omnipresent Kauri shell – religious symbols of fertility, transformation and rebirth, as in the Christian ritual bread and wine are symbols of the transmutation into the body and blood of Christ. The errors concerning graves and burial objects are still widespread in Egyptology. The belief in a life in the hereafter is a later invention of the priests and is regarded as one of the cornerstones of the Egyptian religion in general« (Scharff 1947, p. 15) and corresponds with the wish of the kings to live forever. This belief therefore only applies to the patriarchal religion of the conquerors and the dynastic period. The belief in an afterlife was adopted by the later patriarchal monotheistic religions, like so many other things of the priesthood of early Egypt.

»In 1974, the renowned British archaeologist Christopher Hawkes rightly pointed out to his colleagues about the negligence and undervaluation of religious aspects of prehistory by the research of the last 20 years and emphasized that … in the spirit of the man and woman of the early time the material and supernatural were not separated and that prehistoric trade was strongly religiously motivated. « (quoted by Sibylle von Reden ›Ugarit und seine Welt‹ 1992 Ugarit and its world)

The Prehistoric Statuettes of the Goddess were devaluated

»From the tusks of the hippopotamus and the African elephant the Upper Egyptian Badarians fashioned fancifully decorated spoons and combs, handsome little cylindrical vases, and crude, but by no means inept statuettes of women – the last unquestionably placed in the graves to serve as companions to the deceased «, assumes William C. Hayes (l953, p. 15) Such inept and sexist interpretations are unfortunately often to be found, as is the ignorance that these statuettes are symbols of the worship of the goddess, just as the jewelry crosses express the Christian worship of Jesus.

As with the other Neolithic cultures of the Near East, which have been researched to this day, a large number of female sculptures with clearly accentuated gender characteristics, were found in the earliest settlement remains and funerals (Wolfhart Westendorf 1969, p. 31). They are in line with the Sudanese idols of the later A-Group and the Magna-Mater figures of the Near East. « (Wildung 1981, p. 10) Isn’t it strange that especially in Egypt, where we meet representations of Goddesses from the historical time at every turn, that patriarchal Egyptologists fight with all means against the recognition of these figures as Goddesses? Erik Hornung writes about the worship of ›deities in human shape‹: »Occasionally we already find in the Badari culture, then spread in the Nagada cultures, small human figures made of clay or ivory, which were always interpreted as deities. Even as the image of the ›Great Mother‹, they were explained, though only a part of them clearly show female sexual characteristics, divine attributes are absent, and a ›naked mother deity‹ of Egypt’s older historical period is completely unknown. « (Hornung 1983, p. 93) Unknown?

The naked, female statuette made of lapis lazuli, which was found in the temple district of the Upper Egyptian Hierakonpolis had the multiple value of gold. It is unlikely that this far-fetched precious material would have been used for the statuette of a woman of the common folk. Female nudes sculptures and statuettes, which came to light in excavations in other countries, are referred to as ›Goddesses‹ by most antiquarians, even Bible researchers, and religious historians. Near Eastern Asherah/Ishtar is also commonly depicted as a naked Goddess. Thousands of clay figurines representing Her were found (›Archaeological Biblical Dictionary‹). Nobody would think of denying divinity to these statuettes. However, this is not the case with the naked statuettes of Egypt. How much contempt against women dominates the description of female figurines here – we would rather expect to find this attitude in a pornographic booklet than by scientists. No other archaeologist speaks as disrespectfully of these figurines as Egyptologists do. Riane Eisler states indignantly that the statuettes »were and are interpreted by some scientists as an expression of male eroticism: as an antique counterpart to today’s Playboy magazine« (1989, p. 32).

Fact is: these bare statuettes are the earliest representations of the Great Neith. Neith is the Ancient Goddess Mother, the parthenogenetic one, the one who originated out of herself, the Great One, the Wise One, the Old One, whose symbols are arrows, which signify ›life‹ not death. Nut stands for a part of her, her ›cleft‹, the life-giving sacred ›crevice‹; Nut symbolizes the vulva, the natural gateway to life. Nut is both, a partial aspect of the Goddess Neith and an independent Goddess; she is the Goddess with the strongly emphasized lap triangle. She was closely associated with the belief in rebirth and survived as a naked Goddess during dynastic times. Here too, she receives and accompanies the dead, but not as a sex object, but as a caring protector and companion. Those who want to reduce Nut to a hooker (in German: Nutte) understand nothing. Egyptologists interpreted the statuettes as ›woman for sexual intercourse‹, ›concubine‹, ›dancer‹, ›doll‹, ›servant‹ or ›slave‹, although these naked female statuettes were found as funerary objects, especially in graves of women and children. To a depiction of one of these figurines, we read in the official catalog of the Museum of Cairo under the title ›doll‹, the incredible text that the female figurines with the strongly emphasized lap triangles »were destined to the delight of the male dead’s, because they considered the female presence in the tomb to be a source of fertility, while women and girls, who were given these figurines, wanted to be eternally equal to this feminine ideal« (Catalog 1986, text Figs. 80 and 81). The patriarchal ideology of men assumes that women are available to men as slaves and playmates and for the satisfaction of their needs, not only during their lifetime but even after death. It is high time for this kind of sexism to be overcome by emancipated, modern Egyptologists. In a description of the second figurine in the same catalog, one can read this: »These small sculptures mimic the appearance of a doll with the seductive grace of a naked, tattooed female dancer, the round hips of the fertility Goddess, worshiped since prehistory, and the symbol color blue, the eternal renewal of life; they thus embody the Eternal-Female, whose task is to delight and enliven the deceased. « The Christian religious scholar Siegfried Morenz gives his explicit blessing to the discrimination of the female statuettes found in graves, when he writes: »Naked female statuettes which neither depict a childbearing mother nor lead a child with them, may continue to be referred to, as women for sexual intercourse. « (Morenz ZÄS 1958, P. 139) He apparently believes that people have nothing than sex on their minds, and least of all possibilities: that these figurines could be related to a religious belief. He also writes: »We have to differentiate people of historical consciousness from prehistoric and non-historical people who did not have history and consciousness. « (1951, p. 212). What arrogance speaks from such words.
The statuettes, found in graves around the world, are clearly sacred figures and representations of the Goddess. Egyptologist Erik Hornung noticed that the oldest man-made male gods usually have an unstructured body, which certainly does not correspond to artistic inability, but has another meaning that is still hidden from us. (Hornung 1983, p. 98). By no means do they have a ›hidden‹ meaning: they are ›parallel formations‹, imitations, shaped exactly in the tradition of prehistoric Goddess statuettes, which often have an unstructured body and whose legs are reduced to an amorphous cone. However, the status of divinity is denied to them.

