Chapter 2
The shadow beyond the western face of
Djoser’s step pyramid had shortened during Heroo’s story. He noticed that our heads would soon be
exposed to Ra’s heat. I was so
fascinated by his story that I forgot to breathe as I listened and wrote at the
same time. When Heroo stopped, I drew
such a deep breath the others laughed at me.
It was nevertheless obvious that all of us were in some way
uncomfortable after sitting for so long without any movement. Heroo proposed an hour of leisure after which
we will meet at the entrance colonnade for lunch and then descend the steep
trench to Djoser’s offering chamber for an afternoon sleep. This chamber was kept open by an order from
the great Amenhotep himself, Life, Prosperity and Health, for the use of
visiting noblemen to escape the heat of the noonday sun while they planned,
supervised or inspected their tombs nearby.
I have never seen it before.
Heroo himself lead the procession down
the steep incline after lunch. We
chanted the long version of the deceased kings’ prayer, called “The Ladder to
Heaven:”
“Pay attention, Ra, for Djoser is
coming as an indestructible spirit!
He will lay claim to the four pillars
of heaven, but fear not!
It is I, your son, who comes to
you. It is I, Djoser, who comes to you.
Please continue to cross the sky, united
in the darkness
While Seth and Nephthys proclaim to
“Djoser is coming, an indestructible
spirit!
If he wishes you to die, you will die,
If he wishes you to live, you will
live!”
“You can continue to cross the sky in
the land of light
While Osiris and Isis proclaim to the
Lower Egyptian Gods:
“Djoser is coming as an indestructible
spirit!
If he wishes you to die, you will die,
If he wishes you to live, you will
live!”
Pay attention, Nout, for Djoser is
coming as an indestructible spirit!
His body lies firmly in the earth and
he has left Horus, his son, behind him.
His wings have developed into the
plumes of a divine falcon
And he flies as a Ba bird, equipped with his own magic!
“Please open the doors of heaven, you,
who are a friend of Thoth
For Djoser is coming, stepping upon
each rung of the ladder
While Tefnout trembles with dread and
Shu shouts:
“Djoser comes forth and goes to heaven
to be among his brethren, the Gods!
Rise up, Djoser, take your head,
collect your bones and gather your limbs.
Shake the earth from your flesh and
stand at the gates.
Bring your bread that goes not stale,
your beer that sours not.
The gatekeeper comes to you and grasps
your hand.
He is your father, Geb, who rejoices at
your arrival!
He takes you into heaven, kisses you,
caresses you,
He sets you before the spirits, who
welcome you,
The imperishable stars dance around
you.
The hidden ones worship you,
The great ones surround you,
The watchers wait on you.
They
thresh barley for you,
They reap emmer wheat for you.
They celebrate your monthly feasts
As well as your half-monthly feasts
Just as Geb has
ordered it done for you.
Rise up, Djoser! Climb the ladder to heaven!
You are a living, indestructible spirit!””
The chamber was small and cool,
perfect for a small group. Our eyes were
dazzled by the thousands of faience-baked rounded tiles on the walls and
ceiling. These tiles were of every hue
from the lightest turquoise to the deepest sky blue and arranged with such
skill and artistry that just being in that chamber made me feel as if I had
meditated with lotus-laced wine for hours.
Soon after the servants spread the mats, everyone was fast asleep
without any effort.
When we woke, Heroo again led the procession
out of this magical chamber. We settled
on the west face of the step pyramid again, as before. The gentle breeze of the north wind countered
the sun’s receding heat on our backs; its light fell on Heroo’s face. I spread my papyrus sheet, prepared the ink
and the reed pens and began to write furiously as Heroo continued the story of
Horemheb’s conception.
* * *
A Priestess entered the Chamber of Conception,
where I was sitting. She carried a tray
laden with food and drink. I had not tasted
food since the night before. It was the
traditional hour for the noon meal, but I have been instructed to eat very
little. The mango was fresh and free of
blemish. Once slit with a flint, the
skin peeled back and the sweet, yellow flesh came right off as my teeth scraped
around the stone. The roast duck shone with rich fat and when I broke the
crackly skin, the meat practically fell off the bones. It was moist and the
aroma of five spices was alluring. The leeks and radishes were crisp and washed
clean. The bread was still warm from the oven. I finished the mango, ate a
small piece of duck and a few vegetables. Then I washed the food down with a
goblet of wine. I finished the meal with
a few morsels of bread. To remain alert,
eating had to be restrained. Still, I felt pleasantly filled and mildly
intoxicated.
