Read Online The Secret Chamber of Osiris: Lost Knowledge of the Sixteen Pyramids by Scott Creighton - Free Book Online
Authors: Scott Creighton
Tags: Ancient Mysteries
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contained, after all, the means by which the kingdom hoped to recover should the worst effects of “Thoth’s Flood” come to pass. These “dismembered body parts” (i.e., the individual pyramids scattered along the length of the Nile) represented the agency through which the recovery or rebirth of the kingdom could occur.
In essence these first scattered pyramids along the Nile Valley were Osiris (i.e., his body cut into sixteen parts), just as the ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts and Plutarch’s Myth of Osiris inform us. As such it should be of little surprise then to find that when plotting the individual locations of the first, giant pyramids onto a map of Egypt, what we find is a crude “matchstick” outline drawing of the classic Osiris figurine (see figures 2.7a–e), complete with the royal regalia of the distinctive three-pronged Atef Crown of Osiris and symbols of power, the crook and flail.
These images demonstrate the locations of the pyramids listed below with the name of the king Egyptologists believe constructed each pyramid (its location in parentheses), and which were constructed on the high plateaus along the lush green Nile Valley (Osiris is often painted with a green body depicting vegetation and rebirth) and are believed by Egyptologists to have been completed in the following order of construction.
Djoser (Saqqara)
Sekhemkhet (Saqqara, unfinished)
Khaba (Zawiyet al-Aryan, unfinished)
Sneferu (Meidum, farthest south)
Sneferu (Dahshur, the Bent Pyramid)
Sneferu (Dahshur, the Red Pyramid)
Khufu (Giza, with four satellite pyramids)
Djedefre (Abu Roash, farthest north)
Khafre (Giza, with one satellite pyramid)
Nebka (Zawiyet al-Aryan, unfinished)
Menkaure (Giza, with three satellite pyramids)
Figure 2.7a. The first pyramids outline the god Osiris.
Figure 2.7b. Locations of the first 19 pyramids built by the ancient Egyptians along the Nile Valley (inludes 3 unfinished pyramids).
Figure 2.7c. The most northern pyramids correlate with the Atef Crown of Osiris.
Figure 2.7d. The middle pyramids correlate with the torso and the flail and crook of Osiris.
Figure 2.7e. The southern pyramids correlate with the lower limbs of Osiris.
Thus in Dynasties Three and Four we have a grand total of nineteen pyramids, three of which were never finished, giving a total of sixteen completed pyramids. Which brings us back to this possibility: Could the sixteen dismembered parts of the body of Osiris related to us in Plutarch’s Myth of Osiris actually have been an allegorical reference to the first sixteen pyramids that were completed by the ancient Egyptians? And, as suggested earlier in this chapter, could there perhaps be a secret seventeenth part of this body of Osiris yet to be discovered, the part that Isis could not find?
With each pyramid within the body of Osiris serving as an ark (securing seed such as wheat and barley and other vital recovery items), it is unsurprising to find that in later dynasties during the Festival of Khoiak small effigies of Osiris known as corn mummies would be created and packed full with grain and buried in the ground under a mound of earth or a large rock—the body of Osiris packed full with grain just like the pyramid body of Osiris had once been. (This idea will be discussed in greater detail in chapter 9.)
As I gazed from the desert road along the diagonal of the pyramids, their appearance from this spot as a single giant body (of Osiris) made complete sense to me, and it also made sense of the religious festivals that had arisen in later dynasties in the name of this ancient Egyptian god. Looking back toward these magnificent structures that had now seemingly morphed into a single, giant body, it almost seemed as though my hunch that these individual pyramids collectively represented the (dismembered) body of Osiris was being vindicated. It rather seemed to me that the conventional idea that these structures had been conceived and built as individual royal tombs
In essence these first scattered pyramids along the Nile Valley were Osiris (i.e., his body cut into sixteen parts), just as the ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts and Plutarch’s Myth of Osiris inform us. As such it should be of little surprise then to find that when plotting the individual locations of the first, giant pyramids onto a map of Egypt, what we find is a crude “matchstick” outline drawing of the classic Osiris figurine (see figures 2.7a–e), complete with the royal regalia of the distinctive three-pronged Atef Crown of Osiris and symbols of power, the crook and flail.
These images demonstrate the locations of the pyramids listed below with the name of the king Egyptologists believe constructed each pyramid (its location in parentheses), and which were constructed on the high plateaus along the lush green Nile Valley (Osiris is often painted with a green body depicting vegetation and rebirth) and are believed by Egyptologists to have been completed in the following order of construction.
Djoser (Saqqara)
Sekhemkhet (Saqqara, unfinished)
Khaba (Zawiyet al-Aryan, unfinished)
Sneferu (Meidum, farthest south)
Sneferu (Dahshur, the Bent Pyramid)
Sneferu (Dahshur, the Red Pyramid)
Khufu (Giza, with four satellite pyramids)
Djedefre (Abu Roash, farthest north)
Khafre (Giza, with one satellite pyramid)
Nebka (Zawiyet al-Aryan, unfinished)
Menkaure (Giza, with three satellite pyramids)
Figure 2.7a. The first pyramids outline the god Osiris.
Figure 2.7b. Locations of the first 19 pyramids built by the ancient Egyptians along the Nile Valley (inludes 3 unfinished pyramids).
Figure 2.7c. The most northern pyramids correlate with the Atef Crown of Osiris.
Figure 2.7d. The middle pyramids correlate with the torso and the flail and crook of Osiris.
Figure 2.7e. The southern pyramids correlate with the lower limbs of Osiris.
Thus in Dynasties Three and Four we have a grand total of nineteen pyramids, three of which were never finished, giving a total of sixteen completed pyramids. Which brings us back to this possibility: Could the sixteen dismembered parts of the body of Osiris related to us in Plutarch’s Myth of Osiris actually have been an allegorical reference to the first sixteen pyramids that were completed by the ancient Egyptians? And, as suggested earlier in this chapter, could there perhaps be a secret seventeenth part of this body of Osiris yet to be discovered, the part that Isis could not find?
With each pyramid within the body of Osiris serving as an ark (securing seed such as wheat and barley and other vital recovery items), it is unsurprising to find that in later dynasties during the Festival of Khoiak small effigies of Osiris known as corn mummies would be created and packed full with grain and buried in the ground under a mound of earth or a large rock—the body of Osiris packed full with grain just like the pyramid body of Osiris had once been. (This idea will be discussed in greater detail in chapter 9.)
As I gazed from the desert road along the diagonal of the pyramids, their appearance from this spot as a single giant body (of Osiris) made complete sense to me, and it also made sense of the religious festivals that had arisen in later dynasties in the name of this ancient Egyptian god. Looking back toward these magnificent structures that had now seemingly morphed into a single, giant body, it almost seemed as though my hunch that these individual pyramids collectively represented the (dismembered) body of Osiris was being vindicated. It rather seemed to me that the conventional idea that these structures had been conceived and built as individual royal tombs
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