The Authenticity of the Statuettes is questioned

A popular method of downplaying the multitude of female statuettes is to doubt their authenticity and to discredit them as possible counterfeits because they were bought by private traders, that is, from grave robberies. However, Winifred Needler emphasizes that »a disproportionate number of the best and most complete collections of antiquities of all periods were purchased [i.e. also from grave robberies] and that sometimes undoubtedly genuine objects, such for example, the historical scarabs of Amenhotep III., contain not a single copy from an archaeological excavation. Quantitative studies of predynastic figurines that do not consider the results of mass looting can easily be misleading« (Needler, JARCE 5, 1966, p. 16).

The Statuettes disappeared

A common practice is to let evidence disappear, i.e. making female statuettes disappear and let them be forgotten in the basements and cellars of institutes and museums which are accessible only to experts and even to them, only with great difficulties. For example, Siegfried Morenz draws attention to two ›forgotten‹ female statuettes from the magazine of the Berlin Museum, which were only inventoried on the basis of his work (ZÄS 1958, p. 138 f). Egyptian Egyptologist Mona El-Moguy found six Neolithic Goddess statuettes in a typical Nubian-Sudanese style in 1991 in the garbage of the cellar, while cataloging the inventory of the old Aswan Museum. Nobody knew about them and they had never been recorded or published. We can only speculate about how many female statuettes – rated as unworthy of inventorying – are still lying around in the closely guarded magazines. Surely, a large number of these disquieting testimonies of the matriarchal religion may be locked up or may have been destroyed.

The Statuettes are bashed for their ›non-royal‹ Attitude

Very popular is the devaluation of the artistic representation, as shown in the text to depict the graceful 5600-year-old pig Goddess in the Egyptian Museum in Berlin. She finds little favor with the text writers of the catalog: »The strangely casual attitude of the arm« is »not godly, even non-royal« they criticize. The researchers are also faced with a »not yet solved riddle«: they argue that the pig is »completely unknown in the Egyptian culture as the sacred animal of any deity«. However, the primeval Goddess Neith/Nut is already attested in pre-dynastic times, she is the ›mother sow‹, the Goddess who bore the mortal gods and made them age and die, such as she gave birth to the stars in the evening, and swallowed them again in the morning. We also know small sculptures of the divine animal of Nut, suckling her piglets. The author could read an entire chapter in Hans Bonnet ’s post ›Schwein‹ Pig and its outlawry (Bonnet 1971, p. 690 f) The lexicon of Egyptology gives a detailed account of the Sow-Goddess and reports indicate that the town of Sais (in Greek = sow) in the western Nile Delta is named after her. (LÄ, V, p. 762 f)
The Goddess symbolizes the sacred vulva of the Goddess Neith. Therefore, in dynastic time, it is ostracized as ›impure‹ by the conquerors who worship the phallus cult. Their priests would »rather have died than eaten pork« (Bonnet); both Jews and Muslims have taken on this disgust, as has the devaluation of women and their ›pudenda‹. A woman who is not ashamed of her private parts (the vulva!), but lives and enjoys her body and her sexuality, is in the German-speaking world, stamped as ›sow‹, a derogative insult. Significantly, the most popular victims of the conqueror totem/god Horus were the despised mother pigs and the ›Nile sow‹.

The Statuettes are criticized for being made from ›ungodly‹ material

Another kind of devaluation is the assertion that the use of the fragile material of clay in these figures »speaks against interpreting them as idols and nowhere have any attributes been found comparable to known god attributes. « (Hornung 1983, p. 93) Nevertheless, it is exactly this kind of material, namely clay, which the patriarchal God used for the creation of man, since he had no uterus. And the precious lapis lazuli figure from Hierakonpolis contradicts the ›ungodly material‹. Hornung’s defensive position is supported by his like-minded colleagues; it was him who was consulted »for all questions of authenticity, dating and interpretation of these figures«: Peter Ucko, who argues for a rejection of idol interpretation« after a careful examination, for reasons of not having »secure evidence of veneration of human deities in prehistoric times« (Hornung 1983, p. 93); such is the sacrosanct decree of the two gentlemen.

Let’s have a closer look at Mr. Ucko, who is especially popular as a reference source and became famous for his personal patriarchal opinion. In 1962, with the limited knowledge of just a 24-year-old anthropology graduate, he published his ›study‹: ›The Interpretation of Anthropomorphic Figurines‹ in ›Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland‹, 1962, pp. 38-58). Ucko fought against the interpretation, that the naked female statuettes could be sacred evidence of the cult worship of a Goddess in all eras of the Stone Age. Ucko pretended to be an expert, able to judge this without the necessary interdisciplinary knowledge that went far beyond his modest ken; his own bias was enough for him. His dogmatic conclusion reads: »Prehistoric female statuettes do not represent Goddesses. « But he cannot substantiate his claim, it does not withstand a serious review and besides, this is an absolutely unsustainable argument. (s. also Doris Wolf ›Das wunderbare Vermächtnis der Steinzeit und was daraus geworden ist‹ 2017 p. 92 f. Relke resumed the subject of the statuettes in 2011. She writes in her abstract of ›The Predynastic Dancing Egyptian Figurine‹: »In 1962, Peter Ucko wrote his landmark work: The Interpretation of Prehistoric Anthropomorphic Figurines, challenging and permanently changing the prevailing view of prehistoric figurines as representations of a universal great mother Goddess. His work focused on the Predynastic figurines of Egypt, and concluded that there was nothing divine about them. They were probably dolls, ancestor figures, talismanic pregnancy aids, tools for sex instruction and puberty rites, twin substitutes in graves and concubine grave figurines. Since then, this group of figurines has received minimal attention. Using Ucko’s four-stage methodology, this study more closely examines these figurines in the context of Ancient Egyptian culture and religion, with specific attention to the contemporary Sudanese religious beliefs and practices, which may share roots with Predynastic Egyptian culture. This study concludes that some Dynastic religious beliefs and iconography relating to female deities can be recognized in many of these figurines, and can be traced back to prehistoric Nilotic rituals. « (Joan Relke, ›Journal of Religion in Africa‹ 2011) These and the many disrespectful and derogatory reactions of scholars are shocking. The naked goddess Nut is reduced by Egyptologists to a hooker: ›concubine‹, ›dancer‹, ›servant‹ or ›slave‹, although these naked statuettes are funerary objects. The more or less derogatory terms found in textbooks, such as ›Venus‹, ›idol‹, ›pin-up‹, ›stripper‹ and ›dolls‹ are unworthy products of university teachings.  They are an indication of a deliberately disparaging vocabulary used by patriarchal authors. German Heinz-Werner Kubitza (›learned theologian‹), states:  »Theology is under monument protection at universities. «

