Image 1. Below is a mural from Menna’s tomb in Luxor of a hunting scene. Menna was an 18th dynasty inspector of estates and overseer of harvests. His tomb is on the west bank of Luxor.

The mural shows ducks and birds nesting in a pond. If you look closely you will see lotus flowers all through the pond. On the left Menna is standing in a papyrus boat and is holding 2 white birds. On the right is a second representation of Menna spearing fish. Standing behind both representations of Menna are his wife holding lotus flowers, and before him are his sons holding the caught birds and a lotus flower.

Standing to the far left of the mural is a girl also holding the caught birds and lotus flowers and is seen again kneeling picking buds of the lotus flower.

The papyrus swamp was seen as a mythological place of regeneration and fertility. One of the wishes for the afterlife was phrased as follows: “May you pluck papyrus plants, rushes, lotuses and lotus buds. There shall come to you waterfowl in thousands, lying on your path; you cast your throw stick at them, and it means that a thousand are fallen at the sound of its wind…” ^[12]

Image 2. Leading a procession of offering bearers a herdsman with a receding hairline is guiding a calf, the neck of which is decorated with a lotus flower. The scene can be found on one of the walls of the tomb of Menna. ^[12]

Image 3. Menna’s wife Henuttawi has her hands raised in worship in an offering scene on one of the walls of her husband’s tomb. She wears an elaborate black wig, held in place by a headband with a lotus flower at the front. The wig is topped with a perfume cone of fragrant grease. ^[12]

Image 4. A mural in the tomb of Roy shows Roy in an attitude of deep respect, being led by Horus to a golden shrine in which Osiris presides. Before Osiris stand the Four Sons of Horus: Amseti with the human head, Hapy with the baboon head, Duamutef with the falcon head and Qebehsenuef with the dog head. They are the guardians of the canopic jars which contain the internal organs of the deceased. They are represented here on top of a lotus flower, symbol of rebirth and renewal. ^[12]

Image 5. A mural in the tomb of Roy shows him seated in a black chair. His wig is topped by a perfume cone and a lotus flower. ^[12]

Image 6. A carving on the wall to the left of the entrance to his tomb show Ramose and his wife Meryt-Ptah. Here we see Meryt-Ptah, wearing a wig, held in place by a headband with a lotus flower at the front. She is also holding a lotus flower. Ramose also carries a bunch of lotus flowers. The scene is carved with very fine detail into limestone and left uncoloured except for the eyes of the figures. ^[12]

Image 7. A relief in Ramose’s tomb shows bearers of offerings such as lotus flowers, waterfowl and bowls with figs, pomegranates and a pointed bread. ^[12]

Image 8. In Rekhmire’s tomb a large painting in several registers shows his funeral banquet. Here we see a detail with servants offering lotus flowers and necklaces to female guests who are seated on mats. ^[12]

Image 9. Below is a fragment of a polychrome tomb-painting representing Nebamun, standing in a small boat, fowling, and fishing in the marshes. His wife stands behind and his daughter sits beneath, he holds a throw-stick in one hand and three decoy herons in the other. His cat is shown catching three of the numerous birds which have been startled from the papyrus-thicket. Fish are shown beneath the waterline. Lotus flowers with large and broad leaves grow in a marsh to the right of the boat. A bunch of lotus flowers hang over his arm and another spray is held by his wife. The heads of the flowers are triangular in shape and shown in profile with white petals framed by green and grey sepals, buds alternate regularly with open flowers.^[15]

This is more than a simple image of recreation. Fertile marshes were seen as a place of rebirth and eroticism. Hunting animals could represent Nebamun’s triumph over the forces of nature as he was reborn. The huge striding figure of Nebamun dominates, forever happy and forever young, surrounded by the rich and varied life of the marsh.^[13]

Image 10. An entire wall of the tomb-chapel showed a feast in honor of Nebamun. This portion below shows dancers and musicians, who sit on the ground playing and clapping. The words of their song in honor of Nebamun are written above them:

The earth-god has caused
his beauty to grow in every body…
the channels are filled with water anew,
and the land is flooded with love of him.

Some of the musicians look out of the paintings, showing their faces full-on. This is very unusual in Egyptian art and gives a sense of liveliness to these lower-class women. The dancers and musicians are adorned with lotus flowers on their headpieces. ^[13]

The gardens of ancient Egypt probably began as simple fruit orchards and vegetable gardens, irrigated with water from the Nile. Gradually as the country became richer, they evolved into pleasure gardens with flowers, ponds and valleys of fruit and shade trees. Temples, palaces, and private residences had their own gardens, and models of gardens were sometimes placed in tombs so their owners could enjoy them in their afterlife.

