During my recent visit to Egypt, I toured many ancient sites and then traveled to London, where I stopped by The National Gallery and other historical places. When I was at The National Gallery, in particular, I noticed some intriguing overlaps between early religious depictions of Christianity and depictions of the beliefs of Ancient Egypt. When placed in context with the timing of the fall of Ancient Egypt and when Christianity came about, there is sufficient evidence to suggest the founders of Christianity took more inspiration from Ancient Egypt than most people realize. This revelation is significant because it presents a solid case for Christianity’s founders using substantial parts of a culture that it claimed to detest as core parts of their religion.

For example, see below for an image of a cone headdress worn by Saint Romulus, who was rumored to be a disciple of Saint Peter (The Apostle) in the 1st Century AD – one of Saint Peter’s most prominent converts to Christianity.

He was also holding a staff, which is a likely reference to him helping guide people like a shepherd would do with his flock (paying homage to, and supposedly following in the footsteps of, Jesus). The image shares several key commonalities with the picture below, taken in the Valley of Kings, constructed about 1700 years earlier.

The image above portrays a king of Upper Egypt with a ‘Was Scepter’ (a long straight instrument, similar to Romulus’ staff) wearing a cone-shaped crown resembling the one worn by Saint Romulus, The Pope, bishops, and many other important figures in Christianity. We also know that head cones in Egypt were not limited to Gods and royalty to signify power, but similarly shaped headdresses were worn at different times by people outside the royal family. Interestingly enough, we’ve never received a full explanation or any clues on why they used that shape because it doesn’t protect from the sun or serve any logical purpose that we understand. All we’ve been told is it may have had some connection to the after-life or served an unknown purpose in the mummification process (2).

The Egyptian Was Scepter (seen above with an entire wall dedicated to it and the ankh, showing its importance) is meant to represent power and is usually pictured with Gods and Pharaohs. In Christianity, God is said to be the people’s shepherd, and Jesus is his manifestation on earth. The common way a Shepherd guides his flock is with the staff. When you’re guiding someone, you are exercising power over them, so it doesn’t feel like a leap to suggest the imagery could be related. One of the few things that would be considered more powerful than one man controlling masses of people is someone raising themselves from the dead. See below for an image commissioned by the church showing Jesus with a staff during that powerful moment.

The Library of Alexandria seems to have been the largest and most diverse collection of manuscripts and knowledge in the Ancient World during its existence, and roughly 50 years after it burned down was supposedly the time Jesus was born. According to the mainstream narrative, after a few hundred years of oral tradition, the first complete, written version of the New Testament (written in Greek) was discovered in The St. Catherine Monastery at the base of Mt. Sinai, Egypt (1). It’s unclear whether it was written in Rome or Egypt (or somewhere else). We also know that a significant amount of the recovered artifacts from the Library of Alexandria are rumored to be in the Vatican archives – what do they know that we don’t?

Click here to read more about the biggest questions I had about Ancient Egypt after the trip.

First New Testament (1)
https://theconversation.com/what-was-the-first-bible-like-102005

Head Cones, Egypt (2)
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/ancient-egyptian-head-cones-were-real-grave-excavations-suggest-180973750/

Was Scepter (3)
https://symbolsage.com/was-scepter-egyptian-mythology/