A remarkable instance of a king in a pyramid being actually worshipped and bearing the name of Ptah, added to his own, is given by Professor Flinders Petrie (op. cit. ii, p. 257). “... The figure of the king Teta, entitled Teta-mer-en-ptah, is placed in a triangle, which is suggestive of a pyramid (as Men-nefer is written with the same triangle on this naos). Rather than suppose a new king at this period, we should see in this the worship of a pyramid king, Teta, of the sixth dynasty....” The association of Ptah, who is regarded as perhaps the oldest of all gods of Egypt, with the square=ptah and the pyramid and the mummy, is of extreme interest, especially as Egyptian texts contain references to “a single god, who becomes a quaternary of gods” (Brugsch II, 408), and we therefore see that the idea of Four in One was a familiar one. The personification of Ptah usually consists of a mummy holding a sceptre, expressing strength, life and stability. Under the form of Osiris he usually holds the curved sceptre denoting dominion, beside the symbols for life, rule and power, and is entitled the “lord of the holy land, lord of eternity, prince of everlasting, the president of the gods, and the head of the corridor of the tomb.” Considering that in all pyramids hitherto explored, the corridor of the tomb is directed towards Polaris, it appears obvious that the supreme god of “life, strength, eternity, rule and power,” was a personification of Polaris, the stability of which was naïvely expressed by the body in mummy form symbolizing [pg 381] the absolute repose and immobility of death, combined with an animated face and the symbols of living, active power.
As the divine land is expressly designated as the divine land of the north in astronomical texts and that this celestial region had its terrestrial counterpart, it is naturally in Lower Egypt, that the holy land of the north must be sought.
Investigation speedily proves that the most ancient vestiges of civilization are situated in the neighborhood of Memphis which, under the kings of the fourth and the sixth dynasties, reached its height of splendor. It is in the land of the north, Meh-ta, that the extremely ancient seven-storied pyramid of Sakkârah lies, and that there exists the area of about thirty kilometers in which eighty pyramids are concentrated, and which constitutes the great burial ground of countless generations of Egyptians of all periods. A curious detail, to which I shall refer again, is the affinity in sound of the name for “north land,” Meh-ta, and mit=death or the dead, and the undeniable resemblance of both words to the Nahuatl, ancient Mexican mictlan=the North, or underworld, from mic-quiztli=death and tlan=land (cf. Egyptian ta=land).
In Egypt, as elsewhere, the western horizon, below which sun, moon and stars disappeared, was naturally regarded as the entrance to the region of the underworld. The west being therefore designated amen-ta, “the hidden or concealed land or region,” it is all the more significant to find the single entrance and exit corridor of each pyramid directed, not towards the west, the underworld, but towards the stable centre of the northern region of the sky. It would therefore seem as though the intention had been to establish a direct line of communication between the tomb chamber in the centre of the pyramid and the divine “northern land of God,” the sacred mountain Manu and the shining celestial city Anu, lying “between the east and west,” i. e. in the Middle, where the supreme star-god dwelt in eternal repose. An interesting proof that the longing of the souls of the dead tended towards the north is furnished by the common prayer-formula: “may my soul ... inhale the north-wind and drink from the stream.”
Before advancing further, the following authoritative statements, establishing the supremacy of pole-star cult in ancient Egypt, should be presented.
According to Sir Norman Lockyer, “It seems extremely probable that the worship of circumpolar constellations went on in [pg 382] Babylonia as well as in Egypt in the earliest times we can get at” (op. cit. p. 363). “There can be no question that the chief ancient constellation in the North was the Great Bear or, as it was then pictured, the Thigh (Meskhet)” (p. 216). “In the exact centre of the circular zodiac of Denderah we find the jackal [Anubis] located at the pole of the equator: it obviously represents the present Little Bear” (p. 362).
“With regard to Anubis, it is quite certain that the seven stars in Ursa Minor make a very good jackal with pendent tail, as generally represented by the Egyptians and that they form the nearest compact constellation to the pole of the ecliptic....”
Sir Norman Lockyer adds that he is informed by Dr. Wallis Budge that “An was an old name of the sun-god,” but also states, in another page of his work that “the worship of Anubis, as god of the dead or the night god ... was supreme until the time of Men-kau-ra, the builder of the third pyramid of Gizeh” (B.C. 3633, Brugsch; B.C. 4100, Mariette; p. 363).
Pending the production of astronomical texts which amply demonstrate that An was a name of a god of the night sun, Polaris, the following establishes that, at Annu or Heliopolis, in remotest antiquity and amongst the pyramid builders, the cult of a northern star prevailed.
“The first civilization as yet glimpsed, so far as temple building goes, in Northern Egypt, represented by that at Annu, or Heliopolis, was a civilization which combined the cult of a northern star with a non-equinoctial solar worship”.... “I know not whether the similarity in the words Anu, Annu and An results merely from a coincidence, but it is certainly singular that the most ancient temples in Lower Egypt (Heliopolis and Denderah) should be called Annu or An, if there be no connection with the Babylonian god Anu” (Lockyer, op. cit. p. 321).