This week, we had an Egypt and learned about a new female pharaoh known
as Sobek Nepharu, who lived during the Middle Dynasty, the Middle portion of
the Great dynasties of the ancient Egypt. What is unique about her is that
she rises out of the death of her brother. We don't hear a great
deal about her, and her reign was only for four years. She takes
her own life, and what happens is her death creates a cult, an
unusual cult that lasts for over five hundred years into the time of Nefertari and
had shipsit, who was also a noted ruler of Egypt. Our guest today
is Andrew Collins, who's written this new book, and we're going to hear
about not only the discovery of this ancient pharaoh, but also the unusual circumstances
of her rise to power. All this and more for you today on the
program for Saturday, April twenty second, twenty twenty three. This is Earth
Ancients. I'm your host, Cliff Dunning. Hey, how are you.
I gotta tell you I am getting excited our Grand Egyptian tours coming up in
a couple of weeks. I leave on the thirtieth of April, and I'll
be meeting our group this year in Cairo the second of May. And so
it takes a day to get I'm in San Francisco, it takes a day
to get there from where I'm located. And we have people coming from New
Zealand, from Australia, from Germany everywhere to gather and as a group see
the great sites of Egypt. And you hear me talking about it all the
time. It's probably, in my estimation, it's the best tour I've ever
done. And thankfully Sabba tours with the host and Egyptologist Muhammad Imbrium is world
class. And we used to joke and say, well, hey, this
is a diplomatic tour, and you know it's a VIP across the board.
We don't say diplomatic anymore, but I gotta tell you it's VIP. And
if you ever get a chance to come with us, we'll see what I'm
talking about. And to a person, everybody has a great time. On
that note, today's program is featuring a new book called The First Female Pharaoh,
so Beek Nephru Goddess of the Seven Stars. It's by author Andrew Collins
and This is a brand new book. In fact, it's a couple of
weeks before it's being launched, so we're doing a kind of a preview of
this book, and this interview today is with Andrew and his research into what
is probably the first woman anointed I guess you could call a pharaoh ship,
which is a ruler of the Upper and Lower Egypt at that time. And
this is Twelfth dynasty, so it's about eighteen hundred BC, which is wow,
that is over three thousand years ago. Wait a minute too, Yeah,
it's closer to years ago. And this is a very strange period.
We don't have a great deal of knowledge about exactly what is going on,
and this woman pharaoh who shows up and for a short period of time keeps
things pretty tight and functional until things ultimately shift. So what makes these stories,
these these chronicles of these individuals is the fact that you know, these
dynastic periods are so long ago, and we're in many ways blessed to have
hieroglyphs, tons of statuary, tons of written material about these people, and
it's just very curio. It's very very curious because they're in a whole different
paradigm. They're building these megalithic temples. They're cutting and shaping and smoothing the
hardest stone in the world. In some cases, we don't actually know how
they cut some of this granite. And you know the typical answers are copper
chisels and mallets. Well, you cannot cut granite with copper, you just
can't. And you can chip away at it, but you can't cut it
in the precision that we see in buildings like the Osyrian or the columns at
Hathor, or the blocks of stone on the outer and inner chambers of the
Cheops pyramids. So there's something that is missing in our knowledge. And without
the available machines, which are you have turned to death over the thousands of
years since they were used, or any knowledge or not our writing left to
us, we are at a complete loss for understanding who the inventors were and
just how sophisticated these dynastic artisans were the story of this pharaoh, this woman
pharaoh, so Macnifferu, is a unique one. I have never heard of
her. She came before hat ship Suit, who was a noted ruler.
In fact, hat ship Suits Temple is a place that we go to each
year on our tour because it's magnificent, it's huge, it's ornate, and
there's a lot of special characteristics. There's acoustic property that's built into the temple.
And I got to mention this that I am bringing this year. I
am bringing a tri filled meter to measure geomagnetic and different types of radiation that
is coming out of the ground into these buildings and in places where we can
get quiet time. You know, I'm going to suggest the group, you
know, do some intention work, do some meditation. And this is what
I love about our tourist. It's not about just the sights and these megalists
and these beautiful statues. It's also about the energy that is permeated throughout these
temples, pyramids and buildings. And so we don't know exactly how sophisticated they
were in their sacred sciences. We know that there are sacred sciences. They're
written about out but Orthodoxy does not acknowledge subtle energy. They don't acknowledge geomagnetic
energy coming through the ground into these temples. And somehow the temples accessing that
energy and either intensifying, magnifying, or distributing it in such a way.
We have no clue. Now, what makes our tours so great is the
fact that Muhammad does understand this fact, and he is in touch with the
indigenous people that still live and commune with these temples, pyramids and buildings and
know exactly when to go and sit and meditate and in some cases get healing
from the energetic forces of these temples, so buildings and pyramids. So hard
to say exactly what's going on. But I'm gonna bring my trifiometer. I'm
gonna actually take photos of it. And in the past I was kind of
quiet and said, oh yeah, check a look, take a look at
this. With this time, I'm gonna go, hey, stand here,
stand here and see how people feel. So looking forward to it. Okay,
So I am going to play a short audio that introduces so back Nafuru
to you and give you a sense of just who she is before we have
Andrew Collins join us. So here's a quick audio to listen to. During
the nineteenth century BC, ancient Egypt was experiencing a time of great prosperity and
stability under the rule of the Twelfth Dynasty. This stability was threatened when the
reigning pharaoh Amenum hats the fourth died without a male lair. Amenem Hats the
Third brought Egypt the greatest heights it would ever reach during the Middle Kingdom period.
After a lengthy rule spanning over forty years, a menem Hats the Third
died and was succeeded by his only living son, a menem Hats the Fourth,
who ultimately ruled for only nine years before dying without an heir, leaving
his sister Sobek Nephru with the strongest claim to the throne. According to the
king list compiled by the third century b C. Egyptian priest and historian Manetho,
Sobek Nephru was not only a menem Hats the fourth is sister, but
his wife as well. Ancestuous marriages were common among ancient Egyptian royals in order
to keep power and wealth within the family and away from ambitious rival families.
The devastating consequences of incestuous unions left offspring with shorter than average lifespans. This
meant that the kingdom frequently underwent periods of instability as power transferred from one ruler
to the next. Much of what we know about Sobek Nephru comes from the
limited monuments and artifacts that have been discovered, which include statues, scarabs,
seals, beads, and other records. This glazed cylinder seal and stetite scarab
inscribed with Sobek Nephru's name provide evidence of her rule. Sobek Nephru is also
mentioned in both the Karnak king list and the Sakara Tablet. However, her
name was notably absent from the Abydos king list, along with every other female
pharaoh, including Hadchepsut, who is widely regarded as the most powerful and successful
female pharaoh in all of ancient Egyptian history. The name Sobek Nephru translates to
the beauty of Sobek. This was the first instance of a pharaoh choosing a
regnal name associated with the ancient Egyptian crocodile god Sobek. The deity was viewed
as the creator of the night River and associated with faronic power and military prowess.
Sobek was also known as the Lord of the waters and believed to have
the power to provide inundation and fertility to the land. The crocodile god grew
to great prominence during the Middle Kingdom period and was the central deity of several
cults at the time, sobek Nephru adopted to the complete royal titulary traditionally reserved
for pharaohs, which consisted of five names symbolizing both worldly power and spiritual might.
This is significant because while other women before sobek Nephru are believed to have
held positions of power such as queen regent, none were previously granted the full
royal titles that effectively made sobek Nephru a fully fledged pharaoh in her own right.