The Priestess, who had been watching
without interrupting me, spread a mat on the floor of the chamber, removed the
tray and left. I noticed that Ra had
declined and the three cubits long ceiling shaft no longer allowed his rays to
penetrate directly into the chapel. The
light was gray and thin. I lay down on the mat and fell asleep. I don’t know how long I slept but I awoke to
many hands massaging my body lightly, sensuously. These Priestesses looked at me
invitingly: their every movement was
lascivious and erotic. The musicians had
also returned into the chamber. One set
of drums beat the rhythm of the heart and another set that of conception. Someone motioned me to move back to my chair
and handed me a goblet of wine. I drank
it and returned the goblet. The
Priestesses now turned their erotic movements towards each other. Soon male dancers joined them. Their hands expressed the sensuousness of the
skin. Their lips moved lightly from the
female dancers’ lips to their nipples, back to their necks, then, as the men
knelt, they sunk their faces into the Priestesses’ soft belly. As the dance continued, one female dancer
mounted her partner, her thighs wound around the man’s waist, her arms cradling
her partner’s head. Another Priestess
turned away from her partner, bent over and moved her buttocks invitingly. Her partner moved into them obligingly. The third Priestess, a slight girl, jumped to
mount her partner, but he took her momentum, grabbed her buttocks, sidestepped
her, arched his back and swung her legs right up into the air. Her hands swung around his neck and he slowly
lowered her right onto his erect phallus.
As the dancers began to sweat with the sacred act of procreation, their
sight, sounds and scent filled my mind and overpowered me. I began to sweat also, straining against the
chair. In sheer frustration I asked
myself: “How long must I remain a spectator at my own nuptial?” In the ecstasy of arousal, brought on by the
slowly merging bodies and the primal drum rhythms, time melted away. I did not see the nubile dancers
part and move into the shadows. I did
not notice the drumbeat continue only in my head. Silence reigned in the Chamber of Conception
but my Ka, my imaginative reality, had moved into the presence of the
Goddess, Hathor herself.
I looked around. I was in the stables with clean straw spread
on the floor. Hathor, the Goddess of
Love appeared in the form of the Heavenly Cow.
She raised her tail and let a stream of urine splash onto the
ground. I saw myself as Apis, the divine
bull with a white star on my forehead, the sign of the bull’s unique
pedigree. I pawed the ground, my
nostrils flared. I raised my head high
up in the air and roared. I performed
the expected mating dance. Hathor coyly
egged me on, then retreated. I caught up with her. She moved away. I cornered her and was about to mount her
when a gong sounded. I returned from the
divine vision, rose from the chair, shocked to find myself with an erection.
I was alone in the Chamber of
Conception. I strained my ears but soft
sand covering the large flagstones dampened any footfall. A shadowy figure materialized at the doorway,
shimmered in the twilight and stopped at the altar. Two others approached me. The brush of a nipple against my arm filled
me with a tinge of anticipation. The
smell of burning incense filled the chapel.
Expert hands began to anoint me with sweet smelling unguents from
alabaster jars. They covered everything
except my genitals.
Then they led me to the altar where the third figure
stood. I could not see her clearly as a
thin veil covered her head and upper body.
Slowly and sensuously she rubbed a
salve onto my testicles and anointed my phallus with long, slow strokes. Then she pulled me by the buttocks close to
her, lay back on the low altar and folded her thighs onto her stomach. Her upraised vagina almost talked to me with
its scents of various bodily fluids and sweet smelling unguents. The long wait and the intense anticipation
focused all my energy into my groin.
The two naked Priestesses standing on
either side of me began ululating. The
light had visibly faded from the Chamber of Conception, as if a veil had been
draped over the light shaft. I took another moment to contemplate the scent, a
pungent aroma that reminded me of the rotting stable manure that brought forth
the healthiest and largest plants from the earth. I knew it was time to sow my seed.
I moved into the waiting thighs. The
two Priestesses ran out of the chapel with girlish giggles. Drums roared into action. The other instruments shrieked with delight.
Holding the Priestess' thighs on the altar, I entered her in the thin
darkness. She grabbed my arms and sat
up, her thighs enfolding me tightly. My
arousal was complete. I needed no love play.
The entire day was spent in etheric foreplay. I flew into a passion I had never before
experienced. The Priestess reached out
with her arms and embraced me. Her large
breasts pressed against my belly and the light of recognition pierced my
consciousness! My pent-up muscles let my
semen flow as I burst out with a joyful, booming sound: "M-e-r-ee-y-e-t! My Beloved!"