The Statuettes are interpreted as ›children’s toys‹

Some authors want to see dolls in the statuettes and complain that they have been interpreted as mother Goddesses in the last 50 years. But they cannot explain why they disappeared throughout the Bronze Age (›Large Picture Atlas of Archeology‹ 1991, p. 66); although there must have been children and toys during the Bronze Age. The absence of the statuettes makes it clear: The Bronze Age is the epoch when aggressive Indo-Europeans imposed on the conquered peoples the first male gods, persecuted the old matriarchal religion and forbid, eliminated, or annihilated their sacral objects. We have to assume that an infinite number of the small, fragile statuettes were intentionally eliminated. »Cult statues were destroyed with priority in all political and religious storms«, stated Brunner and Brunner (1984, p. 38). This was also the case with Akhenaten, who ravaged the statues of the Goddesses and gods with rage, and later on with the Christians, and the Muslims, e.g. when the great Buddha statue in Bamyan, in Central Afghanistan, was blown up.

The Statuettes are rarely and only with caution called ›Goddess‹

In this atmosphere of disdain for women and Goddess-hostility, Egyptologists hardly even dare to pronounce the word ›Goddess‹; they speak of ›female figures‹ or ›Venus Figures‹. A clearly recognizable Goddess is described in the catalog ›Nofret‹ as follows: »Small figures of naked women, sometimes with a child, occur from many eras of Egyptian history. Where the circumstances of the findings are secured, they are found as votive offerings in temples (e.g. the Hathor in Deir el-Bahari), as grave goods in women’s graves and in dwellings. Alone these findings prove that they belong to the ambit of women. Unfortunately, there is no written tradition parallel to them, so interpretation is based on assumptions and one must be very careful. « (›Nofret‹ 1985, Figure 115). The text for another picture in the same publication is ›Mother with Child‹: »Perhaps the woman depicted here is a queen or princess, the headdress seems to indicate this; nevertheless, the possibility cannot be completely ruled out that one has to see in her a Goddess. « (ibid. Figure 112) It is obvious that these cautious, even fearful interpretations are influenced by the traditional doctrines of the patriarchal male authorities and of monotheist religion. Only a few researchers, among them Elise J. Baumgartel, describe the exclusively female statuettes from 6000 to 3000 as the Great Mother-Goddess. One question remains: How do the women and male Egyptologists explain the almost complete absence of male iconography in Egypt if they do not recognize these female statuettes as Goddess? Men already existed then. But – there was not one male god in the Neolithic! The Narmer Palette proves, that even the invaders from the north did not yet have a male god. The palette is adorned four times with the head of the Cow Goddess (most likely her name was Bat). At that point in time, the falcon Horus is not yet considered a god, but is the totem animal of the schemsu-hor-clan of the Horites. The first male god was verifiably invented in the 1. Dynasty. The priests of the invaders invented a father god to function in opposition to the Great Mother Goddess.

(see also: Doris Wolf ›Vor 5000 Jahren: Die Entdeckung der biologischen Vaterschaft und die Erfindung des ersten männlichen Gottes‹ in German)

No Merit of Glory for Egyptologists

Wolfgang Helck, who made an important contribution to the study of Goddesses in 1971, tried to correct the discriminating image that is usually given to the statuettes. He writes: »Since the time of the Badari and continuing in the Nagada epoch, they have appeared in Egypt in the characteristic form, with their hands under their breasts. Unclothed female figurines which are found in the Mediterranean and beyond, namely in private chapels, temples, and tombs are referred to as ›Woman for Sexual Intercourse‹. However, because found largely in female graves, they cannot be concubines for the dead; they are primarily protective powers of the female sphere of eroticism including critical days and pregnancy. « (Helck LÄ, I, p. 684 f) The patriarchal ideology of men, which assumes that women have to be available to men as slaves, playmates and to satisfy their sexual needs, not only during their lifetime but even after death, should be overcome by emancipated Egyptologists.

Highly appreciated by Collectors

Perhaps it was the devaluation of the statuettes as sex dolls and their belittling designation as ›Venus figures‹, that saved them from complete annihilation. We know how memories of the goddess were dealt with in the Bible. According to Deuteronomy 5: ›You must completely destroy all the places where the nations you dispossess have served their gods [meant was the goddess Astarte], on high mountains, on hills, under any spreading tree; you must tear down their altars, smash their pillars, cut down their sacred poles, set fire to the carved images of their gods and wipe out their name from that place.‹ (Deut.12:2,3)

In contrast to the devaluations of Egyptologists and other patriarchal scholars and theologians, female statuettes seem to be extremely attractive to private collectors and can also be found in large numbers. Ingrid Gamer-Wallert reports that a collector assured her that he could have selected three of his figurines from a ›pile of 50 comparable examples‹. »That this may not have been a simple toy for children«, she writes, »already suggests the high number in which they appear to have been found … But that raises the questions of the exact origin, of the person of the represented, of the deity perhaps, to which the dedication was considered, by the age of the figurines that are still far from being answered. We have known comparable figurines from Ancient Egypt for a long time and in considerable numbers. « (Ingrid Gamer-Wallert ›Gegengabe‹ 1992, p. 83)

Do Statuettes represent the Goddess or ›ordinary‹ Women?

