The Ancient Egyptian Metaphysical Architecture Read online

  There are frequent, intentional, well-defined, rectangular, neat, man-made hammer marks on top of the blocks. Again, these have no structural value whatsoever. This intentional neat hammering is consistent with an organic, not a structural, purpose.

  At the bottom of this particular temple wall, we encounter other organic design details. Cutting into each block of stone is a superficial 1-inch (2 cm) deep, dovetail-type notch that linked the stone to the adjacent stone. These mortises link one block to another—a kind of nervous or arterial system running throughout the whole of the temple.

  More organic dovetail-type notches are found throughout. No binding material has ever been found in these shallow dovetail notches. There is no architectural or structural importance whatsoever for such notches, with or without wooden tenons. We also find frequent, intentional, well-defined, rectangular, neat, man-made hammer marks on top of the blocks. Again, these have no structural value whatsoever.

  5. At the Luxor Temple, we find this organic jointing technique at the large seated granite statues. An inclined crack in the granite was “repaired” by providing two dovetail-type notches. The symbolic (or better yet, the organic) procedure is inescapable.

  6. We find similar types statue jointing in the manheaded sphinxes that extend for 2 miles (3 km) between the Luxor and Karnak Temples.

  7. On this impressive paved roadway between the two temples of Luxor and Karnak, we encounter another application of the organic jointing patterns in the paving blocks which are set in mosaic style in order to avoid pointed corners and continuous crack lines, such as the huge paving blocks around the pyramids of Giza. One can clearly see these very durable, perfectly fitted, square-angled blocks which are several yards (meters) in length.

  8. Further north in the Giza Plateau, we find the same organic pattern on the causeway from the Khafra Pyramid to its Valley Temple next to the Sphinx.

  9. The same patterns in perfectly-fitted huge paving blocks are found around the base of the Khafra Pyramid.

  10. The same patterns are all over the Giza Plateau.

  Ancient Egyptians, throughout history, avoided simple, abrupt, interlocking joints. Creating uninterrupted continuous corners allowed the energies to flow unimpeded.

  5.5 Outer Walls Physical/Metaphysical Protection

  In conjunction with the animated, organic, living aspects of the temple, the Egyptian temple was generally surrounded by a massive sun-dried mud-brick wall in a wavy arrangement. This wall isolated the temple from its surroundings which, symbolically, represented the forces of chaos. Metaphorically, the mud resulted from the union of heaven and Earth. The brick wall was therefore typically set in wavy courses to symbolize the primeval waters, representing the first stage of creation.

  Such a wall is clearly found at the Karnak Temples Complex.

  And at the small temple of Deir Medinet, even though this temple is also in the middle of the desert.

  The Medinet Habu Temple on Luxor’s West Bank shows us a clear definition of the whole site. Here are the remains of the mud brick wall at Medinat Habu, even though it is practically in the middle of the desert.

  The main temple, as we observe here, had exterior walls that resembled a fortress, so as to defend it against all forms of evil.

  Depictions on the outer walls show how it ensures its protection from evil forces so as to maintain its sanctity. The temple was entered through the gateway between the two pylons. There are five main forms of outer wall protection.

  1) Foreign enemies being restrained.

  2) Thoth and Horus in the act of purifying the person before entering the temple.

  3) Catching and detaining bad spirits in the forms of birds, fish, wild animals, and human foreign impurities.

  4) Enlightened humans in the form of seated statues.

  5) Statues of symbolic protective animals, such as falcons & lionesses.

  The first form is restraining foreign impurities. In Ancient Egyptian temples, tombs, and texts, human vices are depicted as foreigners (the sick body is sick because it is/was invaded by foreign germs). Foreigners are depicted as subdued, arms tightened/tied behind their backs to portray inner self-control. The most vivid example of self-control is the common depiction of the Pharaoh (The Perfected Man) on the outer walls of Ancient Egyptian temples, subduing/controlling foreign enemies – the enemies (impurities) within.

  There are absolutely no grounds to identify these symbolic figures as of being of any particular race or region. It is purely a symbolic representation. The same “war” scene is repeated at temples throughout the country, which signifies its symbolism and is not a representation of actual historical events. The “war” scenes symbolize the never-ending battle between Good and Evil.

  Many depictions refer to the battle of Kadesh. The famed “Battle of Kadesh” is really the personal drama of the individual royal man (the king in each of us) single-handedly subduing the inner forces of chaos and darkness. Kadesh means holy/sacred. Therefore, the Battle of Kadesh signifies the inner struggle—a holy war within each individual.

  The second form is ensuring the purity of the temple entrants. The Egyptian model of mysticism stresses that purity can only be achieved through purifying the heart and practicing pure intent in ordinary daily life.

  In the Ancient Egyptian traditions, the active faculties of The Perfect Man were intelligence (which was identified with the heart and personified as Horus—a solar deity) and action (which was identified with the tongue and personified as Thoth—a lunar deity). One thinks with the heart and acts with the tongue, as described on an Ancient Egyptian stele:

  The Heart thinks all that it wishes, and the Tongue delivers all that it wishes.

