The Sphinx Mystery by Robert Temple

Author:Robert Temple
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Religion/Christian Studies
ISBN: 9781594778841
Publisher: Inner Traditions / Bear & Company
Published: 2010-11-27T05:00:00+00:00

Figure 6.59. The sarcophagus of King Seti I of Egypt (died circa 1278 BC), which was acquired in the eighteenth century by Sir John Soane and is still on display in the Soane Museum (his house, preserved as it was at his death, now open to the public) in Lincolns Inn Fields in Holborn, London, a few minutes’ walk from Dickens’s Old Curiosity Shop, which still stands. This engraving was published in 1837 in a periodical of the time. Netherworld scenes are depicted on the sarcophagus, accompanied by texts describing the events and phenomena to be encountered there. (Collection of Robert Temple)

The Book of Caverns recounts a series of caverns of the netherworld and seems to be based very much at Rostau. There are several suggestive references to Anubis as the presiding presence. At one point, Osiris is described as having “set him [Anubis] in his place without his being able to leave, having been established in the West.”38

This is a very strange way to describe Anubis. It certainly seems to describe a prominent statue, as what else could possibly be meant by being stuck in place and not able to leave? Furthermore, the same text also describes “those who are between his arms.” Although Anubis was the master embalmer, corpses being embalmed are not actually held in the arms of the embalmer, and though one certainly cannot insist on it (as it could be just an exaggerated reference to his work as an embalmer), the reference seems to me to be to something quite different. It sounds strangely like the worshipping of the Sphinx at the altar between its arms that went on for centuries and may refer to an earlier stage of this worship in the Middle Kingdom, by which time the moat was dry. It is probable that the moat was filled with water only during the Old Kingdom, and by the time of the Middle Kingdom it had become a dry ditch containing a great deal of sand, which eventually overwhelmed it, so it was only cleared again by Pharaoh Thutmosis (Thothmes) IV as recorded on his Dream Stela centuries later.

This same text of The Book of Caverns refers to Anubis four more times in a manner that describes his presiding presence at Giza. The sun god Re (Ra) addresses a cavern of the netherworld, referring to the secret image of the god Sokar, “whose image is great, created by the Netherworld, engendered by the Silent Region, he whose image is unknown, unique mystery hidden from the inhabitants of his cavern. O Behold, I pass near you, I have placed Anubis as your guardian, I give you light.”39

This is a clear reference to Rostau and to Anubis being “placed as guardian” there. Later, the sun god Re again speaks to “the Cavern of the Forms of Osiris,” which is well known to be a feature of Rostau, and enumerates many features of Anubis, referred to repeatedly as “Power of the West.” At the end of this

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