RAISING THE PHALLUS
The heliacal rising of Sirius marked the inundation of the Nile and the start of the Egyptian calendar year. It appeared to presage the fertilization of the fields and renewal of agricultural growth. Prior to the rising of Sirius the appearance of the Orion’s Belt stars in the dawn sky signalled the imminent ascent of Sirius above the horizon.
These four stars (Sirius and the three Orion’s Belt stars) determined the agricultural seasons and held a paramount religious significance to the continuance of the Egyptian civilization. Their rising occurred around the time of the summer solstice, linking the sun at its supremacy to the four stars and the beginning of the inundation.
A gradual culmination of the inundation took place around the time of the winter solstice. The Orion’s Belt stars were now rising in the night sky as opposed to the dawn sky. They again heralded the rising of Sirius. Their appearance after residing below the horizon symbolized rebirth and regeneration.
Raising of the djed symbolized fertility and germination and is consistent with the symbolism attached to Osiris. The god represented regeneration having been killed, or harvested, and then being brought back to life or reborn in the germinating seed. The god had a liminal existence on the edge of the underworld being buried in the earth and then resurrected.
The ‘Season of Inundation’ was divided into four months. Symbolism around the four divisions of the djed pillar reflects these four months of the inundation, the four seasons of the sun (the two equinoxes and two solstices), and the four stars (Sirius and the three Orion’s Belt stars) that appeared to influence the inundation. There is a clear correlation between the djed and the four months of the Season of the Inundation.
The season defined the period in which the Nile flooded and deposited fertile silt over the wide expanse of fields submerged under the flood waters. It was from this annual phenomenon that agriculture and by extension the entire Egyptian civilization depended. The raising of the djed in the fourth and final month of the season marked a period in which seeds would start to germinate in the silt that had been deposited over the fields.
Theories on the symbolism of the djed pillar fail to give sufficient precedence to the four demarcations at the top of the pillar. This consistent use of four bars in the construction of the pillar indicates that the numeral four is intrinsic to the meaning of the pillar. In that sense the djed is equivalent to a modern logo which encapsulates a meaning that is communicated by its visual appearance. The predominant theory of the djed pillar centres around its possible representation of the spine, especially the spine of Osiris. The four bars become four vertebrae in this interpretation.
The primary symbolism of the djed pillar can be deduced from the main festival that celebrated its potency. This was the ‘Raising of the Djed’ pillar. Numerous depictions show the pillar being raised emphasizing the central importance of the ceremony in Egyptian religious belief.
In the final month of the Season of Inundation (Khoiak) the ritual of raising the djed was celebrated. Depictions show large djed pillars being raised with unmistakable phallic associations. Plutarch and Diodorus relate the myth of the killing and dismemberment of Osiris. Emphasis is placed on the mutilated phallus of Osiris which Isis commanded should be recreated in its erect form and celebrated in temples across Egypt.
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“… the privates (of Osiris), according to them, were thrown by Typhon into the Nile… Yet Isis thought them as worthy of divine honours as the other parts, for, fashioning a likeness of them, she set it up in the temples, commanded that it be honoured, and made it the object of the highest regard and reverence in the rites and sacrifices accorded to the god. Consequently the Greeks too, inasmuch as they received from Egypt the celebrations of the orgies and the festivals connected with Dionysus, honour this member in both the mysteries and the initiatory rites and sacrifices of this god, giving it the name ‘phallus.’” [Diodorus Siculus — Library of History 1.22]
Plutarch states that representations of the phallic form of Osiris were ubiquitous in Egypt. The djed pillar, with its numerous depictions in Egyptian temples, corresponds with his description of the phallic representations of Osiris.
“Everywhere they point out statues of Osiris in human form of the ithyphallic type, on account of his creative and fostering power… On the waning of the month Phaophi (during the inundation) they conduct the birthday of the Staff of the Sun following upon the autumnal equinox, and by this they declare, as it were, that he is in need of support and strength, since he becomes lacking in warmth and light, and undergoes decline, and is carried away from us to one side.” [Plutarch — Isis and Osiris 51- 52]
Contemporary theories focus on the djed being the spine of Osiris sidestepping its phallic appearance. This modern myopia is undermined by the widespread belief in ancient civilizations that semen was stored in the spine. The visual and tactile equivalence between semen and marrow reinforced the association.
Central to this association is the metaphor of the Nile as a river of semen which by flooding its banks regularly fertilized the fields. The marrow encased in its container formed of bone and running as a channel through the centre of the body corresponds to the Nile. The spinal column connects at one end with the brain and the other is in the vicinity of the sexual organs.
“… they bored a hole into the condensed marrow which comes from the head down by the neck and along the spine which marrow, in our previous account, we termed ‘seed.’ And the marrow, inasmuch as it is animate and has been granted an outlet, has endowed the part where its outlet lies with a love for generating by implementing therein a lively desire for emission…” [Plato — Timaeus 91]
The foaming froth of the flooding Nile thus has a direct correlation with the warm foaming substance of semen. Both are the originators of Life. From this foaming substance the human body would be created and from the foaming flood waters of the Nile the seeds would germinate.
“In fact, the tale is annexed to the legend to the effect that Typhon cast the male member of Osiris into the river, and Isis could not find it, but constructed and shaped a replica of it, and ordained that it should be honoured and borne in processions, plainly comes round to this doctrine, that the creative and germinal power of the god, at the very first, acquired moisture as its substance, and through moisture combined with whatever was by nature capable of participating in generation.” [Plutarch — Isis and Osiris 36]
A lake at Sais in Egypt was central to the Egyptian mysteries and the resurrection of Osiris. These nocturnal mysteries were celebrated around the lake which reflected the stars in the night sky thus enhancing the connection between Osiris and the stars.
“There is also at Sais the burial-place of one whose name (Osiris) I think it impious to mention in speaking of such a matter; it is in the temple of Athena, behind and close to the length of the wall of the shrine. Moreover, great stone obelisks stand in the precinct; and there is a lake nearby, adorned with a stone margin and made in a complete circle; it is, as it seemed to me, the size of the lake at Delos which they call the Round Pond. On this lake they enact by night the story of the god’s sufferings, a rite which the Egyptians call the Mysteries.” [Herodotus — Histories 2.170–171]
There is a shared phallic symbolism between the djed pillar and obelisks which had an enhanced monumental presence. Connected in their symbolism to the power of the sun the obelisks were often erected in pairs framing the entrance to temples. Within their essential phsallic nature is embedded the cosmic forces that determined the inundation and the survival of rthe civilization. The djed pillar was a precursor to these monuments and drew its symbolism from the rising stars that appeared to govern the inundation.
