Mar 17

Mar 17 Book Research: Gifts of the Ancients

I am an engineer who became an herbalist and mama, and I wanted to learn the origins of the holidays to teach my sons, and I started reading up on the origins of Christianity, which led to Judaism, which basically lead to Egypt. I tend to like the stories about those preserving wisdom and I now have a whole bookshelf of cool books on ancient studies, 100 added just in the last year. Some of my favorite books were written in the 1800's, like Rivers of Faith, which compares religions and shows how all the streams connect. In this age of freedom and access, more archeological studies come out every day, and nobody really has connected the significance of it all yet! I think it is pretty exciting, and now I find more information everywhere, now I know how to see it. It is like it is hiding in plain sight all of a sudden. I really like some of the documentaries about older societies, even the Netflix shows on Mehmed, Alexander, Cleopatra, Napoleon, then finding biographies of them all. Even Cleopatra's daughter has a fascinating story, and Champollion, the man who deciphered the Egyptian hieroglyphs. I have over a thousand books on my kindle on history of various regions of the world, and my favorite right now is on how the French helped bring Egypt's voice back in such an unexpected way. Basically I read as my son tries to sleep. Which has added to many hours of research, and a new found passion.

I truly believe if everyone spent more time reading, rather than watching tv, we would learn more about what we are truly interested in. Just start reading, and read whatever keeps you interested. Historical fiction can really help make history come to life.

My current obsession is showing the ancient links to our current traditions. We wrote our first book last year, on the natural origins of our winter holidays, Twas the Night Before Solstice, and in doing that research, I found incredibly rich information on other aspects of her-story I cannot wait to share.

While our book on winter solstice bridges links of various native traditions: “pagans” (aka nature lovers) from around the world, native reindeer herding communities in the arctic, as well as the namesake of “Christmas”, and the stories nature can tell us when we pay attention, there is SO much more on this topic to discuss.

The hardest, and most contentious, part of the story is how Christianity evolved. Forgive me if I make a few leaps and forget to reference works I have discussed in the past, but please remember I am attempting to find a thread across all religions, and my ultimate goal is to bring people together. I may offend some people if they are afraid to open their mind to a new perspective. My attempt here is to drop little gold nuggets of facts, and it is up to the reader to do the final interpretation of how they want to connect them. The story presented here is one I can no longer deny, having read enough on the subject, an embarrasingly obsessive amount on religion and his-story, for someone educated as an engineer, and doing it as a hobby. But as I raise my children in this world, I want to understand how to pass on information about what we do, and how to look at the world. I see it all as connected, and important to study ourselves and keep an open mind. If something feels triggering, it might be a clue that it is worth digging into for YOU. This whole subject is triggering for me, and I openly encourage debate. But I really am tired of the same old Christian arguments, and attempting to break open a mold I was born into, so if I happen to show some snippiness here, it comes from a place of annoyance about how little I was told about the religion I was supposed to claim as my own without question.

So without much further ado… I am going to jump right in. Here are the surprising connections I have made from Egypt to our modern day traditions. First, I will list them out, then I will be adding the timelines for each topic, and if possible, maps and lineages of words and traditions.

Evidence

Religious icons of Christianity
Gifts Egypt has given to us beyond religious icons (monkhood, the alphabet, the calendar…)
Evidence of Sun worship in Egypt
Evidence of Sun worship elsewhere in the world
Significance of Egypt in the culture when JC was born (much thanks to the his-storian Diodorus in 60 BC for compiling so much here…)
The cultural evolution of Christianity, from an outsider’s her-storical perspective
Using his-story of the Christmas holiday season to bridge the story of traditions merging from “pagans”, Siberians, and ancient Egyptians in America

Rivers of Faith

Rivers of Life, by Forlong, 1883

Religious icons of Christianity

Found in “Jesus as the Sun”

Gifts Egypt has given to us beyond religious icons

(monkhood, the alphabet, the calendar…)

Evidence of Sun worship in Egypt

Since the time of pharaohs and pyramids, there has been worship to the sun. For thousands of years, the summer solstice marked the most important queue in nature: the coming of the Nile flood.

Evidence of Sun worship elsewhere in the world

Everyone can understand wanting to celebrate the sun, especially in winter. Some cultures celebrated her most in summer, when her annual changes meant change in other natural features, like the monsoon or flood seasons.