Untitled Document

Translation

Kher

= under (as in under the land i.e. scene)
= possessing
= subject to, beneath someone

aHA

= fight; battle; warrior
(Faulkener, 1991:46)
The earliest reference = Pyramid Text, where it is clearly a place, believed to be slightly south of Heliopolis.

PT 493-1062

……..praise is given to me. I am great because of my power and at the 6^th day festival in Kher aHA I eat the pregnant cow like those who are in On (Heliopolis).

PT 550-1350

Get back, great Black One! Crawl away into Kher aHA, into that place where they crawled!

Relevance of Kher-aha

Where the sun folk lived.

(Gardiner, 1947:A233; Faulkener, 1972, Chapter 15:1-2; Saleh, 1981:7)

Territory of Kher-aha is the place where the Lower Egyptian Nile-flood wells up from the depths, providing nourishment for the people of Egypt.

(Gardiner, 1947:133-134; Faulkener, 1972, Chapter 149; Saleh, 1981:20)

Cavern – imHt-

PT810-811 mentions the Cavern of Oun / Iwnw

- A Middle Kingdom hymn (P. Berlin 3056) speaks of the Underworld of Kher-aha.

- There is a Cavern of the gods who are in Per Pesdjet at Kher-aha. Saleh relates that Drioton (BIE 34:311-313) and Montent (1957:161) place this cavern on the way from Cairo to Helwan.

- Also believed that the cavern was in a depression close to Per-Hapy (near Kher-aha) at the site of the crypt of St Sergis (Abu Serga) said to have been visited by Mary and Joseph (Saleh, 1981:21-22; Daressy, 1931:634; Drioton:297; du Bourget, 1967).

click for more details on Abu Serga

Battle

PT550 alludes to the battle between Horus and Set, when the two gods transformed themselves into hippopotami and fought each other for 3 days and 3 nights.

Gardiner points out that Kher-aha may also be insinuated in PT1242 where the king is said to have the eye of Horus in Heliopolis and to have extracted it from the head of Seth in that place where they did battle. (Gardiner, 1947:143).

Kher-aha and Babylon in Egypt

Kher-aha is thought to be Misr el Alikah (literally Antique Egypt / Old Cairo) which is also equated with Fostat or Babylon, famous as a military camp in the Late Period (Saleh, 1981:14).

Mercer calls Kher-aha the name of Babylon, near Cairo, south of Heliopolis, (1952:182).

Others designate Per-Hapy as Old Cairo, but the consensus is in favour of Kher-aha being Babylon (Gardiner, 1947:143).

Why Babylon?

- A Greek name for Kher-aha which may be due to the assonance presented by an Egyptian place name (Gardiner, 1947:143).

- Diodorus Siculus thought that the name was given to the town because of the n umber of Babylonian slaves located there by Senusret.

The Egyptian Babylon was first mentioned by Strabo (XVII, 1, 30.31) and was constantly referred to by Greek authors and in papyri right down to the Byzantine period when the name was interchangeable with Fostat.