The worship of Goddesses in human and animal form is not disputed for the dynastic period, for they have ›divine attributes‹, the insignias that mark them as Goddesses, and their names are recorded in hieroglyphics. When discussing whether the prehistoric statuettes are just women or Goddesses, a work by Alexander Scharff should be considered. He states: »The oldest known plastic representation of the Goddess Isis is the full cast bronze statue of the Goddess with her child in the Berlin Museum, dating from the Middle Kingdom [between 2000 and 1600], which shows no attributes, neither royal nor divine, and is only indicated by the inscription on the bottom plate as a representation of ISIS. This figurative representation of the Great Goddess Isis, which has come to us so far, is nothing more than the depiction of a woman and mother of the people, and that is why it makes it, all the more meaningful to us. « (Scharff, SBAW, 1947, p. 22)

Although all scholars do not seem to share the distorted view of the devalued statuettes, the still-common interpretations are explained by the fact that these terms are ›traditional‹; this exposes the tradition of misogyny of science. The discriminatory interpretations tell us a lot about the way of thinking of today’s scientists, but nothing about the mental attitude of the early humans. Unmistakably, males are giving expression to sexist fantasies under the guise of science, and women adapt if they do not dare to courageously cross the boundaries set for them. Scharff’s findings that even ordinary women’s portrayals can be Goddesses, point to the fact that all the inglorious devaluations of female statuettes belong into the arena of bias. Actually, the discussion is really idle, because one thing is certain:

The Divine was Feminine and worshiped in Women

But: »Research is not welcomed when the socially prescribed
norm of thinking is disrupted. «
(Gerda Weiler)

The devaluation of the early Goddess statuettes is a murky chapter of male-dominated science. But not only men, also women sometimes strongly participate in the degradation and misinterpretation of Stone Age representations of the feminine. It is alarming to see young women scientists recently walking down the discriminatory path of patriarchal science. With a hateful, sweeping blow against female researchers of matriarchy, three female archaeologists discuss, in their commissioned publication ›Göttinnendämmerung – das Matriarchat aus archäologischer Sicht‹ Twilight of the Goddess – matriarchy from an archaeological perspective, the »particularly unsavoury finds, such as for example, the proto-historical statues of women« (Röder, Hummel, Kunz 1996, p. 128), which they call »profanely pornographic mass-produced articles« (p. 347). These women scientists obviously have trouble with the fact that the »phenomenon of matriarchal research … does not originate from ›experts‹ … but from non-specialist researchers« (p. 351), therefore a »collision between the university and non-university archaeology could not be avoided. « (p. 185) Their anger is understandable: matriarchal researchers are not going conform with the patriarchal ›university archaeology‹, which naturally upsets the assimilated scholars, who are not allowed to have their own opinion. However, this is not about ›university‹ versus ›non-university archaeology‹, but about the resistance of the matriarchal researchers against the usual patriarchal interpretation of our past. Furthermore, and beyond this: it is about the liberation from a false belief in science and its authority, i.e. about a new scientific freedom, which alone guarantees honesty, courage, open-mindedness and incorruptibility vis-à-vis previous interpretations of research findings. This new scientific freedom does not lend itself to being appropriated by the usual one-dimensional and miseducated, ›university‹ research. The often unbelievable ›understanding‹, indeed euphemism of patriarchal inhumanity, which we often encounter in the classical studies, seems often to have a positive influence on the career of the patriarchy-conform representatives of science. After all, the patriarchs, and nobody else, determines who will be included in the Olympus of Sciences. That this does not only apply to ›non-university-members or outsiders‹ can be seen in the example of Marija Gimbutas, long-time professor for Archaeology at the University of California in Los Angeles. She was exposed to countless, monstrously malicious attacks, even from her own immediate colleagues. The renowned university professor mentions one of the more innocuous occurrences of male censorship in an interview: The publisher had refused to publish the first edition of her book entitled ›Goddesses and Gods‹; he changed the title to ›Gods and Goddesses‹.

The patriarchal conquerors did everything they could to degrade the ancient Goddesses, to masculinize or even eliminate them, in order to usurp their feminine qualities and especially, their creative powers, for their male gods. What is amazing is the extent to which this is still the case today. We may add here – as a coronation – the contemptible treatment of unwanted findings that was scandalous even for Egyptologists: There is censorship! And scissors seem to exist in the minds of the researchers. Scientists usually publish only a part of their findings, i.e. a subjective selection of their research. They determine which information should be revealed to the public and thus, be published and what should be withheld. In this way, unwanted information gets suppressed and unwanted information disappears from the scientific discussion.

Every People always has had Religious Cults

It is the overwhelming miracle of birth and the great mystery of death that made people seek for a sacred explanation. Thus, it would be absurd to believe that the earliest peoples would have ever been without a religion. It is a misguidance to say that goddesses arose at the same time as the gods. The first male god was invented only  5000 years ago by the Indo-European invaders in Egypt. (see above) But the Goddess, our Ancestral Mother, was there from the beginning of time. It has been mistakenly assumed that spiritual life began around 300’000 years ago with Homo sapiens, who have already carefully buried their dead with burial objects. However, Marija Gimbutas reports that not only since the Middle Paleolithic, burials were deliberately covered with triangular stone slabs, but statuettes of women and animals, made of flint (Silex), were found, which date back to the period of the Upper Paleolithic and are more than 500’000 years old (Gimbutas 1996, p. 222). »When Marija Gimbutas published the first Compendium in 1974, considering not only her own finds but also those from over three thousand other archaeological excavation sites, the number of discovered miniature sculptures made of clay, marble, bone, copper and gold was no less than 30’000 …  [in the meantime, the number progressed enormously up to 100’000 figures and fragments]. They give us an unobstructed view of the mythical ideas underlying the religious rituals of that time. Above all, they show us – as do the caves of the Paleolithic, the excavations on the Anatolian plateau and the other Near–Eastern sites – that female statuettes and symbols occupy a central position« (quoted by Eisler 1989, pp. 52 f).

The ›Grosse Bildatlas der Archäologie‹ (The Great Picture Atlas of Archaeology) reveals: »If the woman is a symbol of life and reproduction, the famous Paleolithic ›Venus‹ figures, with their intentionally exaggerated forms, were perhaps the artistic expression for understanding women, mothers, and humanity at large. The typological similarities between them and many Neolithic figurines cannot be overlooked. The exaggerated shapes, the oversized breasts and hips celebrate in both cases the life-giving and nourishing nature of the feminine. And make it a symbol of abundance, lushness, generosity, fertility and creativeness « (1991, p. 48). What is divinity, if not all that?

»Is there anything more arcane than a woman? «, asks French scholar Jean Markale. He describes a woman as a magical being, connected with the divine, indispensable for the survival of the species, a being one needs to protect, a being that is precious. Hence, the predominance of women in the social field and, the worship of a Goddess found at the beginning of all civilizations (Markale 1989, p. 16 f).

