This is an archived copy of a post written by Conflict Of Justice (conflictofjustice.com). Used with permission: Conflict Of Justice may not agree with any alterations made.
Contents Abraham ContextAmun-Re & Khnum The CreatorThe First CreationMeasurement Of Celestial TimeThousand Year Cycle Of The PhoenixThe CrossKey Of Power
Figure 1 of Facsimile 2 may look simple enough, but it is an incredibly complex diagram packed with profound symbolism. Due to the amount of Egyptian knowledge lost to the passage of time, and due to the misinformation campaign launched by Antimormons who like to say “Mormons believe they get their own planet,” Kolob gets swept to the corner. We don’t like to talk about it. The only time we dare mention Kolob is if we want to sing a hymn that’s in minor. But Figure 1 is a beautiful visual description of salvation and the nature of Christ. It describes Christ’s role as Creator and Redeemer, and is both the ladder to heaven and the cross. It is time to stop treating Kolob like a science fiction story and look at it as a scriptural description of Christ.
Not A ‘Facsimile’ – We think of the three facsimiles accompanying the Book of Abraham in equal terms, as they are presented in the Pearl of Great Price the same way and they talk about similar themes. But the truth is that they are quite different. Facsimile 1 comes from the Hor Book of Breathing scroll while Facsimile 2 was an entirely different document, a circular papyrus called a hypocephalus.
Original Joseph Smith documents refer to the Facsimile 1 vignette as: “A Fac-similee from the Book of Abraham–Explanation of the (above) cut.” Is this label “fac-similee” a redundant name for the wood “cut” which is also part of the title? That’s what I’ve always assumed. The “cut” obviously refers to the woodcut relief that we all see in the Pearl of Great Price, but what if the “facsimile” referred to the Hor scroll illustration itself? This would mean the illustration itself was a “facsimile”–it was a copy based on what was originally in the scroll Abraham wrote. In other words, this would mean Facsimile 1 in the Hor scroll source was not something Abraham drew. It was a later derivative, or “facsimile,” of what we find in the Book of Abraham. This would explain the variations between what the Book of Abraham text describes and what we see in the vignette, and it would explain why the Hor scroll in which it was drawn is not the Book of Abraham text.
But Facsimile 2 is a different case. It is never actually labeled a “facsimile” in these original documents. It is only titled a “cut.” The title “Facsimile 2” was added in the 1851 publication. This is important, because it means the title “facsimile” for Facsimile 1 probably refers to what the original vignette was–a copy, while the hypocephalus was not a copy of anything. Maybe it really should not be labeled a “facsimile” at all. It just adds confusion.
A ‘Translation’, Not Explanation – Joseph Smith wrote what he called an “explanation” for Facsimile 1 while he described his comments on “Cut 2” as a “translation.” This is a very important difference that most people gloss over. As a facsimile with some similarities to the Book of Abraham original, the Facsimile 1 vignette would not be appropriate for Joseph Smith to “translate.” He would have ended up with some funeral rites for some guy named Hor. So instead he “explained” how the symbolism related to Abraham–as it derived from the Sed-festival ritual which Abraham was involved in. Facsimile 2 (as it is known) is a different case. Joseph Smith wrote that his “translation” was “given as far as we have any right to give at the present time.”
Well, why wouldn’t Joseph Smith have the “right” to translate certain parts of it? A curious question which I haven’t seen anyone really talk about. But there are some profound implications we should consider. Joseph Smith declined to translate the excerpts that come from the Book of the Dead text, and yet in some of these areas he apparently copied and pasted text straight from the beginning of the Hor scroll. Skeptics insist that the Hor scroll was the source for the translation of the Book of Abraham text, remember, and they point to a side by side comparison of these same characters that Joseph Smith made with Book of Abraham text as proof. Why would Joseph Smith say he had no “right” to “translate” this part of Facsimile 2 if he had already translated these characters into Book of Abraham text? It’s the same characters. So evidently they were not part of his Book of Abraham translation. This is yet more evidence that the Book of Abraham text source was not the Hor scroll but a fourth scroll that has been lost. My theory is that Joseph Smith’s side by side comparison of the characters was an attempt to translate the “record of Joseph” which is what the Book of Breathings and other scrolls were.
Well, these scrolls have since been translated by Egyptologists, and we know what the text in these parts of Facsimile 2 say. Perhaps that is actually one reason why Joseph Smith didn’t have the “right” to translate the text but did have the right to translate the vignettes. Perhaps the problem is that this would have provided indisputable physical proof of his prophetic abilities as seer and thus not require people to have faith. His translation of the vignettes in the facsimiles are quite indisputable for anyone being honest with themselves, but when it comes to images there is always room for differences of opinion of what they mean. A truculent “expert” with an agenda could spin and weasel some other “translation.” Or CES Letter can deceptively call one of the figures “the four cardinal points of the earth” to make it sound different than what Joseph Smith translated: the “four quarters” of “this earth.” Antimormons are brilliantly adept at skewing, spinning, and ommitting context to make Joseph Smith sound wrong, and this would be much harder to pull off with translations of text. I think the other reason Joseph Smith may not have had the “right” to translate this text, or even apparently know what text belonged in these areas, was that it didn’t relate to Abraham. His job was to translate spiritually edifying documents, and these parts were strictly about a guy named Sheshonq. The images at least related to an Abrahamic context.
Abraham Context In The Hypocephalus
Skeptics often quote outdated scientists in their attempt to discredit the Book of Abraham and other Latter-day Saint scripture. CES Letter references an article which quotes Dr. Samuel A.B. Mercer PHD (a doctor and a PHD, wow!) as interpreting figure 1 of Facsimile 2: “It represents the four-headed ram-god, a form of Khnumu in whom, as Weigall in Petrie, Abydos I says, the spirits of the four elements were said to be united.” Well, that’s close but not quite right–which is to be expected considering Dr. Mercer PHD wrote this over a century ago. CES Letter has a habit of quoting ancient Egyptologists from a long time ago to attack the Book of Abraham. Skeptics avoid looking at updated scientific findings and important context of these scenes because doing so would reveal Joseph Smith’s translation correct. CES Letter calls this Figure 1 simply “the god Khnumu” instead of talking about who this god was and the significance, which was what Joseph Smith was translating. Joseph Smith was not interested in Egyptian names. Indeed, Joseph Smith’s remarks on Figure 1 are a perfect bullseye of the Egyptian meaning, and the Egyptian context also provides evidence for many of the Book of Abraham’s more controversial claims, including the relativity of time between earth and Kolob.
I recall Dr. Hugh Nibley saying somewhere that Facsimile 2 (as it is called) is a very understudied element of the Abraham issue but that it offers some very exciting possibilities. Unfortunately, Antimormons have dominated the entire Abraham discussion completely and dictated the narratives, leaving Latter-day Saint scholars scrambling to defend it. This defensive mindset can sadly be seen in the most recent release of the Joseph Smith Papers. Unfortunately, this has held back scholars from exploring Abraham issues deeper and making new discoveries. It would be great if some scholar would come across some of the discoveries I’ve made about Facsimile 1, research them, and write a groundbreaking book for the Maxwell Institute. I would love that. But Facsimile 2 offers clearer discoveries that are easier to back up, as it is a “translation” rather than a mere “explanation.” I’ve had a much easier time matching what Joseph Smith said with modern Egyptological writings. So, let us throw out the garbage narratives offered by Antimormons, see what these Figures truly mean, and relate it to what Joseph Smith said.
Pathway To Heaven – The hypocephalus was a round Egyptian funerary document placed under the head. This made the impression of a golden circle behind the head, which is perhaps where the imagery of golden halos around the heads of Saints in Christian iconography started. The resemblance to the shining sun was intentional, as the hypocephalus was intended to “generate the vital flame of the sun god” to revitalize the deceased. Each area of the hypocephalus (which Joseph Smith correctly identified as separate registers with separate meanings) portrayed “cosmographic regions and divine forms associated to the solar cycle.” The progression of regions served as a cosmographic roadmap through the stars to exaltation.
