Hugh Nibley - One Eternal Round

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Nibley, Hugh, 1910-2005

Oneeternal round / Hugh Nibley and Michael D. Rhodes;Illustrations directed by Michael P. Lyon.

p. cm. _ (The collected works of Hugh Nibley; v. 19)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-60641-237-4 (hardbound :alk. paper)

1. Book of Abraham-Criticism, interpretation, etc. 2. Abraham (Biblical patriarch)

3. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Doctrines.

4. Hypocephali. I. Rhodes, Michael D., 1946 II. Lyon, Michael P. III. Title.

IV. Series: Nibley, Hugh,1910-2005. Works 1986 ; v.19.

BX8629.B563N56 2009

289.32-dc22

2009046686

Printed in the United States of America

Publishers Printing, Salt Lake City, UT

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Illustrations

1. The giants of Egyptology

2. Examples of nr

3. Cairo genizah

4. Sky dome above the Great Pyramid

5. Religious texts in Egyptian dynasties

6. Shabako stone

7. Punishment of Prometheus

8. Io as a human-headed cow

9. Hathor-Cow emerging from a thicket

10. Two lions of yesterday and tomorrow

11. Circles of standing stones, Gbekli Tepe, Turkey

12. Ani and wife greet Osiris and Isis

13. Isis nursing son in marsh

14. Home Dance of the Hopi

15. Field of Abraham

16. Panels of hypocephali

17. Nome standards of Upper and Lower Egypt

18. Aztec calendar stone

19. God with four rams heads

20. Transmission of light from stars and suns

21. Chart of Raavad

22. Apes and five-pointed stars

23. Eight primal gods, male and female

24. Water clock (klepsydra)

25. Serpents of the caduceus

26. Astronomical instruments: merkhet, plumb bob, and bay

27. Ape on scales with plumb bob

28. Long and spiral rams horns

29. Wedjat-eye of Horus as fractions

30. Winged Nut

31. Horus-hawk radiating light

32. Double bull rod

33. Fac. 2, fig. 6, food chain

34. Serpent-god Nehebkau

35. Temple of Hathor and Zodiac, Denderah

36. Sleeping figure surrounded by light

37. Fac. 2, fig. 5, Lady and cow

38. Heavenly Cow

39. Ani emerging from the tomb

40. b.t hieroglyphs

41. Benben-stone at Heliopolis; obelisks

42. Babylonian map of the cosmos

43. World of Enoch

44. Vision of Ezekiel

45. Vision of John

46. Map of Pyrenees, France

47. Cave of Lascaux

48. Jupiter in center of Zodiac

49. Kings raised up on shields

50. Platos spindle of necessity; model of the cosmos

51. Shaman and cosmic drum

52. Chinese astronomical jade disks

53. Great Mandala of the Peaceful Deities, Tibet

54. Lycurgus cup; Tutankhamun lamp

55. Gold workshop

56. Suns rays entering tomb chamber

57. Adam teaching Seth; two pillars

58. Cleopatras Book of Gold-making

59. Tablet of Cebes; Renaissance depiction

60. Pythagorean

61. Temple shield announcing victory

62. Sephirotic tree

63. Circles of the sephirot

64. Alexander and shield on medallion

65. Horoscope tablet

66. Map of sacred sites

67. Stone fragment of Sheshonq, Megiddo

68. Costume of pilgrim to Santiago de Compostela

69. Gothic funerary plaque with compass and square

70. Egyptian 3-4-5 right triangle

71. Holy Place dimensions

72. Golden section; Facsimile 2 with phi curve

73. Construction of golden rectangle

74. Khufus burial chamber

75. Pascals triangle

76. Phi spiral, whirling squares

77. Spira mirabilis in sunflower head and temple floor

78. Rembrandt alchemist

79. Star-pentagon regeneration

80. Early five-pointed stars

81. Seshat and seven-pointed star

82. Dodecahedron, with Zodiac names

83. Equilateral triangles, tetraktys

84. Zodiac of Manilius

85. Metrological relief

86. Temple of Apollo plans

Color Plates

1. Nibley in Cairo Museum

2. Apes with disks worshipping the sun

3. Star mural from El-Ghassul

4. Mapuche shaman

5. Lycurgus cup

6. Tutankhamun lamp

7. Green flash

8. Heavenly city of John

Coptic font courtesy of Institut franais darchologie orientale, Cairo.

Key to Abbreviations

ASAE Annales du service des antiquits de lgypte

BD Book of the Dead

BE Bibliothque gyptologique

BiOr Bibliotheca Orientalis

CdEChronique dgypte,

CT Coffin Text, as appearing in Adriaan de Buck, The Egyptian Coffin Texts

CWHNThe Collected Works of Hugh Nibley

FERE Fondation gyptologique reine lisabeth

IEImprovement Era

IFAO Institut franais darchologie orientale du Caire

JEA Journal of Egyptian Archaeology

JEOL Jaarbericht van het Vooraziatisch-Egyptisch Genootschap (Gezelschap): Ex oriente lux

JNES Journal of Near Eastern Studies

JQR Jewish Quarterly Review

JSP Joseph Smith Papyrus (Papyri)

OLZ Orientalische Literaturzeitung

PG J.-P. Migne, ed., Patrologiae Cursus Completus: Series Graeca, 162 vols. (Paris: Garnier, 185786)

PL J.-P. Migne, ed., Patrologiae Cursus Completus: SeriesLatina, 221 vols. (Paris: Garnier, 184464)

PSBAProceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology

PT Pyramid Texts

RdE Revue dgyptologie

REJ Revue des tudes juives

RT Recueil de travaux relatifs la philologie et larchologie gyptiennes et assyriennes

UGA Kurt Sethe and Hermann Kees, eds., Untersuchungen zur Geschichte und Altertumskunde gyptens, 15 vols. (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 18961939)

Urk. Urkunden des gyptischen Altertums

Wb Adolf Erman and Hermann Grapow, Wrterbuch der gyptischen Sprache

ZS Zeitschrift fr gyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde

Preface

On 23 February 2005, I, along with a group of colleagues including John W. Welch, John Gee, and others, gathered in the front room of Hugh Nibleys home. Hugh was there in a hospital bed, but was unconscious. His wife, Phyllis, and some of their children were also present. We were meeting to decide what to do with Hughs unfinished book, One Eternal Round. He had been working on it for more than fifteen years before he became too ill to continue. A few months before, we had gathered together all the materials on the book from Hughs upstairs rooms. This comprised over thirty boxes of papers, notes, and pictures. There were also over 450 computer files containing sometimes as many as twenty different versions of a given chapter. How could we take all this and make a book out of it? As we talked, it became clear that the only practical way to do this would be for one person to immerse himself in this massive collection of material and condense and distill it into publishable form. This would require much more than simple editingthe person would have to be a coauthor, because there were many parts that were still incomplete. As we all looked uncomfortably at each other, no one, at that point, was willing to commit to doing it, and so we adjourned without making a final decision.