It's interesting to note that there is no tomb, nobody, no buildings
that are dedicated to Sobec Nafuru, and what small statuary we do have has
been defaced, and it makes it really really a challenge to know just when
she died and also where she's buried. If there's no sarcophacus, if there's
no crypt or temple or pyramid or anything that was used as kind of a
place to lay her to rest, we just don't know about it. So
we'll find out more today in our program. So today's program is the first
female pharaoh, Nafuru Goddess of the Seven Stars of My guest today is Andrew
Collins. Each year, Earth Ancients heads to Mexico for a private tour of
some of the most intriguing ruins from the Maya and other Mesoamerican cultures. This
year, November tenth to the seventeenth, we'll be heading to Vera Homosa in
southern Mexico to see the site of the omec Ruins at La Venta. This
includes a visit to the world famous outdoor museum where there are megalists of all
sizes and shapes. We then head to Palak in Chiapas and visit this jewel
of the Maya Empire with doctor Edwin Barnhardt as our host. We'll be there
for two days, and then we head out to Bottompeck, site of one
of the largest murals left to us from the Maya Classic period. For more
information and details on this tour, go to earth Ancients dot com forward slash
tours and you will see the entire itinerary and more details. This is a
one of a kind tour with doctor ed Barnhart and yours truly. For more
information, Earth Ancients dot com Forward slash Tours. I'm heading to Egypt in
a couple of weeks and I am fascinated by this ancient location we've been there.
We're doing our Earth Ancient Annual Grand Egyptian Tour, and anything happen to
do with Egypt is a fascination of mine. And I just got a copy
of Andrew collins new book, The First Female Pharaoh, a couple of weeks
ago, and I thought it appropriate that we have him on the program.
And it's an interesting story on a lot of different levels. When we talk
about the ruling class of Egypt is so steeped in history and intrigue, and
it's a very very very ancient place obviously, with these different dynasties. But
we've had Andrew Collins on before. He's a prolific writer. I don't know
how to how he keeps putting these books up. He does, and this
is a good one. And actually it's on a woman pharaoh, the first
female Pharaoh. Her name is Sobek Nepheru, who I have not heard of
before. We're gonna hear about her today and it's very very interesting on a
lot of different levels. And it's also a look into the hierarchy of these
ruling class of men and women who were fascinating individuals on their own right,
but have they're all steeped in great mystery. So hey, Andrew, Welcome
to Earth Ancients. Great to have you on the program. PLA, yeah,
ye place to be here. Talk about this subject, Nephru. How
did she turn up in your research? Were you down in the Egypt and
you found a well fragment something that was a trigger on this Well, I
mean it's a long, long story, and some of the people out there
probably know it, but my interest in her really started in the early eighties,
and in particular, somebody I know who started receiving these, you know,
dreams or visions about this Egyptian female ruler, and although they didn't come
up with the name Sara, they mentioned the date that this person was supposedly
ruling, and it was eighteen hundred BC, and you know, I quickly
looked it up and it was quite obvious that the person was talking about Sobeknofro.
Well, I'd never heard of her at all at this time, but
you know, the implications right from the start is that she was somebody who
was very, very important, but that had been completely forgotten about by history.
So I started to take an interest in her and examine, you know,
every piece of evidence, whether it be from history, whether it be
from archaeology, whether it be from contemporary traditions like the Jewish tradition with Arabic
tradition and the Greek tradition. To try, if week, to see if
we could actually put together, you know, quite literally her biography, which
is what I've done with this book. But how can we really introduce her
well, I think it's important to look at Egyptian pharaohs. I mean not
sorry, not just the Egyptian pharaohs, but of female pharaohs. I mean
we all know about hatsp Shoot, I mean she ruled around fifteen hundred and
fifty BC as part of the Eighteenth Dynasty or the New Kingdom. We obviously
have Nefertiti. She was the wife of Aknatum and possible the mother of Twoton
Common. We're not sure about that. It's possible she may well have actually
even ruled in her own right at the very end of her of the of
Aknatam's reign, certainly for a very short period of time, I've one to
two years. And then of course we've got people like Cleopatra, you know,
somebody who we know very well, particularly from you know, films like
the one featuring Liz Taylor, of course, you know, for Elizabeth Taylor
in the nineteen sixties, which, to be honest, almost gave us a
stereotype of Egyptian female pharaohs. You know, some of that was right and
some of it was definitely wrong. And I would say that there's a good
chance that all of these women would have been very much aware of subect no
Offrom and would have seen her as some kind of spiritual mentor particularly hatsep shoot,
because there are a number of indications from the statuary architecture texts that she
used in death, you know, on her in her tomb, that they
were copied almost exactly from subec Nofro. And I would not be the first
writer researcher to point out the fact it's quite clear that had ship Soot saw
subec Nofro as her role model. And I think that's really really important,
because you know, you've got here a woman whose life changed Egyptian history and
may well have changed the history of the world, because I think that without
her reign, which lasted for four years, this world would have been completely
different. Now how different, I don't know, but all I do know
is that the great period of success and prosperity in Egypt, which we call
thee that the New Kingdom, which began with the eighteenth dynasty, where he
had lots of great you know, kings like that. You know, the
topmost is obviously akin Artan, you know, something to the come on horam
heap, you know, people like this, and then obviously making way for
the nineteenth dynasty with Rameses the second and people like this. None of that
would have happened without her. And obviously I'll tell you for why, because
her father was a very successful king of the twelfth dynasty by the name of
amenem At third, and he ruled for you know, fourth to five decades
and was very very successful. He had quite a tolerant policy towards you know,
people coming in from outside of Egypt and settling in and of course most
of these were Semitic people's coming in from Canaan and the area of the Sinai,
and they grabbed He took different positions of of um, yeah, power
say power not so much at the beginning, but you know, jobs basically
u and whether this was in the the navy, in the the Egyptian army,
whether it was as as officials, whether it was like butlers in houses
and stuff like this. And what gradually happened is that, you know,
there was quite a large um Semitic population in Egypt and everything was going well.
But then what happened was that he dies and his son takes over.
Now his name is Imanemet the fourth. Now, um you know, the
fact that he was also going to rule with his sister, whose name was
Nefertar, is something that comes into this, but we'll maybe come back to
that. Yeah, And what happens is that I'm the fourth reigns for about
nine years, and he becomes even more progressive in his policies and starts not
just allowing more and more people to come into Egypt, but also to allow
them to influence decisions that were being made by he himself. And he basically
turned away from the religions that were important at this time, which was mostly
surrounding the cult of armand the cult of Subbek the crocodile god, and started
embracing very specifically the priesthood of rah Teleiopolis, but also decided that he would
create a brand new kingdom in the Sinai region and almost turn his back on
existing centers of power. In Egypt, and this was unquestionably being done through
Semitic influence. And so what seems to have happened is that there was quite
a lot of people in Egypt in power who didn't like what was going on
and realized that unless something changed, then Egypt was going to fall. And
you know, their concerns were real, very very real, because within a
couple of generations of here, Egypt did essentially fall to the what's known as
the hike Sas warlords or the Hyksos kings who came in and took over large
parts of Egypt. Now, what happened was that it would seem as if
these you might call them nationalists, you know, those that wanted to keep
the sovereignty of Egypt I think sided with his sister, who, to start
off with, I think ruled virtually alongside him. Now want to say his
system. I'm now talking about Tobeic Nofra, Because what happens is that the
other sister, Nefertar, disappears. I want I mean by that is that
she dies mysteriously, probably between the ages of sixteen and eighteen, and initially
she's buried alongside her father at the third who basically dies around the same time
and is then her remains taken out and putting in a separate small pyramid.
This is a hawara in the Foam region of Egypt, and Sobek Nofrou suddenly
takes power. Now, she couldn't have done it on her own. She
must have had an awful lot of support, most obviously from the priesthood that
was most closely related to her, which was that of Sobek, the crocodile
god. And she would seem to have started off as a co regent to
her brother. I'm at the fourth and they would seem to have been really
close to start with. And it even seems possible that when he came to
the throne, he actually commit in the building of two pyramids, one that
was going to be for her, one of which was going to be for
him. And these were at a place called Meskoona, which is just south
of Dashore. That's them, I think the Bad Pyramid and the Red Pyramid
pyramids attributed to him. The Black Pyramid is one of the two pyramids of
Aminem. The third by the way, you know, that's something Dad.
