The Pyramid Texts



Lavish and colorful reliefs embellished the walls of the pyramid temples and the causeway, but within the pyramid itself the burial chamber of every king, with the exception of Djoser, had remained unadorned.

King Unas, the last king of the Fifth Dynasty, changed all that.

The burial chamber of King Unas(2375-2345 BC)
the walls inscribed with the first ever 'Pyramid Texts'
the oldest religious literature in the world.

Erecting his pyramid at Saqqara, directly adjacent to the Step Pyramid complex of Djoser, he followed his neighbor by decorating his internal chambers, but in an entirely new way.

Around his black basalt sarcophagus, evocative of the fertile earth, he placed white alabaster slabs incised and painted to resemble the matting of a divine purification tent, open to a sky in the form of a gabled ceiling decorated with golden stars against a field of deep blue. Intricately carved all around this were the words of the oldest religious literature in the world.

Called the Pyramid Texts, they are spells and ritual utterances drawn from a body of sacred knowledge, some immeasurably old and others newly invented.

Some are spells to keep away danger, to protect the king from noxious snakes and insects; others are tabulations of the food, drink and clothing required for eternity.

In the Pyramid Texts�and sacred literature referred to as 'books' (writings executed on papyri or tomb walls, etc.) the Eye of Horus plays a prominent role. �The writings engraved onto the walls of the pyramids of Unas and Pepi I are replete with references to the power and importance of this force. �

Some are hymns to the gods and litanies of their sacred names. But others, complete with instructions for words to be spoken or ritual actions to be performed, must have been incantations recited at the king's funeral and during the daily ritual in the pyramid temple.

Together they chart the journey of Unas into the afterlife, free from misdeed, able to fly past all obstacles to the sky, where his homecoming is celebrated by the gods among whom he thrives for all eternity.

The arrangement of the spells within the pyramid chambers has long been a puzzle. Some scholars think it might reflect the order of the funeral ritual performed over the body of Unas, but a new interpretation suggests that Unas arranged his spells for him to read himself.

As added insurance in case the ritual cycle in the pyramid temples should break down, Unas, rising from his sarcophagus, and moving with the spells out to the east toward the sun rise, could transform himself into an effective and immortal spirit.

The kings who followed also made use of this body of texts, sometime choosing spells and creating new ones. In all, over 700 different spells are known and no two pyramids contain the same selection.

Over the centuries these spells were adapted to changing conceptions and modified to serve the needs of a wider audience.

Eventually, inscribed on a papyrus roll and called 'The Spells for Going Forth by Day' or today the Book of the Dead, they would become a potent guide for negotiating the afterlife and attaining resurrection for anyone who could afford a copy.


"Let the Eye of Horus come forth from the god and shine outside his mouth."

"...the Eye of Horus hath made me holy...I will hide myself among you, O ye stars which are imperishable. My brow is the brow of Ra."

"Come, the Eye of Horus hath delivered for me my soul, my ornaments are established on�the brow of Ra. Light is on the faces�of those who are in the members of Osiris."

"That which has been shut fast [i.e. the dead] hath been opened by the command of the Eye of Horus, which hath delivered me. Established are the beauties of the forehead of Ra."

"Perfect is the Eye of Horus. I have delivered the Eye of Horus, the shining one, the ornament of the Eye of Ra, the Father of the Gods."

"I shall see the Gods and the Eye of Horus burning with fire before my eyes."

"Behold [the fire] risith in Abydos and it cometh; I cause it to come, the Eye of Horus. It is set in order upon thy brow, O Osiris Khenti-Amenti; it is set in the shrine and riseth on thy brow."


THE PYRAMID TEXTS

By Clesson H. Harvey

On the desert plateau of Saqqara 10 miles Southeast of the Great Pyramid, a special set of five very similar pyramids has stood for some forty-two centuries. They are filled with over four thousand columns of hieroglyphs, cut into their solid rock walls. These 'Pyramid Texts' suddenly appear - and for the most part in just the 5th Dynasty pyramid of King Un-is and the 6th Dynasty pyramids of Teti, Pepi I, Mer-en-r'a and Pepi II.