A Prehistoric Sanctuary of the Great Goddess in the Valley of the Queens

French Egyptologist Christiane Desroches Noblecourt (1913–2011), the first woman to lead an archaeological dig, concludes that this grotto is a cave sanctuary used in prehistoric times. She calls it the ›Rock-Cathedral of a Goddess‹, or ›the symbolic representation of the gigantic uterus of the divine Celestial Cow.‹ In her opinion, the great crevice is supposed to represent the vulva of the Goddess through which she gives birth every morning at the time of sunrise. Desroches Noblecourt writes:

»This ›Cosmic Sanctuary‹ served religious purposes and must have
been used thousands of years before the Pharaonic period. «

The prehistoric petroglyphs indicate that it was used as a uterine sanctuary in Pre–Pharaonic times and must have been of extraordinary religious importance (Desroches Noblecourt ›Les Dossiers d’Archéologie‹, Archaeology Records, 1990, pp. 149–150). Significantly, the cave shrine in the Valley of the Queens lies in the ›Valley of the Great Waterfall‹, a symbol of the ›Primeval Flood‹, for the amniotic fluids of the birth-giving-Goddess. Here another interesting phenomenon can be found: a sculpture which stands out from a great distance and despite the gigantic size of an estimated 20 meters altitude, it has strangely remained unnoticed so far. This female sculpture carved from the rock, on the left side of the entrance, seems to float above the ground. It was probably a natural figural rock formation, which was additionally worked on by hand. Although the limestone rock is hopelessly brittle due to heat and rain, in the weathered female figure we still can clearly identify the head, a horn in the right hand, the thighs and the emphasized lap triangle. The figure is not unlike the Venus of Laussel carved from rock, which is estimated to be over 20,000 years old. She also holds a horn, a symbol of the moon Goddess in her hand.

We know that the Goddess was worshiped in stone in the ›oldest of the times‹. In the Bible, the male god, who has assimilated the old female deity and usurped her attributes, is repeatedly referred to as the ›rock‹, in which the idea of the cult of stone is still alive. Again and again, new history-moving finds are made that testify the Goddess worship reaching back hundreds of thousands of years.

Without doubt, the sanctuaries of Lascaux, the grotto in the Valley of the Queens, and surprisingly – even the tombs in the ›Valley of the Kings‹ – were reminiscent of the female organs of creation and genitals. Tombs were situated under pyramidal mountains that represent the ›primeval hill‹; in caves that symbolize the body of a mother and her uterus, and under rock-crevices that represent the yoni/vulva, the cleft entry of the Goddess and women.

The royal tombs of the eighteenth dynasty in the ›Valley of the Kings‹ were not accidentally created beneath the pyramid-shaped mountain dedicated to the Goddess Meret-Seger (Isis). The access to the burial chamber preferably lies under a distinctive crevice. Through this ›yoni-gate‹, the dead were brought through a long ›birth canal‹ deep into the mountain, considered to be the lap, the uterus of the Mother Goddess, whereby the coffin – made of red granite – often in a rounded shape, resembled a uterus form. These are obviously the reasons why the arduous passage into the far-off valley were made; otherwise, one could have used the mortuary temples, all of which were not far from the Nile, as mausoleums.

The grave entrances to the tombs of queens and kings were chosen to be preferably under the numerous Vulva-shaped crevices of natural rock formations. Since the Paleolithic, the symbolism of rebirth from the divine womb has been proven; Caves were the oldest sanctuaries. Cave, coffin room, coffin and tomb all have the same meaning: ›Womb of the Great Goddess‹. Four protective deities, Isis, Nephthys, Selket and Neith surrounded the canopic shrine of Tutankhamun, awaiting rebirth. Neith is the ›Black Goddess‹, the Goddess of the deep, the primal ground, the interior of the mountain, the primeval mound, the dark womb. Neith is beginning and end, Alpha and Omega. »As the deity of the beginning, Neith is beyond gender. In her, who ›created the seed of the gods and men‹, the male and female powers are still unseparated, she is ›father of the fathers and mother of the mothers‹. « (Bonnet 1971, p. 515) In Christianity, the Black Goddess Neith became the ›Black Madonna‹. Her attributes, the arrows, once the ›symbols of life‹, turned her into the ›Goddess of war‹, which is the result of a limited patriarchal understanding.

 »Does the Sphinx date back to a time before the Pharaohs?«, asked some scientists. Yes, this is possible. Doubts about the age of the Sphinx have been around for a long time when a highly irritating message shook Egyptians and Egyptologists on April 20, 1991. The Cairo newspaper ›Al Akhbar‹ announced: »New American Birth Certificate for the Great Sphinx of Giza: American scientist claims that the sculpture is more than 10’000 years old and part of an unknown civilization. « Some ancient Egyptian scholars were shocked and afraid that this report would »ruin Egyptian history«. The desperate Zahi Hawass, in charge of the Giza monuments, even feared that such ideas would take away »Egypt’s most valuable possession. « What had triggered these fierce emotions around the landmark of Egypt?  In 1987, an egyptology researcher, not committed to the field of academic Egyptology, the geologist John Anthony West, attracted attention in 1987 with his refreshingly unorthodox theses in his book ›Serpent in the Sky‹ which, seemed uncomprehensible to most Egyptologists. Due to his own research and those of the mathematician, philosopher and orientalist R.A. Schwaller de Lubitz, he saw in Egyptian science, medicine, mathematics, and astronomy »not a development, but the legacy of an earlier, much higher civilization. « The scholars said, that this early civilization had flourished thousands of years before dynastic Egypt. Evidence for this assumption should be provided by a geological investigation of the Giza Sphinx Monument. What is striking in this sculpture, a hybrid creature with the body of a big cat and a human head, is the huge damage of the body of the animal, while the head shows no such surface erosions. This seems all the more mysterious, as the body of the sculpture was covered by sand and was thus protected for most of the time during Egyptian antiquity. Scientists agree that the Sahara only became a desert in relatively recent times, and that in about 10’000 BC, this region, was a fertile savannah. But we have to consider that between 15’000 and 10’000 a lot of rain fell (see above ›Valley of the Great Waterfall‹ in the Valley of the Queens) in Egypt. In addition, the Egyptian Nile Valley was under water for a long period, triggered by a rise in water, caused by the melting of the Nordic glaciers at the end of the last Ice Age. The geological investigations of the rock damage now confirm that the Sphinx, as presented today, is said to have been damaged by these floods (John Anthony West ›Kadath‹ 1990, No 74, p. 17 ff). The scientific analyses were conducted by Boston University’s College of Basic Studies under the direction of geologist Robert M. Schoch. The final report attests that the Sphinx was not chiseled out of the rock during the time of the 4th dynasty, i.e. around 2500, but rather between the 7th and 5th millennium or even earlier (Schoch KMT Summer 1992, p. 53–59). West pointed out that as early as the nineteenth century, some scholars believed that the Sphinx could be older than the pyramids, because not a single other Egyptian structure or sculpture is as badly damaged or eroded as the Sphinx and the adjoining temple, which itself also clearly differs in style from the rest of Egyptian constructions. The geological findings are said to have shown, the large sculpture must have been already heavily damaged at the beginning of Pharaonic Egypt. The erosion should not have been caused by wind, sand or groundwater, but by stagnant water due to geological and climatic studies.

