Contents

Hammurabi's Code of Laws
The Megalithic Builders
Ancient Egyptians

Hammurabi's Code of Laws

 Using Babylonia and Assyria (Vol. I of The Sacred Books and Early Literature of the East), we encounter an early system of creating an orderly society: the laws assembled by Hammurabi of Babylon. Almost 300 laws have survived. They influenced the laws developed by Moses, by the Romans, and by other lawgivers. (A quick digression on style: You may notice an old-fashioned use of subjunctive verbs in this book, which was largely assembled in the late 19th Century. Consequently, you see "If anyone snare, bring, or satisfy," instead of the more modern, "If anyone snares, brings, or satisfies.") Some highlights:

 1. If anyone ensnare another, putting a ban upon him, but he cannot prove it, then he that ensnared him shall be put to death.

 2. If any one bring an accusation against a man, and the accused go to the river and leap into the river, if he sink in the river his accuser shall take possession of his house. But if the river prove that the accused is not guilty, and he escape unhurt, then he who had brought the accusation shall be put to death, while he who leaped into the river shall take possession of the house that had belonged to his accuser.

 3. If any one bring an accusation of any crime before the elders, and does not prove what he has charged, he shall, if it be a capital offense charged, be put to death.

 4. If he satisfy the elders to impose a fine of grain or money, he shall receive the fine that the action produces.

 5. If a judge try a case, reach a decision, and present his judgment in writing; if later error shall appear in his decision, and it be through his own fault, then he shall pay twelve times the fine set by him in the case, and he shall be publicly removed from the judge's bench, and never again shall he sit there to render judgment.

 6. If any one steal the property of a temple or of the court, he shall be put to death, and also the one who receives the stolen thing from him shall be put to death.

 7. If any one buy from the son or the slave of another man, without witnesses or a contract, silver or gold, a male or female slave, an ox or a sheep, an ass or anything, or if he take it in charge, he is considered a thief and shall be put to death.

 8. If any one steal cattle or sheep, or an ass, or a pig or goat, if it belong to a god or to the court, the thief shall pay thirtyfold therefor; if they belonged to a freed man of the king he shall pay tenfold; if the thief has nothing with which to pay he shall be put to death.

 9. If any one lose an article and find it in the possession of another: if the person in whose possession the thing is found say "A merchant sold it to me, I paid for it before witnesses," and if the owner of the thing say, "I will bring witnesses who know my property," then shall the purchaser bring the merchant who sold it to him, and the witnesses before whom he bought it, and the owner shall bring witnesses who can identify his property. The judge shall examine their testimony--both of the witnesses before whom the price was paid, and of the witnesses who identify the lost article on oath. The merchant is then proved to be a thief and shall be put to death. The owner of the lost article receives his property, and he who bought it receives the money he paid from the estate of the merchant.

 10. If the purchaser does not bring the merchant and the witnesses before whom he bought the article, but its owner bring witnesses who identify it, then the buyer is the thief and shall be put to death, and the owner receives the lost article.

 11. If the owner do not bring witnesses to identify the lost article, he is an evil-doer, he has traduced, and shall be put to death.

 12. If the witnesses be not at hand, then shall the judge set a limit, at the expiration of six months. If his witnesses have not appeared within the six months, he is an evil-doer and shall bear the fine of the pending case.

 14. If any one steal the minor son of another, he shall be put to death.

 15. If any one take a male or female slave of the court, or a male and female slave of a freed man, outside the city gates, he shall be put to death.

 16. If any one receives into his house a runaway male or female slave of the court, or of a freedman, and does not bring it out at a public proclamation of the major domus, the master of the house shall be put to death.

 22. If any one is committing a robbery and is caught, then he shall be put to death.

 53. If any one be too lazy to keep his dam in proper condition, and does not so keep it; if then the dam break and all the fields be flooded, then shall he in whose dam the break occurred be sold for money, and the money shall replace the corn which he has caused to be ruined.

 54. If he be not able to replace the corn, then he and his possession shall be divided among the farmers whose corn he has flooded.

 55. If any one open his ditches to water his crop, but is careless, and the water flood the field of his neighbor, then he shall pay his neighbor corn for his loss.

