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| Egypt's mysterious ibis god Thoth |
“You believe the Stela has appeared in history at
times before struggles and suffering? In the time of Rameses and the suffering
of the Hebrews... and in Hitler’s Germany?”
Suffering - Old Testament - a young Jewish woman. Did that
account for her interest? She searched his face as he answered, her eyes almost
level with his. The intensity of her gaze made him flinch. She was quite rangy,
he noted, almost matching his lanky height.
“I’m sure of it,” he said. “In fact, I believe its
message is about to resurface, if it hasn’t already done so.”
“This tablet would be very ancient,” she said.
“Exceedingly. It comes from the womb of history –
from an age that the ancient Egyptians called Zep Tepi.”
“Zep Tepi,” she said after him. She played with the
words.
“An age before the pharaohs, when divinities like
Thoth were supposed to have reigned over Egypt.”
A frown briefly disturbed the smoothness of her forehead.
“Yes, but pre- the invention of writing,
surely?”
“Not necessarily. They keep pushing back
the date of Egypt’s invention of hieroglyphs with new discoveries. I believe
writing goes back further than Egyptologists believe.”
“I forget. You’re alternative. But people
always called it a scroll - The Scroll of Thoth.”
He shook his head.
“The first books, like the Ten
Commandments, were in stone and Egyptian stelae were books in stone. So-called
papyrus Scrolls of Thoth appeared later in the New Kingdom.”
“Okay. But to believe in the Stela of
Thoth, you’ve got to believe in Thoth. An Egyptian god with a bird’s head.”
“We don’t know who, or what, Thoth may
have been,” he said. “But even putting aside the question of whether or not a
race called the Neteru, or the gods, actually existed at some distant age,
consider it a case of inspired agency. Like the Bible. Egyptian religion and
mythology tells us that Thoth was the first example of the divine mind, the
logos, or the ‘word’ of creation as Christians call it. He was known as the
master of wisdom, writing and time, symbolised by both the sacred ibis and the
dog-faced baboon.”
“A bird and a baboon as the god of
wisdom?”
“Not so unexpected. Have you ever looked at an ibis?
The curve of its beak echoes a crescent moon, or perhaps the rim of an eclipse.
Watch the measured way an ibis strides, picking out small fish, snakes, frogs
and insects like a master scribe judiciously selecting his words. Thoth was
also the god of time and measurement. Picture the way the ibis strides the
fields of Egypt, pace by measuring pace, like a scribal surveyor of ancient
times re-measuring the land and setting boundaries after mud from the
inundation covered the river banks.”
(Excerpt from The Ibis Apocalypse 2nd in the Egypt adventure series.)
UPDATE: ALL AMAZON TITLES NOW IN AMAZON PAPERBACK TOO
UPDATE: ALL AMAZON TITLES NOW IN AMAZON PAPERBACK TOO
