In The Twelfth Dynasty Egyptian Literature
A Reconstruction
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In The Twelfth Dynasty Egyptian Literature
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Soon the big general, worthy of his new commission, gathered the worldly strengths of his host and multiplied them many times over. The lands he oversaw provided more abundantly, the livestock produced more and superior offspring. The jealous neighbors looked enviously on the growing wealth. One “hero of the Retinu” attacked and tested the outsider.
“I did to him what he wished to do to me,” Sinuhe laconically recorded after his victory. He provided generously for his tribe. His wife provided him sons. His father-in-law watched approvingly. His wife, Zepra, not only shone as the most eligible daughter of the tribal priest, to be used for the usual international bonding between foreign royal families, but she also shone for her talents. She could belly dance with the best of them, shaking her bells and flying her veils. She could sing with the ceremonial choruses having her loud clear voice stand out. Her proud but embarrassed father told her to cover her face with veils on the occasions when non-family eyes might have seen her. But rumors of her beauty had escaped from the family, and indeed her face held the attention of any blessed by her presence. Sharp clean and bold dark features almost made her the ideal Asiatic type. But her exuberance and warmth softened her classic elegance. Those qualities attracted a parade of princes to interview with her father. But her father loved her as a comrade. He had invested heavily in her royal education and she immersed herself, as if learning were the only thing that mattered in her life. In the major preoccupation, astronomy/astrology she excelled. “Father, make no deals when the small fast planet turns backward!” she often reminded him who had himself taught her about the characteristics of the traveling planets. She could cast life predictions based on the positions of those moving stars in the dome of the heaven. And she shared the horror with her father, of the knowledge they understood passed to them by their ancestors. They kept the records of the movements of the stars and they knew what had happened in the old days. They knew the goddess, they called Astare, called Hathor by the Egyptians, followed a track that crossed the track that the earth traced in it path around the sun. They calculated when and where the heavenly being would approach the earth and cause all sorts of natural disasters. They even feared that the thing could actually hit the earth and destroy it. This knowledge never escaped with clear explanation to the vast tribe and their allies. However, they knew that the Egyptians also studied the skies, but did not share their knowledge. The secret Egyptian records, understood only by the most trusted initiates, never entered the tents of the foreigners. Perhaps Sinuhe would share his knowledge with his new family. In ancient times the Asiatics and Egyptians shared much history. They shared their prized geniuses, their insightful leaders. Not only did many rise above the ancient knowledge, but they also added more wisdom to the continuum. They could produce. They grasped the heavens. They also controlled their hearts. They talked with God. They understood messages from dreams. They visited in their dreams. The bloodline royals totally trusted the holy men of old, wisely bowing to the men of proven ability. The people and their kings demanded competence from the holy men. In the recent ancient times, about 400 years ago, Amuneneschi had related to Zepra, “Our tribe had taught a young lad they had rescued from a group of shepherds. His abilities amazed the astronomers who trained him. He soon surpassed them. He went on to Egypt and rose to rule the entire country during one of the terrible star-caused bad times. Because he could predict the bad period, he had helped the country prepare by growing and storing grain enough for many years, until they good times returned. The lad had grown and lived to be an old man. He left warnings and predictions that few comprehended. But the tribe that had taught him as a youth clearly understood his messages to the future. He had used the same symbolic language that the Midians had taught him. We are his tribe. We understand his warnings!” Zepra loved the story. She had placed a small statue of the seated figure, her hero, Imhotep, on her morning window ledge. She had learned the astronomical secrets since being a toddler. She learned everything her father knew. The Midians mastered the reading of the heavens. Their calculations and predictions, the neighboring tribes accepted, provided the most reliable information. And Zepra cast a prediction on the exciting fugitive general, Sinuhe, whom her father had chosen for her. The famous seven cow goddesses, the Hathors, Zepra could discern, foreshadowed a few obstacles that her prince would encounter. She saw three dooms for him involving a crocodile, a serpent and a dog. But she loved him so much that she put herself in danger to protect him, even despite his casual attitude toward astral prediction. He allowed her amusements, but wondered about the accuracy of her abilities. The crocodile of Zepra’s warning, reminded Sinuhe secretly of his sister, Sidpitu, and how she died. He fought nightmares in which he revisited the evil day. He wondered what would have happened if he had not reacted so rashly. He tossed and groaned in