Page 369 - Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

Chapter 43

Looking for the First Time

Here is what the Ancient Egyptians said about the First Time, Zep Tepi,
when the gods ruled in their country: they said it was a golden age
1
during which the waters of the abyss receded, the primordial darkness
was banished, and humanity, emerging into the light, was offered the
gifts of civilization. They spoke also of intermediaries between gods and
2
men—the Urshu, a category of lesser divinities whose title meant ‘the
Watchers’. And they preserved particularly vivid recollections of the gods
3
themselves, puissant and beautiful beings called the Neteru who lived on
earth with humankind and exercised their sovereignty from Heliopolis
and other sanctuaries up and down the Nile. Some of these Neteru were
male and some female but all possessed a range of supernatural powers
which included the ability to appear, at will, as men or women, or as
animals, birds, reptiles, trees or plants. Paradoxically, their words and
deeds seem to have reflected human passions and preoccupations.
Likewise, although they were portrayed as stronger and more intelligent
than humans, it was believed that they could grow sick—or even die, or
be killed—under certain circumstances.
4

Records of prehistory

Archaeologists are adamant that the epoch of the gods, which the
Ancient Egyptians, called the First Time, is nothing more than a myth.
The Ancient Egyptians, however, who may have been better informed
about their past than we are, did not share this view. The historical
records they kept in their most venerable temples included
comprehensive lists of all the kings of Egypt: lists naming every pharaoh
of every dynasty recognized by scholars today. Some of these lists went
5
even further, reaching back beyond the historical horizon of the First
Dynasty into the uncharted depths of a remote and profound antiquity.
Two lists of kings in this category have survived the ravages of the ages
and, having been exported from Egypt, are now preserved in European

1 Myth and Symbol in Ancient Egypt, pp. 263-4; see also Nicolas Grimal, A History of
Ancient Egypt, Blackwell, Cambridge, 1992, p. 46.
2 New Larousse Encyclopaedia of Mythology, p. 16.
3 The Gods of the Egyptians, volume I, pp. 84, 161; The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts,
pp. 124, 308.
Osiris And The Egyptian Resurrection, volume I, p. 352.
4
5 Michael Hoffman, Egypt before the Pharaohs, Michael O’Mara Books, 1991, pp. 12-13;
Archaic Egypt, pp. 21-3; The Encyclopaedia of Ancient Egypt, pp. 138-9.

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