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CULT OF THE STARS
 Cult of the Stars
A Handbook of Egyptian Astrology

Travis McHenry

2022
Bloodstone Studios
Las Vegas, Nevada
Bloodstone Studios Presents
Cult of the Stars: A Handbook of Egyptian Astrology
by Travis McHenry

© 2022 Travis McHenry

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed,

or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording,
or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission
of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical
reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Second Edition

www.bloodstone.info
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Prologue: Into Egypt.................................................................................... 1

Introduction................................................................................................ 5

Chapter One: The Rise of spdt, the Rise of Egypt................................ 10

Chapter Two: The Decans – Living Stars With Tousled Hair.................. 24
Chapter Three: The 36 Gods of the Sky.................................................. 36
Chapter Four: Evidence for the Decans................................................. 140
Chapter Five: The Hermetic Tradition – From Decans to Demons......... 172
Chapter Six: Practical Application of Egyptian Astrology.................... 184
Conclusion.................................................................................................... 190

Appendix A: List of the Decans................................................................ 192

Acknowledgments........................................................................................ 193
Bibliography.................................................................................................. 194
 Prologue
Into Egypt

Although it was still early spring, and we were only eight miles from the
Nile River, the desert was brutally hot. Our driver had taken over five hours to
make the journey from Cairo while we were squeezed in the backseat of his
cramped car. Now, the blazing sun overhead confirmed our expedition was
running behind schedule.
We passed through the final checkpoint leading to the ancient burial
site, which we found nestled among chalky limestone cliffs covered by a
massive ridge of sand. At the end of the road, our car stopped, and we were
confronted by a colossal staircase made of red stone that seemed to rise from
the sandy desert plain stretching toward us before disappearing into the tall sand
dunes.
After years of research and preparation, seeing that staircase in person
suddenly made the heat and the uncomfortable drive worthwhile. We had
successfully arrived at the Meir Monumental Tombs in the governorate of
Asyut in central Egypt.
Crawling through the pyramids just days earlier had been an awesome
experience, one I had dreamed of since I was in grade school. But the pyramids
were a tourist trap. Their stones unturned and their stories revealed. The tombs
buried in the tall dunes before me still had lots of mysteries left to solve. Their
story had not yet been told. That's why I was there.
Before proceeding to the tombs, my research assistant and I added a
few members to our team to accompany us on this leg of our expedition.
Shamia Malak, the Inspector of Antiquities, a young woman who looked fresh
and energetic despite the heat, invited us into her office to show us the artifact
she was examining: a small piece of wood, part of an extensive backlog of
artifacts from the tombs that the underfunded and understaffed archaeologists
are doing their best to document and catalog.
We were informed that we'd be accompanied into the tombs by three
locals: Dr. Samir Homda, an archaeologist with intricate knowledge of the
tombs, a second man who served as the key holder, and a military escort armed
with an AK-47. The area surrounding Asyut is known for extremist activity, and
has long been a stronghold for the Muslim Brotherhood—a group responsible
for repeated attacks against Western tourists, Christians, and security personnel.
As if hiking in the desert heat and descending into ancient tombs wasn't
dangerous enough.
With the midday sun already beating down on us, I wrapped a black
and white keffiyeh around my head in the Yemeni style, and we began a
strenuous trek up the steep, sand-covered hill to visit rock-cut tombs where
Egyptian nobles had been buried more than two thousand years before Christ
walked the earth. A location I theorized was the birthplace of astrology and
Hermetic magic. The ultimate source of everything esoteric.
At the top of the hill, along the rocky cliffs, our key holder used his arm
to sweep away the pile sand that had accumulated in front of the tomb door.
While we waited, Dr. Homda informed us that we were the first Westerners to
visit the site in years. My military training kicked in, and I couldn't help scanning
the horizon, looking into the vast desert, wondering if extremists were going to
tear over the dunes and cut our expedition short before I found what I had
come to see. Our guard didn't seem too concerned, and had found himself a
spot in the shade to relax. It was the first day of Ramadan, which meant the
poor soldier couldn't even take a drink of water until after sundown.
Inside Tomb No. 2, the final resting place of Pepy-ankh the Youngest,
an Old Kingdom ruler of the 14th Nome of Upper Egypt, we found respite
from the intense heat baking the sand outside. The tomb was dark and quiet, so
unlike the popular temples we had visited along the Nile River earlier in our
journey. The pillared rooms were expansive and richly decorated with colorful
artwork that rivaled anything in the Valley of the Kings, something I had not
expected of an Old Kingdom tomb.
Dr. Homda led us to a passageway cut into the rock that sloped
downward at a 30 degree angle straight into darkness. “The burial chamber is
down there,” he said. “We can go down, but I forgot to bring a flashlight.”
My research assistant and I exchanged a glance, remembering the
plentiful lights surrounding Luxor, illuminating the colossal statues of Ramesses
II with a pleasant amber glow. Feeling our way through the darkness was a
recipe for disaster and would defeat the purpose of going into the tomb. In this
remote place, our cellphone batteries were too precious to waste as a light
source, but we couldn't resist the opportunity to see this foreboding chamber
with our own eyes. I reached into my backpack and retrieved the LED flashlight
that had accompanied me on all my adventures for years.
“Let's go,” I said, and handed the flashlight to Dr. Homda so he could
lead the way.
The passageway had a low ceiling and a smooth floor, making the
descent a treacherous squat-walk for someone who is over six feet tall. The rock
walls were cool under my hands, and I didn't hesitate to use them to help
control my descent. Dr. Homda was far enough ahead with the light that I
could barely see the way forward, but trusted my feet to carry me safely to the
bottom.
Stepping out of the tiny square passageway and into the burial chamber,
I was so overwhelmed by the experience of finally standing in an Old Kingdom

2
tomb that I inhaled a tremendous breath of stale, putrid air. The tomb was thick
with a foul stench, the result of thousands of years of inhabitation by bats, who
had coated the chamber walls with their guano. Coughing and hacking, I tried to
clear the particulate-filled air from my lungs. Only one day before, I had been
standing in the tomb of King Tutankhamen, wondering if his curse was real.
Now I was about to find out.
The chamber was 16 feet by 10 feet with a low, rough-cut rock ceiling
just over six feet tall. The gray stone walls were completely devoid of artwork or
writing. I later learned that the chamber is actually filled with art, but it remains
hidden, caked under four millennia of bat guano. Along the far wall was a
sunken pit, just large enough to fit a sarcophagus. That's where Pepy-ankh the
Youngest had been laid to rest. Despite the effort it had taken us to get into the
tomb, nothing down there could contribute to my research. We needed to keep
looking.
Back outside, while walking along the ridge, fighting against the shifting
sands, trying not to slip down the side of the dune, my research assistant
Damien kicked something with his foot and thought it looked interesting
enough to pick up. Dr. Homda swooped in and snatched it out of his hand
before he could show it to me. The stray artifact turned out to be a weathered
wooden piece of a coffin, likely from the Middle Kingdom, still bearing visible
paint and hieroglyphics. I immediately tried to negotiate permission to examine
the two-foot long piece, but our guide hid it away in his jacket, concerned I
might publish details of the find before he could study it himself.
“There are still many artifacts to be found here,” he explained. “In the
field below are the graves of thousands of commoners. Even here among the
cliffs, there are dozens of tombs yet to be discovered. The sand covers
everything quickly, but sometimes we get lucky when the wind reveals
something new.”
As he was speaking, we realized I was standing right next to a partially
exposed vertical shaft lined with crumbling mud bricks, filled with sand, that led
20-feet straight down to a hidden burial vault. It was unlikely the antiquities
staff would have the resources to excavate this undiscovered tomb before it was
completely swallowed up by the desert again. I felt grateful to have seen the
shaft before it disappeared and was forgotten forever.
The tomb of Senbi, son of Ukh-hotp, Nomarch of the 14th Nome of
Upper Egypt, dates to the Middle Kingdom Period, and was constructed
around 1990 BC, exactly the time period I had been researching. There was no
sand blocking the door, and no treacherous guano-covered burial chamber to
descend into, so I wasn't expecting to be blown away after the day's excitement.
Almost immediately after stepping inside Senbi's tomb, I knew I had
come to the right place. The walls were covered with artwork depicting scenes
of daily life in Egypt. There were images of hunting and fishing, along with

3
dozens of tableaus of agricultural activities. On the south wall, one scene that
caught my eye was faded almost beyond recognition, but appeared to show a
man sitting behind a cow.
I knelt beside the wall and studied it carefully. The reason this image
was so important is because it's directly connected to one of the decanal stars
used in ancient Egyptian astrology. The star in question is called Khery Heped
En Kenmet, which means “Under the hind part of the cow.” Throughout the
process of identifying and translating the names of the decans, I had come up
against some strange names, but this was by far the most unusual. Its
strangeness caused me to doubt my ability to translate the meanings of
hieroglyphics altogether.
Dr. Homda noticed my intense interest in the artwork and, after giving
me some time to figure out the scene on my own, offered to explain it to me.
He pointed to the backside of the cow.
“Do you see that,” he asked.
I squinted my eyes and realized the white blob behind the cow was
carved in raised relief, although it was virtually indistinguishable from the
washed out background.
“Yeah, I see something there,” I said. “Is it coming out of the cow?”
“Yes,” he replied. “The cow is giving birth and the man kneeling under
it is helping the calf come out. The man standing beside them is encouraging
him, saying 'Herdsman, catch hold gently!'”
My eyes lit up with understanding.
Khery Heped En Kenmet, “Under the hind part of the cow,” was a star
in the cow group of decans. These stars rise during the first three weeks of the
Egyptian year, a time closely connected with birth and new beginnings. The
name of the decan suddenly made perfect sense in the context of Middle
Kingdom farming practices, which dominated the region of Asyut where these
decans originated. This tiny piece of the puzzle could only have fallen into place
by visiting, exploring, and studying the tombs and temples of Egypt.
It was then I realized how important my expedition had become, and
how vital it was to my research that I physically connect with these ancient sites
if I ever hoped to establish a link between the five thousand year old religious
astronomy of Egypt the esoteric magic practiced today that expresses itself in
everything from Tarot cards to celebrity horoscopes.
There were many such moments of revelation that occurred while I was
in Egypt during the month of April 2021, but this book is not a memoir, so
they'll remain unspoken for now, silently coloring the narrative you're about to
read.