  The Ancient Egyptian depiction [shown herein] shows the Perfected Person being purified by the combined action of his heart (Horus) and tongue (Thoth), with water in the form of the ankh and the was, which represents the water. The ankh represents eternal life, and the was represents authority – i.e. total self-control.

  The third form of ensuring the purity of the place is catching and detaining evil forces by nets. Netting scenes are a constant theme in Egyptian temples and tombs throughout its history.

  Bird catching is equivalent to controlling the forces of chaos. In Mozart’s Masonic Opera, The Magic Flute, the free spirit Papageno traps wild birds. This is purely Egyptian symbolism, because for the Ancient Egyptians, each bird (such as the falcon, vulture, stork, phoenix, goose, etc.) symbolized various spiritual qualities. Each species of bird represented a wild spiritual aspect that must be trapped, caged, sometimes tamed, and other times offered to the neteru in sacrifice.

  Of special interest is the consistent showing of an adult with his son, wearing the sidelocks of youth and carrying the hoopoe. The scene here is from Abydos, but similar scenes are found in tombs and temples since the Old Kingdom, 4,500 years ago.

  In the Islamic mystical poem “Conference of the Birds”, the hoopoe is chief of a troop of birds who set out looking for the Simurg or divine principle. In this Sufi allegory, the hoopoe is feminine.

  The bird netting scene is predominant since the Old Kingdom Era, as found in numerous tombs in Saqqara.

  Hunting and fishing are also equivalent to controlling chaos. The example on the outer walls of the Edfu temple illustrate this concept very clearly, for the net includes fish, birds, wild animals, and “foreign prisoners”.

  The Fourth forms are seated human statues representing the liberation of the spiritual self from its lower material self. The Egyptian was highly conscious of the box-like structure, which is the model of the Earth or the material world. The form of statuary called the “cube statue” is prevalent since the Middle Kingdom (2040-1783 BCE). The subject was integrated into the cubic form of the stone. In these cube statues, there is a powerful sense of the subject emerging from the confinement of the cube. Its symbolic significance is that the spiritual principle is emerging from the material world. The earthly person is placed unmistakably in
material existence. The Divine person is shown sitting squarely on a cube – i.e. mind over matter.

  The carving on the seat shows the typical tying of the “two lands” of the two mirror images of Hapi, to signify the ability to understand and unite the dual nature of creation.

  The statues of enlightened individuals acted as intermediaries between the people and the deities through proper rituals at specific times.

  The fifth form are statues of animals as embodiments of certain divine aspects of the universe.

  Falcon of Horus at Edfu Temple:

  Lioness at Medinet Habu in Luxor.

  5.6 The Organic Foundation Roots of the Temple

  The choice of location and design peculiarities of a temple were not based on economical considerations, but rather on a deeper knowledge of the macro cosmos.

  Since the Ancient Egyptian temples are thousands of years old, a restoration/rebuilding (of each) was required every few decades/centuries. One can find temples which were torn down over and over again. Other temples were never torn down, but were carefully cared for and periodically repaired and added to.

  The Egyptians had a rational system in the dismantling and rebuilding processes. Certain blocks from an old temple were placed beneath the columns of a new temple as if it was the seed to nourish a new plant. The Egyptian temple had its natural, organic lifetime, and when the temple had completed its predestined cycle, it was torn down or revised or added to. The re-deployment of temple blocks was deliberate, and the purpose of this redeployment was to regenerate the new temple.

  Temples throughout Egypt make reference to being originally built much earlier than their “dynastic history”. The texts inscribed in the crypts of the temple of Hathor at Dendera clearly state that the temple that was restored during the Ptolemaic Era was based on drawings dating back to King Pepi of the 6th Dynasty (2400 BCE). The drawings themselves are copies of documents that are thousands of years older (the time of Followers of Horus). The text reads:

  The venerable foundation in Dendera was found in early writings, written on a leather roll in the time of the Servants of Horus (= the kings preceding Mena/Menes), at Memphis, in a casket, at the time of the lord of the Two Lands… Pepi.

  [More detailed and supporting info about physical and historical evidence of Ancient Egyptian antiquities being at least 39,000 years old are to be found in Ancient Egyptian Culture Revealed by Moustafa Gadalla.]

  Part II : The Physical Manifestation of Metaphysical Concepts

  Chapter 6 : Architectural Constituent Forms of Metaphysical Functions

  6.1 “False Doors”—The Physical Metaphysical Threshold

  On the western side of ALL Egyptian temples, shrines, and private tombs of all eras of the Ancient Egyptian history, there is always a crack in the wall—or what is commonly described as a false door.

  The west is the point of entry of the departed spirit. It is the threshold between the physical earthly realm and the meta-physical realm.

  The “false door” is basically a form of recessed wall with stone sockets similar in details to a regular door/window that is able to open and shut. The “false door” can take the form of ‘mehrab‘, a niche in the wall that may contain an effigy or a relic.

