If you think that there's a civilization similar to the Egyptian one,think again !

The photo above is a stone relief of the falcon headed god Horus, son of Isis and Osiris.

This relief, shows the goddess Maat kneeling with her wings extended in a pose of protection of paying homage. Maat was the goddess of truth and justice who personified cosmic order and harmony as established by the creator god at the beginning of time. Her symbol was an ostrich feather. The seated image of Maat was held in pharaoh's hand like a doll and was presented as an offering to the gods. This meant that the king was the representative of divine order since Maat was seen as legitimizing their authority to govern and to uphold the laws of the universe which she embodies. Judges were regarded as priests of Maat. In the hall of judgment at the weighing of the heart, the heart of the deceased was placed on the scales of justice, balanced against the feather of Maat, symbol of justice. The other seated deity is Hathor .

The Pharaohs

Life in Egypt centered around Pharaoh. The people of Egypt worshipped Pharaoh as god, and he was the living likeness of Horus, heir to the throne of Osiris. When he died, he returned to the celestial heavens to join Osiris as a star in the heavenly duat. The Egyptians noticed that the stars concentrated around the north star (currently Polaris) stayed fixed in their relation to the other stars in the heavens. They referred to theses stars as the "Imperishables", the Egyptians believed that here is where Pharaoh went to rest.

Here are some excerpts from the Pyramid texts, which were found inscribed on the wall of the pyramid of Pepi I at Saqqara:

"The king is a star"...Pyramid texts 1583

"Lo the king arises as this star which is on the underside of the sky"...Pyramid texts 347

This implies that at his physical death, Pharaoh undergoes a transformation. His "Ka" or spirit, ascends to the heavens to become a star. Recent research (although highly speculative but interesting) suggests that it is in the constellation of Orion (which represents Osiris) that Pharaohs KA resides after death.

The constellation of Orion, visible in the winter skies.

Ramses, Tothmoses, Seti, Tutankhamun, Khufu, Khafra, are some of the names that come to mind when one thinks of the Pharaohs who ruled Egypt. We are to believe that they were fierce warriors, mighty hunters and virile lovers – Ramses is said to have produced an offspring of one hundred children – Khafra's image adorns the Sphinx – Seti killed one hundred lions in one day. These conquests were perpetuated by wall reliefs and sculpture; how much of this is truth is questionable to some extent.

Yet one of the most fascinating was the Pharaoh Akhenaten (Amenhotep/Amenophis IV, Dynasty 18). Akhenaten ruled during the "New Kingdom" era, circa 1550 BC. What makes this Pharaoh so intriguing was his apparent break with long held Egyptian tradition.

One of the more ground breaking undertakings Akhenaten attempted was doing away with traditional polytheism in favor of monotheism – more specifically – the worship of one god, the Aten (sun disk). Although the concept of the Aten did not originate with Akhenaten (it was part of a solar cult from the ancient city of Heliopolis) Monotheism was not a comfortable concept to the polytheistic society of Egypt. Scholars suggest that this may have been a political move against the growing might of the Amun-Re priesthood, which by the 18th dynasty had become all powerful, threatening pharaohs ultimate power.

Egypt was a culture thousands of years old with traditions and beliefs that stretched back generations. The cult of the god Amun-Re was extremely popular, as the god was credited with the prosperous 18th dynasty, and its incredible expansion north and south. Nevertheless, Pharaoh Akhenaten symbolically did away with this pantheon and Amun-Re with the sweep of his hand.

This was not a popular move and no one really knows if the public truly embraced worship of the Aten and the elimination of Amun-Re. In the homes of common Egyptians in Akhenaten’s city of Akhetaten (the horizon of Aten), archaeologists have found statues of Amun-Re, Hathor and Horus alluding to the inability of the people of Egypt to suddenly forget about their beloved pantheon.

Akhenaten became known as the heretic king, went so far as to move the center of worship from Thebes to Amarna. This was a less popular move, because there was a social order to Egyptian society that included priests, scribes and servants that were basically "out of a job" with this new religion and the relocation of its center of worship. It is believed that this angered the scribes and priests of Amun-Re – and some time after Akhenaten's death much of his city of Akhetaton (in Amarna) was abandoned and then torn down and unfortunately, very little remains today.

In addition to these radical changes, the artwork Akhenaten chose to display his physique was bizzarre. The wall reliefs, statues and paintings traditionally portrayed Pharaoh in top physical form hunting lions and smiting his enemies – yet Akhenaten chose to show himself as gentle and slightly corpulent, playing with his children and seated with his queen Nefertiti as his equal. In some statues he is depicted having no genitalia at all.