The Enigmatic Story of the Sphinx

The Sphinx has an enigmatic story. Surprisingly, the French Egyptologist Christiane Zivie, a specialist of the Giza Plateau, reports that in the Old Kingdom, this monument did not even have a name. We can only wonder about that. If a king of the Old Kingdom had been responsible for the creation of this monument, he would not have failed to announce his mighty deed to the whole world, and his name would never have been forgotten. But no king boasted this feat. Perplexing is the fact that the area around the Sphinx was the center of a pilgrimage place. In spite of this, Zivie states it seems that it played no profane or religious role in dynastic Egypt (Zivie, LÄ, II, p. 604 ff).

Very interesting is what Pliny (23–79) reports shortly after the turn of the millennium: »In front of the pyramids stands the Sphinx, a deity of the local inhabitants, which deserves far more admiration, but is almost treated with silence by the writers. « (Demisch 1977, p. 239) Pliny speaks of the deity of the local inhabitants, about which the pharaonic upper-class is silent. And he adds: »It is made of a single natural stone, and the red face of this monster [!] is divinely worshiped. « (Demisch 1977, p. 239) Unfortunately, Pliny does not tell us which deity this ›monster‹ represented. But when scholars speak of a ›deity‹ and then this ›deity‹ mutates to a ›monster‹ in the opinion of a patriarchal author, we can assume that it is most likely a Goddess and that accordingly, in the Sphinx, a Goddess was worshiped. Other writers described her gentle expression as »something terrifying, cruel, even merciless. The mighty gaze radiates a vein conceited Tyrannies, they say. « (Kurt Lange ›Pyramiden, Sphinxe, Pharaonen‹ Pyramids, Sphinxes, Pharaohs) 1952, p. 41) An ancient Arab account reveals a completely different attitude. The scholar describes the face of the »reverently worshiped cult picture« of the Sphinx, testifies a »harmonious, noble charisma« (Lange 1952, p. 41, 42). It cannot be excluded that the Sphinx has been worshiped as a Goddess by the indigenous women and men of Egypt for millennia. Not only in Giza. Matit or Mehit was a lion Goddess who was worshiped in Upper Egyptian Hierakonpolis and in Central Egyptian This. It is depicted as a reclining lioness on numerous seals of the First Dynasty (Emery 1961, p. 125). All hybrid beings were female and representatives of the Goddess at an early age. It is therefore quite possible that the Goddess was worshiped in the imposing appearance of the Sphinx, but was no longer allowed to play ›any role‹ in the time of the patriarchal conquerors. Perhaps, like the Greek-Theban Sphinx, it was a representative of ancient wisdom: Euripides, who, like all patriarchal poets, »does not fail to portray its horrible nature, calls it the ›Wise Virgin‹. « (Demisch, 1977, p. 96). In fact, E.A. Wallis Budge also mentions that. In addition to the Greek historian Plutarch (45–125), other scholars saw in the Sphinx the symbol of an enigmatic wisdom and power; but he brushes this aside as a pure fantasy, although Budge also suspected:

»The Sphinx was probably associated with another religion
and is of prehistoric time. «

After all, during dynastic times, the Sphinx was still considered to be a guard and protection for the numerous graves created in the vicinity (Budge 1969, II, p. 361). We know that the cult of the Goddess I-Seth (Isis), whose earliest appearance may have been the Sphinx, was persecuted in the 4th Dynasty by Khufu (Chef-u/Cheops). However, in the middle of the 2nd Dynasty there was a king who worshiped Isis or Seth and called himself Seth-Peribsen; meaning that the Sphinx might still have been worshiped at this time. After this the Sphinx, was no longer mentioned by name, even in official documents.  ‚None‘ shall be your name‹ is a formula often used since the First Dynasty to symbolically erase the memory of unpleasant phenomena. It might have been for these reasons that the nose of the sphinx was cut off, since it was believed the statue’s soul was residing in its body. Without a nose it would no longer be able to breathe, be no longer alive.

Robert M. Schoch points out: Around 3195, the end of the ›Sphinx Culture‹ became visible, opening the way for the dynastic culture (New studies confirm a very old Sphinx, by Dr. M. Schoch 2000, Internet). For This thesis finds support by the fact that in the New Kingdom, more than 1000 years after Khufu, there is evidence of an Isis cult on the Giza plateau. The ban on worshipping the Goddess in her most impressive representation, the Sphinx, could solve the puzzle why the name of this extraordinary large sculpture was no longer spoken and not included in official documents. After the name of the Sphinx was not allowed to be mentioned for a long time, after the Goddess Isis, disappeared for 1000 of years, when the time of her reappearance came, a new god was invented with the name Harmachis, possibly to serve as a substitute for the Sphinx. Perhaps this secondary god should also serve as a defense against the renewed appearance of Goddess worship. However, this attempt was unsuccessful; the Isis worship continued for more than 2000 years, and Harmachis went down – like all other male gods – without leaving a mark. Today, the beautiful Sphinx is called ›Abu el-Hol‹, father of terror! Which speaks volumes about the state of consciousness of those in charge of defining meaning through language.

