Although we may not be aware of it, the concept of ‘Time’ is directly linked to a civilization’s “success”; i.e., the longevity of a civilization in the historical record depends first and foremost on how it understands time. The notion of time, as expressed in the calendar is far more ancient than the historical record shows us, which explains why we have cultures and civilizations in place long before they come up with a serviceable calendar.
Every civilization, or large grouping of
people, started off with a “calendar” – an accurate accounting of time passing
through seasons and so forth (otherwise Agriculture would not have been
possible). If you think about it, the calendar is a fairly sophisticated expression
of an essentially human function, which is not shared with our animal cousins –
the function of memory – the ability to remember. Because we are the only
creatures that can observe, count, and then remember our observations and our counting,
this knowledge of time, seasons, years, etc., is innately human. And in ancient
peoples it was probably knowledge of a highly intuitive nature.
From the time when groups understood the
calendar to when their particular “calendar” was formalized into carvings,
monuments, or steles, etc., one must assume the passing of considerable time. It
is basically wrong, therefore, to assume that a civilization depended on some
king – a warlord – in order to rally the people and through war “coalesce” them
into a semi-uniform “people” (not to use the trite term “nation” – a concept
born of the Enlightenment in the 18th Century). Not kings and
political might (a concept that did not exist in the early Bronze Age) make
civilizations, but “star watchers,” “shamans,” and “priests,” were the
foundation of civilization. Without them, there were no kings... because there
would be no civilization (or tribe) to speak of.
If the concept of ‘Time’ is directly linked
to a civilization’s success (over time), does that explain the success of the
Ancient Egyptians? Could it be that the Ancient Egyptian civilization lasted as
long as it did because they understood Time better than we do? How is the
conception of Time related to its success – it’s 10,000 years of continuous “pre-historic”
success before our own reckoning of the historical record began for them ca. 3150
B.C.? That’s the date given by modern historians and archaeologists for when
Ancient Egyptians began to coalesce. If you ever tried to “coalesce” people (it’s
easier to herd cats!), you can easily understand why the notion of starting the
clock on a civilization at the point where they have left us their “first trace”
is absurd.
So what made the Ancient Egyptians so
successful? What was their concept of ‘Time’?
I ask myself this question often enough, especially
when I’m not as productive on the keyboards as I should be, and that forces me
off my chair and up on my feet. After pacing a bit, I find I have to go
outdoors and consult the matter with the chirping birds that wake me every
morning. After all, time keeps on ticking, doesn’t it? Or does it?
It all depends on what religious persuasion
you happen to adhere to... When it comes to defining ‘Time,’ it’s not a matter
of indifference whether you believe in the prophets of modern science or if
you’re an accepting idol worshipper of older religions. ‘Time’ will have a very
different meaning to you depending on whom and what you worship. Outside of my
avian friends, most of the sources I’ve consulted on the matter, and they are
many and varied, they all seem to project our modern idea of ‘Time’ upon the
Ancient Egyptians. I categorically reject that idea – as do my feathered
companions, might I add!
In their totality, the Egyptians expressed
cosmological functions as a union of pairs. We glean this “opposing pairs” concept
from Hermetic tradition, which the Ancient Egyptians established, or “seeded,” through
the “Thrice Greatest” Djehuti, or Thoth (Hermes Trismegistus), the Neter of
Wisdom. One of the “Seven Hermetic Principles,” associated with Hermeticism and
the Corpus Hermeticum (attributed to Djehuti during the Renaissance, or to an
all-wise Egyptian priest) is expressed in the Kybalion (published in 1912 by
“Three Initiates”) as the “Law of Polarity” (may also be known as “law of
duality,” or the “law of opposites”):
“Everything is
Dual; everything has poles; everything has its pair of opposites; like and
unlike are the same; opposites are identical in nature, but different in
degree; extremes meet; all truths are but half-truths; all paradoxes may be reconciled.”—The
Kybalion.
The Ancient Egyptian tendency to pair
“opposites” is intuitive and not intellectual. Keeping in mind, of course, that
at that time, let us say >5,000 years ago – intellectualization; i.e.,
taking ideas from the real world and converting them into pure abstractions,
was neither possible nor desirable. Therefore, we can only discuss these
abstractions amongst ourselves (i.e., all this “reasoning” we do, as in this
very blog entry, to an Egyptian of that time, would be but total and utter
nonsense! They would see it as one hand talking to the other hand about nothing).
Since the Ancient Egyptians were anything
but frivolous individuals, their thoughts about the wonders they witnessed,
were grounded on ‘Reality,’ and therefore, were centred on the sun’s course and
were expressed as a “sailing journey” across the sky. That is how their
“thinking” has come down to us, “mummified,” as it were, in papyrus scrolls,
tomb paintings, and stone carvings – the “traces” which they left for us of
their symbolic way of thinking (which explains why we don’t understand them!).
The concept of Time is no different; it’s based on the observed “duality” or
“opposites” which comprise the observable phenomenon (dawn-sunset,
midday-midnight, etc.).
We, on the other hand, surrounded and
submerged in “intellectual abstractions” from the time we are born, can only
regard things linearly – without its opposite poles, or extremes, present
simultaneously (thank the Greeks for that logical impediment). The ancients did
not have that narrow limitation.