and out of sleep. His wife watched over him, staying awake sometimes to watch while he slept. She also revealed to him the coming doom from the sky. The overwhelming nature of the knowledge caused him great suffering. He feared for his people, in his adopted tribe and back in Egypt. Zepra guarded Sinuhe from the snake also. Usually a snake meant wisdom or a wise person. But here, the snake of her prediction lived in the sky. It was the tail of the cow goddess of the sky who aimed at Egypt, at Sinuhe’s people. Zepra knew that the skies above reflected the hearts of the people below. She knew when she meditated that the serpents of wisdom rose from the base of her spine and rose up to the top of her head and down to her forehead. This knowledge was not unknown to the people who tried to practice their efforts for maat by joining their motives with God’s motives. Even the Egyptian king wore a headpiece with the serpent, or sometimes two serpents, rising up from the back and posing at the forehead. In the sky however, the serpent, or sometimes two serpents spinning and twining, trailing the cow goddess, provided a spectacular and terrifying sight. The disc they trailed appeared as a pulsating fireball. Sometimes the flames of the fire trailed and became the serpents. Occasionally the flames separated into many serpent forms. Sometimes, when the disc appeared at a certain angle to the sun god Ra, it took on a crescent shape like the moon god’s crescent. It then appeared to be a charging cow, the crescent being the horns. Other times the smokiness from the flames caused a cloud shape that left short trailing horns. The Egyptian sculptors captured the smoke shape in the hairstyle they used for depicting the goddess as a cow woman. The hairstyle featured dual symmetrical long sections of thick hair on either side of the face, falling into opposing large curls each covering a breast in a swirl. Egyptian artists depicted Hathor’s face frontally in violation of the usual rules. The Asiatics called her Astare. But both groups seemed to pronounce her name with the same sounds. Zepra, in her dream, offered bowls of beer to the charging goddess. The snake drank it, got drunk and staggered around aimlessly. Zepra hacked it to pieces, protecting her husband. “We must consider this dream, and try to interpret the message. Of course, we must hack it to pieces, but how do we do it?” Zepra consulted with the totally mystified Sinuhe. The dogstar, in Zepra’s dream also threatened Sinuhe, but Zepra’s knowledge allowed for another escape. Sinuhe and Zepra prayed and dreamed and tried to interpret the dreams relating to the movements in the skies. They asked the One God for guidance, signs that they could understand and follow. However, they knew that God had allowed His people to survive several previous ancient situations equally dire. They unrolled the ancient documents and studied them looking for clues that they could apply to the goddess. Ammuneschi gathered the holy scholars together and asked them what would be the most likely events involving the earth and the people when the being came close to the earth. But when Zepra charted her husband’s birth, she told her father that she found that “he would be so great that he would be remembered in history for thousands of years.” She loved him. She knew that somehow he would shine among the future documents. He would use her knowledge and save his people. She hugged her father for holding out for such a prince, even if he was a murder fugitive from Egypt. Then Ammuneschi took Sinuhe to the holy mountain near the estate in Midian. The goddess Hathor appeared exceptionally close in the sky. Her beautiful magnificence, her halo of spinning serpentine lightning, almost hid the crescent horns. Thunder from the magnetic lighting began to reverberate threateningly to the earth. A burning dancing frenzy, she aimed directly at Egypt. Ammuneschi explained the calculations to the horrified initiate who had previously only speculated with and humored Zepra about her dreams. “The theory never has the same impact as the evidence, does it,” the priest held on to the dramatically trembling general. He gave Sinuhe a few minutes to recover from the shock of the reality of the threat. Amuneschi asked, “What do the Egyptian astronomers know?” Sinuhe still shaking replied, “I studied the predictions of the ancients without understanding them. Imhotep and Hardyef left records about the cow goddess, Hathor. They warned of seven visits by the heavenly destroyer. They said that the terrible seven-year famine would repeat. The seventh cow would come at a certain date. No one remembered the early destructions. We all, well, most of the students, dismissed the teachings as weird superstitious legend. But a few priests took the threats seriously, and continued to study the skies with fear and more knowledge than I had. My brother Khuni, knew more than I did about the goddess. He seemed so preoccupied. I could never distract him to something I thought to be more important. Now I know why he seemed not to care one way or the other about the plan I made for him to marry Sidiptu. He seemed to zero in on a certain date, not so far away now.” Amuneshi replied, “Egypt will be destroyed by the goddess’ next visit. The date given by your brother from the ancients is correct. You will go back soon to evacuate the people you love. You can bring them here temporarily until the goddess passes over. Will your brother help you?” |
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