 128. If a man take a woman to wife, but have no intercourse with her, this woman is no wife to him.

 129. If a man's wife be surprised with another man, both shall be tied and thrown into the river, but the husband may pardon his wife and the king his slaves.

 130. If a man violate the wife (betrothed or child-wife) of another man, who has never known a man, and still lives in her father's house, and sleep with her and be surprised, this man shall be put to death, but the wife is blameless.

 131. If a man bring a charge against one's wife, but she is not surprised with another man, she must take an oath and then may return to her house.

 134. If any one be captured in war and there is no sustenance in his house, if then his wife go to another house, this woman shall be held blameless.

 135. If a man be taken prisoner in war and there be no sustenance in his house and his wife go to another house and bear children; and if later her husband return and come to his home: then this wife shall return to her husband, but the children follow their father.

 157. If any one be guilty of incest with his mother after his father, both shall be burned.

 168. If a man wish to put his son out of his house, and declare before the judge: "I want to put my son out," then the judge shall examine into his reasons. If the son be guilty of no great fault, for which he can rightfully be put out, the father shall not put him out.

 192. If a son of a paramour or a prostitute say to his adoptive father or mother: "You are not my father, or my mother," his tongue shall be cut off.

 195. If a son strike his father, his hands shall be hewn off.

 196. If a man put out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out.

 197. If he break another man's bone, his bone shall be broken.

 198. If he put out the eye of a freed man, or break the bone of a freed man, he shall pay one gold mina.

 199. If he put out the eye of a man's slave, or break the bone of a man's slave, he shall pay one-half of its value.

The Megalithic Builders

 After the eras of villages and tribes, there came periods of building structures, including a time for constructing impressive temples or burial sites. The most impressive of these builders, of course, were the ancient Egyptians with their pyramids, temples, and elaborate hidden tombs.

 Let's take things out of historical sequence and put them in cultural sequence to focus on the big-rock builders of Stonehenge and Northern Europe (q.v. two films, The Mystery of Stonehenge and Cracking the Stone Age Code). Some highlights:

 The general public frequently believes that Stonehenge was built by the Druids. It wasn't. (Who are the Druids? A Celtic faith/priesthood during the time of Julius Caesar; they weren't in Britain before about 400 B.C.)

 The first part of Stonehenge was built about 2000 B.C.; the structure was completed about 1000 B.C. It is located near Salisbury, 90 miles west of London. The weather was almost Mediterranean during this period.

 Gerald Hawkins argues that Stonehenge is, in effect, a giant computer that is used to predict eclipses and cycles of the sun and moon.

 Legend said that the god Apollo visited a certain northern island every 19 years (island of Hyperborea). The eclipses have a cycle of 19 years, 19 years, and 18 years, which account for 56 white spots (the Aubrey holes).

 Sir Alexander Thom surveyed dozens of the megalithic sites in Britain and Europe. He found that there was a common megalithic yard of 2.72 feet.

 Megalith means "big" (mega), "stone" (lith); it's from the Greek language.

 If Thom's theory is correct, the megalithic builders were using Pythagorean geometry 2,000 years before Pythagoras was born. He demonstrated the use of 3-4-5 triangles within circles to produce perfect circles, eggs, etc.

 (On the other hand, a Japanese study of the use of pi in the Egyptian pyramids argued that the ancients were probably using a measuring wheel, which would automatically produce elements of Pythagorean geometry. Perhaps the same type of practice occurred in Northern Europe.)

 Other megalithic sites include Avebury ring, Carnac in Brittany (site of Le Gran Menhir Brise, the Great Broken Stone), Dartmoor, Maeni Hirion, Torhouse, Moel Ty Ucha in Wales, Ballochroy on the Isle of Jura, Kintraw, and others. Le Gran Menhir Brise was 68 feet high (as tall as the so-called Cleopatra's Needle--and twice as fat); it weighed 330 TONS and was raised upright by these "howling barbarians." An earthquake knocked it down at some point. From five crucial points of the compass, a beacon atop the stone could be seen from 15 miles away; the stone probably played a role in the eclipse cycle every 19 years.