4
 Introduction

Early French, German, and British Egyptologists lacked the benefit of

being able to stand back and take an objective overview of ancient Egyptian
civilization and culture. They were uncovering artifacts from the past, piece by
piece, and trying to decide what the item was, what it meant, and how it fit into
the larger picture all at the same time. Imagine attempting to assemble a jigsaw
puzzle when you don't know what it looks like, can't read the instructions, and
most of the pieces are broken. Often, they got it right. More often, someone
came along later, after finding more essential pieces, and was able to paint the
final picture more accurately.
Some historical events are known to be factual, but much of our
knowledge of the past is little more than conjecture. For example, how can we
ever really know what the Egyptian language sounded like? There have been no
native speakers since around 452 AD, when a mischievous soul named “Petise,
son of Petosiri” carved his Demotic name on a stone wall in Philae Temple.
Linguistic experts can try their best to synthesize the Egyptian language for
modern ears, but, like paleontologists guessing the skin coloration of a dinosaur,
nobody will ever know for sure if their estimates are correct.
What is known about ancient Egypt comes from what Egyptologists
have been able to surmise based on 200 years of serious scholarship and study,
starting in 1822, when French linguistic genius Jean-François Champollion
successfully deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphics and archaeologists could finally
have some context to their discoveries. In archaeology, context is everything.
Artifacts can only be understood in relation to other artifacts from the same
time and place, and any new discovery can quickly overturn established beliefs.
That is exactly what happened when the final piece of the Naos of the
Decades was discovered in 2004 in the Bay of Aboukir, where it had been
submerged underwater for over 2,000 years. The missing piece of the Naos
revealed a fascinating origin story of the Egyptian star deities, known to the
Greeks as decans, that had never been told before. A story about minor star
gods might not seem important, until it is examined in context with other
artifacts, and suddenly, the Narmer Palette, a decorative piece of siltstone from
3000 BC depicting the founding father of Egypt, the precise meaning of which
has baffled archaeologists for over 100 years, begins to make perfect sense.
Modern scholars have the benefit of unrestricted access to information.
The Internet provides access to digitized scientific papers, out-of-print books,

5
and original sources, such as papyrus documents. There is also the ease of
international travel. An author can view Egyptian artifacts at The Louvre in
Paris, then visit Berlin's Museumsinsel for a few hours, before catching a flight to
Luxor to explore the temples where those artifacts originated, all in a day or
two. Although a trip of this nature wouldn't exactly be cheap, it could be
undertaken quickly and efficiently with minimum expense for someone devoted
to uncovering the secrets of ancient Egypt. Even 50 years ago, such a trip would
have been complicated by Cold War travel restrictions.
Another way modern Egyptologists are better positioned than their
predecessors to examine the past is in their worldview. Although Napoleon's
expedition uncovered the Rosetta Stone, Howard Carter located the tomb of
King Tutankhamen, and Ludwig Borchardt found the bust of Nefertiti, these
discoveries were the result of European empires attempting to stretch their
arms across the world.
The ethnocentric worldview of colonial-era Egyptologists extended
into the 1960s, with Otto Neugebauer and Richard Parker's highly influential
Egyptian Astronomical Texts Volumes 1-3. These two male, German / American
scientists, unable to understand the function of decanal charts from the Middle
Kingdom Period, declared that “all the star clocks are more or less corrupt [and]
deviate considerably from the correct arrangement.” Neugebauer and Parker
believed they knew how a star clock should look, and when they were unable to
find even one example that supported their theory, they proclaimed it was the
mistake-prone Egyptian scribes who were at fault. Even 60 years after their
book was published, not a single decanal chart has been found that matches
their “correct arrangement.”
While Neugebauer and Parker's original research into Egyptian
astronomy was ground-breaking, over the past 30 years, some of their
conclusions are finally being questioned by scientists, many of whom happen to
be female, especially Sarah Symons, Anne-Sophie von Bomhard, and Joanne
Conman, three women without whose scholarship this book would not be
possible. The traditionally male-dominated field of archaeology has led to biased
conclusions, such as the belief that all pharaohs wished to join the sun and
become like Rē. In fact, the vast majority of Egyptian funerary texts suggest
pharaohs, nomarchs, and everyone else wanted to meet the goddess Sopdet
after a successful journey through the afterlife, and join her in the sky as a
shining star for all eternity.
There are other examples as well, such as the monotheistic worldview
of early Egyptologists, who were unable to comprehend the manner in which
Egyptians celebrated natural phenomena by connecting them to specific gods.
They believed there must be a male deity on top who ruled over everything.
E.A. Wallis Budge declared the Egyptians to be as monotheistic as their fellow
Jews and Christians, due to their use of the word netjer to collectively refer to

6
divine beings. If this were true, there would have been no need for the later
Romans and Copts to burn religious papyri, murder priests, and deface
countless temples in their quest to stamp out the pagan beliefs of ancient
Egyptians.
The reason ethnocentricity is so dangerous in this discipline is because
it poisons the researcher's ability to accurately understand the very thing they
are studying. Wallis Budge himself explains this brilliantly when describing how
early Coptic Christian writers misunderstood the story of Rē punishing his
enemies: instead of sending them to be burning stars in the sky (a desirable
outcome for an Egyptian), the Christians interpreted it as Rē burning their souls
in a righteous fire.
Ethnocentricity has led to fundamental misunderstandings of Egyptian
culture and ancient Egypt as a whole; but these early scientists and authors can't
necessarily be blamed for their limited worldviews. A white, European male
looks at a pyramid and assumes it must be a monument to the ruler, for he sees
himself as a king and would like to have a comparable monument after he has
died. The rigid belief in an all-powerful male deity leaves little room for an
equally powerful goddess whose annual arrival in the night sky served as the
basis for the entire Egyptian calendar.
To truly understand the religion and culture of ancient Egypt, a scholar
must think like an ancient Egyptian: a polytheist who believed in magic and had
tremendous respect for the natural world. Their society was highly agrarian and
communal, with far less of the hierarchal, slave-owning capitalism than is
portrayed in popular media. Once an Egyptologist opens their mind to the
possibility of magic and the supernatural, they can begin to view old research
from a fresh perspective. Their new conclusions will remain evidence-driven,
despite touching on such un-scientific topics as astrology and divination.
Which leads to the final form of ethnocentrism that has corrupted the
modern view of ancient Egypt: that of scientific rigidity. In Egyptian Astronomical
Texts, Neugebauer and Parker refused to acknowledge that the Middle Kingdom
Period Egyptians in Asyut were practicing astrology. They insisted the “star
clocks” merely recorded astronomical observations of stars moving through the
sky, and nothing more. This opinion has prevailed among the academic
community for over 60 years because scientists live in mortal terror of being
lumped in with “researchers of the lunatic fringe” (note where emphasis is placed
in this statement, suggesting the person is a confirmed lunatic and only
dubiously a researcher).
This fear of being regarded as a member of the lunatic fringe, or even
worse, being branded a “pyramidiot” by their peers, has stunted academic
progress and innovation in the field of Egyptology. In Der Himmel über Esna,
when Alexandra von Lieven exhausted her attempts to rationally explain
Egyptian usage of the decanal stars, she proposed the ridiculous term “religious

7
astronomy” rather than admit that she and her predecessors have been
unknowingly studying astrology for the better part of a century. However,
Anne-Sophie von Bomhard's recent translation of the Naos of the Decades
makes it difficult to deny that reality any longer.
Some of the most effective cultural anthropologists participate in long-
term ethnographic immersion among the people they are attempting to study.
Such an experience is likely to impact the worldview of the scientist, bringing
them a deeper understanding of unfamiliar cultural practices and beliefs. The
anthropologist need not actually hold these beliefs the way the faithful do, but
adopting the mindset of a true believer will help unravel the mystery of their
behavior.
The alternative to engaging in this kind of Gonzo Anthropology is far
worse than being accused of believing in astrology or having your peers call you
a pyramidiot like grade school bullies. Neugebauer and Parker rejected any
evidence that failed to meet their expectations of an ideal star clock, which has
now turned out to be a complete fabrication. Unfortunately, their fabrication
continues to influence generations of Egyptologists.
So long as the scientific community remains deliberately ignorant about
the cultural-religious truths of ancient Egyptian society, scholars will continue to
be limited in their thinking and erroneous in their conclusions. As this book
explores the beliefs of a forgotten star cult that began along the Nile River more
than 5,000 years ago, it will further examine the biases that have crept into
Egyptology, fundamentally altering our modern view of ancient Egyptian
culture, society, and religion.

