The Reigns of Ay and Horemheb

Survivor; A soldier caught up in palace intrigue in the wake of Tutankhamun's death, Horemheb became pharaoh of Egypt-largely by being the last man standing.

The events surrounding the death of Tutankhamun are still far from clear. The king died unexpectedly in his tenth regnal year, at a time when Egypt was engaged in a major confrontation with the Hittites that ended in an Egyptian defeat at Amqa, not far from Qadesh. News of this disaster reached Egypt at about the time of Tutankhamun's death. We do not know whether Horemheb himself was leading the Egyptian troops in this battle, but the fact that he does not appear to have been involved in the burial arrangements for Tutankhamun, despite his role as regent and heir presumptive, is highly suggestive. Instead, Ay, a senior court adviser who had been one of Akhenaten's most trusted officials and may have been a relative of Amenhotep Ill's wife, Queen Tiy, conducted the obsequies and shortly afterwards ascended the throne. Apparently he did so at first as a kind of interim king, for Tutankhamun's widow, Ankhesenarnun, was trying to negotiate a peace with the Hittites by writing to the Hittite king Shupiluliuma to ask him for a son who could marry her and become king of Egypt, in order that Egypt and Hatti should become 'one country', an extraordinary step that may possibly have been instigated by Ay. This request met with much suspicion in the Hittite capital and, when Shupiluliuma was finally convinced of the Egyptian queen's honorable intentions and sent his son Zannanza to Egypt, the unfortunate prince was murdered en route, perhaps by forces loyal to Horemheb in Syria. The result was prolonged warfare with the Hittites. 

King Ay, who must have been fairly aged when he mounted the throne, ruled for at least three full years. A fragmentary cuneiform letter appears to suggest that he tried to make amends with the Hittites, denying all responsibility for the death of the prince, but to no avail. He also made a conscious effort to prevent Horemheb from asserting his rights after his death, for he appointed an army commander called Nakhtmin (possibly a grandson of his) as his heir. Despite this, however, Horemheb succeeded in ascending the throne after Ay's demise and soon set out to deface the monuments of his predecessor and to destroy those of his rival Nakhtmin. 

If Horemheb's path to the throne had been beset with difficulties, his actual reign (1323-1295 BC) appears to have been relatively uneventful. It should be borne in mind, however, that there are few inscriptions from the later part of his reign. Even its length is still uncertain; his highest attested date is year 13, but on the basis of Babylonian chronology and two posthumous texts many claim that he reigned for nearly twice as long as this. The unfinished state of his royal tomb in the Valley of the Kings (KV 57), however, even if it was not begun before his year 7, is difficult to reconcile with such a long reign. Trouble with the Hittites over territories in northern Syria continued, and around regnal year 10 the Egyptians appear to have made an unsuccessful attempt to reconquer Qadesh and Amurru, although it is typical of the reign that our sources for this confrontation are Hittite, and not Egyptian texts. It is even possible that Horemheb finally came to an agreement with his enemy, for a later Hittite text refers to a treaty that had been in force before it was broken during the reigns of Muwatalli and Sety I (1294-1279 BC). 

At home, Horemheb embarked on a number of major building projects, including the Great Hypostyle Hall in Karnak. He may also have begun the systematic demolition of the city of Amarna, still inhabited at this time. Two stone fragments including a statue base bearing his cartouches were found there. The reorganization of the country was also taken in hand with great gusto. The Great Edict, which he published on a stele in the temple of Karnak, enumerates a large number of legal measures enacted in order to stamp out abuses such as the unlawful requisitioning of boats and slaves, the theft of cattle hides, the illegal taxation of private farmland and fraud in assessing lawful taxes, and the extortion of local mayors by officials organizing the king's annual visit to the Opet Festival during the journey from Memphis to Thebes and back. Other paragraphs deal with the regulation of the local courts of justice, the personnel of the royal harem and other state employees, and the protocol at court. 

