"Horus in the Horizon"

Written by Gary Osborn, 2005.

 Copyright © Gary Osborn. 2005. All Rights Reserved

The Sphinx, a composite creature having the body of a lion and the head of a human, was carved out of a single bedrock of limestone. No one really knows how long the great man-lion has sat out there on the Giza plateau – forever gazing eastward along the 30th parallel as if guarding and defending the pyramid temples owned by its gods and masters. The official line is that the Sphinx was carved in the image of the 4th Dynasty Pharaoh Khafre – but this is really just a theory at the end of the day; one that has recently been challenged by alternative theorists and not without good reason. However, when doing some research into the origins of ancient Egyptian Sphinx symbolism and imagery, one is often confronted with apparent contradiciton and much confusion . . .

 

 

The Sphinx was addressed by Pharaoh Thutmosis IV as Hor-em Akhet, "Horus of the Horizon" or "Horus in the Horizon". In this form Horus represented the rising sun and was associated with the scarab beetle god Khepri. Another name for the Horus and the Sphinx was Ra-Horakhte meaning ‘Horus of the Two Horizons’ – epithets which remain confusing to many of us.

  Our present understanding of what ‘Horus in the Horizon’ or ‘Horus of the Two Horizons’ means, is based on a misinterpretation – or is at best incomplete. Our views are changing today as some of us are becoming more aware of our spiritual side and so collectively, our knowledge and wisdom is developing and appears to be evolving towards what was once understood long ago. Its no surprise then to find that some of us are making the connection between the ancient Egyptian 'horizon' (Akhet) concept, and the 'transtition point' between worlds - i.e., between heaven and earth or between this world and the next and also between life and death, and we would be correct - but there is more to this conception which takes us much further and deeper into the processes relating to consciousness itself.

  The official and widely accepted explanation given by Egyptologists, is that the AE's veneration of the ‘horizon’ relates to the daily voyage of the sun from horizon to horizon; and as we will see this is indeed correct as regards our perceptions of phenomena in the external world. The ancients saw the sun rise out of the earth on the eastern horizon in the morning, and saw it 'Set' (go into the earth) in the evening on the western horizon, and believed that it then journeyed through the Underworld during the 12 hours of the evening only to begin the same cycle again the next morning.

  However, this movement from horizon to horizon during the day and from horizon to horizon during the night, relates primarliy to the ‘cycle’ and all cyclical phenomena, and is really conveying a deeper message and one which is linked to human consciousness – i.e., internal psychical processes . . . the 'outer' reflecting the 'inner' and vice-versa.

  As we will see explained for the first time in this paper, these 'horizon' epithets associated with Horus, refer to something really quite extraordinary, and tells us something about the nature of the human mind and perhaps the underlying nature of reality: that both are inextricably linked, and the ancients understood it. These internal processes were best understood in the form of the ONE - an adept, who experienced them and understood them, and this person was personifed by, or exemplified in the hero-god Horus who brings back balance to this world of duality. The two eyes of Horus were the sun and the moon and as many of us will know these are linked to the male and female opposites and the left and right brains respectively. Horus symbolised the balance between them.

 

Many will have been taught in school that the god Horus was the son of the god Osiris and that he is often depicted in ancient Egyptian art as a hawk or falcon. The image of a bird was used to signify the ascended spirit or soul of the shaman - either in death or 'out of body experience'. However, the hawk is a 'bird of prey' and so the sacred bird as hawk symbolised the 'warrior' aspect of Horus.

  We learned how the god Osiris had been murdered by his own brother Set, and had journeyed through the Underworld later becoming reborn as his own son Horus to his sister and consort the goddess Isis. Horus then avenges his father by slaying the evil Set in battle. The story is seen as a pagan one, but most definitely is shamanic in origin.

  Horus is the archetypal Shining One – the resurrected god-king and therefore the shaman adept, who as Osiris had formerly suffered death; suffered the torments of the Underworld, had then reached the heavenly kingdom, experienced enlightenment and had returned reborn.

  This story really allegorizes the shamanic trance state in which the shaman goes through a 'near-death experience', is dismembered (consciousness broken down to zero) and comes back reborn with knowledge of the otherworlds. He may even consciously experience the source-centre of creation itself – known as the ‘inner sun’ – enlightenment.

  We can see that during this enlightenment experience, the shaman (Horus) becomes one with the source-centre of creation (Atum), which he will experience as a climactic explosion of bright, white light within the centre of the head – hence the association with the light of the sun – (Ra).

  Having researched and acknowledged the nature of this awesome life-changing experience, and realising that it has been behind the mystical and religious impulse of man throughout history, it later becomes clear that the Sphinx represents all three gods in one image. In other words, Atum, (the source-centre of creation), Ra (the sun), and Horus (the archetypal shaman), are all combined as one god – and rather, the individual at the point of enlightenment – a Shining One.

  The technique by which the shaman attains enlightenment – seen symbolically as a rebirth – is found in the epithets ‘Horus in the Horizon’ and ‘Horus of the Two Horizons’.

  Now how does all this relate to the Sphinx and Giza?

 

 

Its possible that this position on the Giza equinoctial line – the 30th parallel, being 30 degrees latitude or 30 degrees north of the equator – is what is meant by the ‘Place of Horus’. Many have argued that Giza is located at the centre of the earth’s landmasses.