8
9
 Chapter One
The Rise of spdt, the Rise of Egypt

Sah and Sopdet as depicted on a coffin lid. (Roemer-Pelizaeus Museum)

Sirius, known to astronomers as Alpha Canis Major, is the brightest star

in the night sky, nearly twice as bright as the next brightest star. Its Latin name
comes from the Greek name for the star, Seirios, meaning “glowing” or
“scorcher,” a name in use since at least 700 BC. Among the cultures that
observed and studied Sirius, it was often called the Dog Star, due to its presence
in the Canis Major constellation. The Greeks, seeing the star rise after the
constellation Orion, identified it as the hunter's dog, loyally following after its
master on the hunt.
In ancient times, Sirius first appeared in the night sky each year in the
middle of July, during the hottest months of summer. Some cultures, like the
Persians and the Senegalese Serers, looked to Sirius' arrival in the sky as a

10
bringer of rain, a respite from the dry summer months. The Greeks saw it as a
dangerous star that brought with it heat and illness from fever. Even The Iliad
regards it as bringing suffering to humanity. In the New World, the Cherokee
and Pawnee revered Sirius as a different kind of dog: a coyote who guarded the
path of souls into the stars.
For the Egyptians living along the Nile River more than 5,000 years
ago, Sirius was more than a shining light in the night sky. To them, the star was
a symbol of hope. When it rose in the early morning sky, just before the sun on
the same day each year, the star brought with it a promise that the annual flood
would return. These ancient peoples gave thanks to this celestial body and made
it the center of their entire civilization, because without its power, there would
be no flood. There would be no dark water carrying nutrient rich silt from the
Ethiopian Highlands. Without Sirius, there would be no Egypt.
The importance of the annual flood and of the star Sirius to the
Egyptians cannot be overstated. Each spring, the monsoonal rains began more
than 1,000 miles to the south, filling the Blue Nile and White Nile rivers before
surging downstream toward the Mediterranean Sea, depositing black silt, thick
with decayed organic matter, onto the banks of the Nile River in Upper and
Lower Egypt. This fertile soil, combined with plentiful fresh water, greatly
simplified the task of farming. Essentially, a farmer needed to poke a hole in the
dirt, drop in a seed, then relax until harvest time.
Easy, reliable access to food helped the small tribes living along the
Nile Valley grow from nomadic hunter-gatherers into an agricultural
powerhouse, building one of the most magnificent civilizations the world has
ever known. The ancient Egyptians called their country Kemet (km.t) meaning
black, or, in its longer form, the Black Land (tA-km.t), in reference to the black
silt that was so vital to their continued survival.
After Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt were unified as a single country
by King Narmer in 3000 BC, the worship of Osiris, Rē, Isis, Set, and Horus
became widespread and prolific. Osiris, especially, was important to the
Egyptians as a symbol of fertility and rebirth. As a dead god, Osiris was ruler of
the afterlife, and the story of his life, death, and rebirth was one every Egyptian
knew well. It should come as no surprise then, that as they observed the stars
moving through the night sky, they took note that the brightest star of all,
Sirius, seemed to have a life cycle which mimicked that of Osiris.
The Egyptians understood that planets, the moon, the sun, and the
stars were all different kinds of celestial objects, and grouped them separately.
According to the Book of Nut, they grouped the sun with the stars, the planets
together with each other, and the moon as a separate entity. The sun and stars
were the oldest gods, with the sun, Rē, being the most powerful and the other
stars being the souls of primordial gods. The moon, the youngest body in the
sky, was Horus, the son of Osiris, a figure of youth and vigor. Finally, the five

11
known planets were likely connected to the remaining gods of the Egyptian
pantheon, although there is some scholarly debate on this point.
Among the stars, they further recognized that some were always in the
sky, while others seemed to move and disappear for periods of time. The stars
that remained in the sky every night, Northern circumpolar stars such as Polaris,
and the constellations of Ursa Major (the Big Dipper) and Ursa Minor (the
Little Dipper), these were called “The Imperishable Ones” (or “Indestructible
Ones”). Another group of stars, those called the “Unwearying Ones” behaved
much differently from their more permanent counterparts.
These Unwearying stars, of which Sirius is a member, disappeared
below the horizon for several months each year before reappearing in the early
morning, just before sunrise. This cycle of life, death, and sudden rebirth caused
the Egyptians to assign special meaning to the Unwearying Ones. They
reasoned that, because these stars behaved like Osiris, they must be more than
just flaming balls of hydrogen burning in the vast darkness of space.
Sirius became the daughter of Osiris and the other stars were viewed as
her companions. Their annual life cycle goes like this:

• The star appears on the horizon just before sunrise. This is called the
heliacal rise.
• For 80 days, it will rise a little earlier each night and go a little higher in
the sky.
• Finally, after 80 days, it will culminate in the sky, rising to its highest
point.
• For 120 days, it culminates and is said to be “working.”
• Then, the star begins rising a little lower each night for 90 days. This is
its setting period.
• Finally, the star will disappear below the horizon and it will not be
seen again for 70 days.
• After 70 days have passed, the star will appear again on the horizon just
before sunrise.

While each of the Unwearying stars has a cycle similar to that outlined
above, there are actually minor variations in the number of days between each
phase, depending on the star. The reason Sirius was singled out as the leader of
this group of stars is because it is the brightest star in the sky, it has a life cycle
with an exact number of days between phases, and the time between its annual
birth and rebirth is 365.25 days, identical to that of earth's rotation around the
sun.
With the stability of a unified Egypt came prosperity and during the
Old Kingdom Period (2700–2200 BC), the Nile Valley civilization reached
heights previously unknown among the human race. An important element of

12
this stability was continued reliance on the annual flood to ensure there would
be plentiful crops and a steady food supply in the coming year. This reliance on
the flood, and thus on the star Sirius, created a need for regular observation of
the stars.

Diagram showing the heliacal rise of Sirius in the early morning.

This task fell to a member of the priestly caste known as an hour-

watcher. These star priests had observation posts from the first cataract of the
Nile at Elephantine Island as far north as Heliopolis, and possibly all the way to
the Mediterranean Sea. Their job was to watch the night sky and report on the
movements of the stars to the temple, who then shared any necessary
information with the local government officials.
There are no written records from this early period of astronomical
observation, but we know it must have occurred because by 2500 BC, the
Egyptian calendar was in regular use. This calendar is not based on the rotation
of the earth around the sun, because the Egyptians did not fully understand the
heliocentric nature of the solar system. Instead, their calendar was based on the
annual 365-day life cycle of Sirius.
If a layperson were to look at the Egyptian calendar (aside from the fact
that is is written in hieroglyphics and virtually impossible for a layperson to
read) it bears little resemblance to the Gregorian calendar or even to the
comparatively ancient Julian calendar. The Egyptians laid out their year into 36
weeks of ten days each, with a single week of only five days between the end of
one year and the beginning of the next (the epagomenal days). They did not
account for the additional .25 (actually, .2422) fraction of a day, which later
calendars tried to correct with a leap-day every four years.
Each Egyptian 10-day week began with the heliacal rise of one of the
Unwearying stars. The calendar did not begin with the heliacal rise of Sirius, as
is generally believed. The rise of Sirius marked the last week of the year,

13
announcing the arrival of the new year and of the coming flood. It might be
thought of as the time between Christmas and New Year's Day.
If we consider the high importance placed by the Egyptians on the star
Sirius, then it comes as no surprise that they revered the star as a goddess. This
powerful goddess was named Sopdet (spdt), and she possessed many of the
traits of Egypt's gods: a 365-day lifespan like Rē, a birth-death-rebirth lifecycle
like Osiris, the brightest of her kind in the sky like Isis (as Venus, the brightest
planet), and her arrival brought the life-giving flood like Hapi.
The worship and reverence of Sopdet was at least as old as that of
Osiris, Rē, and Isis because she is mentioned prominently in the Pyramid Texts,
a collection of nearly 300 spells (or utterances). These texts, found on the inside
of 11 different pyramids from the Old Kingdom Period, were carved in stone
between 2400 BC and 2100 BC, making them humanity's oldest known religious
text. Contrary to popular belief, they were not reserved exclusively for the
pharaohs, but also appear in the tombs of at least five queens as well.
The primary function of the Pyramid Texts was to guide a deceased
person into the afterlife, but more than that, the spells would help the deceased
climb a stairway into the night sky where they would meet with Sopdet and join
their fellow gods as a star. It was not the physical body that took this journey,
but their ba (bA), the mobile manifestation of the soul. The Egyptians broke the
human condition into three separate parts:
• Ba (bA) - the mobile manifestation.
• Ka (kA)- the physical manifestation.
• Akh (AH)- quality of mind, the spirit.

