Tags
Abydos, ancient Egypt, architrave, flying machines, flying saucer, fringe, glyphs, helicopter, hieroglyphs, jet, necropolis, Osiris, palimpsest, Ramesses II, Seti I, Seti-as-Osiris, temple, writing
Many people are convinced that the ancient Egyptians were an extremely advanced civilization possessing all sorts of technology that would not be seen again until modern times. Imagined technologies range from remarkably sophisticated machinery to nuclear capabilities. I have no problem whatsoever conceding that the ancient Egyptians were an advanced civilization, but the proper context must be observed. What exactly is meant by “advanced”? To be sure the Egyptians were masterful builders, engineers, and artisans, but all this means is that they were advanced for a mostly Bronze Age people. Facts need to be separated from whimsical fiction.
The image above is notorious for just this thing. You’ll see it all over the internet on half-baked websites; very few authors of websites have bothered to analyze it properly. You can’t help notice that at the right end of the image is a collection of what seems to be flying machines: a helicopter, jet, flying saucer. I concede the unusual coincidence is there, but that’s all it is: a coincidence. Here’s a closer look:
What’s actually going on here? First, when encountering such a thing, one must approach the analysis of it with logic and reason. Where does it appear? What’s its context? What other explanations are there? A common failing of the fringe is to rush to judgement, accept coincidences at face value, and abandon any further attempt at evaluation. “Yes, that thing looks like a helicopter, so it has to be a helicopter!” Well, no, of course it doesn’t. Let’s dig deeper. Below is a wider shot of the actual context for the image:
The image is part of the decoration plan of an architrave, an architectural beam resting atop columns. It can be found in the temple built by Seti I in honor of the god Osiris, ruler of the underworld. This temple is wonderfully preserved and stands in Abydos, one of the most ancient necropoli of pharaonic Egypt and the primary cult center for the veneration of Osiris. Here is the facade of the temple as it stands today:
A true architectural masterpiece. The plan of the temple shows that it is quite large, and is indeed one of the largest temples in the Abydos necropolis. It was commissioned by Seti I (1296-1279 BCE), second king of Dynasty 19 and one of the most powerful monarchs of the New Kingdom, the Egyptian period of empire. He died before the Abydos temple was finished, so it was completed by his son and successor, Ramesses II (1279-1212 BCE). That Ramesses II stepped in to finish his father’s temple is significant to the nature of the odd image which is the subject of this article, so we shall return to that in a while.
A king’s most important monument was his tomb. Seti I was buried in the Valley of the Kings in the tomb designated KV17 (also known as “Belzoni’s tomb” in honor of its discover, the charismatic Giovanni Belzoni). Of next importance, one might argue, was the king’s mortuary temple. This is where his soul would be venerated and serviced in perpetuity. As with almost all of the other many New Kingdom pharaohs interred in the Valley of the Kings, the mortuary temple of Seti I was located to the east of the valley, on the other side of the ridge and near the cultivation bordering the River Nile. Beyond that, a king might commission any number of monuments, depending on his longevity, the stability and wealth of the kingdom when he happened to be on the throne, and his overall status. The Abydos temple was one of these ancillary temples of Seti I, and a very important one for his own ideology and status.
The Abydos temple honored numerous deities, including Isis, Horus, Set, Amun-Re, Re-Horakhty, and Ptah. But the deity who received the focus of veneration was the great god Osiris, for while in life the king was regarded as a deity like Horus or Amun-Re, in death he was recognized as none other than Osiris. The formal name for the temple was “Menmaatre Happy in Abydos” (Menmaatre was Seti’s throne name), although it was also called “The conclave of deities which resides in Seti’s temple” in honor of the above-named deities (O’Connor 2009: 45).
The beautiful decoration plan of the Abydos temple makes its overriding purpose quite clear: it was meant to present Seti I in the guise of Seti-as-Osiris. The temple complemented Seti’s tomb and mortuary temple at Thebes in the further assurance that he would not only reach the afterlife but would become one with Osiris, forever (ibid: 43).
So that’s the background for the temple of Seti I at Abydos, as well as the proper context for the odd image that seems to show flying machines. As I mentioned earlier, Seti’s son and successor, Ramesses II, finished the temple where Seti I himself had been unable to. The sections completed by Ramesses were in particular the outer pylons and courts as well as the first hypostyle hall. By all appearances, Ramesses II was in a hurry to finish the temple; in fact, numerous doorways were filled in and closed off, indicating an abbreviation of the original temple plan. And significantly, the portions finished by Ramesses II were only hurriedly decorated (Wilkinson 2000: 146). The architrave in question belongs in one of the areas finished off by Ramesses II.
