Black Holes & The Eye of Horus

Ernesto Eduardo Dobarganes
8 min readJan 13, 2021

Did Egyptians knew more than we think they did ?

This piece is really about a possible link between Cosmology & Egyptian iconography… and also about how cultural information spreads through time. But to add some objective value to an idea that might be both, completely wrong and useless, I will try to touch on the concepts of Propositional & Perspectival Knowledge and their relevance in the context of trying to extract as much precise information as possible from ancient imagery and past civilizations in general.

Maybe I could start by building the set of supporting notions around the idea that is trying to be conveyed in this text, getting you to initially agree with a number of logical arguments and true facts, to then propose something that might seem ridiculous… that would surely help my case; but I rather start from the impossible and work our way back.

So, the proposition is that:

The “Eye of Horus” might be an icon representing a “Black Hole”.

Now, it is my hope that the images contained in the article will be enough to have the immediate attention of any open-minded Astrophysicist (let’s see what does gentile Dr. Brian Keating says about this), Physicists or Science enthusiasts and connoisseurs… but in any case, we should go over a couple basic concepts, and Black Hole structures required to understand the non-ridiculousness of this proposition.

Analysis of the “Eye of Horus” as a representation of a Black Hole.

Gravitational Lensing

A gravitational lens is a distribution of matter (such as a cluster of galaxies) between a distant light source and an observer, that is capable of bending the light from the source as the light travels towards the observer. This effect is known as Gravitational Lensing, and the amount of bending is one of the predictions of Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity. Classical physics also predicts the bending of light, but only half of that predicted by general relativity.

In general relativity, light follows the curvature of spacetime, hence when light passes around a massive object, it is bent. This means that the light from an object on the other side will be bent towards an observer’s eye, just like an ordinary lens.

Gravitational lensing caused by a Black Hole

Accretion Disk

An Accretion Disk is a structure formed by diffuse material in orbital motion around a massive central body. The central body is typically a star. Friction causes orbiting material in the disk to spiral inward towards the central body. Gravitational and frictional forces compress and raise the temperature of the material, causing the emission of electromagnetic radiation.

The frequency range of that radiation depends on the central object’s mass. Accretion disks of young stars and protostars radiate in the infrared; those around neutron stars and black holes in the X-ray part of the spectrum.

The most spectacular accretion disks found in nature are those of active galactic nuclei and of quasars, which are thought to be massive black holes at the center of galaxies. As matter enters the accretion disc, it follows a trajectory called a Tendex line, which describes an inward spiral.

Close details of the structures of a black hole.

Relativistic Jet

An astrophysical jet is an astronomical phenomenon where outflows of ionised matter are emitted as an extended beam along the axis of rotation. When this greatly accelerated matter in the beam approaches the speed of light, astrophysical jets become relativistic jets as they show effects from special relativity.

The formation and powering of astrophysical jets are highly complex phenomena that are associated with many types of high-energy astronomical sources. They likely arise from dynamic interactions within accretion disks, whose active processes are commonly connected with compact central objects such as black holes, neutron stars or pulsars.

Black hole system sucking material from a massive nearby object. The Relativistic Jet is clearly depicted
Illustration of a Relativistic Jet emitted from V404 Cygni.

The Eye of Horus and its history.

Horus was the ancient Egyptian sky god who was usually depicted as a falcon. His right eye was associated with the sun god, Ra. The left eye represented the moon and the god Djehuti.

The myth goes that:

  • Ra is the sun god, and was once the greatest of all gods, but time wore him down.
    (Hawking’s radiation / Nuclear Fuel depletion allegory ?)
  • so he decided to relinquish the power and go to the sky
    (Super-novae allegory ?)
  • As the Sun God, one of his duties was to drive away darkness using his Sun boat, but when the twilight came, he and his vessel plunged into the sea waters towards the Underworld.
    (Solar Sail, Blackhole + Super novae collision or merger event, and Space-time distortion allegories ?)

After this depiction of what can easily be interpreted as Astrophysic processes, and possible alternative Space-Time description, a series of events in which the Ra and his Sun Boat sail through the Underworld.

Once in the Underworld, he “Has to go through 12 gates” (String Theory 11 dimensions solution + Time?), and “Battle a Serpent” (Spagetization forces or Material Exchange/Tendex Line ?).

The Myth then describes how Seth was unable to destroy Ra, and then were condemned to travel together (Formation of a Binary System of a Black Hole + Star ?).

The story ends by saying that this event was marked by an Eclipse !

A closer look at the Icon.

I proposed before that what is depicted as the “Eyebrow” is representing the distortion in the trajectory of a photon, or beam of light, due to the gravitational lensing effect caused by the black hole.