The mummification process was especially important during the first

weeks following death, when the deceased was traveling through the
underworld, where Anubis would weigh their heart against the feather of Ma'at
(truth), and Osiris would judge their deeds after the 42 Lords of Creation had
listened to their negative confession (the bad things they did not do in life). If
the deceased survived all these trials, including walking upside down and
avoiding eating excrement and drinking urine, then they would have been
deemed worthy to ascend into the sky and take their rightful place among the
stars for all eternity.
It is true that some pharaohs in later dynasties wished to be joined with,
or accompany, Rē as a manifestation of the sun, but the vast majority of
Egyptians, including nobles, priests, and commoners, longed to have their ba
shining like a star over the earth after they had died. This becomes obvious
once one examines the Middle Kingdom Period Coffin Texts, which are far
more prevalent and widespread than the Pyramid Texts and lean even more
heavily on the deceased's relationship with the stars.
Sopdet's 70 days of invisibility, when the star was below the horizon

14
and could not be seen at night, created a connection between her and Osiris.
During this time of temporary death, the star was said to be resting in the Duat
(dwAt or dAt). Although there is no precise translation for this word, the Duat is
generally considered part of the underworld or afterlife, but even this definition
fails to truly capture its essence. Part of the difficulty we have in accurately
describing the Duat is that the conception of it changed and evolved over the
course of 3,000 years of Egyptian civilization. Texts from different periods
often do not align with one another, and sometimes outright disagree.
If we examine the Duat in the context of the stars, ignoring texts which
conflate it with a location underground, we discover a relatively cohesive picture
painted by the Coffin Texts. Rather than conjure images of lakes of fire or seas
of ice, the Duat was described as a place in the sky, or more specifically, behind
the sky. Imagine the night sky as a black curtain draped over the earth and the
stars move across this curtain each night. Behind the curtain, somewhat closer
to the earth, there was a murky, watery region where the gods went to find rest
after their period of work.
The Naos of the Decades depicts a god that has arrived in the Duat as
a recumbent mummy with the legend “Resting in the necropolis,” and invites
faithful followers to present requests for a beautiful burial. It should be
understood that the Duat was a desirable place for a god to be. Arriving there
meant they had accomplished their tasks and could now enjoy the equivalent of
vacation time.
According to Egyptian mummification manuals, when someone died,
they were not immediately embalmed and buried. Instead, the mortuary priests
took 70 days to perform an elaborate ritual mummification. Gory tales of the
brain being ripped out through the nose with a long hook and internal organs
being excised from the body have entertained school children for over a
century, and the gory details are true. But the actual process of mummification
was a carefully rehearsed ritual that walked the line between a medical
procedure and a religious ceremony.
This ritual took 70 days to complete by design. It does not actually take
70 days to mummify a human body. The process as undertaken by the
Egyptians could be accomplished in as little as 30 days, possibly even less under
the right burial conditions. Mummification rituals were extended to 70 days in
order to mimic the time spent by Sopdet resting in the Duat.
During this period, the body was emptied of most soft organs and
drained of fluid. It was filled with natron, a kind of natural combination of salt
and baking soda that is plentiful in deserts. The natron had to be changed out
about once a week until the body had been completely dessicated and dried out.
Any moisture remaining inside the cavity would pose a risk of decay once it had
been laid to rest in the tomb.
Through her influence over the mummification rites and her status as

15
guardian of the cosmic afterlife, Sopdet was intricately linked with the Egyptian
conception of death. The first written religious documents produced by
humanity, the Pyramid Texts, are also the first evidence we have of the goddess
Sopdet, but worship of her must have pre-dated the Pyramid Texts by hundreds
of years, and would continue until after the Roman conquest of Egypt when she
was syncretized with Isis and Demeter.
The prominence of Sopdet in the Pyramid Texts draws an important
link between her cult and the pyramids themselves. Although she is only
explicitly mentioned seven times in five separate spells, the ultimate goal of the
deceased is described as reaching Sopdet and becoming a star with eternal life,
as stated in Spell 302 from the Pyramid of Unas:

“Serene is the sky, Sopdet lives,

For it is Unas indeed who is a living star, the son of Sopdet.
The Two Enneads have purified themselves for him as Meskhetiu (the
Foreleg of Set), the Imperishable Stars.

The House of Unas which is in the sky will not perish,

the throne of Unas which is on earth will not be destroyed.

Mortals hide themselves, the gods fly up,

Sopdet has let Unas fly towards Heaven amongst his brothers,
the gods.”

Sopdet's association with pyramids in general is especially interesting

when one realizes that her name in hieroglyphics contains a pyramid, and
sometimes, just a single pyramid glyph was used. Also, on the Middle Kingdom
coffins, the goddess is depicted as a woman holding a wAs scepter with a
pyramid on her head. This strongly suggests that pyramids were considered the
physical embodiment of Sopdet, in the same way a feather was used symbolize
the goddess Ma'at, or a throne glyph the goddess Isis. These goddesses were
also frequently depicted with their symbols upon their heads, while the glyph
also represented them individually.
While the Giza Pyramids may have some connection to the worship of
Sopdet based solely on their pyramidal shape, there is scant evidence to
definitively prove such a relationship. However, there are a series of unusual
pyramids more concretely linked to the stellar cult of Sopdet, which may
suggest a common purpose of all pyramids throughout ancient Egypt.
Seven small pyramids located along the Nile River, commonly known
as “Minor Step Pyramids,” were built during the reign of Pharaoh Sneferu,
during the 4th Dynasty, likely around 2600 BC. Although these pyramids are all
in ruined condition, they are theorized to have been shaped with harsh upward

16
vertical steps, similar to the core of the Meidum Pyramid, which was the first
pyramid completed by Sneferu after the Step Pyramid of Djoser. These minor
step pyramids would have been built contemporarily with the Meidum Pyramid,
but likely were completed prior to the construction of the first true pyramid,
Sneferu's Red Pyramid.
The minor pyramids are significant because their purpose is not fully
understood. They were not used as tombs, and they are the only Egyptian
pyramids not oriented to the four cardinal directions. All major pyramids have
their four faces oriented north/south/east/west, but these seven minor
pyramids are oriented approximately 17° away from the cardinal directions.
One such minor pyramid that has been the subject of intense study and
speculation, is the Yebu Pyramid on Elephantine Island, near the city of Awsan
in southern Egypt. Throughout much of ancient history, Elephantine Island
marked the border between Upper Egypt and the Nubian desert to the south. It
is the location of the First Cataract of the Nile, a shallow, rocky part of the river
that is difficult to traverse by boat. This cataract served as a natural barrier to
prevent invaders from progressing further up the river into Egypt.
From ancient times, Elephantine Island was an important strategic
stronghold, but it was also vital to the Egyptian government and religion. The
island has been viewed as the hiding place of Hapi, a hermaphroditic fertility
god who released water from his subterranean cave underneath Elephantine.
Along with the worship of Hapi, the primordial god Khnum (xnmw), the potter
of men, was revered as creator of the Nile, and a temple dedicated to Khnum
and his wife Satet (STt) has existed on the island since the pre-dynastic era.
Elephantine Island contains two nilometers, which were used to gauge
the depth of the Nile River during the annual flood so the central government
could determine rates of taxation. If the waters were especially high or low in a
given year, they estimated the resulting harvest and adjusted the rate of taxation
accordingly. It is unusual for a temple to contain two nilometers, but this
perhaps reflects the unique relationship between Elephantine Island and the
Nile River.
Another unique feature of the island is the Yebu Pyramid. This was
built as a step pyramid that originally stood around 12 meters high with a
foundation 23.7 meters long. All that is left of this pyramid today is the first
level and the foundation, but research conducted by astronomer Juan Antonio
Belmonte shows that the pyramid was oriented with its southeast corner
pointing toward the horizon at an azimuth of 118°. According to author Manu
Seyfzadeh, this orientation points the corner of the pyramid, as well as its entire
east face, directly toward the area of sky where the star Sirius had its heliacal rise
during the Old Kingdom Period.
If true, it would explain why the Yebu Pyramid had been built on
Elephantine Island and why the minor step pyramids had collectively been built

17
at all. The timing of their construction, between the earlier step pyramid and the
later true pyramids, may shed some light on the purpose and function of
Egyptian pyramids as a whole, while solidifying their status as monuments of
the stellar cult of Sopdet.
Aside from her hieroglyphic name being a pyramid glyph, and her
presence in the Pyramid Texts, the pyramidal shape itself has strong ties to
Sopdet. The earliest pyramids were not smooth structures, but were, in fact,
shaped like a stairway. Although Babylonian ziggurats are often compared to the
Biblical Tower of Babel, pyramids like the Step Pyramid of Djoser literally serve
as a stairway up to the sky.

Step Pyramid of Djoser (author's photo)

There are numerous passages in the Pyramid Texts and the Coffin
Texts stating that the deceased will climb a stairway to heaven as the final phase
of their journey into eternal life.

Pyramid Text spell 267

“The earth is beaten into steps for him towards heaven,
that he may mount on it towards heaven,
and he rises on the smoke of the great fumigation.”

18
 Coffin Text spell 167
“The equipped spirit will go down safely
to the lotus-tank in front of Sah (sAH) in the southern sky on
every occasion at the place where Osiris is, at the stairway.”

Coffin Text spell 416

“The two portals are opened for me,
and I have gone up on the stairway.
I have stood on the sky with Maat.
I have found the Crew of Rē-Atum [the decans], and they said:
'Welcome! You say what is true, you see what is good,
so go up on the Stairway of Vindication,
for you are he who said that he would come.'”

Coffin Text spell 469

“My mother is Sopdet, and she prepares my path,
she sets up a stairway to this very great plain of Nenmut for my
ascent.”

Coffin Text spell 470

“O Sopdet, my soul, make my path ready, set up a stairway to
the great plain, for you are my mother, and Hu (Axw) is
where Sah issues (i.e. the sky).”

Coffin Text spell 510

“I will receive abundance,
I will travel to the great stairway
because of the Great Lady.”

Coffin Text spell 704

“I travel around in the northern sky, and praise is given to me.
A stairway to the sky is set up for me.”