In the 1990s, after the publication of the theses of an older dating of the Sphinx, other geologists explored the field. They seem to agree that the Sphinx did not originate in the Old Kingdom, but at least between the 5th and 7th millennium, if not earlier. Even a school scholar who is not in danger of being considered a follower of unorthodox ideas, stated in 1952: The attribution [of the Sphinx] to Khafre (Chefre) was »on very weak feet« (Lange 1952, p. 42). Lange complains that we can read among  otherwise serious authors, »its appearance would prove that they do not belong to the Egyptian, but a much older culture. An indefinite mention of Khafre in an engraved inscription between the front paws, which originated some 1400 years later, under Pharaoh Thutmosis IV, may only indicate that back then, one thought Khafre to be the creator of the Sphinx. « (Lange 1952, p. 40 f). As a builder of the colossal statue, Khafre is not the only one to be in the debate. Egyptologist Pierre Montet believed that the Sphinx had been commissioned by Khufu (Cheops). But, of course, »we do not know the decree in which Khufu ordered the work on the Sphinx. That would be too much to ask. « (Montet, no year, p. 35). German archaeologist Rainer Stadelmann appeals to this version with the argument: »Iconographic reasons and the position of the Sphinx in the quarries of the Khufu pyramid permit an attribution of this giant statue to Khufu« (Stadelmann 1990, Text to Figure l57).

In his book ›Die Sphinx‹ Heinz Demisch claims that the Sphinx is the representation of a pharaoh. He insists: »It is certain that the colossal Sphinx head in Giza reflects the face of a king. This is manifested in the royal headscarf with the uraeus serpent over the forehead and the artificial beard. « (Demisch 1977, p. 19). But nothing is ›sure‹ about his claim, not even that the Sphinx once had a beard. The competent sculptors, the best experts in Egypt, who restore the Sphinx, categorically deny this. »Not a trace of a beard«, and because it was never there, it is “shifted” to the British Museum, where it is neither. Usurpers, as well as the pharaohs, are known for appropriating the existing. The headscarf, denoted as ›Nemes‹, is the attribute of the Goddess Nemesis, the lunar Goddess of time and fate of primeval times. In the pyramid texts it was attributed to the Upper Egyptian Goddess Nechbet; it is a female attribute, and the »Uraeus serpent is always female and only connected with female deities. « (Martin LÄ, VI, p. 867) »It is an old tradition«, writes Hans Bonnet, »to depict the king and even his wife [!] in the image of a Sphinx, i.e. as a lion with a human head. This is already testified for the early Old Kingdom by a certainly feminine Sphinx figure« (Bonnet 1971, p. 746). The ›old custom‹ of representing queens and kings in the image of a Sphinx, that is, as a lioness/lion with a human head, could, however, have been inspired by the primeval Sphinx and was not a new creation in the Old Kingdom.

Egyptologists based their claim that the Sphinx represented a king of the Fourth Dynasty on a very weak line of arguments: »1. On the fact that in the 19th century a statue of Khafre was found in the valley temple, which is in the immediate vicinity of the Sphinx; 2. On an unclear (and today unrecognizable) inscription on a stele (memorial stone) from the New Kingdom; 3. On an alleged similarity between the face of the Sphinx and that of Khafre (or Khufu); and 4. On the geographical proximity of the Sphinx to the Pyramid of Khafre« (Schoch KMT, Summer 1992, pp. 53-59). These ›proofs‹, as J. A. West states, are in fact »purely random and unprovable«.

The earliest Sphinxes were female

Hans Bonnet observed: »Intrinsically enough, most of these lion deities are female, such as the Matit of Der el-Gebrawi, the Mehit of This, the Mentit of Latopolis, the Pachet of Speos Artemidos, the Sachmet of Memphis, and the Menet. « (Bonnet 1971, p. 427) The Swiss Egyptologist Eduard Naville argued that according to ancient texts, the Sphinx was female and an image of the Goddess Tefnut or Hathor (›Sphinx‹ V, 1902, pp. 193-199).

Carola Meier-Seethaler presents an impressive documentation which shows that in all ancient cultures the most dangerous animals, such as the big cats, were originally assigned to the female deity, whereby the symbolism of the lioness is superimposed by patriarchal ideas (1993, pp. 46–75). Female big cats are admired for their legendary courage, power, strength, intelligence and braveness and were a symbol of motherhood and matriarchy. The conclusion of the sensational research results of the geological investigation, which issue a ›new birth certificate‹ to the Sphinx (a possibility ignored by West), is that this sculpture can be seen as a representation of a prehistoric Goddess, because there was neither a male god nor any male rulers before the radical patriarchal change. The assignment of the mysterious Sphinx to the kings of the 4th Dynasty seems to be, much like in the case of the three Great Pyramids, a solution of embarrassment.

The Attribution of the three Great Pyramids to Khufu,
Khafra and Menkaure is a Unique Fallacy

No king of the 4th Dynasty has ever claimed to have been one of the principals of the three Great Pyramids and they were never mentioned as being their builders in the ancient texts. They received their specific attributions only 2000 years later, by Herodotus and even later, by Diodorus Siculus. Their speculations were indiscriminately adopted by Egyptologists. Hellmut Brunner reports something that is beyond belief: »Only at the time of the funeral did the pyramids stand at the center of a religious act. Afterwards … the mighty pyramids stood unheeded. No Egyptian text of later time announces them. They had served their purpose, they were no longer needed, they were no longer noticed. « (Brunner Introduction to Leonard Cottrells‘ ›The People of the Pharaohs‹). Isn’t that strange? Millions of tourists admire this wonder of the world every year, and at that early time, nobody should have been impressed? This is similar to the story we have already heard about the Sphinx, and probably for the same reasons, as E.A. Wallis Budge suspected in the case of the Sphinx: »The pyramids were probably associated with another religion and date back to prehistoric times. « For these reasons, the ancient cult of Isis worship was banned by Khufu. Herodotus reports that under Khufu and Khafre the temples remained closed and the sacrifices were banned, which plunged the Egyptians into boundless calamity. »The Egyptians hate these kings so much that they avoid mentioning their names« (Herodot II, p. 124–128).

The mystery of the three Great Pyramids has not been solved

The assertion that the three Great Pyramids were built in the time of the Fourth Dynasty remains without evidence. Likewise, there is not a single, solid evidence that would justify their assignment to the kings of the Fourth Dynasty: Khufu (Cheops), Khafre (Chef-ra) and Menkaura (Mycerinus). Since the first Dynasty, the Giza Plateau was an important cemetery dating back to prehistoric times and was also used by the ruling class of the conquerors.

