Social Collapse III - The Admonitions of Ipuwer and the Rebirth of Egypt

SOCIAL COLLAPSE III

The Admonitions of Ipuwer and the rebirth of Egypt

Just as individuals incapable of renewal suffer the consequences, so too do civilizations: they repeat traditional responses to new challenges, even when these responses are ineffective in addressing the problems at hand.

Every authentic tradition must be a living one, preserving a creative and imaginative root capable of producing new growth. While rooted in the past, it must adapt to each moment. Mere novelty—adapting to present times without authentic roots—and rigid persistence in outdated patterns, without the creative capacity of a "fruitful tradition," are unmistakable signs of a dying civilization.

The Intermediate Periods of Ancient Egypt

Egyptian history reveals a constant desire among rulers, and commoners to return to the “Early Times,” when the world was believed to walk hand in hand with the deities.

According to the priest Manetho’s dynastic records, divine beings first ruled Egypt, and only after Menes did human kings appear. The Egyptian Book of the Dead affirms that in those early days, Maat—Justice—reigned supreme.

Three major intermediate periods can be distinguished in Egyptian history:

• Old Kingdom

  • 1st Intermediate Period: 2175–2040 BC

• Middle Kingdom

  • 2nd Intermediate Period: 12th Dynasty (around 800 BC)

• New Kingdom

  • 3rd Intermediate Period: 30th Dynasty, culminating in the Persian invasion

The Admonitions of Ipuwer belong to the First Intermediate Period and are traditionally seen as a nobleman’s lament over the collapse and social upheaval of that time. While some historians suggest later authorship, the work remains a classic that outlines the causes of decline and chaos. It served both as a warning and as an educational text for future generations.

Several excerpts illustrate its relevance, both then and now:

• "A man sees his son as an enemy. Confusion is everywhere. Others come and conquer."

• "The virtuous man laments what has happened to the country."

• "The desert tribes have become Egyptians everywhere."

• "What the ancestors predicted has come true: the country is full of conspirators, and men go to work with shields."

Today, generational respect has eroded. Children often become estranged from their own education, families, and elders. The opinions of "influencers" or agitators often outweigh those of relatives who genuinely care for their well-being.

Confusion prevails because there is no clear moral, religious, or national guidance—anything is permitted under the guise of freedom.

The "desert tribes"—those not educated in our social values—breach societal boundaries, infiltrate communities, and cause disorder.

Egypt, while historically open to foreigners, demanded that newcomers assimilate to Egyptian customs and rituals. For the Egyptians, chaos (Isfet)—not foreigners per se—represented true evil, as opposed to the harmony and law (Maat) they cherished.

Those who refuse to integrate—whether culturally, socially, or within their families—become agents of disorder, praising rebellion and celebrating the destruction of societal structures they deem oppressive. Today, the growing sense of insecurity is reflected in the widespread use of alarms, personal defense measures, and heightened caution.

• "The poor have become rich, and those unable to make their own sandals are now wealthy."

The issue is not the enrichment of the poor—a desirable outcome—but the swift accumulation of wealth by those who have not earned it through legitimate means.

• "The workers are sad, and the magistrates do not fraternize with the people when they cry out."

Workers seek simple, fundamental things: honest labor, security for their families, and fair treatment. When they are reduced to soulless statistics, neglected by those in power, their despair deepens.

• "Hearts are full of violence. Pestilence invades the country. Blood is spilled everywhere. Death is everywhere, and even the bandages of mummies stink from afar."

Some Questions

• Which factors identified in past historical collapses are evident today?

• Are we witnessing a regional or a global collapse?

• How is the future envisioned in the collective unconscious?

Some Solutions

In light of the above, it is essential to restore ethical values grounded in solid, time-tested principles. Education must promote a morality of action based on respect for both one’s own values and those of others.

We must fight decisively for the birth of a New World or perish by succumbing to the decay of the old.