And so what happens is that eventually her brother dies. Now what I say
in the book and will come onto this, is that he was almost certainly
murdered. I think he was murdered by the nationalists who were supporting his sister
by now that was Subek Nofro, and that basically she then rose to power
for that for the next four years and changed everything she became. She closed
the borders, did not have the same time wareance towards you know, Semitic
peoples, even though and I showed this in the book that in her early
years she almost certainly was brought up in the Delta in an area that was
very strongly Semitic in origins. In other words, she would have had that
as part of her own background. And I think that this was one of
the things that got her into some of the more spiritual side of life,
which I think related to the goddess Hathor, and particularly I think her more
Semitic or kind of night Fall, which generally went under the name of Balat,
which means the lady. Exactly which goddess she was, we're not sure
it could have been. Let me stop you real quick for a second,
Andrew. So when she took power, was she made a pharaoh of the
Upper and Lower Egypt. So yeah, she was so Actually documentation that she
was Maine made the ruler of Egypt. Yeah she was. Yeah, she
was the first to to basically be crowned with both of the crowns of Upper
and Lower Egypt. And you know that basically is the sign that you know,
you rule the whole of the country. Um. Now, I mean
some people might say at this point, we'll hold on. You know,
surely that women had had ruled before this time. Well, yes, there
were a few, but they either did it by default in other words,
you know, their their husband, the pharaoh had vanished, possibly on a
war for a bit so she could go, or she may have been a
regent, you know, for for a younger Um. You know, key,
but this was the first time that a full blown pharaoh who was female
actually ruled the country. And as I said, she she ruled only for
four years, but it was a very traumatic time, I think, and
at the end of it, I think that they came after her. I
mean, just in the same way that her brother had died mysteriously. I
think that they came after her. And you know, she knew that her
time was up, and one of the problems was is that we know that
in the third year of her reign, the Nile floods were particularly low.
Now this is really no good because what it means is that if they're not
high, they will not flood the plains of the Nile Valley and obviously bring
that that rich black soil that is needed with all the chemicals in it that
allows full growth, you know that the following growing season, you know,
so that you can grow your crops. Now we don't know what was going
on in the other three years of her reign, but the fact that this
was happening would have been just the excuse that her opponents needed to say,
yeah, look what this woman is doing. You know, it was everything
was when her brother was on the throne of her father. But now you
know, look that the gods are abandoning in us because you know, we
we haven't we haven't got any Nile floods um and you know this means famine
and disease and whatever else. And what's interesting is that certain Egyptologists have actually
speculated that during this period, when something like this would happen, a king
could either abdicate or commit suicide. Basically, and I think that's exactly what
she did. But I don't think it's suicide in in the way that we
would perceive suicide. It's suicide in the way that Cleopatra achieved the self.
You suggest snake or poison or spo I mean that whole story in connection with
Cleopatra is is just pure symbolism. I mean, the snake is a symbol
of medicine and magic. It was also a symbol of the goddess Isis,
who was the platron of Cleopatra. I mean, Cleopatra was very heavily into
the cult of Isis. She wore a pendent around her neck, you know,
from that particular cult, and so she adhered to the ways of Isis,
and that was dealing with magic and medicine, of which, as I
said, the chief symbol was the snake. And the whole story relating to
her being bitten by an ass probably covers up the fact that she would have
ingested I would say, hallucinogens that would have both connected her with the other
world almost immediately, but then obviously when the overdose took effect, this would
have allowed her to quite literally walk into the afterlife. Now we're talking about
Cleopatra here. But I think that exactly the same thing happened with never Tt.
And the reason I say that is that there is almost certainly an account
of her preserved in Greek tradition, and this is in the works of Herodotus,
the father of history, who wrote about four hundred and fifty BC,
and he talks about a female pharaoh, you know, king of Appera,
lohead Egypt, whose name was Nito Chris. And the story that he gives
is that her brother ruled before her, and that he was murdered, and
that she took revenge on those that murdered her brother by supposedly tricking them all
into this this this building and allowing the waters to come in from the nile
and drown them all. But the interesting fact is that it says that so
as she herself did not suffer the same retribution she throws, she repaired,
in other words, went into um, you know, a room full of
ashes and killed herself, you know, hot ashes, And you think,
well, what the hell is all that about? Well, these hot ashes,
I'm pretty certain we're talking about incense. The burning of incense on sensors
that would almost certainly have had hallucinogens on them, and you know, would
have put people into an altered state of consciousness. So if you add that
with the idea that you could have also ingested orally other hallucinogens, you know
clearly it's going to kill you if it's not monitored. And and you know,
these people were not just dealing with things like cannabis here. I mean,
you know, they would have been dealing with hallucinogens which you know,
the toura for instance, that if you took in the rock amount would would
kill you instantly. Almost yeah, you know. But the thing is that
if you allowed it to happen, you know, if you allow to take
you from this world into the afterlife, I think that you know, they'd
have done it basically. So I think that's exactly what happened to her.
But let's let's say what happened after she died, because she was able to
pass on the baton of sovereignty of Egypt onto the next dynasty that ruled.
Now, this was one of two dynasties, right, because this is where
it all starts falling apart. You've got the Thirteenth dynasty, many of which
many of the kings of which all bore the name, Sobek Sobek was the
deity, which she very clearly because of her name, you know, centrally
focused around and they would seem to have carried the you know, the torture
sovereignty of Egypt, you know, throughout the next let's say, one hundred
hundred and fifty years. And what happens is that they then passed past that
torton to their next dynasty, which is the seventeenth and they are the ones
that will eventually get rid of the hike saus kings that have overridden Egypt.
Now, without subec Nofrey establishing the thirteenth dynasty, there would have been nothing
to stop the other dynasty that rose up at the same time, which is
the fourteenth dynasty that went hand in hand went parallel with the thirteenth, and
this was a very clearly Semitic based dynasty. You are, there's various evidence
within the names of the kings, and evidence has been found to suggest that
firstly they their seat of powers in the Delta, which was now a stronghold
of the Canaanite people, but secondly that they themselves were almost certainly Canaanites,
and that they paved the way for the entry into Egypt and the taken over
of Egypt bya the hike saus Kings, who were also known as the Shepherd
Kings, and what they did was just essentially, you know, raise most
of each to the ground. They allowed this almost like this sort of puppet
dynasty to continue on in the south of the country the thirteenth you know,
not realizing that it had any power, and you know, not considering it
any kind of threat. But you know, they were a threat. As
I said, they passed on the Batnes's sovereignty to the seventeenth and there were
kings like Amos and Carmos who eventually would rise up and you know, create
an army that would defeat the Hikesos. And let's look at the situation.
If this hadn't have happened, if the hikes Kings had continued to rule Egypt,
the chances are that Egypt would simply have become a part of the Canaanite
Empire. In other words, it would be simply another vassal state of the
overall Canaanite Empire that stretched all the way from Syria, you know, and
obviously right the way down into Egypt point and the world would have been a
different place. I mean, Egypt would never have recovered. Um So without
her reign, without her actions, which you know, some people might you
know, consider to be um you know, unprogressive as it were, Egypt
would have fallen. And I mean some Egyptologists have even suggested that that there's
slim evidence to suggest that her family may have even known that something bad was
on the horizon. Um you know, almost like premonitions. I mean,
this is the word that works to use. In other words, that they
knew that something bad was about to happen to Egypt. And this period is
known as the Second Intermediate Period. But unfortunately, something not fruit was not
given credit for any of this. She it would seem, was blamed for
what had happened. That's that's that's what I want to talk to you about.
She doesn't come up on the King's list number one, number two,
and I find this fascinating. This we don't know where she is laid to
rest, that's correct. We don't have a tomb for her, we don't
have any kind of writing regarding her her, that's right. Yeah, I
mean, well we don't even know how old she was. Well, no,
but I mean all of the estimations that given the book, based on
a number of different factors, would suggest she was probably around thirty to thirty
five when she died. Oh, I thought she was much younger than that.
