You are greeted by Sokar, O! King The King soars as a divine falcon, the King flies heavenward like a heron, the King flies up as a goose, the King's wings are those of a divine falcon, the King's wing-feathers are those of a divine falcon. The bones of the embalmed King are raised up, for the King is pure...
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Sokar (zkrw,
'Speeder'), known as 'Sokar of Rasetjau', designation of the necropolis
of Giza), was a god of meteors and comets, represented as a falcon; associated
with metalworking and worshipped primarily at Memphis. Sokar became depicted
as a mummified human who was falcon-headed, and had green skin, symbolising
rebirth. The usual depiction of the Ba in this form led to Seker gaining
the epithet great lord with two wings opened In the Pryamid Age, Sokar
was attributed to having created the royal bones, and in the Book of the
Dead, Sokar fashions the silver bowls for the deceased to use for food.
From the concept of Sokar molding items as an artisian, he also becomes
associated with the mixing of aromatic substances to provide the unguents
important to Egyptian ritual.
Sokar's funerary aspects however were of the utmost importance. As 'Sokar of Rosetau' , he was the patron diety of the necropolis to the west of Memphis. He is 'lord of the mysterious region' and is prominent in the decoration of Theban royal tombs. In the tomb of Amenhotep II, Sokar's head is shown emerging from the top of a pyramid shaped mound as 'he who is on his sand'. This specific representation emphasizes Sokar as a resurrected Neter of the deceased, of unrestricted movement and power as his epithet indicates ( 'great god with his two wings opened' ). In the illustration below of the Fifth Hour of the Amduat, it can be seen how the geometry of the 18 degree projecting from the centre of two Aker lions (this being a measure of time from the commencement of Astronomical Twilight 18 degrees below the horizon to a comparative above), is again a primary compositional theme, indeed the pattern of the angles continues through each of the three levels. Sokar is centrally placed in terms of a North/South axis, and as this geometry is entirely correspondant to that observed upon the Dream Stela, and seen elsewhere such as the Book of Caverns and Book of the Earth, then the conclusion has to be that Sokar's place is at the very heart of the geometric pattern of the entire Giza Plateau, located as the Altar between the paws of the Sphinx.
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One of the most important funerary festivals in Egypt was the festival of Sokar. It is already mentioned in the first dynasties. From later times we know that the Sokar festival took place in the month Choiak. It was a festival that took place in the middle of an important, 10-day festival that ended on 30 Choiak with the raising of the djed-pillar, and was thus a festival of Osiris. The Sokar festival day, on 26 Choiak, was linked in Ptolemaic times with the winter solstice In the ceremony,
seeds were sown in earth, which was from the New Kingdom shaped in moulds
to the form of Osiris; the sown earth was watered until the seeds germinated,
and then this guarantor of a successful crop was buried. The timing of
the festival in the official year placed it in the fourth month of flood,
just as the waters receded to expose silt-covered fields fresh for sowing.
The name of the festival was ka-her-ka 'ka upon ka' (or 'sustenance upon
sustenance'); it survived into Christian times as the name of the fourth
month of the season of flood, rendered in Coptic as Khoiak. From the Late Period there are preserved numerous cases figures, and cases for figures, of both Osiris and the falcon-headed funerary god at Memphis, named Sokar; in combination with extended written sources in inscription and manuscript, these figures indicate that every city temple made a seeded earth figure every year in these ceremonies, with burial each year of figures, and exhuming the figures of the previous year, in a special area of the necropolis of that city. The forms vary from place to place and across time, but the general practice seems regular across the country. The rites culminated in a ceremony of raising the Djed, the pillar symbolising the backbone of Osiris http://www.digitalegypt.ucl.ac.uk/ideology/khoiak.html
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Sokar
was an ancient falcon god in the environs of Memphis who perhaps was originally
associated with craftsmanship. However, he came to be a god of the necropolis
of that area and rose, in time, to considerable importance as a chthonic
and afterlife deity. The Pyramid Texts frequently mention the god in an
afterlife context where the deceased king is said to be raised into the
"henu barque" of Sokar and equated with Osiris, but only after
the rise of Osiris to importance.
However, Sokar was associated with the Memphite god Ptah as the synchronistic Ptah-Sokar even before Sokar's association with Osiris. This was perhaps an easy link because Ptah too was a god of craftsmanship. In fact, Sokar took Ptah's consort, Sekhmet as his own. In this form, Ptah-Sokar associates the wealth of the soil and its power of growth. By the Middle Kingdom, all three of the gods were combined into the tripartite deity, Ptah-Sokar-Osiris, who remained an important funerary deity for most of the remainder of Egypt's dynastic history. Then, he assumes a specific role in the transfiguration at death and in the Opening of the Mouth ceremony. Sokar had a number of epithets, such as "he of Rosetau", which refers to a site near the Sphinx of Giza, though ultimately indicated any necropolis. This also came to represent the mouth of the passages into the Underworld. He is also the "lord of the mysterious region", also referring to the underworld. Another is the "great god with his two wings opened, which emphasizes his unrestricted movement and power in the afterlife. |
Sokar as Lord of The Underworld is concerned with connectivity to the terrestial/subterranean level, in terms of describing this axis, then the symbol of the Falcon is perfect, as in their vertical dive they achieve phenomenal speeds up to 243 Mph, the fastest of all living creatures. The passage of descent would have appeared to have been conjectured as the star Deneb in the constellation Cygnus, and in the illustration below one sees Sokar-Osiris embedded within the tree awaiting rebirth with Isis and Nephtys to the side, in terms of the East and West respectively, enacted through the raising of the Djed at the culmination of the Khoiak Festival, yet the branches of the tree are stylized into the form of Cygnus with the mid-point directional indicated, Cygnus probaably representative of Geb, and the wings being parted equated with 'doors' If you are on earth, come, for your father Geb has undone for you the double doors.
