For All The Gold of Nubia

For All The Gold of Nubia

What can possibly be said about gold that hasn’t been said already a million times, and with about as many adjectives tacked on? Lustrous, precious, aurulent, honeyed, glorious, blissful, ad nausea… Curious thing, isn’t? Why is gold so prized? Where does gold actually come from?

My suspicion has always been that the where made it priceless… I mean, where gold came from originally, made it so precious.

 The Black People said that gold was the “skin of the neteru” (the skin of the gods), and therefore a sacred material. It’s hard for us to imagine what the “sacred” meant to the Ancient Egyptians (or to any other peoples of antiquity). We’re a civilization notorious for holding nothing sacred – with perhaps the exception of money (in which we trust more than in God). Our kitschy materialism would offer up nothing that would be recognizable to the Black People as sacred. Our modern practice of religion would seem to them merely a decadent, mummified form, devoid of any recognizable spiritual element.

But that’s not nearly all… According to one early myth (maybe from the pre-dynastic period), gold appeared on Top of the Earth as the result of the Tears of Râ. The “tears” were of joy and the manifest love of the neter. A much later myth (from the Middle Kingdom and New) when these “tears fell to Earth…” Lady Aset (Isis) was stirred to compassion and decided to cure Lord Râ. It was a painful scorpion sting…

For the cure song to be effective, clever Aset required Lord Râ divulge his secret name… As a result of her healing, Lady Aset gained great power and was from then on the Mistress of Heka, or of “medicine” and “healing.” If you’re going to gain a secret name, might as well get it from the highest deity around – the living Sun Disk, the Hidden One.

Anyway, I digress… What do these myths have to tell us about the origin of gold or of the Tears of Râ? These myths seem to point to the Sun as the original source of gold. Of course, it wasn’t just the Black People who had figured this out – there’s hardly a civilization, culture, or religion known to us, which did not deem gold to be a gift from our guardian star!

Anything that’s travelled 150 million kilometres (93 million miles) to get here, has to be something special…

Gold in the Trinity of Metals

Sacred Tradition assigns cosmic origins to all the metals on earth – one metal to each of the “seven planets”; i.e., Sun=gold, Moon=silver, Mercury=mercury, Venus=copper, Mars=iron, Jupiter=tin, and Saturn=lead (by early Medieval times, these correspondences and affinities shifted; e.g., Jupiter=bronze, Mercury=iron, but we’re sticking with the old stuff). Earth, naturally, didn’t figure amongst them, since it was at the centre of the system, the focus of their cosmogony. There’s a lot to be said for the geocentric arrangement of the planets in relation to the metals, which our modern science denies (and only picks up on fortuitously in the “atomic weight” of these metals in the Periodic Table. This too is ancient knowledge… and perhaps gist for another mill, another time).

Having grown up a “scientist” – Science was my dogma and religion – it’s funny to note, and a trifle sad too, just how little authority modern/physical science has in the 21^st Century. Not even the powers-that-be, who most benefit from its distortions, pay it any heed (and the science behind Global Warming is not the only orphan in the bunch! Denial has many scions, doesn’t it?). In fact, one can safely say that the present “political” rules – this entire political generation (and class) – are the least educated in the sciences and have the least interest or belief in it (or for that matter of knowledge of any kind). In that regard they’re all rubes and it’s simply a question of the lesser of the least… How else can you starve entire populations of your own citizenry and sleep at night? Well, it’s easier when you happen to be ‘asleep’ all the time…

Getting back to our top three – the Trinity – which are the three “cosmic” metals – the most cherished and the most valuable according to tradition. These are gold, of course, silver, and copper. Taking into account the entire mineral kingdom, only these three metals aren’t originally of this planet (Earth, where we’re now standing). Again, this seeming coincidence is expressed today in our knowledge of their atomic weights, since these three form the “backbone” of the Periodic Table (another lucky strike!).

Copper you say? Yep, it’s special for many intrinsic reasons, which we won’t get into, except in relation to the “mother” planet that engendered the metal. Here, we’re concerned with gold… which is heady enough stuff for us mere mortals.

Just the facts, ma’am... Gold = Au-79 – Melting point = 2,850°C (5,162°F).

Why even mention melting point? It’s the only relevant fact that appears in science books or even in the entire Periodic Table. Why? There’s only one furnace big enough and potent enough to create gold, to make/forge gold, and that’s the Sun.

If Gold were composed of “atoms” it would have 79 “isotopes” floating around. If it were thus made – we’d be able to radioactively reproduce (“germinate” or “grow”) all 79 of them, like we do with all other metals. But with gold, we can artificially reproduce 28 of them only – beyond that, we’re out the “envelope” of Maya. The physical limits of earthly materiality are thus imposed upon us.

