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The Serer (West Africa) and Ancient Egyptians


Abramelin

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47 minutes ago, Abramelin said:

But there must have been architects or whoever to draw the actual ground plan (?) on paper/papyrus?

Like this:

 

 

593px-Temple_Layout.jpg

Certainly they would have had architects, but it is not known who they were or even what titles they used, and note the controversy over Imhotep. A problem for us is that because the king was the only priest, meaning that only he could communicate with the gods, only the king is mentioned when it comes to who built a temple or who was the prime officiant at ceremonies. We can get into a trap by transposing our large and convoluted religious institutions onto the AE, for, in the case of Catholicism, the Pope is the Ponifex Maximus, the chief bridge to God, he is simply the first amongst many, as all those ordained can communicate with God, and in fact all believers can have their own conversation with God. For the AE everything, absolutely everything, was centered on the king. The "people", the rekhyt had no "personal god" in the way that we can, all they could do was go through an intermediary, the "ears" on temple walls or oracles, who themselves were, as the entire priesthood, simply stand-ins for the king who could not be everywhere at all times. The High Priest of Osiris, the Greatest of Seers, the First Prophet of Amun and all the other HP, technically had no greater ability to commune with any god than the rekhyt. Look at temple walls, and while you see priests, they are never named because they are simply servants of the real priest, the king, omnipresent at all ceremonies, either in person or by proxy, but you never ever see any rank of priest depicted as officiating in the place of the king, which they actually did of course, and only the king is depicted.

Apologies for that nerdlinger stuff, but it's important to understand, otherwise, as I say, we can fall into a trap and see their priests and institutions as being the same as ours. You could perhaps sum it up as saying, The King is Egypt, Egypt is the King, nothing or no one else matters one iota, hence speculation on why Imhotep is mentioned alongside his king in a manner that is unique in it's context.

Edited by Wepwawet
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9 hours ago, Wepwawet said:

Certainly they would have had architects, but it is not known who they were or even what titles they used, and note the controversy over Imhotep.

Another would be Hemiunu also credited as "Khufu's architect" and "builder/architect of the Great Pyramid" because of one of his titles "Overseer of all the royal construction projects" yet there is no evidence to support this either nor is there that this is even what this title meant. 

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On 12/13/2021 at 9:14 PM, Wepwawet said:

Certainly they would have had architects, but it is not known who they were or even what titles they used, and note the controversy over Imhotep. A problem for us is that because the king was the only priest, meaning that only he could communicate with the gods, only the king is mentioned when it comes to who built a temple or who was the prime officiant at ceremonies. We can get into a trap by transposing our large and convoluted religious institutions onto the AE, for, in the case of Catholicism, the Pope is the Ponifex Maximus, the chief bridge to God, he is simply the first amongst many, as all those ordained can communicate with God, and in fact all believers can have their own conversation with God. For the AE everything, absolutely everything, was centered on the king. The "people", the rekhyt had no "personal god" in the way that we can, all they could do was go through an intermediary, the "ears" on temple walls or oracles, who themselves were, as the entire priesthood, simply stand-ins for the king who could not be everywhere at all times. The High Priest of Osiris, the Greatest of Seers, the First Prophet of Amun and all the other HP, technically had no greater ability to commune with any god than the rekhyt. Look at temple walls, and while you see priests, they are never named because they are simply servants of the real priest, the king, omnipresent at all ceremonies, either in person or by proxy, but you never ever see any rank of priest depicted as officiating in the place of the king, which they actually did of course, and only the king is depicted.

Apologies for that nerdlinger stuff, but it's important to understand, otherwise, as I say, we can fall into a trap and see their priests and institutions as being the same as ours. You could perhaps sum it up as saying, The King is Egypt, Egypt is the King, nothing or no one else matters one iota, hence speculation on why Imhotep is mentioned alongside his king in a manner that is unique in it's context.

