THE NEW EGYPTOLOGY AND THE THEOSOPHICAL RECORDS: by Charles J. Ryan
THE interesting problem of the origin of Egyptian culture is still unsolved by archaeologists, though many new facts have been recently discovered which seem to be leading to something definite. Nestor L'Hôte said sixty years ago:
The further one penetrates into antiquity towards the origins of Egyptian art, the more perfect are the products of that art, as though the genius of the people, inversely to that of others, was formed suddenly.... Egyptian art we only know in its decadence.
M. Jean Capart, the eminent Belgian Egyptologist, Keeper of the Egyptian Antiquities at the Royal Museum, Brussels, supports that opinion, saying, in his recent work on Primitive Art in Egypt, that M. L'Hôte's conclusion was and remains legitimate.
Since L'Hôte's time fine works of art and astonishing beauty have been found in tombs of the Third Dynasty of Egyptian Pharaohs, about whom nothing—or next to nothing—was known until lately; even the Fourth Dynasty, the so-called Pyramid Builders, being historically very obscure, no agreement as to their date having been come to yet. It is fairly decided that they lived more than four or five thousands years b. c. Maspero, speaking of some paintings of the extremely ancient Third Dynasty, says:
The Egyptians were animal painters of the highest power, and they never gave better proof of it than in this picture. No modern painter could have seized with more spirit and humor the heavy gait of the goose, the curves of its neck, the pretentious carriage of its head, and the markings of its plumage.
The human figure was also represented with great artistic skill at the same early period. Even then the characteristic full-faced eye in the profile face was a firmly established convention. We do not know the reasons for this, but it cannot have been accidental.
According to Dr. Petrie, the great Egyptian explorer, the commencement of the Egyptian civilization that we call classical, the Egypt of the Pharaohs with its hieroglyphs, its established style of art, its complicated religion and philosophy, dates back to not less than b. c. 5000. This would be the time of the First Dynasty. Think what that means! A stretch of splendid civilization before the beginning of the Christian era about five times as long as the period that has elapsed since the time of King Alfred to this day, a period which has included almost or quite all that we look upon as worthy of consideration in our history! And yet back of Dr. Petrie's First Dynastic age we now find ourselves face to face with a prehistoric Egyptian civilization or civilizations of absolutely unknown age, possibly of a hundred thousand years duration. The one that immediately preceded the Dynastic or Pharaonic is supposed to be of Libyan origin.
The possibility at least of a civilization of a hundred thousand years' duration should offer little difficulty even to the most critical, now that we have found a well-formed skull and skeleton near London differing very little from the modern type of Englishman, and estimated to be at least 170,000 years old. Long ago H. P. Blavatsky said in The Secret Doctrine and elsewhere that some form of Egyptian civilization had existed for an immensely longer period than the archaeologists imagine, and Katherine Tingley has reasserted this most emphatically, saying that Egyptian civilization will be proved to be even older than the (historic) Indian.
Archaeologists have always felt a great and peculiar difficulty in comprehending the sudden appearance of the high culture of the first Dynastic periods. It is impossible to believe that Egypt's greatness arose full-fledged, without long preparation, and yet where are the evidences of development? M. Jean Capart, the Belgian authority referred to above, has devoted great attention to this problem, and his conclusions are of interest to the student of Theosophy. He considers it exceedingly probable that gradual invasions or colonizations of a highly cultured race broke into the simpler Egyptian civilization from the South or South-east. These people, coming from the "Land of the Gods," Punt, which is commonly supposed to be Somaliland, he thinks came originally from some Asiatic country, bringing with them their arts and sciences and religion. As they blended with the Libyan inhabitants of Egypt, who possessed their own distinctive civilization, they established their already formed culture, and the combination produced what we call the Dynastic or classic Egyptian civilization. This would explain the origin of the classic Egyptian forms on reasonable grounds, and furthermore would make it clear why the Egyptians had so many things in common with the Hindûs in matters of religion, such as the respect paid to the Cow as a symbol of Divine Power.
HALL OF COLUMNS, KARNAK, EGYPT
Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.
SYMBOLIC STATUE OF HORUS, SON OF OSIRIS AND ISIS
IN THE ACT OF PURIFYING A KING
MUSÉE NATIONAL DU LOUVRE, PARIS
H. P. Blavatsky, in Isis Unveiled, quotes the following from the ancient Hindû historian, Kullûka-Bhatta:
Under the reign of Viśvâ-mitra, first king of the Dynasty of Soma-Vanga, in consequence of a battle which lasted five days, Manu-Vina, heir of the ancient kings, being abandoned by the Brâhmans, emigrated with all his companions, passing through Ârya, and the countries of Barria, till he came to the shores of Masra. (Vol. I, p. 627)
She adds:
Ârya is Eran (Persia); Barria is Arabia, and Masra was the name of Cairo, which to this day is called Masr, Musr, and Misro. (Ibid.)
Mitsraîm was the Hebrew name for the land of Cham, Egypt.
Dr. E. A. W. Budge, the learned Keeper of the Egyptian and Assyrian antiquities in the British Museum, says he believes that a series of carvings on the walls of the Temple of Edfû,
represent the invaders in prehistoric times, who made their way into Egypt, from a country in the East, by way of the Red Sea.... In later times the indigenous priesthoods merged the legendary history of the deified king of the "Blacksmiths" is that of Horus, the god of heaven in the earliest times, and in that of Râ which belonged to a later period.
The mythical story of Horus conquering Nubia and Egypt, with which Dr. Budge thinks the true story of incursion was blended, contains the significant assertions that the warriors of Horus, the "Blacksmiths," were armed with weapons of metal, and chains, and were expert builders.
According to the Theosophical records the Great Pyramid was built long before the fifth millennium b. c. There are many mysteries connected with that most stupendous work of man which have not yet been suspected by the Egyptologists, not the least of which is the problem of its date and its builder; but, so far as they go, the stories of Horus' invasion and M. Capart's luminous suggestions as to the origin of the Dynastic Egyptian civilization, are not inconsistent with the account of Kullûka-Bhatta; and in the light of the new discoveries of one or more prehistoric civilizations in the Nile Valley, it looks as if the teachings of Theosophy were being vindicated in a way that was not dreamed of by archaeologists in the days when H. P. Blavatsky opened a small window into the mysterious past of glorious Egypt.