Seven Letters to Mike Tyson on Egyptian Temples

While early Africans along the Nile River developed civilization, no one knows for sure when the process of consciousness actually began. However, it is generally agreed that the dates 4500-3200 BCE comprise the formative Pre-dynastic Period. This is further divided into the Badarian, Amratian and Gerzean or Naqada 1 and 2 period when the fundamental patterns of the culture were established leading to the beginning of the dynasties that lasted some 3000 years. Modern scholars, based on the work of the Greek Egyptian priest Manetho who divided the 3000-year period into dynasties or rule by single families, created the Archaic Period, dynasties 1 and 2. The Old Kingdom comprised dynasties 3-6. The First Intermediate Period or breakdown of the rule of law and cultural development was dynasties 7-10. Then the Middle Kingdom or dynasties 11-14 sought to restore some of the ancient glories. This too, fell victim to the inability to produce strong leadership and an alien people called Hyksos or "Shepherd Kings" invaded the Nile Valley and ruled for two centuries forming the 15 and 16 dynasties. Then, Theban princes of the 17^th Dynasty launched a protracted war of liberation and after a fifty year period expelled the invaders. They founded the 18^th dynasty and New Kingdom that lasted for some 500 years and saw the most magnificent accomplishments in science, medicine, mummification, architecture, art, religion, technology, navigation, learning.

From Letter 2

In considering the world’s most sacred places, with their artistic, architectural, philosophical, and religious mystique, none surpass the holy site of Karnak, home of the Theban triad. Amun, Mut and Khonsu, became supreme deities of the land during the Middle and New Kingdoms, of dynastic K M T. As such, the Temple of Karnak, ‘Throne of Power’, in the city of Thebes, is one of the most spiritually profoundly and majestic architectural, or divine constructions, in all the land of ancient Kemet, today’s Egypt, in Northeast Africa. What is interesting is that this theological, metaphysical and esoteric power remained a force for more than two thousand years. Another two thousand years later the awe and mysticism still mesmerizes the modern visitor who finds this structure an artistic and architectural photographic bonanza. Shaw and Nicholson (1995: 148) explained this with the view: "It is the largest and best-preserved temple complex of the New Kingdom, and its reliefs and inscriptions incorporate valuable epigraphic data concerning the political and religious activities of imperial Egypt." In fact, when we think of significant milestones in the history of art, architecture and development of mathematics, particularly in the Nile Valley, the Temple of Karnak, ‘Throne of the World’, stands as a significant achievement for its creativity, beauty, majesty, grandeur. Its preservation, sprawling nature, massive exactness, and double-axis, east and west, and north and south, duration of time in construction, and great array of African builders and architects whose genius compounded here all contribute to its memorable state. The sum total of the awesome dynamics viewed in today’s remains, in superb defiance of the ravages of time, still evoke great reverence, awe and inspiration in the great mysteriousness of Karnak Temple. Comprising a stupendous palace of spiritual, theological, metaphysical and mystic beauty, the Temple of Karnak, within the Precinct of Amun, is an aggregate of worship temples whose buildings extended over a period of two thousand years. Here pharaohs vied with each other to erect structures in honor of the mighty deity Amon-Ra, ‘Lord of the thrones of Two Lands’, the sun god; his wife, Mut, the earth goddess; and their son, Khonsu, the moon god. These divinities comprised the Theban Triad.