Should we be surprised that a documents such as this could be translated into an Abrahamic context? We know that Abraham had learned and taught astronomy in Egypt. Joseph Smith’s narrative matches many ancient sources about Abraham teaching astronomy (though this is not mentioned in the bible and Joseph Smith did not know about any of these other sources). The Book of Abraham text (which Joseph Smith published well before the “Facsimile 2”) describes the same astronomical ideas found in this translation. It would have been nice if Joseph Smith had told us how Abraham’s astronomy got adopted by the Egyptians and developed into the hypocephalus, but alas, Joseph Smith’s translation only focuses on each register individually and not the overall purpose of the document. So we can only guess.
Auxiliary For Facsimile 1 – Scholars do not know the purpose of the hypocephalus document, other than what they get from the contents, and the fact that it is laid under the head–apparently to help the deceased on his journey in the afterlife. What was it for? Chapter 162 of the Book of the Dead is thought to refer to it, titled: “The chapter of giving warmth under the head of the glorified one.” It address the “mighty lion” of Ra, calling him “god of salvation, coming to him who calleth upon him, saving the wretched from the hand of his oppressor.” A 5th Dynasty hypocephalus declares similarly around the ring of its circle: “I am Amun… I am ankh… Hail to you, O lion, great of strength.” This chapter “identifies the powerful spirit of Amun with the lion” and uses the lion’s strength to overpower enemies. This reminds me an awful lot of Facsimile 1, where Abraham on the lion couch was delivered from the priest of Elkenah. The chapter goes on to implore the god Amun for “warmth under the head of Ra. Protect him in the Duat (afterlife), renewing him… Come unto Osiris N.N… This is a very great talisman which was made by the cow for Ra at his setting. Then was his throne surrounded by comarades to protect him from the fire.” Protect him from the fire? Most accounts of Abraham’s ordeal describe the attempted sacrifice as being by fire. The angel of the Lord extinguished the wicked priest’s fire and delivered Abraham. This spell appears to be a funeral-version of the purpose of that ritual which was to sacrifice Abraham to renew the king’s place on the throne.
When you look at the Sed-festival altar itself, such as this one at Abu Gorab which was likely similar to the one they laid Abraham upon, what shape is the stone that Abraham’s head laid upon? The stone that lay behind his head like how the hypocephalus lay behind the head of the deceased mummy? Circular. It could therefore very well be that the hypocephalus funerary talisman was created based on the Sed-festival altar, and that it therefore figures into the Facsimile 1 scene which was derived from the Sed-festival.
As I have pointed out, Jacob’s “pillow” stone, the stone upon which Jacob the patriarch lay as he saw the vision of “heaven’s ladder,” likely was similar to the Sed-festival altar which Abraham experienced. Genesis tells us Jacob constructed the stone bed as “the sun was set” and that he erected the stones into a pillar at first light of day–the same sun setting and rising dynamic that defines the hypocephalus. The hypocephalus describes the extension of the person’s glory along the four cardinal directions like how Jacob’s vision described the spread of his posterity throughout the four directions. Also, Jacob’s “ladder” is similar to Abraham’s vision of different degrees of glory in the heavens, which is similar to what we see here in Figure 1 of the hypocephalus.
Amun-Re & Khnum The Creator
Figure 1 represents “the ba of the sun god coming into being at dawn.” One hypocephalus has this text accompanying this register: “I am the ba, the muscle begetting the form.” An interesting phrase! The muscle begetting form is the ba spirit as a “creational force.” Like with Facsimile 1, it references the Osiris resurrection story: “The rejuvenation of the corpse of Osiris is a central theme in a Ptolemaic variant of spell 162 of the Book of the Dead.” That’s also what is being portrayed in the typical funeral lion couch scene. This is the moment the king rejuvenates and regaines his throne in the Sed festival.
Two or Four Heads? – Skeptics like to split hairs and hype up the fact that other hypocephali have a four-headed Khnum god here rather than the two-headed Amon-Re. They say Joseph Smith simply copied Figure 2 over here because this part of the document had crumbled away, and that he got it wrong. Even Latter-day Saint scholars have unfortunately fallen for this false narrative, but the truth is this couldn’t possibly be true because the unique details filled in by Joseph Smith to the left of the Amon-Re figure match perfectly what is supposed to be there. How did he know what to fill in? Either Joseph Smith penciled this space as missing in the original drawing and it wasn’t really missing, or he knew through inspiration exactly what was supposed to go there.
Amon-Re is a reasonable substitute for Knhnum here anyway, as Amun-Re is the central figure of the whole document. According to Kerry Shirts: “the central figure in the hypocephalus is also Amon-Re, as well as Chnum!” According to the Global Egyptian Museum, “in the centre is a four-headed bull representing, Amun-Re.” Whether the figure had four heads or not, Khnum was closely related to Amun-Re and was interchangeable here, so Joseph Smith was correct to translate Figure 2 which is definitely Amun-Re, standing just above Figure 1: “stands next to Kolob… near to the celestial.” They are closely similar characters. The four heads may be missing in Joseph Smith’s rendering, but look at the branch forking out from the right side of the character’s head. How many forks are sticking up vertically out of it? Four.
Khnum’s four heads represent Re (sun), Shu (light), Geb (earth), and Osiris (resurrection). These four aspects of the universe erupt from a singular creative force, Khnum. The three ripples of water and diagonal stroke just to the left of his head–which Joseph Smith mysteriously knew how to fill in– represent the global mass of water (nw) of Nun–what we think of today as the “dust of creation.” This is the raw material which Khnum the creator makes into Shu (light), Tefnut (water), and Geb (earth). These filled in lines thus relate the Figure back to the four heads which Khnum. The two antennae sticking out of the head are the horn of the ovis longpipes ram, which is symbolic of Khnum and his creative powers–yet another reference to Khnum. It is interesting that Joseph Smith filled in all these parts that relate it back to Khnum. These unorganized waters of Nun are “the spirit of god rippling the waters,” which of course matches the beginning of the Genesis creation story with God brooding upon the deep. So, immediately we see God’s role as grand creator in this diagram of the king’s exaltation.
The First Creation
Khnum-Re in the hypocephalus is “the creator god in its most powerful manifestation… the moment of sunrise in the morning.” This matches what Joseph Smith called it: “the first creation.” Egyptologists’ astronomical interpretation comes from boats that were drawn in this register in earlier hypocephali. This center of the circle was the meeting spot for the “evening and morning barques of the sun gods.” The evening boat moves west to east and the morning boat moves east to west. The evening barque has just completed its journey and the morning barque is about to start. It is the moment the evening solar barque meets the east and the beginning of the morning barque’s journey to the west. This speaks to what Joseph Smith said of this Figure: “First in government, the last pertaining to the measure of time.” Khnum’s four heads of creation–matching the four-forked branch to the east of Figure 1’s head–represents the organization of the universe from chaos in a process of creation. This creation is a process of time, and the solar barque is just finishing this journey. In the modern church, we have the same kind of concept: the millenium, end of times. Now, the morning barque is starting its journey, represented by the three-forked branch to the west side of the figure’s head. Three forks for the three members of the godhead. First in government. And so, this meeting spot of the solar boats is both the finalization of creative process and the start of godly governance. This is what Kolob is, Joseph Smith explained. “Kolob, signifying the first creation…” Khnum the creation god.
Kolob – This word Kolob is thought to come from the QLB semetic root which translates to: “heart, center, middle.” Appropriately, Figure 1 is exactly in the middle of the hypocephalus. Variations of QLB are Arabc qalb “heart, center,” Hebrew qereb “middle, midst,” Hebrew qarab “draw near,” and Eygptian m-q3b “in the midst of.” Scholar Michael Rhodes has brilliantly pointed out that the Arabic qalb “forms part of the Arabic names of several of the brightest stars in the sky, including Antares, Regulus, and Canopus.” As the name Kolob implies, this Figure’s orientation in the middle of the circle places it “nearest to the celestial or the residence of God.”
Consider the name Khnumu (KHM) itself. So many creator gods around the world have similar sounding names.
- Kamuni in Japan
- Karora in Australia
- Karusakaibo in the Amazon
- Keri in South America
Shall we add Kolob to that list? In Egypt, Knum “fashioned the first man and woman out of clay… and breathed air into them… It means shepherd and guardian of life.” He is at the center of Facsimile 2 because “Knum created the primal cosmic egg at his potter’s wheel.” The potter’s wheel, of course, is a spinning circular disk that centralizes clay in the middle and fashions everything spinning around from that middle point. Perfect imagery for Kolob. Joseph Smith was totally correct to call it “first creation.” As for this title “shepherd and guardian of life,” is this not also a title for Jehovah: the good shepherd?