 An argument in both presentations: Could Stonehenge be constructed as an astrological facility or computer by a "simple herding and semi-nomadic society" or by people who were practically "howling barbarians and savages"?

 Thom used the surveying instrument to compensate for the shift in the obliquity of the ecliptic.

 For you to ponder: What is the relationship between the phases of the moon, times of the year, and agriculture? Have you talked to any farmers? Do you recall any stories relayed to you about your great-grandparents' observations about life on the farm?

Ancient Egyptians

 At one time, many humanities textbooks omitted Egypt and simply started with Greece. However, most books today not only touch base with Egypt, they also go back to the art of Stone Age humans.

 The Greeks were fascinated by the ancient civilization of the Egyptians and, consciously and unconsciously, adopted many artistic practices from Egypt. The Egyptians also influenced the islands of the Mediterranean (Minoa, etc.), which, in turn, influenced the Greeks.

 Were there even older and grander civilizations than Egypt? The Greeks have the myth of Atlantis (thanks to the writings of Plato). This kingdom was marvelous, according to reports, but sank carelessly into the sea after a volcanic eruption. Lately, we hear of the kingdom of Kemet, which supposedly came before the Upper and Lower kingdoms of the Nile. Some say this was a highly sophisticated African kingdom. A problem with both of these myths is that there is no tangible evidence for such lustrous cities. Ancient cities leave some type of marks: ruins of buildings, pot shards, charcoal from cooking fires or fires that destroyed a city/town.

 However, there WERE kingdoms around in the eras for stone, bronze, iron, including kingdoms on the African continent and on Mediterranean islands.

 The Egyptians did refer to a KEME, which meant "the black land" and signified the whole land of Egypt. They called the desert "the red land." Egypt itself probably derived its name from the Greek Aigyptis, which was one of the names of the city of Memphis: Hikuptah, meaning "house of the soul of Ptah." Scholars who said it meant "house of Elvis" simply have been drinking too many long-necks.

Still, it is helpful to think of the ancient world as a giant sponge, sitting on a plate of cultures (which we can represent with water and food coloring). Each culture has a bit of its "moisture" absorbed into the sponge. We see the totally wet sponge, but we cannot separate which part of the plate yielded a particular area of moisture. Will Durant speculates that it is likely that the early Egyptians were "a cross between Nubian, Ethiopian, and Libyan natives on one side and Semitic or Armenoid immigrants on the other."

As early as 3000 B.C., there were established communities along the Nile, and they formed Upper and Lower Egypt.

HERODOTUS, an early visitor from Greece to Egypt, wrote about Egypt in The Histories, and became known as the father of history. Egypt fascinated him (and other Greek writers). Egypt’s age alone was mind-boggling. For example, Herodotus tells about the historian Hecataeus talking to the priests of Zeus in Thebes and trying to trace his family back to a god in the sixteenth generation. But these priests "declare that 341 generations separate the first king of Egypt from the last I have mentioned--the priest of Hephaestus--and that there was a king and a high priest corresponding to each generation. Now to reckon three generations as a hundred years, 300 generations make 10,000 years, and the remaining 41 generations make 1,340 years more; thus, one gets a total of 11,340 years, during which time, they say, no god ever assumed mortal form." These priests "denied that any man had ever had a divine ancestor," and, as they pointed to the various statues in the temple, they said that each represented a "piromis" (basically a "gentleman"), who was the son of another "gentleman," with no connections to gods, divinities, or demigods.

The ancients worshipped MAAT-which referred to perfect order and balance. Maat was represented by beautiful goddess with a single feather (which sways in the wind of fortune); she stood for justice, truth, and rightness. (They also had a goddess Mut, who would protect, say, the good name of a queen.  If you thought it was a deity protecting dogs, then you aren’t being serious enough.)

CHAOS--from this, sun god Ra emerged and began creation. King was living son of Ra. Everything in universe has a place. The Egyptian concept of life and the after-life was "a happy one," historians say. Of course, their after-life did have slaves and peasants continuing with their earthly tasks, so it may not have been a bowl of cherries. In addition, their after-life featured a Last Judgment, as the Jews and Christians would have in their faiths.

