Kemetic Architectual Texts, Technical Terms, and Archives-gctid52583

[Agbede]

Architectual Texts, Technical Terms, and Archives Hunter Adams

Alexander Badawy,²⁷ in his groundbreaking study of Egyptian architectural design, reports the existence of Egyptian archives. The texts relating to surveying, town planning, and architectural pursuits, speak for themselves as proof of the existence of archives.

After the troubled years of the First Intermediate Period of the middle kingdoms, Prince Khnumhotep II describes the work of his grandfather:

"He established the southern landmark, perpetuating the northern like the heavens; he divided the great river (the Milky Way) along side its middle; its eastern side of the "Horizon of Horus," was as far as the eastern highland; at the coming of his majesty, when he cast out evil, shining like Atum himself, when he restored that which he found ruined; that which a city had taken from its neighbor; while he caused the city to know its boundary with the city establishing their landmarkers like the heavens, distinguishing their waters according to that which was in the writings, investigating according to what was old, because he greatly loved Maat (truth and justice)."²⁸

From a stelae of King Neferhotep at Abydos, here is a passage describing his wish to seek original information from the archives about the "exact" original form of the statue of Osiris:
"His majesty spoke to the nobles, and companions, who were in his suite, the real scribes of hieroglyphs, masters of all secrets: `My heart hath desired to seethe ancient writings of Atum; open you for me for a great investigation; let the god know concerning his creation, and the gods concerning their fashioning, their offerings and [their] obligations ... (let) me know the god in his form, that I may fashion him as he was formerly, when they made the [statues] in their council, in order to establish their monuments upon the Earth'."
He is now advised by his court:

"Let thy majesty proceed to the libraries, and let thy majesty see every hieroglyph. His majesty proceeded to the library. His majesty opened the [leather] rolls together with these companions. Lo, his majesty found the rolls of the House of Osiris, First of the Westerners, Lord of Abydos."

Here the wish to comply with the early rules is clearly expressed. Rules could also assume the form of technical specifications or procedures and were kept secret among members of the craftsmen's guild, the hour-watchers, and other high officials. Also, many texts themselves emphasized secrecy had to be kept even while carrying out projects. This care for secrecy was aimed at keeping the tradition free from alteration and contamination which would have occurred had every initiate had access to all the information. The main purpose of secrecy was to maintain the "rules of Old". Krupp, et al., to base their conclusions that the Egyptians did not systematically study and record the motions of the heavens, never considered known Old Kingdom references such as the ones previously mentioned, which support the existence of records and technical terms of heavenly bodies and phenomena.
To give some idea of how old these "rules of old" probably are, the Turin papyrus states that during the reign of King Narmer (Menes), the progenitor of the "historic" or dynastic period, there were Companions (or Servitors) of Heru (Greek, Horus), the Shemsu-Her, who had reigned for 13,420 years; and there were reigns before the Companions of Horus of 23,200 years. Not only does this establish that their religion, science, and art of writing were institutionalized at least 40,000 years ago, but additionally gives strong support to their knowledge of precession of equinoxes as revealed in the Denderah Zodiac of the Ptolemaic Procession period.