Sobek – Now take a look back over at Facsimile 1; who is in the middle of the whole thing? Who is center? The eye of the crocodile is perfectly in the center. This is interesting because Khnum was “Lord of inundations” like Sobek. There is apparently some relationship between the identity of these two gods. Sobek the crocodile god was associated with the Nible’s rising flood waters which brought rebirth and creation, and Khnum was likewise associated with the rising flood waters. Khnum also visually looks crocidilish.”Amun is not often identified with crocodiles,” but when Egyptians were talking about his “primeval creator and source-of-water aspects,” the crocodile sometimes became a symbol, as these were “aspects common to Amun-Re and Sobek-Re (in addition to Khnum-Re).”
At the Temple of Kom Ombo, we see Sobek stand by in the same manner as Figure 1 of Facsimile 2, holding the was scepter, wearing the royal kilt, and holding the ankh. Next to him, we see the two ladies of the Nile flanking the king, giving the king his kingship, in position like Figures 22 and 23 flanking either side of figure 1. In this scene, Sobek is officiating the endowment of divine rule through ritual, much like Sobek’s role in Facsimile 1, .
by Hedwig Storch– wikipedia/creative commons license)
We see this same crowning ceremony scene at the Temple of Esna, and then near it another similar scene, only this time the nearby scene shows Sobek at the center, flanked by a character. THis time, he takes the central position like Figure 1 in Facsimile 2. The character flanking him is Menhit, the lioness goddess who overcomes the enemies of the gods. Here she is acting in a similar fashion as the lion couch in Facsimile 1:![](http://www.conflictofjustice.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/sobek-crowning-ritual-2.jpg")
by Steve F-E-Cameron– wikipedia/creative commons license)
| See also: | Facsimile 1 Figure 8 Human Heart |
Heart – Sobek officiated ceremonies, but another main function of Sobek was to “steal hearts”, according to the Book of the Dead. This probably comes from the crocodiles along the Nile that priests would throw body parts to after sacrificing their victims. The crocodile consumed the heart of a sacrificed victim of the Sed festival, which explains his presence in the Sed festival ritual in Facsimile 1. It also helps explain his association with Khnum in the center of Facsimile 2 here. Kolob=QLB=”heart, center, middle.”
Figure 1’s connection to Facsimile 1 becomes more evident when you consider that Hor, the guy for whom Facsimile 1 was made, was addressed alongside that facsimile as: “Priest of Amun-Re.” It goes on in a prayer for him: “May you awake every day so that you might see the rays of the sun. Amon has come to you bearing the breath of life.” This moment in the Book of Breathings, again, is what the hypocephalus is all about–rebirth in the morning by the rays of the sun through Amon-Re/Khnumi. And so, we may consider the hypocephalus itself to be a kind of organ or auxiliarly for Facsimile 1, and that would explain why Joseph Smith associated it with Abraham at all.
The hypocephalus is equivalent to the eye of Horus, and the Sed festival ritual in Facsimile 1 was the eye of Horus sacrifice. As part of his sacrifices in the Opening of the Mouth, the deceased king is told: “I give thee the Eye of Horus” to help him regain life and kingship. In the chapter of making fire: “The eye of Horus annihilates the enemies of Amon-Re.” Sobek the fierce crocodile associated with the physical prowess of the Pharaoh is the one officiating, making it happen. But fortune flipped and Abraham had his enemies annihilated–the wicked priests. Suddenly, the promises and blessings of exaltation applied to Abraham. The intended proxy sacrifice of the king received deliverance and the path to exaltation instead of the king. This is how Joseph Smith could apply the Egyptian meanings of each figure in the hypocephalus to Abraham. It became his cosmological roadmap to exaltation.
Measurement According To Celestial Time
Ladder Of Heaven – In the funeral weighing of the hearts ceremony, it is one of these four heads of Khnum–Shu–who delivers the Eye of Ra to the deceased, giving him access to exaltation. “Shu maintains the space between sky and earth, thus linking oppositional spheres, and is the breath of the very life-generative source, Ra. Out of Ra, the sun, other forms came into being: gods, humans, animals, and plants. So Ra stands for life-giving generative power and Shu for a transformative power with overall mediatory functions. Shu’s mediating role extends to death. In death, the souls mount a ladder from the world to heaven. Shu possesses the power to make the deceased stand up by the Ladder and climb to heaven.” (By Noon Prayer: The Rhythm of Islam, Fadwa El Guindi)
This is the Egyptian ladder of heaven. The stepped ziggaurat or pyramid took the form of Shy’s ladder to exaltation: “This mound or pyramid of seven steps is called the staircase or ladder of Shy, and Maspero says it was famous throughout all Egypt… In the Ritual, a figure of this mound, with seven steps, called the ladder or staircase of Shu is frequently portrayed.” ” (Signs and Symbols of Primordial Man, Albert Churchward)
Seven steps–which can be seen in Egyptian, Mesopatamian, and Central American religious architecture. Now, take a look back at the forked branches extending out of Amun-Re/Khnum in Figure 1.There are three forks on the left branch, and four forks extending vertically out of the right branch. Seven forks in all. Additionally, the horizontal ribs of Amun-Re’s body add up to seven lines. These reference the seven steps of creation. The seven periods of creation that we all know from Genesis relate to the process of exaltation, as earth’s entire history is divided into seven dispensations. The seventh dispensation is a thousand years of peace when the earth’s time of probation is finished and all men stand before Christ to be judged. It is not coincidence that Abraham in the Book of Abraham saw in vision the seven periods of creation immediately after he saw Kolob and the ladder of heaven. The seven steps of the ladder would naturally lead into the seven steps of creation. We likewise read of “seven heavens” in the Apocalypse of Abraham.
Picture in your head a stepped ziggaurat. The top step is Kolob, because it is “near to me,” as it is the highest point of the building. It is also in the center of the ziggaurat if you are looking at it from a plan view, isn’t it? Kolob=center. And so, we can start to look at Facsimile 2 as if it were a three-dimensional model. This central Figure 1 would be the highest area in a stepped arrangement, like a ziggaurat pyramid. In his vision, Abraham saw various planetary bodies revolving around this center, which decreasing quickness as we get farther from the center. “And thus there shall be the reckoning of the time of one planet above another, until thou come nigh unto Kolob, which Kolob is after the reckoning of the Lord’s time; which Kolob is set nigh unto the throne of God, to govern all those planets which belong to the same border as that upon which thou standest.” (Abraham 3:9)
This is a visual diagram of the relationship between time, creation, and priesthood governance. The closer you get to a system the more time of rotation, and the more ordered or fully created, and the closer to the Lord which means more governing power. Abraham’s vision of Kolob was thus a vision of heaven’s ladder; like the heaven’s ladder that Jacob his grandson saw in dream, and much like the Egyptian heaven’s ladder that Shu held up and is referenced in the hypocephalus.
Early Egyptians made little ladder amulets which they included in a tomb burial to help the deceased mount the path to exaltation. Circular Greek funeral vases of Apollonia in Thrace show the same kind of scene with the deceased climbing a ladder, flanked by two figures. These vases are thought to derive from the circular Egyptian ladder amulet. Egyptologist E. Wallis Budge said Osiris mounted the ladder to transform into Horus (the drama shown in Facsimile 1) as mentioned in the Book of the Dead: “I set up a Ladder among the gods, and I am a divine being among them.” Later, when the “model of the ladder in the tomb fell into disuse, the priests provided for the necessity of the dead by painting a ladder on the papyri that were inscribed with the texts from the Book of the Dead and were buried with them,” Budge says. There is no ladder drawing on the Book of the Dead papyrus fragments recovered from Joseph Smith’s collection, but the hypocephalus served that function. The ladder was combined with the hypocephalus amulet so that we see a ladder representation in the concentric design, in the center where it belongs.
One curious thing about Figure 1 is the double face of Amun-Re. One face looks left and one face looks right. This is meant to show both sides of the structure–there are two branches and two sides of the face, just as there are two solar boats. One side is for the morning barque and the other for the evening barque. The deceased declares in the Book of the Dead: “The Light-god hath made me to be vigorous by the two sides of the ladder.” The journey through the night and day hemispheres of the hypocephalus–the moon and sun–come together at this point in the cycle for Osiris, the morning sunrise, and Osiris exalts into Horus, elevating him into a Celestial time and season.