Okay, no, No, she was probably about that. I mean,
you know, remember that before her there was basically about a nine year
reign of her brother where she would have been involved with that. That means
that, you know, she would have come to the four probably in her
about twenty, So that really doesn't make sense. And she her sister who
was never Ta, who seemed to have been the product of the same father
but a different mother. She was unquestionably being groomed to become the next pharaoh
of Egypt by her father i'm an m At the third who and that she
was going to rule alongside her half brother i'mann em At the foulth, So
they were at Now the thing is you have to say to yourself, you
know, if that had happened subect Nofru, who obviously eventually becomes king of
Egypt, what would her role have been And the answer is nothing. She
would have been nothing because all the indications are that her initial route was basically
to become a priestess in a temple, possibly a priestess of Hathorte in her
early years, but something happened that changed her destiny and what I speculate,
and this is based on the fact that one of the statues that actually appears
to show her has her dressed in a what's known as the heb said cloak
and her hands in a position which suggests that she's gone through this so called
heab said festival. But this is impossible because the heb said festival was something
that a king would only undergo after they ruled for about thirty years, you
know, And the idea of it was that a huge great court would be
built, as head said cult for instance at Sakara, and that they would
have to undergo a series of physical you know, you know, trials and
tribulations to prove that they were worthy both in body and mind to continue ruling
the rule in the country. And then once you did one he said festival,
then you have to redo them every few years after that. Now,
why the hell was she wearing a heab said cloak at her coronation because that
appears, is what the statue shows, and the and the and the only
answer is that she obviously decided that she'd done enough for her to be able
to wear it. And what I find interesting is that the divine influence that
essentially presides over the he Said festival is the goddess Hathor. She's the one
that basically sort of says, you know, yeah, you've done a good
job. You know, I'll give you the right signs that the king can
continue on. But it seems as if Sobek Noofu had a personal connection with
her, and I think underwent some kind of initiation involving either half or or
her Semitic counterpart Ballad that gave that convinced Heurn. It was probably people around
her convincing her that it was her destiny to rule Egypt and that if she
accepted this, they would help her become ruler of Egypt. Now, who
were these people? I think that they're going to be obviously court officials that
are associated with her father Ian at the fourth but sorry third, but also
they're going to be the priests of the Temple of Sebek. Sobek was arguably
the most important cult religious cult during this period. It had risen up throughout
the whole of the dynasty, to which she belonged, which was the twelfth
dynasty, and was in a really powerful position by the time of her father
Ian at the third her brother I'm in there at the fourth ignored it completely,
ignored Sobek completely, and in personal inscriptions would ally himself to the god
Amen, sorry, God artum Ra. You know that the forms of the
sun God. And he aligned himself with the Temple of Heliopolis, not the
temple or Sobek, which was in the Fium, And this seems to be
part of his plan to create this new kingdom in the Sini. This is
what he was trying to do. So basically, I think that her supporters
were definitely the priests of Sabek and another number of other people who clearly had
clubbed together to support her and said, look, you know, if we
take out your brother, will support you. Basically, Now, when she
was directly or indirectly involved with his death is a matter of speculation, but
I think that that she certainly knew what was going a new yet to be
taken out. Basically, the few statues that we have of her show are
very uh. The characteristics are very male and female. Yeah, and she
seems to have these big ears too. Orr is reminiscent of other statues.
Why are why are there so few statues statues of her? And the ones
we do have her somewhat defaced. Yeah, I think well, I mean
some of that is going to be icanocalism, you know, in other words,
the deliberate smashing of them for religious or political reasons. But there's no
question that she was suppressed. I mean, you're going to Egypt, aren't
you? Yeah? Yeah, are you going to Abydos? Always right,
Well, when you're in when you're in Abydos, as you walk through the
temple on the walls, there is all of the kings that ruled Egypt.
As you're going out to the Assyria at the back, have a look there
at the first temple. Yep, said Seti the first. You know Seti
the first, and the Ramesis. Look, these are all the kings that
rolled for us. Yeah. Now you look, you have arman Emet the
third, you have I met and met the fourth, you know the Cartou
Shehes and then nothing until the beginning of the eighteenth dynasty. The next king
on that list would have been Sobek no Offro. Why is she missing when
we know full well that she rolled for four years? And the answer is
that for some reason she got blamed for the fall of Egypt immediately after a
time when all the indications are that she was the one that kept it going,
and she was the one that was able to pass on the baton of
sovereignty to the next dynasty, the thirteenth, because she was in the twelfth
dynasty. And well, I think that therefore her story was suppressed, so
you know, with other than a few mentions here and there, in for
instance, the Labyrinth, which is something that she unquestionably completed at Hawara in
the fium which originally started as the Molktrie temple of her father and the third,
but she then transformed it into essentially the central religious center of brit of
of of of Egypt. Quickly you mentioned the labyrinth. Yeah, that's a
that's a myth. Still we still haven't found the labyrinth. No, now
we have, of course we have. It's no, no, it's it's
a it's a Hawira in the fium Um. If you go to the one
of the two pyramids of M and m at the third, which is the
one at hawarra Um, it's immediately to the south of there. I mean,
it's a huge, great complex that's described by Hereditus. That is going
to say he described because I mean he says that it was more impressive than
the Pyramids of Geezer something. I mean, this is Hereditus in around four
hundred and fifty BC. Yeah, it's there. I mean M. Paul
Lepsius was the first, you know, Western archaeologists to excavate it in the
early part of the nineteenth century, and then Flinder's Petrie investigated it towards the
end of the nineteenth century, and then obviously, you know, work has
been done since that time. But they found not only inscriptions in the name
of subek Nooffer his father, but also in the name of subek Nooffer herself.
And it's quite clear that this whole complex was begun by her father and
completed by her. But she didn't use it just as a moultry temple to
father. She used it as a center almost like an omphilos of sacred center
of Egypt. And all the indications are that there were at least forty two
or quite specifically forty two different chapels, each of them dedicated to one of
the local gods of the different noms ms or districts of Egypt, and that
the idea was that Sobek was becoming a monotheistic god basically, And what she
insisted was that the priests of all of the district different gnomes visit the labyrinth
one, let's say, once a year maybe more, to pay offerings to
Sobek, who was being seen by her as the living spirit of all of
these other local gods. So all these other local gods had their own names,
you know, and you know that some of their coats were probably extremely
ancient. But what she was saying is yes, but they're all aspects of
Sobek. So what she was actually doing, for the most part was creating
a type of monotheism most around Sobek. And I think that she was trying
to centralize the whole of the country. But it wasn't just Sobek involved that
her Sobek's mother was very important as well, and this was the goddess Nith.
Now Nith is a standing hippopotamus basically with large grouping breasts, and she's
seen as like a sort of mother of all. And when she's depicted with
her son Sobek, the crocodile god, you see the standing hippopotamus and the
crocodiles on the back of the hippopotamus. And this is not just shown in
ancient Egyptian tradition, but it's also shown as a sky figure. In other
words, it's in the sky as well and occupies the area of the sky
that we know today as the Draco, the constellation of the serpent, right
you know where the turning point of the Evans are, you know, the
polar axis, the ecliptic, the celestial pulp, but also the stars of
Ursa Minor, and it would seem involved with this, this this little group
was the stars of Ursa Major as well, you know, the Plow the
Dipper, and that these three constellations formed part of a a miscycle involving nath
As, the mother of Sabak, and Sabek himself. And amongst these,
it would seem like the most important star was one in Draco, an orange
star called Eltonan, and this seems to have formed the eye of the crocodile,
you know, as a sky figure in the sky. And it would
seem as if both the pyramid that was being prepared for her at Masgoona,
which is known as Masgoona North, which has been destroyed. Some people suggest
that it was never even completed. Masgoona south was for him, which it
would seem you know, her brother, I'm Gonnamet the fourth, but also
just on the north side of the Fim Lake, which is a huge inland
sea in the fire, which seems to have been very important to why the
became so important, you know, during her age, is that there is
a very strange megalithic temple there. It's one of the most enigmatic buildings in
the whole of the Egypt. It's made of huge stone blocks, polygonal blocks,
very similar to the temple that the Valley temple of Kaffrey at Gezer,
very very megalith and the Assyrian at Abydos, and her name or fragments that
seems to suggest that she was associated with that temple, which was dedicated according
to tradition, to Sobek, would seem to suggest that she was involved not
so much with its building, because it does seem to be a building that
dates at least to the Pyramid Age, you know, the Old Kingdom period,
but that she redecorated it or redesigned the interior because the actual internal architecture
is almost identical to another temple on the south side of the foam lake at
a place called Medanit Mardi, and this is a temple dedicated to Sobek but
also to the snake goddess reninute It. Now, she seems to have very
little to do with that temple, But whoever designed that temple designed the interior
design of the megalithic temple at Kastel Saga, as I say, on the
northern side of the fiam so and that is also orientated, as I show
in the book, towards the setting of the star Altinum, just as her
pyramid at Masguna is also orientated towards the same star. So you know that
this this shows her astral beliefs in the importance of the stars and the importance
of the cult of Sobek and his mother Nith. You know, two very
very very ancient traditions. And these were ideas that were carried on, it
would saying, by the thirteenth dynasty. The dynasty that followed her, they
also seemed to have followed this sign religious tradition. We're gonna take a short
commercial break to let our sponsors identify themselves, and we will be right back
with Andrew Collins presenting information on this new book, The First Female Pharaoh.