The writings in all five pyramids are clearly distributed in four matching instruction locations corresponding to the Great Pyramid Entrance Passage, Queen's Chamber, Grand Gallery and King's Chamber. The five Kings evidently wanted to have a kind of stenographic record of the words which must have been said countless times in each Great Pyramid location while facing in different directions.

Egyptologists are fond of saying that the Great Pyramid is mute, with no Hieroglyphs cut into its walls. But this is really not quite true. Every upper passage, chamber, gallery and shaft inside the Great Pyramid of Giza is an incredibly old, unmistakable, megalithic Hieroglyph for the words seba and rut for "Ensouling Star door" and "Tunnel Opening gate." They are unmistakably reproduced in the Pyramid Texts of Saqqara. Egyptologists should have told the world about these architectural hieroglyphs long ago. It might have removed much needless speculation about the Great Pyramid.

Egyptologists are also fond of imagining that they have already translated the Pyramid Texts, but this is not even remotely true. Already in the first third of the twentieth century, the great German scholar Kurt Sethe was deciding to dismiss the first 212 Utterances of the Pyramid Texts ostensibly because they were supposed to be just "largely ritual formulae." These mostly non-ritual texts covered more than the North walls of the Saqqara King's Chambers -- with the "Eye of Heru" being written out 80 times, where it had survived. In 1969, R. O. Faulkner published the last attempt to translate the Pyramid Texts. But Egyptologists still believe that these North wall writings of the Saqqara King's Chambers are just "offering rituals."

Egyptologists are also fond of imagining that they have already translated the Pyramid Texts, but this is not even remotely true. Already in the first third of the twentieth century, the great German scholar Kurt Sethe was deciding to dismiss the first 212 Utterances of the Pyramid Texts ostensibly because they were supposed to be just "largely ritual formulae." These mostly non-ritual texts covered more than the North walls of the Saqqara King's Chambers -- with the "Eye of Heru" being written out 80 times, where it had survived. In 1969, R. O. Faulkner published the last attempt to translate the Pyramid Texts. But Egyptologists still believe that these North wall writings of the Saqqara King's Chambers are just "offering rituals."

They are wrong on both counts. These texts are neither "offerings" nor largely "rituals." The "offering" idea hangs precariously on the supposed meaning of the imperative phrase Me-en-ek as "Take-to-yourself (the Eye of Heru)," when it could just as well mean an archaic "See for yourself (the Eye of Heru)" in which case there would be no offerings in the mostly non-ritual writings on the wall. The few ritual writings which are actually there are divided off to themselves by 390 separation lines, unmistakably sculpted in the solid rock. But Egyptologists have chosen to ignore them and have tarred all of these texts with the same ritual brush.

On the South walls of the Saqqara King's Chambers, Egyptologists think they see "resurrection ritual." But these texts are strictly non-ritual and do not contain any ritual separation lines. The word sedjeb for "restore (to life)" is a causative verb se-djeb (a) for "make clothed (with a body)" which any Hindu Sanskrit scholar would recognize as the verb "reincarnate."

We do not have to guess about the significance of these texts. They are self-explanatory. For example Utterance 302, out of a total of 700, begins (on the North wall in the Queen's Chamber) with the expression Djed medu for "Said (in the Queen's Chamber facing North) were the words:" --- "whenever the Sharp-pointed Star gleams (two palm-widths before the brow), it is because the Two Sets of Nine Spinal gods have purified in the Ursa Major Polestar, that Star which knows not sweeping. --- " But the Great Pyramid speaker is describing the Northern sky as it looked 26,000 years ago!

Egyptologists see only "protective spells" on the West wall of the Saqqara King's Chamber. But the verb to protect is nowhere to be found. Worse still, there are no actual spells. Some important details about seeing with the Eye can only be found on this wall. But these details have been lost to the world, because Egyptologists have not been able to conceive of the non-ritual Eye of Heru. All that they know about now is the ritual Eye as a ceremonial offering. The lost knowledge of the Star Opening of the Eye at two palm-widths is still accessible to the entire world on this West wall.