Solar Arm – These two forked branches are in the position of arms, and indeed their symbolism extends from ladders and tree branches to arms, as the The deceased declarestat sign of a central pillar or tree derived from the upraised arm: “The solar hand was connected with that extensive class of mythic concepts in which the sun-god becomes old, weak, sick, impotent, crippled, paralyzed or bound in the evening and night, and even more appropriatly in the fall and winter seasons; his escape, restoration or cure of course belonging to the morning or spring and summer. In one view Osirirs is the old sun of the west, underwold, and winter, while his son Horus is the young or restored sun… Thoth says: ‘I am with Horus in the act of supporting this left arm of the Osiris who is in Sekhem’ is identified with the Tat in Tattu… while the arms of the deceased are assigned to the Lord of Tattu… And as tat is one of the Egyptian words for ‘hand,’ it is not improbable that the well-known tat-sign was identified by some as a symbol of the human hand, or arm and hand; the celestial Tattu being the region of the horizon circle as divided into the ‘two horizons,’ primarily of the east and west. In a Pyramid text (Pepi I), where the several parts of the body of the deceased are identified with gods, the shoulders and arms (and hands) are said to be Set–as a figure of the underworld.” (The Open Court, Vol. 33, Lawrence Parmly Brown, edited Paul Carus)
This arm of Horus, or solar arm, is the arm raised to a ninety degree angle which we see in Figure 7 of Facsimile 2. It symbolized the transformation from night to day. But it’s place as between the two horizons is more important here in Figure 1, as this central spot was where east and west, night and day, meet. The raised hands–such as Abraham’s hands raised in earnest prayer which we see in Facsimile 1–represented the body ascending from below up to the heavens, as Osiris ascended to Horus, and thus is another aspect of this heavenly ladder. Amun-Re and Khnum (Khem) were primarily focused on lifting the arms to revitalize the deceased’s body. Amun-Re lifted the deceased by the hand to exalt him. “The Egyptian Khem, Min, or Amsu, often figured in connection with the restoration of the deceased in the underworld, is a mummified god with one arm (generally the right) raised above his head… As a mummified god he belongs to the underworld, probably being assimilated to Amen-Ra as the soli-cosmic deity who raises his hand at dawn of day. He is called ‘the lifter of the hand’… and ‘the god lifting up his arm’… for in the Saite Rescension the deceased opens the gates of Seb (from the lower to the upper world) and ‘frees himself from the god with his arm tied… the deceased says: ‘My palm-tree is like Amsu’–doubtless because of the resemblance of that tree to the open hand and the solar flabellum. Khem or Amsu, like Osiris, holds a winnowing flail (or flagellum) in his lifted hand, and Jesus Christ is come with his fan.” (The Open Court, Vol. 33, Lawrence Parmly Brown, edited Paul Carus)
Amsu is equivelent to Min–Figure 7–with his solar arm raised. He was “assimilated to Amun-Re”–Figures 1 and 2–as his lifted hand was pulled up the ladder to the region closest to God. Min represents the deceased in the underworld who then gets lifted by Amun-Re by the hand. The god doing the lifting was Khnum “identified with Amen”, which is exactly what our Figure 1 is. This lifting action opens the “gates” of heaven. In early Christian “ladder of heaven” depictions we see God likewise lifting people up by the hand with right arm stretched out much like our character in Figure 1.
Palm Branch – Another part of this symbol is introduced here: the palm tree. The structure or ladder to heaven is called his “palm tree,” because the god Amun-Re/Khnum’s hand looks like a palm branch. Even today in English the word “palm” refers to both a hand and the palm tree. But we are told the open “palm” hand is holding a weapon, similar to Jesus “with his fan.” What is that talking about? Well, Matt. 3:12 references the palm branch as a “fan” (what ancients used for a broom) that is used as a cleaning instrument. Jeremiah 51:2 speaks of God’s “fan” sweeping away Babylon into the dustbin of history. As the New Testament explains, those who are sealed by baptism will be swept to the wheat pile, and everyone else swept out the door. And so, the solar arm–per the justice of God–is both a saving instrument that exalts the righteous and a weapon that damns the wicked.
The branch to the right of Figure 1 with the four forks is a palm branch, and it carries this symbolism. It rises as Amun-Re’s solar arm and contains four of the steps of heaven’s ladder. Isaiah 41:16 speaks of God’s “fan” as something that scatters Israel among the four winds or four quarters of the earth. It is either damnation or eternal life, as the palm branch was “symbol of long life.” It is about time and seasons.
Now look at the other branch to the left of Figure 1. It looks different. It resembles a reed, probably the reed of life. “Again, the great reed standing up out of the water is identical with the typical mound of earth in the Navajo mythology. As the mound grew higher, higher grew the reed. At the time of the deluge all that lived took refuge there, and were rescued from the drowning waters by the reed. This is the papyrus reed which cradled Horus amid the waters, like the infant Moses in the ark of bulrish, applied in a folk-tale on a larger scale.” (Ancient Egypt: The Light of the World, Gerald Massey)
This left branch, the reed, therefore speaks to the ark, temple, and vehicle for salvation.
Palm Symbol Of Time – In his translation, Joseph Smith stressed the relativity of time–probably because that’s the context of how Kolob is talked about in the Book of Abraham. Well, in the Egyptian ceremony of presenting the palm branch, a temple initiate was promised lengthened time, reckoned on the order of the sun. At the temple of Amonophis III in Thebes, a scenes shows the palm branch as a symbol of “millions of years” in much the same way as Figure 1 does: “1. Khnemu, seated opposite Isis, fashioning the body of the young king and his ka or double upon a potter’s wheel… 2. Amen and Khnemu holding converse… 4. Isis offering the child to Amen, who addresses him as ‘son of the Sun.’ 5. The child Amenophis III, seated on the knees of Amen, whilst his destiny is being decreed in the presence of Isis or Hathor; Mut offers to him a palm branch, at the end of which is the emblem of festivals. Amen declares that he will give him ‘millions of years, like the Sun.'” (Notes For Travellers In Egypt, E. Wallis Budge)
These series of scenes follow the life of king Amenhophis III all the way from pre-mortal life to the king’s final exaltation. The palm branch provides extended years on a celestial reckoning, provided by Amen-Re, just as Joseph Smith translated. The palm branch itself in Egypt was a symbol for “time” and “season.” In the Book of the Dead, a god “holds the palm-branch which symbolizes time, year, renewal, fresh vegetation,” and in his other hand holds the Eye of Horus.
Consider when Jesus entered in Jerusalem he was presented by the people with palm branches, associating him with the sun. That’s why it is celebrated as “Palm Sunday.” “The Palm Sunday processes in the New Testament Bible, actually exemplified the solar character of Jesus, when he rides into Jerusalem on the back of an Ass. One of the earliest Egyptian personifications of the Divine Sun of God was ‘Aiu’, who was the Ass-Headed god. He is a form of Amen-Ra’… The palm branch, according to Professor Gerald Massey, is a process of time, which has two equal sides, as represented by the palm branch. This is symbolized by the equality of the day with the night at the equinox. Jesus riding on the back of the Ass to the scene of his crucifixion, is the figure of the Divine Sun of God, moving toward the equinox, as symbolized by the palm branches at ‘Passover,’ where he will be crucified on the ‘Cross of the Afrikan Equator and Ecliptic.’ The Ass was further identified with Set, or Satan, the Father of all evil, whose symbol was the Ass in an Egyptian hymn to Amen-Ra.’… which represented his Supremacy over Satan, symbolic of him riding on the back of the Ass.” (The Genesis of the Bible, Shaka Saye Bambata Dolo)
This last point, Jehovah’s victory, is of course what Abraham saw in vision. This is part of the palm branch symbolism, as “Horus fought his battle against Sett with a branch of a palm.” The palm branches in Jerusalem were therefore a direct acknowledgement that Jesus was Jehovah, and that that he was the great Mediator who provided men the means to be exalted. Considering the palm branch glyph literally means “time” or “year,” the presence of the palm branch to the right of Figure 1’s head and the palm branch glyph being held to the left of Figure 1 seems like a slam-dunk in associating Figure 1 with Kolob.