We'll be right back. My guest today is author Andrew Colin, who has
released a new book called The First Female Pharaoh, Sobek Nepheru Goddess of the
Seven Stars. This is a in depth research piece on a unknown pharaoh,
a female pharaoh from the Middle Kingdom period, and we're getting an insight on
just what she accomplished during her reign. Talk a little bit about your belief
that the women who followed her more like hats Chepst and others. Perhaps we're
interested in her magic technique and her because she apparently and you hint at her
using magic, and maybe this is what developed into a cult. Yeah,
yeah, I think, As I said, there is some evidence. It's
not strong, but I build up as much as I can in the book
to suggest that she was actually brought up in the Nile Delta, a place
called telll Darba, where there was a temple where at least three statues of
her in a very poor condition were discovered at the beginning of the nineteen fourties,
and the archaeologist that did the work there, you know, said that
she must have had a personal connection with this town, and it was even
suggested that she may well have been brought up there. Well, what's so
interesting about that is that telll Darba was the main center for the settlement of
Semitic or Canaanite people's in Egypt from quite an early stage, and my colleague
David Roll, for instance, wrote a whole book basically showing the biblical character
of Joseph Um. You know, not only was around at the time of
Amenemt, the third fourth subec Nofrwy and the first couple of kings of the
thirteenth dynasty, but that his house was in Tell el Daba, and that
a statue that was found at the site may well actually even show Joseph because
obviously Joseph, Yeah, this is a guy who you know, had a
load of brothers, you know, because we all know the biblical story,
and they sort of, you know, leave him for dead. They don't
like him, and eventually he sold as a slave into Egypt. But then
he wrote that. But then, you know, he becomes a servant to
a priest of Ra the iliopolis Um and eventually the wife of this you know,
this high ranking official accuses him him of trying to come on to her,
which was a trumped up charge. He's ran into prison, and you
know, it's realized eventually that he has this ability to be able to translate
or interpret dreams. And of course, you know, Pharaoh has these dreams
about these seven lean years and seven fat years and you know, cows and
whatever, and they call for Joseph and he says, basically, look,
your dreams mean you've got to stock up over the next seven years because you're
gonna have seven years of famine. And he then rises to become Visier of
Egypt, I mean quite literally, the second in command of Egypt. Well,
I mean I tackle this in the book because there are a number of
Arabic stories that seem to continue this story of Joseph's involvement in Egypt, and
they pad out what the Bible doesn't say, and it's very very clear that
Joseph. Yeah, and when I say Joseph, I mean we're not necessarily
dealing with one single guy. I think that he represents, you know,
the importance of the Semitic community in Egypt at the time of these particular pharaohs,
and he's he's become condensed into a symbol, a single composite figure.
I would say personally myself, I'm not saying there wasn't somebody called Joseph,
But what I'm saying is that I think that some of the stories connected with
him are probably based on more than one person, but that you know,
according to Arabic tradition, he's involved with the building of this canal between the
Nile and the Fame Lake, you know, which basically allowed the waters from
the Nile to come in and feel the Fame Lake. Well, in Greek
tradition, these same stories are all connected with Sobekna for his father, I'm
an em At the third, He's the one that said to have built this
canal that goes into the Fame Lake. So we're dealing with the same time
frame, and there's no question that these activities did take place, and they
did take place around the reign of Amenemic the third. But also interesting about
the Arabic accounts, which come from much earlier Coptic sources, is that they
talk about Pharaoh's daughter and how one of the reasons why Joseph takes on this
job of creating this canal but also building a new palace is so that it
is for Pharaoh's daughter. Now she's not named, but I am certain that
this is Sobet Nofro. And for some reason these clearly originally Semitic, then
Christian accounts her once again try to whitewash her involvement with it. But anyway,
coming back to what you said about, you know, the other female
pharaohs seeming to take set as a kind of mentor well, it's Hapset Shot
that seems to have mostly been interested in her. And not only is there
various statues that mimic almost exactly those that we have of Sobek Noofri, that
exactly the pose and style everything. And again it's not just me, other
people, you know, Egyptologists have said this is too coincidental. She clearly
is trying to mimic the style of Sobek Nofri. But beyond that is that
in hap Set Shots early two, there's a psychophagus with a whole load of
lines of like a sort of book of the dead if you like, okay,
like you know that the words and sayings that you need to be able
to transition from this world into the next world at the point of death.
Now, these have been found to match almost word for word. The text
was on the side of one of the two coffins. There was an inner
and out of coffin of sobek Noofru's sister, which were found in a sealed
tomb in the mid nineteen fifties in the Fim, in fact, very close
to the the labyrinth that Hawara. And the problem here and I mean,
you know, the Egyptologists have noted this, and you know, called to
question what's going on here? How is it that Hapset should uses these unique
funerary texts, you know, on her sarcophagus when they're not discovered until the
nineteen fifties, and there is no other examples of them around, certainly not
in the same order and certainly not with the same completeness. And I mean,
clearly there's no absolute answer, but the suspicion is that that Hapset should
and these texts from subek Nofro in other words, they were part of the
family of Subet Nofro and ad obtusly been used by the sister, and we're
probably also going to be used by subbekt Noffer herself. And perhaps that Should
wanted to go into death in the same why and possibly you know, with
the belief that she would even meet Sobekner in death, you know, so
that she put these on her own sarcophagus. In other words, if I
take exactly the same route into the afterlife as a subec nofro, maybe I'll
meet her when I get there. Um, And as I said, there's
I mean, I think it's almost certain that hands steps should you know,
saw Sube as her role model, No question at all about that. That's
funny that you mentioned that. Perhaps yet so we're we're clothing or trying to
emulate subject enough for his look and appearance. Yeah, what what do we
know? You mentioned at the beginning her reign was basically at the end of
the Twelfth Dynasty, ending basically the Middle Middle Kingdom. Yeah, in the
four years that she reigned, it was something of note recorded that you found
that would make her, you know, an important transition figure from the twelfth
onto the other dynasties. Well, I mean when she died, very clearly
there was no clear successor for her. In other words, you know,
there was not a sound being lined up daughter obviously to take take over from
her. The thirteenth dynasty suddenly appears and him right, Holt, who is
you know, a very studious, very clever Egyptoley just has studied this period
very carefully, and he reckons that the first two kings of the thirteenth dynasty,
which both have the name Armon in one of their names, were probably
the sons of arma At the fourth In other words, her sbet through his
brother. Okay, in other words, he had two children with somebody.
We don't know who. They could have been subect no, through his children,
but there's nothing to prove that at all. They probably were the children
of of of of of another wife, probably, but you know, there
is absolutely no, you know, hard and fast answer. Now, the
question is did she groom these two children to become the next two kings after
she has killed her own brother? And I think there is a possibility that
the answer is yes. I mean, I mean, as I said,
some people could even suggest that these two children were hers, but we don't
know. But but whoever they were, I think that she did prepare them.