The architrave itself is a good example of a palimpsest, which is a piece of writing material on which later writing has been superimposed. This was commonly done in pharaonic times for reasons of cost or expediency, the latter of which was more the case for Ramesses II. This king reigned for 67 years and was an enthusiastic builder, but archaeologists like to call Ramesses “the Chiseler” due to his penchant for helping himself to other, older monuments. The fact that the Abydos temple belonged to his father is immaterial: as long as Ramesses II was taking the time to finish it, he was going to leave his presence there.
Below is a color-coded image showing how glyphs were superimposed on the architrave when Ramesses II commissioned its reinscription (credit):
Also at play is erosion, which has obliterated portions of the original inscription, so together with the over-writing, that part commissioned by Seti I is very difficult to read and is not fully translatable. But along with the rest of the architrave the portion over-written by Ramesses is simple enough to translate, and it’s a fairly ordinary royal titulary. It begins Nbty mk kmt waf xAswt…, meaning “The two mistress, he who protects Egypt and repels the foreign lands…” To the left of that are the standard epithets “He of the Sedge and Bee, Lord of the Two Lands,” followed by the cartouche containing the throne name of Ramesses II, Usermaatre Setepen-re, which over-writes the original name of Seti I (see the image at the top of the article).
This is actual explanation for the “flying machines” of the Abydos temple. There are no flying machines, of course. They are merely the eroded glyphs of a palimpsest. Anyone familiar with the workings of hieroglyphs understands that they represent a fully developed written script guided by grammar and syntax, just like any written language, so it would be illogical in the first place to suppose that the Egyptians were tossing random images of flying machines onto this architrave. The context would not make sense. Nor would such images have anything to do with the purpose of the temple itself, in its intent to unite the deceased Seti I with the great god Osiris.
That is, unless Seti-as-Osiris was hoping to bop around the afterlife in helicopters, jets, and flying saucers. I think not.
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O’Connor, David. Abydos: Egypt’s First Pharaohs the the Cult of Osiris. 2009.
Wilkinson, Richard H. The Complete Temples of Ancient Egypt. 2000.
this seems to be a great topic of conversation, and it was great to find some informed remarks refuting the twaddle some people spout…
Appreciate the kind words, and thanks for reading.
You should have met these people, I was wilting… but then again maybe not… 🙂 …just couldn’t get them away from it… in a world of unbelief, the one who shouts the loudest can still be wrong…
What people are these, exactly? I like your blog, by the way. I’m going back to check it out some more, as time permits.
Innerested, but almost willing to believe anything, without much proof… or maybe just asking for disproof… nice and not completely devoid of common sense…but still… normal hard-working folks who return to Egypt year after year.. will meet them again, inchallah… glad you like the blog, it needs much work… don’t really want to post that much… like your profile picture… 🙂
What a bunch of narrow minded trash masquerading as “science.” Whenever an author takes more than a paragraph to “debunk” something, you know he’s massive and insecure bs’er terrified that his hallowed beliefs are being mashed into the dirt – which of course these Abydos flying machines accomplish quite well. This stele is _not_ a palimpsest, but i will do my best to serve up some other 75% word to combat this fraud 🙂
Goodness, Nephre. Do you feel better now? It’s been my experience that when someone rails against basic, fact-based research, the one who rails has had his personal beliefs questioned. It’s not my intention to offend but merely to explain a position and support it with coherent evidence. I rather doubt you read more than the first paragraph, but it’s possible you’re not familiar with the processes of presenting a supported argument in an historical context. A firm belief that these depictions actually do represent “flying machines” from the ancient Nile Valley reveals your difficulty in exercising critical thinking. But enough of that. Rather than your railing at my position, how do you present and defend your opinions?
If there were something “factual” about this “research” I would have no quarrel with it. But there is only an _assertion_ (you really should learn to distinguish one from the other _assertion_ vs. _fact_ that is)… that this is a palimpsest. There is no indication (other than the assertion) that it is a palimpsest. And despite many discoveries by many people over many years that may cause you some cognitive dissonance at the mere thought that earth may be more interesting that your _assertion_ would indicate – it seems unfair to simply use your narrowness of thought in order to hector people as if you had some sort of deep scientific knowledge. Good luck with that. I wouldn’t do anything to discourage the full playing out of your one-track mind.
I’m glad you wrote back but we’re not getting anywhere. I can’t guess what your ultimate motivation is or what you hope to establish because I don’t know you. But so far your posts are much like those of many fringe adherents: long on words but short on substance. You still have done nothing to disprove my position. You talk of facts and yet don’t present any.
