In the archaic period of ancient Egypt, bodies were not mummified. The body was torn to pieces, the flesh was cut into small parts, the skeleton was dislocated. Once the skeleton was dismembered, the fragments were then gathered together to reconstitute it again, and given the position of an embryo – as evidenced by the bodies found in necropolises.

An inscription from Pepi the 1st, who ruled from 2289 to 2255 B.C., says: « Mout gives you your head, it gives you the gift of your bones, it assembles your flesh, it brings your heart into your belly. (…) Horus’ eye has set the bones of God in order and gathered his flesh. We offer God his head, his bones, we establish his head on his bones in front of Seb. »

It is a description of the reconstruction of the body of the God Osiris, dismembered by his murderer, Set. It is the son of Osiris, Horus, the Hawk God, who realizes it. Meanwhile, Osiris’ soul is taking refuge in Horus’ eye.

The Abydos ritual, in its 12th section, gives even more details. « Horus came full of his humors to kiss his father Osiris; he found him in his place, in the land of gazelles, and Osiris filled himself with the eye he had given birth to. Ammon-Ra, I have come to you; be stable; fill yourself with blush from the eye of Horus, fill yourself with it: he brings together your bones, he gathers your limbs, he assembles your flesh, he lets go all your bad humors on the ground. You have taken his perfume, and sweet his perfume for you, as Ra when he comes out of the horizon (…) Ammon-Ra, the perfume of Horus’ eye is for you, so the companion gods of Osiris are gracious to you. You have taken the crown, you are given the appearance of Osiris, you are brighter there than the bright ones, according to the order of Horus himself, the Lord of generations – Oh! this oil of Horus, Oh! this oil of Set! Horus offered his eye which he took from his ennemies, Set did not hide in him, Horus filled himself with it, and given his divine appearance. Horus’ eye unites his perfume to you. »

Thoth goes in search of Horus’ eye. He finds it, and brings it back to him. Horus, given back in possession of his eye, can present it to his father Osiris, and give him back his soul, which had been hidden in the eye all that time. Then Horus embraces the God Osiris and anoints him as king of Heaven.

What does all that mean?

At the death of the God Osiris, as at the death of every other god and every man, the soul flees and takes residence in the solar eye, the eye of Horus. After the ceremonies and mummification, comes the time to give the soul back to the body. To do this, one must find the soul that is in the vanished eye and return it to Horus.

Most of the time Thoth is in charge of this task. It is at the moment when Horus and Thoth embrace God, that his soul is returned to him.

None of this is mechanical, automatic. Let us not forget that the dismembered bodies are generally in the process of advanced decomposition. We are at the limits of what is bearable. It is in this stench, however, that the divine is revealed. « The God comes, with his limbs that he had hidden in the eye of his body. The resins of God come out of him to perfume the humors coming out of his divine flesh, the secretions that have fallen to the ground. All the gods have given him this, that you surrender yourself among them as a master of fear. »

The smell of this body, which is no longer rotting because it has been mummified, attests to the divinity of the process, of the miracle that takes place, through the respect of rites.

We must return to the most down-to-earth phenomena of the death process. Here is a corpse; it exhales liquids, and oozes juices, « resins ». The Egyptian genius sees a divine presence at work here.

« The fragrance of the resin and the resin itself are gods who, confused with the divinity, also resided in the eye of Horus. »

In the Arabic language, the word « eye » is the same as the word « source ». In desert culture, the vitreous humor contained in the eyeball is assimilated to pure water, a water that allows you to see. The water in the eye is the source of vision.

What matters to the ancient Egyptians goes far beyond water, the eye and vision. The « resin » exhaled by the dead, its perfume, the smoothness of this « juice », this humor, and its smell, are themselves « gods ». We deduce that it is the very action of divine transcendence that is approached by these metaphors.

The breath, the smell, the odour of the secretion, the perfume have nothing visible. They belong to the invisible, the intangible. The eye does not see the breath, it does not see the invisible, it doesn’t see what’s hidden, let alone what it’s itself hiding.

« Horus’ eye hid you in his tears. »

This image transcends eras, ages, civilizations, religions.

« Horus’ eye hid you in his tears, and his incense comes to you, Ammon-Ra, Lord of Karnak, it rises to you among the Gods. Divine fragrance, twice good, rise up like a God. »

The most sublime vision is only a brief foretaste. It is not the end of the journey. Rather a beginning. The taste of tears still hides the God. Much further away, beyond the visible, beyond the bitter or sweet flavor, the perfume of God rises in silence.

And the fragrance of the soul is also ‘like a God’, — rising to announce the coming of the hidden, supreme, God, — Ammon.