Not knowing about the non-ritual Eye of Heru has helped to blind Egyptologists to the unexpected presence of Calculus and Nuclear Chemistry within it, which we have only acquired in the last 333 years.

Buried in Gardiner's "Egyptian Grammar" is what may be described as a most probable translation method. Scattered about amidst many possible alternative approaches is a computer friendly translation technique which works well for the Saqqara Pyramid Texts, even when the context is unknown. But the Eye of Heru soon emerges automatically as the missing context and turns out to be an artificial basis of the Hieroglyphic language itself. This should not happen when a language evolves over thousands of years, but it has happened in the Great Pyramid Texts. Like the artificial Aymara language referred to on p.91 in "Fingerprints of the Gods," the Saqqara Pyramid Texts turn out to be, after 40 years of searching, programmable.

These texts also have a special usage of the usual 'narrative' sedjem en ef form of "he has heard" which no translator has thus far recognized and exploited. This grammatical construct influences the meaning of about half of these writings. As a result, Egyptologists have in effect been trying to translate them, armed only with 50% of the required grammar.

Oddly enough, the last three of the five Saqqara Kings (Pepi I, Mer-en-r'a and Pepi II) even tried to demonstrate this special usage in their pyramids. However Egyptologists have found these demonstrations incomprehensible, so that the important general usage of an understood 'eternal truth' (en) sedjem en ef form of "(it is because) he has heard" has been ignored in their 'translations.' Three remarkable Kings each went to the trouble of actually cutting the usually understood 'introductory conjunction' en (for "it is because") into the West wall of their King's Chamber at the start of Utterances 432 and 443.

This generalizing 'eternal truth' form has a profound effect on sentence structure in the Great Pyramid Texts which no present 'translation' can possibly reflect. The vocabulary word meanings in Gardiner's "Egyptian Grammar" have been for many years the most reliable ones in the entire language. But there are many important words in the Saqqara pyramids which are not completely understood. A large number of these words have meanings which are little more than educated guesses on the part of Egyptologists and the rest have completely unknown meanings.

The discovery by Champollion of the Hieroglyphic alphabet in 1822 has made it possible for Egyptologists to learn how to spell Hieroglyphic words. With few exceptions, the correct spelling of every word in the five Saqqara pyramids is now known with remarkable certainty. Gardiner's "Egyptian Grammar" also includes in its vocabulary the meanings of a few letters of the alphabet.

But the absence of any Hieroglyphic vowels makes such a search for alphabetical meaning difficult if not impossible. However the 24 consonantal letters of the pyramid alphabet are still Hieroglyphic pictures of actual objects which in some cases amount to alphabetical meanings. The alphabet in this sense can be said to have at least some meanings. But what about a word? Does its consonantal spelling contain any clues to its consonantal meaning? Orthodox Egyptology would say no.

But if the Hieroglyphic grammar of the Great Pyramid Texts if artificially programmed (and it is), then whoever programmed it would almost certainly have programmed the meanings of its words. There is much evidence in support of this. Gardiner's reliable vocabulary of word definitions can usually be used to test any such theory of programmed word meanings. there is no need to be discouraged by the educated nay opinions of Egyptologists.

The prize after all is nothing less than the complete decipherment of the Hieroglyphs. The most promising approach to completing the decipherment of words is the exploration of defining puns for them, using the 24 alphabetical meanings and pictographs combined with the artificially programmed grammar.

There is much more to this method than can be said here, but some of its results may help to show how it works. As has been said, the Hieroglyphic language is fundamentally connected with the Eye of Heru. This can be shown by the spelling of its prepositions. For example, the preposition khenet for "in front of" is defined by its spelling to be "the sphere of the Eye." And, the preposition kher for "near" is similarly defined to be "the sphere of the Star Opening."

The concepts of "being in front of" and "nearness" were both thought of as 'being two palm-widths before the brow' in visual consciousness. Sometimes the result can be a little amusing, as when heneqet for "beer" is defined by its spelling to be "the power for being high."