To achieve this, we must cultivate an Inner Core: firm, enduring, and anchored in conscience.

We must embrace a heroic vision of life and commit to an Idealism capable of weathering storms and hardships. External revolutions have shed enough blood over past centuries; it is time to recognize that true change begins within. The real Revolution is a Philosophical Revolution—one that starts inside each individual and radiates outward to transform the world.

Egypt and Justice - 1 - Sacred Geography

Egypt and Justice

Sacred Geography

Everyone admires the pyramids and marvels at the incredible Egyptian art treasures in museums. However, the greatest revolution and civilizing advance was not these wonders but the establishment of Justice. This was the true Egyptian miracle. Before delving into this topic, we must first clarify what we mean by Justice and what we mean by Egypt.

What is meant by Egypt?

At a certain point in history, the name "Egypt" became synonymous with "mystery," an idea that still lingers today. But how can this still be the case when we can access so much information through books, the Internet, and even detailed geographical maps? This is because there are two Egypts: one that appears in any encyclopedia, and another, more enigmatic one, that we refer to now. This Egypt does not appear on conventional maps. It is Sacred Egypt, representing a profound Geography not yet well understood.

What does this Sacred Geography consist of? If someone walks down a street in our modern cities, they won't get lost because they know how to find their bearings. They might use the presence of a river or a mountain as a reference, know where the sun rises and sets, consult a map, check the time or date on their watch or cell phone, etc. This type of orientation is simple and utilitarian, useful for getting from one place to another and arriving on time for an appointment.

But when someone is capable of relating the directions of space and time to the entire cosmos, when they connect these directions to the divine beings they believe in, to the whole nature, to the cycles of time to which they belong, and can integrate this with their inner geography, then utilitarian geography becomes Sacred Geography.

In Sacred Geography, it doesn't matter whether you are on an important street or in a side alley, in the middle of a mountain or a valley; you will always feel connected to the sacred. When the winter solstice arrives, as tradition teaches, a special moment is approaching, and you will not feel like you are living in an ordinary street or time but in a place and time connected to something greater. During the Spring Equinox, when a mysterious force awakens vegetation and animal life, you will know that the eternal cycle of life begins again. You will understand that you, too, will die and be reborn, that each night of the soul is followed by a day full of life and opportunities.

Sacred Egypt was a capsule in time, separate from everything yet curiously connected to the Whole. Framed by the Mediterranean to the north and sub-Saharan Africa to the south, both places connected by the sacred Nile River; and in the sky, the Celestial Nile, the Milky Way, mirrored by the earthly river flowing between the eastern and western deserts, representing the arrival of life and departure from this world.

Milky Way and River Nile

These relationships were significant to the ancient Egyptians, who lived immersed in a symbolically oriented and mythological world within sacred time. With each new pharaoh, the calendar restarted at year one, repeating the history of the beginnings. This constant return to the archetypal model of the beginning of time was a key aspect of the Egyptian mentality, aimed at restoring the world.

In contrast, we modern people are obsessed with progress; politicians and social designers constantly promise it, and if it doesn't occur, it is criticized. For the ancient Egyptians, the idea of progress did not exist. From the beginning of time, everything had been established according to Maat, Justice, Rule, and Order. Everything was perfect in the beginning, and "progress" meant moving away from decadence to return to the beginning. Thus, the ancient Egyptians did not have the anxiety modern people feel to conquer more and achieve progress. Instead, they focused on preserving the perfection of the beginnings, a lifestyle that never changed, and a constant, close relationship with Ta Mery, the Beloved Land.

Let's examine this golden capsule in time and space in more detail. We know where Madrid or Paris are and can travel there using maps. But this was very different from swimming or sailing down the Nile, feeling connected to another Nile above, understanding that the desert belonged to Seth, and that the waters that refresh us belong to Osiris. Each direction in space was guarded by a protective goddess who provided amulets for the journey. For the ancient Egyptians, the Egypt we see on maps was not their Egypt but an imaginary and magical one they could all experience and feel.

