“The ancient Egyptians ... recognized four races of men. They themselves belonged to the ‘Rot’ or red men; the yellow men they called ‘Namu’—it included the Asiatic races; the black men were called ‘Nahsu,’ and the white men ‘Tam-hu.’ The following figures (fig. [61]) are copied from Nott and Gliddon's [pg 374] ‘Types of Mankind,’ p. 85, and were taken by them from the great works of Belzoni, Champollion and Lepsius” (Donelly, Atlantis, p. 195).
Pursuing our investigations of the territorial divisions of Egypt, we learn, from Mr. Wallis Budge, that collectively there were 42 nomes in Upper and Lower Egypt. This number is identical with that of the 42 gods represented in the Book of the Dead as being with Osiris in the hall of Two Truths where the dead were judged. The 42 “judges of the dead” are represented as seated figures, with human or animal heads, and are equally divided into two groups. From the “negative confession” which the deceased makes to his judges, we learn that each god was identified with a locality, some amongst them being addressed as “coming out from” such important cities as Heliopolis, Sais, Bubastis, etc. The inference I venture to make is that these 42 judges were the gods of the 42 nomes who, with Osiris, the chief god and the “President,” formed the council of gods, which judged and ordered the affairs of men.
Figure 61. The Races Of Men According To The Egyptians.
It is moreover natural to suppose that terrestrial administrations of justice must also have been executed by a supreme council of men, composed of the king, the living image of Osiris, and the chiefs of the 42 nomes of Upper and Lower Egypt, who personified, [pg 375] as elsewhere, the totemic divinity of tribe or district. Postponing further discussion of the number 42, associated with nomes and gods, let us examine further data concerning the territorial organization of ancient Egypt.
Dr. Wallis Budge tells us that, “during the rule of the Greeks (B.C. 342-332), Egypt was divided into three parts: Upper, Central and Lower Egypt. Central Egypt consisted of seven nomes, and was called Heptanomis” (Nile, p. 28). The seven-storied pyramid of Sâkkarah and the employment of the signs expressing “three regions” and “four regions or lands,” to signify the whole land or universe, prove that, long before Greek rule, the ancient Egyptians, like the Babylonians, employed the heptameredal system. Thus, according to Herodotus, “There are seven classes of Egyptians, and of these some are called priests, others warriors, others herdsmen, others swineherds, others tradesmen, others interpreters and lastly pilots; such are the classes of Egyptians; they take their names from the employments they exercise” (Euterpe ii, 164). Passages from Prof. Flinders Petrie's History of Egypt (Vol. ii, pp. 156 and 185) afford, moreover, instances of the conquest of a heptarchic government by an Egyptian king and the employment, in about B.C. 1500, of the number seven, as a mystic or sacred number, in a letter from a Syrian prince to the Egyptian king.
In the record of the triumphal return of Aa-kheperu-ra, the seventh king of the eighteenth dynasty (B.C. 1449-1423), it is said: “His Majesty returned in joy of heart to his father Amen; his own hand, with his mace, had struck down the seven chiefs, which were of the territory of Pakhsi (near Aleppo)”.... “Six of these enemies were hanged in front of the walls of Thebes; the seventh [probably the chief of chiefs], was brought to Nubin and was hanged on the wall of the town of Napata, to show forth for all time the victories of the king among all people of the negro land, inasmuch as he had taken possession of the nations of the south and he had bound the nations of the north and the ends of the whole extent of the earth on which the sun rises and sets, without finding any opposition, according to the command of his father Amen-ra of Thebes.” A letter from a Syrian prince to Amenhotep III (B.C. 1414-1379), opens thus: “To the king, my master, my god, my sun, this is said: Yatibiri, the servant, [pg 376] the dust of thy feet, at the feet of my king, my master, my god, my sun, seven times, and seven times more, I fall down.[109]”...
While the above data suffice to establish that more than a thousand years before Greek rule was established in Egypt its inhabitants were familiar with the seven-fold scheme of organization, the following extremely interesting portion of Brugsch's monumental work, already cited, indirectly teaches much concerning the divisions of the land of Egypt. The ancient Egyptian astronomers regarded the nocturnal heaven as the exact counterpart of the land of Egypt (i, p. 176). In the inscriptions, the firmament is frequently considered geographically, as a region comprising countries surrounded by seas and traversed by rivers and canals, and covered with cities and houses and divided into nomes which corresponded to those of Egypt, excepting in point of number, there being thirty-six celestial nomes. According to the inscriptions and pictures in the royal tombs at Thebes, there was a celestial eastern sea (uat-ura abti), a western sea (uat-ura amentti) and a northern sea (uat-ura mahtet or mehtat). Special mention is made of “the waters” and land of the “northern place of light above the constellation of the Great Bear.”
The lands of Punet (Punt?), Uthenet, Kenemti and Sa-nutart-mahti, “the northern land of God” are designated, beside other names which correspond to the terrestrial geographical situation of outlying foreign countries known to the Egyptians. There was a celestial city, “Anu or On,” whose eastern and western sides or places of light are frequently mentioned. The mention of a single Anu or On, names which are found applied to the most ancient capitals of the land of Egypt, is particularly noteworthy. It will be shown further on, upon Sir Norman Lockyer's authority, that, in the exact centre of the circular zodiac at Denderah, the jackal, expressing the name Anubis, “is located at the pole of the equator and obviously represents the present Little Bear.” This and other data establish beyond a doubt that the celestial Anu, On or No, was supposed to be situated in Polaris and that the terrestrial capital was intended to be the counterpart of the apparent seat of central rule and government according to fixed laws and order of rotation. The idea that, after death, the human soul lived again in the celestial sphere is shown in the following address to a departed [pg 377] spirit contained in the Bulak papyrus cited by Brugsch: “The images of the gods of the Southern and Northern countries appear to thee in the thirty-six nomes; thou goest where they are as a perfect soul, thou doest what pleases thee in the heaven, thou art amongst the constellations of the thirty-six Beka.”