The Great Pyramid Texts should be translated programmably in both grammar and consistent word meanings. But they are now 'translated' according to the caprice of each individual Egyptologist and freely rewritten. Knowledge of a lost civilization has been needlessly lost to the world. As a simple example of the damaging effect of such abuses, the programmably translated punch line 116d at the end of the 'Grand Gallery' Utterance 200 'facing North' is "O Eye of Heru, you are higher and you are greater than the King." But Faulkner has "O Eye of Horus, be high and great on the King," where he thought the Eye of Horus was nothing but some incense.

If there is any truth to the existence of a lost civilization, the Great Pyramid Texts must have something to say about it, in all those four thousand columns of Hieroglyphs! The most secret doctrines of the Egyptians are openly explained with no recourse to "enigmatic writing" as actually happened much later in the New Kingdom for concealment. Egyptologists do not see any lost civilizations in their 'translations.' Their dictionaries do not contain any lost civilization words, even as a speculation.

But this is just because they cannot conceive of a non-ritual Eye of Heru evolving in humanity through primeval times paut. Our knowledge of Mathematics, Physics, History and the Hieroglyphs has progressed far enough to reveal unmistakable evidence for the existence of highly advanced lost civilizations. The Great Pyramid Texts deal with a strange island of visual consciousness which is initially Star-like called the Eye of Heru two palm-widths before the brow.

The same Star is referred to in the Kashmir Shaivism text, "Spanda Karikas" translated into English by Jaideva Singh in 1980, where it says on p.147, "From it, i.e. from 'Unmesa: Lit. Opening of the eye' which is being practised appear in a short time experience like the light of a star in the middle of the two eyebrows ..." The Pyramid Texts describe a loss of the Eye which happened during the lost civilizations of Easterners and Westerners. The Spiritual being who was the Chief, Khenet, of the Westerners (Imenetiu) was Osiris, Us-Ir.

Egyptologists have made some very bad educational guesses about the meaning of the word Duat as "Netherworld." They know perfectly well that there is nothing "nether" about the word nor is there any known connection with some kind of "world." Anyone who reads the Saqqara pyramid Hieroglyphs knows that they are mostly about the grammatically feminine Eye Iret of Heru. As a result, such readers know that any anonymous feminine pronoun s probably refers to this feminine Eye. For the same reason, they know that any functional noun with an otherwise anonymous feminine tending also refers to the Eye. These anonymous feminine gender rules are really never broken in these texts. The word Duat is not likely to be any exception. Dua means "dawning" and when the t ending is added, Duat should mean "the dawning Eye." The Duat is then anything which is seen in the Eye of Heru, no matter what world it happens to be in.

Egyptologists no longer even try to translate the ancient word Us-Ir, because they think that it has undergone too many changes in the course of time. Perhaps it has... after the Old Kingdom. But in the Great Pyramid Texts, the word can be translated. It is always sculpted in exactly the same way thousands of times in all five Saqqara pyramids. The five Saqqara Kings evidently did not wish there to be any doubt about it. In these texts, the word Us is interchangeable with Set for "Activity or Activator" and the word Ir is interchangeable with Iret for "the Eye." As a result, the discarnated entity Us-Ir was the supreme "Activator of the Eye" for the lost civilizations of Easterners iabetiu and Westerners imenetiu.

On p.88 in 'Heaven's Mirror', some of the illustrated texts on the second shrine of Tutankhamen are reproduced. The two groups of figures have large wonderfully clear Hieroglyphic texts of explanation in front of them which Piankoff does not translate. But he does provide a translation of the smaller 'enigmatic inscriptions' above the sets of six figures, "(These gods are like this ...)" and continuing below the Ascending Cobra's triple fire striking the brow of the first figure "when the Star of the Soul comes." In front of the second figure where the triple fire from the Star is striking the brow, the explanation is still "when the Star of the Soul comes." The Star is shown coming to the same person in six different levels of 'Chakra' experience in the spinal serpent which was also shown in the complete illustration.

The next group of six figures has a similar meaning with six identical texts again written in front of each figure. (These gods are like this ...) "when the Star of R'a comes" (in six different ways). The same six levels are described in the Great Pyramid Texts on the South wall of the King's Chambers. The rest of these Tutankhamen sets of six gods indicate that while visual concentration on the Seba Star of the Great Pyramid darkness is everything, the automatic power of breathing through the mouth is also involved in opening the Eye of Heru.

