Sally,

Hi, some great thoughts here.

In an earlier book The Cygnus Mystery I show the relationship between Sokar, the 12 hours of the Duat and both the Milky Way and Cygnus. I am convinced that Sokar is merely a form of An or Anu, the hawk-headed sky being shown in sky ceilings from the First Intermediate Period onwards. An/Anu is accepted by many Egyptologists (as cited in The Cygnus Key) to be Cygnus, something I believe to be correct.

The strange form of Sokar riding on the multi-headed serpent in the 5th hour of the Duat is very likely a symbol of cosmic time - the serpent symbolising the eater or devourer of time, a role attributed either to Draco or to Ursa Major. I suspect that the connection between Cygnus and the controlling hawk (An/Anu and Sokar) is a leftover from an age when the stars of Cygnus played host to the northern celestial pole, circa 15,750-12,750 BCE. It is also linked to the importance of the mythical being called the Falcon in the Edfu building texts.

In sky ceilings the serpent is replaced with the strange hippo-croc hybrid, which is usually identified as Draco. Ursa Major becomes the bovine shown at the end of the pole or spear held by An/Anu.

When it comes down to it, everything we see here is about cyclical time to make sure it continues to exist. Failing to do so would result in the cessation of time. Like the May of Central America, the ancient Egyptians were, I feel, obsessed with cyclical time, and we can learn a lot by considering this view more fully.