Palm & Reed In Each Hand – The goddess Nut was the personification of time, and we see the waters of Nut in the three wavy lines above the reed of life in Figure 1. Amun-Re/Khnum emerged holding the palm and reed branches in each hand in the first creation. “On emerging from the primortial deep with reed and palm on an island–the sacred mound of Heliopolis appearing like the first soil of the retreating flood–the creator, Re-Atum, produced the progenitors of earth and sky… Dependent on water-borne transport, they saw the sun-god Re traveling across the sky in a boat and changing boats to travel–perilously–back through the underworld at night. And in their relatively stable sun-blessed world they were the first correctly the enumerate the days of the solar year which they divided into a calendar of twelve months of thirty days and five extra days for the new-year festival.” (Antiquity: Origins, Classicism and The New Rome, Christopher Tadgell)
This explains the whole point of this sun-reckoning game and talking about the relativity of the sun’s time with earth’s time. They wanted to know how the sun affected their ability to live. The ancients understood the importance of time cycles, as their crops and survival depended on the times and four seasons, and they saw that the sun governed the earth’s seasons and cycles, and so this relativity of time was the most important aspect of the solar system’s creation and arrangement–though it may not seem so important to us today. Such agricultural symbols with cycles and time continue to be used in our temples today.
The stars on the Salt Lake City temple spires come in patterns of three and four. The stars lined across the frieze of the spires add up to seven, like the seven stars mentioned in Revelation. There are seven stars in the Big Dipper constellation shown on the temple wall. Seven stars for the seven periods of creation. Between butresses there were three stars at each crenelation–with eight gaps between butresses this adds up to 24 stars. The patterns of 3, 4, 7, and 12 all speak to the ladder of heaven in this Figure 1.
On the back of the Albuquerque, New Mexico temple, there is a lot of profound symbolism that even more closely ties in with the hypocephalus.
by Altus Photo Designon flickr (creative commons license)
It is a ziggurat shape with seven levels–three on either side and one in the middle. The seven steps of creation. Four phases of the moon flank this central sun level and step down the farther they are away from it. They also reflect less light from the sun the farther away they get, as we can see from the moon phases being portrayed. This illustrates the concept of Kolob and a decrease in glory the farther you get from it. The four moons on this temple facade reflect Khnum’s four heads–though Amun-Re in our Figure 1 has two baboons instead which represent the moon. Some hypocephali have four baboons, with two flanking on either side exactly like the temple shows here. And Joseph Smith was correct to associate them with the moon and its phases, as the temple does here. In front of the temple what do we see? A circular pool of water with concentric circles around it–much like the circular hypocephalus and the water of creation portrayed within this Figure 1. We proceed through an entrance with four doors at ground level and above it we see a lattice-work leading up to the sun and moons. What is that? Ladders. Ladders to heaven. The lowest level of the ziggurat has no ladder, as that level is perdition. Then we get the telestial. Then the terrestrial. Then the celestial. And then just barely peaking above the sun at the plymouth of the pyramid shape what do we see? The golden angel with outstretched hand.
The design of both ancient Egyptian and ancient American temples reflect this concept of Kolob and the dynamic of heaven’s ladder as well. In the Temple of Inscriptions in Palenque, Mexico, the great king Pakal was buried directly below this central plymouth point, at ground level. That’s the entrance, so to speak. A steep set of stairs climbs up from Paka’s tomb to the uppermost level of the ziggurat temple–the staircase to heaven. The tablet puried with Pakal confirms the purpose of this design: to enter the paradise of the afterlife by climbing the tree of life. The Palace structure next to this temple at Palenque was an initiatory center for the living where Mayans ritually performed this same sequence of entering into heaven.
At the great pyramid of Chichen Itza in Mexico we find the same design with a central burial chamber in the center. Inside this burial chamber, guess what archaeologists found? A jaguar altar for the deceased that looks and performs very much like the Facsimile 1 lion couch. The sensibilities in Facsimile 2 (as we call it) were part of Facsimile 1, and these sensibilities even made their way to Central America.
The massive Great Pyramid in Giza, Egypt has three burial chambers instead of just one. The telestial chamber lies 1/3 of the pyramid’s total height below ground. The middle chamber is 1/7 of the pyramid’s height above ground, and then the upper chamber is 1/2 of the pyramid’s height above the telestial chamber. Ventilation shafts (as they are known) extend diagonally from each side, much like the forked branches extending from each side of Figure 1 in our hypocephalus. They point to important star constellations, including the Little Dipper which has seven stars. As for this celestial burial chamber itself, horizontal stone rafters step up like the rib lines in Facsimile 1–like a ladder–and the ceiling is pointed up like the solar arm of Min. It is all similar imagery to Figure 1 as a diagram for rising in exaltation.
Djed Columns – Earlier at the temple of Amenophis III we saw the king receive a “palm branch, at the end of which is the emblem of festivals. Amen declares that he will give him ‘millions of years, like the Sun.’” What is the emblem of festivals? Well at the Temple of Seti I Abydos we see that it is the emblem of the Sed Festival:
The jubilee character is held up by an ankh symbol and a djed column extends horizontally from it. You can see the horizontal rib lines going across the column. The Sed festical, which was the basis for Facsimile 1’s design, was therefore the event where a person was sealed with the exaltations and glory of Kolob. And the raising of the djed column in the Sed festival rites was a big part of it.
How did Joseph Smith know about these palm and reed branches? They don’t show up in the original drawing, probably because that part of the document had crumbled. These two forked branches are not found in other hycophelus exmaples that I’ve seen either. But other hycopheli have the tet solar arm indicated inside the rod of authority which Khnum holds with a series of horizontal lines. The rod held by Khnum in our hycophalus rather looks like the palm branch, shaped as a shepherd’s crook. Seven horizontal lines extend across our Figure 1 as the ribs of Khnum’s body, which is very likely a reference to the djed column, and this figure therefore assumes the character of the Djed. The Djed column represents the tree in which Osiris was reborn as Horus, which as we have already seen shows up as our reed of life branch. It is an important part of the rebirth symbolism in our Figure 1.
The raising of the djed pillar served as an important part of the Sed festival. It represented renewal of the king’s life and kingship. It’s symbolism is found within Facsimile 1, and indeed, Jacob mimicked this very ritual when he tilted his “pillow” stone up into a pillar after dreaming about heaven’s ladder. The djed makes this Figure 1 a full symbol of a sacred tree, with trunk and two branches. The rising of the tree represents the rising of the Figure on the lion couch in Facsimile 1 after being saved by the angel, and the rising of the deceased to celeistial glory after receiving this hypocephalus.
The laying figure of the deceased transforms into a standing djed pillar in the typical lion couch Facsimile 1 scene. The deceased is flanked by two figures in an addoring pose–much like the baboons on either side of Figure 1 in Facsimile 2. Indeed, Figure 1 appears to be a snapsot of the Facsimile 1 figure on the lion couch after having been saved by the Horus bird. Djed represents the stability and life that comes from resurrection and exaltation. The Sed festival hieroglyph itself derived from the djed pillar being flanked by these twin figures, originally derived from Isis and Nephthys flanking the deceased Osiris on his funeral couch, and then Osiris emerges as Horus from the trunk of a standing tree, becoming the central pillar to the world, with the four sons of Horus under him. The four panels to Pakal’s kingship at the top of the Temple of Inscriptions also speak to the four directions, which the four sons of Horus also represent. As the intermediary sacred world tree between heaven and earth in Mayan theology, the central pillar enables the deceased to proceed to near the celestial or residence of God.
Cycle Of The Phoenix
The Greek always tried to emulate the Egyptians in everything, and they adopted this symbol of renewal and rebirth and turned it into something we all recognize: the phoenix. The phoenix famously dies in a fiery sacrifice and is resurrected in glory in an eternal cycle like the sun. The Septuagint bible translates “palm tree” in Psalm 92:12 as “phoenix.” “The rghteous flourish like the palm tree.” That’s because “early Christian literature attached to the palm the meaning of resurrection of the dead, specifically Jesus.” The phoenix became something of a sensation in the Middle Ages as Christians were excited by the lost traditions describing eternal life. Juan de Pineda famously printed these portrayals of the phoenix in his 1612 commentaries on the Book of Job:
We see the sun pouring down gloriously, like a waterfall almost, upon a phoenix with its wings spread in the same tau-shape as our Figure 1 Amun-Re, as it consumes in fire upon an altar. A great pyramid dominates this illustration, and a palm tree stands on the opposite side. The next illustration shows two trees flanking a phoenix who rises upon a fiery altar with the glorious sun shining upon him. The right tree appears to be a palm tree. The altar references Job 19:25, which reads: “For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall dstand at the latter day upon the earth,” bringing to pass the resurrection of men.