Throughout these texts, Egyptologists have never understood that the astronomical Stars were always being used as precise metaphors for fundamental Spiritual Stars in consciousness which are clearly defined in the known meanings of their names. The same thing is true of the physical Sky as an excellent metaphor for a Heavenly Sky or Spiritual Blue Void.

Egyptologists have a bad habit of transforming any direct spiritual instruction into an impossible command to a Candidate King. In three Queen's Chambers facing West, the programmably translated words of line 904c were said: "Your Soul is like a living Star standing out from its brothers."

The Saqqara Pyramid Texts are filled with advanced knowledge about the Tunnel of Near Death Experiences, which only just began to be rediscovered scientifically in the 20th century


"The Pyramid Texts were a collection of Egyptian mortuary prayers, hymns, and spells intended to protect a dead king or queen and ensure life and sustenance in the hereafter. The texts, inscribed on the walls of the inner chambers of the pyramids [from c. 2686-c. 2160 BC]., are found at Saqqarah in several 5th- and 6th-dynasty pyramids, of which that of Unas, last king of the 5th dynasty, is the earliest known. The texts constitute the oldest surviving body of Egyptian religious and funerary writings available to modern scholars."

"In the so-called Pyramid Texts (c. 2400 BC), the dead pharaoh seeks to fly up to heaven and join the sun-god Re on his unceasing journey across the sky, incorporated, thus, in a mode of existence beyond change and decay. A passage in the later Book of the Dead (1200 BC) represents the deceased, who has been ritually identified with Osiris, declaring that he comprehends the whole range of time in himself, thus asserting his superiority to it."

- Encyclopaedia Britannica


"The Pyramid Texts describe the ascent of the departed king to the sky. He joins Orion (Osiris), and Sirius is his guide. They continue together as participants in the cosmic cycle. A similar wish is expressed in other texts. The spirits of the dead hope to join the never-setting, never-dying, circumpolar stars. These two possible transfigurations, in which the dead pharaoh joins Osiris or the Circumpolar stars, may explain the orientation of the so-called air shafts from the King's Chamber in the Great Pyramid. They may be ramps by which the dead king makes his way to heaven."

- E. C. Krupp, "Astronomers, Pyramids and Priests" in In Search of AncientAstronomies


They are the oldest known Egyptian religious texts, the so-called Pyramid-Texts, are found in the burial chambers of the royal pyramids of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties.

Consisting of long vertical columns of hieroglyphs engraved into the stone walls, these inscriptions have the central purpose of facilitating the king's ascension into the heavens and his return to the side of his father, the Supreme God, where he will live eternally in the form of a pure and luminous spirit (akh).

The One, the Eternal, can be defined only through his countless qualities, which alone are nameable this same understanding is also found in Neoplatonism, Sufism, Tantra, Kabbalah, and elsewhere.� These names then represent the active functional principles, the Neterw, cosmic or vital powers which find expression as the genesis of the world unfolds.

- Lucy Lamy, 'Egyptian Mysteries'



Religious practices were also linked to the stars systems - constellations - the sun - the moon and the planets - which in turn guided their mythologies.

The calendar system of ancient Egypt is unique to both the cosmology of the Egyptians and their religion. Unlike the modern Julian calendar system, with it's 365 days to a year, the Egyptians followed a calendar system of 360 days, with three seasons, each made up of 4 months, with thirty days in each month. The seasons of the Egyptians corresponded with the cycles of the Nile, and were known as Inundation (pronounced akhet which lasted from June 21st to October 21st), Emergence (pronounced proyet which lasted from October 21st to February 21st), and Summer (pronounced shomu which lasted from February 21st to June 21st).

The beginning of the year, also called 'the opening of the year', was marked by the emergence of the star Sirius, in the constellation of Canis Major. The constellation emerged roughly on June 21st., and was called "the going up of the goddess Sothis". The star was visible just before sunrise, and is still one of the brightest stars in the sky, located to the lower left of Orion and taking the form of the dogs nose in the constellation Canis Major.













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