Image 11. Below is a rectangular fishpond with ducks and lotus planted round with date palms and fruit trees, in a fresco in Nebamun’s tomb. Around the pond were successive rows of trees, including sycamores, palms, and grenadiers, alternating with flower beds. The edges of the water basins were sloping, with a stairway down one side so gardeners could collect water for irrigation.

Flowers such as white and blue lotus were grown in the ponds for decoration and for ceremonies. Later, during the Persian occupation of Egypt, the pink lotus was introduced.^[14]

The tomb of the young king was uncovered almost untouched in the Valley of the Kings in West Thebes by Howard Carter on 4 November 1922.

Image 12. When carter discovered the tomb in the 20th century, he found the mummy inside three golden sarcophagi, and the mummy was decorated with splendid jewellery coloured with vibrant schemes and shaped as Lotus, Horus eyes and vulture wings.^[15]

Image 13. The lotus chalice was one of the first objects which Carter and his excavators found on entering the tomb; the vessel was on the floor immediately inside the antechamber.

The lotus chalice is carved from a single piece of alabaster. The chalice takes the shape of a white lotus in full bloom, identified by its rounded petals. The supports for the handles are shaped like blue lotus flowers which are flanked by buds growing upward, with the god Heh seated on a basket (the neb symbol) on the tips of the petals. In each hand Heh holds a palm rib with notches for counting the years; each palm rib rests on the back of a tadpole sitting on a shen ring. At the upper end of each palm rib there is an ankh symbol, the sign of life. This is a typical depiction of the god of the “million years”, the god of infinity and eternity: the palm rib is the hieroglyph for year, while the tadpole represented 100,000 and the shen ring symbolised eternity. A kneeling image of the god was the hieroglyph for the number “one million”. The chalice therefore symbolises the infinite and eternal life of King Tutankhamun.

The lotus is significant in Egyptian mythology for the birth of the sun god, who emerged from the lotus, after it had risen out of the flood of the primeval waters of Nun. The name of the king in the centre of the white open flower therefore symbolised his rebirth. This iconography is seen more literally in the Head of Nefertem which depicts Tutankhamun emerging from a blue lotus as the newly risen sun god.^[16]

Image 14. The Head of Nefertem (also known as the Head from the Lotus Bloom or Tutankhamun as the Sun God) was found in the tomb of Tutankhamun. The sculpture depicts the Pharaoh as a child in the guise of Nefertem, the god of the dawning sun. The child-god Nefertem springs from a blue lotus, which was associated with the revival of the Sun in the morning because its buds close at night and reopen at dawn. The blue base of the bust symbolises the primordial waters from which the sun rose at the beginning of creation. The Pharaoh was closely associated with the Sun, but the depiction of him in the guise of this particular solar deity was meant to magically guarantee that the Pharaoh would be reborn once more, just as the Sun is reborn at dawn. ^[16]

Nefertem, possibly “beautiful one who closes” or “one who does not close”; also spelled Nefertum or Nefer-temu) was, in Egyptian mythology, originally a lotus flower at the creation of the world, who had arisen from the primal waters. Nefertem represented both the first sunlight and the delightful smell of the Egyptian blue lotus flower, having arisen from the primal waters within an Egyptian blue water-lily, Nymphaea caerulea. Some of the titles of Nefertem were “He Who is Beautiful” and “Water-Lily of the Sun”, and a version of the Book of the Dead says:

Rise like Nefertem from the blue water lily, to the nostrils of Ra (the creator and sungod), and come forth upon the horizon each day.

The Egyptian Book of the Dead

Nefertem was eventually seen as the son of the creator god Ptah, and the goddesses Sekhmet and Bast were sometimes called his mother. In art, Nefertem is usually depicted as a beautiful young man having blue water-lily flowers around his head. As the son of Bastet, he also sometimes has the head of a lion or is a lion or cat reclining. The ancient Egyptians[specify] often carried small statuettes of him as good-luck charms.

