Capricornus 9

The Story

The God PanThe Sea Goat is associated with the Greek God Pan. Pan the son of the Messenger of the Gods, Hermes. He was the lusty god of the countryside, associated with fertility and fecundity. Pan loved music and invented the Pipes of Pan, which you can think of as an ancient version of the harmonica. Pan spent his time chasing females or sleeping off the aftermath of a binge. Pan was the good time party god!

The Pipes of PanThe way that the Pipes came about was as a result of the lust of Pan for the nymph Syrinx. To escape his attentions, the nymph changed herself into a stand of reeds. As Pan grabbed for her, he found himself clutching only a handful of reeds. Pan was disappointed at losing his chance at the nymph, but was enchanted by the sound of the wind blowing through the reeds. So he selected reeds of different lengths and fastened them together with wax to create the Pipes of Pan, which became known as a "syrinx" in honor of the nymph who had inspired their creation.

Pan the ShouterPan had an extremely loud voice. He could terrify people with a shout. In fact, the word "panic" is in fact derived from the name of the god.
The Goat GodPan was a hairy guy with the lower body of a goat, including cloven hooves, while the short horns of a goat grew out of his head. Actually he probably looked rather like the Christian picture of the Devil, except than Pan was not red in color. Possibly there is a relationship between the two entities. Pan was the god of the countryside, and the country dwellers, the farmers and peasants who spent their lives laboring at the soil. And it was these rural people who were the last in the Roman world to give up the ancient pagan religions for the new religion of Christianity. Indeed the very word "pagan" derives from a Latin word meaning nothing more than a country dweller.

So the early Christians must have seen the countryside as hostile to the Christian God and His Son. It is then not surprising that the god of the farmers and peasants should have been turned into the image of the Christian God's enemy, the Devil.
The Fishy GoatThe constellation of the Sea Goat is usually portrayed as the forequarters of a goat emerging from the tail of fish - a strange combination! Actually what we are supposed to be seeing is Pan in midtransformation between his normal goatlike form and the form of a fish. The ancient gods could transform themselves at will.

The Monster Born of a Cosmic WarThe shape of the Sea Goat commemorates an incident in the cosmic battle between the Titans, the elder generation of gods, and the younger gods, the compatriots of Pan, led by Zeus. In a vicious and destructive ten year war the younger gods overthrew their elders to take control of the cosmos. The very earth herself, Mother Gaia, was so outraged by the violence and destruction that she brought forth the terrible monster Typhon, a monster so powerful and uncontrollable that it could even threaten the gods with destruction.

Swimming Away From DangerThe gods were taken by surprise by the approach of the monster. At the last minute, Pan shouted a warning and suggested that the various gods disguise themselves as various animals in order to hide from the monster. Pan himself took to the river to hide in the form of a fish. In the Sea Goat we see the god being transformed but because of the rush, he did not succeed in completing the transformation. Only his rear was transformed. The front part of him remained in the form of a goat.

Capturing the MonsterLater Zeus grappled with the monster Typhon. He was severely injured in the fight, but Pan and Hermes working together succeeded in restoring Zeus to his powers, so that Zeus was able to cut down the monster with thunderbolts and to confine it deep within the earth underneath the slopes of Mount Etna. The earthquake and eruptions of that volcanic mountain are due to the restless Typhon still snorting fire and struggling against the bounds of its confinement.

Capricornus 8

Recent reference to the fact that the large disk with the eight symbols inside are Decan stars. Therefore it is one of the 36 characters around the circle of the Denderah zodiac. So every ten degrees the stars identified by the glyph is reactive. E. C. Krupp states that the images around the perimeter are definitely decan stars only nobody knows which ones are which stars.

A third hypothesis of the meaning of the symbol:

There are two companies of gods associated with the Ben-ben, the mysterious object of Ra that was kept at his temple in the city of An (Heliopolis, Biblical On). They "are those who possess the mystery," guarding it inside the Het-Benben (The Ben-ben House); and eight who guard outside but also "enter unto the Hidden Object." Here there are also nine objects, set up in a row, representing the symbol Shem which hieroglyphically meant "Follower."

