Ancient Egypt

Bro. Orlando R. Murgado MM

17^th March 2021

As Freemasons we brethren often speculate on the origins of our Order. For all that is known it seems there is one hundred times more that is unknown. William Preston, writing in England soon after the founding of the Great Lodge of London in 1717, who first wrote and published comprehensive guides on Freemasonry, described it as coming “from time immemorial.” The influences of a whole range of cultures and belief systems are readily apparent in our thought, ritual and symbolism. From ancient Israel, through the mystery schools of the Mediterranean and the Near East to the New Testament, Freemasonic thought has deep roots.

There are many, including many Brethren discussing the topic who will point to 1717 and say that’s as far back as the records for modern Freemasonry go and leave the issue of our origins there. There are many, both within and without the Order who assert that we have a historical myth. Mention will be made of Freemasons adopting or co-opting this or that historic group or symbol or idea. There is a well-established notion that Masonic history and origins are as symbolic and contrived as everything else in our institution.

It can be argued that the question of our origins is moot; that we are objectively old even reckoning from the founding of the Grand Lodge of London. It can be observed that, like any venerable institution, although bound by an impulse to preserve traditions we have evolved over time, and that our Order has agglomerated its particularities over time to make today’s Masonry a unique evolution of history and circumstance. By that logic we are a living, breathing institution like any other, whose present is less tied to its past than its circumstances and aspirations for its future. While that may certainly be the case there is also an inescapable notion that stability over time is a uniquely Freemasonic hallmark, and one that is readily exemplified in Ancient Egypt. The obvious connection between today’s Freemasonry and that once- great and enduring civilization is evident in the wallet of any Brother- at least those of us who still carry cash. On the back of the dollar bill is the Great Seal, one side of which depicts the pyramid and All-Seeing Eye. That’s been there since 1935 which in Masonic time is pretty recent but it hearkens back to a much earlier time.

A look at ancient Egypt will quickly yield odd similarities to Masonic symbolism and ideas. Superficial things; things like our aprons being recognizble in Ancient Egyptian reliefs. It is clear that the ancient Egyptians had literal masons- the actual craftsmen who built the pyramids and temples of their cities and necropoli. Diving a little deeper, let’s look at the name Hiram. Abif and -of Tyre, same name. The obvious connection to the name is through the Hebrew. The etymology of the word, in Hebrew, Greek, Latin and Phoenician breaks down to “-hor,” meaning “light”. The word is associated with not just light as in that which emanates from fire but also light in the sense of the divine spark. “Hor” is the ancient Egyptian name of the god who represents the pharaoh- adding the Greek ending gives us the familiar “Horus.” Language is an excellent gateway through which to approach the concept of cultural interactions and influences. Language bears the marks of major periods of historical cultural contact among different groups of our forefathers.

Ancient Egyptian culture was not only in contact with but was a major influence on the civilizations of ancient Greece and Israel. Ancient Greek artisans and craftsmen were trained in ancient Egypt. This brought home to Greece not only building techniques but artistic styles and conventions as well as religious ideas and practices. All one needs to do to see the influence of Egyptian culture on ancient Greece is to look at any sculpture from the Greek Archaic Period to see the similarities. That interplay would go on, back and forth, for a millennium, the tide mostly going out from Egypt until the rise of Alexander, when the ebb and flow was closer to 50/50, then came Rome, when the tide began to flow in the other direction, eventually giving us the Copts.

The Israelites had several periods of major cultural interplay with the ancient Egyptians. Most people are familiar with Exodus, the story of Moses (“-mos” in ancient Egyptian means “born”), the meme-able “Let my People Go” and the literal exodus of the Israelites out of Egypt and off in search of the Promised Land. There is also the story of Joseph, he of the many-colored cloak, who could interpret dreams. He was scooped up from an Egyptian prison after interpreting the dreams of his cellmates, which included Pharaoh’s cupbearer, the story goes, and the cupbearer later remembered Joseph when the Pharaoh himself was beset by troubling dreams his priests could not interpret. Joseph would become one of the most powerful men in Egypt. Egyptologists actually believe this wonderfully wrought Biblical tale is no fable.

There is enough insight into the culture and even language of ancient Egypt in the story of Joseph that it is plausible that it is not only a sublimation of real events but specifically a possible trace of the identity of a people known in ancient Egyptian as the Hyksos. The Hyksos were a semitic people known to the Egyptians, residing in and near Egypt’s borders, who would eventually either bring about, or at least take advantage of the end of the Old Kingdom after the Sixth Dynasty and become Pharaohs during the First Intermediate Period. From about 2181-2055 BC a more than a century- long interlude in Egyptian history ensued, when Egypt would be ruled by the Hyksos, foreign kings. This would mean that the cultural interplay between the ancestors of the Israelites and the ancient Egyptians was intimate, prolonged and profound.