And what's so interesting here is that if she was involved with the killing
of her brother, these two children who would become Kings one and two of
the thirtieth dynasty supported her. They supported the cult Sabek, you know,
they they deified her, you know, they clearly saw her as a mentor,
you know, in fact, to the point of creating a cult in
her name, you which would continue on throughout the Thirteenth dynasty, and I
show as I show, probably continues all the way through to the New Kingdom.
And so that's an interesting situation. If she killed their father, I
mean, you know, either they didn't know that or somehow they accepted that
this was the right thing to have happened. Um, so you know,
that's that's what basically happened. But she, as I said, got blamed
for this, and because of it, her name was stricken from I think
various of the king lists. I mean, the most obvious that I've said
the one Abydos Now, I don't get me wrong. She is mentioned here
and there. I mean there's a king list from Sakara, for instance,
that mentions her. She has mentioned also on a king list from Karnak that's
currently now I think in the Louver in Paris. So you know, in
other words, that there seemed to be differences of of opinion relating to you
know, the importance of her role or or you know, whether she could
or could not be blamed for certain things. But he definitely was suppressed.
And I think this is one of the reasons why we have so many,
so little statuary from her reign. It's also why we have so little inscriptions
outside the Labyrinth or from the film. I mean, there are some,
but very very few. And also why you know that there's very little about
her. I mean, man Etho talks about her. He's the guy who
writes around two hundred and fifty b c. He was a priest of rah
If, I remember rightly, and I think I'm getting this right. And
yeah, he's a guy that gives us the chronology of the kings of Egypt,
the one that essentially everybody, every other classical writer uses. And he
does mention a female ruler at the end of the twelfth dynasty, who he
calls Schemiophris, and it says, basically, she was the sister of the
previous is king, and the previous king clearly is i'm an Emez, who
is fourth, so she is mentioned by Menetho. But what's so important about
this is that this tells us very clearly that those two were brother and sister.
And this is a crucial thing because some Egyptologists suggest that they had no
relationship with each other at all. But you know, the evidence is unquestionably
there. And so when you look at Herodotus and the story of Nito Chris,
you know you have to look at a female pharaoh who had a brother
that ruled before her, who she you know, took revenge on those that
killed him. And I go into this in detail, and firstly, there
cannot be any other brother and sister in Egyptian history that have this same role.
And secondly, if you look at Herodotus the way that he refers to
all of the different kings in book two of his histories, they're all in
an order, and they start with with nightA Chris, and obviously a brother,
the king, and then her father, and then before that father's father,
and there's a list that are all quite clearly from the same dynasty,
and that's the twelfth dynasty. And to me, this is good circumstantial evidence
that she and thus her father, sorry, her brother the king, were
Twelfth Dynasty kings. Now, some of the you know, the viewers out
there are going to say, well, hold on nightA Chris, I thought
that she ruled in the sixth dynasty. You know, I've read that,
I've seen this mentioned in king lists. Well, this was a mistake that
was based on what Manetho wrote, he placed her in the sixth dynasty,
but also it seems to have been a mistake that he hopped from a much
earlier king list, which is the Turin canon. We're very famous Papaye Rye
king list, which you clearly as the name suggests, in Turing in Italy.
And this was this was a king list which when it was found was
complete, but by the time it was transported to Italy where they opened it,
it all completely fallen to pieces. And it's taken you know, a
hundred years or more to try and piece the whole thing together. And they're
still doing it, and they're still arguing where different bits, you know,
should go to this day. Um and kim Ryholt, you know, I
mean, look look at at the page on Wikipedia for Nito Chris. It
talks about this that Kim Ryholt has shown conclusively that the king which the name
Nito Chris comes from, actually is a male to man, there's no question
about that whatsoever. You know, you know, it's it's not even a
female. Because we know that this particular person and his the name the throne
name relate to a man we've got, you know, and there can be
no doubt of that. It's a confusion that's come about, probably that in
a very late New Kingdom period or maybe slightly later, and that it's something
that confused man Etha himself. And in other words, there was never any
female ruler in the sixth dynasty of Egyptian Egypt. But I think what we
all to get onto is the fact that we probably know sobekn Off through under
a different name. That even though most of the viewers out there are going
to be saying, well, I've never heard of her, you know you
do know her, and I'll tell you for why. Because in the nineteenth
century, when you know that archaeology began in Egypt and this name sobek Nofer
who started coming up, some of the early Egyptologists started to speculate that this
woman was very very important. One particularly Egyptologist called Heinrich Bruge, for instance,
who wrote quickly a thick double volume sat on the Kings of Egypt,
wrote about her extensively, basically saying that it's quite clear that she created almost
like a cult that continued on in her name afterwards. Because many of the
kings of the Thirteenth dynasty also bore the name Sobakbak Hotech, which means basically
servant of Sobek or follower of Sobek. And these ideas were picked up by
a more speculative writer of Egyptology by the name of Gerald Massey, who had
this great interest in the sky religion of ancient Egypt and wrote various really interesting
books on ancient Egypt, like Egypt, Ancient Egypt, Light of the World,
The Natural Genesis, various other I can't remember that there's another one at
least, and he talks about Sobek offer when really bigs her up in there
and basically says, this woman quite clearly was the revivalist of this age old
cult to do with Sobek, the gods set you know, who can also
be seen as a crocodile, and that you know this this kick started a
revival of this cult that was picked up by the thirteenth dynasty and continued on
probably into the New Kingdom period. Now, one of the people that read,
well, I mean, I show the evidence why read Gerald masses books
was the Irish writer Ram Stoker, who obviously we know as the writer of
drac Killer. Yeah. Now, shortly after he wrote Jacula, he wrote
what might be described as his Egyptian novel, and this was called The Jewel
of Seven Stars, and it featured this ancient Egyptian female ruler who comes back
from the dead and rics havoc in the modern world, essentially in Britain.
And of course this becomes the main theme for every horror movie that's ever occurred
since that time, where an Egyptian royal female rises from the dead and creates
havoc, the last of which, of course, was twenty seventeen's The Money
featuring Tom Cruise. In none of these, In none of these is the
name Sabecofrou mentioned. But in some of them it's quite clear that the scriptwriters
have done their homework and realized that that bram Stoker's queen, as he calls
it, he calls a queen tear tr A is obviously based on Sobek Nofru,
and have given nods to that fact, you know, in the films,
so we do know her, or certainly we've seen her. But the
other important thing is that another person who was inspired by the works of Gerald
Massey was the occultist Kenneth grant. Now he writes a series of three trilogies
called the Typhonian Trilogies, which are incredibly influential in modern day occultism. That
again, seriously big up Sobek Nofru as this, you know, this founder
of this ancient cult that goes back in many thousands of years, involving the
crocodile, involving the hippopotamus. You know obviously the gods Sobek and Nith and
that you know, she create creates this cult that then you know, snowballs
throughout time and is a current, a magical current that is important to occultists
today. And he also acknowledges in the last of these books before he died
that Queen Tira, the antagonist in the book July seven Styles by Bram Stoker,
is indeed Sobek Noferum. He states this, And I mean, going
beyond this, I mean there's the books by a guy called Nicholas de Vere
who's as a historian, a genealogist, a member of various different sort of
like Shilric orders. He wrote various books about what he called the Dragon Kicks
that throughout all of the European history there was like this sort of secret cabal
of you know that like sort of supporting the kings. The kings were part
of it, and that this goes all the way back to ancient Egypt,
the founder being Sobek no Offerum, and he calls it the groul line is
the ground Kings. Now I'm not supporting this. I'm not saying that you
know this is correct, But what I am saying is this is how strongly
this woman, this first female pharaoh of Egypt, yeah, remembered. In
other words, her revival is coming in a way quite unlike that of let's
say Cleopatra, Nefertiti or Hatset Shure. It's almost like she's had to come
into our world through the back door, as it were. She's stronger in
death than she is in life. It's amazing. Absolutely. The book we're
talking about is the first female pharaoh, subject Nephreu, Goddess of the Seven
Stars. My guest today has been Andrew Collins. Tell me where I mean
it's a big deal to be a pharaoh. Where was she immediately anointed a
pharaoh when her brother died? I mean that is that the language that you
are able to find that she was pharaoh of the upper and and Lauren.