One of the few credible exceptions, which I
found both cogent and intriguing, was by the esteemed German Egyptologist Dr.
Jan Assmann, in his book “The Search For God in Ancient Egypt,” which I highly
recommend. In it, he has something very intelligent to say about time (actually,
Dr. Assmann has many, many interesting things to say!). It’s something both
highly reasoned and intuitive, and who will say those are not our decadent
civilization’s rarest of high virtues? I suppose that’s what comes from being
immersed for nearly sixty years in the ‘Wisdom of Ancient Egypt.’
“The fullness of time as a cosmic totality was expressed by a pair
of words, neheh (nhh) and djet (dt)... Neheh and djet both have
properties of our “time,” as well as of our “eternity,” and as a practical
matter, either can sometimes be translated as “time” and sometimes as
“eternity.” The terms refer to the totality (as such, sacred and in a sense
transcendent and thus “eternal”) of cosmic time. To clarify this concept of
time and its religious implications or semantic range, we must heed an
important distinction. We are so accustomed to the notion of infinity that we
think of “totality” as finite and bounded. The Egyptians, however, viewed
“totality” as the opposite of finite and bounded. To them, the boundaries of
totality were not contrasted with the unbounded, but with the “whole,” with
“plenitude.”...
“Our dichotomy of time and eternity is based on Greek ontology and
Christian dogmatics, and our concept of time rests on the system of tenses in
Western languages, which express the notions of past, present, and future.
Instead of these three temporal divisions, the Afro-asiatic family of languages
has two divisions, called “aspects,” and therein lies the path to the meaning
of neheh and djet... The closest that we can come is a pair of concepts such as
“change” and “completion/perfection”....
“In Egyptian, “change” was kheper
and “completedness/perfection” tem.
Both concepts were embodied in the gods Khepri (the “becoming one”) and Atum
(the “completed one”), who were combined into a dual god at an early date and
who stood, in the theology of the course of the sun, for the morning sun
(Khepri) and the evening sun (Atum). The two were identified with the temporal
concepts neheh (change) and djet (completedness).”
How would we, today, view time (and
ourselves), if we understood it merely as “change” – ongoing change? As
something incomplete – as of yet imperfect – moving towards “completedness” and
eventually “perfection”? Could we then see that we (ourselves) are in the
stream of “time” because we are “incomplete” or “imperfect”? And that we live
“in time” because we are corporeal and imperfect (whereas, presumably, we’d be
“eternal” and “perfect” if, at the present time, we were only made up of
spirit). If we were “complete” and “perfect” we would not be in the throes of
Time, would we?
To make matters worse for our “linear intellect,”
we have to take into account one further subtlety (and the ancient Egyptians
were nothing if not subtle!). It has to do with the physical-sensory perception
of “change,” which arguably, is the observation of contrasts (and differences)
which take place in nature (and the environment) as the illusion of “time”
passes from moment to moment.
One ancient concept of time which has
survived in the region, through the wisdom of Islam, and which may adumbrate
the concept of time for us, is the idea of “a day is a thousand years” (or “a
day is one hundred years,” etc. as propounded in the Qu’ran). What do these
words mean? These words speak to the concept of “Becoming,” which was an aspect
of time (as we saw above, incorporated in the concept of neheh as “change” and the god Khepri as the “becoming one”) and it yields
to our understanding, the idea of “evolution” (progression), in contrast to “completedness”
or “perfection” (being djet) the
final stop in “evolution.”
“One day is one thousand years” illuminates
the dual union of neheh and djet very well, if you follow along. The
contrast between the two “extremes” (i.e., one day and one thousand years – a leap
in order of magnitude) also explains the way the Ancient Egyptians understood
such things as “time passing” or even “history” (in the sense of memories of
past events) as either in the “process” of change, or as already “perfected.” Once
perfected, the thing, the event, or the process of evolution is no longer subject
to Time, or change.
If one considers the ramifications of the
“dual union” of Becoming/change and Completedness/perfection, one gets a far
more “holistic” concept of Time. If we are able to assume this way of thinking,
it would certainly lead us away from our current neurosis (or “discontent”)
about time (and its lack) in our modern lives.
So why didn’t the Ancient Egyptians, or any
other ancient peoples (up until the Late Bronze Age) not rush around like
“chickens without heads” (as we run around today)? The answer starts, I think,
in this understanding, this bridging of the “pair of opposites” – change and
stasis – progression and perfection – as simultaneous realities and equally
valid. Why it may even lead us as human beings, as a
civilization/culture/society, to a “re-evaluation of values.”
How does this “intuitive thinking” work? It
shows us both opposites at the same time. And, as in the Hermetic “Law of
Polarity,” it tells us that either opposite, though valid, is only
“half-truth.” Both are true by degrees. Sounds like “lawyer talk,” doesn’t it?
(Well, lawyers should be able to take account of opposites simultaneously...
otherwise; they’re not much good at what they do!).
But here’s the hitch: The ancients were
“literal” in their expression (“matter-of-fact,” if you will) and not bent or
seduced by “metaphors” as we are today (keeping in mind what a metaphor is – a clever
little lie, a “way with words”). We today are far more prone to be seduced by
lies than the ancients were.
There’ll be more to say about ‘Time,’ the
calendar, and when “one day was one thousand years” long, shortly... Stay
tuned!