This new image displayed Akhenaten as morosely out of proportion prompting Egyptologists to suggest that Akhenaten fell victim to Froehlich's Syndrome. One of the symptoms of this disease is impotence, and it is believed that Akhenaten fathered six children with Nefertiti, eliminating this hypothesis. It was then suggested (and still argued by Egyptologists) that Akhenaten was afflicted with Marfan's Syndrome; a disease causing elongation of the fingers, toes and neck in addition to bodily fat distribution similar to that of a female.

It is also likely Akhenaten was influential in changing the artistic portrayal of Pharaoh, reflecting hybrid man/woman images based on the belief that the creator god was both male and female. Whatever the reason Akhenaten was truly unique in his appearance and his philosophy.

A bust of Akhenaten

A bust of Nefertiti, one of Akhenaten's wives

Tutankhamun – the boy wonder

There is speculation over the parentage of Tutankhamun. Was he the son of Amenhotep III or Tuthmosis IV (Akhenaten)? Either way you may not recognize his original name. It was Tutankhaten. This young Pharaoh eventually changed his name to Tutankhamun after Akhenaten's death, and in a very popular move, reverted to the original Egyptian pantheon. So now you see where Akhenaten fits in. Pretty cool eh?

And so Osiris, Horus and Isis were once again worshipped in the temples and households of Egypt.

The Pyramids

There are many Pyramids in Egypt (close to 90), however the Great Pyramid of Khufu, the Pyramid of Khafra and the smaller Pyramid of Mynkhara are located in Cairo on the Giza plateau. We believe that these structures were built as tombs for the Pharaohs based on the progression from older mastabas (Egyptian word describing a low flat tomb and meaning "bench"), pyramids at Sakkara, Meidum and later structures which include the Pyramid Texts.

Early prototypes if you will, were mastabas stacked one on top of another representing a stairway to heaven, so to speak.

Specifications

For the sake of brevity, we will focus on the specifications of the Great Pyramid of Khufu. This pyramid is the largest of the the group, although Khafre's pyramid seems taller because it stands on higher ground. It is four hundred and fifty feet tall (about the height of a forty story building) and covers an area equivalent to thirteen football fields. Incredibly the pyramid is less the three-quarters of an inch from being completely level .

The Great Pyramid was constructed during the 4th dynasty in the reign of Pharaoh Khufu circa 2,500 BC (almost 4,000 years ago!) in the era known as the "Old Kingdom" (see above chart for clarification). This colossus is composed primarily of limestone blocks with the inner chambers consisting of polished red granite. The individual stones average two tons bringing the weight of the Great Pyramid to 6.18 million tons!.

Originally, this pyramid was covered by an outer polished limestone casing with joints so precise that one could scarcely see the mortar between the stones. The slope of this pyramid is 52 degrees, and anyone who has scaled the pyramid will tell you what a harrowing experience it is due to its sharp incline.

Some time around 800 AD there was an earthquake in Cairo, which dislodged the outer casing stones. The volume of casing stones was such that they were used to build mosques in the city of Cairo. So what remains as the exterior to the great pyramid is in actuality the inner layer of the pyramid. A few casing stones remain at the bottom of the monument, and it is because of these stones Egyptologists were able to determine the original slope. The top or "capstone" of the pyramid is "missing". We're talking about a good thirty feet or so and legend has it that it was solid gold or gold plated (although there is little to no evidence to support this).

Chambers and Passageways

There are two main "chambers" within the bowels of the Great Pyramid. The Queen's chamber is given this nomenclature because of it's pitched ceiling (Egyptian queens were buried in tombs of this design). The "King's chamber" is given its name because of its level ceiling. The graphic below is an over simplified version of the interior of the Great Pyramid:

As you can see from this diagram, there are quite a few passageways and chambers throughout the pyramid. All passages do not permit a human being to stand (with the exception of the Grand Gallery – more on that later), and are quite long. To navigate this monument, one must traverse these passages either by crawling or bending at the waist and knees. Originally, the ascending passage, which is accessed via the ceiling of the descending passage, was blocked by three granite plugs in succession weighing several tons each.

The first "modern day" explorer of the Great Pyramid, Caliph Al Mamun (circa 813 AD), tunneled around these granite plugs to reach the other side of the ascending passage. He found the passages and chambers so filled with bat dung – and bats with six foot wing spans – as to prevent passage in some cases until burning sulphur to clear them.

To enter the Great Pyramid, one must first crawl down the descending passage. It is 345 feet long, 3 feet 5 inches wide and 3 feet 11.5 inches high. However, one not need go the entire length of the passage, because about halfway down is an overhead entrance to the ascending passage, which leads to the upper chambers of the pyramid.

The ascending passage (shown below), leads up to the Grand Gallery, Queen's chamber and King's chamber. It is 120 feet long, 3.5 feet high and 3.5 feet wide. Certainly, one would find it difficult at best to maneuver a stone sarcophagus weighing several tons through this cramped passageway. We can only assume that the sarcophagus was installed during construction of the King's Chamber.