  In divine temples, the false door is found at the very back of the sanctuary and acts as the interface between the divine and human spheres.

  Incoming human action forms and directional flow ends at the false door, and the outflow of divine blessings begins and flows outwardly towards the temple’s entry.

  Looking, for example, at the massive temple at Medinet Habu on Luxor West bank—and looking at its Western Wall—

  we find—the false door:

  Further north at Abydos, we find a similar false door on its Western wall.

  Likewise, at hundreds of tombs/ mastabas in the Giza plateau:

  False doors are also found along the western walls of tombs in Saqqara:

  The term ‘false door’ is itself something of a misnomer, as, from the Egyptian’s perspective, these features were fully functional portals by which the spirit of the deceased might leave or enter the inner tomb to receive the offerings presented to them.

  Complementary features at false doors in tombs:

  1. Most of these panels show the owner in standing or seated poses before a table of offerings. The figure of the owner is carved in a frontal aspect, stepping out over the threshold of the door. The reliefs of the deceased in a standing pose also appear on the jambs of the false door, thus representing the owner coming forth to receive the funerary offerings.

  2. A table of offerings in front of the deceased figure is piled with sliced loaves of bread and simple texts enumerating various food and drink offerings which extend in range from the staple bread and beer to beef and fowl, vegetables, clothing, and sacramental oils. The altar, with its slices of bread, may be supplemented by other tables containing offerings or libation vessels.

  3. Visitors are bringing the sacrificial animals and birds and cutting up the sacrificial bull at the door of the tomb. In the middle is the deceased man, seated under his pavilion (signifying a different realm) and receiving the sacrifice.

  4. Behind the door is the main burial shaft. The main shaft led from the middle of the roof of the mastaba to the burial chamber.

  The Festival Meetings at the “False” Doors

  On festivals and days of offering, when the visitors presented the banquet with the customary rites, this great painted figure, in the act of advancing, and seen by the light of flickering torches or smoking lamps, might well appear endowed with life. It was as if the deceased ancestor himself stepped out of the wall and mysteriously stood before his descendants to claim their homage. The inscription on the lintel repeats, once more, the name and rank of the deceased. Faithful portraits of him and of other members of his family figure in the bas-reliefs on the door posts. Scenes depict him seated tranquilly at a table with the details of the feast carefully recorded at his side, from the first moment when water is brought to him for ablution to that when, all culinary skill being exhausted, he has but to return to his dwelling in a state of beatified satisfaction.

  By the divine favor, the soul (or rather the doubles [Ka-s] of the bread, meat, and beverages) passed into the other world and there refreshed the human double [Ka]. It was not, however, necessary that the offering should have a material existence in order to be effective. The first comer who should repeat aloud the name and the formulas inscribed upon the stone secured for the unknown occupant, by this means alone, the immediate possession of all the things which he enumerated.

  6.2 Recessed Walls

  The “false doors”were always built with successive recesses and projections

  The style of recessed paneling of the ‘false door’ was also used extensively in the construction of mastabas (the above-ground superstructure of older tombs).

  The earliest known major project utilizing such technique, the enclosure wall of the Zoser Complex at Saqqara, was built several centuries prior to the large pyramids of Egypt. It is a major achievement by itself.

  The wall was uncovered by archaeological excavation in 1926. This wall may not look Egyptian only because its neat architecture has been copied in many modern Western cities.

  More than a square mile of desert is enclosed within the wall. When complete, the enclosure wall was nearly 600 yards (549 m) long and 300 yards (274 m) wide, and rose to a height of over 30 feet (9.1 m). As such, the enclosure wall was, by itself, an impressive project. Its successive recesses and projections required more than triple the amount of both stone and labor compared to a similar simple wall.

  It is built of limestone and faced with finely polished limestone. As such, the enclosure wall was an impressive project.

  Many 20th century architects, eager to break free of the Victorian clutter and other demoralized European architectural forms, went back to Egypt for inspiration. Saqqara and the equally clean-lined temple of Hatshepsut at Luxo
r, particularly, suited emerging contemporary styles.

  The commemorative temple built by Queen Hatshepsut is called, in Egyptian, The Most Splendid of All. It was a reduplication of an earlier temple built during the Middle Kingdom era. One can see its remains next to the Hatshepsut Temple. Such temple(s) have a similar design to the Enclosure Wall at Saqqara.

  Many scholars, architects, and visitors consider this temple the finest in Egypt, and one of the great architectural masterpieces of the world.

  Along with Saqqara, this temple has exercised considerable direct and indirect influence on contemporary architectural thinking all over the world.

  6.3 Columns and Pillars

  There are thousands of columns in Ancient Egyptian buildings. Most of them are in the simplest tomb chapels and mastabas, numbered by the hundreds, and are found over 5,000 years ago. The typical tomb chapel had a portico and a columned room, and columns were an integral part of the structure.