The influence of ancient Egyptian ideas may have come into Freemasonry by multiple avenues. Certainly its ties to Greco-Roman and Hebraic traditions bring much more than a passing indirect transfer of secondhand Egyptian ideas into both of those cultures- ancient Egypt was literally formative to both. It would, therefore, be completely fair to leave it there and not be wrong. Ancient Egypt’s influence on Freemasonry comes through its influence on the major formative cultures of Western Civilization so it’s “baked in,” as it were. But there’s a funny thing about ancient Egypt’s influence on the West, and we owe it all to Napoleon Bonaparte.

Back in 1798 Napoleon decided to invade Egypt and he brought not only a navy that was excellent at docking its ships but also soldiers, and an army of scholars. While they were in Egypt, spanking the Turks and inventing modern archeology, the English showed up. They were led by Admiral Horatio Nelson whose navy was insane and also shockingly good at attacking and destroying fleets of docked ships. Long story short the English were able to confiscate and capitalize on all of the French advances in archeology, among which was the Rosetta Stone. This artefact contained an inscription written in Hieroglyphs and Demotic as well as Coptic- basically Egyptian and Greek scripts. This opened the door to understanding hieroglyphs, which, until 1822 at the earliest, was not understood by anyone alive for two millennia. Egyptologists using the Rosetta Stone translations then began translating ancient Egyptian inscriptions wherever they were found, a process which continues today. The translation itself, though, is only a part of the problem when dealing with understanding ancient Egypt. The interpretation of the writing is still ongoing. Part of that process involves going back to familiar ancient sources that wrote about Egypt, for example, Herodotus for the Greeks, Josephus from Rome, and the compilers of the Old and New Testament. What is becoming increasingly clear over time is that ancient writers were not liars. A lot of what they wrote about was based on real things and events. There are important academic considerations relating to how moderns interpret the writings of ancient authors and there is by no means consensus on the intent of ancient authors’ writing, or even on how they may have interpreted or described their own experiences and thoughts when they wrote them down. On balance, though, this means that ancient sources still do have significant value to scholars in researching ancient Egypt, among other cultures and historical events.

Another phenomenon that is coming about as a result of the recent translation of hieroglyphs is that we are beginning to have a sense of how the Egyptians thought about and spoke about themselves and the world from their point of view. This is why we now know that the ancient Egyptian soul is multipartite, composed of numerous aspects and elements with different purposes and significations. Of particular interest to us as Freemasons is a certain part of the Egyptian soul which corresponds to a certain hieroglyph that looks very familiar to Master Masons.

_{Ka Statue of King Hor 1/Au-ib-Re, Egyptian Museum of Cairo, 18th c. B.C., Wood, 170 x 27 cm}

Every day that Egyptologists delve into the mysteries of ancient Egypt we learn more about their thought and get a sense of their day-to-day lives. Every day we are getting an increasingly vivid glance of one of the most ancient and enduring cultures of all time. It is not exactly meet to call it coincidence that a people so interested in eternity would end up leaving us the most detailed record of their spiritual practices and existence in a way and to a degree almost unmatched in the rest of human history.

My feelings are mixed about seeing all of the mummies on display in the Cairo Museum and elsewhere. On the one hand I’m horrified at the idea that their tombs have been desecrated, the bindings undone and the dead stripped bare for all to see, bereft of their sarcophagi and sometimes even their wrappings. I actually worry about the ritual effects of archeology around the world and what taking apart ancient sites and disinterring the dead may do to the world on a spiritual level. But on the other hand, seven thousand years after their civilization began and two thousand after their passing, the faces and names of these people are still on our lips and in our minds. On some, arguably ironic, level, their quest for immortality is doing pretty well so far…!

But there is something more important about ancient Egypt, for us as Freemasons perhaps more than for most. Immortality isn’t exactly the take-away from ancient Egypt for us. Ancient Egypt is the only civilization to come to and end and be re-established twice in history. Ancient Egypt is the only civilization to not only survive two apocalypses but to endure for over five thousand years. The entire history of the United States is barely as long as one of their Intermediate Periods, those times when their society fell apart. Ma’at for the ancient Egyptians manifested as stability.  The edifice they built lives on in an afterlife that continues to feed the imaginations of men and to serve as an example of what Men can build together.