Perhaps the most salient feature of Horemheb's reign is the way that he legitimized it; after all, he was of non-royal blood and was, therefore, unable to claim a 'genealogical' link with the dynastic god Amun. It is often maintained that his queen, a songstress of Amun called Mutnedjmet, should be identified with a sister of Nefertiti of that name, but this is not very likely as she appears to have become his wife well before his accession, quite apart from the fact that the legitimizing force of such a royal marriage may well have been questionable, given the circumstances. In his Coronation Text Horemheb does not hide his non-royal background, but instead puts much emphasis on the fact that, as a young man, he was chosen by the god Horus of Hutnesu, presumably his home town, to be king of Egypt; he then goes on to describe how he was carefully prepared for his future task by being the king's (that is, Tutankhamun's) deputy and prince regent, a claim largely substantiated by the inscriptions in his pre-royal tomb in the Memphite necropolis. It is Horus of Hutnesu who finally presents him to Amun during the Opet Festival procession, and who then proceeds to crown him as king. Horemheb thus owes his kingship to the will of his personal god and to divine election during a public appearance of Amun (that is, by means of an oracle). In this respect Horemheb's coronation resembles that of Hatshepsut (1473-1458 BC), who had also been elected by an oracle of Amun after having been regent. However, Hatshepsut was at least able to claim to be of royal blood herself and actually stressed that Amun had fathered her by the queen mother, a subject that Horemheb carefully avoids in his Coronation Text.

The Seven Provincial Pyramids Egypt

 

Archaeologists working near the ancient settlement of Edfu in southern Egypt have uncovered a step pyramid that dates back about 4,600 years. It predates the Great Pyramid at Giza by at least a few decades and was constructed by either Huni or Snefru, both pharaohs of Egypt. The newly uncovered pyramid contains no chambers and no evidence that it was originally intended for burial. It rose as high as 43 feet when it was first built but now rises only about 16 feet because of weathering and the pillaging of some of its stone blocks. This image shows excavations occurring at the pyramid’s eastern face during the 2011 season.

In southern Egypt around the ancient settlement of Edfu, archaeologists discovered a step pyramid decades older than the Great Pyramid of Giza. At 4,600 years old, this three-step pyramid belongs to a group of seven “provincial pyramids” constructed of sandstone blocks and clay mortar in various areas of southern and central Egypt. It’s unknown which pharaoh built them, although the possibilities have been narrowed to Huni or Snefru. The Edfu pyramid stands only 5 meters (16 ft) high today, although it was once about 13 meters (43 ft) high. It’s believed that a combination of pillaging and destructive weather reduced its dimensions. Including the one at Edfu, six of the seven pyramids are nearly identical in size.

“The similarities from one pyramid to the other are really amazing, and there is definitely a common plan,” said Gregory Marouard, who spearheaded the work at Edfu. However, no one knows why these pyramids were built. They don’t contain internal chambers, so they weren’t meant to be used as tombs. Archaeologists have found inscriptions by the remains of children buried at the foot of the Edfu pyramid. But they believe the burials and associated inscriptions occurred well after the pyramid was constructed. That leads researchers to believe that the pyramid may have been a symbolic monument attesting to the Pharaoh's power, a belief bolstered by the discovery of an installation for food offerings on one side of the pyramid.

Film: The Pyramid

A team of U.S. archaeologists unearths an ancient pyramid buried deep beneath the Egyptian desert. As they search the pyramid's depths, they become hopelessly lost in its dark and endless catacombs. Searching for a way out, they become desperate to seek daylight again. They come to realize they aren't just trapped, they are being hunted.


A team of archaeologists discover a vast pyramid buried under the Egyptian desert; a pyramid that has three sides and not four like the pyramids of Giza, Egypt. The team ordered to leave the site due to an uprising in Giza, and mostly due to the toxic fungal gas within the tombed pyramid. But to the debate between both father and daughter, Dr. Miles Holden and Dr. Nora Holden, they stay to get a glimpse of the pyramid, and send a robot, Shorty, in to investigate. After Shorty's destruction by unknown means, they make their way inside to recover it. They rapidly become lost, and a section of floor collapses beneath them, wounding and trapping Zahir (Amir K) pinning his leg to the ground by fallen debris. While attempting to climb back up, Sunni (Nicola) is scratched across the face by an unseen creature and falls. Leaving Zahir behind to find another way out, they hear him scream, and return to find only a bloody trail leading up the wall.


