The proceedings of the 2011 Egyptological Conference of HIE are published in the second issue of the Journal of the Hellenic Institute of Egyptology: http://jhie.gr/issue.php?i=2.
Ancient Egyptian Science and Meta–Physics: Quintessence of Religious Allegories, Roots of Scientific Thought. The purpose of this Conference is actually to present a preliminary insight towards the conception of Science by the ancient Egyptians, as this last was always in deep co–relation and inter–relation with the ancient Egyptian religion.
The very Kernel of the Egyptian religion is something that probably very few people have succeeded in fully understanding its deepest meanings … After the in spired approaches by Fr du Bourguet (SJ), Sauneron, Derchain and Hornung, we may claim that a good path has been opened and enough light has been shed to the most signicant facets of that poly–prismatic organism and institution called Ancient Egyptian religion. If the ancient Egyptian religious forma mentis was heathen–polytheistic, heno–theistic or even mono–theistic, is a matter of dispute between scholars. We do believe that most probably the ancient Egyptian religion had several aspects of polytheism , henotheism, but also some monotheistic facets. In the last ones (texts of a unique Wisdom), one can find so many elements of pure and devoted Monotheism, but can also understand that Egypt had —long time before other nations could borrow the superb Egyptian Wisdom— conceived of very subtle theological and soteriological notions, the equivalents of which can only be detected in Christianity. Indeed, the very roots of Science (even though in a pre–scientific allegorical level), the equivalents even of the famous Herakleiteian ριζώματα can be detected in the ancient Egyptian religion, in the ancient Egyptian way of thinking, in the ancient Egyptian scientific efforts, those efforts that even if they remained mostly inchoate and always tried to serve the applied and empirical level, they do present an originality, an evident wisdom and sometimes a high precision that is formidable.
If the ancient Egyptian religion was a multi–spectral approach of the notion of the Divine, its constituents being the various divinities, another significant semantic of that ancient way of approaching the Divine and understanding the surrounding Universe was the deep belief that life continues after death —in an other level— and that the periodicity of heavenly phenomena was echoing the death, birth and perpetual re–birth of the deceased Egyptians! Just as the Sun, Moon, planets and the distant stars and the decans were setting (virtually dying) in order to rise again (virtually resurrect) and continue their existence beyond time and space, in a purely meta–physical space–time continuum, the same way did the Egyptians believe that their deceased could rise again and live for ever, repeating their lives in perpetuum. The richness of clear skies and the significant astronomical phenomena and cosmographic epiphanies were enrapturing the Egyptian mind, thus both religion and Science have sprung out of it, out of observing the surrounding material world and its miracles. Indeed, an ancient Egyptian word for firmament is derived from a root that also means wonder, miracle; as well as the ancient Hellenic word for the Universe, Kosmos means actually ornament. And another word with a similar consonantal skeleton is used to denote the meteoritic iron (coming directly from the firmament, from the realm of the gods), out of which the main magical tool, the adze used during the religious opening of the mouth ceremony, was made. Subsequently, the Egyptians believed that —post mortem— they could join the gods and goddesses in their cosmic wanderings (with their heavenly barks), so that they could either follow the solar god Ra joining its crew, or that they could be united and magically identified with the imperishable circumpolar stars, that never set but remain always over the horizon, immortal and continuously revolving around the North Celestial Pole. Actually, both the ancient Egyptian religion and the ancient Egyptian Science are bi–faceted: they have a solar and a stellar component, which means that they bear both solar and stellar connotations and their concomitant semantics. This is something very important to comprehend if we intend to under stand the basic core of both religion and Science in ancient Egypt. And this very fact is also mirrored in that both solar and stellar orientations are observed in the vast corpus of the ancient Egyptian monuments and temples. Not to forget also to mention —as a very appropriate paradigm— the conception of the Ouroboros in the very Egyptian thought, whose semantics make to emanate out of it religious and allegoric scientific notions, concerned with the concepts of time, duration, immortality, eternity, celestial epiphanies, meta–physics and art. The Ouroboros archetype and the semantics of the virtual union between the solar god Ra and Osiris are very important indeed and are explicitly given in the significant verse. To these and also some other questions and various related issues (that deal with the very essence of the ancient Egyptian religion and Science and their inter–connections) we are going to answer during the present Conference … Our Conference endeavours to be an inter–disciplinary approach between Egyptology, Archeoastronmy, Archaeology, Astronomy, Mathematics, Anthropology and Medicine too. We shall try to show the interconnection and intertwining of several —at first sight non related notions— and principles that belong to different scientific domains and doctrines.
Hence, the present Conference and its thematology can be considered as both: an egyptological and historical, but also a philosophical and epistemological approach to the above issues. With the help of all of us, participants and delegates, under the Auspices of His Holy Beatitude the Patriarch and Pope of Alexandria and All Africa Theodoros II, our Conference will be blessed and will treasure and nourish many new insights and conclusions concerned with the above thematology, a thematology that is inspiring and intriguing, especially when it has to do with the relations between religion and Science in the ancient Egyptian society. Finally, we do point out that all the lectures of all the Conference speakers were organized following only a chronological time frame and a the matological classification, hence their sequence does not mean anything particular.