King (pharaoh) has a phase of HORUS (ruler of our world) and OSIRIS (ruler of underworld; the Egyptians thought that their king made the Nile rise each year). As gods will do, Osiris married his sister Isis, but his brother Seth killed him and threw his parts into the river. Iris retrieved her husband's body parts and put him back together to rule under the underworld. He sent his son Horus to avenge him and to rule over earth.

By the way, pharaoh came from the words for "great house," "great palace," etc.

One of the strangest gods of Egypt was Min, whom Martin Isler describes in Sticks, Stones, & Shadows: Building the Egyptian Pyramid, as an “ithyphallic god,” who may be labeled “Lord of foreign mountains,” “who opens clouds,” “Lord of the earth, creating their life, insuring their nourishment.” The word amen may be derived from aman and Min. Isler says: “The word aman, a Libyo-Berber word that means water, may also point to a possible connection between water, aman, and Min. Many of the Libyan gods were so ancient that they were already dying out by the [time of the] Old Kingdom. Perhaps because of his identification with water, the essence of life and growth, Min may have developed into Amun, the chief god of imperial Egypt.”  What does ithyphallic mean you ask? It can refer to the meter used in hymns to the ancient Greek god Bacchus, but a second meaning is referring to showing an erect penis in sculpture, painting, or other art.

What makes up a human being? To the Egyptians, we have five separate parts, including the name, the shadow, the ba, the ka, and the physical body.

 Burial & the KA: The ka is something like an immaterial double of someone; it is pure energy. The Egyptians made statues in the likeness of deceased individuals to help the soul recognize where it was supposed to reside. Therefore, it attracted the "life force" of the deceased.

The Egyptians also referred to the AKH (effective personality of a person and a soul) and the BA (similar to a ghost that could move back and forth with the dead body).

Mummification: In recent centuries, they were ground up as a drug and sold in drugstores. NATRON helped to preserve the mummy.

Funeral jars held the stomach, intestines, lungs, and liver. Heart was left in the body, but the brain was discarded.

3100 B.C.: Upper Egypt's Menes extends his jurisdiction into the Delta and unites Upper and Lower Egypt. He also started the tradition of the double crown (the white crown inserted into the red crown). Menes was also known as Narmer and was called "Lord of the Two Lands."

In about 2650 B.C., IMHOTEP (who was a commoner) created the first step-pyramid, which was dedicated to King Djoser. The pyramid had small blocks covered by casing stones (since lost or retrieved to be used elsewhere). Tradition says that Imhotep was a priest, astronomer, writer, wise man, and a physician (he was later deified as a god of medicine).

The Ancient Egyptians were skillful mathematicians. They developed the first realistic calendar and became famous for their medical knowledge. Isler says, “It is uncertain how the Egyptians decided on a year of 365 days. Among the theories is one that the number of days was supposedly counted between successive risings of Sirius, and adverse weather conditions that interfered with sightings were dealt with by averaging over a period of years. Alternately, it is suggested that the total number of days was averaged over several lunar years.”

Medun's pyramid began as a seven-step pyramid and then enlarged to eight steps. When covered, it became the first true pyramid. The Egyptians called a pyramid a MER. The Greeks came up with the word pyramid from per-em-us, a term that they often noticed on mathematical papyri. Isler says it took seventeen years to build the Medun Pyramid. One expert calculated that this pyramid “contained about 600,000 blocks averaging 2 tons each. Assuming a total of 6,000 working days in 17 years, blocks had to be hauled up the sloping causeway to the building site at a rate of 100 blocks a day. Estimating that a 2-ton block could be dragged up a gently sloping causeway 2 feet (61 cm) per minute (120 feet [37m] per hour), it would take a day to deposit the required amount of stone near the base of the pyramid. Also to be considered is that with 100 blocks in transit, each pulled by four files of five men, the teams could not be closer than 40 feet (12 m) apart. Therefore, judging by these conditions, some 2,000 men and four or five causeways would be needed for the required amount of stone, teams being crowded as closely as practicable.”