Yeah, yeah, I mean there's no question that she was, you know,
the ruler of both of those. I mean that, you know,
inscriptions do tell us that there's no question about that whatsoever. So yes,
we can only assume that on the point of the death of her brother,
um, you know, she was chosen as his successor. And as I
said, with all of these people, they yeah, they have their they
have their the people surrounding them, you know, whether they be court officials,
whether they be priesthoods, you know, other important maybe vassal kings from
other country, who knows, and you know, they're going to be behind
somebody, and if they're doing what they want them to do, they will
continue to support them, you know. I mean it's it's like the monarchy
today or whatever, you know, But as soon as they start putting a
foot wrong, they may well change sides, you know, the words still
start supporting another contender. And I think this is exactly what happened, you
know, with the brother and the sister. And I think all the evidence
is that, to start off with, I think the brother insisted ruled Egypt
together. I mean, whether it was in an official capacity or an unofficial
capacity, not sure, but you know, he was a brother, you
know, I mean, you know, I mean obviously that there may have
been a certain amount of sibling rivalry or whatever, but they were brother and
sister and they were ruling the country together. But that something went wrong,
probably within a few years of him ascending the throne, and it got to
the point where communications between them broke down completely. And it is unquestionably to
do with the direction that he wanted to take Egypt. And the various people
was seeing this and said, look, we continue down this colt, Egypt's
going to fall. You know, I think it needs to be done.
You know, your progressive policies are going to destroy Egypt, and you know,
so they turned to her and said, look, you know you've been
ruling the country with him. You know, we will support you and you
alone, you know, if we can get rid of him. And I
think that's exactly what happened, that she was involved with his death. As
I say, whether it's direct or indirect, I don't know. And this
story, I'm pretty certain is what Herodotus tells us in the account of Nito
Chris. But there's obviously one little twist there because it said that that NTO
Chris seeks revenge on those that have killed her brother. So if she was
involved with killing him in the first place, why would she need to do
that. The answer is clear, I mean clearly, she wouldn't have been
announced that either she or the people involved with this con spirity we were you
know, we the people that killed her brother. But she would have used
it to clamp down on everybody that she saw as opposing her rhyme. In
other words, you you, you, and you and you. We're going
to blame you for for for the death. You're gone, You're into the
next life basically. Now. I mean, I know this all sounds pretty
harsh, but you know, we're dealing with a different world. I mean,
you've only got to look at the Caesars or the ptolemy Is, you
know, or any other royal family, and I do show that, you
know, there was quite a lot of this um um you know, this
this this you know sort of in fighting between the dynasties going on even during
the Twelfth dynasty, in which she was a part of, you know,
from what we can tell. So I don't think it's any different to any
other part of history where you know, if a king is ruling, well,
there'll be allowed to continue on. If something starts going wrong, someone's
going to want to remove them. Hm. This book's going to be out
in about a month, a couple of weeks from now. I just side
on Amazon, which means it will be on other electronic bookstores or probably your
local bookstore like Barnes and Robal. Give us your website, Andrew, and
also let us know what you're going to be up to in the next few
months. Okay, Well, obviously, as as you said, the book
is available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Simon and Schuster. I had
to say. All this sort of stuff and anything that you need to know
about the book can be gained from my website Andrew Collins dot com. There's
links on there to all my social media. As to me, I'm off
next month to Turkey because the absolutely the big exciting thing that I'm working on.
I'm just finishing a book now on Karahan Tepe, which is the most
exciting archaeological discovery of twenty first century, no question about it. I'm just
doing finishing a book there. We're going there again next month. I've been
there several times in the last year. And we're going to Egypt in November
this year and we will be going in quest of Sabek Nofro. We're going
to the Poem, We'll go to the Kazarell Saga Megalithic Temple, We'll go
to Medinet Mardi Temple, will go to the labyrinth, and yeah, please
join us. All the details are on Andrew Collins dot com. You'll see
the events upcoming there. And yeah, I mean, you know, come
along and let's talk about her, and let's try and find her too,
because nobody knows exactly where she is buried. I mean, she was meant
to have been buried in the Mescoona North Pyramid, but she definitely didn't reach
that. That means she must have been buried in secret somewhere. So where
was she buried? Hey, real quickly, this labyrinth, I've heard about
it, but I I've never heard any of the public gaining any entrance to
underground. Uh, you know, like like the it's not like the serapeum,
which you can actually go and it's it's designated to go and visit.
This labyrinth, which has been reported by a lot of important individuals over the
over the ages. Have they actually taken pictures of it? I haven't seen
anything. Well, I mean it was clearly completely trashed at some point um,
and most of the masonry tyken and used you know for buildings elsewhere.
I mean Herodotus and other classical writers, as I say, talk about this
place being more impressive than the Pyramids himself. Now we can only but you
know, what does that mean that well, we don't know obviously. I
mean the classical writers describe it. I go into detail about what they all
say in the book. But Herodotus tells us that essentially that there's as much
underground as there is above ground, that there's you know, hundreds of secret
chambers with crocodiles and ords of it. Now, um, this has not
really been found, and the only reason why it's not been found is very
clearly because we've not dug deep enough. There must be something underground there to
be discovered. Otherwise Herodotus and these other writers must have been completely wrong.
And I think that's unlikely because I mean Hereditus when he goes there in four
hundred and fifty BC, I mean he's clearly got guides. You know,
he's obviously talking to the local priests. I mean, it was still in
operation. Remember it wasn't just a ruin. And you know, he's talking
to the caretakers, so he's saying, won't tell me about it, you
know, and they're obviously describing it, they're walking them around it, and
he's and you know, he's saying, well, what's down there, what's
underneath? And they describe what's underneath, and he says, can I go
down there? And they basically say no, you know, that's that's the
sacred part. You know, we can't take you down there. That's what
he says in his accounts, So these are the words he uses. We
haven't found those underground structures of the labyrinth, so we can only but speculate
what's down there and how much of what these classical writers wrote is actually the
truth. We don't know, Okay, I want to mention that in the
Pyramid Code, the author mentions them. And then I had a guy on
the program a couple of years ago who believes that actually he had some kind
of scanning technology on a satellite pierced the area around this pyramid and apparently found
canals that are in the ship of a labyrinth. And I didn't know if
that was a true labyrinth or that, So, I mean, I would
love to see those scans because I mean, you know, obviously I studied
that whole landscape as I was doing the book, and there's a reconstruction of
where the pyramid of i'm Emet the third days in relationship to the labyrinth,
in relationship to the local canals. So I'd love to see that. What
I do know is that there have been a couple of expeditions of people who
have been out in that area and pinpointed other locations to the labyrin. Now
I'm going to stick with the Egyptologists and say that it is exactly to the
south of the Pyramid of Amenemic the third at hawara Um, you know the
areas there. I mean, I mean Petree himself, you know, Flinders
Petrie, the great British egyptologist at the end of the nineteenth century, described
the labyrinth as as being bigger than Tarnak luck Saw and the Ramasseum, you
know down in the area of life. Did he actually go under and see
it? He excavated it there? Yeah? Yeah, so Petrie actually excavated
problem. Yeah yeah, yeah, you can, you can, I mean
his book is online, just look up archive dot organ. Yeah, we
do everything, and yet there's no resources to look at it right now,
I guess or it's not of great interest that we would go down and find
it. So when you say it, you mean the actual structures and the
underground labyrinth, you know. I mean, look, you know that the
problem with Egypt as opposed to any other country is that you know, you've
got to have the right permits to do any dig in concessions to to to
dig in a particular area. And you know, somebody like me can any
report on what evidence that we've got there and try and put the whole picture
together. I would encourage I mean, I hope obviously this book will not
only allow people to better understand subec Nofro and her family, but also I
hope that it will encourage further archaeology in the vicinity of the lab Branth to
really try and understand what was there. But from my point of view,
it's very clear that this was being created to be the center of Egypt,
where the Upper and Lower Egypt come together. Basically, you know, in
other words, this was the point of demarcation of Upper and Lower Egypt,
or certainly from an efficient in an official capacity at least. So so that's
it, really, but fascinating lady. And if anybody has any information about
that so I may have missed, then I would love to hear from him.