It is understand from the Pyramid Texts: that the secret object -- the Ben-ben -- was enshrined in the Het-Benben, the "Temple of the Benben." Which some believe was a vehicle or conveyance that came to earth, in which Ra himself landed: the term Ben (literally: "That Which Flowed Out").

Is this speculation associated with the symbol on the Denderah Zodiac? As you know my book presents this as the point that the Elohim came upon the earth Gen. 1:2. Also Sippar is called ("Bird Town") apparently it was the place where the Anunnaki came down to earth, and a city destroyed during the Deluge.

Capricornus 7

Ancient Egyptians believed that Nu, the god of waters, advised his son Ra, the sun god, to wholly destroy mankind when the nations revolted against the gods.

To the Greek, Nux, Night, the goddess sprang from Chaos, her offspring were Hypnos (sleep), Thanatos (death) and Phanes (light) who emerged from a vast egg formed by Nux and Ether (air) a goddess of children. Phanes and Nux later created Uranus (heaven) and Gaia (earth).

Another suggestion of the meaning of the symbol :

In a book written by Denon "Descriptions de l’Egypte" from 1908, which came from the Napoleon expedition to Egypt 1798-1802 when they found the Rosetta Stone. It states that the symbol and line drawing show that in the circle are eight men on their knees, with their heads chopped off, and their arms tied behind their backs, possibly representing the world of the enemies (as the classic image of foreign enemies).

The eight captives inside the large disk represent eight (actually 9 but traditionally seen as being 8) that could form the left-hand half of Capricornus. These figures do stand for the glyphic symbol of enemies or wickedness. These are Decan stars and the glyphs say Sa-r-a or a-r-sa, the figure to the left is also named sa-r-a (possible an indicator of epithet, title or a piece of time).

These stars can be easily identified since the experts have identified all the planets elsewhere within the circle. The only major constellation below and between Capricornus and Aquarius is Piscis Austrinus.

If the Eight figured star is indicative of Fomalhaut, the Egyptian connection is not noticeable for me.

Piscis Austrinus, The Southern Fish, appears on the Meridian on October 10. It has been occasionally shown as two fish, but it is more commonly seen as a single fish, sometimes drinking from a stream of water poured from the jar held by Aquarius, which lies just north of it. An older, but incorrect, form of its name is Piscis Australis. The Sumerians called this Enki’s Fish.

Capricornus 6

The Egyptian ideas about conditions prior to creation go back to the Pyramid Texts from the Old Kingdom, inscribed between 2400-2200 B.C., which proposed that the world emerged from a primeval darkness (keku semau) and a primeval flood (nun) that are indistinguishable from one another. Blended together they represent all that was prior to creation. This was a time when nothing existed, as it was an undifferentiated state.

From the book ‘IDEA INTO IMAGE,’ by E. Hornung, trans. E. Bredeck (New York, 1992) it is suggested that the symbol above is a picture of when the "One gave way to four pairs of primordial creatures, the Ogdoad, whose names indicate that they belong to the realm of the uncreated: primeval flood, hiddenness, endlessness, the undifferentiated ones. The sun emerges from the center of these beings, and as it rises for the first time it signals the beginning of the world."

The Hermopolis Ogdoad (Egyptian Khnum, Khnemu) was the Ram-headed god worshipped from the Archaic Period on, chiefly around Elephantine, the name Doudoun was associated also. Khnum means "eight" as in the modern place name of el-Ashmunein (Ashmun, Ashmunen).

The Ogdoad was a group of eight deities whom the priest at Hermopolis Magna, the principal cult of Thoth, associated with the creation myth. The Ogdoad comprised of four frog-gods and four snake-goddesses, paired and symbolizing aspects of the chaos before creation.

These eight deities brought into being the original Primeval Mound on which the egg of the sun-god was placed.

Khnum, (Khnemu) in Nubia there was a ram-god called Doudoun with whom Khnum may be associated. The Egyptians married Khnum to the goddess Heket, who was a frog.