The same gray granite used to build the Yebu Pyramid was also used to
create the King's Chamber, the uppermost chamber inside the Great Pyramid.
Why the Egyptians chose to haul this granite from the Aswan quarry 560 miles
north to Giza, when the rest of the Great Pyramid was made of local limestone,
remains a mystery. The largest granite blocks, weighing between 30 and 90 tons,
were used in the ceiling of the chamber and the layered “relieving chambers”
above it.
Sopdet's influence was widespread throughout Upper and Lower

19
Egypt, and her cult impacted virtually all aspects of Egyptian life:
mummification rites, burial texts, agriculture, the civil calendar, and possibly
even the architecture of Egypt's most enduring monuments. Veneration of the
goddess spanned from pre-dynastic times through the period of Roman rule,
when a Zodiac ceiling showing Sopdet syncretized with the cow goddess
Hathor was installed in the Temple of Dendera and Emperor Antoninus Pius'
reign marked the aligning of Sirius' heliacal rise with the start of the Egyptian
New Year.
If the pyramids were built to assist the deceased with climbing the
stairway to heaven and joining the decanal stars in the sky, this might help
explain why the Great Pyramid has three chambers at three separate levels: the
lower chamber representing the decan in the Duat, the Queen's chamber
representing the decan's heliacal rise (at the horizon), and the King's chamber
representing the decan's culmination at the highest point in the sky.
There are many mysteries surrounding the pyramids of the Giza
Necropolis, such as:

• Why were no mummies or grave goods found in any of the pyramids?

• Why do they contain no Pyramid Texts or other identifying
information?
• Why are there extensive funerary structures surrounding the pyramids?

The Sopdet worship theory doesn't explain all of these, but there are
differences between pyramids with Pyramid Texts and pyramids without. All
pyramids where texts were found also contained a designated sarcophagus room
and a room for grave goods. These texts and the later pyramids were clearly
intended for a single person: the person named in the texts who was laid to rest
inside the chamber. Many pyramids, including the Bent Pyramid, the Red
Pyramid, and all the Giza Pyramids, do not include any of these features, which
suggests these structures were not intended for a single person.
During the prosperity of the Old Kingdom, the pyramids were created
to fill a need: the desire of Egyptians to commune with the stars after death.
However, the early pyramids were not built for individuals, but they were
intended to function as a kind of “funerary Disneyland.” Under this system, a
wealthy noble could pay for the privilege of having their body placed inside a
pyramid at some point during the mummification process, likely after the body
had been mummified, but prior to the end of the 70 day period when the body
would be put into a tomb.
This concept is not all that different from the modern practice of
Laying in State, which is done in many countries after the death of a prominent
figure. In the United States, a deceased person of importance is placed under
the Capitol Rotunda for a few days after death, the first such case being Henry

20
Clay, a politician and Freemason who was laid in state in 1852. But the tradition
can be traced back much further, and clearly has its roots in ancient Egypt.
Starting in 68 AD, with the death of St. Mark, and continuing to the present
day, when a Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria dies, their
body is mummified and placed on display inside the cathedral before final
internment.
Every colossal structure ever created by human beings has been made
with two objectives in mind: public benefit and financial gain. Consider for a
moment the Empire State Building, the Great Wall of China, the Hoover Dam,
the Eiffel Tower, and even the International Space Station. These structures
share much in common with the Egyptian pyramids: they were extremely
expensive to build, required marvels of engineering to create, benefited the
public, and (with the exception of the space station) have generated massive
revenue for the civilizations that built them.
There is no example of a colossal building being constructed for the
sole benefit of a single person. Even the Taj Mahal, the most impressive tomb
ever constructed, was built by Emperor Shah Jahan, not for himself, but as a
monument to his wife. The Palace of Versailles, a byword for royal
extravagance, actually served as a capital building for the government of France,
while the king and his family had a wing of apartments for their private use.
Outside of Egypt, virtually every massive pyramid ever constructed by
human beings served a communal or financial function. The largest pyramids,
those built by Mesoamerican cultures, were erected as part of a temple complex
for rituals and ceremonies. In the modern era, pyramids are built exclusively to
make money: the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas, the Transamerica Pyramid in San
Francisco, and the Louvre Pyramid in Paris are the most famous examples. The
tallest pyramid ever built, the Ryugyong Hotel, constructed in 1987 by Kim Il-
Sung, an absolute dictator who ruled North Korea as a veritable pharaoh, was
made for commercial purposes.
Imagine if the United States decided to allow anyone to be laid in state
inside the Capitol building, provided they paid a sizable sum for the privilege.
Imagine the same offer being made by the present-day Egyptian government
for the privilege of being laid inside the Great Pyramid for a few hours after
death. There is no limit to the number of people who would be willing to fork
over serious cash to brag to their friends and family that their body is getting an
exceptional honor after they die. The Egyptian government would soon be
overwhelmed by requests for this treatment and would be compelled to open
the other pyramids to meet the demand.
This is exactly why the other Giza pyramids were built in the first place.
The ancient Egyptians didn't just want to brag to their friends, hoping their
family members might post some pictures of their body lying in the King's
Chamber on Instagram after they died. Egyptians in the Old Kingdom Period

21
believed in the religious significance of this experience with their whole hearts.
For them, death was not the end, but the beginning of a new phase of existence.
Egyptian religious doctrine dictated that the deceased would follow
Sopdet's pattern of annual death and rebirth for all eternity as a star, but the
body would also have to undergo the initial transformation from “dead human”
to “akh-spirit” living among his fellow stellar gods. It is even possible that the
body was physically moved from chamber to chamber in a ceremonial ritual
imitating this pattern. The vertical air shafts, then, would provide a narrow
passageway for the ba of the deceased to enter and exit during various phases of
the afterlife.
Later, smaller pyramids containing personalized Pyramid Texts were
built by wealthy and powerful pharaohs for themselves, and the names
associated with these structures only lend more evidence that they were
intended as a gateway to the stars:

• Pyramid of Djedefre: “Djedefre's Starry Sky”

• Pyramid of Sahure: “The rising of the ba-spirit of Sahure”
• Pyramid of Neferirkare: “The ba-spirit of Neferirkare”
• Pyramid of Baka: “Star of [the king]”

There is little debate that the builders of the pyramids were familiar
with the movements of the stars and advanced mathematical concepts. The
Giza pyramids are aligned with the cardinal directions, and this could only have
been accomplished by aligning their foundations using either the polar star, the
transits of stars Mizar and Kochab, or by a less-accurate shadow-line created by
the sun.
Embracing a theory that the pyramids were intended to connect
deceased rulers with Sopdet does not require accepting disputed fringe theories
suggesting the pyramids are 10,000 years old, that they were constructed by
aliens, or even that they are aligned with the stars of Orion. This theory has the
benefit of explaining many of the mysteries of the pyramids by using the oldest
known texts to extrapolate likely answers.

22
23
 Chapter Two
The Decans
Living Stars With Tousled Hair

While she was the brightest and most important star in the sky, Sopdet
was not alone. Egyptian star priests studying her movements soon discovered
companion stars that followed and preceded Sirius as she journeyed across the
night sky. These stars had a similar cycle of life, death, and rebirth. They moved
along the same region of the sky as Sopdet, they were brighter than the
surrounding stars, and they held special significance to the Egyptians.
These stars were known by many names, including:

• Unwearying Ones - (ixm.w-wrD)

• The Gods - (nTr.w)
• The Living - (anx.w)
• The Disheveled - (nwn)
• With Tousled Hair - Sepesou (spsw.w)
• The Primordials - (pAwty)
• The Workers - (bAkw)
• The Guides of Rē
• The Envoys of Thoth

They are most commonly known today by their Greek name, “the
decans,” from the Greek word dekanos, meaning “tenths.” Egyptian reverence
for these stars long predates the arrival of the Greeks, and can be definitively
attested as far back as the Pyramid Texts, but possibly all the way to the pre-
dynastic period in 3100 BC or earlier.
The Greek name dekanos was assigned to the Unwearying Ones
primarily due to their use in creating the Egyptian calendar, which broke the
year into 36 weeks of ten days for a 360-day year, with five additional days of
festivals added at the end. This division of the year into tenths, and the
connection of each week to the heliacal rise of a specific star, encouraged the
Greek astrologers to find a way to incorporate the Egyptian system into their
own Babylonian-Hellenistic Zodiac.
Syncretizing the different forms of astrology proved to be

24
mathematically simple. There are 36 weeks, with one decan assigned to each,
and twelve signs of the Zodiac. The Greeks aligned three decans to each Zodiac
sign, based on when the star had its heliacal rise, and the new system was
deemed complete. To really understand the decanal astrology practiced by the
Egyptians, it is important to start with the earliest sources, those created prior to
Greek or even Persian influence.
Decanal stars form the basic foundation of Egyptian astrology, and
hence, are a precursor to Western astrology. Although this is not a popular
theory among Egyptologists, it is the entire premise of this book. But what is a
decan and why did the Egyptians place so much importance on them?
The most basic definition of a decan is: a single bright star, or small
group of stars, used by the ancient Egyptians to track the weeks of the year and
the hours of the night. It is important to distinguish these stars from the
constellations of the Zodiac. The decans are not constellations, and although
they can be grouped together, they do not form connect-the-dots pictures in the
sky in the manner of Zodiac constellations (with the notable exception of the
Sah grouping, which makes up the constellation of Orion). The decanal stars are
also unrelated to the current astrological term “decan” meaning divisions of the
night sky into 10° segments.
Modern scientists, from astronomers and astrophysicists, to
archaeologists and mathematicians, have struggled to understand ancient
Egyptians' relationship with celestial bodies. Their struggle will continue
indefinitely because to truly view the sky the way the Egyptian star priests did, it
is vital to view it through the lens of astrology and the Egyptian religion.
When the ancient Egyptians looked up into the night sky, they did not
see luminous spheroids of plasma fusing hydrogen into helium in a
thermonuclear reaction. They saw the shining, living souls of primordial gods
moving above them, influencing events on earth as they rose, culminated,
descended, disappeared, and were reborn over the course of a year.
The full story of the gods of the decans had only been hinted at
obliquely throughout Egyptian history. A few decans were mentioned by name
in the Old Kingdom Period Pyramid Texts. During the Middle Kingdom
Period, detailed lists of decans were drawn as charts on the inside of coffin lids
in the region of Asyut. The Coffin Texts from this period describe many of the
decans, even including illustrations of a few, such as Sopdet and her consort
Sah. By the New Kingdom Period, they were featured on elaborate
astronomical ceilings, accompanied by depictions of Nut (nwt), the goddess of
the night sky.
Despite the prevalence of ancient texts about the decans, there is
precious little contemporary literature explaining why the Egyptians cared about
these stars. For most of the history of Egyptology, scholars could find no
definitive narrative of the decans, no textual mythology telling the story of their