I melted in her embrace. The familiar smells, the familiar body, the
familiar touch of hands and thighs, years of love and passion welled up in me
and I expelled sounds through my throat and semen through my phallus. Strained muscles throughout my body sent
their total, unconditional love and energy into Mereeyet. I could not have foreseen the full power of
this temple that had transformed my spouse into Hathor herself. Mereeyet had become the cow-headed Goddess
of love and pleasure. Even as the
secondary throes of orgasmic forces coursed through my body, I could tell from
the grasping hands and thighs, the pressing breasts and the mouth that bit and
sucked my chest that my spouse had been similarly prepared throughout the day
by another set of Priestesses. Her
passion had been equally aroused, her mind had also been focused on a male
child and the Goddess Hathor had indeed answered her prayer and entered her
body with all the divine qualities that only Hathor could confer on a woman.
The playful god Djehouty, in his guise as a baboon, could not have visited a
more glorious trick upon me, nor a more appropriate
sleight of hand! He could not have made
me any more blind to the obvious pairing of a husband
and wife who wish to have a male child together.
I began to chatter like a baboon. Mereeyet answered me in kind. The tambourines also exploded and women
streamed into the chapel ululating and shaking their sistra. Double-reed pipes sounded shrill delight.
I pulled Mereeyet off the altar and we
hugged. Instinctively we both drew a deep breath. One was not enough to balance
the effort we had just put out, so we stood there amid the commotion and
rejoiced with our chests heaving against each other until a sense of calm
returned to our limbs. Still holding
hands, I led Mereeyet out of the chapel.
Unseen hands separated and robed us, then led us to a rooftop banqueting
hall. A small columned building across
the roof from the Chamber of Conception, the rays of the evening sun,
Ra-Harakhty, shone right into it. The
food I had not eaten at lunch was now waiting for us. After I helped myself, Mereeyet took bread,
meat and fruit, followed by the various dancers, musicians and
Priestesses. Everything must be
consumed. Everyone must be sated. Hathor's benign, fully sculpted human face
with those peculiar cows' ears looked down upon us from every column in the
hall. Her lips were forever set as if
breaking out in a smile. When all the trays were empty, young girls, clad only
in thin girdles encircling their waists, stood up and removed the low tables on
which the trays sat.
The dancers and the musicians had
regrouped and two Priestesses approached us.
They motioned us to rise and led us down a square stairwell leading to
the heart of the temple. Mereeyet
remained behind. The procession turned
away from the temple and exited by a side passage. This passage between the inner and the outer
walls led around the temple. The
Priestesses chanted the rituals that were carved into the wall. The inscriptions recorded the story of the
Divine Heroo’s annual conjugal visit to his consort, the Goddess Hathor. He left his temple in his far-away province,
settled into his sacred barque and sailed down the
I found the procession interminable. I tried to pull
away from the arms that held me, but the Priestesses held me firmly. We walked at a pace at which the ritual drama
unfolded in the vignettes along the wall.
I accepted this ritual stroll as a necessary part of the total ceremony
and the time needed for the proper digestion of our feast.
A change of subject perked me up. The chant told about the primeval mound, the
original egg that rose from the waters which covered the earth. It was fertilized by Atum himself, the
self-created, who spilled his own semen and mixed it with the earth of this
first hill that had emerged from chaos. Out of that divine mixture came the gods of the First Time.
Mereeyet was my primeval mound, and my
sperm had spilled onto her egg. The
satisfaction of the memory that Mereeyet and I had just hours ago shared that
primal tension sent a shiver up my spine and made me feel that I wanted to do
it again. The next vignette showed that
much of Atum’s sperm had spilled into the primeval waters where it created
minor God and Goddesses who then served the Great Ones. We had finally reached the end of the walled
corridor. Two doorways opened in
opposite directions. Our procession turned
to the left and followed two priestesses along the same path I took this morning. Around the Birthing House we wound our way to
the
A large group of Priestesses had come
to the
I reviewed the day's events in my mind. The ceremony had flowed like a dream. I even
thought that mandrake or some other powder might have been mixed into my
wine. The Priestesses, after all, were
capable of inducing every kind of sacred dream and vision. They could have left me to sleep on the mat
and let the Goddess do all the work. But
the ceremonies were real. The dancers
moved and some of them even touched me.
