Akhet was no Horizon and Cheops (Kochab) was no Khufu, but rather QUTB as the AXIS or POLE of Heaven and Akhet as Azote, its Bosom

The key to the linguistic understanding of the name of Kochab as the ancient Pole Star (so used by the ancients rather than the weak star Thuban) and its relation to the Great Pyramid Cheop(s) is found in the Arabic term qutb:

"Qutb, Qutub, Kutb, or Kutub (Arabic قطب), literally means 'axis', 'pivot' or 'pole'.[1] Qutb can refer to celestial movements and used as an astronomical term or a spiritual symbol."

Current mainstream Egyptological understanding of Pharaonic language and astronomy is in great need of correction.

According to present day Egyptology, the Great Pyramid of Giza was allegedly called "Akhet Khufu" and allegedly meant "The Horizon of Khufu". That is wrong.

As pointed out already in previous postings and in the suggested relation of the terms Kochab and Cheops to Arabic qutb "axis, pole", it is clear that the Great Pyramid was a geodetic monument used for astronomical calculation, which is why one of the shafts points to Kochab, a bright star near heaven's center used by the ancients as the position of the North Celestial Pole.

But what about Akhet?

Akhet by no means meant "horizon" and much more likely candidates would be ancient Pharaonic, Indo-European viz. Arabic and/or Hebrew terms similar to Latvian azote meaning "bosom" (i.e. "domicile" in this endearing sense), whence also Latvian auklēt  "to rock (a child) on one's bosom", a term similar to aklis "blind" and said of course also of the "darkness of the night".

In our previously published The Origin of the Cult of Horus in Predynastic Egypt, we wrote:

"[This material on Akhet is very speculative since the only source at my disposal shows only ONE mountain as the north celestial pole in ancient Egypt. It is also not critical to the main discussion.]

Aakhut [=Egge?, =Achu? Akhet] is possibly mistranslated by Egyptologists as "horizon" whereas it actually seems in the Old Kingdom to mark the domicile of RA at night. Budge first translated akhet as "horizon" in the context of the Sun revolving around it, but the Sun does not revolve around the horizon. That is astronomically false. The sun revolves around the north celestial pole (as all stars do). (See Gerald S. Hawkins, Stonehenge Decoded, p. 96.) Akhet is thus originally possibly the heavenly mountain domicile of the Sun - it is not the Sun allegedly rising between two mountains, which is how the appropriate later hieroglyph is interpreted. Why in Egypt where there are no mountains would the horizon possibly be so portrayed? We have the similar symbol widely found also on Minoan Crete. These two summits at midheaven would be:

1) the North Ecliptic Pole (which never changes), and

2), the North Celestial Pole, the changeable pole we call the Pole Star, which is not always marked exactly by a particular star and where the position of the pole star is determined by precession."

Both David Talbott (Ship of Heaven) and Aymen Ibrahem (Egyptian Cosmology: Akhet - The Horizon of Heaven or something else?) are thus perfectly right in doubting the identity of Akhet as meaning "horizon" in the Old Kingdom.

Ibrahem asks: "Have the Egyptologists Misinterpreted Akhet as the Horizon?" He writes the following Abstract of his article:

"The Egyptologists may have inappropriately interpreted the Egyptian hieroglyph symbol Akhet as the "horizon". In this article, the author attempts to demonstrate that the hieroglyph symbol Akhet stands for "solar eclipse" and not "horizon".  He also puts forth the idea that the ancient Egyptians believed that the solar eclipse was the heavenly abode of the Sun.... The ancient Egyptians also mentioned a habitation of the Sun in the sky. This habitation was in the Old Kingdom (2700-2200  BC) believed to be an island in the waters of the sky called akhet."

We agree that the akhet was originally the abode of the Sun and that this dark abode was the center of heaven at night, where the Sun was at home. The akhet was the "bosom" of heaven in the protective sense, i.e. where it slept in darkness.

Vincent Brown writes about the Akhet:

"Between the Duat and the morning sky lies the Akhet.  Though it is usually translated "horizon", the Akhet is in fact a region below the visible horizon, rather than a dividing line between night and day; It is the region through which the sun passes in the hour between its emergence from the Duat at first light and it appearance in the day sky at dawn...."