25
origin and development. Other Egyptian gods, such as Osiris, Horus, Rē, Isis,
and Set, had firmly established myths that could be studied to learn more about
the gods and how their stories influenced Egyptian society.
This changed when a French team led by underwater archaeologist
Franck Goddio discovered the missing pieces of the Naos of the Decades
submerged and buried in the coastal waters of the Mediterranean Sea near
Alexandria. A naos is a stone shrine that was kept inside a temple. The center of
the shrine had a niche where a statue of a god, to whom the naos was dedicated,
would be placed as part of the worship ceremony. These shrines were usually
carved from bottom to top with dense lines of hieroglyphic spells, making the
naos a powerful tool in rituals.
The Naos of the Decades was well known to Egyptologists. The top
piece had been recovered by a French expedition in 1818 and has remained on
continuous display in the Louvre since that time. In 1940, nearly 100 years later,
additional fragments were found by Prince Omar Toussoun, the honorary
president of the Royal Archaeology Society of Alexandria. Unfortunately, the
prince died in 1944 before the true significance of his find could be realized.
Two brothers, the famous Egyptologists Labib and Banoub Habachi, studied
the fragments carefully until they were able to compare their piece with the
piece in the Louvre in 1950.
Then, in 2004, Franck Goddio pulled the final pieces from Aboukir
Bay, where they had laid submerged for 2,000 years. These pieces were
translated by Dr. Anne-Sophie von Bomhard and in 2008, the complete story of
the decans—their origin, their purpose, and how they were utilized by the
ancient Egyptians—could finally be told. This full narrative of the decans is
published here for the first time in English.

Top of the Naos of the Decades (Louvre Museum)

26
 Atum self-created the universe by mating with his own fist, and the
murky waters of Nun covered primeval space. There was chaos in the watery
darkness. The Ogdoad, the first eight gods, existed across the universe their
unknowable forms: invisible, infinite, dark, and wet. Then Shu, the god of
moisture, raised his arms with an explosive gesture and lifted the goddess Nut
upward where she became the night sky. Geb was pushed downward and
became the earth. Thus, the son and daughter of Shu were divided above and
below him, while Shu himself filled the air with moisture, allowing the winds to
blow through him.
Other primordial gods began their work: Hathor, the cow, birthed and
nourished other gods. Sopdet made the Nile flood, bringing fertile silt to the
land of Egypt. Khnum created humanity, using the primordial clay from Geb's
body, fashioning people on his potter's wheel. Ptah bestowed intellectual
thought to creation. Thoth showed humanity how to write. Four successive
generations of gods were born. Among these was Rē, the sun god, who
separated light from darkness, ruling over the earth, upholding Ma'at and
protecting truth from chaos.
The final division created by Shu was the separation of life from death
for mortals, animals, and even gods themselves. Now warfare, diseases, and
bloodshed became possible across the cosmos. “Thus creation was done.” (xpr
sw)
After the primordial gods, these “gods of the origin” (pAwtyw tpyw),
had finished the work of creation, they sat idle while the younger gods, led by
Rē, ruled over all that they had created. The ancient primordials, restless with
nothing left to create, like an architect after the house is built, rebelled against
Rē's authority, wishing to assume power for themselves.
The sun god battled against them and emerged victorious. He grabbed
the defeated rebels by their hair and held them tightly together with one hand so
they could do no further harm. Because Rē held their hair, they are sometimes
called “those with tousled hair” or “the disheveled.” Rē raised his other arm
over his head, smiting the defeated rebels, securing his victory over them. The
bodies of the primordial gods were taken to the slaughterhouse and chopped
into 36 pieces.
In a separate myth, this was the same fate that befell Set after he had
been defeated by Horus. As punishment for his rebellion and overthrow of
Osiris, Set transformed into a sacrificial red ox. His foreleg (xpS) was cut off
and thrown into the sky where it became Meskhetiu (Msxtyw), a group of seven
stars in the northern sky (likely either Ursa Major or Ursa Minor). The foreleg
was not only a protective god, it was a lasting symbol of power and strength,
especially of strength in the afterlife. Thousands of blue or red foreleg amulets
have been found wrapped in the bandages of mummies across all periods of
Egyptian history, and drawings of Msxtyw feature prominently alongside the

27
decanal stars in the Middle Kingdom Period coffins.
After the rebels had been butchered, Rē looked eastward and told
Thoth about a hidden necropolis, to the right of the mound of jujube, which is
called “The House for Locks of Hair.” (pr iArt). In this house of the east, Rē
ordered Thoth to construct a temple where the ba spirits of the deceased
primordials would reside. He decreed that they would hold power over life and
death, that they will “come from heaven to earth, being the ones who shall fix
the destiny of those below. Accomplishing their tasks of warfare, governing
activity in heaven, on earth, and in the Duat, even controlling the seas and the
weather.”
The sun god then put the Majestic Shu at their head, and made him
responsible for guiding their movements. Shu controlled the winds to propel
“the great living bas” through the body of Nut each night where their souls
would be purified and their bodies (Xt) regenerated. In the darkness of space,
their disheveled, tousled hair shone from their heads like a halo of light, a
constant reminder of their rebellion and a warning to the other gods.
Because even the amputated parts of the primordials possessed so
much power, Rē only allowed each of them rulership over a single ten-day
period of the year (a single Egyptian week). During the other weeks of the year,
these living gods would work as “Guides of Rē,” traveling with the solar barque
through the sky each night, accompanying Rē as he sailed through the body of
Nut, fighting off the snake of chaos before emerging on the horizon in the
morning.
When their period of work was finished, the gods found rest in the
Duat for 70 days before it was their turn to rule again. At their rebirth, they
appeared on the eastern horizon, just prior to sunrise (their heliacal rise). During
this time, the reborn star's first duty was announcing Rē's arrival before
assuming their role policing the universe and fixing our destiny as “Envoys of
Thoth.”
The idea that a hacked off piece of a god still contains divine power in
its own right may have originated in ancient Egypt, likely with the story of
Osiris, who was chopped into 14 pieces by Set. These body parts were scattered
across Egypt, only to be found and assembled by Isis and Nephthys. By most
accounts of the myth, Isis copulated with Osiris' disembodied penis and became
pregnant with Horus, the son who would ultimately grow to avenge his father's
death.
Reverence of divine body parts continues to the present day in the
form of religious relics. The toe of Saint Francis Xavier, hair from Muhammad's
beard, or even the burial shroud of Jesus are all held by believers to have
miraculous powers. The amputated parts of the primordials, like the Foreleg of
Set, possessed the same divinity as the whole god.
The origin story found on the Naos of the Decades explains why many

28
of the decans have names that suggest they were broken into parts, such as
“Upper Arm of Sah” (rmn Hry sAH), “Hind Part of the Sheep” (Xry xpd srt),
“[Back] End of the Crane” (pHwy DAt), or “The Horn” (smd). These various
parts can then be grouped together, but this grouping is not done in the same
connect-the-dots manner as constellations. The grouping of the decans into
pseudo-constellations is a hotly debated topic among Egyptologists, and there is
so little agreement about this subject that most researchers tend to create and
publish their own unique list.
When considering the groups of decanal stars, they should be thought
of as concepts, rather than actual constellations, which, by our modern definition,
would be picture-groups of stars that appear together in the sky. These decans
appeared next to each other, one after another, in the sky each night throughout
the course of the year. This made it easy for Egyptians to link the individual
decans to weekly events on earth, such as religious festivals, making the
individual star more important than the overall group of stars they were
associated with—a totally different way of looking at the sky than is done by
modern astrologers.
If the decans are grouped by name, the order in which they appear,
with knowledge of the significance of their particular week in the Egyptian
calendar, and keeping in mind that these represent the dismembered bodies of
primordial gods, a coherent list emerges rather quickly:

• The Cow (decans 1-3)

• The Crane (decans 4-7)
• The Twins (decans 8 & 9)
• Khentet (decans 10 - 13)
• The Boat (decans 14 - 17)
• The Sheep (decans 18 - 22)
• The Two Souls (decans 23 - 25)
• Khentu (decans 26 & 27)
• The Potter (decans 28 - 30)
• Sah (decans 31 - 34)
• Sopdet (decans 35 & 36)

Admittedly, there can be overlap between some of the decans in their

groups. For example, on the astronomical ceiling of Senmut, the decans of the
boat group clearly include the last decan of Khentet (The Red One of Khentet)
and the first decan of the sheep (Predecessor of the Horn). The creator of
Senmut's ceiling may have had an excellent reason for this, for example, the
astrological meaning behind these two errant decans actually fits nicely with the
overall concept behind the boat. The scribe's true motivation is unknown at the