They are pursued through a narrow tunnel by creatures revealed to be cats that have survived for nearly thousands of years by cannibalism when a soldier, Shadid, finds and rescues them. But he is then pulled back into the tunnel by an unseen and powerful force. Shortly after escaping a sand trap, Sunni is pushed into a spike pit and fed on by the scavenger cat beasts, dying shortly after her fatal wounds. After finding a burial chamber and speculating about an escape route, Dr. Miles Holden (O'Hare) has his heart torn out from behind. His daughter, Dr. Nora Holden, and the cameraman Fitzie (Buckley) flee, though Fitzie shortly returns to discover Anubis weighing Miles' heart against Ma'at to determine entry to the afterlife. Miles is deemed unworthy and crumbles to dust. It is afterwards they learn that the pyramid was constructed to imprison Anubis, who was unforgiving and merciless in his goal to reunite with his father/creator, Osiris. Finding a journal from a Free Mason explorer, an occupant who had previously discovered the pyramid years ago, they find a way out, but are chased after by Anubis, and Fitzie is discovered and killed. Nora is temporarily captured and soon to be judged by Anubis, but manages to escape with the help of the scavenger cats, and passes out near the pyramid's exit. She wakes to discover a child above her, before Anubis lunges at them both.

The Changer of Ways-Tzeench-Change we can beleive in!

 

The Thousand Sons were the XV Legion of the original twenty Space Marine Legions. Their Primarch is Magnus, often called Magnus the Red. The Legion turned traitor during the Horus Heresy, after which it relocated to the Planet of Sorcerers in the Eye of Terror and dedicated itself to the Chaos God of change, sorcery and magic, Tzeentch. For a time it appeared that Tzeentch protected the Thousand Sons from the corruption and fragmentation that most of the other Traitor Legions underwent, but eventually the Legion went through a crisis of mutation and de-evolution, seemingly at the wish of their patron-God. Aghast at this development, their chief sorcerer, Ahriman, cast a powerful spell designed to render the Thousand Sons immune to the warping effects of Chaos. While the spell succeeded in this goal, it had an unforseen consequence of transforming the mutated Thousand Sons into little more than mystically animated suits of armour barely capable of being termed as anything more sentient than automata.

With the only surviving cognisant members being those incredibly strong in heretical psychic powers, the Thousand Sons are now a legion of ghosts led by the damned.

Kairos Fateweaver. Greater Daemon of Tzeentch

“Do not ask which creature screams in the night. Do not question who waits for you in the shadow. It is my cry that wakes you in the night, and my body that crouches in the shadow. I am Tzeentch and you are the puppet that dances to my tune...”
        - The Changer of Ways.

Tzeentch, the Changer of Ways, is the Chaos God of Sorcery, Change, and Manipulation. Within the Realm of Chaos his domain covers the chaotic magic, evolution and change, scheming and manipulation of all kinds, mundane as well as arcane. He is known under many other names, among them the Lord of Change, the Grand Schemer and the Lord of Sorcery, while in the Chaos Wastes he is known as the Great Eagle. In the Age of Reckoning, the Northmen tribes that make up the Army of Chaos led by the elite Raven Host worship him as the Raven God. Tzeentch's number is nine; as such, his followers frequently take to the battlefield in squads made up of multiples of nine. The colors used to represent Tzeentch are generally blue, purple, yellow, and gold.

Russell Mulcahy's Tale of the Mummy

In ancient Egypt, a sinister and murderous prince named Talos is sentenced to death for his crimes, and a curse is placed upon his tomb. Many years later, archeologist Sir Richard Turkel (Christopher Lee) discovers Talos's tomb while on a dig in the Middle East. While Turkel warns his associates not to disturb his burial grounds for fear of angering the evil spirits, the grave is opened anyway and soon Turkel and his men meet a grisly fate. A few decades later, Turkel's granddaughter Samantha (Louise Lombard) is following in Richard's footsteps and has uncovered Talos's sarcophagus, which is to be displayed at a museum in England. However, while Talos's decaying corpse is no longer confined within his gauze wrappings, the bandages have absorbed his evil spirit and have taken on a life of their own.