Image 15. The Memphite god Nefertem with a water-lily headdress as a symbol of fragrance and beauty.^[17]

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The Papyrus of Ani

The Papyrus of Ani is a papyrus manuscript in the form of a scroll with cursive hieroglyphs and colour illustrations that was created c. 1250 BCE, during the Nineteenth Dynasty of the New Kingdom of ancient Egypt. Egyptians compiled an individualized book for certain people upon their death, called the Book of Going Forth by Day, more commonly known as the Book of the Dead. It typically containing declarations and spells to help the deceased in their afterlife. The Papyrus of Ani is the manuscript compiled for the Theban scribe Ani.^[18]

In the Chapter of the Ani Papyrus titled “Making The Tranformation Into The Lotus”, The Osiris Ani, whose word is truth, saith:-

I am the holy lotus that cometh forth from the light which belongeth to the nostrils of Ra, and which belongeth to the head of Hathor. I have made my way, and I seek after him, that is to say, Horus. I am the pure lotus that cometh forth from the field [of Ra]

The Papyrus of Ani

Book of the Dead of Hunefer (Hw-nfr)

Below is a vignette of Hunefer in a judgement scene.

Image 16. From left: above, Hunefer kneels in adoration before a company of deities, who are named as Ra, Atum, Shu, Tefnut, Geb, Nut, Horus, Isis, Nephthys, Hu and Sia, and the Southern, Northern and Western ‘roads’. Below, the jackal-headed Anubis leads Hunefer towards the balance of judgement, where Anubis is depicted again, kneeling to adjust the plumb-weight on the balance. On the left scale-pan is Hunefer’s heart, and on the right the feather hieroglyph which symbolises Maat. Below the balance crouches Ammit, the ‘Devourer of the Damned’, accompanied by a short inscription which describes her: ‘Her front is a crocodile, her rear a hippopotamus, her middle a lion.’ To the right, Thoth, ibis-headed, holds a pen and scribal palette to record the outcome of the weighing. Horus then conducts Hunefer to a shrine in which Osiris sits enthroned, accompanied by the goddesses Isis and Nephthys. The four Sons of Horus stand on a large lily (lotus) which grows from a pool of water beneath Osiris’ throne. The lines of inscription above the scenes contain passages from spell 30B of the Book of the Dead.^[19]

When the papyrus was first discovered in the 1820s, it caused such a scandal that the Musuem of Turin hid it for 150 years.

The 8.5 feet long papyrus begins with a satirical section, depicting animals performing human activities, such as playing musical instruments, climbing trees to pick fruit, quarrelling and driving chariots. The second section is erotic. The meaning of this section has been widely debated, but the most common consensus is that it was solely for amusement and titillation. In other words, it was one of the first examples of pornography.

The papyrus is currently housed in the Museo Egizio in Turin, Italy. It is in a very poor fragmented state.

The Mayan civilization thrived between 500 B.C. and 900 A.D. The Blue Lotus has also been found in the artwork of the Mayans, with depictions of lotus flowers in much of their art.

Image 19. One piece contains a representation of Mayan priests. One of the priests has a Nymphaea bud emerging from his head, and the other has the same bud emerging from his headpiece. ^[21]

The water lily is pictured so often in Mayan art that it is clearly one of the top two or three most frequently rendered flowers during the Classic period of Peten (200 – 900 CE). Stelae, altars, murals, and painted ceramics (vases, bowls, and plates) show water lily flowers.^[22]

Image 20. Known today as the Water Lily Jaguar, this underworld (or Xibalbá) god was one of the more major ones the ancient Maya worshiped. It was associated with royalty and libation (pouring liquid as a sacrifice.)

The Water Lily Jaguar looks like a jaguar that has water lilies on it or next to it and a collar of eyeballs, which could mean the god was connected to sacrifice. As for the water lilies’ placement, sometimes they’re on the god, sometimes there’s just one flower on its head (and its ears are water lily leaves,) and sometimes they’re around it.^[23]

In the deepest part of the Mayan jungle, there used to be a marvellous kingdom, whose prince was named Chacdziedzib which means “nightingale.” He was head over heels in love with the daughter of the guardian of the sacred cenote: Nicté-Há, now known as Lotus Flower.

One day, the great cenote, convinced that Chacdziedzib should marry a king’s daughter, opposed his love of Nicté-Há, and brought together all the elders, who decided that the daughter of the guardian of the sacred cenote should die.

The court jester had heard everything, and full of fear, told the prince, who ordered his best warrior to search for his princess and bring her to the Royal Palace, where he would take her for his wife.

The noble warrior set out on his mission, but in the dark of night, the hands of some assassins took his life and threw his body into the bushes.