 Pyramid complexes became small cities (in one respect, similar to the small cities found on aircraft carriers today).

 Some facts about Khufu's Great Pyramid of Giza: It covers 13 acres, with the sides 755 feet long. That means it is equal to seven city blocks in New York City. It has about 2,500,000 blocks of stone, some of them weighing 15 tons each; the rest of the stones averaged two and a half tons each. Those who know solid geometry have figured out that the whole Great Pyramid weighs 5,750,000 tons and has a total cubic content of 3,057,000 cubic yards, not counting the hollow spaces. At 481 feet high (originally, but 450 feet with the top gone), the pyramid almost as tall as 1990s Barnett Building in Jax (the black, shiny one that resembles a pencil; next to the Modis Building that looks like a rubber stamp). How about this fact? If you took all the stones and cut them into blocks one foot square and then laid them end to end, you would have a line equal to two-thirds of the circumference of the earth (16,666.66 miles). You'd also be a very busy person and have great trouble lining up the stones in the middle of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

Khufu had six wives, but the name of his chief wife and sister (the mother of Khafre) is lost. Khafre eventually succeeded his father, and his face is to be found on the Great Sphinx (constructed out of sandstone about 2560 BC; 65 feet high and 240 feet long). Don't become confused between the Great Sphinx and the sphinx in the Oedipus story. The Great Sphinx was half human-half lion and acted as a guard of temples. The Greek sphinx, on the other hand, was female and could be quite a tyrant if you didn't know the answer to her riddle. (See Part III.)

Historians argue about the construction techniques of the pyramids: Did the Egyptians use a single ramp, four spiraling ramps, or one large ramp with some smaller spiraling ramps. Who knows?

In 2100 B.C., the kingdom collapsed into civil war. During this time, the royal tombs were ransacked. The Hyssops, with their horse-and-chariot war machines, conquered Egypt and ruled until they became decadent and the Egyptians were able to repel them.

When the pharaohs were restored to power, they often were controlled by the priesthood. By and by, a Syrian king referred to the pharaoh as "a broken reed."

 Egypt was conquered by the Syrians, Babylonians, Persians (500 B.C.), Greeks under Alexander the Great, and finally the Romans.

In 1799, a Napoleonic expedition reached Rosetta, where they discovered a stone that had inscriptions in ancient Greek, hieroglyphics, and demotic. Napoleon's corps prepared a book called Descriptions of Egypt, whose illustrations reached the world in 1809-13. These illustrations showed cartouches, which had the names of PTOLEMY and CLEOPATRA. In 1802 a Swedish diplomat named Akerblad had some success in breaking the hieroglyphic code. Inspired by the English physicist Thomas Young's insights published in 1814, a French youth, Jean-François Champollion, used the Greek and Egyptian to show that the figures, etc. constituted an alphabet. Although Young had earlier proved the PTOLEMY connection, he only dealt with a limited number of words. Champollion had an encyclopedic knowledge of Egypt and put it together brilliantly over a 20-year period.

 The Ancient Egyptians did not use vowels in their language (neither did the Hebrews), but they had combinations of "letters" of an alphabet and a rebus (e.g., an equivalent in English is pix of a bee and a leaf to signify "belief").

CARNAC--greatest existing temple on earth.

Aswan Dam (financed by the USSR) has caused ecological problems. Annual floods don't occur, so Egyptians have to use artificial fertilizer, which then washes out to the Egyptian Delta area of the Mediterranean.

In 1921, Howard Carter discovered the tomb of King Tutankhamen, with the expedition financed by Lord Caernaron. The "curse" is silly nonsense. In the intervening years, the people on the expedition did not have an increased rate of unexpected deaths. The same sort of nonsense appears when some crank goes on a radio or TV show arguing that a conspiracy assassinated so many people who were close to President John F. Kennedy. . .or President Richard Nixon. . . or President (and former Governor) Bill Clinton. If you let five, ten, or more years pass, people end up checking out in accidents, illnesses, suicides, etc.

Sholem Asch in his novel Moses points out that many features of Ancient Hebrew life and faith were derived from their exposure to Egyptian culture.

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