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The stars of the constellation Cygnus mark a bifurcation of the Milky Way into leg-like appendages, the brightest star Deneb ( Cyg) located at the position of the birth canal. The Barque of Re traverses her body as the sun passes through the heavens. The ecliptic passes through the mouth of the head of Nut as formed by the Milky Way near the constellation of Gemini. About an hour and a half after sunset on the Vernal (Spring) Equinox near Cairo around 3500 B.C.E. a glimmering head, face-up with mouth agape, would have been seen on the western horizon at the point where the sun had disappeared. Nine months later at the Winter Solstice the sun appears on the horizon at sunrise as though dropped directly from Deneb in Cygnus,, the squatting female giving birth. That is, on a hemispherical projection of the sky, a line connecting the North Celestial Pole (about which the Undying Stars rotate), Deneb, and the horizon sunrise point all form a great circle at this one moment each year. |
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The imagery of the sun coursing through the body of Nut to give birth to himself once each year was later used by the Kings of Egypt to herald their divine birth as Sons of Re. Re in the guise of the pharaoh was sup-posed to impregnate the queen to produce the next generation (this legend is the origin of the matrilineal inheritance of the Egyptian throne). Deneb (the birth star of Re in Cygnus) was part of the series of stars found to rise along the axis of the lower temple belonging to the sun temple of Userkaf, the first of the six that were built. Although these stars rose on average about an hour apart, the actual inter-vals between star rises were quite variable indicating that the first hours to be measured were of unequal length. Different interval (or hour) lengths were used at the different temples because their valley temples faced different sets of rising stars. |
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In terms of the overall ten-directional pattern i have determined for the Giza Plateau, then the symbolism and numerolgy of the Sokar Festival is interesting; the rites involved five onions sacred to Sokar, as well as five geese. The Egyptians divided the Heavens into five constellations as notated by Amenhope in 1100 Bc. The onions apart from perhaps a connection to tears regarding death, grew above the ground as well as beneath it. They are considered to perhaps correspond to the five openings of the eyes, ears and nose, but essentialy they are a symbol of regeneration through the Earth, whilst the five Geese are symbolic of descent and ascension through the Heavens. Sokar was seen as Guardian of Heaven, with one hand upon the Earth, thus five fingers, and visa versa, that is Guardian of the Earth, with one hand, five fingers, upon the Heavens, essentialy then the numerology associated with Sokar is the doubling of five. Sokar as a primeval creator God would have such considerations relevant to his cult, as he shaped the very bones of the body, and the Festival of Sokar extended over a ten day period, involving a ritual circumambulation around the Memphis. |
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Perhaps the best analogy to the relationship of Sokar-Osiris to Cygnus is found in Greek tradition, were Apollo born on an island surrounded by swans is taken upon the back of such to the land of Hyperborea at the time of winter. Apollo was a Deity who traversed the entire polarity from the Underworld of the cavernous North, were he was conceived, to the corresponding heights of the Sun God, and it is the swan/cygnus that facilitates this passage therefore in Greek myth, in correspondance to their migratory pattern Apollo was certainly not representative of Cygnus per se, andit is unlikely that Sokar-Osiris was directly relative to the constellation in ancient Egypt, though it was a major consideration in the timing and substance of the rituals involved in the breaking through, the curvaceous winged emblam of Sokar essentialy describes the semi-circular form, and this reflects his pivitol role in the cyclic drama of regeneration, the bisection through Cygnus, the parting of the wings. This is a key concern of the cult of Sokar, making the breakthrough into the Earth in terms of first seeding and hoeing, of breaking through the passage from beneath to be reborn at the Winter Solstice, perhaps Sokar in his suggested role as tutelary God of meteorites could also be seen as the Lord of Panspermia....
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The proper placement of Sokar at the very heart of the overall Giza necropolis, between the paws of the sphinx, also raises the question of whether the underground secret chamber associated with the cult would be positioned at this place, and in principle there is nowhere else it could be considered other than at the centre, in the same manner that Sokar is at the heart of the Celestial realm, in consideration of this it can be noted that the location best suggesting a subterranean chamber is at the location of the Altar. The front of the Sphinx consists of pieces of limestone that have been arranged artificially and paved. With the passing of time, the arranged and paved pieces of limestone have been projected and recessed. At first, the team had been concerned about survey, as the turbulent reflection on the surface might disturb the sensor. Measuring lines (comprising reticulate 10 lines each) were set by meter east and west, and north and south. Inner part of both the forefeet, a geometrical cavity (1.5m x 3m) has been detected. The bottom has not been detected clearly, because the bottom may be uneven or there may be some articles. The cavity seems top extend from the east to the west, i.e., toward the chest; however, an offering table made of granite prevented survey.
http://www.catchpenny.org/waseda.html
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From the first Dynasty the rulers of Egypt had identiifed themselves with the Falcon 'Horus/he that is above'. and the Falcon was seen at the heights of the Celestial realm in iconography, in the same sense that Sokar should be seen. The association of Horus with Sokar is seldom discussed, yet in the role of facilitating the rebirth of the Sun, and correspondingly the birth of Horus, then it is Sokar who carries this through, through the assimilation of the Sun with the symbolism of the Henu barque of Sokar, thus in many ways Horus is born through the actions of Sokar, and as such is a Falcon, with all the judgmental qualities of the swift in retribution spirit.
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