Why only 28 isotopes and not more? The number “28” is significant – and not just in Alchemical terms. We can’t reproduce the other 51 isotopes because we have neglected something both obvious and important. We have neglected the satellite closest to us – the “planet” Moon – which traverses through all its phases in 28 days, and more importantly, its orbit gets in the way between us and the Sun. It’s the “silver” of the Moon that also interferes, if you will.

Without the Moon (and its Wisdom) we can’t make or “grow” gold the way the Ancient Egyptians did. This is the “secret” of Alchemy (the “Philosopher’s Stone” as misinterpreted by us knuckleheads since the Fall of Rome, onto Medieval times, and even today).

Gold As Your Own 'Personal' Neter?

What did the Black People know? I presume quite a bit, since they had Wisdom. Wisdom comes from the Moon. That’s where Lord Djehuti (‘Thoth,’ to the Greeks, also called ‘Hermes’) resides with his consort, Lady Ma’at (Truth). Wisdom paired with Truth gives ankh. And, what is this Wisdom? It’s the inexhaustible source which shines on the Earth from 150 million kilometers away.

The Sun, our little star, is our own “personal neter.” Love (Sun) paired with Truth (Moon), gives us Wisdom. Lady Ma’at (Truth) is the necessary ingredient we must bring to the game of life to make ‘heka’ (magic) happen. Heka is sacred…

To know what Wisdom is one has to know what is sacred first. From the grasp of the sacred, all else follows. The Black People grasped the divine and developed a perennial sacred knowledge, and from their efforts a subtle and sophisticated Sacred Science grew up.

Many thousands of years later, folks like Plato and Pythagoras, amongst others, initiated in the Temple saw the Truth in Love. That’s where they got it in the first place. In their formative years, no self-respecting philosopher would have done without the pilgrimage to the Great River (most notably Alexandria, since thanks to Alexander the Great it was the only Hellenic tourist spot open then – the Club Med of the day). A few, like Plato and Pythagoras made it to Waset (Thebes) and got the real deal – they became initiates of the Sun Mysteries.

Like many other philosophers, prophets, shamans, and roustabouts, la crème of the great Academies had to get their Knowledge from somewhere. That’s where they got the “lo and behold” formula we all know today (Love + Truth = Wisdom – and its ‘opposite’ – Wisdom = Love of Truth).

From this wonderful union between Lord Djehuti (Wisdom) and Lady Ma’at (Truth) we get sacred knowledge on Top of the Earth. Lady Ma’at begat Lord Khonsu, the neter of the Moon, and the ‘holy’ Trinity was formed (Earth and Sun, and Moon). We get all knowledge, once could say, all our intellectual meanderings from the Moon. Who’s a lunatic? We all are… if we even bother to think.

Phooey, you say?

Fu and phooey all you want. But this tiny bit of sacred knowledge – the chemical marriage of Earth and Sun (to beget Moon) – allowed the Black People to make gold in 28 days. Nothing to sneeze at… since this was how our Alchemy started. And our perverted magic doesn’t hold a candle to it. We can’t even dream of anything like it. Our decadent magic (science) can’t actually produce gold at all, only the phony, plastic ‘chips’ of the global Casino… But that’s just fools’ gold!

By the end of the Black People’s “golden age” (1450 B.C.) they could make it in 14 days. Beat that at the roulette table…

Yet, this was something else... electrum (alloy of gold and silver, which sometime later was attributed to Jupiter – by who else? The Greeks and Romans, of course!). I have the sneaking suspicion that our Ancient Egyptian goldsmiths were also able to deal with platinum and the “platinum” group of metals as well. But don’t ask me how! The melting point of platinum is 1,760°C, or 3,200°F, so... you’d have to have a lot of Heka going for you (and a hell of a kiln!) to make that work.

The Nub of the Gold of Nubia

Be that as it may, the Black People called the unique metal “nub,” and we’ve inherited that word for the region where it was principally obtained – Nubia – the Land of Kush, the original “Golden Land.” If you interpret the archaeological evidence narrowly, I should have said “mined” because by the time of the Middle Kingdom, it was exploited already in a modern sense. But we shouldn’t extrapolate from such mining sites that this was in any way the criminal activity it is today in the hands of the Corporations we support daily with our offerings.

The interpretation that the mines being exploited in Nubia were a royal “monopoly” is already bordering on the absurd. Such monopolies didn’t exist until Greek and Roman times, when it was indeed an “imperial monopoly.” The most you can say is that it was a temple monopoly (like the Bank of England). Because all the gold ended up in the “house of the gods” as an offering.

An offering to whom? To the gods, who else?