Each direction in space was related to the four elements (earth, water, air, and fire), constellations ruled by gods, and even new constructions like temples, which had to account for these relationships. A special ceremony called "The Extension of the Rope" involved the pharaoh, aided by the symbolic goddess Seshat, goddess of measurements, marking the foundations of a new temple.

The Extension of the Rope

The hieroglyphs accompanying the image read: “I hold the stake and the handle of the scepter and the measuring rope with Seshat, I turn my eyes towards the movement of the stars, I direct my gaze to the Bull's Thigh (the Big Dipper), I measure time, and I establish the four corners of the temple.”

This ceremony was performed for every new building. Seshat, the lady of mathematics, harmony, and proportions, always accompanied the pharaoh to ensure correct measurements for situating within sacred time and geography.

Seshat

Seshat was a curious goddess, symbolized by seven petals representing the six directions of space, with the seventh direction referring to the sacred and inner, the most important for humans and temples dedicated to the gods. Her hieroglyphic symbol, the “uat pet” (inverted horn), signified the “opening of the sky,” connecting us to the heavens and our inner ideas and ideals. This is fitting since Seshat was the female counterpart of Thoth, the god of wisdom.

Uat Pet

The celestial and Egypt's relationship extended beyond temples to cities and the entire geography. Egyptologists like Georges Daressy studied these correspondences and found that the location of cities in the Nile valley mirrored constellations and celestial stars. Their positions followed the course of the celestial Nile, the Milky Way.

The island of Bigeh in the foreground and Philae in the background

The true origin of the River Nile in Lake Victoria, shared by Tanzania, Uganda, and Kenya, was only explored in the 19th century. However, for the Egyptians, the mythical source of the Nile was on the island of Bigeh, in Aswan, near the first cataract and the island of Philae. This attribution is not due to ignorance but reflects another aspect of Sacred Geography. Bigeh was believed to be the burial place of the "Thigh of Osiris" (the constellation of the Big Dipper), therefore connecting the celestial energy of the Osirian constellation to the magical birthplace of the Sacred Nile. For the Egyptians, Osiris was not just any god but the personification of rebirth, symbolizing the periodic resurgence of nature and humanity. Each year, during the flood period, the life-giving waters of the Nile reminded them of Osiris's resurrection power and infinite life.

We have defined Magical Egypt and its relationship with Sacred Geography. Now, we must define the second term mentioned at the beginning: Justice. But we will leave that for another article.

In the meantime,

Life, Prosperity, and Health!

Egyptian Medicine - II - Medical Texts

Medical Texts

Edwin Smith's Medical-Surgical Papyrus.

"After a pause, the cause of which we cannot guess, but during which his well-filled reed pen dried up, he resumed his work on the papyrus. He made two more barely perceptible strokes with the almost exhausted brush, which he then dipped deep into his inkwell. After drawing the two pale strokes again, hard but so carelessly that the original faded lines are still visible, he laid down his brush and pushed the surgical treatise he had copied away from his hand, leaving 39 bare centimeters unwritten at the end of the scroll...''

"...It was as if he had seen a hand lift a curtain covering a window, and then suddenly that hand had refused to lift it any further. That provincial scribe, sitting on that scroll three thousand five hundred years ago, could hardly have imagined that every word he added would one day be hungrily cherished as the only surviving copy of the ancient treatise he was transcribing."

I cannot resist copying the words James Henry Breasted wrote as he reached the end of the papyrus translation. Archaeology has an extraordinary charm, it is an interrogation of the past, with an alert spirit, with the living sensation of communicating with men and women of the past, apparently dumb, until the hand of the archaeologist makes them speak.

One fine day, Mustafa Agha, a man of good standing in the Egyptian community, appeared at the door of Edwin Smith, an American farmer who had lived in Luxor for years. After a first uninteresting visit in which nothing of importance was shown to him, Mr. Smith made it clear that he would be willing to buy something more interesting.