The light strengthened and waned as someone on the roof manipulated the
vent’s opening. And what a surprise it
was to feel myself releasing my semen inside my own Mereeyet!
Just then the women on the parapet
made mournful sounds and I looked up.
The sun sat on the edge of the horizon.
It was about to be swallowed by Nout, the Sky Goddess. In turn, she will graciously give birth to
the Sun, her own father, the next morning.
All sounds of music and mourning had stopped. The reddish hue of the sun's last rays lit
the eastern parapet of the sacred lake for a moment. The Priestesses began ululating again,
lamenting the temporary death of Ra. Then all was
quiet. Each one of us, as is our custom, shifted our thoughts from the world
outside into ourselves. After a few
minutes I looked up. The Priestesses had
turned around and were now looking down at me.
Some of them began to make cat calls:
“Lord Heroo, do you remember Atum?”
They had just finished chanting Atum’s creative prowess during our
procession around the temple. “Did you
know Atum’s phallus was so long it reached right into his mouth?” I laughed, for what may be possible for a God
I have never seen on a human being! “Are
you ready to spill your seed into the Primeval Waters, Lord Heroo?” I had my first inkling that something I did
not expect was about to happen. “Are you
a Strong Bull, Lord Heroo?” One of my
visions in the Chamber of Conception was that of being the Apis Bull. This sacred bull is released among a large
herd of heifers once a year and…. I
stopped swimming and thinking. The
Priestesses around the parapet stood up and were already in the process of
removing their robes and sheath dresses, which they wore against the strong
evening breeze. “Are you ready for your
heifers, Strong Bull?” At this final
call all the Priestesses were streaming down the four sets of stairs, jumping
and diving into the water, giggling and screaming "Ka-Nakht, Ka-Nakht,” 'Strong Bull, Strong Bull.'
These Priestesses of the Goddess
Hathor now played the role of Noon, the Primeval Waters made fecund from the
spilled seed of Atum. They took it upon
themselves to collect that spilled seed and I was to play the role of this
creator God. Just as the Gods and
Goddesses created from Atum’s spilled seed served the Great Ones, it was the
Priestesses duty now to bring forth the Ka-Nakht
children who would serve the son for whom Mereeyet and I have been
praying. They pulled me towards the side
of the lake where a small mound of earth stuck out of the water. When we reached it, it turned out to be soft,
warm mud. There, one after another, the
Priestesses enticed me to erection, mounted me, then embraced me and received
my seed. I let my mind wonder, but their
skills brought me back to a new erection time after time. ‘How can a single bull successfully fertilize
an entire herd of cattle?’ I asked myself.
In my own stables the bull did not do it in one day. I had to remind myself that this event was
still part of the ceremony. If only two
or three of the girls would conceive, their children would be brought to my
household as companions, life-long friends and protectors of my son, for whose
conception this entire day had been devoted.
I lost track of time and gave myself
up to the well oiled limbs and even better trained hands and arms of the
servants of the Goddess of Love. It was
already pitch dark when four hands raised me out of the water and I heard many
happy, chattering voices and giggles recede from the
Two Priestesses washed me with
clay. Two others led me up the stairs
then oiled my body. Someone handed me a
new white linen kilt. I put it around my
waist and fastened it. Another wrapped a
loose tunic around my shoulders and then covered it with a robe. They led me away from the sacred lake on the
same path by which we came. The moonless
night was a sign of the Virgin. We
re-entered the temple through a side entrance that led up several steps into
the heart of the temple. Mereeyet was
waiting for me. This was the tiny
courtyard at the bottom of the stairway from the roof. We walked through the doorway and up another
step into the Inner Chamber that held the Holy of Holies, the sacred
centerpiece of the
The thick, ochre colored curtain
parted in front of us. Mereeyet and I
entered into the most sacred room of the temple. A golden cow gleamed on the altar inside her
naos. We prostrated ourselves. The cold flagstone felt good on my forehead
after the previous exertions. The High
Priestess stood next to the altar with the golden cow. She spoke to us: “Just as you have entered the Holy of Holies
of Hathor’s
When I
rose from my belly, I felt weak and shivered.
I helped to raise Mereeyet. We
both felt the cycle of preparation, exertion and conception had come to an end
and we were ready to rest. A Priestess
guided us around the outside of the Holy of Holies to the somnabularium where
soft sheepskins were spread on the floor.
We lay down on the sheepskins.
Priestesses covered us with many, many more. We fell fast asleep in the womb of Hathor's
temple.