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To be banal about it, we could see them as the “temple treasuries,” or the Fort Knox(es) of the Black Land. The temples contained the gold from Nubia, which fed the neteru, and consequently all of the Black People. Then, it was transformed by goldsmiths and artisans into exquisite jewellery. The workshops of the temple were numerous and brimmed with specialists, both craftsmen and craftswomen (the Temple of Amun (Karnak) had 80,000 Pure Ones and tens of thousands of them were artisans). At the onset of the Iron Age (ca. 500 B.C.), when the Sacred Science of Kemet reached its peak, it delivered the technique, technology, and talent of the temple in the service of metallurgy, and many other arts, and such marvels haven’t been seen since those days.

As with all transitional periods, the end of the Bronze Age brought with it the Iron Age and the ascendancy of the ram-headed God of War (Ares to the Greeks), and the great Blasphemy which continues to this day. After the Persians invaded the Two Lands (Cambyses II, 525 B.C.), the Tears of Râ disappeared. Not only was the gold taken, but miraculously, the neteru vanished from the Top of the Earth along with the plunder.

No Gold, No Gods!

The Black People were not only bereft of their gold, but of their neteru, who had walked among them – they were gone with the Gold of Nubia. Presumably, the neteru followed their ‘skin,’ but they were not loved as they had been loved in the Land of Love (some say the gods died love-sick because no one loved them any more).

The Blasphemy that set it off was the plundering of the temples for the first time. Gold had never before been stolen either. Who would do such a thing? Who would take the skin of the neteru for themselves? Not even a ravenous creature of the night would. What sacrilege would come next? 

Half a millennium before our era, the Age of War had begun with grand larceny. It was the first big heist -- the greatest gold reserves in the world at that time. I mean, a really big heist. Forget Ocean’s Eleven. That was easy in comparison, like all Hollywood stunts.

No one resisted the robbery. Who can resist utter stupidity? They just took the stuff and left. How daring. That’s “free enterprise” for you.

The pilfered gold was taken back to Sausa and points beyond in the great Persian Empire, or so one is to suppose. Little good did it do old Cambyses II. The neteru were still within their skin and were not all too happy to have to leave their “house,” with the good service and punctual meals and libations and all (I didn’t mention the entertainment, did I? They missed that a lot!).

 According to all accounts, Cambyses II may not have gotten all the gold back home. This may be legend before it’s myth, but Cambyses and his army disappeared in the desert – in the western desert (home was east, by the way). Some say Cambyses wanted to reach the gold of the sun before it set. Others, the more sanguine, believe the curse of the neteru got them caught in a sandstorm before they reached their next oasis. Either way, he died of lack of moisture… the way the neteru dole out Karma on the greediest among us – they harden their hearts until they’re all shrivelled and dried up.

Any wonder the Conquistadors would be lured tens of centuries later by the legends of rivers of gold in America? Don’t want to think poorly of the dead, but maybe this Cambyses was just a little too grabby? Chew before you swallow, you know what I mean? Maybe he was the precursor, the prototype, of our modern banker or hedge-fund manager…There’s always a pioneer out there.

What If the Neteru Only Left Us Their Gleaming Skin?

What the gods give, we have to give in return – that’s the deal, in case anyone has any doubts on the matter. Because of the sacred nature of the material extracted, gold mining was a restricted activity and limited in scope. Most likely, gold was found directly on the surface areas, near alluvial sands and gravel as well as more mountainous areas where deposits of “tell-tale” quartz rocks and ores indicated promising sites for exploitation.

But river beds – including the Nile’s – must have been the primordial location for accessible gold to be found. In other words, the Great River must have been the first place where gold was extracted, in sufficient quantities, to make another walk to fetch water worthwhile…

Because the neteru were generous with the Black People is not to say that they lacked the technical know-how, or the capacity, to deal with more advanced mining techniques (since some of their mines in the eastern desert were “vein” mines up to 300 meters deep). What I mean is that gold must have been so abundant that it was unnecessary to go to such great lengths to extract it until later times (after the Iron Age).

And if you’ve seen any of the elaborate gold jewellery produced by the Black People, maybe in a museum or exhibitions, the effort was worth it. The pieces that have survived stand as real artistic prodigies, unsurpassed even by modern techniques. Not only in gold production, but also in its artful application, the Black People were unmatched – the thickness of the gold leaf they used was 6 microns (0.006 mm) – achieved through gold “beating” by hand throughout the Two Lands. The technical confidence of these masters is something to marvel at…

One has to stand in awe of this wondrous, cosmic metal. Its existence is tied to a profound mystery, as sublime as any great truth, since it has to do with our own origin. It makes one wonder what would happen if all the gold in Fort Knox, and what has been stolen elsewhere, were to be returned to the temples (well, the Temple would have to be rebuilt first, but that’s a minor detail).

If the gold were returned, the gods would return, and things just wouldn’t be the same after that…