In his book ›Egypt before the Pharaos‹, Michael A. Hoffman calls US-American archaeologist George Andrew Reisner (1867–1942) »the most successful and skilled field archaeologist of his day« and, he states: together with »Flinders Petrie were pioneers and giants in Egyptian Archaeology« (1979).

»In Reisner’s forty years of work at Giza, he had traced the development of royal burial practices through the Fourth Dynasty. At that time, it became common for important nobles and their families and dependents [see ›Sati‹ human sacrifice in chapter 7] to be buried in systematically laid-out mastaba tombs clustered around the pyramid of their chief. The pyramid of Khufu (Chefu/Cheops), for example, is flanked on its eastern and western sides by a veritable village of the dead. The tombs and tomb chapels of his own and later, Fifth Dynasty, high officials arranged neatly about the burial place of Khufu reflect, in reality the extreme degree of political and religious centralization reached by the mature Old Kingdom state, when even the rewards of eternal life depended on continued association with the person of the king … This practice produced row on row of neat, subsidiary tombs huddled around king Khufu’s pyramid« (Hoffman 1979, p. 278).

Logistically, it is absolutely impossible, that during the construction period of the Great Pyramid, attributed to Khufu, ›a veritable village of the dead‹ could have been built at the same time on the same ground. (for more details, see: Wolf ›Die Annektierung der Pyramiden von Gizeh durch die Wissenschaft‹ The appropriation of the three Pyramids by patriarchal science).

Khufu, who is considered to be the principal of the Great Pyramid was hardly mentioned in the later documents and, only a 7-centimeter statue remains of him – which seems very surprising for the supposed architect of one of the ›seven wonders of the world‹.

On the Giza Plateau, only the six small pyramids could be identified. These are effectively tombs – but tombs of queens, e.g. of queen Hetepheres of the 4th Dynasty. Probably the following conclusion was drawn: If the queens are buried in the small pyramids, then the kings must have been buried in the great pyramids. But, no evidence of any king could be found in the great pyramids. However, it is possible that the rulers had built the so-called ›valley temples‹ at the foot of the pyramid complexes and the wayside. But this does not prove that they were also the builders of the pyramids.

We do not need to be master builders to question how come that only a few decades after the dilettanteishly built step pyramid of king Djoser in Saqqara, it was possible to build the Great Pyramids – in a construction technique that remains inexplicable until today. Of course, this can be justified by a progress of architectural art and engineering. But how come that in the pyramids, these so called ›grave-monuments‹ and in the associated temples, neither inscriptions nor pictures, no hieroglyphic clues, no names (except a counterfeit of the Englishman Howard Vyse), not a single clue, and no human-remains were found either, which would point to the tombs of the three kings of the 4th dynasty? Had the pharaohs, who payed homage to an unparalleled personality-cult, truly built the three great pyramids, they would have publicized their fame not only within the pyramids but also on tablets, papyri, stelas, etc., and trumpeted it all over the world. If we do not want to recognize the poor ›proofs‹ as the ultimate wisdom, we have to admit: we do not know when, how, by whom, and why the three Great Pyramids were created. After the 4th Dynasty of the ›Pyramid Builders‹, more than eighty other pyramids were built during almost 1000 years – all of them are more or less unsuccessful attempts, of which not a single one showed any trace of the greatness of the architecture of the Great Pyramids. Alan Gardiner says that the artisan work of these later pyramids was decidedly a botch, so that almost all fell into shapeless waste piles (1961, p. 92). How should this be explained? It is probably not what Rainer Stadelmann suggests in his book ›The Egyptian Pyramids – From the Brick Building to the Wonder of the World‹, but rather the other way around: ›From the Wonder of the World to the Brick Building‹.

The Pyramid Triangle – Symbol of the Great Goddess
and the Goddess Trinity

Like the queens of the 4th Dynasty, who were buried in the six Small Pyramids on the Giza Plateau, the dead queens of the 18th Dynasty rested in the pyramid-mountain of the Goddess Meret-Seger (ISIS), the ›Female Sovereign (mistress) of the mountain top‹ in the West bank of Luxor. The prototype of the safeguard-Goddess Meret-Seger could have been the Goddess Trinity of Giza, protecting the dead of the Giza Necropolis long time before the conqueror-kings. Since earliest times, people have thought of the Great Goddess as a Trinity, a ›Holy Trinity‹. It provided the model for all subsequent trinities, be they female, male or mixed (Walker 1993, p. 1104).

Pyramids were built in groups, the three Great Pyramids and the two times three Small Pyramids on the Giza Plateau are the nine most famous ones. Isis is called ›Sovereign of the Pyramids‹ and ›Sovereign of the Plateau of Giza‹. She is the ONE, the ›Multiform‹, the ›Rich in Names‹, ›The Divine‹ par excellence. Apparently, royal women were favored as prophets of the pyramids and their temples, writes Peter H. Schulze, and »the pyramid was presented as a female being. « But Schulze fantasizes: »The coffin introduced as a phallus carried out the divine new creation of the Pharaoh« (Schulze 1987, p. 149). This fantasy finally considers the neglected ›divine‹ male element!

It is possible that the three pyramids, along with the Sphinx, had been on the Giza Plateau for several millennia before the invaders overran Egypt. Although this thesis might be a breath-taking one for several people, it is worth taking this idea into account.

The triangle or pyramidal form as a symbol of the Great Goddess, which has been drawn and engraved on rock walls since the Old-Paleolithic in Stone Age caves, has always been the symbol par excellence for ›woman‹. And it became the first character ever; the cuneiform script is made up of stylized triangles called wedges. This does not only apply to the Middle East. From the Paleolithic age, naturally shaped or cut triangles made of flint were found and und had mistakenly been interpreted as arrow heads for hunting and war purposes.

All the pyramidal (triangle) mountains were considered female and representations of the Great Goddess. In the Sumerian myth, the world was born from the Sumerian mountain Ninhursag. Chomo-Lung-Ma, or Sagar-Matha, the former ›Goddess of the universe‹, whose mountain sanctuary was usurped by a man, is now known as Mount Everest. The list of these mother mountains is long. (s. Doris Wolf 2017, p. 160–165) Mount Ararat in Turkey made an interesting transition from Al-Alat, the Great Goddess to Ar-arat and the biblical mountain of Noah’s Ark as a result of the R–L Change (see above)

 


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