Ancient Egyptian Cosmology Illustrated in Soil Core Samples

I know that there have been a number of fundraisers lately, appealing to the charitable inclinations of Latter-day Saints.  There have been sad but powerful reasons for them.  So I’m hesitant to suggest that you pay attention to yet another — the more so, I admit with some embarrassment, because my own Interpreter Foundation depends upon the generous donations of supporters (as well as the wonderful contributions of a small host of volunteers) to fulfill its mission and because I’ll be focusing more and more on Interpreter’s needs here as the year draws to its close.  I worry about possible donor fatigue.  Interpreter can’t function without supporting donations and, candidly, we need to generate a fair amount of those during the remainder of 2025.  But here is a case where I think we ought to step up:  “Support for Minor Children in Lesotho Africa”

The tragedy was powerfully discussed by both Elder (now President) D. Todd Christofferson and Elder Carlos A. Godoy in the recent October general conference.

Just for the record, my wife and I have made a small contribution to this GoFundMe fundraiser.  I hadn’t seen it until recently, but I wouldn’t encourage others to donate to it if I myself didn’t have at least some skin in the game.

My grandmother emigrated to the United States — first to Minnesota and eventually to North Dakota — when she was in her late teens.  There had been no room for her (or for any of the other children beyond the firstborn son) on their small Norwegian family farm, which sat scenically but humbly between a sheer rock wall and the shore of a mountain lake — with no possibility of expansion and no realistic possibility of sustainable subdivision — at the foot of the largest glacier in Europe.  She never saw Norway or her parents again.  In her later years, almost all of her children having settled in California, she and my grandfather, who was born to Danish parents, moved to Los Angeles County, which is where I came to know her for the few years that our lives overlapped.  (She died when I was only five.)  She was a Lutheran, by the way, and never joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Anyway, given my family history, this article naturally caught my attention:  “Across the Atlantic Again: Celebrating 200 Years of Norwegian Emigration to America: ‘It was more than just a ship sailing in. This is part of my history, part of my ancestry. There’s a spiritual connection there.’”  I honor my grandmother for her courage.  I look forward, someday, to getting to know her better.

I found this fascinating:  “The Origins of Egypt’s Karnak Temple: Sacred complex may have been built on island symbolizing creation.”

For obvious reasons and probably beginning with the work of the great Hugh Nibley, Latter-day Saint scholars have been exceptionally interested in and productive of studies of ancient temples and temple ideology.  One of the things that we have come to realize is that temples around the world are very commonly associated with creation stories.  It turns out that both the Islamic Ka‘ba in Mecca (which has definite temple connections) and the temples of Jerusalem, as well as the temples of Egypt, stand on the first piece of solid ground — the primordial hillock — to have emerged from the waters of chaos.  And now we have reason to believe that the great Egyptian temple of Karnak, perhaps the largest temple or even religious complex ever built, was — despite its current appearance, where it sits on the east bank of the River Nile — once stood on an island surrounded by two streams of the river.  It’s very clear to the casual visitor even now that the Nile once flowed directly in front of the first pylon of the temple; wharves and a dry channel are plainly apparent.  It’s exciting to have physical evidence for what we know were Egyptian cosmological ideas.