Upon arrival in London, the fabric develops a taste for blood and goes on a murderous rampage, leaving bodies in their wake and presenting a very puzzling case for Riley (Jason Scott Lee), an American detective on assignment in the United Kingdom. Director Russell Mulcahy claims one of his key inspirations was a scene from the 1959 Hammer Films version of The Mummy (which starred Christopher Lee) that appeared on the poster but not in the actual film - in which a beam of light shone through a hole in the Mummy's chest. Also appearing are Lysette Anthony, Honor Blackman and Shelley Duvall. The film was originally shown under the title Talos The Mummy.

The “FIRST TIME” of Osiris

The Egyptians associated the first appearance of the phoenix with a golden age in their history known as Zep Tepi, the “First Time.” They were convinced the foundations of their civilization were established during this remote and glorious epoch. R. T. Rundle Clark, former professor of Egyptology at Manchester University, commented on the ancients’ conception of the First Time: “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...”

The First Time seems to have been the period during which Osiris reigned as foremost king of Egypt. It was during this era that he established law (maat) and initiated worship of Ra, Egypt’s monotheistic God. Rundle Clark explained: “The reign of Osiris was a golden age, the model for subsequent generations. Maat and monotheism, the “model for subsequent generations” set forth by Osiris, was the driving force behind Egyptian culture for thousands of years.

What exactly does the phrase “the First Time” mean? Is it a reference to the first appearance—the first coming— of the Christian Saviour on earth? Was there a guiding force behind the rise of Egyptian culture? The same guiding force that has inaugurated the empire of Christendom? Was the First Time an era during which an ancient Messianic tradition was first established? A tradition aimed at revealing cultural wisdom, law, and spiritual truth to mankind during different historical epochs?

In the past decade extensive research has been undertaken by authors Graham Hancock, Robert Bauval, and Adrian Gilbert to link the events of the “First Time” with the god Osiris and the constellation Orion. They believe the three great pyramids at Giza were constructed to form a mirror image of the three stars of Orion’s belt (Orion was perceived as the celestial counterpart of Osiris). Using computer-imagery they demonstrate that the best fit for the Orion/Pyramids correlation was the year 10,500 B.C. One of the so-called “air-shafts” inside the great pyramid points directly to the stars of Orion’s belt during the 10,500 B.C. epoch— further evidence, according to the authors, of a connection between the First Time of Osiris, the Giza pyramids, and the three stars of Orion’s belt. What is the significance of the 10,500 B.C. era? Is it possible that Osiris’ life, death, and resurrection occurred during this remote epoch? By establishing a date for the First Time of Osiris, have Hancock, Bauval, and Gilbert unwittingly discovered the date of the first appearance of the phoenix (Christian Messiah) on earth?

Interestingly, 10,500 B.C. is an important date to the Ammonites, a hidden community of about 27,000 who still practice the ancient Egyptian religion. Though the Ammonites are believed to have been destroyed by the Israelites thousands of years ago, they have lived in hiding throughout the Middle East for centuries, settling for a time in Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Their history can be traced back to the era of the first Ammonite kingdoms in Jordan, outside Egypt. The Ammonite Foundation is said to have been established by King Tutankhamun after the reign of the heretic Akhenaten, its purpose being to protect the sacred Egyptian texts from corruption. Ammonite tradition asserts that the appearance of Osiris, known by his ancient Egyptian name Ausar, occurred in c. 10,500 B.C. Jonathan Cott, author of Isis and Osiris: Exploring the Myth, conducted an interview with Her Grace Sekhmet Montu, one of the spiritual leaders of the Ammonites. She described the birth of the Ammonite tradition: “We didn’t start counting ourselves as followers until the death of Ausar [Osiris], and the date of his ascension into the other world marks the first day of the Ammonite calendar—12,453 years ago from this June 21, 1991!

Here again the mysterious date 10,500 B.C. arises in connection to the First Time of Osiris.

Interestingly, the twentieth-century American psychic Edgar Cayce also spoke of the year 10,500 B.C. According to his readings, it was during this era that the primitive Nile-dwellers came in contact with beings of a more ancient and advanced civilization who accelerated their culture and sense of spirituality by laying down the fundamentals of Egyptian culture.