THE DISCOVERY
Plate 1: The Egyptian Three Hills and Two Hills hieroglyphic letters. Plate 2: Three Hills near Ozalla (by C. Acholonu), and Plate 3:Two Hills (by A. Animalu)near Umuoka on the road to Lejja, Nsukka, Enugu State.
The Hole in the Earth: The Egyptian City of the Sun was known by the ancient name An, Biblical On, meaning ‘Hole’.38 Egyptian texts refer to this place as “the mouth of the earth… the eastern door of heaven” – “the Gateway to Heaven”.39 The Igbo word for ‘Hole’ is Onu. There is a hole in the ground in the Lejja shrine at Dunu Oka (see plate 12, the hole is under the mound/celestial disc). The hole is covered with a mound of black iron slag. The villagers claim that the hole is bottomless and that ritual offerings are made to it at annual festivals to the Dead ancestors. 40 This of course is “the mouth of the earth” that leads into the Duat. By Egyptian tradition the sun to ends its daily course at a place called Abydos in Heliopolis, and to enter into the Tuat (Duat) at this place through a gap (hole) in the mountains called in Egyptian peq.” The Egyptian hieroglyphic letters for peq consist of a cross within a circle (which is the symbol of Khemmenu and/or Heliopolis), a bush foul, a staircase representing the Stairway to Heaven, and a symbol meaning Theth – ‘Sunrise’ – (Igbo Teta means ‘Wake up’). Peq (hole) is derived from the Igbo word mpio okwa, which means ‘Bush fowl’s escape hole’.41 All these words and their corresponding metaphors for the movement of the sun belong to the Igbo linguistic and cultural environment. Africa’s most celebrated poet, the late Christopher Okigbo, a former librarian at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, gave the title Heaven’s Gate to his only collection of poems. In the collection he wrote about a visit into the bowels of the earth to draw inspiration from the gods of ‘Heaven’ who dwell inside the earth. The poems treat themes such as the ‘Last Judgment’; an adventure-like journey through several stations inside a Duat-like environment; encounter with gods of 38
Genesis 41:45. The Stairway to Heaven, pp. 36, 50-53. 40 Interview with Dr. C.C. Opata – a lecturer in the UNN Department of History - native of Lejja and researcher into the Lejja traditional culture. 41 The Book of the Dead, p. cxxxiii 39
13