In support of this sky-ground correlation of the
heb-sed
rituals, Reeder quotes from the Pyramid Texts: ‘the king has gone round the entire two skies, he has circumambulated the Two Banks.’ Reeder also sees the king’s assimilation to the god Horus as part of the ritual, as indicated in another passage of the Pyramid Texts: ‘O King, free course is given to you by Horus, you flash as the lone star in the midst of the sky, you have grown wings as a great-breasted falcon, as a hawk seen in the evening traversing the sky. May you cross the firmament by the waterway of Ra-Horakhti.’ All the above implies, if not confirms, that the
heb-sed
was principally an event that took place in a symbolic landscape, a sort of cosmic environment in which the king tracked the circuit of the sun-god Ra-Horakhti, Ra-Horus-of-the-Horizon. The sun’s circuit is, of course, its annual cycle around the ecliptic in 365¼ days. This suggests that the circuit of the racecourse during the
heb-sed
was in some way calendrical. Now it stands to reason that the Step Pyramid complex was not built for a one-off
heb-sed
event. A project on such a massive scale suggests a very long-term function. Did Imhotep design the complex in such a way that it would service ‘super’ jubilees every 1,460 years marking the ‘return of the phoenix’? Is this why the phoenix was sometimes called ‘Lord of Jubilees’?
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The idea that the
sed
festival could have been computed using the Great Year of Sirius is not as fanciful as it might at first seem. In fact it comes from Sir Flinders Petrie, Britain’s most revered Egyptologist, who undertook precisely such a study in 1906 on the connection between the
sed
festival and the Sothic cycle of Sirius. Petrie’s conclusions appeared in a book titled, oddly,
Research in Sinai
, in which he wrote: ‘In connection with the question of the rising of Sirius in their chronological relation, we must also take notice of the great festival of the sed, or ending, which was a royal observance of the first importance.’ He then went on to discuss how, as a rule, all Egyptologists agree that the
sed
festival came after a period of 30 years of a king’s reign, but added that he was not convinced that this period referred to the years of reign because there was much evidence that kings whose reigns had lasted much less than 30 years had also celebrated
sed
-festivals. Petrie was of the opinion that there was much ‘reason for associating these festivals with a fixed period’. In this respect he pointed out how ‘important was the observation of Sirius for regulating the year, and how the whole cycle of months shifted around the seasons, and was connected to the rising of Sirius. If, then, the months were thus linked to a cycle of 1,460 years, what is more likely than the shifting of the months would be noticed?’
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The Egyptian calendar, we recall, had months of 30 days each. In the Sothic cycle or Great Year of Sirius this would correspond to 120 years (30 ÷ 0.25 = 120). This means that each month took the place of the previous one every 120 years in relation to the seasons. It follows that the heliacal rising of Sirius would fall at the beginning of each month every 120 years, a fact that Petrie felt would certainly not have gone unnoticed by the astronomer-priests of Egypt. Petrie then found evidence that
(a
sed
festival of ) 120 years is recognised as having taken place; it was named the henti, and was determined by the hieroglyphic of a road and two suns, suggesting that it belonged to the passage of time . . . Can we, then, dissociate a feast of 30 years from that of 120 years? The 120 years is the interval of one month’s shift; the 30 years is the interval of one week’s shift. Having a shifting calendar it would be strange if no notice was taken of the periods of reoccurrence in it, and feasts of 120 years and another of 30 years are the natural accompaniments of such a system.
In the Sothic cycle of 1,460 years, a day corresponds to four years, a ‘decade’ or 10-day week corresponds to 40.53 years, and a month corresponds to 121.66 years. So a period of 30 years would correspond to 7.5 Sothic days, which could be rounded down to seven days. We have seen how in the archaic era the ‘life period’ that the goddess Seshat allocated to the king during the
sed
festival was seven years, whereas in later times the period of reign linked to the
sed
festival is said to be 30 years. Could the idea of a 30-year festival come from calendrical computations? According to Wallis Budge:
. . . she (Seshat) appears in the character of the chronographer and chronologist; the use of the notched palm-branch as a symbol of the counting of years taking us back to a custom probably prevalent in predynastic times. In yet another scene we find the goddess standing before a column of hieroglyphics meaning ‘life’ and ‘power’ and ‘thirtyyear festivals’ (the Heb Sed) which rest upon a seated figure who holds in each hand ‘life’ and who typifies ‘millions of years’. In connection with this must be noted a passage in a text in which she declares to a king that she has inscribed on her register on his behalf a period of life which shall be ‘hundreds of thousands of Thirty-Years periods’ and has ordained that his years shall be upon the earth like the years of
Ra
i.e. that he shall live forever.
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Yet G. A. Wainwright was adamant that the life period allocated to the king was seven years, which could be renewed at his
sed
festivals. Also according to Wainwright, Seshat ‘clearly brought the ancient gift of a reign of seven years, relics of which may be found throughout pharaonic days. In granting a period of life that is not eternity, Seshat fixes the king’s fate and decides the time of his death.’
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But why seven years? According to Wainwright, ‘all through the Old Kingdom and indeed until the Nineteenth Dynasty, Seshat’s symbol invariably had seven petals, leaves, rays, or whatever the object may have been . . . Seshat is therefore very definitely related to the number seven.’ We should also recall that Seshat performed the ‘stretching of the cord’ ceremony which involved the astronomical sighting of the Plough. In this respect the astronomer E.C. Krupp was quick to note that the number seven may also have something to do with the seven stars of this constellation:
Usually Seshat was portrayed with a seven-pointed star (although some have likened it to a seven-petaled flower) supported by a rod balanced upright upon her head. Like a canopy over her star hangs what may be a pair of upturned horns of a cow or bull. This emblem was also the hieroglyph for her name. Both the horns and the seven points of the star seem to have something to do with the Big Dipper. We already know that the Bull’s Thigh, or Meskhetiu, was the Big Dipper, and the Dipper contains seven stars. It is certain that the Egyptians associated the number seven with the Big Dipper because several portrayals of Meskhetiu - at Dendera, Edfu, Esna and Philae - surround the picture of the bull’s leg with seven stars.