The phoenix originally roosted atop a palm tree.
Van den Brook points out: “In early Christian art the phoenix was often shown on a palm tree, but these are always representations of the heavenly Paradise, both of the phoenix and the palm being symbols of the triumph of Life over Death.” There are plenty of illustrations that show “the tree in which the phoenix builds its nest in preparation for renewing itself a palm.” Here are two images of the phoenix sitting on top of the palm, with outstretched branches and wings, and the sun shining its rays upon him. Well, just consider the word itself, says Carol Falvo Heffeman; the Greek word for phoenix “refers, among other things, not only to the fabulous bird phoenix, but to different types of the palm tree”–two types of palm tree which derive from the common Mediterranean ancestor. “When we turn from the Greek to the Egyptian word for palm, the connections are equally striking: benu, the name of the Egyptian prototype of the phoenix, is a word which in Egyptian means “palm tree” as well as the bird, just as […] does in Greek.” (The Phoenix at the Fountain: Images of Woman and Eternity…, Carol Falvo Heffernan)
The forked branches we see in Figure 1 become wings as the Horus bird, which saves Abraham in Facsimile 1, is grafted into the symbolism, and the rib lines of the djed pillar become a literal tree.
Thousand Year Cycle – As for the relativity of time symbolized by the palm branch, which we have discussed, that becomes the 1,000 year cycle of the phoenix. St. John saw this in vision, according to The Phoenix Homily: “Now here, Saint John writes in words as true as an author can, that every thousand years the Phoenix feels that he has grown very old. He gathers precious boughs from all over Paradise and piles them up together, and through God’s might and the light of the sun, this pile catches fire; and the Phoenix falls into the middle of that great fire and is burned all to dust. Then on the third day the beautiful bird Phoenix rises from death, grown young again… He does this every thousand years. He burns himself up and, young again, rises up… May Christ save us, that we may dwell in joy with the one who lives and reigns forever without end. Amen.” (The Phoenix: An Unnatural Biography of a Mythical Beast, Joe Nigg)
The bird lives and dies like the cycle of the sun rising and setting, the solar barques of the sunrise and sunset coming and going in thousand year intervals to a day exactly as Joseph Smith interpreted. This ritualistic event is really described like a fire sacrifice ritual, much like the attempted sacrifice of young Abraham by fire. And the “phoenix was said by the ancient Latin write Martial (40-102 AD/CE) to have been renewed every ‘ten centuries’, making a millenium.” Helena Blavatsky the Theosophist recognized that the phoenix lived “another thousand years, up to seven times seven,” symbolizing the thousand year incriments in earth’s history or dispensations of time. The Egyptian “house of a thousand years” has been explained as astronomical cycles of equinoxes, ending in a final millenium of a thousand years of paradise. Therefpre, the phoenix as a symbol for the sun undergoes the cycle of Kolob, where one day is as a thousand years.
Recall Joseph Smith’s full translation for Figure 1: “Kolob, signifying the first creation, nearest to the celestial, or the residence of God. First in government, the last pertaining to the measurement of time. The measurement according to celestial time, which celestial time signifies one day to a cubit. One day in Kolob is equal to a thousand years according to the measurement of this earth, which is called by the Egyptians Jah-oh-eh.
Figure 1 is a snapshot, the particular moment of the sunset barque arriving and the morning barque departing, making it first in government, last in time. And the seven periods of time in the Phoenix/Amun-Re figure bring it back to the “first creation,” finalizing in a period of paradise.
In mystical Judaism, this developed into the esoteric “tree of life” diagram that everybody thinks looks cool, which had seven palm branches. This was the “Sephiroth Tree, ten names of God, on which mystical Jesus mediated to ascend to the eternal. The ten names, three in the core of the roots and seven branches, are the fronds of the palm tree.” (Helene E. Roberts) The Iranian Asuattina tree likewise represented seven thousand years, and “seven planets each governing a millennium.” The Hebrew mennorah was a candlestick with seven branches, which the New Testament associated with the seven churches of Christ. In Egypt, the Genesis Apocraphon also makes reference to the branches of the Nile delta. Eleazar the Priest used the symbol of a palm tree with seven branches.
Black Elk’s Sun Dance – Black Elk of the Oglala Lakota people described a circular “hoop of the world” that encompassed the entire earth. The hypocephalus likewise represents the entire world and everything in it; “hypocephalus itself represented all that the sun encircles, i.e. the whole world.” Black Elk said: “Then I was standing on the highest mountain of them all, and round about beneath me was the whole hoop of the world. And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being. And I saw the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of one mother and one father, and I saw that it was holy.” Black Elk’s description of this great “hoop” included a series of hoops concentric around it sounds exactly like the hypocephalus: “Imagine a hoop so large that everything is in it – all two-leggeds like us, the four-leggeds, the fishes of the streams, the wings of the air, and all green things that grow. Everything is together in this great hoop.” (via neihardt.com)
The Native American holy men and women drew: “a large circle representing the entire universe and all things included in it. She then marked the four directions.” Black Elk used similar imagery in his world hoop diagram as the solar barques in the hypocephalus. The east barque represented the time of man: “Across this hoop, running from the east where the days of men begin to the west where the days of men end, is the Hard Black Road of Worldly Difficulties. We all must pass along this road, for it represents the world of everyday life.” This is the time of man’s creation and development, or the seven periods of the earth. Then Another road, the “Great Red Road of spiritual understanding” intersects this road at the center of the hoop. “Where this Good Red Road crosses the Hard Black Road, that place is holy and there springs the Sacred Tree which shall fill with leaves and blooms and singing birds.”
The sacred teepee was arranged in a circle with a fire in the middle of the cone-shaped structure–the center reaching to the highest point. The teepee thus symbolized this sacred hoop around the sun and central tree of life. Black Elk described the central point of the sacred teepee as a “nest of birds” and reproduction and rearing a new generation, much like the roost of the phoenix: “Our tepees were round like the nests of birds, and these were always set in a circle, the nation’s hoop, a nest of many nests, where the Great Spirit meant for us to hatch our children.”
Witnesses described a cosmic Native American sun dance celebrated each New Year where young natives cut their bodies and sacrificed their blood as they danced in a circle around a central sacred tree, as “offerings on the tree.” Friar Diego De Landa described this circle yearly dance and the accompanying “sacrifices For the New Year” among the late Mayans. There were four types of years, for the four directions of the world, and the rituals for each year differed slightly. But each involved ritual blood sacrifice of cutting. I described how each of the idols under the lion couch in Facsimile 1 relates to these New Year rituals, as the these idols represented the four directions in Egyptian literature. What was this ritual blood sacrifice for? It spoke to the atoning sacrifice of the Great Spirit, and Abraham’s role as proxy sacrifice for the king in the Sed festival.
Is the similarity of the “world hoop” to the hypocephalus just coincidence? Consider the times and seasons and cosmology of sun and moon spoken of by Black Elk in this popular quote: “You have noticed that everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the power of the World always works in circles, and everything tries to be round. In the old days when we were a strong and happy people, all our power came to us from the sacred hoop of the nation, and so long as the hoop was unbroken, the people flourished. The flowering tree was the living center of the hoop, and the circle of the four quarters nourished it. The east gave peace and light, and south gave warmth, the west gave rain, and the north with its cold and mighty wind gave strength and endurance. This knowledge came to us from the outer world with our religion. Everything the Power of the World does is in a circle. The sky is round, and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power, whirls. Birds make their nests in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours. The sun comes forth and goes down again in a circle. The moon does the same, and both are round. Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were. The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves. Our tepees were round like the nests of birds, and these were always set in a circle, the nation’s hoop, a nest of many nests, where the Great Spirit meant for us to hatch our children. (Black Elk Speaks)
The Cross
Black Elk said in prayer to the Great Spirit: “You have set the powers of the four quarters of the earth to cross each other. You have made me cross the good road and road of difficulties, and where they cross, the place is holy.” The central crossing point was known in ancient times as “the cross.”