The role of the king/pharaoh versus the role of the priests seems to have been somewhat different in the far south for a period of time:

 

"The Egyptian pharaoh Psammetichus II in 591 organized a campaign in the Meroitic kingdom and took Napata. During the period of Persian domination in Egypt, Meroe lost its northern territories up to the 3rd threshold, but the Persians' attempt to conquer the Meroite kingdom failed.

"The Meroe pantheon almost completely corresponded to the Egyptian. The reigning deity was Amon, whose priests were more powerful than the king himself. They sanctioned the election of a new king and set the length of his life.

In the 3rd century. BC. King Arkamani destroyed the priests of the Meroite temple of Amun and stopped this custom."

https://vit-vladimir.ru/en/piramidy-meroe-sudan-meroitskaya-civilizaciya-progulka-po/

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1 hour ago, Abramelin said:

The role of the king/pharaoh versus the role of the priests seems to have been somewhat different in the far south for a period of time:

 

"The Egyptian pharaoh Psammetichus II in 591 organized a campaign in the Meroitic kingdom and took Napata. During the period of Persian domination in Egypt, Meroe lost its northern territories up to the 3rd threshold, but the Persians' attempt to conquer the Meroite kingdom failed.

"The Meroe pantheon almost completely corresponded to the Egyptian. The reigning deity was Amon, whose priests were more powerful than the king himself. They sanctioned the election of a new king and set the length of his life.

In the 3rd century. BC. King Arkamani destroyed the priests of the Meroite temple of Amun and stopped this custom."

https://vit-vladimir.ru/en/piramidy-meroe-sudan-meroitskaya-civilizaciya-progulka-po/

In the theological world the Egyptians inhabited, nothing changed as regards the king being the only person who could carry out the functions of a priest, in being that only they could make offerings directly to a god and act as interlocutor between the gods and the people. The reality though was that as the king could not be in every temple at sunrise every day to wash and clothe the statues of all the gods, or make offerings in every temple every day, what we, for convenience, call priests, acted on his behalf. Though as I mentioned previously, they never acted in their own right, or had themselves depicted acting in their own right, and only the king was shown in all temples as the only officiant in direct contact with the god. What happened at the collapse of the New Kingdom was that Ramesses XI had lost control of Upper Egypt to the HP of Amun, Herihor, who proclaimed himself to be king, partly. It might seem like splitting hairs, but while Herihor's actions were rebellion, in his mind nothing in theological terms had changed. He had been HP and had acted on behalf of the king, but now he was the king, he could be, for the first time, an, in our terms, real priest.

What muddies the waters is that as the position of HP of Amun was hereditary, then when Herihor, or any of his sucessors, or predecessors as the timelines are not fully understood, became king, their son then became HP, and then king when their father died, and their son then became HP. It's a complication, but it does not alter the status of only the king being the only priest as they were never king and HP at the same time, though there is some murkiness with Herihor, perhaps caused by him not being bold enough to make a clean break with Ramesses XI until that king died and dissapeared, and the Third Intermediate Period began.

What happened in the Kingdom of Meroe is not "canon" for Ancient Egypt, they were imitators, not the same.

Edited by Wepwawet
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Uhmm... @Wepwawet

I think you appear to miss the point I was trying to make.

This 'far south' in my former post happens to be Nubian territory.

The territory Diop (I think) claims the Serer came from.

 

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6 minutes ago, Abramelin said:

Uhmm... @Wepwawet

I think you appear to miss the point I was trying to make.

This 'far south' in my former post happens to be Nubian territory.

The territory Diop (I think) claims the Serer came from.

 

Yes, I realised that and made an edit, the new last line of that post. Meroe is not Ancient Egypt, which by then was about to become Ptolemaic Egypt anyway, with a Macedonian king in Alexandria now the only priest, vide the scenes on various Ptolemaic temples, particulalry Edfu.