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The Step Pyramid, which is aligned to the Plough, also has seven tiers (six steps plus the capstone) and the perimeter wall of the complex has 14 (2 × 7) ‘false gates’. Egyptologist Ali Radwan explains this by saying that ‘seven was always considered a sacred number (for example Re had seven Bas), and its multiples must have had the same connotations’.
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The possible link between Seshat, the
heb-sed
and the calendar is further confirmed by the Egyptologist Jean Yoyotte, who wrote that
The year is called
rnpet
, which derives from the word
rnep
‘to be young, to rejuvenate’ in the sense as does the world of plants and animals, of men and the gods and stars, and which is often interpreted as ‘new’ in the context of the return of the flood of the Nile. The hieroglyphic sign describing this word, and serving as an ideogram for our ‘year’, is a branch of the palm tree without leaves, on which a little excrescence represents a kind of notch. This is the simplified form which the gods present to the king to offer him hundreds of thousands of thirty-year jubilees: a promise of eternity. The hieroglyph describing the jubilee (
heb-sed
) is often shown suspended from its upper tip. At the lower tip can be seen the tadpole (the symbol for 100,000) resting on a circular sign (
shen
) which represents the universe as Ra wanders across it and pharaoh rules it. On this stem, Thoth - the lunar god who reckons time, protector of the learned and the scribes, who possess knowledge and administer the creation, and Seshat, the goddess who watches over the royal inscriptions and books, and architectural plans and drawings - count the years back into the past, and forward into the future.
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Could these ‘hundred of thousands’ of
sed
festivals have something to do with the Sothic period of ad infinitum cycles of 1,460 years? Was the Step Pyramid complex meant for these ‘eternal’ cycles?
The Genesis of the Sothic Cycles
Although it is true to say that the ancient Egyptians believed in eternity and sought to connect with it in every way they could, it is also true that they believed in a
beginning
of time which they called
zep tepi
, literally ‘the first time’, and which was intrinsically tied to their beliefs in creation and the return of the phoenix.
The Egyptologist Richard Wilkinson was of the opinion that from very early times ‘three great themes - original cosmic structure, ongoing cosmic function and cosmic regeneration - may be seen to be recurrent in Egyptian temple symbolism’,
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and his colleague R.T. Rundle Clark also concluded that all rituals and feasts were ‘a repetition of an event that took place at the beginning of the world.’
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Also according to Clark:
The basic principles of life, nature and society were determined by the gods long ago, before the establishment of kingship. This epoch -
zep tepi
- ‘the First Time’ - stretched from the first stirring of the High God in the Primeval Waters to the settling of Horus upon the throne and the redemption of Osiris. All proper myths relate events or manifestations of this epoch. Anything whose existence or authority had to be justified or explained must be referred to the ‘First Time’. This was true for natural phenomena, rituals, royal insignia, the plans of temples, magical or medical formulae, the hieroglyphic system of writing, the calendar - the whole paraphernalia of the civilization . . . all that was good or efficacious was established on the principles laid down in the ‘First Time’ - which was, therefore, a golden age of absolute perfection - ‘before rage or clamour or strife or uproar had come about’. No death, disease or disaster occurred in this blissful epoch, known variously as ‘the time of Re’, ‘the time of Osiris’, or ‘the time of Horus’.
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Would it thus not be in keeping with such potent beliefs to consider that the
heb-sed
festival was also anchored to the ‘First Time’? Support for this hypothesis comes in the names given to some of the
heb-sed
festivals, such as
zep tepi heb-sed
, which translates as ‘the
heb-sed
of the First Time’ and also
zep tepi uahem heb-sed
, ‘the repetition of the
heb-sed
of the First Time’.
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Now the Sothic cycle, as we have seen, had anchorage points every 1,460 years. Counting back in increments of 1,460 years from AD 139 , we get the anchor dates of 1321 BC; 2781 BC; 4241 BC; 5701 BC; 7160 BC; 8621 BC; 10,081 BC; 11,451 BC and so on. Which of these could be regarded as
zep tepi
, the ‘First Time’?
If one watches the star Sirius cross the southern meridian over the Great Pyramid, today it will be at 43° above the horizon. Had the observation been made in 2500 BC when the Great Pyramid had just been built, Sirius would have culminated at 36° above the horizon. Going back much further to about 11,500 BC it would culminate 1° above the horizon. Before this epoch it would not have been seen at all. This is because it would have been rising below the horizon. What, then, would have been the reaction of the ancient sky-watchers of Egypt who might have been there to witness the very first appearance of Sirius in the Egyptian sky in about 11,500 BC? Was this event seen as the ‘First Time’?
At precisely the time that Sirius showed itself in the distant south, if the observer turned to look due east he would have witnessed another magnificent constellation also rising. As the astronomer Nancy Hathaway once remarked, ‘Leo resembles the animal after which it is named. A right triangle of stars outline the back legs . . . the front of the constellation, like a giant backward question mark, defines the head, mane, and front legs. At the base of the question mark is Regulus, the heart of the lion . . .’
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In other words, Leo resembles a recumbent lion with a bright star, Regulus, on its chest. On the Giza plateau there is a recumbent lion we call the Great Sphinx of Giza. It too is looking due east. Between its paws there is a large stone covered with inscriptions. One line reads: ‘This is the Splendid Place of the First Time’.