After a while the Egyptian returned, but this time with a kind of fake papyrus, prefabricated from pieces of three others, carefully glued together with glue. Mr. Smith could not help but notice the prefabricated nature of it, but at the same time his knowledge of Egyptology allowed him to realize that it was an important medical document. He accepted the deal and took the papyrus.

Edwin Smith, Egyptologist

Edwin Smith was born in Connecticut in 1822, coincidentally the same year that Champollion first deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphs. He was one of the first students of Egyptology in the world. He went to London and Paris to study hieroglyphs when the science was in its infancy. He was probably the first American to study scientifically what was then little known about the Egyptian language. He decided to live in Egypt in 1858. He settled in Luxor, where he remained for about twenty years. He acquired the papyrus that bears his name in 1862.

Although he recognized the importance of the papyrus as a medical treatise and devoted much time to its study, he never made any effort to publish it. However, he did not hesitate to show it to all the experts of the time who visited him in Luxor. The brief notes that were published or commented on the case did not arouse much interest. Perhaps because of Smith's peculiar personality, far from the university circuits and more interested in developing his own independent lifestyle, he refrained from any attempt at publication. On the other hand, the serious, conscientious translation of the papyrus and its publication required a considerable amount of time and money. For a time, the papyrus was forgotten, until fate pointed its finger at the eminent Egyptologist Dr. James Henry Breasted, who was commissioned by the New York History Society to undertake the task. 

Dr. James Breasted

The Society had owned the papyrus since 1906, when it was given to them by Mr. Smith's daughter. J.H. Breasted devoted nearly ten years of painstaking effort to its publication.

Where did Mustafa Agha get the papyrus, where did it remain hidden for thousands of years? It is not known for sure, it seems to have been in the hands of someone else who had died years before. This papyrus, along with another medical papyrus that we will talk about later, were both in the possession of Mr. Smith for some time. Some references say that it was found in a tomb at El-Asasif, between the legs of a mummy. 

El-Asasif, a necropolis on the west bank of the Nile, in front of Thebes, near Deir el Bahari.

Other suspicions suggest that the two papyri belong to the group found by the then Consul of England in Egypt, Mr. Harris, in 1857, in a grotto among the rocks, about 20 feet deep, in Deir el Medina, near exactly where the tomb of the mysterious vizier Amenhotep, son of Hapu, second version of Imhotep himself, who was worshipped for hundreds of years as a protector against disease, and of whom we will speak later.

Amenhotep, son of Hapu

What kind of papyrus was it? Was it a textbook, or a textbook, a teacher's notebook? The fact that there were independent annotations on the back, without any connection to the front, suggests that it was rather used as a personal notebook, either by a teacher or a student.

In fact, it has the character of a memorandum, where the brief notes and words suggest that the reader already understands them, without the need for further clarification. The form it takes is that of a teacher instructing a student, with frequent expressions such as "if you see such and such... you must do such and such a thing".

THE CONTENT

Forty-eight cases are discussed, classified in order, from the top down, from the outside in, in a very regular and systematic way, typical of teaching systems.

Although there is no special indication, the cases are arranged in homogeneous groups related to a part of the body (head, neck, ribs, etc.) Each of these cases is arranged according to a criterion: Expression, Diagnosis and Treatment. The examination always begins with the statement: "If you examine a man who has...". The diagnosis, often a repetition of the statement, is usually introduced by the expression: "You must say about him (the patient)... that he has such and such a disease" and ends with a statement about the decision to be made: 

• "This is a case I will deal with."
• "This is a case I will struggle with."
• "This is a case I will not treat."

Sometimes pre-treatment conditions are added:

• "Until he recovers"
• "Until the period of damage is over"
• "Until you know he has reached a turning point (in his development)". 