 

I would accept this as this central location is indeed symbolic as regards the shamanic concept of ‘the Centre’, and its possible that the 'Shining Ones' who appear to have moved from Sumeria to Heliopolis, then moved onto this location to build there using natural rocky outcrops, and perhaps for this reason.

  Therefore the Sphinx personifies Horus and his central position on the earth – its eyes trained east and in line with the central point on the wide horizon where the sun rises on the two Equinoxes of every year and for all eternity.

  But why? What is the real significance of this central position on the earth and especially the path of the sun on the Spring Equinox? This is a question I will attempt to answer in this essay, however, it is complicated because the answer to this encompasses much more than previously thought.

  The ancients seemed to have understood something about human consciousness that we would indeed find difficult to convey or grasp even today. Indeed it appears that it has everything to do with ‘duality’ and more importantly the point of balance between opposites – what the sufi mystic Gurdjieff would have called the ‘third force’ and what psychologist Carl Jung called the ‘mid-point’.

  As some of us will now know, these two times of the year are the ‘neutral points’ in the annual cycle. On the days of the Equinox, day and night, light and darkness, are equal in length and everything is in balance. Incidentely, these are the same conditions if the earth’s axis were upright.

  In mythological, esoteric, mystical and religious terms, the Vernal Equinox – where the summer and winter opposites are also equally balanced – is also the ‘beginning and end’ point of the year – the Alpha-Omega. Jesus Christ who was based on the shamanic-pagan god Horus, is reported to have exclaimed that he is the 'alpha and omega'.

  The Autumnal Equinox is also important, as it is the halfway point in the year – a day ‘where’ and ‘when’ the nightime and daylight hours, as well as the winter and summer periods, are also equally balanced, and briefly cancelled out – i.e., neither summer nor winter. In pagan circles, these days are known as the "in-between times".

  This would mean that the “two horizons” of Horus, are associated with the rising of the sun on the two equinoxes – those two points in the year. This also applies to the daily cycle, because these two horizons are of course also associated with the sun rising on the eastern horizon every morning and the setting sun on the western horizon every evening.

  So then, the “Two Horizons” are associated with the ‘beginning and end point’ (alpha-omega) as well as the ‘halfway point’ in both the annual cycle and the daily cycle. However, the ‘two horizons’ of Horus are also associated with the same two points in the larger Precessional Cycle consisting of 25,920 years according to Plato.

  This is indeed what the Giza complex is all about: its all about cycles and these two dynamic points in the cycle were considered very important and remain the same in essence when applied to each and every cycle right on down to the cycles of our own consciousness which are indeed connected to the cycles of nature, periodic systems, wave phenomena and the oscillating motions and vibrations of everything we sense around us.

 

 

 

 

  First of all, we learn that primarily, the Sphinx is associated with the creator god Atum who personified the source-centre of creation - later becoming syncretised with the sun-god Ra – as in Atum-Ra, Ra-Atum or Atum-re.

  For example, we are told that the name Sphinx is a corruption of Sheshep-ankh and indeed its ancient name was Sheshep-ankh Atum – meaning ‘Living Image of Atum’.

  We also discover that large numbers of half-man, half-lion amulets were found in Egypt dating from the Predynastic period (before the age of the Pharaohs) – evidence that the cult of the ‘man-lion’ is extremely ancient, and could date to the time of that mysterious priesthood of “demi-gods”, the Akhu (“Shining Ones”) or Shemsu Hor, or even earlier.

  The name 'Shemsu Hor' means “followers of Horus” or “companions of Horus” and this is indeed interesting as it is said that the Sphinx of Giza is also associated with the god Horus and in ways that are not particularly clear.

  We have established then that the Sphinx is associated with both Atum-Ra and Horus - but there are more confusing details.

 

 

 

First of all, the Arabic name given to the Sphinx, Abul-Hol, is assumed to mean ‘Father of Terror’. However, while undertaking extensive excavations at Giza in the 1930s and ’40s Professor, Selim Hassan uncovered evidence of a Cananite settlement in the north (Lower Egypt) around 2000 BC. The artefacts and commemorative Stela he found, proved that this colony of pilgrims originally from Harran on the border between modern Turkey and Syria, worshipped the Sphinx as a god – naming him Hwl. [1]

  The name Abul is close to the ancient Egyptian word bl – meaning ‘place,’ and the Harranian Hwl seems to be derived from Hu – again, associated with the name of Horus. So rather than “Father of Terror”, the name Abul-Hol translates as the “Place of Horus”. This is close to the ancient Egyptian name for the Sphinx which is Hor-em-Akhet – ‘Horus in the Horizon’ – or as he is also known, Ra-Harakhte – ‘Horus of the Two Horizons’.

  The ‘place’ of Horus is indeed associated with the Horizon, and this is interesting, because the body of the Sphinx is aligned east to west and precisely with the equinoctial rising and setting points of the sun. These are the points where and when the sun intersects the equator of the earth during the equinoxes.

  At Giza the body of the Sphinx is in line with the sun as it rises on the eastern horizon at dawn on the day of the Vernal or Spring Equinox, as it also does at dawn on the day of the Autumnal Equinox.