Home | Keys | Profile | Tours | Courses | Books | Articles | Calendar | Contact | Links

Information

Itinerary

Abydos

Information

Accommodation

Booking

Contact

Egypt Home Page

Site Home Page

Articles

Hatshepsut's Mortuary Temple - Solstice alignments. Sekeds and the Geometry of the Egyptian Pyramids. Sekeds and the Geometry of the Great Pyramid The Geometric Design of the Great Pyramid The Osirion and the Flower of Life The Astronomical Alignment of Egyptian Temples.

Blog Diary 2007

Mid-Winter Solstice Celebration trip 2015

A fabulous week holiday in Luxor visiting many ancient sites culminating in celebrating the mid-winter solstice at the magnificent temple of Queen Hatshepsut.

14th - 21st December 2015:
Click here for details.

Photo Evidence
Pictures from the western column not normally visible to the public. Click images to enlarge. The second picture has been dititally enhanced to show the FOL designs.

Article on Flower of Life by Malcolm Stewart.
Click Here.

The Osirion and the

Flower of Life

The Osirion
At the rear of Seti I temple at Abydos is a very strange structure called the Osirion that holds a number of mysteries.

The Osirion was originally meant to be entered from the Transverse passageway leading from the back of Seti's temple, but at the moment this passageway is not open to the public, and visitors must exit Seti's temple at the rear and approach the Osirion from above at modern ground level. The first thing of note is the enormous size of the red granite  blocks used in its construction, which draws parallels with similar Old Kingdom megalithic structures, like the Valley Temple, and the Sphinx Temple at Giza. The similarities are inescapable - the stark and simple megalithic design, the lack of prolific inscriptions, and the fact that some of the larger stone blocks weigh up to 100 tons. This suggests that the Osirion pre-dates the temple, dated to around 1300 bc, by at least a thousand years.

Inscribed on some of these blocks and visible from the metal staircase can be seen a number of 'Flower of Life' patterns of interlocking circles, which were first drawn to my attention in the writings of Drunvalo Melchizedek. Many wild claims are made for the dating of this pattern, which can now safely be dispelled.

The Osirion at the rear of Seti I temple at Abydos. The position of the "Flower of Life" is marked	A diagram of the 'Flower of Life' pattern found on a number of the columns in the Osirion.

A closer inspection of these "Flower or Life" patterns reveals some very interesting information.

	The position of the "Flower of Life" patterns can be found principally on two supporting columns.The one that is indicated below and the face of the column opposite. On these blocks at least thirteen such patterns can be made out, although some are very faded. The picture below shows three of these patterns, although only two are clearly visible. The symbol at the top is much discoloured and only apparent when the photo is viewed at high definition. The two flowers designs that abut each other are about 6 inches in diameter and can be clearly made out. They are unlike anything else that I have ever seen in Egypt and therefore remain something of a mystery.
Origins A possible clue to the origin of these designs can be found in some barely noticeable text that adjoins the patterns. Although I am no Greek scholar it is obvious that this is Greek writing for the following letters can be clearly made out: θ = Theta Є = Epsilon λ = Lamda Closer inspection shows that the two Greeks words that can be deciphered read: "Theos Nilos", which means the "God of the Nile." Another leter close to where the arrow is pointing looks like a large F. This appears to be the Greek letter "Digamma". The Wikipedia Encyclopedia states:
	"Digamma is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet, used primarily as aGreek numeral. Its original name is unknown, but was probably (wau). It was later called διγαμμα (digamma — double gamma because of its shape). It is attested in archaic and dialectal ancient Greek inscriptions, and is occasionally used as a symbol in later Greek mathematical texts. It is also used as the Greek numeral 6. In ancient usage, the numeral had the same form as the letter digamma." Digamma, like Upsilon, derives from the Phoenician letter Waw, and in its turn gave rise to the Roman letter F."

It is clear from the above that the inscription is ancient Greek. The first thought is that this would have been inscribed after Alexander's invasion in 332 bc and before the beginning of the Roman period in 30 bc, when the Greek Ptolemies ruled Egypt. Against this view according to Herbert Weir Smyth in his book Greek Grammar the Digamma "disappeared when Athens adopted the Ionic alphabet in 403 bc. However it disappeared gradually and was still used in Boetia as late as 200 bc." This implies that it could already have vanished by Alexander's time.

So if the letter truly is "Digamma" it is quite possible that it was inscribed before the Ptolemaic period. On the present evidence this seems to be very unlikely but if so what other possibility might there be? We can be fairly sure that Pythagoras had a ten year stay in Egypt from around 535bc. Could this have been inscribed by the mighty sage or one of his followers?

Pythagoras
According to Porphyry (233-c.305) Pythagoras, after travelling extensively in Egypt, was eventually accepted for initiation into the temple mysteries by the priests at Diospolis. It is generally agreed that this referred to Thebes or Luxor as it is known today and that the priesthood would have been that of the temple of Amun at Karnak.  

By road Thebes is a about 150 km south of Abydos and journeys between Thebes in Upper Egypt and the Delta would have passed by the Osirion site. Another possibility is the town of Diospolis Parva, which is only 47 km south of Abydos, which has a temple dedicated to the goddess Hathor. On this evidence we can be fairly sure that Pythagoras would at least have visited the temple shrine of Osiris.

We should not forget that when the Egyptologist Margaret Murray carried the intial survey and excavation work on the Abydos temple she found numerous examples of Greek text dating from the 3rd century BC to the 2nd century AD. Needless to say only the decipherment of the Greek text, alongside of the Flower of Life design will tell us more about the originator of these geometric designs.

2008 - Update
In January and December 2008 we had a chance to re-examine all of the Osirion graffiti and to take more detailed photos. It is clear that the Flower of Life images appear quite extensively on two columns that face in to each other. There are at least eight versions of the FOL on the column not readily visible to the public. Photos of these images will be released when they have been fully analysed. However it is now clear that all of the graffiti are close to the top of the columns, which are some 13.5 ft (4.1m) tall. To be easily drawn someone would have had to have been on a platform some 8ft from the present base floor level. This suggests that these graffiti were inscribed long after the pharonic temple had fallen into disuse and the Osirion had begun to fill up with sand. In addition the Greek text IXCX can be clearly made out close to the top of one of the columns. This would date the graffiti well into the Christian epoch perhaps as late as the fifth or sixth century CE.

Here is another site where the Greek text can be clearly seen :
http://www.thelighthouseonline.com/articles/osireon.html
Scroll the page to the relevant photograph of the "Flower of Life". The Greek text can be seen on the left-hand side of the symbol.

For an article by Malcolm Stewart on the Flower of Life design please click here.

Some interesting websites to visit with complementary information:
http://www.petrie.ucl.ac.uk/digital_egypt/Welcome.html
http://www.case.edu/univlib/preserve/Etana/osireion_abydos/chapter6.pdf
http://www.akhet.co.uk/mainpage.htm

Does Egypt call to you? Then why not join us for this trip?

All material copyright David Furlong 2013