The language used is striking, for some it represents the first babbling of the Egyptian language to create a technical and scientific vocabulary. However, it rather represents the natural way of explaining things, as can be seen in other classical medicines. Hippocrates himself advises to use a language that everyone can understand, closer to nature. Wisdom not only does not contradict simplicity, it is one of its distinguishing characteristics. Among the expressions used, we find descriptions such as the following: 

• The puncture in the skull bone is likened to a hole in an earthenware jar.
• The mandibular process is described as the double fingers of a bird.
• A piece of the skull is described as the shell of a turtle.
• The brain resembles the striations produced on the surface when copper is melted.
• The sinuses are called secret chambers. 

The means used in the cures are variable:

• Tape, made with bandages smeared with resins.
• Scabs of various kinds, slings.
• Sutures for wounds.
• Bandages of various kinds.
• Sophisticated systems of bandages. 

What does it teach us?

 The treatment is basically rational and surgical, with only one case of resorting to magic. The common opinion that the Egyptians always used magic and religious formulas in medicine is wrong in view of this papyrus. Remembering at the same time that even today there is no separation between science and religion, it is enough to observe the saints, scapulars, candles and prayers next to the sick, not to mention the chapels attached to all hospitals. If we call this the need for spiritual consolation, we will say that we agree. But if we want to accuse the ancient Egyptians of being superstitious, we will have to do the same with our contemporaries. Today, however, not even this exists, because our unbelieving and atheistic, hedonistic and individualistic society no longer relates to anything other than itself, not even doctors can maintain a certain friendship with the patient, they want to make them functionaries, mechanics, administrators of what the pharmaceutical industry points out.

A complete system of approach to the patient is described in the text:

• Examination of the character of the wound.
• Examination of the affected tissues.
• Interrogation and instructions to the patient: movements, postures.
• Data obtained by the doctor through direct inspection.
• Palpation.

The concept of prognosis was developed, a relatively recent conquest in the medical tradition, since it must be taken into account that until recently such a concept was not used. According to D. Gregorio Marañón, prognosis is "the art of the angels". It requires the use of all our knowledge and experience to determine whether someone will survive or not. Today it is no longer practiced, because what is offered today as a prognosis is merely a statistical statement: "Look, my friend, your wife has a ninety percent chance of surviving this surgery," which does not alleviate the poor husband's doubt, because where does his wife stand: in the ten percent that dies or the ninety percent that is saved?

The papyrus shows a knowledge that could only have been acquired through scientific judgment and direct observation of the anatomy of the living being, and is not the result of the accumulated experience of embalmers, who were not related to doctors. 

It also shows an interest in pure science. The Egyptian surgeon appears here as a man with the ability to observe, to draw conclusions from his own observations, and to maintain a scientific attitude toward phenomena. A profound knowledge of the pulse and the cardiac system, of the tendinous-muscular system, though not clearly of the circulation, is also shown.

Finally, we must mention the existence of one of the most extraordinary glosses, the extracts referring to the so-called Secret Book of the Physicians, of which we have no copy except for these annotations and some others in other papyri. In these extracts, the measurement and examination of the heart by means of the pulse is mentioned, and a general theory of the channels leading to the different parts of the body is introduced: these are the so-called met/metu, channels that have been identified with the blood vessels, with the muscles, and even with the peripheral nerves. As we shall see, they should really be translated as channels, in the same way that Chinese medicine uses the concept of meridians.

There are surgical practices described in the Smith Papyrus that were later passed on to the Greeks and Romans, such as in case number 26 of this papyrus, which discusses the maneuver to be performed to set a dislocated jaw:

``If you examine a man whose jaw is dislocated, you will find that his mouth is open and he cannot close it. You should place your thumbs over the ends of the two clusters (apophyses) of the jaw in his mouth, and the rest of your fingers under his chin, so that they move backward and fall into place.''

In a Byzantine manuscript from 1100 A.D., exactly the same maneuver of reduction of mandibular dislocation described in the papyrus can be observed. 

To be continued