And then your email is on that website, right, it tastes Yeah,
yeah, I'm not gonna try and say it now. I'll probably get
it wrong anyway. Yeah, yeah, there's a there's a click throw well
Andrew Colleens dot com. Okay, excellent, Andrew, much success on this
book. Fascinating is always a true detective story, and it surely leaves the
door out open from more inquiry. You know, It's like, I was
fat uh curious that there was so little statuary of this person, and it
kind of reminds me of what happened to Akanatan when he tried to move the
city to another location exactly and his whole uh rain was destroyed and all the
statues were just there's already a handful of statues left of him, that's right,
because they didn't they want to know memory of him. Yeah. I
think what she was doing, which was what eighteen hundred BC akin Artem,
was what thirteen fifty let's say, so, what's that five hundred and fifty
years later, It's the same thing. They were both creating an essentially monotheistic
religion. I mean, he was doing it a little bit more thorough,
I think, than what she was doing. But look what happened to him.
You know, eventually the Armaan priesthood right up against him, and you
know, they get rid of him. And I think it was the same
thing as what happened with Sobek Noofro. But it wasn't the Armaan religion this
time. They were okay, they were they were they were okay with what
was going on. I think that it was the priesthood of Heliopolis, the
priests of artem Raw. They were the ones that rose up against her.
Fascinating. Hey, best of luck, stay in touch and we'll catch you
the next time. Will this time next year we'll be oh, we'll be
talking about Karahan, I promise you. Okay, take care, right chased
it. It's always good to hear from Andrew. He travels extensively into the
Middle East, and he will be coming back to give us a report on
another book that he's releasing probably in the next few months. On Karen Tepi,
which is this new site in Turkey that is older than go Beckley Teppi,
which I find fascinating. I mean, they've only uncovered a few of
these subsurface temples, and each time they uncover one of the dating comes back
older and older and older. I'm waiting for them to uncover a temple that's
like twenty thousand years old, not just twelve. And as you remember,
we had doctor Steeves on the program a few weeks ago and she's you know,
they're unveiling one hundred thousand, one hundred and fifty thousand year old Pleisticine
settlements and these are Ice age settlements that are inhabited by it looks like Homo
sapiens, you know. And so this is the kind of news that I
love. This is the kind of news that flies in the face of Orthodox
thinking. And you know, it's not to beat up on the Orthodox the
archaeologists. We have a lot of them on our program that our friends.
It's just the fact that they're just so closed down. And this is the
real problem with Egyptological views Egyptology. It's backwards and it doesn't really move forward.
That they're struggling under the weight of new revelations, new discoveries, and
I think in a mini way anyways, some of these dynastic ideas that are
in our history book need to be revised. And this is not going to
happen anytime soon. This is going to take, you know, the kicking
and screaming of archaeologists and egyptologists to finally release this data and the story being
retold, rewritten. It may be a new generation. We've had doctor Karakuney
on the program that flat out says Egyptology is dead. And if you don't
believe she said that, go back to I think it was July or June
of twenty twenty eighteen or twenty nineteen. Just look up Karakuney under Earth Ancients
dot com. And that first introduction to her work was not only eye opening,
but she's a professor of ancient studies at UCLA in California, and she's
telling it like it is. So it just takes time. It takes time
for these things to shift. By the way, I am leaving in a
couple of weeks, I leave April thirtieth and will be two weeks in Egypt.
I am making a special point of recording some of these megalithic temples look
sore. For one, I didn't have enough time. I was not feeling
well when I was there. I just didn't have the energy. But we're
gonna film some of the megaliths, the statuary, some of the flooring,
and then we're gonna spend a good deal of time, probably half a day
at half Or, which is in Dendera and in this one complex in this
where the half Or Temple is. It's on a major lay line an energy
geo magnetic field, and there's the half Or Temple, there's the best temple
that nobody talks about. There's the Isis Temple, and they all sit on
this megalithic, extremely old, heavy duty granite floor or foundation, and it's
all held together by these keys. And the keys are these metal locks that
pull these blocks together, but they're also used for conducting and when energy is
passed through the stones, these keys keep it moving from one to another,
so there's no offset. I am bringing my Trifield recorder, my Trifield meter
with me, and we're gonna measure and I'm going to record the higher fields.
The other thing I'm very excited to announce about the Half or temple at
Dendera Is there's a new crypt that's been opened up, and some of the
figurines are very anomalous. They look like they're wearing some kind of headgear that
isn't really well noted. They always say, well, it's shy monistic clothing
analogy. A lot of times. I've shown that in Mexico with the Maya,
so that look look for that, look for that in Um when I
come back, I'll be back at the third week of May, and this
is all going to be on Earth Ancients dot Com, but it's also going
to be on our Facebook page, and I want to mention our Facebook page
is constantly being updated with the latest reporting articles. Many of our authors,
many of the people who are on this program send us photographs, graphics,
images, a wide variety of content support that supports their presentation. And this
is where you can see these what we do what they call show notes for
each of the presenters, and there's usually a gallery between five and in some
cases are like twenty images that are from books from research and you should definitely
check it out because it's some of the materials and just fascinating. So so
yeah, I'm looking forward to our Egypt, to our I'm getting excited and
we're gonna have like thirty plus people to join us, and I will document
as much as I can. We're also going down a new shaft. I
didn't mention this. We're going down a new shaft. It's not new,
it's been open for a few months at the Sakara Dojor Pyramid and they're opening
up a whole labyrinth inside of the pyramid itself, but underneath it there's a
whole group of canals which are kind of like walkways. I call them canals,
but they're walkways that lead to these unusual rooms. We don't know what
there was used in these rooms, what was the purpose. Sometimes we find
mummies in there, sometimes we find artifacts. But it's a low process to
unopened, to open these canals, these shafts, and to discover these rooms.
And we're going to go into a whole section that's just recently been discovered,
so I'll be filming that. We're gonna film the South Tomb container,
which is actually some kind of a box that held some technology, megalithic box.
And then we're gonna go and we're gonna drive take the bus a few
miles down to Memphis and see this megalithic sculpture known as the Ramsey two sculpture.
And this thing weighs eight hundred tons single block of granite. And this
is one of these very very very finally cut sculptures that Chris Dunn believes is
cut from technology of some kind. And I'm gonna do what I can to
get real close to it and allow you to see it too. So lots
to it, are lots to film, lots to enjoy, and you're you're
there with me because I'll be recording a lot of this and you will make
it available on our website or the Ancients dot com, but will also make
an available on Facebook. And we have two Facebook pages. It's go to
Facebook. You can go to the group page, and then we have an
international page with serious researchers. We've got a lot of students, a lot
of professionals on that page. That's there are fan page. I think we
have in total about one hundred and fifty thousand people on that. The fan
page tends to have the white papers, the technical papers that are submitted to
publications like Nature other journals. So if you're interested in really drilling down on
a lot of the data that our presenters are talking about. That's where you
want to go. The other site I'm in is the group page that tends
to be very light most photos, mostly photos and interactions with other fans and
people who are really into the archaeological views of the past. So there you
go. Hey, we also have an Instagram page. Two. I don't
follow Twitter because I'm just I don't. I'm not interested. Sorry, But
Instagram tons of really cool photographs. Hey, if you're enjoying Earth Ancients in
our other podcast, Destiny and Earth Ancient Special Edition The Archives, please consider
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It takes a lot of work, a lot of energy, and I
gotta tell you, we got a lot of really really great material coming up.
We have some shows that I've been mentioning. We have doctor John Branden
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eye opener. He's going to spill the beans on Mars. We have a
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So Patreon dot com forward slash Earth Ancients, I'd really appreciate your help.
All right, that's it for this week. I want to thank my guest
today, Andrew Collins and his new book, The First Female Pharaoh. As
always, the team of Ruth Thomas and Mark Foster and everyone else who makes
this thing happen. You guys, Yeah, you guys rock. All right,
take care of you well and we will talk to you next time.