Feel free to post another reply but please provide more substance so I (abd other readers) can get some sense of what you’re hoping to say. Otherwise, please don’t bother to post again.
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Two verses from the Bible explains it all.
Matt.24
[37] But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
Luke.17
[26] And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man.
Greetings. With apologies, but I don’t understand what passages about Noah have to do with “flying machines” in ancient Egypt. How exactly do these explain it?
It’s logical to think that if there were helicopters and flying saucers in ancient Egypt that they would feature more prominently than one small area up high in one tomb – No ? – Good article.
Yes, Isha, it would be logical to think so. And that’s part of my argument. The entire premise of ancient “flying machines” on a single beam in this one temple is illogical on the face of it. But fringe beliefs are not exactly grounded in logic to begin with. Thanks for reading.
while I’m no expert on ancient Egypt, the subject has always gotten a lot of my attention. As I read your article i must say i thought you were reaching pretty hard until you brought “erosion” into play, then i knew you were reaching.
I say this because there are so many things we can’t explain about this ancient people and their works. Your “opinion” is just what it is but in no way a fact.
Perhaps we can’t explain a lot of things we see remaining in Egypt because we refuse to open our minds to things that could possibly explain them.
in closing, I can’t tell you what exactly is depicted in the structure you reference but I am open to something that actually makes more sense than what you’ve offered. Maybe they don’t depict flying machines but they definitely were etched into that stone as a symbol to something.
Seymour Butts? Really? Anyway, skepticism is healthy and useful, but when evaluating ancient artifacts it must be weighed with a mixture of logic and context. In this case, why would ancient craftsmen who worked for two different powerful kings etch random objects of which they could have no awareness, into a royal titulary in a mortuary temple? Erosion is possibly one factor but more to the point is the palimpsest—one inscription cut over an earlier inscription. And Ramesses II was well known for this, even when the earlier inscription belonged to his own father. You’re right that we must maintain an open mind, but our evaluative process must always be framed by extant evidence as well as our understanding of the culture in question.
kmtsesh. You want to use logic? Ok I’ll bite. To the far left of the images there is what is undoubtedly a Insect and a fish. moving to the right from there, oops a helicopter.
I bet you have no problems agreeing on the insect and the fish but when it comes to modern day flying machines, no way.
Maybe your approach should to figure out why there would be a flying machine there than immediately discrediting it.
you are part of the problem. Modern day scholars teaching in our universaties will simply go with “we have no idea how this or that happened” rather than open up their scared mind.
well ancient egypt was responsible for science,math,agriculture,astrology!! so maybe they were advanced to that sort of knowledge..the way things are whitewashed now we will never know right?? uummm something to think about right? would europians give credit to ancient egypt??? not!!!
Trust me, I’ve thought about it—for more than 30 years. Or, more properly put, researched the realities of pharaonic Egypt. My original intent in delving into ancient societies wasn’t based on fringe themes, but along the way I thought it important to combat wild speculations to which the fringe are addicted. Hence this blog. No one can deny the Egyptians were advanced for their time, although folks like the Sumerians of Iraq had already ventured into math, astronomy, agriculture, and the like even before the Egyptians. When we adhere to real-world evidence and study the development of Nile Valley populations both before the down through pharaonic times, things like “flying machines” are of course absurd. Tangible evidence is really what matters. The poor interpretations of temple wall depictions do not matter.
I have been extremely interested in this subject matter for quite some time now. I highly, highly, highly recommend watching Nassim Haramein’s four part lecture series titled “Crossing The Event Horizon”. Nassim has credentials world wide. He is a Mathematician, Astro-Physicist, Scientist, Historian. This particular lecture series is 8-9 hours long and contains an entire two hour section (part 3 i believe) that explains much of what you are describing (and questioning) in the above text regarding the Egyptians. I appreciate you putting this information out there. Knowledge is power. I hope with the best of intentions that you (and anyone else who read this comment section) can take a step into this informational realm. This lecture absolutely changed the way I view the world, past history and as well as the outlook on future advanced technologies. Take this gemstone of knowledge and it shall benefit every aspect your life. Nassim sheds a light on concepts that regarding this subject matter that i had never, ever thought about. Cheers everyone.
Anyhow, I found in a museum in the Netherlands a very good look a like image of a helicopter carved in a stone wall of a former Egyptian temple which resembles the picture as can be seen in the tomb.
Further I would recommend a lot of people to look personally at discutable (Egyptian) items ,in stead of discussing only from behind the desk and computerscreen.