29
present time, but the fact remains that a decan named “Predecessor of the
Horn” has little to do with a boat and a lot to do with a sheep. It should be
noted that on the ceiling of Seti I's tomb, these same decans are grouped
according to the list provided above.
Speaking of lists...
Egyptologists, starting with Otto Neugebauer and Richard Parker, have
spent nearly a century attempting to derive a clearer understanding of the
decans by creating lists of names. The more one researches this subject, the
more arbitrary these lists become. Even side-by-side comparison of the lists,
while showing differences, proves to be of little analytical value.
These lists of decans will be familiar to Egyptologists, who have finally
started to abandon the old system of decanal lists created by Neugebauer and
Parker in favor of creating lists oriented by content, time period, geographic
location, or type of medium where the decan names were first discovered (e.g.
coffin lids, tomb ceilings, or temple ceilings).
The name lists include: T-List and K-List, Set I-A, B, and C Lists, the
Tanis Family, etc. By the time volume three of Egyptian Astronomical Texts had
been published in 1969, nine years after volume one was released, even
Neugebauer and Parker themselves must have started to understand the basic
futility of these lists, because they included a chapter titled “Miscellaneous
Lists.”
The very fact that the decans resisted classification should have been a
signal that each depiction of the decans, from coffins to tombs, was designed
for the specific individual inside that coffin or tomb, and not pulled from a
mysterious master list of decans on a papyrus that has yet to materialize. In
EAT Volume III, When Neugebauer and Parker raised the question, “Were such
lists of any practical use?” they hastened to insist that the decan lists did have
utility to the Egyptian star priests, before concluding that they have “not the
slightest bit of real evidence to substantiate this suggestion.”
Part of the difficulty in classifying the decans into meaningful lists or
groups is the fact that there seem to be dramatic differences in the decans from
source to source, yet points of strong coherence, even across vast stretches of
time. Remember, the Egyptian religion existed for over 3,000 years, and lists of
decans began appearing in 2100 BC before dying out in the early first century
AD. This gives us a time range of 2,000 years to work with.
The mere fact that the general order of the decans was consistent
during this entire span of time is rather remarkable and helps ground the
endeavor to understand these stars in reality. This is not like a listing of angels
or demons, spirits of the aether whose name, description, and characteristics
change from source to source according to author's religion and their own
flights of whimsy. These stars were real. They behaved in specific, repetitive
motions that made them observable and useful in the context of the Egyptian

30
religion.
To view the decans as the ancient Egyptians did, we must discard
modern lists and look at the decans holistically. This word is defined by the
Oxford Dictionary as “comprehension of the parts of something as intimately
interconnected and explicable only by reference to the whole.” It is one of the
first words a freshman Anthropology major learns, because to study humanity,
we must look at humans as a whole: culture, language, technology, and biology.
The decans must be studied from the same perspective: their significance to
religion, their use to the civil government, and how they were presented in
artifacts, while never forgetting that these are physical objects floating in space.
A holistic study of the decans should begin by determining how many
decans actually exist. Surely, a comprehensive listing of decans can not include
all the stars in the sky, “the starry” as described in Medieval astrology texts,
which included anything bright besides planets, moons, or comets. Ancient
Egyptians could not see distant galaxies, and despite the relative clarity of a
pollution-free night sky, there are many stars included in modern catalogs that
would have been too dim to see with the naked eye.
The number of decans is generally set at 36 due to their alignment with
the 36 weeks of the Egyptian calendar. Also, one of the earliest sources of the
decans, the double sarcophagus of Nomarch Mesehti (MsHt), discovered in
1893 in Asyut, contains the legend, “Total of those who are in their places, the
Gods of the sky, 36,” at the end of a chart of decans. With a firm declaration
such as this, we should readily conclude that there are, in fact, only 36 decans.
However, things are not quite so simple. While it states there are 36
Gods of the sky, the chart on Nomarch Mesehti's coffin contains a total of 45
decans. Egyptologists have attempted to reconcile this discrepancy by creating
ever-expanding and cumbersome classifications of decans, like Rumpelstiltskin
turning straw into gold at his spinning wheel: Primary decans, Ordinary decans,
Triangle decans, Transit decans, Rising decans, False decans, Pocket decans, and
even (heaven help us!) Nondecans. To quote Dr. Sarah Symons, “schemas which
take all elements into account have become cluttered by more recently
published sources.”
But there is hope in creating a definitive list of decans that may be
quantified for better understanding. The Naos of the Decades provides a great
clue for how the Egyptians worked with the decans. It is unique in that it does
not list any names of the decans, but only gives the name of a week along with
what influence the decans are having over that week. This suggests that there
was not a set, specific list of decans that had to be rigidly observed across all
periods of Egyptian history.
Even the naos, which has the calendar of decanal rises carved in stone,
includes one additional decan to rule over the five epagomenal days at the end
of the year, meaning the total number of decans had to be, at the very least, 37

31
instead of 36. No source from any period contains exactly 36 decans, with the
majority of sources having more decans rather than less (not accounting for
damage where decans may have been lost, but were present in the original
source).
So, how many decans were observed by the ancient Egyptians?
In EAT III, Neugebauer and Parker propose a comprehensive list of
100 decans; although, bearing in mind that these are not just fictitious names,
but actual objects, their list contains duplications and can be further condensed.
For example, the decan Weshati Bekati (wSAty bkAty) is generally agreed to be a
combination of the individual decans Weshati and Bekati. This makes better
sense when the names are translated (“The Pregnant Twins”) and consideration
is given to the placement of the two stars beside one another in the sky.
If the decans were utilized by the ancient Egyptians to keep track of the
year, starting with the heliacal rise of Sirius, such a system would be out of
alignment within a few years due to the 1/4th of a day difference between the
365 day Egyptian calendar and the 365.24 actual solar year. To correct the
discrepancy, some decans would need to be added every few years, and the lists
would be rearranged. All existing evidence makes periodic rearrangement of the
decan lists highly likely.
Dr. Symons suggests that a total of 73 decans would be necessary to
keep the star cycle synchronized with the solar cycle. It does not take a trained
mathematician to realize the Egyptians had this number in mind: 36 x 2 = 72
decans for the weeks of the year, +1 for the five epagomenal days, giving a final
number of 73. This number allowed the star priests flexibility when observing
the night sky.
If we remove duplicates from Neugebauer and Parker's list, while
embracing Symons' proposal that a certain number of decans are mathematically
necessary to accomplish their role as calendar-keepers, the total number of
decans becomes settled nicely at 73. These may be called “primary,” “ordinary,”
“main sequence,” or whatever other designation a researcher desires.
While 73 stars were utilized as decans, only 36 were recognized as
ruling over a given year. This theory conveniently ties together the evidence
from all existing sources and permits logical space for all named decans to work
together across the entire span of 2,000 years. It is hardly a coincidence that
later Hermetic astrologers in Medieval Europe broke the sky into 72 parts and
assigned a celestial deity to rule over each division, with five days (March 15, 16,
17, 18, and 19) inexplicably missing from their astrological calendar.
Scholars who have studied the decanal lists have tried to explain why
no source has exactly the same composition. Even within the same period, the
Middle Kingdom coffin lids, for example, no two sources contain an identical
listing of decans. Most scholars account for this by writing off the differences as
“scribal errors,” and this term has become the equivalent of a Get Out of Jail

32
Free card for Egyptologists who have reached the end of their scientific
methodology and still failed to explain the nature and function of the decans
with a theory that has no holes.
By applying the principle of Ockham's razor to the decanal lists, the
simplest explanation with the fewest moving pieces is:

1. Lists were unique to their source. A chart of decans on the

underside of a coffin was making a different statement than a decan list
in a Book of Nut, or a decanal zodiac on the ceiling of a temple.
2. Lists were unique to a person. The high degree of individuality
strongly suggests that these lists were made for individuals.
3. Lists were constructed using non-scientific methods. Modern
astrophysicists and mathematicians have been unable to take the lists as
they are and match them to actual movements of stars in the sky,
meaning the decans were used for astrology rather than pure
astronomy.

Theories #1 and #2 shall be covered in greater depth in later chapters.

With regard to theory #3, the Naos of the Decades provides concrete evidence
that the Egyptians did not just use the decans for tracking time, but they
interpreted the stars according to their own, heretofore unknown, astrological
system. In the naos, each week of the year is listed along with events that will
occur on earth during that week as a result of the influence of the ruling decan.
The belief that stars in the sky have an impact on our lives is the basic definition
of astrology, and the naos is devoted to explaining this impact in detail.
Another feature of the naos that appears to be unique is its depiction of
the decans in the five phases of their life cycle. Many previous texts, especially
the Book of Nut, explain that the decanal stars live, die, and are reborn after a
period of rest. However, the Naos of the Decades explicitly draws out the five
phases as five illustrated forms taken by the decanal god as it moves through the
course of a year.
The five forms are:

• Ba Bird: Birth = 10 day heliacal rise

• Sphinx: Rise = 80 days
• Lion-Headed Ram: Culmination and working = 120 days
• Standing Mummy: Descent = 90 days
• Reclining Mummy: Death in the Duat = 70 days

This concept of transformation may help explain why the decans were
often depicted in different forms. The various zodiacs on the ceilings of the
Dendera temple illustrate the decanal gods as snakes, as lion-headed figures, as

33
human-headed figures, and in barques sailing across the sky, all within the same
temple complex. Transformation and the ability of a god to take on different
forms according to circumstances is a fundamental concept in Egyptian religion.
Sopdet herself, a well-established deity, has been depicted as a human goddess,
a cow, or a falcon. The iconography of Rē includes a scarab beetle, a human
with a falcon head, a cat, a bull, or even just a simple red ball, among many
others.
In addition to the weekly influence each decan has over events on earth
during its heliacal rise, the decans exert different kinds of influence during their
five phases.