The "Famine Stela" on the island of Sehel at the First Cataract from the second century B.C. tells how in the Third Dynasty, king Djoser assigned the Elephantine god Khnum a stretch of land to relieve a seven-year famine. The echo of the Joseph narrative in Genesis 41:29-30 is evident. Even Khnumhotep around 2000 B.C. had a visit from a Semitic party.

In Egypt, Khnum was god of fecundity and creation from the Cataract area. Originally a ram-god, his sanctuary was on Elephantine Island; a man with a ram’s head and wavy horns, that guarded the source of the Nile (life) and developed into a demiurge (creator) where he shaped the world on his potter’s wheel. Thoth (known as Hermes Trismegistus), the Egyptian god of the moon and of wisdom and learning, is shown marking his life span, while Khnum (Khnemu) is shaping his son on the potter’s wheel.

Anuket (Anqet, Anukis) with feather head-dress. The Egyptians tried to marry Khnum to the goddess Heket (Heqet), who was a frog, or a frog-headed woman, whose cult never got off the ground. Anuket was the divine wife of the god Khnum. She was associated with the Nile Cataracts, especially Aswan. Seheil and Elephantine Island were her favorites.

Thoth, (Tehuti, Thout, Djehuti, Zehuti) his name means "he of Djehut," which was a province in Lower Egypt. His cult centered at Hermopolis (Ashmunen). He was depicted as an ibis-headed man or as an ibis- or dog-headed ape; on his head he wore the combine lunar disc and crescent. His priest claim he created everything by sound of his voice alone. Thus the whole universe and its myriad dimensions of matter is a manifestation of infinite vibrations.

He was also called Hermes by the Greeks (Roman Mercury) and is the original of Hermes Trismegistus ("thrice greatest Hermes"), the mystical figure behind many arcane school of celestial philosophy.

Nun (Nu) Nux, who was the personification of the primeval waters from which everything arose, and from which the sun daily emerges, renewed and rejuvenated; hence Nun is "father of the gods." With his female counterpart, Naunet, he forms the first generation of the family group of eight gods (the Ogdoad of Hermopolis). Occasionally depicted in human form, he also assumes a frog’s head, drawing on his role as a fertility god. At the Oseiron at Abydos had a subterranean water channel to represent Nun. In Egypt he is the primal waters (annual inundation of the Nile) and source of life. As a bearded man waist high in water, from him sprang Ra. He is depicted holding aloft Manjet, the morning boat of the sun god Ra.

Capricornus 5

The Greek explanation of the Capricornus zodiacal sign:one is the symbol represents the curved tail of the fish;another is that the combination of the Greek letters the first two letters in the Greek word tragos, which means "goat."

Atonement in theology is an instance of reconciliation between God and human beings through the redemptive life and death of Jesus. The reconciliation of God and human beings brought about by Jesus, is the radical obedience and purification, exemplified in the life of Jesus, by which humanity finds oneness with God.
(Note this is a connection between Capricorn and Cancer in that Praesepe the Star Cluster is similar). According to some ancient myths, Capricornus was the Gate of the Gods, the portal in the sky through which the souls of mortals passed after they died. (Note: reference to Cancer).

Genesis 3:15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.3:21 Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them. Skin (Heb. 'owr, ore, from Heb. 'uwr, oor, to be bare, thus skin (as naked)) used for animal skin and human skin.
What about the connection to the zodiac of Denderah

I found it amusing that out of the characters that circled the main constellations of the Zodiac in the Denderah Zodiac (see drawing shown in Chapter One) the figure below is the only one of its kind. It is positioned directly between Aquarius and Capricornus. What this symbol represents initially escaped me, but it does correlate with the beginning of Day One -- Capricornus and the End of the Twelfth Day -- Aquarius. Any constellations below these two are of minor consequences.

Some scholars have commented that the Denderah Zodiac begins at the constellation Virgo based on the symbol translation. I beg to differ with them, it begins with this symbol in context with this book.