Category Archives: Religious History

DENDARA – PTOLEMAIC MAGIC IN THE HOME OF THE COW-EARED GODDESS

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Entry facade at Denara Temple with mudbrick enclosure wall on the right.
Entry facade at Denara Temple with mudbrick enclosure wall on the right.

Egypt was ruled for 300 years by the Greek Ptolemaic dynasty. For the Land of the Two Kingdoms, foreign domination was not a new phenomenon. The secret to rule is on display at the Temple of Dendara lying a few miles to the west of the Nile riverside town of Qena. Letting locals keep running things for a large part – as long as taxes were sent to Alexandria – the Ptolemies also co-opted the indigenous gods, goddesses and myths with their own. By trying to impose a foreign culture upon Egypt, internal disorder was kept to a minimum. Dendara, Edfu and Philae (near Aswan) are all examples of Ptolemaic admiration for the local religious hierarchy.

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KOM OMBO – CROCODILES, FALCONS AND MAGIC ON THE NILE

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Temple at Kom Ombo from the river. The Nile used to run right up next to the walkway below the base.
Temple at Kom Ombo from the river. The Nile used to run right up next to the walkway below the base.

Rule in ancient Egypt was always a top-down affair. Absolute power lay absolutely in the hands of the divine Pharaohs seen as gods on earth. The demise of the New Kingdom with its assortment of Ramses (I and II during the Nineteenth Dynasty and III through IX with the Twentieth) eventually led to foreign invasions bringing in foreigners to rule the Land of the Two Kingdoms. Most successful were the Greeks in the form of one of the favorite generals of Alexander, Ptolemy I.  They would rule Egypt for 300 years before the Romans would take their own turn. Here, on the east bank of the Nile, about fifteen miles downstream from Aswan in southern Egypt, at the town of Kom Ombo, a temple exists in good, restored condition showing off a bit of how the Greeks were able to successfully pull off leadership of the country for three centuries.

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TEMPLE OF EDFU, GODS AND KINGS MAGIC AMID DIVINITY

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Ptolemy XII helps the gods pound stakes to delineate the boundaries of the temple.
Ptolemy XII helps Sekhet pound stakes to delineate the boundaries of the temple while Horus watches.

To say Egyptian mythology and the pantheon of gods and goddesses presents itself in a straightforward, easy to understand approach means you have probably already given up trying. No god presents themselves in a more confused manner than the falcon-headed Horus. The particular Horus getting worshipped depends on where in Egypt you visited. But even here in Edfu, local rules do not apply.

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HATSHEPSUT, OZYMANDIAS – MAGIC DENIED IN THE SANDS OF HISTORY

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Courtyard and final causeway leading into the mortuary temple of Hatshepsut.
Courtyard and final causeway leading into the mortuary temple of Hatshepsut.

Most tourist visits to Egypt include life, death and the afterlife, or at least an ancient Egyptian look at how all intertwine. The Necropolis of Thebes, much like that seen further north in the Giza-Saqqara-Dashur necropolis of Memphis, extends for many miles beyond the main attraction, the Valley of the Kings. Mortuary temples built by New Kingdom pharaohs front the desert mountains rising to the west. Mortuary temples arose as early as the Old Kingdom. The temples commemorated a specific king who reigned during the construction of the temple. Most prominent of all was to the peculiar Queen-King Hatshepsut.

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VALLEY OF THE KINGS – PHARAONIC GLORY HIDDEN

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Constellations of the night decorate the ceiling of the vaulted burial chamber.
Constellations of the night decorate the ceiling of the vaulted burial chamber of Seti I.

The west side of the Nile at Thebes – Waset to the Egyptians, like further upstream at Memphis, was reserved for the next life. At both sites, the bank of the setting sun became the home for the Afterlife. Cemeteries predominately lay on the west side of the river as Egyptians believed human life paralleled the path of the sun, rising in the east and setting in the west. In the land of the setting sun lie the underworld. Line up with the others to witness the Egyptian version of eternity.

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LUXOR TEMPLE – APOTHEOSIS ON THE NILE

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The Solar Courtyard of Amenhotep III shines in the darkening dusk light.
The Solar Courtyard of Amenhotep III shines in the darkening dusk light.

Luxor Temple stands at the southern end of the Avenue of the Sphinxes in the center of the City of Luxor. Along with Karnak, Luxor Temple rates as one of the most popular visitor sites in Egypt. The temple (Ipet Resyt or Southern Opet to ancient Egyptians) became dedicated to Amememopet, “Amun in Opet”. This particular form of Amun-Ra was specific to this temple, especially tied in the idea of royal ka or the spirit of kingship entering into a king’s body at the time of his coronation. Evey year the Opet Festival took place in which the king visited the Luxor Temple in order for the royal ka to be ritually reborn, reconfirmed and re-energized.

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MAGIC AND RESURRECTION AT ABU SIMBEL

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Baboons hold court above the entrance facade at Abu Simbel.
Baboons hold court above the entrance facade at Abu Simbel.

Far to the south, not far from the border of Egypt and Sudan, lies one of the greatest monuments surviving from the New Kingdom and its most prominent pharaoh, Ramses II. The magnificent temple complex erected here at Abu Simbel demonstrated the power and supremacy of Egypt over Nubia lying to the south. This became the most extravagant of all of the many building projects the great Pharaoh commissioned over his long life.

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KARNAK – TEMPLE GLORY ILLUMINATE THE BANKS OF THE NILE

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Light from the chariot of Amun-Ra dominates the magnificence of the Great Hypostyle Hall.
Light from the chariot of Amun-Ra dominates the magnificence of the Great Hypostyle Hall.

Waset to ancient Egyptians and Luxor today, Thebes is best known probably for its Greek name – not to be confused, of course, with the city-state in ancient Greece. Thebes in upper Egypt also served originally as a city-state. The city developed into the ascendant city of all Egypt around 2000 BC. Armies from Waset went forth to reunify the country at the end of the First Intermediate Period – 2125-2010 BC. Today’s armies are tourists from all over the world seeking to recapture some of the glory of the ancients.

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CAO ĐẠI – UNIVERSALISM IN THE NEW WORLD

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6PM service at the Great Divine Temple in Tây Ninh.
6PM service at the Great Divine Temple in Tây Ninh.

My introduction to the Cao Đại faith, probably like a lot of others from the Euro-American world came through the book The Quiet American written in 1955 by Englishman Graham Greene.

“A Pope and female cardinals. Prophecy by planchette. Saint Victor Hugo. Christ and Buddha looking down from the roof of the Cathedral on a Walt Disney fantasia of the East, dragons and snakes in technicolour.”

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ST. NAZIANZ – UTOPIA FOUND IN A CATHOLIC GUISE

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The Old Church in about 1910 in St. Nazianz. wisconsinhistory.org IMG 39406.
The Old Church in about 1910 in St. Nazianz. wisconsinhistory.org IMG 39406.

Research 19th century American communal utopias and you will not find any normally with relationships to the Roman Catholic church. An unfortunate oversight by the many researchers who cleave towards the free love of Oneida, the ethnic communes of the Amana, Bishop Hill. The Catholic-based commune of St. Nazianz, Wisconsin needs inclusion into the American versions of heaven on earth.

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