Reading the Book of Mormon, it always struck me how ancient prophets spoke of “the cross” as if this detail of Christ’s death were common already known. Jared spoke of taking upon one’s self “the cross” and bearing the shame of the world as if this were a religious concept the people were familiar with–or maybe that’s just how Moroni edited his words. But it seems like there would be some more explanation if this were a new concept and symbol. Well, it is now well known that the Native Americans had a cross, which was the world tree connecting the earth with heaven. This is the imagery on Pakal’s tomb in the temple pyramid, and it was thought to help him on his afterlife journey. But here Black Elk clearly says this central cross on his world hoop diagram is where the “road of difficulties” meets the “good road.” Yes, the symbol of the cross as enduring the shame of the world was certainly known.
What about Christ being lifted upon a cross?
Was that known in ancient times? We see a hint in Facsimile 1 itself. Abraham saw his vision of heaven’s ladder or the degrees of glory using the Urim and Thummim. The Urim and Thummim were “stones or sticks inscribed with symbols” aleph and tau–aleph for Urim and tau for Thummim. The “Urim would alight to signify positive response and the Thummim would darken to signify a negative one.” They were thus symbolic for “the sun” and darkness of space. We see these letters within the Facsimile 1 design; the priest and legs of the sacrifice victim form an aleph, and the bird forms a tau. That’s interesting because the Tau “was adopted by some of the early Christians in the East in lieu of the cross.” Constantine put alpeh and tau together as “the sign of Christ’s triumph over death.” It’s symbolism in the Urim and Thummim and in Facsimile 1 speaks to what Christ experienced on the cross. The world plunged in darkness and the Creator of the world experienced the lowest of the low. The people in the Americas lived in three days of pure darkness. As for the Horus bird and it’s “tau” shape, “Horos” means “limit” or “boundary” and this speaks to Horus’s role as mediating between the “two horizons”–between this world and the afterlife. The deceased lifts up to Horus and crosses the boundary to enter heaven. The deceased person in our Facsimile 1 diagram is named Horos, so this symbolism certainly applies to him. Horus in Greek also means “dance” and comes from the Egytian Horus procession in the Sed festival. The great procession imitated the solar barques on their journies to the central point where they crossed, which again, is where the sacred tree is that lifts the deceased up into exaltation.
This was symbolized simply as two lines intersecting, the two paths meeting. We see this symbol in Figure 1 right below Amne-Re/Khnum: the X. It puzzles me that I haven’t seen anyone talk about this X below Figure 1, as it clearly could be St. Andrew’s cross, which was one variation of the cross symbol. The cross represented the sun god to the Chaldeans and the cross to the Semetics, the Messiah to the Hebrews and the cross of Jesus to the Christians. The Egyptian goddess Neith was often represented by “her sign of crossed arrows.” It was carried by 12 men in the Egyptian Book of Gates, recalling Christ’s twelve apostles who were told to “take up his cross.” Neith was the flood god of inundations–like Khnum–who provided the primeval waters of first creation, and she was the mother of Sobek, who as we have seen was identified with Khnum.
But the cross usually came in tau shape. The tau, the T-shape, is how we see the phoenix appear in all of those examples from before. It is how the body of Jesus looked hanging up on the cross. And it is how Amun-Re looks in our Figure 1 of Facsimile 2–branches extending horizontally from the top of a vertical pole. In fact, the word tat may be related to this word tau, as the solar arm comes in this tau shape.
The ancient book The Open Court made the obvious logical connection here and suggested that the Chaldean tree of life was the origin for the Christian cross–Ur of the Chaldees. Well, just take a look! The Chaldean tree of life stands in the center of a ring, very much like a hypocephalus, with twin figures flaking the ribbed tree like the baboons flanking Figure 1. These flanking figures’ arms take the position of the seraphim flanking the ark of the covenant, a position originally depicted by the Egyptian vulture Nekhbet. The tree is rather ribbed-shaped, and notice the peacock-shape at the crest of this tree. It has seven branches. Each side of the tree below this peacock shape also has seven branches. Note the waves of the water below the tree: three rows of ripples like the three lines of creation water of Nut in Figure 1. The bird figure atop this tree of life sits like a roosting phoenix. It has wings stretched in either direction in the tau shape, with seven feathers across each wing. The tail feathers which beam down upon the tree likewise are seven feathers across. The circle in the center of this bird, a kind of cosmic eye, is divided into seven parts, and it is crowned by an omega symbol suggesting eternity. The rim of this diagram is decorated with seven peacock-shaped trees with branches extending out like snakes. Between them are seven curious wedge-shapes that look rather like the rim around the Niuserre Sed festival altar which uses this shape to form the hieroglyph for sacrifice: “the lower four blocks are carved to represent the hieroglyphs forming the word “hotep” (which can be translated as ‘offering’, ‘satisfied’ and ‘peace’).” We thus find much the same symbolism of creation, a sacred tree of life, sacrifice, and a ladder of exalation.
Compare this to the medieval illustration on the right–“Christ on the cross as a tree with branches.” Christ’s arms spread in the tau position like the wings of the sacred phoenix bird and like the Horus bird in Facsimile 1. He is flanked by two figures (probably Mary and John) in the same position as the baboons in Figure 1, and this is framed by a circular rim, with four male figures in the four quarters around it. A central pole rises vertically through the entire scene.
The Shield of Achilles is yet another derivative of the hypocephalus. The disk-shaped diagram has a sun-god in the center riding a sun chariot with four horses. There are two horse heads on either side, exactly like the heads of Khnum in the center of a typical hypcephalus. Surrounding him are ten stars and the sun shining on him from above, and around that the twelve signs of the zodiac. Further registers surround this with various depictions. Four figures are constantly in these diagrams to describe the universe emanating from the first creation. In Facsimile 2 they are the four forks of the palm branch and the four directions in Figure 6. They show up in Facsimile 3, and in Facsimile 1 as the four idols under the lion couch, each of which associates with a cardinal direction.
The Shield of Achilles was “envisioned as a work of art that defines the universe.” It is both “an image of the cosmos” and “an allegory.” The outermost rim is “the saltwater ocean that encompasses the spherical cosmos,” in a “three-fold” portrayal–like the three ripples of Nun in our Figure 1. Each register of the diagram portrays a scene from Homer’s Iliad. The “great circle of the Shield of Achilles, with its abundance of scenes, is an image of the whole universe, an allegory of the cosmos. The Shield of Aeneas is also an image of the creation of a universe, but of a strictly Roman universe.” (Gregory Nagy & Chris Dadian)
The Good Shepherd – An early Christian fresco of “the Good Shepherd” shows Jesus in the center of a circular ring, with two sheep flanking him on either side in the same positions as the two baboons in Figure 1. In other early Christian depictions of the Good Shepherd, “the sun, moon, and seven stars are above him,” and symbols of “Noah’s ark” and Jonah in the fish–which were treated as symbols of Christ’s resurrection. In the Catacomb of Domitilla the Good Shepherd fresco has four sheep flanking Jesus, two on either side, like the heads of Khnum in the typical hypocephalus. It is interesting Jesus is shown as a shepherd here, as Khnum was called a shepherd. The shepherd was a symbol throughout Egypt and the Near East as the love of God the creator. The palm branch held by Khnum/Amun-Re in our Figure 1 is curled at the top like a shepherd’s crook. In most Good Shepherd artworks of Jesus, the right hand which holds this rod of authority in Figure 1 is similary outstretched. Most artworks also included a tree on either side of Jesus–like the tree on either side of the pyramid in that portrayal of the phoenix we saw earlier. We could assume these are the tree of life and the tree of good and evil.