The court jester again saw it all. When the prince of the red cloak found out what had happened, he took his bow and went to the sacred cenote to look for his beloved. On that moonlit night, he watched over his dream under the ceiba trees.

As soon as the sun came up, Nicté-Há went to look at her reflection in the quiet waters of the sacred cenote. There the prince came near and took her in his arms, showing her that he loved her with all his might.

The scene was interrupted by an arrow which came from the shadows and pierced the young woman’s heart. Her fragile and lifeless body fell, sinking in the waters of the sacred cenote, home of the gods.

The prince was overcome with profound pain. Bathed in tears, he prayed to the gods for pity and compassion. Such was his sadness, that his heart broke into pieces, and he fell in agony on the rim of the cenote in a pool of blood.

The gods heard his cries and sent the Lord of the Waters and the Lord of the Birds. The Lord of the Waters entered the depths of the cenote and changed Nicté-Há’s inert body into a beautiful lotus. Meanwhile, the Lord of the Birds stood over the prince’s heart, and changed him into a beautiful nightingale, forever full of love.

Ever since then, at daybreak, the red bird goes to the water’s edge of the sacred cenote to trill his song of love over the open calyxes of the lotus flowers.^[24]

This shows that the plant had a common use among distant cultures. The similarity of the Mayan artwork to the Egyptian has been noted as being very striking.

Although it is possible many of the Roman priesthoods may have used entheogenic⁽¹⁾ sacraments, we know of only one which we may assume in all probability was Blue Lotus … that of the Cult of Isis.

Image 21. The symbology of the classic statues of Roman Isis is quite clear: She calls the faithful to service with her Sistrum rattle, where she will serve sacrament from an Oinochoe (a wine pitcher, not a water pitcher). Isis is crowned here with the traditional Greek Palmette version of the Blue Lotus, but other statues from the time directly present a Blue Lotus flower on her forehead.^[25]

Image 22. The cult of Isis, headquartered in Alexandria, was based upon the mystery traditions of ancient Egypt and Greece. Like the Eleusinian Mysteries practiced for over a thousand years previous, the rapid expansion of the Isians was probably due to ”medicine” ceremonies. Such a ceremony is depicted on the frescos at the Temple of Isis at Pompeii.^[25]

There is disagreement with contemporary scholars who claim these ceremonies were “Nile water”, they are believed to be the serving of a ‘wine like’ psychotropic sacrament, due to the use of Oinochoe (vs. Hyrdrion) vessels. Although it cannot be proven Blue Lotus was in that sacrament, the fact that it was an Alexandian mystery cult, represented by a Goddess with a Blue Lotus on her head, makes for a very strong argument!^[25]

Image 24. Phrasikleia, Greek Kore (maiden) and ‘Priestess of the Blue Lotus’, circa 540 B.C. WAS Discovered in 1972 outside Athens, her statue represents one of the greatest quandaries ever presented to the contemporary historical narrative. Seen in the statue below, she wears a wreath of Lotus Flowers, and holds an unopened Lotus Bud.

The question no archeologist wants to ask is, why is this Greek woman crowned with, and reverently presenting, a flower which ONLY grew in Egypt?  How could she, (or the sculptor), have even known of such a flower, much less have the subject so obviously dedicated to it?

In all probability, this woman was a priestess to Demeter, and associated with the Eleusinian Mysteries. The Goddess Demeter also carried a Blue Lotus staff, like the Egyptian deities, as a symbol of spiritual power and enlightenment.  This statue begs the question, what was so important – so valuable – about this flower that it was being traded between Greece and Egypt before classical civilization even began? Was the Blue Lotus imported to be used as one of the ingredients in the sacred entheogenic drink of the Eleusinian Mysteries? There are many indications it may well have.^[25]

This life sized funerary statue, now standing in the Athens Museum, clearly proves the Blue Lotus was a recognized entheogen in Greece. The shear difficulty and enormous cost of shipping these flowers 600 miles across the Mediterranean makes it obvious these are not just pretty “symbolic”, or “poetic” decorations … this woman dedicated her life to the Sacred Flower, and she was remembered for it. ^[25]

Image 25. Phrasikleia wears a wreath of alternating open and closed lotus blossoms, golden lotus-bud jewelry, and holds a closed lotus bud in her hand. Her dress is decorated with poppy flowers, indicating these psychotropic plants were probably used together (as also represented in Egypt a thousand years earlier). ^[25]