Notice the wave-like pattern in the structure that correspond directly with the visible spectrum electromagnetic emissions for those areas in a black hole.

Now take a close look at the consistency of the Wave-Like topography of the “eyebrow” … and how much it resembles a Wave propagating.

There are fantastic parallels in the myth of Horus that resemble a series of astronomical events. After publishing the article I noticed how there are 2 groups of 7 women with 7 different color dresses, which would sync up nicely with the 7 colors of the visible spectrum. These woman are on a boat that has the Sun as the Sail… which is the perfect visual analogy for a Solar Sail.

Obviously, across time and artist this detail will vary… that is one of the elements that need to be considered when imprinting meaning into graphic symbols.

How did the Egyptians could have had this knowledge in first place ?

We all know how oriented the Egyptian culture was towards the cosmos, we still can’t figure out many of their design intuitions, and construction methods decisions, their sense of aesthetics, the chimeric nature of the imagery… many mysteries, with a surprising hi-tech anima, still surrounds this culture.

Even when the presence of a more technologically advanced actor (terrestrial or not) is a viable possibility, the Egyptians themselves could have been able to theorize the existence of Black Holes. After all you don’t need Newtonian Mechanics, or Relativity and Quantum Mechanics knowledge to understand or theorize about how a Super-Dense object could have so much gravity as to collapse on itself.

In supporting the propositions about the meaning of the Eye of Horus, I started building scenarios that could justify how Egyptians might have had this knowledge other than by acquiring it themselves.

This is a fascinating construct that, while improbable, is still not impossible, and could easily become the story for a Sci-Fi movie.

I will leave the elements I used for this construction, after presenting it down below in a very short form:

During the Younger Dryas period, a series of Asteroid Impacts caused the quasi-extinction of a more technologically advanced culture that could have been the mythical Atlantis as these asteroids impacted the North-American continent, which is consistent with the assumed location of the Atlantis in the north-caribbean area.

A few members of this civilization survived (they could have had knowledge of the incoming disaster and even had a Space Station like us that could have ensured their survival) and were able to embed this symbol into culture, using the mnemonic quality of the Eye and the Myth of the Sun God.

Some trajectories of the Near-Earth asteroids

The meaning imprinted in the symbol, and the story would not be correctly interpreted until a sufficiently advanced culture, with the proper Cosmological knowledge would emerge…

…in which case they could read it as a warning of having earth as our only planet, and the associated risk of civilization collapse.

Just for fun: The Younger Dryas — Atlantis link

The Younger Dryas (around 12,900 to 11,700 years ) was a return to glacial conditions, which temporarily reversed the gradual climatic warming after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) started receding around 20,000 BP.

The change was relatively sudden, taking place in decades, and it resulted in a decline of temperatures in Greenland by 4 to 10 °C (7.2 to 18 °F) and advances of glaciers and drier conditions, over much of the temperate Northern Hemisphere.

Map showing 24 sites containing Younger Dryas Boundary (YDB) nanodiamonds, which is presented as evidence of the impact events.

The Younger Dryas impact hypothesis or Clovis comet hypothesis posits that fragments of a large (more than 4 kilometers in diameter), disintegrating asteroid or comet struck North America, South America, Europe, and western Asia about 12,800 to 11,700 years ago.Multiple airbursts/impacts produced the Younger Dryas (YD) boundary layer (YDB), depositing peak concentrations of platinum, high-temperature spherules, meltglass, and nanodiamonds, forming an isochronous datum at more than 50 sites across about 50 million km² of Earth’s surface. Some scientists have proposed that this event triggered extensive biomass burning, a brief impact winter and the Younger Dryas abrupt climate change, contributed to extinctions of late Pleistocene megafauna, and resulted in the end of the Clovis culture.[3]

The Atlantis

Atlantis is a “fictional” island mentioned in an allegory on the hubris of nations in Plato’s works Timaeus and Critias, where it represents the antagonist naval power that besieges “Ancient Athens”, the pseudo-historic embodiment of Plato’s ideal state in The Republic . In the story, Athens repels the Atlantean attack unlike any other nation of the known world. The story concludes with Atlantis falling out of favor with the deities and submerging into the Atlantic Ocean.

Plato’s vague indications of the time of the events — more than 9,000 years before his time— and the alleged location of Atlantis — “beyond the Pillars of Hercules” — gave rise to much pseudoscientific speculation.

Leon Bakst’s vision of cosmic catastrophe

This piece might develop a bit more… in any case,

Muchas Gracias

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Ernesto Eduardo Dobarganes

Self-taught Polymath. Space Entrepreneur Wannabe. Science, Nature, Tech, Sports, Arts & Martial Arts enthusiast.