• Birth: Time to give offerings and make requests

• Rise: Becomes the Lord of Combat. Causes the death of evil doers.
• Culmination: Becomes the Lord of Life. Gives life during this time.
• Descent: Time to present offerings to the temple.
• Death: The decan is resting in the necropolis. Time to request a
beautiful burial.

This means that at any given moment in time, one decan is in falcon
form, another is a sphinx, and so the rest are in their various forms. Even the
invisible decans, below the horizon in the Duat, are still having an impact. The
same may be said for these stars during the day. Despite not being visible due to
the overwhelming light of the sun, the Egyptians were still able to track the
positions of the stars thanks to their centuries of observation and their
understanding of celestial mechanics. All the decans were moving and serving a
purpose all the time.
The texts found on the Naos of the Decades reinforce the theory that
astrology is much older than our current line of thinking, which places early
development of astrology and horoscopes in Persia around 1800 BC. It should
be expressly noted that academic literature doesn't consider the astronomical
observations of the ancient Egyptians (or other, even older Neolithic cultures)
to be proper astrology.
Research into the decans has long been impeded by the scientific quest
to identify the specific stars that were held to be decans by the Egyptians. In
recent times, astrophysicists have been able to conveniently utilize powerful
astronomy software that allows them to calculate and recreate a precise view of
the sky at any point and place in history. Numerous scientists have put the lists
of decans into their software, crunched the numbers, and returned the probable
identities of these stars.
There is one major problem: these scientists are unable to arrive at the
same conclusions. Even the uniquely qualified team of Lull and Belmonte were
unable to agree with 100% confidence between themselves as to the definitive

34
identities of the decanal stars. Other equally competent, but less academically
credentialed, authors on the topic, such as Joanne Conman, have faced equal
difficulty in gaining broad acceptance for their proposed list of decan stars.
While powerful astronomy calculators, combined with the mathematics
of modern astrophysics, were expected to put the issue of decan star
identification to rest once and for all, their use has only succeeded in creating
multiple competing lists that refuse to be reconciled with one another. That is
to say the research has not improved in a meaningful way since Neugebauer and
Parker's in the 1950s.
A few of the decanal stars have been identified at an above average
confidence level, but the majority of decans will likely never be conclusively
linked to known stars. A small handful of decans can be identified with almost
absolute certainty, but this has been possible by examining the decans in the
context of the Egyptian religion and astrological texts. These decans are:

• Sopdet: Sirius
• The Sah Group: Stars of Orion
• Khau: The Pleiades
• Kenmet: Regulus

In Egyptian Astronomical Texts: Volume II, Neugebauer and Parker

acknowledged the folly of trying to equate the decans with specific stars: “It
cannot be too strongly emphasized that all attempts to deal with these texts as if
they were reliable astronomical observations in order to deduce from them
identifications of Egyptian constellations are doomed to failure.” This, despite
the fact that they, themselves, attempted to date the decan lists based on the
heliacal risings of certain stars.

35
 Chapter Three
The 36 Gods of the Sky

This chapter examines the decans individually in their context as

celestial gods. As discussed in the previous chapter, there are more than 36
decans (even this chapter will cover more than 36 decans). Those decans that
were selected for increased scrutiny here share some common traits: there is
literature concerning them in the Pyramid Texts and Coffin Texts, they are
grouped with decans of a similar name, and they appear across many different
sources spanning a broad length of time (Old Kingdom to Roman Period).
Egyptian Astronomical Texts: Volume III provides a fairly comprehensive
“Catalogue of Decans” beginning on page 157, but the information given for
each decan is sparse. What follows here is an attempt to collate as much detail
about each decan as can be reasonably gleaned from all available primary
sources, with preference given to sources that predate the Graeco-Roman
period.
It is not enough to study textual evidence about the decans; to
understand them as the ancient Egyptians did, the researcher must veer ever so
gently from the path of hard science and become immersed in the mythology of
the decans with all its attendant speculations.
Egyptian calendar dates were sourced from the Naos of the Decades.
Associated minerals for each decan are from the Dendera A and Dendera D
zodiacs as listed in EAT III, based on interpretations from J.R. Harris. Where a
mineral is listed as “unknown,” it was not listed in EAT. Where a mineral is
“presumed,” the mineral was not listed, but its identity is speculated based on
available evidence, primarily, the mineral associations of other decans in its
group. Pronunciations are adapted from an invaluable website hosted by the
McMaster University department of Physics and Astronomy (address listed in
bibliography), with gratitude and special acknowledgment to Dr. Sarah Symons
for her work in creating and maintaining the site.
The translations and transliterations of the decan names provided here
are primarily derived from existing academic literature. Where existing
scholarship was hesitant to provide a translation, the author has translated them
himself using Gardiner's dictionary in context with other decanal texts. Because
the decanal names were identified by varying hieroglyphics across sources and
time periods, the hieroglyphic name given here is one considered generally

36
representative. The McMaster University website contains redrawings of
hieroglyphics from nearly all sources for each decan, a truly impressive feat.
Descriptions of the abilities of the decans from the Naos of the
Decades are the combined work of Leitz, von Bomhard, and the Habachi
brothers, with some translations revised by the author. Astrological information
is provided by the Cairo Calendar and various texts.

37
Decan 1
Transliteration: Tepy-a Kenmet (tep-ee-ah ken-met)
Translation: Predecessor of the Cow
Egyptian Name: tpy-a knmt
Egyptian Calendar Dates: I Akhet 1-10

Decan Group: The Cow

Astrological Meaning: New Beginnings and Jubilation
Mineral: Unknown

38
 Tepy-a Kenmet, the first decan, welcomes the Egyptian New Year.
This was a time of great celebration for Egyptian society, with numerous feasts
occurring during the entire week of I Akhet 1. They were celebrating the arrival
of the season of inundation, when the Nile River began to rise, as promised
during the final week of the previous year by the appearance of the 36 th decan,
Sopdet.
The name may be intended to be translated as, literally, “the head of the
cow,” which would fit with the description of the decans as body parts of the
primordial gods, but the tepy-a (tpy-a )hieroglyphics generally mean
“predecessor” or “one before,” conceivably describing the front part of a cow,
serving to balance out the third decan, which references the hind part of the
cow.
This decan is found on at least three coffin lids from Asyut, where it
follows Sopdet and precedes Kenmet. Whenever it is found in a source, Tepy-a
Kenmet displaces the Children of Kenmet decan (sAwy knmt). In the Book of
Nut, it has three star circles associated with it. The only known illustrated figure
of the decan, as pictured here, is found in the tomb of Senmut, where it is
depicted as a human god leading the astronomical procession.
A majority of sources place Tepy-a Kenmet under the authority of the
deities Hapi and Imseti, while only three tombs place him under Geb. However,
two of these tombs, Pillared Chamber F of Rameses V/VI (KV9) and Burial
Chamber J of Rameses VII (KV1), feature the decan under Hapi and Imseti on
the south part of the chamber, where it is grouped with other decans, but under
Geb on the north-side, where it is grouped with the Ramesside Star Clocks in
the same chambers. The rationale for putting Tepy-a Kenmet under Geb, the
god of the earth, on these specific occasions may indicate that the star was
under the horizon in the Duat during the date indicated by the star clock.
According to the Naos of the Decades, this god brings death to the
Nubians and causes massacres of the nomads of the east. It brings the fever of
the hyw spirits (digestive demons) and the dHrt-mw spirits (germs borne on the
air or in the soil). A person who is a victim of this god's foul breath is like one
suffering from sweating fever. The victims of this god's massacre are the cattle
of the desert.
The hyw spirits and dHrt-mw spirits are likely connected with the anthrax
bacterium, which lives in the soil. Anthrax is contracted by livestock who ingest
the spores of the bacterium while grazing, then transfer it to the humans
handling them. It is extremely common in Africa, and was known to the
Egyptians and the Greeks. The pathogen is usually inhaled through the lungs or
caused by eating the meat of an infected animal, causing a fever and black
blisters, leading to death. Anthrax is speculated to have been the fifth of the ten
plagues of Egypt spoken of in the Bible, and it may have been an anthrax
mosquito that bit Lord Carnarvon during the opening of King Tut's tomb.

39
Decan 2
Transliteration: Kenmet (ken-met)
Translation: The Cow or Darkness
Egyptian name: knmt
Egyptian Calendar Dates: I Akhet 11-20

Decan Group: The Cow

Astrological Meaning: Development and Growth
Mineral: Garnet

40
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Johnny and Joan came out from the galley. Joan said:
"Mama, I'm hungry."
Marcia laughed. "We never did have that picnic, Burt."
"Uh-huh. You're right—so we didn't. But this damn asteroid almost
did—on us."
"Papa," Johnny said, "let's land someplace and have a picnic."
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"Burt! Then you wonder why Johnny curses. Just watch your
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have a nice meal at home. But no more picnics, ever. I'll take the
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Burt sighed. He knew he could get away with it this week-end. But
later on in the month—or certainly next month—there would be more
picnics.
 *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PICNIC ***

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