The Book of Mormon marries this idea of the sacred tree actually being two trees with a bold theological outlook of human nature vs. spiritual nature. That is the issue at hand. We read that the “natural man” which results from the tree of good and evil is an enemy to God, and we can become a saint by yielding to the Holy Spirit and using the atonement of Christ. When the time of earth’s probation are spent and the millenium arrives, we will be judged and then remain in a permanent place. Adam’s fall by the tree of good and evil results in “the will of the flesh and the evil which is therein,” which is “eternal death,” unless we choose “eternal life” through redemption from the “great Mediator of all men.” If we choose eternal life through the merits and atonement of Jesus Christ, then our spiritual nature receives exaltation at the final judgement. This intersection of natural man and spiritual redemption, which Alma calls being “born again,” brings us to the symbol of the corss. The birds on either side of Jesus in that early Christian fresco match the position of the two birds in our hypocephalus–the rightward bird being the solar barque of final exalation and the leftward bird being the thousands of years of time of creations–which are based on the solar morning and evening barques which intersect at the cross at the center. They roost on the tops of the two trees like the phoenix bird does, which tells us they are the personification or result from where the trees lead. The last as pertaining to time and the first in government–the morning and evening gods. In the parable of the mustard seed, Jesus declared that the “least of all seeds” grows up into trees so that the “birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.” It is possible that this reference to birds in the trees symbolize immortality and eternal life that naturally comes and rests upon those who excercise faith in Jesus Christ, as the Horus bird came to bring salvation to the figure on the lion couch and the angel of the Lord came to Abraham upon the Sed festival altar. The frequent Good Shepherd depiction in early Christian art was clearly derived from the hypocephalus and placed Jesus in the center, where Joseph Smith just happened to place Kolob–the near-residence of God.
The role of the cross as heaven’s ladder and its association with the moment of final judgement at the millenium–the last momment pertaining to our time on earth but the first as pertaining to the government of Jesus, much as the sun government the planets as the first order of rotation–is thoroughly laid out in the Book of Mormon. Jesus was lifted up to fill us with the holy light of the sun and lift us all up on the cross: “And my Father sent me that I might be lifted up upon the cross; and after that I had been lifted up upon the cross, that I might draw all men unto me, that as I have been lifted up by men even so should men be lifted up by the Father, to stand before me, to be judged of their works, whether they be good or whether they be evil— And for this cause have I been lifted up; therefore, according to the power of the Father I will draw all men unto me, that they may be judged according to their works. And it shall come to pass, that whoso repenteth and is baptized in my name shall be filled; and if he endureth to the end, behold, him will I hold guiltless before my Father at that day when I shall stand to judge the world. And he that endureth not unto the end, the same is he that is also hewn down and cast into the fire, from whence they can no more return, because of the justice of the Father.” (3 Nephi 27:14-17)
It comes back to the “fan” of God, the justice of the Father which exalts the righteous and burns the wicked, and that brings us back to Abraham in the Sed festival sacrifice ritual. Instead of being consumed by the sacrificial fire, Abraham was saved and the wicked priest was consumed. Abraham was lifted up and ascended the degrees of glory to God’s residence.
D&C 88 explains in remarkable detail the process of exaltation at final judgement and especially Christ’s role in it. It is interesting that this section of D&C was given years before Joseph Smith began to translate the Book of Abraham, as it gives detailed answers to some of the questions with the Book of Abraham raises about the degrees of glory and nature of light. It describes a scene of a man in the center of a circular arrangement of fields. He sends out workers to work in the fields and visits them one by one. The astronomical symbolism of planets rotating around the sun is obvious: “Behold, I will liken these kingdoms unto a man having a field, and he sent forth his servants into the field to dig in the field. And he said unto the first: Go ye and labor in the field, and in the first hour I will come unto you, and ye shall behold the joy of my countenance. And he said unto the second: Go ye also into the field, and in the second hour I will visit you with the joy of my countenance. And also unto the third, saying: I will visit you; And unto the fourth, and so on unto the twelfth. And the lord of the field went unto the first in the first hour, and tarried with him all that hour, and he was made glad with the light of the countenance of his lord. And then he withdrew from the first that he might visit the second also, and the third, and the fourth, and so on unto the twelfth. And thus they all received the light of the countenance of their lord, every man in his hour, and in his time, and in his season— Beginning at the first, and so on unto the alast, and from the last unto the first, and from the first unto the last; Every man in his own aorder, until his hour was finished, even according as his lord had commanded him, that his lord might be glorified in him, and he in his lord, that they all might be glorified. Therefore, unto this parable I will liken all these kingdoms, and the inhabitants thereof—every kingdom in its hour, and in its time, and in its season, even according to the decree which God hath made.” (D&C 88:51-61)
These are the “times and seasons” of Kolob, the degrees of glory that all emanate out of the central Maker and master of the universe. It is the same relativity of time and glory which we find in Figure 1 of our hypocephalus, Jehovah who in the Book of Abraham is described as above them all. The Salt Lake City temple has three spires: two flanking a taller central spire. The three crosses on Golgotha are typically shown as two crosses flanking Christ as the central tall cross. The word Golgotha itself–“skull”–suggests the heighest location of a body, or the phoenix roosting atop the tree.
The Mayans, of course, had the ross as well. The Mayan cross has “layers of symbolism… one is its representation of the Tree of Life.” Skeptics are quick to point out that it did not symbolism the death of a god. True, it is not about death but about renewal, sacrifice, and resurrection. It shouldn’t be surprising that the Nephites or civilizations influenced by Nephites should consider the cross a tree of life rather than a symbol of death, for that is how the Book of Mormon speaks of it. Jesus was lifted on the cross to draw men to the Father.
We often see the Egyptian king as Osiris become the tree of life in Egyptian literature. The Mayans had a cross ceremony where they attached a “wooden cross to the top of a cane… The big cross is called San Pedro, said to be the chief of the wind gods, and the smaller crosses are his companions.” There are four smaller wind god crosses “in each corner of the field” and the big cross is “in the middle of the cornfield.” The central cross of the great circle as in Black Elk’s imagery. This matches the four sons of Horus idols in Facsimile 1 which in the Sed Festival were arranged this same way around the central altar. In this Mayan ceremony, “water from a sacred source is sprinkled in each location.” It reflects other ancient Abraham stories which state God poured “pleasant dew” upon the sacrificial furnace to put out the fire that would sacrifice Abraham.
The Mayan cross is often portrayed as a person, as is the Egyptian tree of life, with a celestial bird on top and a skyband below. It is also an altar. That cross from the tomb of Pascal in Mexico shows the bird overhead, and two priestly figures flanking the cross on either side, pouring libation offerings onto the central altar. These flanking figures in the jar positions under the cross are usually “double-headed serpent bars.” These double-headed serpents were “symbolic of the ruler’s pivotal dual-intermediary role” connecting the afterlife with this life and heaven with earth. The purpose of the cross and the Sed Festival: rebirth and exaltation on behalf of all the people. A variety of Mayan cross carvings show these same elements and the flanking figures.
Today’s Mayan Cross – Modern Mayan crosses have flowers and branches planted under the cross or surrounding the cross, reflecting the branches of Figure 1 in Facsimile 2. Here is a modern Mayan cross with tree branches sticking out of it, and a basin that receives water offerings drawn on the cross as a half-dome shape.
Example 1
Example 2
Example 3
Example 4
Example 5
Here is a modern Mayan cross with a menorah (a Hebrew symbol of the tree of life) growing out of the water basin (the Hed Sed hierglyph), with a sun stone included. It is unlikely that this symbolism was first added in modern times, because I doubt people in these places have studied ancient Egyptian archaeology and understand what these symbols mean in that context. It isn’t common knowledge. They seem to be passed down from ancient Native American times. They show that the Hebrew influences as indicated in the Book of Mormon on ancient America. It is complex and generalized symbolism stemming from Abraham’s experiences with Egypt, expressing his promise of posterity and eternal life.
Key Of Power
The upside-down ankh at the bottom of the palm branch in Knumu’s hand represents “the key which opened the gateway of the tomb into the Fields of Aalu, the realm of eternity,” and is purposely in “the shape of a key.” Knumu operated the ankh key when it came to creation: “Osiris is depected with his body wrapped like a mummy, as god of the underworld, and with the headdress of Hathor, inserting the ankh, the key of life, through the nostril of Seth I, depicted with the headdress of Khnum.”
Joseph Smith said: “The first creation, nearest to the celestial, or the residence of God.” Bullseye. “Realm of eternity” and “tree of life.” Kolob “the first creation” sure sounds like Knum “the first creator” to me! The Egyptian meaning very closely matches Joseph Smith’s interpretation, with deep layers of symbolism that match in every direction we take it. The entire hypocephalus boils down to what we see in this Figure 1, and that is why I have gone on for this long talking about it. It isn’t about mystical planets in corners of the galaxy that we fly off to like some science fiction story. Kolob is about Jesus on the cross, bringing immortality and eternal life to the saints of God, and how the loving tender mercy of Christ saved young Abraham when he absolutely refused to budge from his faith in him.