Edited by Wepwawet
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21 minutes ago, Wepwawet said:

Yes, I realised that and made an edit, the new last line of that post. Meroe is not Ancient Egypt, which by then was about to become Ptolemaic Egypt anyway, with a Macedonian king in Alexandria now the only priest, vide the scenes on various Ptolemaic temples, particulalry Edfu.

Wasn't Meroe/Nubia/Kush once part of AE?

 

Btw., the Serer appear to have buried their dead in pyramid shaped tombs (but I couldn't find any online image) :

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serer_religion

Quote:

"The dead, especially those from the upper echelons of society, were mummified in order to prepare them for the afterlife (Jaaniiw). They were accompanied by grave goods including gold, silver, metal, their armour and other personal objects. Mummification is less common now, especially post-independence.[39][29][40][41] The dead were buried in a pyramid shaped tomb.[29][42] "

 

That quote made me think of the many hundreds of small pyramidal shaped tombs of Meroë:

Sudan_Meroe_Pyramids_2001.JPG

Edited by Abramelin
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16 minutes ago, Abramelin said:

Wasn't Meroe/Nubia/Kush once part of AE?

 

Btw., the Serer appear to have buried their dead in pyramid shaped tombs (but I couldn't find any online image) :

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serer_religion

Quote:

"The dead, especially those from the upper echelons of society, were mummified in order to prepare them for the afterlife (Jaaniiw). They were accompanied by grave goods including gold, silver, metal, their armour and other personal objects. Mummification is less common now, especially post-independence.[39][29][40][41] The dead were buried in a pyramid shaped tomb.[29][42] "

Nubia, as a general term, had of course been ruled by the Egyptians for a long time, but they were always subservient and never informed Egyptian civilization. Their only impact in any form was when Egypt was old and becoming decrepid they invaded and formed the 25th Dynasty, which lasted short of 100 hundred years before being overthrown. It should be noted that the Nubians were not welcome in Egypt and in the 26th Dynasty the monuments of the Nubians were subjected to a memoria damnatio. This dislike continues to this day in modern Egypt, with Sadat and recently deceased Field Marshall Tantawi being rare exceptions of Nubians in power.

Edited by Wepwawet
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49 minutes ago, Wepwawet said:

It should be noted that the Nubians were not welcome in Egypt and in the 26th Dynasty the monuments of the Nubians were subjected to a memoria damnatio. This dislike continues to this day in modern Egypt, with Sadat and recently deceased Field Marshall Tantawi being rare exceptions of Nubians in power.

 

That could have been the reason these Nubians/Meroites/Kushites fled.

And, just a btw, have you noticed that one of the deified architects of Ancient Egypt was a black hombre?

Amenhotep, son of Hapu:

Amenhotep_son_of_Hapu.jpg

20211219_223817.jpg

Edited by Abramelin
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23 minutes ago, Abramelin said:

 

That could have been the reason these Nubians/Meroites/Kushites fled.

And, just a btw, have you noticed that one of the deified architects of Ancient Egypt was a black hombre?

Amenhotep, son of Hapu:

Amenhotep_son_of_Hapu.jpg

Very contentious subject trying to attribute race to an AE statue, and a subject I tend to steer clear of these days as it is so fractious, but I'll make a few comments. Folks will see what they want to see, and there is an element in the statues of presenting a specific face for a specific audience. His master's wife was Queen Tiye, whose bust found at Soleb shows Nubian features, a fact used by those who want her to be a Nubian. Problem is that the very well preserved face of her mummy is not like that of the bust, and shows her "West Eurasian" ancestry. Soleb is in Nubia, and it is thought that her features were altered on the bust to suit those who would see it. The face of Amunhotep III on statues at times has him looking Nubian, and even Oriental, though his DNA shows his ancestors certainly as "West Eurasians", with one strand probably from central or western Europe. We don't have the mummy of Amunhotep son of Hapu, so no DNA, but to my eye he does not look Nubian, unlike statues of the 25th Dynasty rulers who we know were Nubian and were portrayed as unequivocally Nubian, unlike Amunhotep son of Hapu.

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